Feisty Heroines Romance Collection of Shorts Page 18

  Annis pulled away slightly and looked at him curiously. “Why do your eyes glow?”

  “It is my desire for you,” he professed. “Surely, you know that.” She was a vampire, after all.

  “No male has ever been attracted to me,” Annis murmured, then looked away.

  Murtagh forced her to meet his glowing gaze. “How fortunate for me that fools have surrounded you. I canna wait to show you how much you mean to me.”

  Her smile returned, and a blush stained her cheeks. “You didna just save me from the rogues. You saved me from myself. My attraction to you was overwhelming, and shame and self-doubt made me flee, but I promise to never leave your side again. I love you.”

  Murtagh gazed into beautiful hazel eyes and detected not one ounce of sadness. “You are my everything, Annis. You are the first being to truly see me, and no’ the Vampire King. You saw through flesh and bone to the hidden depths of my soul and embraced the male inside. I will love you ‘til the end of time,” he professed, then scooped his mate into his arms and carried her toward their destiny.

  About Brenda Trim

  Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed the story, please consider giving Brenda a virtual hug and leaving a review. If this is your first novel of hers, check out Brenda’s website for details on her other works. She’s co-authored over thirty books in the bestselling Dark Warrior Alliance and Hollow Rock Shifters series, and she’s the mastermind behind the Bramble's Edge Academy series, as well as many other titles.

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  Never allow waiting to become a habit. Live your dreams and take risks. Life is happening now.

  DREAM BIG!

  XOXO,

  Brenda

  Also By Brenda Trim

  Dark Warrior Alliance Boxsets

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  Banshee Kiss by Ellen Mint

  Chapter 1

  Death ain’t it’s all cracked up to be.

  “Another.” A shock of blood-red hair tumbled out of the crypt-like darkness of her drawn hood, but it couldn’t pull the attention of the bartender. Nothing would.

  “Right,” Morgan sighed to herself. Despite the mass crowding the bar, a gap formed around her. The patrons all shifted as if a cold blast claimed that seat in the bar. Almost like a ghost was waiting for another round.

  She snorted at the thought and leaned over the counter to blindly reach for a bottle. At least a ghost wouldn’t have to eat. Her fingers snatched a long glass neck, and she yanked back a—“Whiskey,” she said aloud as much to keep herself sane. “From the blessed hills of Ireland herself.” Never had that before.

  No one stopped the stranger in the black trench coat from pulling a knife out of her pocket and cutting through the foil. Wadding the wrapper into a ball, she turned and stared down the lane of tipsy young adults wasting rent money to get laid.

  This wasn’t the kind of bar one expected to find her in. Neon lights of red and blue pulsed from below the lip of the counter. A kitschy disco ball reflected more above the bartender’s head, and a throbbing, almost painful dirge of EDM pounded through the glass floor. She must have wandered into a popular bar, not that it mattered.

  No one cared as the banshee poured a hundred-dollar-a-shot whiskey into a pint glass.

  Morgan gave it a sniff, girding herself for the rot about to burn through her body. It smelled like a fog creeping across the moors with only a sliver of the moon to light the wisps. So, about the same as any liquor she ‘borrowed.’

  With a shrug, she tipped it back and waited. In the old days, her tongue would scream at her for subjecting it to such terrors. Absently, she twisted around her wrist to check the old windup watch.

  Waiting, Morgan pressed her lips together and blew. Still a breath. Cool, yes, but it hadn’t vanished. “Oh God!” she gasped. The full wallop of her whiskey, and rum, and the bottle of gin she could reach bashed her gut at once. The massive alcohol content would have dissolved away the liver of a normal person.

  And there she was, stealing liquor just to feel a tenth of mortality’s pain. To have anything gurgle through her system to remind her of what it meant to be human. A flash of red caught her eye, and Morgan swiped three cherries from a bowl before the bartender hid them away.

  Food helped. Funny thing about being dead, she still had to eat, drink, and sleep. Maybe not as much when alive, but…

  The winds shifted. Sickly damp crawled across every surface of the bar. Voices faded to whispers, the music crackled to a pathetic hiss in the speakers. The hair on the back of her neck rose, followed by a trail of goosebumps straight down her spine.

  Specters, their faces shrouded in impenetrable darkness, floated through the wall. Shrouds clung to their spindly arms, which crackled like snapped chicken bones with every movement. Fingers, withered to jerky, dangled off the wrists. They appeared useless until one got too close.

  Morgan resumed her drinking as the reapers swept around the room. What poor bastard was going to get his tonight?

  The reapers flitted to the ceiling, circling like the vultures of souls that they were. Was it the DJ? One too many unknown pills he accepted without a second’s thought? Maybe one of the dancers would keel over from an undiagnosed medical condition? Or the handful of guys in suits trying to pretend it wasn’t a comb over? They seemed ripe pickings.

  It didn’t matter. As long as she stayed still and let the creatures take their pound of flesh, they’d let her be.

  If the living could see them, they’d all die in an instant. Not because the reapers had maggots for teeth or one glance into their eyes would wither your soul. No, what would drive the entire species mad were the countless numbers.

  Hundreds hovered above an average street, waiting for an opportunity to swoop down and feast. Or whatever they did.

  Morgan wasn’t clear on exactly what reapers got from their prey, aside from death. They’d always start by trying to push through the person approaching their death. The harder it was for a reaper to phase through, the heartier a person was.

  Movement, and that god awful clacking sound, caused her to look up. One reaper broke from the horde and dove. Its spindly arm stretched out, a single finger raised as it swept into the chest of a lone man. Poor bastard.

  That had to be a heart attack or organ failure.

  She’d seen it often while walking the street, while sneaking onto the metro, even while snagging a free hotel room. At least it was quick. One pass from the reaper straight into the victim’s heart and they were gone.

  Morgan leaned further off her stool, watching the man who just had the full force of death crack through his ribs. Pain struck her which, for once, wasn’t alcohol-based. He sat alone, his voice drowned out by music, his face shadowed by the lights. No one would hear his last cries. No one would run to rescue him. He would die without a single soul noticing.

  Her feet fell to the floor, an ache inside pulling her closer to the man. Foolish. She stopped warning them… Morgan flipped her watch around as if it would tell her.

  Banshee, a woman who could predict death. That’s what one old man shrieked when she leaned into his ear and told him he was about to die. But it gave her a purpose in her wandering non-existence.

  Except, warning people, telling them the inevitable was about to befall them did nothing. They’d turn, see her in their last second, then fade to dust on the wind. And every time she’d stepped close to the dying, the reapers would sense her and the meal they’d missed.

  So, rather than risk her own hide for a stranger’s moment of peace, Morgan took to drinking instead. It seemed a good enough pursuit for a decade’s existence. Why then was she walking closer to the man clustered with reapers?

  Even with death in the room, dancers blocked her pa
th. Life pulsed through the bar, obscuring her from the reapers and allowing Morgan to take in the man about to fade to nothing. He looked out of place amongst the horde, like he’d been tricked into coming here. A long face with a chin to crack walnuts, his eyes were set deep against a roman nose. The lips, surprisingly supple on such a harsh visage, lay flat in an unfeeling grimace. He practically screamed, “I don’t want to be here.”

  But those eyes. Even at a distance, even with shadows cutting lines across his face, she couldn’t escape his eyes. Pale as a morning frost, they glowed from deep inside his sockets as he observed the spectacle before him.

  And he had no idea what was about to happen.

  The reapers’ lackadaisical floating shifted, their non-existent faces all turned toward the man about to die. It was now or never. Morgan jumped the two steps onto the alcove where his table perched. The man didn’t look at her, nor would he, until she reached out and touched him.

  What the…!

  A spark ripped between them, locking her fingers around his arm. The pulse of pure energy raced down to her toes, causing her sluggish heart to pound harder than it had since the accident. Slowly, those frost blue eyes drifted to the side. Morgan was frozen, watching in his thrall as the dying man’s pupils shrunk to pinpricks.

  He saw her.

  “You…”

  Are in grave danger.

  Will die tonight.

  The usual platitudes perched on her tongue for the near-deceased fizzled away. Every step Morgan had taken, every city she’d visited, every long night lost guarding against the reapers one fact held true: she was alone. No one glanced her way, no one shared more than a mumbled word of surprise should she jostle them. She was a breathing, exhausted, hungry ghost haunting a world forever tumbling into the grave.

  “Close your eyes,” she ordered, reaching her hand into a pocket tucked deep inside her coat.

  “Wha…?” the stranger asked, confused by a random woman grabbing him, but there wasn’t time. The reapers’ interest shifted, the fog around their bodies snapping to a deathly red. They found her.

  Slamming her lids shut, Morgan yanked the pin and hurled a flash grenade into the air. Light ripped through the darkness, blinding not only the dancers shrieking in surprise but the reapers.

  “Come on!” she shouted, her eyes still shut as she locked her fingers around the man’s hand. Panicked people dashed around the floor. Their throbbing pulses would provide a momentary cover against the reapers regaining their senses. The near-dead could hide amongst so much life.

  Morgan bent her shoulder down, bashing through whatever got in her way. Risking only a sliver of light through her eyelids, she tried to guide the stranger tethered to her fingers toward the back of the bar. High pitched screams covered the squealing music and feet stampeding like a herd of wildebeest.

  Phones appeared from every available pocket, more voices crying for their AI to call for help. A blue glow radiated off of each one, lines of energy shivering through the air like razor blades. Morgan reared back. Every phone made her skin feel as if it was being peeled off her bones.

  She twisted around, prepared to find a new exit, when the air sucked away. The reapers were reviving.

  “What in the…?” the stranger began, but there wasn’t time to explain. Not that he’d believe it.

  There!

  Morgan broke into a run even with every slice from the phone’s energy cutting into her skin. “Can you jump?” she shouted, her voice loud enough people’s heads swiveled in her direction. They didn’t have the time to see her, what few could, but they all felt the force of a woman prepared to run over them.

  “I…I think so,” the stranger said.

  “Then do it!” Morgan cried as she launched off her heels straight up onto the bar counter. Glass exploded under her heels, bottles of amber and gold shattering against the wall—a drunkard’s fireworks.

  She landed behind, got her feet under her, and turned to find the stranger slid right through her wake. Those eyes of blinding brilliance stared directly into hers, and a shiver trembled down her spine.

  Get out of here.

  The hundreds of dollars of liquid merchandise puddling on the floor drew the attention of the bartender, but Morgan didn’t wait for him to cease seeing her. He raised his fist as if he had any way to stop her, but she blew through the backdoor.

  A maze of metal shelving crammed with boxes awaited them. Her instincts told her there was an exit, but if she was wrong… Absently, she reached for the sheath at her side, when incandescent street light seeped through the darkness.

  The exit was real. Double timing it, Morgan reached for the handle, praying it wasn’t locked, when she spotted a box crammed with sample-size peanut bags. Even the undead had to eat.

  She pilfered as many bags as she could then yanked the door open. The dank smell of mildew, urine, and rotten potatoes flushed through the air as both leaped onto bags of garbage. Her sharp-toed boots split one apart, scattering peels and stained napkins.

  Morgan let her momentum carry her through the garbage. She slammed her palm out to stop her. Cold inched through the old stone of the neighboring building but a laugh rumbled in her lungs. She’d walked right up to the reapers, stole their prey, and lived. Metaphorically speaking.

  The jangle of a tin can rattling against cement caused her to glance back at the reason she’d risked everything. In the darkness of the bar, she couldn’t tell much about the stranger beyond his striking eyes. Thanks to the humming streetlights, Morgan took in a man dressed as if he was late to a wedding.

  A collared shirt so white it nearly blinded her was topped off by a vest of crimson. He wore no jacket, or perhaps left it behind, and had rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows. Her gaze lingered from his fingers, long and nimble, up the forearms bearing the taut musculature of a man who chopped trees for a living.

  “Who are you?” the stranger asked, his voice such a deep baritone Morgan felt it shiver down to her toes.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing,” she said without answering him.

  He lay his fingers flush to his chest, right above his still-beating heart. “I’m…” The man swallowed, no doubt confused as to why a random woman would rip him away from a bar and out into the alley. A breath softened his lips and, in a surprise, they twisted into a half-smile. “Dane. My name is Dane.”

  “Well, Dane,” she said while wrapping her hand around their last line of defense. Instead of drawing it, she dug her palm into the leather grip and met the man’s gaze. “I’m Morgan, and I just saved you from death.”

  Chapter 2

  The word “Dane” fumbled in his mouth, despite his certainty, it was his name. Why did that realization strike deeper to his core than what the strange woman said? Death?

  She certainly looked the sort to battle demons in secret, underground societies. A black leather coat fluttered down to her ankles to frame the deadly boots with sharp metallic points on the toes. More leather strained against her chest, which was cinched tighter by crimson ribbons around her stomach and amplified the assets that quickened his blood. He was vaguely aware of something prodding off her hip, right near the tactical pants covered in straps and pockets. But Dane’s attention struggled to drift from a small birthmark perched upon the top of her right breast.

  “Hey.” A finger snapped in his face, causing his head to snap up. Still, the shape of her beauty mark lingered in the back of his skull, trying to tell his sluggish brain something vital.

  Her face was sharper than the dagger on her thigh. Eyes of polished iron, a nose thin as a stiletto, and her chin a piton. The only change from the theme were her lips. Sculpted with a strong cupid’s bow, they bore a pink, almost innocent tinge to the pillowed pair. Funny, he’d have expected scarlet for her.

  “What were you doing in there?” Morgan asked.

  His thoughts sloshed through his brain slower than an ice floe. In there? Where had he even been? Dane glanced over his
shoulder at the door slammed permanently shut.

  “I’m not…” he sputtered, pain throbbing through his skull. What had he been doing before…?

  A warm hand rolled across his shoulder, her fingers massaging into the muscle. The sluggish heartbeat erupted into a timpani solo. Dane’s eyes swung to hers, a tingling beat dancing from the tips of her fingers clear down his spine.

  “You can’t remember?” she asked softly, pain crinkling her striking eyes. “What about where you live? Your family?”

  “I’m sorry,” he sputtered, regret stirring in his blood.

  Morgan’s gaze slipped shut, and she breathed slowly as if in meditation. “It’s not your fault. It’s…damn it!” Her fist folded and she punched the wall.

  A low hum, like from a bass tipped onto its face, rose from the ground. Morgan’s eyes blazed and she released him to reach inside her coat. Beyond the sound, a new experience grew. Like the feel of tugging off a sweater in deep winter or chewing on a piece of foil. Dane’s hands raised as if he could chase away a feeling.

  What even was it?

  “They’ve found us. Get behind me,” Morgan ordered. She tried to shove Dane to the side as she drew from her hip a sword. Five feet long and a palm’s width wide, the blade bore pits and marks all along the dull metal. Signs of red rust stained the flats, but the edges glistened as if they’d been sharpened to slice through light.

  He stared in wonder and horror at the sword that looked like it’d been pulled from an ancient bog. Morgan held it without qualms, her hand lifting higher while she whipped her head back and forth. As she scanned around them, she kept walking backward and continually bumped into Dane.

  The caress and bounce of her backside, even below the coat, was alarmingly distracting. But he couldn’t escape the low hum increasing to the point his ears shivered. Ice crept along the alley, the frost racing to form patterns shaped like handprints.