City of Eternal Night
Praise for HOUSE OF COMARRÉ
“Painter scores with this one. Passion and murder, vampires and courtesans—original and un-put-downable. Do yourself a favor and read this one”
Patricia Briggs, New York Times bestselling author
“A world full of rich potential. Excellent!”
P. C. Cast, New York Times bestselling author
“Gripping, gritty, and imaginative. If you love dangerous males, kick-ass females, and unexpected twists, this is the series for you! Kristen Painter’s engaging voice, smart writing, and bold, explosive plot blew me away. Prepare to lose some sleep!”
Larissa Ione, New York Times bestselling author
“Kristen Painter’s Blood Rights is dark and rich with layer after delicious layer. This spellbinding series will have you begging for more!”
Gena Showalter, New York Times bestselling author
“Prophecy, curses, and devilish machination combine for a spell-binding debut of dark romance and pulse-pounding adventure”
Library Journal (starred review)
“Kristen Painter brings a sultry new voice to the vampire genre, one that beckons with quiet passion and intrigue”
L. A. Banks, New York Times bestselling author
“Exciting and interesting!”
RT Book Reviews on Bad Blood
“The romance is tense and fresh … I highly recommend this if you enjoy fantasy and want an original take on vampires”
USA Today’s Happy Ever After on Blood Rights
about the author
Kristen Painter likes to balance her obsessions with shoes and cats by making the lives of her characters miserable and surprising her readers with interesting twists. She currently writes award-winning urban fantasy for Orbit Books. The former college English teacher can often be found on Twitter @Kristen_Painter, and on Facebook (where she loves to interact with her readers) at www.facebook.com/KristenPainterAuthor. Sign up for her mailing list at http://eepurl.com/xT-9L for book news, cover reveals and giveaways.
Find out more about Kristen Painter and other Orbit authors by registering for the free monthly newsletter at www.orbitbooks.net
BY KRISTEN PAINTER
House of Comarré
Blood Rights
Flesh and Blood
Bad Blood
Out for Blood
Last Blood
Forbidden Blood (e-only novella)
Crescent City
House of the Rising Sun
City of Eternal Night
Garden of Dreams and Desires
Her encounter with that undead creature had left permanent damage. Some kind of supernatural scar.
She slumped down and hugged her knees to her chest. Was this what it meant to be fae? To be this vulnerable? She wasn’t tough and street-smart like Augustine, she was a computer geek who preferred the indoors to direct sunlight and email to actual conversation.
What would her mother do in a situation like this? Olivia had been strong and fearless. The kind of woman Harlow would love to be someday, but getting there was going to take courage. Something she wasn’t sure she had. At least not in the kind of quantities she was going to need.
She should talk to Augustine and hope that all this craziness happening to her wouldn’t scare him away. He had promised to teach her to defend herself. Maybe that would help somehow. And if it didn’t … he’d know what to do. Or he’d find someone who would. He was the Guardian of the city. It was his job to protect the citizens of New Orleans and now that she lived here, that included her.
COPYRIGHT
Published by Orbit
ISBN: 9780356503745
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 Kristen Painter
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Excerpt from Dirty Magic by Jaye Wells Copyright © 2014 by Jaye Wells
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Orbit
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DY
www.littlebrown.co.uk
www.hachette.co.uk
Contents
Praise for House of Comarré
About the Author
By Kristen Painter
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Acknowledgments
Extras
To my readers, the real reason I do this.
Chapter One
Life is an unwinnable game. Only the playing time may be prolonged.
—Elektos Codex 13.4.1
New Orleans, Louisiana 2068
Harlow woke with a gasp. Her heart raced in her chest. She swallowed, trying to get air. Sweat glued her tank top to her body. A few deep breaths eased the nightmare’s grip on her, but its claws still dug deep into her subconscious. A few more breaths and the sharp edges wore away, leaving her with a residual fear that clung like secondhand smoke.
She forced herself to lie down and relax. It was just a dream. The coolness of the dark room eased the heat of her skin. This is reality, not the nightmare. She grabbed her Life Management Device off the nightstand and tapped the screen to see the time. A little after three in the morning.
Tossing the LMD onto the nightstand, she kicked the covers off. The whirling ceiling fan wafted cool air over her as she tried to concentrate on something besides the terrifying dream that had yanked her from sleep. She failed. The nightmare filled every synapse. She couldn’t recall exactly what the dream had been, but the dread of it remained, impossible to shake. Something—or someone—had tried to drag her into an abyss. Or had chased her toward it.
Either way, she never wanted to feel that bone-deep sense of fear again.
Minutes slipped by, taking the panic with them. At last she closed her eyes, praying the nightmare wouldn’t return.
It didn’t, but neither did sleep. She focused on the whir of the ceiling fan. The subtle hum drowned out all other sounds. Except for one.
The unmistakable eddy and lap of water.
She got up and padded barefoot across the room, pushed back the sheers, opened the balcony door, and stepped out into the cool night air.
&nb sp; Augustine was swimming laps in the pool below.
She sighed. Seeing him anchored her firmly in reality. His lean, muscled form cut the water cleanly, sending smooth ripples to kiss the pool’s edge. In the submerged light, his skin seemed a darker gray, sleek and seal-like against the water’s aqua blue.
She walked closer to the railing. There was something otherworldly in the way he slipped through the water, the effortless way he spun and pushed off the wall as he turned, the boneless way his body undulated. Even if his horns hadn’t grown back, with his gray skin and the six fingers on each hand—and now she could see six toes on each foot as well—no one would mistake him for human. He was utterly, completely, regrettably fae.
And she was utterly, completely, regrettably attracted to him. She exhaled the breath she’d unwittingly held. Sure, she was fae, too, but she’d spent her entire adult life trying to live as if she weren’t. Now her new life in New Orleans made those bloodlines impossible to ignore. She was the daughter of the city’s most famous fae, movie star Olivia Goodwin. And thanks to her mother’s curious will, Harlow and Augustine had become co-owners of the house. And roommates. Hard to ignore your true heritage when you shared a house with the city’s fae Guardian.
Who was practically naked in the pool below her.
Steam rose from the water but the trails evaporated before reaching her second-story balcony. He must be using some of his fae skills to heat the water. That would be a wicked cool power to have. Unlike hers, which were mostly bothersome.
She leaned against the metal railing, causing it to creak.
He lifted his head, twisting seamlessly into a backstroke to smile up at her. “Hey, Harley. Come on in, the water’s fine.”
She pulled away from the railing. “I was just going back to bed.” And don’t call me that. But those words never left her tongue.
“Funny. Looks like you’re standing there watching me.” With a smug look, he ducked under, flipped around and pressed off the wall to glide the length of the pool underwater in one long, easy movement. The water calmed, bringing into definition just how very small his black trunks were.
When he surfaced, he picked his head up and made eye contact again. “You can’t sleep or you’d already be doing that. You might as well swim.” He spread his arms out and floated lazily.
“I don’t have a swimsuit.”
His wicked grin returned. “I can ditch mine if it makes you feel better.”
She bit her bottom lip and tried to keep her gaze from traveling below that smile. “Okay. Wait. No. Keep your suit on. I meant okay I would come swimming.” Her tank top and boy-short underwear would work fine. It was dark. Sort of. And all that seemed to matter at the moment was that she get in the water.
She slipped back into the house, wrapped herself in a towel from her bathroom and then went down to the first floor as quietly as she could so she wouldn’t wake Lally, the housekeeper. Outside, the grass muffled her steps. She shivered despite the towel. The unseasonably warm weather they’d been having was gone. At the pool’s edge, she stopped, clutching her towel. She shouldn’t be down here. She should be in bed. Asleep. Alone.
Augustine stood in waist-deep water. Vapor trails rose off his sleek gray skin to mingle with the steam from the surface, making him look like some kind of horned god of the underworld. He coasted his fingers over the surface, but his eyes stayed on her.
She shivered again. Standing beside a pool shouldn’t feel this dangerous. This wicked.
He sank down to his neck and pushed back, sending out a small wake. “I can make the water as warm as you like.”
If she didn’t move forward, she was going to turn and run. She willed herself to drop the towel, then forced her feet down the steps. She could do this. She could be this bold. The pool was like a bath. She kept going, sinking down until her hair floated around her. “It’s warm enough.”
Warmer toward Augustine. Like the heat was radiating off him, which she guessed it was. She didn’t know exactly how his power worked, but as skills went, this was a pretty good one.
He kept his distance, drifting about arm’s length from her. “Couldn’t sleep, huh?”
“No.” When he didn’t say anything, she filled the space with, “I had a nightmare.”
He nodded. “Those suck.” Then he moved a little closer, his brow furrowed. “You okay?”
She stayed put. “I’m fine. I’m not eight. I can deal with it.” She hoped.
He shrugged. “I had nightmares after your mom died that felt as real as anything.”
She dropped her gaze to the water’s surface. “It wasn’t about that. I don’t even remember it now, really.” Mostly true. Just the sense of that dark, threatening abyss remained.
“Cylo and Dulcinea should be back with your stuff today.”
He was less than a foot from her, his voice soft. Lally’s room was on the first floor, not that far away. She nodded, keeping her voice down, too. “I appreciate you sending them to Boston to clear out my apartment.”
His face went serious. “Not something you needed to be doing with Branzino unaccounted for.”
She backpedaled to lean against the pool wall and rest her head on the rounded edge. “I don’t want to talk about him.” Her biological father was a monster, not someone she wanted in her brain after that nightmare.
“Me either.” Augustine joined her at the wall, so close his shoulder almost kissed hers. The heat coming off him felt like a blast furnace. He pointed skyward, water dripping off his hand. “See those five stars forming that wide W shape? That’s Cassiopeia.”
“Who was she? Some Greek goddess, right?”
“Close. A Greek queen.”
“They’re very pretty.” She glanced over at him but his eyes were still on the sky. “How do you know about the stars?”
He turned toward her. “I like beautiful things.”
A dark light flickered in his eyes. Her insides knotted with rare, unused feelings. She faced him, gripping the pool’s edge with one hand while she pushed at him with the other. It was like trying to shove a stone wall out of the way. “Nice line, but I’m not falling for it.” He’d have to try a lot harder than that.
He inched closer. The steam rising off him left little droplets in her bangs. “It wasn’t a line. You’re beautiful.”
She swallowed, unsure how to respond. She didn’t have to. His mouth closed on hers, the kiss unexpected, but not entirely unwelcome. His hands slid up her arms, stopping below her shoulders. She leaned into him, into his warmth. Into the press of a mouth both soft and firm. The surge of emotion she expected never came. Had he figured out how to squelch her gift? Or maybe he’d found a way to control what came through him.
She kissed him back, pleased that for once the only emotions skin-on-skin contact made her feel were her own.
His fingers tightened on her arms and his mouth bore down on hers. The pressure became painful. She pulled back to end the kiss and failed. He forced his mouth against hers harder. Panic jolted down her spine. The water chilled. She opened her eyes and struggled to break away.
A shadow passed in front of the pool light, causing it to sputter.
Except it wasn’t a shadow. A crack had opened in the bottom of the pool. The blackness spilled out of it and spread toward her. The abyss had returned. She hit Augustine with her fists, but he didn’t budge. They were locked together. She screamed into his mouth. The abyss came closer as a great emptiness opened inside her.
Augustine was sucking the soul out of her, draining the light and spirit from her body. She could feel it leaving as the blackness reached her. The water lapped over her, climbing up her arms, covering her body, choking the breath from her—
She bolted upright, gasping for air, clutching handfuls of the sheet like they were a lifeline. She was still in bed. It was just another dream. But the pounding of her heart was very real. She panted open-mouthed to get enough oxygen into her lungs. Just a dream, she repeated. Just a dream.