Chaos Tryst
Authors: Shirin Dubbin
Chaos Tryst
By Shirin Dubbin
Ariana Golde may be known for breaking and entering but she’s no thief, she’s a returner. She retrieves stolen objects and gives them back to their rightful owners. Her latest job: retrieving a statue from the Medveds. But Ari is having an off night, and she’s caught red-handed by three brothers, who don’t just get mad—they turn into bears.
Maksim Medved is outraged—the statue belongs to his parents. But Ari’s returner magick doesn’t lie: the heirloom has a new rightful owner. Ari is drawn to the surly, handsome Maks—maybe because he possesses the same chaos magick she does. But while Ariana enjoys a touch of chaos, Maks hates its destructive power.
When Ari and Maks team up to find her mystery client, their chaos magicks ignite even faster than their attraction. Can Maks learn to love a little chaos, or will the havoc they cause among the faebled creatures drive him away for good?
33,000 words
Dear Reader,
What do you get when you cross summer with lots of beach time, and long hours of traveling? An executive editor who’s too busy to write the Dear Reader letter, but has time for reading. I find both the beach and the plane are excellent places to read, and thanks to plenty of time spent on both this summer (I went to Australia! And New Zealand!) I’m able to tell you with confidence: our fall lineup of books is outstanding.
We kick off the fall season with seven romantic suspense titles, during our Romantic Suspense celebration in the first week of September. We’re pleased to offer novella
Fatal Destiny
by Marie Force as a free download to get you started with the romantic suspense offerings. Also in September, fans of Eleri Stone’s sexy, hot paranormal romance debut novel,
Mercy,
can look forward to her follow-up story,
Redemption,
set in the same world of the Lost City Shifters.
Looking to dive into a new erotic romance? We have a sizzling trilogy for you. In October, look for Christine D’Abo’s Long Shot trilogy featuring three siblings who share ownership of a coffee shop, and each of whom discover steamy passion within the walls of a local sex club. Christine’s trilogy kicks off with
Double Shot.
In addition to a variety of frontlist titles in historical, paranormal, contemporary, steampunk and erotic romance, we’re also pleased to present two authors releasing backlist titles with us. In October, we’ll re-release four science fiction romance titles from the backlist of C.J. Barry, and in November four Western romance titles from the backlist of Susan Edwards.
Also in November, we’re thrilled to offer our first two chick lit titles from three debut authors,
Liar’s Guide to True Love
by Wendy Chen and
Unscripted
by Natalie Aaron and Marla Schwartz. I hope you’ll check out these fun, sometimes laugh-out-loud novels.
Whether you’re on the beach, on a plane, or sitting in your favorite recliner at home, Carina Press can offer you a diverting read to take you away on your next great adventure this fall!
We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to [email protected]. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.
Happy reading!
~Angela James
Executive Editor, Carina Press
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Chaos Tryst
is dedicated to awakenings. They are as brutal as they are beautiful, yet through the destruction of our worst selves our finest are created.
Thanks to the fabulous Julie Butcher for answering my call for help and introducing me to Joe Bearden. And to Joe for providing the Russian flavor and flair I couldn't have added on my own, for naming the magical Roma, for
vorovka,
and for being all around amazing.
For Leslie “L.A.” Banks, May all the love, light and hugs you've given over the years return to you one-hundred fold. You have inspired me in ways I'll never be able to fully express. Love you, lady!
Where had she gone wrong? Oh right, she’d brought her phone on a B&E and now it threatened to vibrate free of one her hidden pockets. Ariana looked down at her feet and realized she’d frozen mid clandestine tiptoe across someone else’s foyer. Genius. The owners of the expansive home weren’t in, so the soft-shoe mambo wasn’t strictly necessary. Of course it never hurt a returner to be more cautious than brave, and her black-on-black leather wrestling boots kept her as silent in shoes as she would’ve been barefoot—which generally kept her from getting nabbed.
Ari caught a glimpse of her jumpsuit-clad body in the ornate mirror hung floor to ceiling on the near wall.
Cute,
she thought with sarcasm.
Ariana Golde, the lamest Michael Jackson impersonator ever to do a point toe pose. Hee, hee.
She spun in the dusk-darkened room and moonwalked a few steps backward. Lack of sleep in the form of five days of nonstop retrieval-and-returning was making her loopy. The phone buzzed again and she relaxed, lowering her heels to touch the floor.
Her second wrong turn…or maybe it had been the first. Yep, now she thought on it, bringing her phone along was the lesser of her missteps, but Ari wasn’t at fault for her first. She hadn’t chosen to be her mother’s daughter. Oh, she enjoyed a touch of chaos, but dealing with Inari—well, cataclysmic seemed a weak classification. And, no doubt, it was her
okaasan
, her mother, calling. Otherwise she’d feel absolutely no compunction to answer.
That was the problem with the old Faebles, especially well-known ones like Ari’s mother and father, somehow or another, through magick or coercion, you did what they wanted.
Inari had lived outside of Japan for centuries but even away from her seat of power she held an amazing sway of enchantment. Then again, maybe it wasn’t enchantment her mother wielded but classic mama guilt.
Whatever.
Ari sighed. Whenever her mother called she had to answer—was compelled to—no matter what. A quick tap to her Bluetooth opened the connection. Her mother didn’t bother to wait for a greeting.
“Your life goals finally became clear to me today, Kit. You intend to be a lonely old spinster like the lady of the Goblin-kin. Have I guessed correctly?” Inari’s softly accented voice rang sweet as tinkling bells and struck like a hammer.
Ari nearly laughed. Inari excelled at passive aggression; one of the top ten wielders in the land. “Yep,
Okaasan,
you guessed it. I plan on letting my nether regions wither and blow away. Talk about a dry spell. I can see it now—‘Ariana Anase Kitsu Golde, the cause of a dust storm unparalleled since the 1930s dust bowl. Click here for the full story.’” She clucked her tongue in an imitation of a mouse clicking the imagined link. “Poor you and poor
Baba
. No little Faeble scions to carry on your legacy.”
Ari began to pace, a learned response to her mother’s phone calls, and stepped into an ellipse of multihued light projected from the wall above the front doors onto the polished stone floor. The angle of the moon distorted the image cast by the stained glass window and caused the light to stretch into an oblong. As soon as she stood within the pattern, a heavy unease settled over her. She hopped backward quicker than thought and landed outside the design.
Her mother coughed lightly. “You inherited your sense of humor from your
baba’s
side and unfortunately I am not coarse enough to appreciate it.”
Ari laughed aloud this time. “Watch it, crazy lady, I have no problems telling your husband what you just said.”
She looked over her shoulder at the stained glass. It depicted a great brown bear ensnarled in flowering vines, the loveliness of the art wildly incongruent with the “yuck factor” the window projected. It gave her the heebie-jeebies. How strange the Medved brothers chose to hang such a nasty bit of business in their hall. Sure, in the world of Faebles the most beautiful things would often eat you alive and thank you for the sacrifice. It was to be expected. Expected and avoided. But from what she’d heard about the three brothers, they were old—and age implied a lack of recklessness…either that or great power.
A chill passed over her and she decided to pick up the pace, grab the object she’d come for, and get out of Dodge. She did not want to face men who could live in the shadow of a relic as dark as the stained glass. She liked breathing way too much for that.
Her mother was saying something.
“So you do want to be old and alone like the Lady Goblin-kin?”
“
Okaasan,
don’t try it.” Ari grinned. “You’ve told me far too often how the Grand High Oni exacts his revenge by ruining every marriage contract the Lady Goblin-kin has ever made. That’s why she’s alone.”
“Conceded. Shall we strike a bargain? I’ll relent on the husband talk for now if you’ll agree to allow your father and me to teach you more about your heritage.”
“What’s to know? I’m a regular old Faeble.”
Crickets.
“Okay, I’ll consider it if you’ll let me off the phone. I need to complete this job and get out of here. I’ve got a funny feeling.”
“Agreed.” Her mother sounded triumphant. “Call me when you’ve returned whatever object you’re seeking to its proper place. And, daughter…”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Try not to break anything.”
“Will do.” Ari tapped her Bluetooth again and dismissed all thought, allowing her returner senses to guide her. The soft tug of the item she’d come for beckoned, an unquestionable sign it did not belong in the Medved brothers’ home. The retrieval was justified and she could still count herself the opposite of goblins or thieves.
Hmm, semantics.
Goblins and thieves; thieves and goblins were analogous. No difference—except goblins were a natural foil to a returner’s powers due to their appropriation magick. Goblins thought everything belonged to them. It was an arrogance born of blood and it gave them rights to anything they acquired for as long as they wanted it. Ari huffed. Inversely, returners retrieved things that were out of place and returned them to their owners. In the human world this didn’t matter much, but for Faebles—the race of folklore and faerie tales—it prevented many a magical showdown.
Ari liked the job and the peace it helped to maintain. If one of the storied folk lost something due to theft or trickery, they’d hire a returner to bring it back. This provided a far more civilized solution than ripping the offender’s throat out or cursing them with foot fungus in places they didn’t wear shoes. It cut down on retaliation too. The offender, having been caught fair and true, often took the retrieval with amiable acceptance and considered the matter finished. On the flip, a more overt action by the owner might force the offender to avenge their pride. And Faebles got even in some rather nasty ways; getting turned into a frog was a minor thing. Ari had seen folks turned into a pimple on a frog’s booty. She shook her head. Each time the frog hopped probably hurt like Hades.
The pull of the object stretched from her body in a taut band of magick. The feeling bore similarities to the pull of a person with a magnetic personality—gentle yet insistent. Ari followed it into the kitchen. Once she stepped through the arch connecting the kitchen to the foyer, the room opened up.
Harlequin-patterned tiles in two neutral shades, one lighter, the other a deeper cocoa hue, spread across the large space. The cabinets were finished in a rich, lustrous black, the counters in the same stone as the lighter of the floor tiles. Windows ran the full length of the wall over the sink and prep area. If that wasn’t enough, a massive island stood in the middle of the room, providing space for a six-burner cooktop on one side and six-seater bar top on the other.
Near the stainless steel refrigerator stood a tall bottle of—call it stereotyping but she’d guess vodka—placed on a tray with green apples and a carving knife. Cool. Ari lifted the bottle for a sniff. It promptly slipped from her fingers. She fumbled, flipping the thing around several times before she got a firm grip on it and set it down with a relieving thud. Whew. Despite her mother’s warning, Ari’s clumsiness didn’t normally make appearances on jobs. She really needed to get some sleep.
Not far from the liquor and fruit tableau, an open pizza box held the last two slices of European style pizza: fresh tomatoes, thick slices of mozzarella, basil and a crust crisp to a point Americans called burnt.
Ari sniffed and would have passed through, leaving the rest of the kitchen unscathed. She really would have, that is, if the scent of brown sugar and butter with chunks of toffee and chocolate hadn’t grabbed her by the nostrils and yanked her over to a cooling rack laden with cookies.
Nummy
They smelled the way she imagined the actor Boris Kodjoe would. All delicious and, um—delicious. Before she could stop herself she shoved an entire cookie into her mouth and made orgasmic noises as she chewed.
Evil. Pure, unadulterated evil. Two more cookies were gone and two others ended up in her shoulder pack. Heck, she’d eaten enough to set off warning bells as it was. She didn’t want to be at home later tonight, start craving these wicked goodies and be unable to do anything about it.
One of the Medveds had serious baking skills. The cookies were fresh, homemade and from a recipe she’d never come across before, and if Ariana Golde knew anything better than returning or breaking stuff, it was cookies. She ate another, leaving a count of eighteen. Hey, she had to even things out. That was the least she could do.
A mournful sigh at leaving the remaining cookies preceded one last glance over her shoulder.
C’mon, Ari. Work to do.
A second archway led to another room, this one quite casual, likely a family room or a den. The three bachelors definitely spent a lot of time here—as witnessed by the pool table, monstrous flat screen TV and three separate couches. Three.
The first looked as though it had been carved from a single piece of wood. It still held the shape of a tree with a bough of leaves rising from the backrest. A tree sprite had clearly sculpted the couch from a living tree. Green pillows in varying shades provided the only soft touches.
Facing the bench, on the other side of the red, blue and green geometric floor rug, sat couch number two. This one spoke of craftsmanship. Cornflower blue brocade covered a carved wooden frame with exposed arms and eight spindle legs as support to an oval back with a pediment on top.
Meh, both couches were lovely but they didn’t suit Ari’s taste. She liked something either softer than the bench or less likely to break than the settee.
At the head of the first two pieces was a third; its placement completed a U-shape. Now this was a good spot to sit and watch some TV. She launched herself at the red leather sofa. The effects of days without sleep made it irresistible.
Just a few moments rest and then…ahh.
The thickly padded square arms and seat welcomed her into comfort. Ari snuggled and looked around to see a sofa table butted against the couch’s back. Spotting the remote, she had to stop herself from turning on a Yankees game and drifting off. Napping on the job would be a very silly move. Cripes, she was out of control tonight. She closed the hand hovering over the remote into a fist. That’s when she saw the object.
The sculpture she’d come for presided over the Medveds’ den from the middle of the table. It had obviously been placed in the perfect position to be admired from any vantage and viewed by each of the brothers—a stunning amber focal point emanating old magicks.
“Hello, gorgeous,” Ari whispered as she lifted the carving of bees encircling a warmly glowing honeycomb. The amber had been polished to a sheen that lent the dripping honey an astonishing realism. Ari swore she could smell the honey and would taste it if she licked her fingers. No wonder her rather mysterious client wanted the object back.
She let the single strap of her shoulder pack slide down her arm and come to a rest on the red leather seat. After unzipping the bag she reverently slipped the sculpture inside.
Chimes reverberated through the room. Ari felt the resonance clear through to her spine as the grandfather clock on the near wall struck six. Uh oh. Faebled celebrity, Cindy, often warned: “The evening chimes felt are a bad hand dealt. In other words, your night’s headed south, dear ones, and we ain’t talkin’ Georgia.” Ari refused to worry. It hadn’t turned out so badly for Cindy in the end, if you didn’t count all the drama she’d weathered before she’d gotten her man and her slipper back.
“Somebody’s been rummaging through my den.”
Ari spun around so quickly the satiny coils of her golden dreadlocks hit her in the face.
Ow.
The combination of her Japanese and West African heritages made for a solid grade of hair.
That stung.
Not as badly as getting nabbed by the Medveds would but still, Ow.
The dark-haired man facing her seemed amused; suppressed laughter sparkled within his aquamarine eyes. Oh good, amused worked for her. Of course, whenever her mother had greeted Ari’s childhood antics with a smile, Ari had known to cower behind her father’s legs, all eight of them.
The man, a Medved brother if she had to guess, stepped into the room and stopped with the kitchen archway as his backdrop. Neither of them moved further.
It wasn’t being caught that gave Ari pause. She’d wriggled out of similar situations. What made her hesitate was how much the man resembled another—the Eastern European bone structure tempered by the exotic, the swarthy olive skin, and most of all the bearing. But this man’s hair was much too long, his features too refined, almost pretty.
Her shoulders relaxed in relief and she arched an eyebrow at him now her thoughts were back on solid ground. He mimicked the expression with his own brow. Ari shrugged, grinned sheepishly and bolted for the alternate doorway leading back to the foyer. Halfway there a freakin’ ginormous figure filled the passageway. Another Medved. Another fleeting blink of,
almost
, recognition.
What to do? Well, she’d seen a maneuver in a movie she might as well try out now. If she timed it just right she could drop to her knees, use the forward momentum to slide between the big man’s legs and escape into the foyer.