Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance (97 page)

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The rock formation felt cold and slightly damp as Rickert D’Angelus flattened himself against the side of Crystal Peak. He stood on a wide ledge just beneath the top of the cliff with a rain-swollen river raging hundreds of feet below. Low voices murmured in the darkness—at least three or four Pacifica soldiers. With the Iron Portal no more than a furlong away, the enemy was too close. He’d have to take them out here.

Silently, he drew his blade and held it between his teeth. He found a toehold, but as he began to pull himself up, a warm sensation flitted across the skin of his forearms and he stepped back onto the ledge.

Damn. A Talent.

How could he have been so foolish as to not check for one of their army’s rare para-ability soldiers before he got this close? Even though it had been months since he’d encountered a Talent on this side of the portal, it was inexcusable for a Warrior of the Iron Guild to make a mistake of this magnitude. A mistake that could cost not only his life, but the lives of his men scattered throughout the area.

Not daring to breathe, he hoped the bloke wasn’t a Telepathy-Talent or a Psychic-Talent. He’d sense Rickert for sure. When he realized the idiocy of that thought, he allowed himself a grim smile. If their Talent could read minds or see the future, Rickert would already be dead.

With his body pressed against the rock wall, he wondered what tricks they were up to. Usually they kept those with para-abilities back with the commanding officer while the regular men did the fighting. They were too valuable to risk out in the field.

And then the reason occurred to him.

The portal.

Of course.

He glanced in the direction of the hidden entrance halfway down the cliff face. The Pacificans had to know it was nearby, and were using this Talent to pinpoint the exact location. Finding it must be worth that risk.

Footsteps crunched on the path above him. Two soldiers had left, but by his estimate, two others remained. Rickert couldn’t pull himself up to the top and kill them quite yet. Not until he knew they were retreating. At that point, he’d slip silently behind them and slit their throats. They’d be dead before they hit the ground.

“Hey!” A man’s voice rang out—so close that Rickert considered grabbing the bloke’s ankle and sending him plummeting to his death.

But if he did, the second soldier might have just enough time to sound an alarm, alerting others before Rickert could climb the rest of the way up and get to him. No, he’d wait as long as it took, then kill them both.

“Me and the guys are tired of you slowing us down,” the man was saying to the other soldier.

Although he couldn’t be sure, Rickert didn’t think the one speaking had para-abilities—the night air would’ve felt faintly charged when the guy spoke. Not all of his people could sense someone with Talents the way Rickert could, which was one of the reasons he was in charge. That and the fact that he was the group’s most lethal assassin. Revenge made him take personal risks that no one else would. Or should. He would never order his men to do the things he did. A few of them had families back home, while he, on the other hand, had nothing to lose.

“The R-Dubs lost the A-1 ranking because of you.”

“I admit that was my fault, but you think I had a choice?” At the sound of the woman’s voice, a subtle tingle skated over Rickert’s arms.

Bloody hell, their Talent was female? He hadn’t been expecting that.

She continued, but this time her voice took on a ragged edge. “Do you honestly think I enjoy stretching out my mental senses to shield you from harm? I can think of a million other things I’d rather do, but you lived, didn’t you? That should count for something.”

“Danger is something we live with—mediocrity isn’t. And given our status as the best fighting unit in START, your talents are unnecessary. We don’t need your
protection
.”

Rickert heard a scuffle and a few tiny rocks skittered over his head.

“Smythe, don’t.”

The metallic sound of a blade being unsheathed cut through the quiet night air, and the man grunted. “Damn you. Why won’t this work?”

“Because I’m a Protection-Talent, that’s why. When I see Captain Gravich, I’m going to file a formal complaint against you this time and— Wait! Wait!”

Rickert heard the sound of boots above him.

“Oh, please don’t.”

More rocks fell from the edge, followed by a dark shape. It narrowly missed Rickert and landed with a thud near his feet. The woman moaned and rolled to her side.

What the bloody hell was going on? Weren’t these two fighting for the same side?

“Oh, for chrissake,” the man muttered. “That bitch’s got nine lives.” From the sound of it, he was leaning over the edge.

Every muscle in Rickert’s body froze. He didn’t dare breathe. He prayed to the Fates that he was hidden enough in the shadows. If the guy spotted him—

The soldier cursed again and landed on the ledge with a grunt. Rickert smiled to himself. It wasn’t often that the enemy fell into his lap like this. First the woman, then the man. He’d make quick work of these two, then meet up with the others at the rendezvous point.

With his arms held slightly away from his body, as if they were too muscular to hang straight down, the pale-haired bloke strutted toward the woman. Enemy differences aside, he had an air about him that made Rickert want to plunge a knife into his belly just for the hell of it.

Palming his blade, he’d strike in three, two, one—

“Let’s see if you can survive this,” the man said, and kicked the woman.

Mo naire
! What the bloody fuck was that?

Drawing her knees into a fetal position, the female soldier made no move to fight back or defend herself.

What kind of soldier would turn on one of his own—especially a woman who sure as hell didn’t act like a soldier?

Ha
!
The kind of soldier who just took his last breath
.

Before the man could kick her again, Rickert slipped from the shadows. In one silent movement, he grasped a handful of the man’s hair, drew a blade across his throat, and the soldier slid to the ground as if his ligaments had turned to gel.

Rickert kicked the body over the edge and watched as it fell hundreds of feet to land at awkward angles on the river rocks below. He turned back to the woman. Of average height and with blond hair covering her face, she wore camouflage army fatigues and black boots. A Protection-Talent, huh? Then she probably wasn’t seriously injured.

Now what? It wasn’t like he could leave her to attract the attention of the other soldiers, especially not this close to the entrance. He rubbed a hand absently over his arm before realizing that the leather-corded necklace he kept wrapped around his wrist was on the other side of the portal. Twisting his blade, he watched the moonlight flash its reflection in the cold-forged Balkirk steel.

Why had one of her own tried to kill her? What had she done to deserve that? Recalling the brutal attack invading Pacificans had made on his family’s village a few years ago, he wasn’t surprised that these people were capable of senseless violence. No matter how long he lived, he’d never forget what awaited him in Summer’s Folly when he returned late one night. Violence between fighting men was one thing, but against innocent villagers…his own flesh and blood….

Anger pulsed through his veins like the river raging below him, feeding his never-ending quest for revenge.

Bloody hell, he hated them. Every single damn one of them. Including this woman.

Three quick whistle bursts, like the screech of a night bat, pierced the air. It was Asher, his second in command.

Given that she was a Protection-Talent, the dagger probably wouldn’t work on her anyway. Besides, he didn’t want to damage it to find out—the sturdy blade was one of his favorites. He’d been iron sick for days after bringing it through the portal, and didn’t relish the thought of suffering through that again just to get a new one. After tucking the weapon into the leather sheath strapped to his back, he whistled a sharp reply to Asher. Maybe they could figure out how to use her Talent to their advantage.

He bent over, planning to drag her away from the edge, but she weighed so little that he ended up hoisting her into his arms instead. One of her hands wedged against his torso, cold against his bare skin. As he straightened, a misty haze filled his vision. He stumbled and fell to his knees, careful not to drop her.

He blinked a few times, thinking he’d stood too quickly, but the mist before him remained. The cloud began to swirl and dissipate somewhat, revealing a figure in the center.

No, two people. A man and a woman. They were…

They were making love.

Rickert sat back hard on his haunches, the soldier still cradled in his arms.

The woman in the mist skimmed her hands down the man’s back, over the crest of his hip, digging her nails to urge him deeper. The man’s ass flexed as he drove into her with long, powerful thrusts.

Their movements became more frenzied until suddenly the man stopped, buried all the way to the hilt. He arched his back and—

Holy bollocks! They were climaxing together.

Rickert scrubbed a hand over his face as his cock swelled in automatic response to this erotic imagery playing out before him, even though it…couldn’t be real.

The two stayed joined for a moment—the man cradled between her bent knees, the woman gently caressing his back—before he finally rolled off. Rickert couldn’t hear them, but he imagined they were whispering words of love to each other.

The man kissed her tenderly in response to something she said, and placed a broad hand on her belly, filling the space from hipbone to hipbone. And as he did so, a strange yet pleasurable sensation roiled through Rickert’s body. Different from the easily sated lust he was accustomed to, this was something deeper, more emotional.

Through the years he’d bedded many women, but he’d never made love to any of them as this man made love to this woman. With such passion and significance. Was this what it felt like to love and be loved back? To have a future filled with the promise of such happiness?

He didn’t know, because he’d never thought about these things for himself. Protecting his people and preventing the deaths of innocents were his only priorities. When his sister had died so brutally at the hands of the enemy, he vowed to focus on nothing else. It’d be pure selfishness to think otherwise.

A sharp realization filled his mind, like a drop of water that sizzles when it’s flicked onto a hot skillet. The woman was about to conceive the man’s child from this lovemaking. At this very moment, the man’s seed was inside her, searching for its target, and her body was waiting to meet it. Although how or why Rickert knew this, he didn’t have a clue, but he was absolutely certain.

Rickert exhaled slowly, letting a quiet calmness fall over him.
Shhh
, he wanted to whisper to them.
Be still. Let the Fates work their magic
.

As the couple slept blissfully in each other’s arms, the mist thinned out further, and the faces came into focus. The man’s dark, wavy hair fell to his shoulders and the familiar face, which had always seemed angry when it stared at Rickert from a mirror, now looked peaceful and content.

“Bloody hell!”

No. Impossible. It couldn’t be.

He pushed the woman away and dragged himself to his feet, the mist disappearing into the cool night air. He tried to inhale deeply, but all he could manage were a few strangled breaths.

He was that man.

And the beautiful woman—the one from the mist—was the hurt little soldier before him.

Two worlds. Two enemies.

Haunted by loss, Cascadian assassin Rickert D’Angelus is on a mission of vengeance. Determined to stop the Pacifican army from finding a portal to his world, he leads a group of warriors into New Seattle with one goal—to kill Pacifican soldiers.

Neyla Trihorn had the perfect life until a deadly accident revealed her latent para-abilities. Now, the former fashion designer is the Pacifican army’s hottest commodity in their fight against the invaders.

When Rickert discovers a beautiful, unconscious soldier on a cold mountain ledge near the portal, he realizes she’s a Protection-Talent and cannot be killed. To prevent the army from using her skills again, he takes her as his prisoner instead.

One fated touch…

But when he pulls her into his arms, a sexy and compelling vision appears, awakening something inside him. Something he can’t ignore.

Torn between duty and passion, Rickert must decide if the vision is a Talent trick designed to foil the enemy or the answer to his deepest desires…

Thank you for reading ROGUE’S PASSION! I hope you enjoyed Asher and Olivia’s story as much as I enjoyed writing about them.

If you could take a minute to leave a short review at your bookseller’s website or anywhere online where you talk about books with your friends, I would be very grateful. Honest reviews help books get discovered by other readers.

Laurie London is the USA Today bestselling author of the Sweetblood and Iron Portal series—dark, sexy paranormal romance, set primarily in the Pacific Northwest. Publisher’s Weekly calls the Sweetblood series “sexy” and “sizzling.”

She lives on a small farm outside of Seattle with her husband, two children and a variety of animals. After graduating with a business degree, she worked for a Fortune 500 company as a programmer/tester and an underwriter. Her other jobs included cocktail waitress, hotel maid, candy store manager and bridal gown sales.

When not writing, she can be found running, reading, sewing, making jewelry, mucking stalls, volunteering or riding her horse. Someday she hopes to qualify for the Quarter Horse World Show—that is, if her horse doesn’t get hurt again.