Brush of Darkness
Authors: Allison Pang
I hesitated, watching Brystion’s dark eyes
flare gold with passion.
For a moment, I was pinned beneath them, drowning in the sudden promise of things best left to the protective shadow of night. It left me raw and aching; my hips trembled with the urge to submit to him. I blinked, and realized he had moved closer.
Crap.
I stood my ground. Maybe if I didn’t move, he’d back down and I’d pass whatever preternatural bullshit test he was running.
Or maybe I was in big trouble.
His cheeks curved up in amusement as he reached out to run a lightly callused thumb over my lower lip. “Pretty Dreamer,” he crooned, leaning close so that his exquisite pout lay within inches of my lips.
Yup. Big trouble.
I swallowed hard. My brain worked overtime to come up with something . . .
anything
. . . to say, but all I could manage was a strangled groan, helpless against the rolling wave of pleasure that pulsed low in my belly.
The room began to spin, and I staggered backwards. My foot slipped on a loose pile of paper, my hands gripping the edge of the counter to keep from falling. The dark stranger captured my wrist, fingers digging hard enough to make the bones ache, trying to steady me, his face ashen.
“Hold on, Abby.”
I had only a moment to wonder how he knew my name before my vision faded into blackness. . . .
A Brush of Darkness
is also available as an eBook
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Allison Pang
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
First Pocket Books paperback edition February 2011
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Designed by Esther Paradelo Cover illustration by Nathalia Suellen. Design by Lisa Litwack.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN 978-1-4391-9832-2
ISBN 978-1-4391-9841-4 (ebook)
To Dan, Connor, and Lucy—you are my Heart.
And to my mother, whatever CrossRoads she may wander.
F
or all that writing is a seeming solitary occupation, the act of getting a book published is a team effort, and to that effect I’ve got quite a few people to thank. It’s almost a given that I’m going to forget someone, but I shall do my best.
To my editor, Danielle Poiesz, for taking something good and insisting I make it great, and for having the confidence in me to do it right. And for the chocolate, the power of which can never really be underestimated.
To my agent, Colleen Lindsay, for making me remove all the bacon. Well, some of the bacon, anyway, since the power of bacon can’t really be underestimated, either.
To Jeffe Kennedy, for being my midnight sounding board, supreme idea-bouncer, and all-around Good Person.
To Liz Pelletier, for being my drive-by girl, my pitch queen, and also for making sure I didn’t expose myself to comma shame.
To Staci Myers, for talking me down off the cliff more times than I care to count, and above all, for believing in me.
To my beta readers—Dawn McClure, Kirsten Higman, and Jane Houle—your honest feedback was beyond invaluable and much appreciated, and your continuing support and
good wishes mean so very much to me.
To Darchala Chaoswind, for making such pretty pictures.
And to K. A. Krantz, Danica Avet, La-Tessa Montgomery, and Simon Larters—for making me laugh and reminding me of what the important things are.
Between twilight and dawn
B’twixt heaven and hell
Travel the CrossRoads
Whence the OtherFolk dwell . . .
C
at piss and cabbages.
It was the only way to describe it, really. Even on a good day, the bookstore smelled like a mix of dust and dirty feet. The AC had coughed its last an hour ago, leaving me the proud employee of an ad hoc sauna. A drip above the lintel had forced me to keep the door closed to avoid a miniature lake from forming on the warping hardwood floor. The remainder of the morning was doomed to be a soggy, stinky mess.
The weathered sign hanging from the shutter outside read
PROSPECTUS INTELLIGENTSIA TABERNUS
. I called it the Pit for short. Probably unkind, but God knows the place reeked like one this morning. Still, the stale odor didn’t seem to stop my steady stream of customers from leaving wet trails and dripping umbrellas in their wakes, though I suspected their visits were more of an effort to get out of the rain than driven by any great desire to find a coverless copy of a Dean Koontz novel.
The rain let up just before lunch and with it went the last of my customers, an old man waddling into the wet with a paper sack full of ancient sailing books.
Bliss.
Time for some retro Tom Jones. I loaded up my latest playlist on the silver iPod mounted on the counter and wriggled my way to the front window, tinny speakers blaring. Flipping over the
CLOSED FOR LUNCH
sign, I mock strutted my way to the minifridge in the storage room for a couple of Cokes and a sandwich, my hips swaying counterpoint. I was half a can and three verses into “She’s a Lady” before the main door creaked open again.
The bells chimed in their plaintive way, somehow cutting through the rumbling growl of the music. A man drifted across the threshold. The grace of his movements caused the hair on the back of my neck to rise. He seemed a shadow, sucking up all the light from the room. The exquisite darkness of his ebony eyes swept over me, primitive and uncompromising. And overdone as all hell. Still. The silken fall of his hair just brushed the top of his shoulders and I’ve always been a sucker for good grooming and potential wangst.
What the hell. I’d bite.
“What’s new, pussycat?” I purred.
“I need to talk to Moira.” The timbre of his words pushed past me, heated and hollow.
“I’m afraid Moira isn’t here.”
His eyes narrowed, the line of his jaw shifting almost imperceptibly. The alarms in the back of my head suddenly went off. I’m not shy, but the thrum of desire that started beating through my veins as he approached the counter wasn’t normal or natural. If this guy was human I’d swear off bacon for a month.
I turned down the music in a futile attempt to distract myself from the elegant curve of his cheekbones and the smooth paleness of his skin. He glided toward me, each rolling step filled with a lazy arrogance. A faint shimmer of silver dusted his hair, fading in the damp light that trickled
through the front bay window. I blinked.
He’d been traveling the CrossRoads. I’d never been there myself, but the silver snowflakes were a dead giveaway he’d been moving between worlds.
My smile was polite, but I couldn’t quite keep the stiffness from my voice. “If you’d like, I can take your information and I’ll let her know you stopped by.” I tapped my pencil on the notebook in front of me. He’d asked for Moira by name, not her official title of Protectorate. I was under no obligation to answer his questions, and as far as I was concerned, the less involved I got in the offshoots of Faery politics, the better.
Truthfully, some of the OtherFolk freaked me the hell out, especially when they insisted on walking around in broad daylight like this. For that matter, I didn’t even know
what
he was. Looks aside, he couldn’t have been a vampire. Even vampires with TouchStones didn’t go walking around at noon. Not like that, anyway. Fae, maybe? Lycanthrope? Oh, what difference did it make? Usually the best policy was to just be polite and wait for them to go away.
That being said, I really hated it when they started trying to magic me up. It’s rude and nothing pissed me off faster than when one of them tried to get in my face about it. I knew they couldn’t always help it, but this guy wasn’t even attempting to tamp it down. Glamour oozed out of him, the magic rolling over me in soft waves of lust. Kinda pleasant in its own way, but distracting as all get out. My mouth tightened; I was suddenly very impatient.
A frown marred his handsome features, and he looked down as though seeing me for the first time. “When will she be back?”
“She’s
not
here,” I repeated, a hint of annoyance creeping into my tone. I’m not exactly the most outspoken person in the world, but store clerk or not—human or not—I wasn’t
some invisible piece of dog shit on the bottom of his shoe either.