Crave The Night by Michele Hauf, Sharon Ashwood, Lori Devoti & Patti O'Shea Read online

  Crave The Night by Michele Hauf, Sharon Ashwood, Lori Devoti & Patti O'Shea

  Title Page

  Chapter One, Hidden

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter One, One Soul To Share

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter One, Cruel Enchantment

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter One, Enemy Embrace

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  Sharon Ashwood

  Lori Devoti

  Michele Hauf

  Patti O'Shea

  Crave The Night

  Copyright © 2011 by Swell Cat Press, LLC.

  The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:

  ONE SOUL TO SHARE Copyright © 2011 by Lori Devoti

  CRUEL ENCHANTMENT Copyright © 2011 by Michele Hauf

  HIDDEN Copyright © 2011 by Naomi Lester

  ENEMY EMBRACE Copyright © 2011 by Patti O'Shea

  All rights reserved. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors' rights. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors' imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by Swell Cat Press, LLC., at Smashwords.

  This book available in print at most online retailers.

  For questions and comments about the quality of this book please contact [email protected]

  Hidden

  Sharon Ashwood

  She took me to her elfin grot,

  And there she wept, and sighed full sore

  And there I shut her wild wild eyes

  With kisses four.

  And there she lulled me asleep

  And there I dreamed – Ah! woe betide!

  The latest dream I ever dreamt

  On the cold hill side.

  I saw pale kings and princes too,

  Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

  They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci

  Hath thee in thrall!”

  From “La Belle Dame sans Merci” by John Keats

  Chapter One, Hidden

  “Enemy Central,” Rafe Devries muttered under his breath. From his position crouched in the night-shadowed trees, he had a good view of the mansion’s front door. He could smell the place, too, with all a werewolf’s nose for detail. There were many people inside, some of them Pack. The hostages are here.

  But who had taken eight of his kind and why they were being held on this hilltop outside of town was a big, fat question mark. There were few correlations between the missing, outside of the fact that they all came from ranching families in Wolf Creek, and they’d each left to keep an appointment and never come home.

  Rafe had been gone from the Creek a while, and there’d been no time for even the most basic investigation. He only had scuttlebutt gleaned during a burger stop at Burt’s Roadhouse. Most of that had been speculation about this house on top of the ridge, but there was one real fact: All the missing folks’ cars had been found along this road, keys in the ignition and pointed back toward town. Someone had dumped the vehicles.

  It was their only solid clue. That, and his father’s voice mail. Dad had left a one-liner: The Pack’s in trouble, boy. Come home and do your duty.

  It figured. As heir to his Alpha father, he’d always been the one in the family to come running, ready for battle or just to calm everyone down. Except this time the crisis wasn’t about wounded pride and rustled heifers. This time the threat was from outside, and that made the danger real.

  Especially when his dad had been the next to disappear.

  Which was why Rafe had brought Darak, leader of the rogue, mercenary vampires called Clan Thanatos. They’d met when he’d served two tours with the Desert Wolves, one of the few supernatural military units. If there was a fight, Darak would have his back, no questions asked.

  “The house is brand new. Your villains have assets,” Darak said under his breath. The vampire was crouched just behind him. The approximate size of an industrial refrigerator, he had once been a Roman gladiator, but now looked more like a biker thug. “It looks like someone just peeled off the price sticker.”

  Rafe scanned the hilltop mansion high above the long sweep of Timber Lake. A stone’s-throw from where they crouched, the house was enormous and ultra-modern, all random angles, steel, and glass. A hot tub sat in the spot with the best view of the moonlit water and rolling foothills of the Rockies. A pool and wet bar were a little to the right of the tub. The lights from the enormous windows lit a wide driveway, where a new Lexus gleamed soft, expensive silver. Everything said elegance and hard cash.

  But there was no barbecue, no toys in the yard, not even a garden hose. The vampire was right. The place was new and impressive, but it had no soul.

  No hidden escape routes, either, if he remembered the landscape. North and south of the place were woods so dense a squirrel would need a machete. The east side of the hill was a sheer drop only a mountain goat could navigate. That only left the west side approach.

  Rafe glanced over his shoulder. The winding path they had climbed to get near the mansion was choked in a tangle of pines and poplars, the wild growth cleared just enough that the Lexus SUV could make it up without scratching the paint. “How the hell did they get equipment up here to build?”

  Darak shrugged. “Magic.”

  Frackin’ cow farts. Magic complicated anything to a factor of ten. Rafe straightened a little to look in the front window.

  The decor was completely white. Bet no one ever eats pizza in front of that TV. “The boys at the roadhouse swear the fey are involved. I thought they were drunk.”

  Darak cursed unhappily, rubbing his shaven head. “Fey. Nasty buggers.”

  “That’s why I called you, big boy.”

  Rafe sat back on his heels. They could go home, get reinforcements, and storm the place. But all he really knew was that there were Pack Devries werewolves in the house—or had been recently. Scent caught at a distance was limited intel. What part of the house were they kept in? Did they need medics? More information could make the difference between a successful mission and a train wreck.

&nbs
p; For a moment he regretted not bringing some tech toys—long distance listening equipment, for a start—but then kicked the notion out of his mind. Magic raised merry hell with technology. Eyes and ears were best. He’d been out of the service and wandering the country for the last year, but he was still sharp.

  He ghosted forward on silent feet, the cold air seeping in through his open leather jacket. The summer night was clear and clean, full of rich earth scents. Above, stars jewelled the skies in a thick blanket city-dwellers never got to see.

  As he moved, he kept one eye on the picture window, watching for movement. Surely there would be guards? For a bad-guy fortress, it looked completely undefended except for a single security camera covering the front door and parking pad. Apparently intruders were supposed to drive up, park, and ring the doorbell.

  Then again, maybe that lone camera was a decoy. Did the fey actually use CCTV? Or just magic mirrors and dragonflies with helmet cameras? Damned if he knew.

  Rafe skirted to the right, Darak on his heels. They passed the kitchen window, and Rafe took a glance inside. It looked perfectly ordinary, if expensive and maniacally clean. Stainless steel glimmered in the soft glow of recessed pot lights, granite and pristine white tile adding to the arctic wasteland color scheme.

  He dove for the ground, instinct acting before his brain caught up. Someone’s in the kitchen. Rising to a crouch, he peered over the window sill. To his left, Darak was plastered to the wall, as if anything could make his huge frame smaller.

  “What is it?” the vampire mouthed.

  “A woman,” Rafe returned.

  That description didn’t cover what he saw. Not by a longshot. She was standing with her back to the window, pulling a glass down from the cupboard. Then she paused at the stainless steel refrigerator and ice chunked into the glass. Even from that angle, Rafe could tell she was a beauty, and definitely not a werewolf. His people were dark and compact. She was tall and slender, with hair so pale it was almost silver. It fell to her hips in a smooth, thick curtain that shimmered in the subdued lights. Like pretty much everyone in Wolf Creek, she wore jeans, but there all similarity ended. Rafe was no fashionisto, but even he could tell the silky white shirt would have cost a week’s pay.

  Then she turned toward the sink, and Rafe ducked out of sight. He only caught a glimpse, but it was enough. Her face was small and neatly sculpted, with slanting eyes beneath winged brows. Her skin was so pale, it seemed pearlescent.

  One of the light fey. I wasn’t expecting that.

  He was more familiar with the trickster dark fey, who lived off human settlements like exotic parasites. Light fey kept to themselves, as far from cities as they could get. They were seldom seen by anyone outside their own tribes. Suddenly, that seemed a crime.

  So the rumors of their beauty are true. Rafe actually felt shaken.

  The kitchen window was open a crack, and he caught a crisp, lemony perfume that must have been the woman’s scent. Then the tap shut off. He didn’t hear footsteps—she moved too gracefully to make a sound—but eventually a door closed nearby in the house. Cautiously, he rose to his feet. The kitchen was empty.

  “Tinker Bell got an upgrade,” Darak said under his breath.

  Rafe nodded, still mute with startled wonder.

  The vampire gave a soft laugh. “Enjoy the view, but remember she’d as soon eat your eyeballs with a pickle fork.”

  The words stung, as if the fork had found tender flesh. “And you never went into the greeting card business. What a shame.”

  “Just call me the Anti-Cupid. And I’m not kidding. They snare their victims by some kind of hypnosis. Light fey woo their victims and then do what they want while you’re knocked senseless with lust.”

  That could have been me two seconds ago. “Kind of like vampires.”

  “They make us look like rank amateurs. The most common cause of death in fey-human encounters is wasting disease. After the fey’s dumped them, there’s no reason to go on living.”

  Rafe felt a wave of nausea. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  He led the way around the corner of the house. Halfway along was the next window, blocked by Venetian blinds.

  “Interesting,” said Darak. “You can see in every place else. Think they’re hiding something here?”

  “I’ll fix that.” Rafe pulled out his Leatherman pocket knife and wiggled it into the space between the window and sash.

  “What about a security system?” Darak asked blandly.

  After a long minute of cursing, he pried the window up until the slider lock cleared its hole. He then slid the window open with barely a sound. For a brand-new place, it had crappy locks. “No security system.”

  “That you know of,” Darak countered. “Could be silent. Could be something other than regular technology. Could be booby-trapped with silver bullets.”

  Silver was one of the few things that could injure both werewolves and vampires. Rafe was taking a huge risk, but the stakes were high. He found the cord beside the blinds and slowly reeled them up, trying to be silent. The room beyond was lit by a dim floor lamp in the far corner, but it was enough for a wolf to see what was in the room.

  “Fido’s balls,” Rafe swore under his breath, pulling his Beretta.

  It was a large space, plain and sterile-looking. Thirteen single beds stood in double ranks of six, with one larger bed crosswise at the end of the rows. It looked like a hospital ward, except here there were satin comforters and mounds of snow-white pillows. Eight of the beds were occupied.

  There were eight missing Pack members. The sound of soft breathing filled the room, indicating the figures in the beds were all asleep.

  Were they drugged? Bespelled? Hot, prickling rage crawled up Rafe’s neck, followed by the sticky paws of fear. “What the . . . ?”

  Darak gripped his arm hard enough to bruise. “We found your kin. Now let’s get out of fairyland. We’ll go back to town and muster the cavalry.”

  Rafe gripped the window frame. “I need more information.”

  With a heave, he vaulted over the sill, his boots landing softly on the tile floor. In truth, he needed to know if his father was safe. Using his nose and ears as much as his eyes, he scanned the room, making a sweep with his weapon. With an impatient noise, the vampire joined him inside the house.

  Rafe examined each slumbering face. These were the missing Pack members, and he knew them all. Some looked peaceful, others frowned, as if their dreams troubled them. Rafe approached the nearest bed, recognizing the owner of the ranch next door to his father’s. He gently shook the man’s shoulder, but he didn’t awaken. Rafe moved to the next bed and tried again with no result. Rafe exchanged a long look with Darak, fury climbing in his veins.

  The large bed at the end of the room had been reserved for the Alpha. His father, white-haired but still strong and hale, lay there like a Viking king on his bier. Stern-faced, his fingers curled into claws, as if he were battling his enemy even in his dreams.

  Rafe went arctic with anger. “Dad!”

  His mind flipped into a white haze, pushing away what he didn’t want to feel. Instead, he sought facts. He holstered his weapon and then checked his father’s skin temperature. It was warm and dry. His pulse was slow, but steady and firm.

  Darak was at his side. “So let’s figure out a way to save him. All of them.”

  Rafe gripped his father’s shoulder, shaking him, but the slow breathing didn’t change. An ache of frustration caught in his throat, tearing through that protective haze. Wake up! Rafe made a sound that wasn’t a cry or a word but had something of both.

  Darak touched his arm, surprisingly gentle. “Think about it. As long as your father’s asleep, you’re the Alpha.”

  And that meant he was responsible for everyone. A tremor ran through him, tension breaking like a wave. He had to be smart. Reluctantly, Rafe relaxed his grip on his father’s shoulder, his fingers releasing one at a time. “How can we get eight unconscious people down the hill t
o the truck without being noticed?”

  “Eight deadweight bodies? Even for us, it’ll take a few trips. Someone’s bound to see us.”

  Rafe’s first impulse was to reject the truth, but he choked it down until it burned in his gut. He’d never left his men behind. Leaving his father was impossible. And yet, it had to be done, at least for an hour or two. Then they’d bring back half the county and rain hurt on whoever ran this place. He turned to Darak, unfinished business bitter as ash on his tongue. “Then the faster we go, the faster we can get back here and kick some fey ass.”

  “Why wait?” came a light voice.

  Rafe spun on his heel, a snarl escaping him. The woman from the kitchen was in the doorway, the glass of ice water poised in one hand.

  He’d caught a glimpse of her before. Now his gaze could linger on every curve of her features. She was exquisite. Stunning. As his awe welled up, he shoved it aside, stomping out his kindling lust. That beauty is a trick. A poison.

  A slow smile curled her lips. “Smart wolf. Give him a cookie.”

  Chapter Two

  He reached for the Beretta, but it was gone.

  “My servants disarmed you both,” the woman said. “It’s impolite to carry when you go visiting.”

  Rafe swore and checked the room for gun-toting hostiles. There was no one there.

  Darak fumbled with his empty holster. “What servants?”

  “Oh, you can’t see them, but they’re everywhere. And trust me, this way is better. They’re not pleasant viewing.” She held up Darak’s Smith and Wesson, dangling it between the thumb and forefinger of her free hand. Fey didn’t like holding anything involving iron more tightly than they had to. “Looking for this, vampire?”

  “May a diseased zombie suppurate in your martini.”

  The woman gave a long, slow blink, sipping pointedly from her water. “Well, okay then. I think we’ve set the tone for the night.”