Masters of Seduction: Books 1-4: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 8

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  LARA ADRIAN is a New York Times and #1 internationally best-selling author, with nearly 4 million books in print worldwide and translations licensed to more than 20 countries. Her books regularly appear in the top spots of all the major bestseller lists including the New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, Indiebound, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, etc. Reviewers have called Lara’s books “addictively readable” (Chicago Tribune), “extraordinary” (Fresh Fiction), and “one of the best vampire series on the market” (Romantic Times).

  Writing as TINA ST. JOHN, her historical romances have won numerous awards including the National Readers Choice; Romantic Times Magazine Reviewer’s Choice; Booksellers Best; and many others. She was twice named a Finalist in Romance Writers of America’s RITA Awards, for Best Historical Romance (White Lion’s Lady) and Best Paranormal Romance (Heart of the Hunter). More recently, the German translation of Heart of the Hunter debuted on Der Spiegel bestseller list

  .

  With an ancestry stretching back to the Mayflower and the court of King Henry VIII, the author lives with her husband in New England.

  Visit the author’s website and sign up for new release announcements at

  www.LaraAdrian.com

  SOULLESS

  House of Romerac

  Donna Grant

  CHAPTER ONE

  The wails and screams of the damned stuck in the Oubliette were mixed with the laughter of their tormentors. All of it was a constant reminder that Canaan would never be free of the supernatural prison to exact his revenge on the ones who had betrayed him.

  He didn’t know how long he had been in the Oubliette or exactly why he had been deceived by his brothers.

  “You’re weakening, Canaan. I can see it.”

  He hid his grimace and let his gaze slide from the row of cells and the prisoners within to the Warden—a female so hideously ugly in her beastly visage that few could gaze upon her.

  Canaan looked long enough to see her leathery bat-like wings tucked, her long tail still, and her claws hanging by her sides. It wasn’t even her crimson-colored skin that made people gag. It was the snakes sliding over her skin and the smell of sulfur. Not to mention the blinding white light coming from her eyes that made it impossible to look directly at her.

  Muriel was right. He was weakening, but then again any Incubus would when they held off sexual pleasure. It wasn’t that Muriel didn’t have beautiful women for him to choose from. There was something else preventing him from feeding.

  “I’m fine,” he stated in a firm voice.

  Muriel’s laugh was deep and almost seductive, if it wasn’t for the forked tongue that licked at her lips. “You can’t fool me, Incubus. How many times did I bring you to the brink of death only to pull you back with a small measure of sex with human slaves within my walls? Too many to count. And you know it.”

  Canaan faced her, forcing himself to look into her grotesque face—but not her eyes. “You think I don’t remember the torture?”

  “I think you’re still looking for a way out. There isn’t one.”

  He didn’t understand how Muriel always seemed to know the thoughts of those within the Oubliette, but she hadn’t been wrong once. It was a fact that he did look for a way out.

  His first step had been giving up his soul to her. It had been surprisingly painless. Or perhaps he had suffered for so long that he no longer recognized pain.

  By freely giving his soul, he went from being tortured to doling out torture to others. As a sex demon, his goal was pleasure, not pain. Oddly, he didn’t think twice about it.

  “You’ll never leave this place,” Muriel said again.

  Canaan glanced over her shoulder to the wall lined with shelves. Upon those shelves were clear jars that held the souls she collected. Each soul was a different color, depending on the creature or demon.

  He knew exactly what color his soul was — red. There were more than a dozen red jars upon the shelves. If only he knew which was his.

  “I know,” he said. “I’m here forever.”

  She limped around her room, her claw feet loud upon the stones. “You were Master of your House. The Romeracs are a powerful Incubus family. You’ll be happy to know they remain so with Teman at the helm.”

  Canaan inwardly seethed, careful to keep any emotion from showing. He still couldn’t believe Teman and Levi had turned against him. After their father’s death it had just been the three of them.

  They had been strong together. What had torn them apart?

  “That’s good to know.” Canaan turned from Muriel and looked at the table of torture instruments for him to choose from. He was set to punish a Alp demon who gave nightmares to humans.

  “The sooner you let go of your old life, the sooner you will make a home here,” Muriel said from right behind him.

  She moved slowly, loudly. And yet she had managed to sneak up close behind him without Canaan even knowing. There was obviously more to Muriel than he realized.

  He turned his head so that he could see her out of the corner of his eye. “I wouldn’t have given you my soul if I wasn’t prepared to make this my home.”

  “Just what I wanted to hear.” She began to walk away before she paused and said, “Oh, and don’t forget to visit the humans.”

  “I don’t like to have sex with the same woman more than once.”

  “Of course,” Muriel murmured. “I forgot. But I thought you Incubi were only hindered from sex with the same female when it pertained to the Nephilim.”

  Canaan chose a long curved blade and vise-like clamps as his weapons before he turned to Muriel. “Incubi don’t have sex with the same female—human or Nephilim—more than once as a precaution. If the Nephilim can become immortal after repeated mating with an Incubus, what’s to say that a human can’t as well?”

  “The angel blood coursing through the Nephilim veins,” Muriel stated flatly.

  From the first moment he had been cast into the Oubliette, Muriel had been hounding him for information about the Incubi. He had refused at first, but it hadn’t taken him long to think that Muriel knew more than she let on.

  “Why are you so interested in the Incubi?”

  She waved a clawed hand. “I’m curious about all the creatures I oversee.”

  Canaan wasn’t a fool. She was more than merely curious about his race, the Nephilim, and the humans. The why of it he had yet to discern. But he would.

  He had eternity stretching before him.

  With his tools in hand, he walked from the room down the endlessly long corridor to his awaiting target. Inside was a demon who sported thick horns coming out of the side of his skull, flaxen hair, and dark gray skin. As soon as Canaan neared the cell, the iron bars became transparent, allowing him inside.

  “It’s time,” he said to the Alp demon.

  The male jerked at the chains latched around his wrists and holding him upright with his arms outstretched against the stone wall. “I know who you are.”

  Canaan paused. This was a different tactic. Usually his prey begged, crying and pleading, for him to hold off or go easy.

  This was his first time torturing an Alp demon, who were known for their deceit and duplicity. And yet there was something in the demon’s eyes that gave him pause.

  “Who am I?” Canaan asked.

  “Canaan Romerac, Master of the House of Romerac, an Incubus with incredible strength and the ability to shake the world.”

  He could only stare at the demon, unsure if it was a trick or not. “I’ve never met you, and the Alp demons have no connection to the Incubi. How do you know me?”

  “I’ll explain everything after we escape.”

  Canaan should have known. “There is no escape from the Oubliette. Every creature knows this.”

  “But there is,” the demon insisted in a soft tone. He jerked on the chains again and pressed his lips together. “Look, the prison constantly moves, right?”

  “Right,” Canaa
n agreed in a bored tone.

  “But there are only a handful who know when the walls between this prison and the outside world are so thin you could walk through them. Thereby escaping.”

  It was too good to be true. Of all the tales he had heard of the infamous supernatural prison, not one prisoner had escaped. Ever.

  “Your lying.”

  The demon shook his head viciously back and forth. “I’m not. You need to believe me, because it won’t last long. Just a few minutes.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “Because I know who betrayed you.”

  Canaan leaned a shoulder against the wall next to him and narrowed his gaze on the demon before him. “So do I.”

  “You only know some of what happened. I know all of it, Canaan.”

  He slowly straightened, his grip tightening on the instruments he was ready to use to torture the demon. “Tell me.”

  “After we escape.”

  Canaan took a step toward the demon and lifted the blade. “You’ll tell me now.”

  “If I tell you now, you won’t take me with you.”

  “If you don’t tell me,” he said and closed the distance between them, “you’ll feel how persuasive I can be.”

  The demon visibly swallowed, his gaze on the weapon. “The idea to toss you in here wasn’t your brothers’. It came from higher up.”

  “The Council?” he asked in confusion. “Why would the other Incubi Houses want me out of the picture? The House of Romerac is still strong.”

  The demon was shaking his head well into the middle of Canaan’s words. “Higher, Canaan.”

  The only thing higher was the Obsidian Throne. To have the Throne was to have the greatest power on Earth. For the Sovereign controlled the gates to Heaven and Hell.

  “Yes,” the demon said. “Now you understand.”

  Canaan might understand who had betrayed him, but he couldn’t fathom why. “How do you know all of this?”

  “I was part of it,” the demon admitted after a brief hesitation.

  Fury, dark and thick, rose within Canaan. The pommel of the dagger shattered in his hand and the ground rumbled.

  “If you kill me now, you’ll never learn the rest,” the demon hastily added.

  It took Canaan all of his considerable control to pull back his rage. As he did, the shaking walls halted.

  The demon let out a long sigh. “I was put down here because I know too much. No one realizes that you’re no longer being tortured and are now doling it out. The Sovereign would never have sent me here if he thought we might talk.”

  “Why did he target me?”

  “I told you. You’re strong, Canaan. With merely a thought you can start an earthquake or erupt a volcano somewhere in the world. The Sovereign’s time is coming to an end, and your name was at the top of the list to take his place.”

  Canaan was as surprised as when he was dragged from his bed in the middle of the night and tossed into the Oubliette. Every House’s Master in the Incubi world was powerful.

  And every House wanted to have the Throne.

  “My brothers are as strong as I,” he told the demon. “The Sovereign gained nothing in putting me here.”

  The demon wouldn’t quite meet his gaze. There was a stretch of silence before he let out a long sigh and said, “Teman has agreed to change your House name from Romerac to Marakel.”

  Canaan felt as if he had been sucker punched. It was worse than the betrayal to him. This was a betrayal to the entire House of Romerac. “The Sovereign has no family, no heirs. His House will die with him, but with Teman’s agreement, it’s my House that will die out and the House of Marakel will live on.”

  “Now you’re getting the big picture.”

  “There’s more.”

  The demon smiled slyly. “Isn’t there always?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Once you get us out.”

  Canaan slowly walked the length of the cell while covertly looking around. Across the way, Canaan watched as some white-skinned creature sat huddled in the corner with its back to them, talking to itself. On either side of it were demons who were chained and lost within their minds.

  Whether anyone heard anything, Canaan couldn’t be sure. The stone side and back walls gave the prisoners some privacy, but sound carried well in the jail.

  Canaan wished the demon had been put in the lower dungeons where he had been. There, a select few were kept isolated from everyone except their torturers.

  “Canaan?” the demon urged in a whisper. “What do you say? Shall we break out and take revenge?”

  He swung his head to the demon. “You were part of what put me here. What revenge do you have?”

  “I can help you get close to the Sovereign.”

  Canaan refused to put all his hopes on a demon who helped betray him. He would do it on his own, as well as take back his rightful place as the Master of House Romerac.

  “Where is the wall the thinnest?”

  “I can show you,” the demon said.

  Canaan didn’t waste another minute. He walked to the demon and gripped the chains. Just like the entrance to the cells, the chains recognized him as a torturer and released the demon.

  When the demon’s arms dropped, Canaan grabbed him by the back of the neck and kicked him behind the knees, sending the demon on all fours. In an instant, Canaan had the demon’s arms behind his back and chained.

  “So you betray me now?”

  Canaan jerked him to his feet and pushed him out of the cell. “I promised you nothing.”

  “It’s been nearly five hundred years since you were dumped in the Oubliette. Many things have changed in the world.”

  Canaan sincerely hoped so, because he planned to use everything and everyone to his advantage in his quest.

  “Where is the wall the thinnest?” he asked a second time.

  “At the top on the left hand side.”

  That was Muriel’s office, but even that didn’t stop Canaan. He had found a way out. And he was getting out, one way or another.

  By the time they reached the top of the prison, Canaan wished he had taken a moment to feed off a human. He was weakening, and he needed his strength. Once he was back on Earth, he could have his choice of women.

  The Alp demon hadn’t shut up since they had left his cell. Canaan wished he had something to stuff in his mouth. He was tired of hearing about all the ways the demon could be useful.

  Yet in that short walk, Canaan learned about cell phones, cars, planes, and trains. He wouldn’t walk into the world completely ignorant of its changes.

  “Canaan,” Muriel said when he walked into her office. She rose awkwardly from her chair and looked from him to the demon he pushed in front of him. “What’s going on?”

  “There,” the demon said and pointed to the wall on Canaan’s left.

  The more Canaan looked at it, the more it seemed that something was off with the stones, as if someone had painted over them with a color that didn’t quite match their darkness.

  “What is the meaning of this, Canaan?” Muriel demanded.

  Canaan swung his gaze to her. “I’m leaving.”

  “Leaving?” Even with her grotesque features he could tell she frowned, her confusion evident. She slammed her tail down. “How do you propose to do that?”

  “I’m going to walk through those walls.”

  He had taken but three steps, the demon pulling him toward the wall. Canaan couldn’t believe he was about to be free. Suddenly, the Alp demon let out a startled cry and fell face forward with a large dagger protruding from his back.

  Canaan whirled around to find one of the guards—a goblin—with a dagger in hand. Canaan bent to grab the dagger from the Alp demon’s back the same instant he slammed his fist upon the ground.

  The walls began to shake, causing the goblin to lose his balance. Just as Canaan was about to make a run for the wall, he was knocked off his feet by something hard slamming into his side.

/>   He rolled nimbly and hit the ground again. Large stones began to fall from the ceiling. One landed between him and Muriel as she was about to attack again.

  “You’re dumber than I thought if you think you can escape this place,” Muriel said over the rumbling of the Oubliette. “You’ll be back.”

  Canaan knew he should probably kill her, but he didn’t want to waste the time and chance not getting out. Instead, he darted to the wall and dove through.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The silence that assaulted Canaan was deafening. Gone were the screams and moans that he had become accustomed to in the Oubliette.

  He was down on the balls of his feet, his legs bent, his fingers upon the ground, with his head lowered. Darkness surrounded him, but it wasn’t oppressive and crushing. This darkness was...soothing. Peaceful.

  Comforting.

  Canaan moved his hand and felt grass beneath his fingers that had him remaining in his current position. Grass. He couldn’t remember the last time he had touched it, felt it. Smelled it. He drew in a deep breath, inhaling the rich, moist air. There was a hint of coolness in the air, a signal that fall would soon arrive.

  Canaan slowly straightened and lifted his head to look around. He was deep in the middle of the woods, the trees standing like silent sentries. Unable to stop himself, he glanced behind him and saw the very air ripple between two trees. Within the ripple he caught a glimpse of Muriel standing in her office, her gaze angry and narrowed.

  He was more than surprised that she didn’t come for him or send her army after him immediately. No doubt he would be hunted soon enough.

  Not that it mattered. He had some hunting of his own to do.

  Canaan sniffed the air and caught the unmistakable scent of females. His body instantly came alive, desire pounding through him. He needed to feed, to feel pleasure and replenish his strength before he could begin his retaliation.

  It wasn’t long before he stepped out of the woods and found himself on a road, but it was unlike any road he had ever seen. It was hard and dark with bright yellow lines painted on it.