Darkness & Lies: A Brotherhood Novel (#1) (11 page)

Throwing herself back on the bed, she stared up at the ceiling picturing those long, lean muscles, that tapered waste, and thick biceps that could probably crush bones but that held her gently as if she were something to be trea
s
ured.

Remembering the moment she had first made eye contact with him made her stomach do nervous
flips,
and the way his long black hair framed his roguishly handsome face made her so weak in the
knees,
she was sure she’d
have
fall
en
had she been
standing, but
the one thing she regre
t
ted was that she hadn’t even gotten his
name.

The room seemed so unbearably empty all of a su
d
den. Closing her tired eyes, she replayed their encounters in her mind’s eye, recreating every nuance of his perfectly sculpted face and body, and when she came to that ru
m
bling voice with that wonderfully lilting accent, she jolted upright, panting at the shock and horror of her discovery.

It was him! The man from the mountain, he had found
her,
and now he was out to get
her. 
 

Chapter 8

She didn’t sleep a wink the night before. Stumbling her way down the stone staircase, Cheyenne held close to the
wall,
so she could catch herself should she fall. Her mother had always taught her how to make
an
entrance, but rolling down a flight of stairs and crash landing on her rear in front of a room full of people was not how she wanted to do
it.

Glad to see her friends, sans one, gathered at a nearby table sipping at their mugs and enjoying a healthy breakfast, Cheyenne joined them.

“Hey
,
sleeping beauty, you look like hell warmed over,” Cathy teased, nudging her with her elbow.

Cheyenne quirked a half-
hearted smile and reached across the table for a bagel. Spreading a healthy amount of cream cheese over it
,
she shrugged. “I didn’t sleep much last night.”

“Aw, how come, sweetie?” Hadley asked, concern written all over her round face.

“I don’t know, maybe I’m coming down with som
e
thing.”

From the far end of the table, Sebastian looked up from his plate of pancakes and stabbed his fork in her d
i
rection. “I bet I know what your problem is.”

After a moment
,
Cheyenne prompted him. “Go on…”

“Well,” he started, “more
than likely it was an e
lf.”

Everyone stared at him in disbelief, waiting for a punch line. When there wasn’t one, Harold laughed aloud. “Bas, seriously, lay of the ganja.”

“I haven’t smoked any in almost
…” He checked his watch. “Twenty-
four hours. Besides, that has nothing to do with it,” he defended. 

“Oh
,
really,” Tim
challenged. “Then explain this e
lf
theory,
why don’t ya.”

“Okay, peep this.
” Sebastian used his hands to punctuate his words. “Icelandic folklore says that there
are
all kinds of crazy shit going on in these parts. You name it, ghosts, trolls, Grylas,
elves
, they have it all. Thing is
,
these elves, they’re rumored to roam around day or night, blen
d
ing in with their surroundings.”

“Like chameleons?” Tabitha asked
, totally sucked into his story
.

“No.” H
e scrunched his nose
as if the very sugge
s
tion was offensive
. “I mean like shape shifters. They can
be,
like, invisible
,
or not.”

“Wait, I’m not following here,” Cheyenne inte
r
rupted. “What do you mean by shape shifters?”

He flashed her a brillia
nt smile. “I’m glad you asked.
Apparently,
they can look just like any one of us, wear the same clothes, everything. They’re supposed to be wicked hot, too.” He stuffed a wedge of pancake into his mouth. “Or,” he said
,
talking around a mouthful of food, “they can be super hideous too. And short.”

“And in these parts, we don’t speak of the We
e
Ones.” The group looked up at once to see Ranga standing at the head of their table
,
casting penetrating glares at each of them.
“Our people say they are the gods of the h
eavens
,
capable of great generosity and great vengeance. To anger them means
death,
and we do not take kindly to those who wish to disturb their peace.”

“It’s alright
, Ranga.
” Kris smiled up
at him. “We don’t mean any harm.
Sebastian’s a bit of a history buff and was just relaying some information he read about before we came here. If it’s any consolation, it won’t come up again.”

With a curt nod, Ranga turned, ready to leave when Cheyenne grabbed hold of his arm and jerked him back to her. She met the warning flashing in his
coal-black eyes
and gulped before gently
removing her vice-like
grip.

From across the room, seated at the far end of the bar, Erias sat nestled into the shadows nursing his beer while keeping his sights set on the beautiful brunette and her group of worshipers. Even from this distance he could see that the males of the group had it bad for her. And for some peculiar reason he couldn’t quite
explain that
really got his boxers in a bunch. Well, it would if he wore them
anyway.

Last night had been a series of mishaps and unfo
r
tunate events created by one hell of a convoluted plan and several hours of pent up sexual frustration.

He should have controlled himself and stayed in bed. He knew the woman was a trigger from the moment he laid eyes on her willowy body made of pure silk and
a promise
of pleasure he was sure would make his toes curl and his eyes roll into the back of his skull just from sa
m
pling of its utter
perfection.

Looking at her now, he had the perfect view of her derriere snuggled into a tight pair of form fit
ting jeans. Her wavy
Auburn
hair was pulled back into a sloppy pony tail that only succeeded in making her look sweeter. Her
face,
however, was a mask of sleep
deprived shadows and her round
doe eyes conveyed pure desperation as she peered up at the tavern owner,
Ranga.

More than a little curious, the need to keep his ide
n
tity and reason for being there
secret, Erias did something he always thought was reserved for the female persuasion: he eavesdropped.

She cleared her throat and shifted nervously in her seat. “Um, Ranga, I need to ask a question of you.” She waited for the slight tip of his head that indicated i
t was safe for her to continue.
“This might sound a little weird, but there was this man in my room last night
—”

“A man?” Cathy asked excitedly. “Was he hot?”

Cheyenne shot her an annoyed look before contin
u
ing her story. “Anyway, he sa
id that you set it up because
there wasn’t another room available.” The frown on his face ma
de her eager to tell him more.
“I’m still not sure how it is that I paid good money for my own room only to end up sharing it with a perfect
stranger, but
the real issue is what happened once he was there.”

Feeling a little uncomfortable, Cheyenne glanced around at her friends realizing that everyone at the table had stopped eating and was now listening intently to her conversation. She looked up at
Kris,
who was seated across the table from her. He offered her an encouraging
smile.

Taking a deep breath, she summoned the courage to go on. “I got up in the middle of the night to take a shower and, well, the next thing I knew…” She couldn’t do it. The words that had been swimming through her head for the last several hours like flesh eating piranhas taking
little chomps out of her psyche
, had lodged in her throat threa
t
ening to choke her.

Swallowing convulsively and gasping for breath, Cheyenne reached for her glass of water
,
only to find it a
l
ready pressed to her lips. The cool liquid ran over her lips and filled her mouth. She swallowed it, grateful for every drop
,
then looked up to meet Kris’s panic stricken face.

“It’s okay. I’m better now,” she assured him. “Thanks for the water.”

He gave her a stern frown. “It’s not
okay,
Chy. Y
just had a panic attack because of what that monster tried to do to
you!”

“Nothing hap
—”

“If you finish that
sentence,
I am
personally
going to ring your neck,” he growled. Then
,
looking up at Ranga
,
he snarled, “Whoever that man was you sent to her room tried to rape her last night! And now he’s gone. For all we know he could be lurking around her
e,
waiting for the o
p
portun
i
ty to finish what he started.”

Ranga’s look of anger was impressive but didn’t hold a candle to Kris’s. Even more, the puzzled expression lurking behind the rage of being snapped at caught Che
y
enne’s attention. The man looked as if he had no idea what they were talking about.

Just as he went to open his mouth, a blank look stole over him and for several
moments,
silence enveloped the table, everyone waiting for his
explanation.

In a very monotone voice, Ranga turned his atte
n
tion to Cheyenne and addressed her directly. “I am sorry for any inconvenience you may have been caused. Your bill will be
credited,
and the problem will be dealt with accor
d
ingly. On behalf of everyone at this establishment, please accept our apologies. Breakfast is on the house. Enjoy your meal.” And with that, Ranga turned on his
heel
and stalked off, quickly blending into the
crowd.

Talk was kept to a minimum after that, everyone choosing their words with care, afraid to bring up anything that might offend her or call the attention of the locals to them. Cheyenne sipped at her coffee pondering Ranga’s odd behavior and Se
bastian’s words.
This whole trip was turning into one hell of a crazy ride.

Still, she couldn’t help but wonder where that man had disappeared to. Feeling like someone was watching her; she cast her sights
in
to the crowd.

It was a narrow miss, but he had escaped all the same.
Just call me Houdini
. Sipping at the foam of the fresh lager, Erias kept a watchful eye on her.

He felt a little bad about having to pull a Darth Vader on her and choke her out with his evil Jedi mind tricks, but what choice did he have? He was not some kind of serial
rapist,
and he would never allow a woman to use that term and his name or likeness in the same sentence. Shit,
not
once in his life had he ever had to take what he wanted from a woman. They all but threw it at
him.

It was bad enough trying to get through a mission with all his fingers and toes intact, but having to cover his ass in twenty directions had a way of taxing him to death. He wasn’t a
natural-born  liar,
and he never would be. That was just plain fact. Which was why he always found hi
m
self wiping minds and choking people out to keep their mouths
shut.

It wasn’t like he enjoyed doing it either. It drained the hell out of him and left him physically weakened for days afterward
,
depending on how often he did it.

Slapping a twenty on the counter, Erias drained the last of the mugs’ contents and made his way through
the milling bodies to the check
-in counter.