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www.TheClannSeries.com
Also by Melissa Darnell...
The Midnight Girls Series
A steamy New Adult/College series of paranormal romances with heat
Midnight Girls Series 1: Scent of Evil
Brianna’s a good girl.
Or at least she was, until evil crashed through her life, leaving her changed forever and forcing her to give up the people and things she loves the most.
Now Brianna wants nothing more than to successfully walk the gray line between good and bad by necessity. But then a boss’s attempted blackmail turns to tragedy, leaving her responsible for a bar full of employees counting on her to save their failing business.
For everyone’s sake, she needs to stay focused and in control of herself now more than ever. Falling in love is not a distraction she can afford.
Too bad Steven Daniels appeals to both the light and dark sides currently at war within her.
When both his blood and his love call out to her, tempting her at every turn, will Brianna find a way to hold onto the girl she once was and resist temptation? Or will Steven be the final push that drives her to cross that line into darkness?
Midnight Girls Series 2: Scent of Revenge
Morgan Fremont has to find a job fast. She’s heard how much the Midnight Dream Girl dancers make each week just by dancing fully clothed on top of the bar at the Midnight Saloon. When Morgan performs her impromptu “job interview” performance for the entire bar, she attracts a lot more attention than just saloon’s fun loving patrons.
Will Morgan get more than she can handle if she becomes the newest MDG? Can she resist the determined seduction of Jonathan Dexter, a man who, like her, has secrets that drive him relentlessly through life? And who is the mysterious lover in her dreams?
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Chapter 1 from Midnight Girls Series 1: Scent of Evil
The emergency workers tried everything they could to bring Brianna Cochoran’s boss back to life. But the former owner of the Midnight Saloon was too far gone.
And it was all her fault.
Numb with horror, Brianna watched the ambulance crew write down the time of death then carefully load John McCannon onto a gurney and then into the ambulance. As the van drove away, lighting up the city streets with silently revolving red and blue lights, she ran a shaking hand through her thick red hair.
How could this have happened? It was supposed to have been so easy. Just one thing left to do, and then the deal would have been completed and everyone could have walked away from the exchange happy they’d gotten what they’d wanted.
Instead, she had just become a murderer.
No, it wasn’t my fault! she silently told herself over and over.
But no matter how many times she thought those words, they still felt like a lie.
“Miss Cochoran, tell me again how your boss died,” the detective asked half an hour later, his beady gaze drilling into her. In contrast, his voice sounded almost bored, as if this were simply routine. Maybe it was. Or maybe that was how he lulled witnesses into relaxing and tripping themselves up.
Brianna dragged in a ragged breath, then let it out slowly to steady her nerves and rein in her emotions. A crazy part of her wanted to blurt out the whole story and let this cop lock her up in an insane asylum afterwards. Which he would definitely do, because everyone knew monsters like her didn’t really exist.
Or at least they weren’t supposed to.
She bit her lower lip and imagined asking him, “Do you believe in vampires?”
Yeah, like that would go over real well.
She sighed. Obviously she couldn’t tell him the truth, at least not all of it. Not unless she wanted to get locked up somewhere others would eventually notice her inability to get sick or age. Or her strange needs.
But what could she tell him? If she tried to lie, he would probably be able to tell. She was a crappy liar and always had been.
So she took a deep breath and opted for staying as close to the truth as she could. “I came in for my shift early because John and I needed to talk.”
“About?”
Oh how about the small matter of John’s being a blackmailer? that crazy part of her wanted to blurt out.
“About this place.” There, that was the truth. Sort of.
The detective’s eyebrows rose. “What about it?”
What to say, what to say? Her mind raced through the truth, finally leaping onto another safe part of it to share. “We needed to discuss how to tell the employees that I just bought this bar.”
He went completely still for a few seconds, then made a note on his small notepad.
She tried not to cringe, wishing they weren’t seated at opposite sides of one of the bar’s round tables so she could see what he’d just written down. Was it good or bad?
“You were saying you just bought this bar from your boss?” He looked at her again, eyebrows raised in silent question.
She licked her lips and forged on. “Yeah. John was looking to retire. And I’ve always wanted to own my own business. So I offered to buy this place from him with my savings.”
That was all true. Sort of. Maybe John hadn’t exactly been looking to retire at first, but he’d definitely seemed happy to accept her offer for the bar when she insisted on his selling it to her at a price she could afford in exchange for meeting his demands. And she had always wanted to own her own business. It was why she was now in her third year of courses towards getting her business management degree at the local university. Though in her fantasies, she had pictured herself owning a dance studio someday instead of a place for people to come get drunk and rowdy at.
Still, taking over the bar so she could safely keep her job without having to constantly watch her back or kill John for that safety had seemed a great solution at the time.
Now...not so much.
“I see,” the detective said slowly. “Why weren’t the employees already aware of this business exchange?”
“I was worried they might not want to stick around and work for a girl who’s still in college, and then that might make John change his mind about selling to me. I figured if we waited till it was all a done deal, then they might be more willing to stay and give me a chance as their new boss.” All too true.
“You do seem pretty young to be taking over a bar.”
She shrugged one shoulder. “I’m old enough for it to be legal. Just got my liquor license approved today.” Thanks to John’s connections fast tracking the process for them.
The detective frowned. “So you show up to discuss all of this with Mr. McCannon and then...?”
“He was all right at first. But then he fell off the barstool onto the floor, gasping and turning purple as if he couldn’t breathe. So I tried to do CPR on him, but...” She shrugged once more, letting him fill in the blanks.
Again, it was all true.
It just wasn’t the whole truth.
“Were you previously aware of his health issues?”
No need to lie here either, or even fake her emotions. She was genuinely shocked and let it show now. “No, not at all. He seemed fine. Never missed a day of business, never mentioned going to a doctor or feeling bad.” In fact, he’d seemed the last person on earth to need to be turned by a vamp, which was why his attempt to blackmail her had come as such a surprise. The old cuss had given the impression that he was mean enough to live forever out of sheer spite.
But he must have known he had a bad heart. Why else would he be so determined to gain immortality from her?
The detective made a note on his notepad then stared at her for a long moment, and she wondered what he saw. Probably a scared little girl, at least on the outside. But did he also see the darkness deep inside her just waiting for her to lose control over it? Could some ancient human instinct within him sense how dangerous she really was to any human who came too close to her at the wrong time?
She focused on taking slow, even breaths as he continued t
o stare.
Finally he made a few last notes then flipped his notepad shut. “Okay, that’s all for now, Miss Cochoran. We’ve got your home address and phone number if we need to ask any more questions. Unless there’s anything else you want to tell us now?”
You mean like how this is all because John caught me vamping out while taking care of that would-be rapist in the saloon’s parking lot a few weeks ago? that hysterical part of her wanted to say.
She had thought John would turn out to be the secretly kind old man type who would accept what she was and then help her get rid of the rapist’s body. Instead, her boss had become an even bigger problem for her by demanding she turn him into a vamp too or else he’d tell everyone what she’d done to her so-called “victim”.
She could have been just as bad as John and simply killed him to shut him up, or at least threatened to. But no, she just had to try and be the bigger person in the situation by countering his demands with an offer of her own...keep your lips zipped, sell the Midnight Saloon to me at a price I can afford, and I’ll give you all the immortality you could ever want.
And then John had gone and died on her anyway, even after weeks of all their careful preparations, right before she was about to give him what he wanted.
She realized the detective was still staring at her, waiting for an answer.
Did she want to tell him anything else?
Oh mister. If you only knew the real story...
She pressed her lips together to hold in the wild laughter trying its best to bubble up inside and shook her head.
“Okay, we’ll let you know if we have any further questions down the road.”
She nodded, holding in her sigh of relief until after he had walked away. Once he was gone, she dropped her head into her hands.
Holy crap, that was a close one.
Her story shouldn’t blow up in her face later, though. She’d stayed close to the truth, only leaving out the few details no cop would have believed anyway. Let them dig into the paperwork all they wanted. The Midnight Saloon was legally and rightfully hers now, and had been even before John’s heart gave out tonight. The notarized title transfer said so. And though John’s death had scared her nearly senseless and the timing of it wasn’t great, it could have been worse...his heart could have given out after she bit him and left fang marks that would raise a lot of questions.
Right now, all anyone should see was an older man who should have taken better care of his health.
She went home and took a long shower, trying to wash off the invisible filth she felt coating her skin. But she couldn’t seem to get clean no matter how hard she tried. And afterwards when she stared at her reflection in the mirror, she didn’t recognize the person—make that monster—staring back at her.
She thought the bead of moisture sliding down her face was from her wet hair at first. But then another escaped the corner of her eye, and she realized they were tears.
She was crying. Why? Why should she cry over the death of a cranky old man who had tried to destroy her life? Just because he’d given her a job when no one else would thanks to her complete lack of job skills three years ago after she moved to town in order to attend college, that didn’t mean she owed him. She’d worked her butt off at the Midnight Saloon, putting in far more hours than anyone else, coming in for the early shifts no one else wanted to make up for all the nights she had to take off for her pom squad’s performances. She’d more than earned her weekly paycheck. It sure hadn’t come from the goodness of John’s heart.
And besides, his death tonight wasn’t her fault!
Except deep down inside her something said it was her fault, at least in part.
John wasn’t all bad, despite his desperate bid to escape the Grim Reaper. True, he’d been a tough boss to work for, grouchy, abrassive to the extreme sometimes, more than a little mysogenistic, and probably an alcoholic judging by the number of shots he tossed back every night after the bar closed.
But he’d also been genuinely concerned about his employees, even the female ones. He worked with their wildly varying schedules, from college classes and day jobs that sometimes ran late, to all her pom squad’s performance, practice and fundraiser events. And though he hadn’t had a lick of marketing sense, he’d seemed to work hard to run the bar at enough of a profit to ensure they had jobs to come back to week after week, a tough feat to pull off in this current recession even if theirs hadn’t been a business that revolved around selling nonessentials.
And now he was dead. It was an accident, but it was still because of her. After all, he probably wouldn’t have been under so much stress and excitement if he hadn’t been anticipating cheating death forever tonight. Which he never would have been able to hope for if she hadn’t lost control with that stupid rapist wannabe and then further screwed up and allowed John to see her all vamped out.
If she had just maintained control, none of this would have happened and John would be busy tossing back the shots while counting out the night’s take right about now in that crappy little office of his, instead of on his way to some morgue somewhere and probably cursing her all to Hell and back from wherever his spirit had wound up.
She lay in bed, her mind chasing itself round and round with all the what ifs and maybes. Two hours later, she finally fell into an exhausted sleep that still offered no refuge from her guilt. But this time it wasn’t her boss who filled her nightmares.
It was memories of Kilo, her maker, and those fateful two days a month and a half ago when she fell into his dark, lifechanging web of evil…
* * * * *
She’d just left the Midnight Saloon after another January night of bartending and was crossing the blustery, shadowed parking lot when a flash of something pale and moving in a nearby alley caught her eye. She turned her head and took a couple of steps in that direction, her grip tightening on the padded edge of her motorcycle helmet. Two feminine, bare legs kicked out into the night air. Between them, a man in a black dusterstyle coat held their owner pinned to the crumbling brick wall of the neighboring building.
She didn’t hear any screams. But her gut told her those legs weren’t kicking out in passion. The woman was being attacked. She was fighting for her life.
Brianna never hesitated, never considered the risks. She simply ran at the man. Her motorcycle helmet made a heavy cracking sound as she slammed it against his right temple with both her hands. That kind of a blow could have killed any normal man; it should have at least knocked this one unconscious.
Instead, the bastard turned and sneered at her.
Dear God, were those fangs in his mouth?
Blood poured down his victim’s neck above her pale-colored dress. The dark fluid trickled down along the edge of the dress’s vneck collar to pool within her cleavage, darkening the dress along its path. Her coat lay in a dirty puddle near her feet, its crumpled heap of light and dark plaid wool soaking up the winter’s filthy moisture.
The man dropped his first victim, and Brianna had just enough time to feel a moment’s rush of fear. Then he grabbed Brianna’s throat and thrust her up into the air with one hand so that only the toes of her boots dragged along the graveled lot. The next instant she found herself enclosed within his dark embrace. Blinding pain exploded within the muscles on the side of her neck as his horrible, scowling face bent over her and the stench of something dead and rotting filled her nose.
The world turned black.
When Brianna awoke, she was sprawled on a satin canopied bed, her wrists and ankles loosely encased in oldfashioned manacles. She ached all over as if she had the flu and was utterly exhausted; even lifting her head to look around was a supreme struggle. She managed this small movement, though, gritting her teeth against the pain burning across the side of her neck while she studied her surroundings.
Three black walls decorated with antiquelooking swords formed her new prison. She couldn’t see what the fourth wall behind her head held. On her right, cold night air billowed
gauzy white fabric on either side of a set of French doors. The fabric blew towards her like two long, beckoning arms begging her to run towards them. The same wind brushed icy, unseen tendrils over her body, making her shiver with the sudden, horrible realization that all but her bra and bikini-cut panties had been stripped away.
Her attacker appeared. Appeared was the only way she could describe his entrance. He came through no doors, made no sound to warn of his impending approach. One second Brianna was the only person in the room. The next, he was standing between her and the French doors.
What the hell...? her mind stumbled over the thought.
“My name is Kilo, and you cannot escape. At least, not until I am done with you,” he said, his fangs glinting where they curved over his thin lower lip like a snake’s. She half expected him to stick out a forked tongue next and start hissing at her.
She glared at him, instant hatred boiling in her chest. Refusing to be intimidated into a quick reply, she kept her mouth shut and took her time studying this gothicloving vampire wannabe. He’d certainly studied well for his obsession. Long black hair pulled back into a ponytail with a black ribbon revealed Kilo’s pale white face and cruelly hooked nose. His eyes flashed a pale violet, which had to be fake.
“Nice contacts, asshole,” she spat out as her teeth began to chatter from the cold.
“They are not contacts, I assure you,” he murmured with a smile, reaching up to idly finger the lace edges of his white shirt.
“Your shirt looks like one of those pathetic tuxes from the eighties. Did you have to pay extra for the nerdy ruffles down the front, or did they come free of charge?” she blurted, then winced. Antagonizing this guy wasn’t the way to go. Not if she wanted to make it out of here alive. She clenched her teeth to stop them from chattering against each other. Goose bumps covered every inch of her skin, and the muscles along the tops of her thighs cramped painfully.