Twisted Fate: Of Love And Darkness Part 1

OF LOVE AND DARKNESS.

Twisted Fate Series.

TAMI LUND.

To Tami's Tarts .

the best street team a girl could ask for!.

Acknowledgements.

I am an incredibly lucky person in that I have a fantastic support network. Thank you to each and every one of my friends (and that includes family) for being just that. And an extra special thank you to the ones who swear up and down they love my books, and not just because they know the author. I'd also like to acknowledge my editor, Mary Harris. It was a pleasure working with her, and this book is as good as it is in large part due to her guidance.

Chapter 1.

There was a reason humans feared that which went b.u.mp in the night. Shadows in dark alleys, the rustling of dried leaves on an otherwise still night. Bas.e.m.e.nts and dark corridors.

Because the monsters were real.

Gavin Rowan knew this because he was one of the monsters.

Used to be. He used to be a Rakshasa like the rest of them. A shape-shifter who hunted humans for sport, hunted rare shifters called Chala because that was what his kind were born to do.

Now, thanks to a two-hundred-year-old curse, he hunted his own kind and protected the Chala. If there were even any Chala left to protect. The Rakshasa had done an impressive job over the course of the last millennia, and as far as Gavin had been able to tell, it was likely there were no more Chala to hunt or protect.

So he protected the humans instead. He'd made this area his turf, this urban landscape desperately in need of some sort of champion.

I don't want to be a champion.

Yet he knew he had no choice. The curse saw to that. Every day, he fought the battle in his head-the need to kill, to torment the humans against the need to protect them, and to destroy those who would otherwise torment them. He should have gone mad long ago but the one who cursed him had known what she was doing and she knew d.a.m.n well he would live forever with this internal torture.

So he persevered, because to go mad was to let her win and he would never, ever do that.

Tonight was a good night for his particular plight. There had been a gathering at the convention center, and humans were pouring into the streets, well after dark on a winter's evening. Gavin knew the Rakshasa were waiting, hiding in the shadows, ever ready. And the humans were so foolish, so hopelessly nave. They would walk in pairs and singles, and they would tell themselves the shadows weren't really moving, that the monsters did not really exist.

Gavin drained the last of the coffee in the cup and slipped from the booth. He stretched, pulled a ten out of his wallet, and dropped it onto the table. Silent as a cat, he left the diner and disappeared into the shadows. It was time to do what he did best.

It was time to hunt.

Chapter 2.

Sydney Amataya hated working conventions when they were located downtown. Especially by herself. She was a d.a.m.n good event planner and was even a decent salesperson. But when it came to directions, she was ten times lousy.

Getting here from the suburbs had taken two full hours, when the GPS said it should have only taken forty-five minutes. Yes, she'd even used a GPS and still had issues.

Then she parked her car on the street instead of in the attached parking garage. She told herself she was saving her employer twenty bucks. It always took them forever to reimburse her anyway.

When the convention was over, she packed up her tabletop display, piled her supplies onto a cart, and wheeled it down to the main lobby. She left it there to go in search of her car, with the intention of pulling it into the circle drive in front of the ma.s.sive convention center, loading her supplies, then heading home.

It felt like hours since she'd wandered outside on this quest for her vehicle.

She was lost. In downtown Detroit. Alone. With the sun quickly sinking behind the towering old buildings that felt as though they were pressing in on her. Shadows appeared quickly when one was surrounded by high-rises.

She was certain she had parked her car right here. Or maybe here? Or there?

Yep, she was lost. She threw her gloved hands into the air and blew out a frustrated sigh. Her breath came in a puff of white and then quickly dissipated.

Her stepbrother William was going to harangue her endlessly when she got home. If she got home. She couldn't even use her cell phone to call him to come rescue her, which would normally be her first choice-well, after she worked up the nerve to admit she was lost in the first place. She had stubbornness issues, and didn't like to admit when she was wrong.

But her phone was dead. She'd taken too many pictures and sent too many texts while at the convention, and the phone charger was, of course, in her car. Which she couldn't seem to find at the moment.

She dug the keys out of the pocket of her thick downy coat and began walking again, pushing the panic b.u.t.ton on the key fob, as she'd been doing for what felt like hours already. Her knockoff Uggs were ruined from walking in the dirty gray slush covering the sidewalks. A heavy, wet snow had fallen while she had been inside the convention center, and now the sidewalks were treacherous and sloppy. At least she could derive some comfort from the fact that she had chosen to buy thirty-dollar knockoffs instead of the two-hundred-dollar real thing. Plus, they were three years old, so she'd certainly gotten her use out of them.

Small comfort.

She stared down at said boots, forcing herself to admit that they truly were no longer salvageable, when the most peculiar feeling washed over her, so intense that she actually came to a stuttering halt and lifted her head, looking around sharply. She had wandered into an alley, she realized with a spike of fear.

I'm never coming downtown alone again.

Sydney tried to decipher the source of the sensation flooding her body, the sense of . . . awareness. Her nerve endings tingled. Her body was on fire. In the middle of January with temperatures in the teens, she was half-tempted to shed her coat and thick woolen sweater.

She unzipped her coat but the action did nothing to cool the strange feeling. Her body seemed to be warring with itself. Run. Stay. Run.

Run?

"You lost, little girl?" The drawling voice was deep and rusty, as if the owner had just rolled out of bed and had not yet had that first cup of strong, black coffee.

Sydney turned around to face the owner of that voice, and the person whose presence was setting her nerve endings on fire. How she knew he was the source of this strange feeling, she did not know. But it was he.

Knew it.

She wrapped her arms around her middle as she watched the man step out of the shadows of the building to her left, and into a pool of yellow light cast by the streetlamp at the mouth of the alley. He was tall and lean, had a swimmer's build. His shoulders were wide, his waist narrow, and she could see the outline of sharply cut muscle under his dark T-shirt. Mid-January in Detroit, and he wore nothing more than a T-shirt, well-fitted jeans and a thin black leather jacket. His spiky hair was inky black, his skin olive. His eyes, strangely enough, almost appeared to be . . . glowing.

Sydney blinked several times and cleared her throat before saying, "I was just on my way back to the convention center."

"From where, exactly?" The amus.e.m.e.nt in the man's voice irritated her and helped to tamp the fire in her nerve endings.

"None of your business." She deliberately turned away from him, praying he wasn't a rapist or murderer, since the closest thing she had to a weapon on her person were her car keys, and she doubted they would be much use against this guy.

"Lost little girls can get eaten in this area, you know."

An image of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf leaped into her head, and she firmly shook it to dislodge the unsettling picture. She was not helpless, she told herself. And this guy certainly wasn't a wolf.

Although he's way too s.e.xy to be human.

Where in the h.e.l.l did that thought come from? "I told you, I'm on my way to the convention center. I'm not lost."

The man lifted a sleek black brow in obvious disbelief. "The convention center is four blocks that way." He shoved his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the other end of the narrow alley Sydney had inadvertently walked into.

Well, at least she was headed in the right direction now.

She nearly groaned. Instead, she huffed out a sigh. "Okay, maybe I am a little lost. Thank you for pointing out the way. Now if you'll excuse me."

The man glanced up at the sky. "It's dark."

"I can see that," Sydney replied tartly.

With a frustrated noise, he said, "Come on. I'll give you a lift. Is your car parked at the convention center or are you meeting someone there?"

Sydney considered lying and telling him she was meeting someone. Someone with really big muscles. A hockey player. With a black belt. Just in case.

"I'm fine. I can get there on my own."

"No you can't," he said flatly. He took a step and as fast as Sydney could blink, he was at her side, his hand clamped around her elbow. And then he guided her toward the street. "We'll drive. It'll be safer."

"I realize Detroit has a poor reputation," Sydney complained. "But don't you think you're being a tad over the top? I mean, I managed to make it this far by myself. I'm sure I can walk four blocks back to the convention center."

She found herself standing next to a shiny, new, black Camaro. The man bent at the waist and opened the pa.s.senger-side door.

"That was sheer luck. And a human's luck quickly deteriorates when the sun sets. Get in."

"I'm not getting into a car with a perfect stranger." She crossed her arms and gave him an indignant glare.

The man thrust out his hand, inviting Sydney to shake it. "Gavin Rowan. Now get in."

He didn't wait for another argument. He shoved her into the car, slammed the door, and hurried around to the other side. He slid into the driver's seat, grabbed her arm as she started to open the door, and then pressed the locks. Sydney immediately aborted her attempt to climb out of the car and began earnestly digging around in her purse.

"What are you looking for?" Gavin asked as he cranked the engine and pressed the gas. The car slid away from the curb and the wheels spun urgently for a moment before finding their grip and rolling down the street.

"My phone. Here it is. d.a.m.n it, I forgot the battery's dead."

Sydney dropped the phone back into her purse and turned to face the man who was apparently kidnapping her. "I know karate. And I've taken a women's self-defense course."

"Good to know. Which garage?"

Sydney turned back to the window. True to his word, Gavin Rowan had driven her back to the convention center.

"Er . . . I didn't park in the garage. I parked on the street. It was cheaper," she said defensively when he slid her a look indicating he clearly questioned her intelligence.

He made a slow circuit of the convention center, as Sydney tried to find her car instead of stare at him. It was difficult to do. The man was d.a.m.n hot. Stripper hot. She wondered if that was what he did for a living.

"I'm pretty sure the car's going to be out there somewhere," Gavin commented as he nodded at the pa.s.senger-side window.

Embarra.s.sed that she'd been caught staring, Sydney abruptly turned and forced herself to watch out the window instead. "There it is."

Relief washed over her when he pulled up to the curb behind her sensible gold sedan. This strange sensation of being on fire was getting to her. She felt flushed and her breathing had become something more akin to panting. What the h.e.l.l was wrong with her? She'd been in the vicinity of good-looking guys before-although admittedly not often-so why was she acting like a groupie who had been given the privilege of meeting her favorite rock star face to face?

She fumbled for the door handle, desperate to get out of the car. Gavin reached over and clamped his hand onto her arm. She could feel the strength in his touch, even through the heavy layers of her coat and the sweater underneath.

"In case you haven't noticed, it's pitch black outside now."

"You sure are obsessed with the dark."

"You have no idea."

"Something wrong?" She realized she could feel the tension, radiating off him like a living thing.

Gavin rolled his shoulders as his gaze scanned the nearly deserted street. A traffic signal flashed yellow at the next block, a steady, pulsing rhythm, over and over again. "Just a feeling, that's all." He gave her a stern look. "I want you to get into your car, lock the doors, and immediately start the engine. Drive out of Detroit as quickly as you can. Do not stop for any reason until you are in your own driveway." His voice was like steel.

Sydney lifted her eyebrows. "I'm fine now, thank you. I'm not going to get molested in my car."

"Not if you get the h.e.l.l out of here in a hurry. You're from the burbs, aren't you?"

"If you're implying that I have a little more faith in humanity than you do, yes, I am," Sydney said stiffly. "Thank you for the ride. Have a nice life." She pushed open the door and slid out, tucking her coat around her so it did not drag on the slushy, oily ground.

She slid one last glance back at Gavin, but he was too busy scanning the surrounding area for rapists and murderers, apparently. He was certainly nice to look at, but his paranoia was over the top. Sydney told herself the renewed surge of tingles in her nerve endings when she stepped out of the car was relief to be done with the good-looking wack-job.

She slammed the car door and walked around the front end toward her own, far-less-flashy Impala. She felt another shiver of awareness, much less potent than the one that hit her just before she met Gavin, but it was enough to cause her to curse him under her breath. His stupid paranoia was starting to affect her. She was five paces from her car. Nothing bad was going to happen.

She finished that thought just as the animal attacked. It leaped out of a nearby alley, growling and displaying a mouthful of razor sharp, pink-tinged teeth.

Blood, Sydney thought dully. Its teeth were stained pink from blood. Her stomach roiled and she opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out. She was too terrified.

She couldn't even tell what kind of animal it was, precisely. It sort of looked like an oversized bullmastiff, although it was much larger than any dog she had ever seen before. Its fur was blue-black and matted, and its eyes appeared to be black. Three-inch claws sc.r.a.ped the cement under the slush, making muted fingernails-on-chalkboard sounds.

As the animal stalked toward her, its eyes began to glow.

Blinking, Sydney stumbled backward, away from the animal. But she was not imagining it. The dog's eyes were glowing. Glowing. Her mouth opened and closed, but still no sound came out.

The dog was suddenly tackled from the side by another animal, this one with thick, jet-black fur and a lean build. Sydney saw that Gavin's car was still parked behind her own, with the driver's side door hanging wide open. Gavin was nowhere to be seen.

Great. He's so chicken he just gets out of the car and makes a run for it.

Sydney turned with the intention of rushing to her car to climb inside and get the h.e.l.l out of this crazy place when she heard a gravelly voice shout, "Look out!"

It sounded like Gavin, but when she jerked her head around, all she saw were two dogs, and one of them was flying toward her. She shrieked and tried to move out of the way, but she wasn't fast enough. The animal's front claws caught her on the arm and she felt a searing pain, as her flesh was torn open from shoulder to elbow.