Dark Storm
New York Times
bestselling author
Christine Feehan
has over 30 novels published and has thrilled legions of fans with her seductive and sensual ‘Dark’ Carpathian tales. She has received numerous honours throughout her career including being a nominee for the Romance Writers of America RITA, and receiving a Career Achievement Award from
Romantic Times
, and has been published in multiple languages and in many formats, including audio book, e-book, and large print.
For more information about Christine Feehan visit her website:
www.christinefeehan.com
‘After Bram Stoker, Anne Rice and Joss Whedon (who created the venerated
Buffy the Vampire
series), Feehan is the person most credited with popularizing the neck gripper’
Time magazine
‘The queen of paranormal romance’
USA Today
‘Feehan has a knack for bringing vampiric Carpathians to vivid, virile life in her Dark Carpathian novels’
Publishers Weekly
Also in Christine Feehan’s ‘Dark’ Carpathian Series:
DARK PRINCE
DARK DESIRE
DARK GOLD
DARK MAGIC
DARK CHALLENGE
DARK FIRE
DARK LEGEND
DARK GUARDIAN
DARK SYMPHONY
DARK MELODY
DARK DESTINY
DARK SECRET
DARK DEMON
DARK CELEBRATION
DARK POSSESSION
DARK CURSE
DARK SLAYER
DARK PERIL
DARK PREDATOR
DARK NIGHTS
DARKEST AT DAWN (OMNIBUS)
Sea Haven Series:
WATER BOUND
SPIRIT BOUND
GhostWalker Series:
SHADOW GAME
MIND GAME
NIGHT GAME
CONSPIRACY GAME
DEADLY GAME
PREDATORY GAME
MURDER GAME
STREET GAME
RUTHLESS GAME
SAMURAI GAME
Drake Sisters Series:
OCEANS OF FIRE
DANGEROUS TIDES
SAFE HARBOUR
TURBULENT SEA
HIDDEN CURRENTS
Leopard People Series:
FEVER
BURNING WILD
WILD FIRE
SAVAGE NATURE
THE SCARLETTI CURSE
LAIR OF THE LION
Published by Hachette Digital
ISBN: 978-1-4055-1257-2
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Christine Feehan
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
Hachette Digital
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DY
For three amazing people
who came through when I needed them most:
Brian Feehan, Domini Stottsberry
and Cheryl Wilson
—
with much love and many thanks.
Be sure to go to
http://www.christinefeehan.com/members/
to sign up for my private book announcement list and download the free eBook of
Dark Desserts
. Join my community and get firsthand news, enter the book discussions, ask your questions and chat with me. Please feel free to email me at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you.
There would be no
Dark Storm
without Brian Feehan, Cheryl Wilson or Domini Stottsberry. They worked long hours to help me with everything from brainstorming ideas and scenes to doing research and edits. There are no words to describe my gratitude or love for them. My sister, Anita Toste, always answers my call for aid in strange rituals. I just have to include Dr. Christopher Tong, who always finds the time in his crazy busy schedule to come to my aid whenever I ask. And a special thanks to Dr. Newell for all of his support. Thank you all so very much!
Contents
Also in Christine Feehan’s ‘Dark’ Carpathian Series:
Appendix 1: Carpathian Healing chants
Appendix 2: The Carpathian Language
“I
can live with being on a small boat with no privacy for seven long days, the sun turning me into lobster girl, and mosquitoes feasting on me, I really can,” Riley Parker informed her mother. “But I swear to you, if I hear one more complaint or disgusting sexual innuendo from Mr. I’m-So-Hot-Every-Woman-Should-Bow-Down-To-Me, I’m just going to shove the idiot overboard. His constant licking his lips and saying he likes the idea of mother and daughter gives me the creeps.”
Riley cast a glance of pure loathing at Don Weston, the annoying idiot in question. She’d met a lot of narcissistic pigs while earning her doctorate in linguistics, and a few more among the faculty at University of California, Berkeley, where she now taught, but he took the cake. He was a great brute of a man, with wide shoulders, a barrel chest and an attitude of superiority that irked Riley. Even if she wasn’t already so much on edge, the presence of that awful man would have made her so. Worse, her mother was very fragile right now, making Riley extremely protective of her, and his constant sexual innuendos and filthy jokes around her mother made her want to just shove him overboard.
Annabel Parker, a renowned horticulturalist famous for her efforts to reestablish thousands of acres of Brazilian rain forest lost to deforestation, looked at her daughter, dark brown eyes twinkling and mouth twitching, obviously itching to smile. “Unfortunately, honey, we’re in piranha territory.”
“That’s the point, Mom.” Riley cast another pointed glare in Weston’s direction.
The only benefit of the horrible man’s presence was that plotting his demise gave her something to focus on other than chills slowly spreading through her body and making the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
She and her mother made this same trip up the Amazon once every five years, but this year from the moment they had arrived in the village to find their usual guide ill, Riley felt as if a dark cloud hung over the trip. Even now, a strange heaviness, an aura of danger, seemed to be following them up the river. She’d tried hard to shrug it off, but the ominous feeling remained, a weight pressing down on her, chills creeping down her spine and ugly suspicions keeping her awake at night.
“Perhaps if I could accidentally cut his hand as he goes overboard …” she continued with a dark smile. Her students could have warned the man to beware when she smiled like that. It never boded well. The smile faded a little, though, as she glanced down at the murky water and saw the silver fish churning around the boat. Were her eyes playing tricks on her? It almost looked as if piranha were following the boat. But, piranha didn’t follow boats. They went about their business.
She stole a glance at the guide who muttered to the two porters, Raul and Capa, ignoring their charges—a far cry from the familiar villager who usually took them upriver. The three looked very uneasy as they continually studied the water. They, too, seemed a little more alarmed than usual about being surrounded by a swarm of flesh-eating fish. She was being silly. She’d been on this same trip many times before without freaking out over the local wildlife. Her imagination was working overtime. Still … piranha seemed to be all around their boat, but she couldn’t see a single flash of silver in the waters surrounding the boat chugging ahead of them.
“Ruthless child,” Annabel scolded with a small laugh, drawing Riley’s attention back to the aggravating presence of Don Weston.
“It’s the way he looks at us,” Riley griped. The humidity was so high that every shirt Riley wore clung to her like a second skin. She had full curves, and there was no hiding them. She didn’t dare raise her hands to lift her thick, braided hair off the back of her neck or he would think she was deliberately enticing him. “I really,
really
, want to smack that oaf. He stares at my breasts like he’s never seen a pair, which is bad enough, but when he stares at yours …”
“Maybe he hasn’t ever seen breasts, dear,” Annabel said softly.
Riley tried to smother a laugh. Her mother could ruin a perfectly good mad with her sense of humor. “Well if he hasn’t, it’s for good reason. He’s disgusting.”
Behind them, Don Weston slapped his neck and hissed out a slow, angry breath. “Damn insects. Mack, where the hell is the bug spray?”
Riley suppressed an eye roll. As far as she was concerned, Don Weston and the other two engineers with him were liars—well at least two of the three were. They claimed to know what they were doing in the forest, but it was clear neither Weston nor Mack Shelton, his constant companion, had a clue. She and her mother had both tried to tell Weston and his friends that their precious bug spray would do no good. The men were sweating profusely, which washed off the insect repellent as fast as they could apply it and left them feeling sticky and itchy. Scratching only aggravated the itching and invited infection. The smallest wound could quickly become infected in the rain forest.