Dark Secrets

Madeline Pryce

The
worst moment of Micah’s life was when Ella nearly died in his arms. Her
miraculous recovery should have been the start of their future. Unfortunately,
a new demonic heritage, the Shadow Agency’s corruption and Julian, the vampire
who turned Ella, are testing their relationship. Despite hotter-than-ever sex
and a variety of new places and positions to explore, Micah begins to wonder if
a relationship based on lust can survive for more than a few scorching-hot
months.

Ella
has forgiven, but not forgotten, the fact that Micah once plunged a dagger
through her heart. Everything with Micah is passion, excitement and an
uncontrollable desire to explore his body in a variety of very satisfying ways.
But as buried secrets, ongoing lies and murderous deceptions pile up, Ella is
reminded that her and Micah’s relationship was based on a curse. In order to
forge a future together, Ella and Micah will have to face down their personal
demons—and prove that love and trust are more than just words.

A Romantica®
paranormal
erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

A swirling mass of orange and red flames cut through the
air, the sound of its approach deafening. I narrowed my gaze, shutting out
everything except the firebomb hurtling in my direction. Time slowed. Oxygen vaporized
into thick, curling strands of smoke. Heat waves wrapped around the outside of
the blazing inferno barreling ever closer.

I should be doing so many things right now. Years as a
lethal killing machine afforded me the training I needed to protect myself.
Ducking, phazing… Hell, even something as simple as a side shuffle to the left
would have saved my ass.

Except I didn’t move. Instead, I had a complete and total
what-the-fuck moment. Our routine training session had just taken a complete
one-eighty in the wrong direction. Micah McGregor, my half-demon lover, had
just thrown a fireball at my head.
Holy crap
. Since when had he been
able to conjure flames out of thin freakin’ air? Knowing he was a demon and
actually seeing it were two very different things. Proof that his demonic
powers were manifesting lay in the ribbons of black magic twisting from the
starburst pattern embedded in his palm.

Demons. The word in all its various meanings lay heavy on my
mind—a fitting end, I supposed, to be killed by one, considering how many I’d
slaughtered with cold detachment. Guilt burned brighter than the flames ready
to consume my darkened soul. Heat caressed my cheeks and blew the brown strands
of my hair off my face. This was probably going to hurt like hell.

“Fucking Christ, Ella, don’t just stand there!” Micah
shouted. “Get out of the damn way!”

Like a moron, I just stared at him. He surged in my
direction but there was no way he’d make it in time. The rapid slap-slap-slap
of bare feet on the smooth wood floor hit my senses and came from my right, the
wrong direction to be Micah’s. The only other person in the room with us was
Elijah McGregor, my sorta-kinda brother-in-law. The sound was my only warning
before his muscled body tackled me from the side.

Air swooshed from my lungs. I crashed to the floor, crying
out as one hundred and ninety pounds landed on top of me. Bone cracked. Agony
stole my breath. Some vampire queen I was. I’d just been taken down by Micah’s
little brother because I was lost in la-la land.

So much for me proving to Micah I was over my emotional
melodrama and was ready to resume the fight against good versus evil. The moral
crisis I’d been sucked into over the past few weeks was poor timing on my part.
I would have liked to blame PMS or some other bullshit but the fact was—I no
longer knew the difference between true evil, pond scum and troublemakers. Why
should I get to decide who lived and who died? With each death I dealt, the
black shadow wrapped around my soul grew a little bit bigger until I feared the
darkness would suffocate me.

Light exploded from the trembling body on top of mine,
shining into my eyes so I couldn’t see anything except more stars. I might not
be able to see, but I could feel. Warm, slick fluid splashed onto my stomach
and rolled over my skin. The liquid was something all newbie shifters
faced—their flesh dissolving into water during the transformation. The weight
pinning me to the floor transformed, no less heavy, just proportioned
differently. Bones popped, shifted. Muscles convulsed and rearranged. Where
skin used to be, a thick pelt of silken fur emerged and stuck to me.

I struggled under the unnatural sensations. The low,
ruffling growl emerging from Eli’s throat vibrated through me. Thick, razor-sharp
claws bit into my flesh and drew blood. The rusty scent hit my senses and my
fangs grew, crowding my mouth.

Rolling flames whooshed overhead, close enough, hot enough,
to lick a line of pain up the hand and arm not covered by werewolf. The only
smell I’d be able to remember for days was the sulfurous odor of burnt hair—Eli’s
and mine.

The stream of fire intended for my head collided with the
wall and exploded. The roar in my ears turned into a booming explosion that
sent sound waves rippling. The three-story house rocked with violent shudders.
Shards of glass whistled overhead, spearing through the air. Sharp-edged chunks
of black rock rained down, splintering the floorboards. I looked up through the
dust as the metal pieces of shutters once covering the windows embedded
themselves in the opposite wall.

Holy fucking shit. Karma—the bitch—had cashed in my meal
ticket and tried to send me to hell.

One of my greatest nightmares, creepy hospitals aside, was
my own death. Since being gutted by Lizbeth Tepes—psycho Queen of all
Vampires—I often dreamed about my demise. How would my compromised soul land in
hell? A stake to the heart? A Silverstone blade across my throat? Perhaps at
the hands of my obsessed sire, Julian? For some reason, Micah offing me by
fireball had never crossed my mind.

My father always had warned me about demons…

The Shadow Agency had burned black and white truths into my
brain all my life. Vampires and demons—bad. Humans—good. For nearly two decades,
I’d followed my orders and killed indiscriminately.

The truth had changed two months ago when I’d become a full
vampire, discovered an underworld dimension of passive demons and inherited a
throne. It’d been a busy week, even by my standards.

My oath to kill otherworldly creatures and protect humans
was no longer black and white. I had no idea who was evil anymore, not when so
many things I’d once taken as fact were proven false.

Not all demons were malevolent. Not all vampires wanted to
skin puppies. Not all shape shifters were mindless animals.

The agency I’d dedicated my life to had drawn their lines.
I, Ella Gray, Vampire Queen, was evil. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t take a
life—demon, vampire or insect—since Lizbeth. In the council’s eyes, I’d done
something worse. I’d broken the one promise I’d sworn to uphold—I’d taken blood
from a human.

In less than a week, I was going on trial for my life. As
much as I wanted to say fuck it and tell them to screw themselves, my safety,
and that of those around me, depended on me playing nice with the agency. If I
didn’t, they’d ruthlessly hunt me down and eliminate anything in their way. I
wouldn’t risk my family’s life.

What Richard McGregor—Micah’s fascist father and leader of
the Shadow Agency—didn’t know was that they were about to get so much more than
they’d bargained for. I hadn’t bitten a human. I’d bitten a demon.

The piercing wail of an alarm cut the otherwise silent room
in half. Cool water sprayed from the ceiling, and within seconds, the lingering
flames sizzled out. No one moved, breathed or spoke for a full sixty seconds. I
knew because I’d counted. Grunting, I rolled the animal suffocating me to the
side. Stabbing pain radiated from my ribs and down the entire left side of my
body. Accelerated healing might come with the vampire package, but I’d found
bones took longer to heal than flesh wounds.

I stared up at the vaulted ceilings and the finger-like
sprinklers I hadn’t even known were there. Water ran into my eyes and my open
mouth. The deafening din of the explosion faded, leaving a ringing noise in its
place. A gust of cold winter air whipped into the room, soothed my singed flesh
and swept away the smoke.

The pitiful howl from the animal beside me sounded over the
alarm. The noise would have raised the hairs on my arms if I’d had any left.
Eli, now a massive werewolf, staggered onto all fours. Defined muscles rippled
under singed blue and silver fur. In wolf form, Eli was the size of a pony.

I struggled to my feet and pressed a hand against my ribs to
keep the pain in check. Water, blood and goo dripped to the ground—a definite
plus to the impromptu shower. I held out a hand and scratched a spot under Eli’s
silken muzzle.

“Thanks, Eli,” I whispered.

I turned my head, searching for the spot where I’d stood
before being tackled. In place of the wall, there was now a gigantic hole. I
squinted, turning my face away from the last rays of golden sunshine dropping
behind the sea of snow-kissed evergreens surrounding the secluded house.

Thirty minutes earlier and the sun would have fried my
retinas. I waved away the remaining smoke and sought out Micah. He stood
speechless in front of me, his blue-green eyes wide, sensual mouth open. Under
the pungent scent of sulfur mixed with singed hair and fur, I picked up the
faint muskiness of demon blood.

Dark-red lines dripped in a horizontal gash on Micah’s
cheek, caused most likely by the flying debris, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Dirt smudged his bare chest, and pieces of wood tangled in his shaggy golden
hair. The shadow inside me—my feral inner vampire—just as much a part of me as
my fangs and beating heart, preened at the sight of sweaty, dirty, alpha male.

Lethal. Deadly. Demon.

Mine.

Micah wore nothing except athletic shorts slung low on his
hips, his normal attire when we trained together—something we hadn’t been doing
much of lately. The stark, crimson lines of our mating tattoos traced his hip,
curved down over defined muscles and disappeared beneath the band of his
shorts. Water dripped from his hair, plastering the dark strands in clumps to
his forehead and nape. Each breath flexed an impressive show of muscle in his
chest and abs. Good to know his assassination attempt hadn’t damaged my
hormones.

I moved my gaze from the trail of hair down his stomach to
the hand he held fisted at his side. The flesh smoldered. I looked from his
smoking fist to the hole where the wall used to be.

I turned back to Micah, used a thumb to gesture behind me. “If
this is about leaving the toilet seat up, I’ll stop bitching about it.”

“The toilet seat? What?” He shook his head. “Jesus fucking
Christ. I just threw a fireball at you and you’re talking about the crapper?
Are you okay?”

He crossed the distance between us, his bare feet impervious
to the bits of gleaming glass and splintered wood. He never let me answer.
Micah cupped my cheeks and tilted my head back until the only thing I could see
were his eyes. The moment he touched me the supernatural bond, an unbreakable
demon mating, flared to life. His blue-green irises swirled with color until
they glowed.

“I did not mean to do that,” he said in a solemn whisper.
His grip tightened where he held my face.

The adrenaline rushing through me vanished, leaving the
shakes in its place. I rested a trembling hand over his hammering heart, one
that beat in the same too-fast tempo as mine. Water sprayed from the ceiling
and mixed with the frosty air, bathing me in a layer of ice. The alarm, still
blaring, pierced my eardrums. “Can you shut off the security system and the
water?”

Micah held my gaze for a long moment before he pulled away
and crossed the room to one of the gun safes, broken open by a flying piece of
wall. His choice was a small black pistol, a Glock—something or other. One-handed,
he lifted the gun, aimed at a small red light and fired. The weapon jerked back
with a bang and then there was nothing but silence. Sweet, sweet silence.
Another shot, another bang and the water also shut off.

He was back at my side before I could blink. Micah pushed
his fingers through the tangled knots of my wet hair, smoothing the strands.
Between his thumb and forefinger, he turned my face this way and that, checking
for injuries. The tips of his fingers glided over my right shoulder, tracing
the slender crimson lines marking me as his mate. He saved the most obviously
injured part for last—my ribs.

Micah sank to his knees, cupped my hips in his hands and
gazed up the line of my body. He was so tall, and I so short, he didn’t have to
tilt his head back very far. I looked into his face and my breath caught. Raw,
heart-breaking guilt shone in his eyes.

As if his emotions were corporeal, his angst slammed into me
so I felt every facet of his feelings. I sucked in a breath at the intensity of
sensation washing over me. The discordant rift we’d fallen into over the last
couple of weeks as one disaster after another piled on our plates disappeared.

“I almost killed you.” His rough voice sent a shiver racing
down my spine.

I pushed my fingers through his golden hair, urged his head
against me and held him. This was the closest we’d been, physically, in over
two weeks. “But you didn’t. I’m okay.”

Turning into me, he rubbed his cheek against my belly. He hadn’t
shaved when we’d woken, and the familiar scruff against sensitive flesh sent a
line of goose bumps over my skin. I craved his touch—the ever-so-light brush of
his lips.

“Where are you hurt?” he asked and I wondered if he felt my
pain through our bond as I felt his.

“Ribs.”

He pulled back and peeled my hand away from the black-and-blue
blotches covering my side. We both winced at the sight.

Probing and pushing, he assessed my injury, a job he’d taken
over since my uncle Roy had taken off to rally supporters for my trial. I’d
assumed when I’d been fired from my job as a hunter with the agency that my
copious injuries would decrease. No such luck. My new job as Vampire Queen was
even more dangerous than the last.

My promotion had caused a stirring in the underworld—one I
feared wouldn’t relent until I was dead. The master vampires—and most of the
former queen’s sacred eight—no longer wanted a monarchy. Considering how the
psycho-bitch had abused them, I couldn’t blame them. Too bad abdication wasn’t
good enough for them. Wusses.

A week ago, Hannah, my younger sister, who hadn’t been
coping well since being tortured by Lizbeth, once again got caught in the
crossfire. A master vampire set his sights on her. I, the horrible sister I
was, had been too preoccupied with my world crashing down around me to notice
something was amiss.

Micah pressed his palm over my damaged bones. The heat of
his skin chased away the chill wafting in through our new glassless window.
Looking down, I marveled at the size of his hand, its spread covering my entire
rib cage and stomach. Next to Micah, I felt delicate and feminine, two things
that went against every ounce of my hunter training.