Dark Awakening Read online

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  More Paranormal Romance by Patti O'Shea

  Dedication and Acknowledgements

  About Crimson City

  Crimson City Novella Excerpts

  Dark Awakening

  Copyright © 2007, 2011 by Patti O'Shea

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  Cover art © 2011 by Hot Damn Designs

  Prologue

  Augustin sneered at the human woman sleeping beside him. She was so much less than he deserved. He was Bak-Faru, the strongest and greatest of the demon branches—all should bow before him. Trailing a finger over her cheek, he imagined transforming it into a claw. It would be easy to shred her delicate skin, to cause exquisite agony, and his palm itched with the desire to tear into her flesh. But he could not. At least not yet. He breathed deeply until the urge passed.

  For the present, Augustin needed the human. There was a kijo in the city; he was powerful enough to have felt her presence, but had been unable to identify her. His bedmate, however, knew who the kijo was and had agreed to assist him—for a price. His contempt rushed back.

  He must remember the plan. Later he could kill this woman who would betray not only the kijo, but thought to break faith with him as well. He'd read her thoughts, discerned her scheme to use him to steal the kijo's powers for herself. Such would not happen. As soon as the traitor was expendable, she was dead.

  With another deep breath, he forced his fingers to relax. He needed the kijo and her magic. Immediately. None were yet aware that his strength had begun to wane, and although he still held power far beyond any other, he'd not be able to conceal his loss indefinitely. He had enemies, demons who would think nothing of ripping out his heart were they able to do so, and each eve he woke a shade less robust. Whether it was because the portal to Orcus had closed or some other reason, he knew not, but he had to act while he remained potent. Fate had chosen to side with him.

  One kijo was born every five or six centuries. That he should find her now was an omen, especially since she had only begun her lessons. He would be unable to take her magic if she were fully trained. Yes, fortune had smiled upon him. He leaned back against the pillows and linked his hands behind his head. Soon his powers would exceed anything even he had known, then he would rule the Overworld and all would serve him.

  The previous attempts by the Bak-Faru to take control of this realm had failed because of poor leadership. Most had been killed or banished. Augustin would not make their mistakes. Still, his efforts to organize the remaining demons had largely failed, and he had one servant—a weak Ciretham who'd enslaved himself in exchange for protection. If they were in Orcus he could bend stronger demons to his will, but it was not so easy here in the human world. Once he took the kijo's powers, however, and blended them with his own, few would have any choice save to obey.

  He had the spell committed to memory, but in order for it to extract her magic, he had to take the kijo's body by force. Augustin smiled. He preferred nonconsensual sex. In the two hundred years of his life, nothing had ever compared to the release he found as he ravished another—demon, human, werewolf, or vampire; it mattered not.

  The memories left him aroused. He shook the blond woman awake, pushed back the covers, and grabbed her hair to pull her to his erection. At first she resisted and his blood surged, but to his disappointment, she quickly complied. As she serviced him, Augustin fantasized about the kijo struggling against his domination. It didn't take him long to find release.

  Chapter One

  Kimi put the folder in its place and shut the cabinet drawer before grabbing the next file. She couldn't believe a big-time ad agency like Smith and Copeland didn't have all its old campaigns stored digitally. Paper was archaic, and besides, she was supposed to be interning as a copywriter, not a clerk.

  She knew why she'd been given this boring job—it was punishment for coming back late from lunch. Could she help it if Santos was having a huge shoe sale? Was it her fault they didn't have enough employees on duty? Of course not. But those black heels she'd tried on had done spectacular things for her legs and she wasn't leaving them behind to hurry back to work. Kimi went still and her lips curved as she imagined how Nic would stare when he saw her in a short, formfitting black dress and those pumps.

  Her smile faded, and huffing out a long breath, she yanked open the drawer. He probably wouldn't care what she wore. After all, he'd been avoiding her since shortly after they'd been introduced at Mika and Conor's wedding. That had been eight months ago and now Kimi didn't even know where Nic was—San Francisco? Or had he returned to the Underworld?

  With a scowl, she grabbed the next file. Of course, she hadn't realized when they'd met that he was a demon. Kimi hadn't even been aware at the time that Mika was half demon, and Mika was her cousin. Uncle David had been keeping one hell of a secret—Grandma Noguchi was still miffed about it.

  Not that Kimi blamed her; she was kind of irritated, too. For more than a year while her mom had been undergoing cancer treatment, she'd lived with Mika and Uncle David, and Kimi had never had a clue. The only one in the family who'd taken the news calmly was her dad, and Kimi couldn't help wondering if he'd been in on it. And she wondered if her dad knew something else. He'd been the one who'd arranged her internship at this firm. At the time her guess was that he'd done it because she'd changed her major three times and was waffling about her current choice—English. She'd believed he was trying to show her the job possibilities if she stuck with it, but now she questioned that. He was a big-shot in the San Francisco advertising community, so why had he pulled strings with a Los Angeles agency? That was something she planned to ask when she went home this weekend, and she wouldn't let him off the hook.

  When she'd met Eleanor Inaba, the president of Smith and Copeland, Kimi had learned that the agency was filled with human women who had powers—her boss called them majo, though she always referred to Kimi as kijo and refused to explain why. According to Grandma Noguchi, both words roughly translated to witch, but then her grandmother didn't speak Japanese any more than Kimi did.

  Kimi moved to the next set of filing cabinets. The three weeks she'd spent at this agency had been interesting. Despite the fact that her job so far consisted largely of getting coffee for people, Kimi decided she liked advertising. It was intense, fast-paced, involved creativity and she actually enjoyed coming to work. Mostly. If only things were that exciting with the magic end of the deal. Oh, sure, it was way cool to have powers awakening, but she wanted to actually use them. Her training so far consisted mostly of meditation, learning ethics and hearing about the history of the majo: they were children of the stars, they'd been persecuted throughout history and had subsequently gone underground; they believed, Harm none. Blah, blah, blah. Who cared?

  Kimi stuffed a folder in a drawer. She already did no harm. She even put spiders outside when she found them in her apartment instead of squishing them, and she loathed those things. Kimi was trying to be patient, but all these endless lessons seemed like a waste of time. Why couldn't she learn to use her magic now
instead of at some nebulous future date?

  Being the youngest of a boatload of Noguchi cousins wasn't easy. Everything she tried—both good and bad—had already been done more successfully by someone else in the family. Not this time, though. For once, she had something all her own. Kimi grinned. She was a kijo. This was something she intended to be really good at. She wouldn't do anything stupid like use her abilities to clean the apartment or interfere with others' free will. All she wanted was the chance to work with it, to feel her power.

  Her smile dimmed. Maybe once she could actually do magic, Nic would be interested in her. She didn't understand why he kept avoiding her. She'd been sure the attraction was mutual. There'd been something in his eyes as he'd taken her hand the night they'd met that made her heart start to thunder, that caused feelings she'd never known to awake, and she was certain he'd been flirting with her—until Uncle David came over and practically pushed Nic aside.

  Because she'd been away at Berkeley, she hadn't been able to see Nic often, but the few times she was home, she'd sought him out. He hadn't run from her in the beginning; in fact, there was one occasion where he'd spirited her away and Kimi had been certain he was going to kiss her—until Uncle David had shown up again and ruined the moment.

  She couldn't remember him interfering this way with Mika, his own daughter, and short of reading minds, there was no way her busybody uncle could know that Kimi had decided Nic was going to be her first lover. Yeah, she'd fooled around some with the boys she'd dated, but she always drew the line. She'd decided a long time ago that when she had sex, it was going to be with someone who meant something to her, someone she wanted so much, she couldn't say no. Nic got her that wound up, and considering he hadn't even kissed her yet, it had to mean that things were going to be explosive between them.

  Yet it was more than that. Their few conversations had left her intrigued. He was fun and fascinating and smart, and everything else she'd ever dreamed of finding in a man. That had made her more determined that he be the one.

  Maybe Nic had read her mind—she'd heard some demons could do that—and he'd begun avoiding her because he didn't want to waste time on a virgin. If she could find a way other than shouting it at his at his back as he fled from her, she would have told him she wasn't ignorant or skittish or shy. But the last time... Kimi rested her arms on top of the open drawer and grimaced. The last time she'd seen him, the message that Nic wanted her to stay away had been clear.

  It had been the day the family celebrated the marriage of Nic's mother to Uncle David. Mika had been elated that her parents were finally together, and she hadn't been able to talk about anything else for weeks, but Kimi hadn't thought she'd be able to attend the party because she had a test. Luckily—or unluckily, depending on how she looked at it—she'd made it. What had happened that evening was indelibly imprinted on her memory:

  She'd looked around the room, trying to find Nic. She'd seen him a moment before she'd offered Uncle David and her new aunt her best wishes, but then he disappeared. She frowned. He'd been avoiding her lately but— There he was!

  She tried to follow him out of the room, but Grandma Noguchi stopped her, and it seemed to take forever before her mom joined them and Kimi was able to excuse herself. Of course, she'd lost Nic by then, but Kimi wandered the way he'd been headed, hoping she could catch him. When she spotted the open game room door, she picked up her pace. Maybe he was shooting pool or something.

  "You promised me she wasn't going to be here!"

  Kimi came to an abrupt halt in the hallway outside the room. That was Nic's voice and he sounded angry.

  "She was supposed to stay at school; I wasn't lying," Mika replied.

  They were talking about her. Nic was pissed off that she had come home. Kimi twisted her fingers together, part of her wanting to walk away, another part wanting to hear what was said.

  "It doesn't matter. I'll have to leave." Nic was resigned now, and that was worse than him being mad.

  "Mom will be disappointed."

  "I know, but Kimi chases me, Mika. I've gone out of my way to avoid her and she's yet to get the message."

  Kimi felt as if someone had reached inside her chest and twisted her heart. His words hurt almost beyond bearing.

  "It's that Noguchi stubbornness." Kimi thought Mika sounded both amused and sad. "And she feels—"

  "I'm aware of what she feels, and that only makes it more difficult for me. You know what it's like for a demon, and I can only take so much."

  There was a long pause. "I'll explain your absence to Mom. She'll understand."

  Nic laughed. "No, she won't. You know how she is."

  "One hundred percent Mahsei," Mika agreed.

  Kimi realized Mika and Nic were headed for the door, and that shook her out of her paralysis. Moving as quietly as she could, she high-tailed it back down the corridor and away from them; the only thing that could make this night worse was getting caught eavesdropping and seeing the pity in their eyes.

  Nic had disappeared after that. Yet, Kimi was haunted by one thing he'd said. You know what it's like for a demon, and I can only take so much. Did that mean if she kept after him, he would cave in? Maybe she would put on that dress and her new shoes and summon Nic anyway; then she could find out what exactly he'd meant. She had the power to call demons forth, and she'd been practicing for months, long before she'd come to the agency; so, why not? What was the worst that could happen?

  Kimi immediately envisioned Nic laughing at her. She put away the final folder and slammed the drawer shut. The last thing she wanted was Nic rejecting her. She'd made it obvious she was attracted each time she'd seen him, and yet he stayed as far away as possible. And the vanishing act was an insult in itself. Everyone knew demons were free and easy when it came to sex. Nic apparently just wasn't with her.

  Kimi left the file room and worked her way out of the bowels of the office building. Her stride faltered, though, when she reached the dimly lit atrium. When had darkness fallen?

  Mika's warning about going out alone at night in Crimson City echoed through her head and Kimi shivered before she shook it off. Her cousin was overprotective, that was all, and it wasn't like Kimi was outside—she was in her office building. But it was summer, and for it to be this dark, it either had to be close to 9:00 p.m. or there had to be a total solar eclipse. Since the only astronomical event the news stations had been hyping was some sort of meteor shower, it had to be option one.

  How had she lost nearly eight hours?

  Her sleeveless black and white polka-dot dress suddenly seemed insubstantial, and Kimi wrapped her arms around her waist, trying to warm herself. "Hello?" She called.

  No answer.

  Maybe this was some type of test.

  Kimi took a few hesitant steps forward, the tap of her low heels sounding incredibly loud in the emptiness. If this was an evaluation, one of the majo could have affected her perception of how much time had passed while she'd been filing—they had that ability—but what would they want to test her on?

  The hair on her nape stood on end, and Kimi came to a halt. There was no reason to think something evil was lurking; any deserted office building this late at night would seem sinister. She reached for her comm before she remembered it was in her purse, damn it. She'd left that behind when she'd gone to file because someone had made a crack about her talking instead of working, but she wished she had it with her right now.

  Lowering her hands to her sides, Kimi ran through what her dad had taught her about self-defense and chose her best options for a few of the more likely scenarios. It didn't hurt to be prepared just in case this feeling of dread was more than her imagination getting the best of her.

  Illumination came from a few scattered emergency lights, and the deep shadows had her jumpy. She bit her lip. Anyone or anything could be concealed within them, and Kimi had to force her feet to move.

  "Get to your cubicle," Kimi told herself. "Get your purse, and call for security to escort y
ou to your car. Simple."

  Pulse pounding, she quickened her pace, wanting to get out of here. Later, she'd laugh over how silly she was being, but that would be when she was in her apartment and safe.

  Kimi was halfway across the atrium when someone stepped out of the dimness. She nearly shrieked before she recognized one of the agency's creative directors. "Brittany," she said, putting her hand over her racing heart. "You scared me."

  Brittany ignored her. Turning her head to address someone hidden in the darkness behind her, the woman asked, "Is she powerful enough for your needs, Augustin?"

  "Quite. She is exquisitely strong."

  The man's voice was a rich baritone, and it made him sound pleasant, even attractive, but it raised goose bumps on Kimi's arms and she backed up a step.

  "And as young as I promised," Brittany said.

  "Beautiful as well. I'll delight in and taking her body as much as I enjoy seizing her magic."

  He edged forward just far enough for Kimi to see his silhouette and she took another step back before she realized she couldn't run. She was only five and a half feet tall and this man towered over her by nearly a foot; if she attempted to flee, he'd catch her in a few strides. Fighting face-to-face gave her more options than being grabbed from the rear. Kimi shifted to balance her weight evenly.

  This couldn't be happening, though. She had to be misunderstanding what was going on. Had to be. Brittany was majo; she wouldn't sell Kimi out. "Brittany? What's the deal?"

  "The deal?" The woman finally looked at Kimi. "The deal, Kirstie, is that humans are falling behind, and that's only going to get worse as the alliance grows between the fangs and the dogs. I'm doing what I have to in order to ensure that I'm not among the losers."

  Kimi fisted her hands, then relaxed her grip. "Kimi. My name is Kim-mee," she enunciated clearly, wanting the older woman to know exactly whom she'd betrayed. "And your explanation doesn't really tell me a whole lot."