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Dark Fairy Tales: A Midnight Dynasty Anthology
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Dark Fairy Tales
A Midnight Dynasty Anthology
Skye Warren
CJ Roberts
Aleatha Romig
Karina Halle
T.M. Frazier
Willow Winters
Celia Aaron
Natasha Knight
Marley Valentine
Sierra Simone
Cora Reilly
Dark Fairy Tales
A Midnight Dynasty Anthology
Dangerous Press © 2020
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book only. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Dangerous Press LLC.
This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Foreword
King Midas
Skye Warren
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Rumpelstiltskin
Celia Aaron
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
The Princess and the Pea
Sierra Simone
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Little Red Riding Hood
Karina Halle
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
The Ugly Duckling
CJ Roberts
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Beauty and the Beast
Willow Winters
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Jack & the Beanstalk
Marley Valentine
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
King Thrushbeard
Cora Reilly
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
The Swan Princess
Natasha Knight
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Cinderella
Aleatha Romig
Author’s Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Snow White
T.M. Frazier
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
1. Heartless
Want More Midnight Dynasty?
Foreword
Welcome to the world of Midnight Dynasty. The ball is just the beginning. The Morellis and the Constantines have enough bad blood to fill an ocean, and their brand new stories will all be told by your favorite dark romance authors.
In a single moment, she becomes my obsession...
Elaine Constantine will be mine. And her destruction is only my beginning.
I’ve known all my life that the Constantines deserved to be wiped from the face of the earth, only a smoking crater left where their mansion once stood. But that’s a bedrock knowledge, something eternal that lives in my blood. Tonight, I infiltrate their lives, twine myself into their deceitful inner workings so I can take them apart piece by piece.
That’s my plan until I see her, the woman in gold with the sinful curves and the blonde curls. My will to dominate her runs as deep as the hate I have for her last name. No matter how beautifully she bends beneath my hands, I'll leave her shattered, a broken toy for her cruel family.
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King Midas
Skye Warren
1
Anita
It feels like there’s a scarlet letter stitched into my skin.
I have pretty dresses at home. Little black dresses.
None of them the glittering dress that looks like gold poured onto my body.
It shimmers every time I move, every time I breathe. Everyone in the hotel bar must know why I’m here. The short hemline and plunging neckline advertise my position clearly enough. Though the most daring part of the ensemble is the back, which exposes so much skin there was no way to wear a bra.
My nails are painted gold to match. They flicker beneath the low lighting as I fidget, restless, nervous—unable to sit still. Tonight will be the first time in every sense of the word. My first time having sex.
And my first time being a call girl.
The text came even before my pictures went onto the website. Madam Durand said she had a client who would love my look. There’s some irony since I’m normally kind of a goth girl. Black. Velvet. Lace. That’s what I would consider glamorous.
But now I’m golden. Raoul Midas paid an ungodly sum for a single evening with me.
He gets to choose what I wear. The dress and shoes showed up a week ago, along with an appointment card for a luxury spa, where they primped and waxed me to within an inch of my life.
A red, fruity drink appears on the bar in front of me. The bartender nods toward the other end of the gleaming surface. “Sent from a gentleman over there.”
“Oh.” I glance down to see a middle-aged man with thinning brown hair in a suit. His smile looks nervous, his brown eyes kind. Is that Raoul Midas? God, what a relief. He looks serious but unassuming. The kind of man I’d be comfortable escorting for the evening. “Please tell him thank you.”
I reach for the drink to take a sip before I make my way over, but someone blocks me. A large hand pushes the drink back to the bartender. “I buy her drinks tonight,” says a low voice.
The bartender’s eyes widen briefly before he takes back the drink.
There’s heat against my arm. A hand brushes my lower back, my bare skin. So much contact before I even turn to face him. Whiskey eyes that look like they’d burn all the way down. A suit that’s cut so perfectly that every fold and crease must be planned, as if the fabric wouldn’t dare contradict him. He brushes a light kiss to my cheek, and I scent man and musk.
“Good evening, Anita.”
“You must be Raoul Midas.” M y voice comes out breathy, damn him.
He smiles, but there’s no warmth whatsoever. Only white teeth and a glimmer of danger in those amber eyes. “Please, call me Raoul. For this evening.”
I wonder what I should call him after this evening. Mr. Midas? Sir? Of course that’s silly. We’ll never meet after tonight. He’s a reclusive billionaire, and I’m a broke college student.
He glances at the bar, eyeing the reflective bottles of liquor with disinterest. “Do you want anything to drink? There’s champagne in the back of the limo.”
“Champagne would be lovely… Raoul,” I say, feeling shy.
His lips quirk as if he knows some private joke. Then he’s escorting me through the hotel lobby, where a single night costs as much as my entire month’s rent. The limo waits for us in the drive, blocking cars that seem to know better than to honk.
The whole world waits for Raoul Midas, but he pauses to open the door for me.
Then we’re being whisked out of the city, gliding between skyscrapers in the dwindling light like fish through the tall, watery weeds. Though if I’m a fish, Raoul is a shark. He’s staring at me across the limo like he wants to devour me. And he has every right to do so.
He already paid for the right.
Instead of taking what I owe him, he leans over to a built-in ice bucket and opens a small bottle of champagne. Gold liquid shimmers in slender flutes. I accept the one he offers me and take a fortifying drink. The bubbles burn down my throat and tickle my nose. I cough, and he’s there at my side, rubbing my back. “Take it slow,” he says, this man for whom everything comes fast.
“Sorry,” I say with a frog-croak voice.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says with another quirk of his lips.
“I’ve never had champagne before,” I say, nerves making the words tumble from my lips. “Beer. Some cheap wine. A shot of tequila, but only once.”
“What do you think of it?” He sounds genuinely curious, and thankfully, not horrified by my sad recital of the alcohol I’ve tried in my lifetime.
“It’s dry, somehow. Like I’m thirstier after drinking it.”
“What’s your major, Anita?” I must give him a questioning look in the pause that follows, because he adds, “So that we can appear a couple this evening. I should know about you.”
Oh. My cheeks flame. Of course Raoul Midas isn’t actually interested in me, Anita Washington. That invisible scarlet letter burns on my skin. I’m not in a bar full of people, now. There’s no one here to judge me… except me. I’m a fallen woman now. A prostitute.
“Computer engineering.”
His eyebrows go up. “An interesting choice.”
I wait for some further comment about my gender. Despite the supposed steps forward in equality, women only account for twenty percent of engineering graduates. When he doesn’t say more, I hesitantly share, “I’ve always loved computers. My dad encouraged me. He would let me take apart the computers at home, even though I could have broken them.”
“You didn’t, though.”
“No, I put them back together. But better than before.”
A low laugh fills the space of the limo, making hair rise on my arms. “I like you, Anita.”
“Thanks. I like you too.” Then I realize I’m a call girl. I’m supposed to flatter him, to please him. I’m supposed to make him satisfied in every way. I like you too, is hardly the stuff of seduction. “I mean, I really like you. You look so handsome. And I appreciate the dress.”
He frowns. “You don’t have to fake things with me.”
Weirdly enough, I’m not sure I was faking it. I do like him, in a terrified kind of way. And he’s ridiculously handsome, in an intimidating kind of way. “I do love the dress.”
“The dress wasn’t for you.”
“It wasn’t?”
That amber gaze heats as he takes it in, from the spaghetti straps to my waist to the hem above my crossed legs. His head shakes slowly. “No, Anita. It was for me, so I could enjoy watching you all evening. And I will enjoy it.”
Unease skates through my body, along with something else. Something warm and alluring. The sense that I could let myself go in his arms. He knows what he’s doing, and I… don’t. “Where are we going, anyway? The agency only told me it was a black-tie affair.”
“It’s for the birthday of a young woman, the daughter of a business partner.”
“Oh, a birthday party!”
“Yes,” he says, his voice dry. “A three-hundred-thousand-dollar birthday party.”
I can’t help the gasp that fills the dark space. “Three hundred thousand dollars? I mean, wow. That can buy a lot of balloons.”
“I’m going to enjoy having you on my arm all evening, listening to your commentary about our little circle. But there’s some business we need to deal with first.”
“Business?” I’m imagining a contract that needs to be signed or money that has to change hands. Madam Durand didn’t mention anything like that. All she asked for was my bank account information so she could wire the money tomorrow morning.
“We’re going to have to kiss to make this convincing. So that I can touch you, flirt with you, even kiss you in front of the hundreds of people at the gala. You can’t shy away from me or appear shocked, understand? Not if we’re going to pretend to be on a date.”
The champagne whirls in my stomach. “A kiss. Of course.”
“Don’t faint on me,” he says, sounding amused.
“I’m not going to faint. I mean, I’ve definitely kissed before!”
“Have you?” He’s somehow closer than before. The darkness seems to hide him, even inches away from me. Only the warmth of his body gives him away, the hand on my lower back, the whisper of his breath on my lips. I have been kissed before, by frat boys with wet mouths and hard tongues. I’ve never been kissed like this, with knowledge and surety.
My hands move instinctively to his chest, but he makes a sound of refusal in his throat. He grasps my wrists, his grip gentle as he forces them down to my sides.
Don’t touch him, that’s the message he sends, even as his hands coast over the side of my gold dress, his other hand fisting in the glittery fabric covering my thighs. For some reason he doesn’t want my hands on him, even as he grasps me with large hands and pulls me close.
It’s like I’m a doll being kissed and held and stroked.
Like I’m a doll as he plunders my mouth.
I pull away, gasping. “Why can’t I touch you?”
Tension builds in the dark space. I can only see the planes of his face in the rapid rhythm of light from streetlamps. There’s no expression in shadow. Only the certainty that I’ve misstepped. This isn’t what he’s paid me to do. Not to touch him, not to question him. Only obey.
His murmur rumbles through me. “Why would you want to?”
There’s a clench in my chest. A skip to my heartbeat. Why would I want to? Because he’s a handsome man. A desirable man. Doesn’t he know that? Or is he so wrapped up in paying for services that he’s forgotten what it is to be wanted?
I don’t answer with words. I study him, the angle of his cheekbone sharp, his lips a hard line. How will he feel beneath my hand?
It’s worth the risk to find out.
On my knees, I still have to stretch to reach his eyebrows. I’m careful, so careful as I touch his eyebrow and stroke across. I run my finger from the top of his nose to the tip. He’s beautiful in a remote way. I half expect him to feel cool to the touch. It’s somehow a surprise to find his skin warm and soft.
He sits stiff and unwelcoming, and a shot of embarrassment runs through my heart. What if he doesn’t want this? I’ve presumed too much. I’ve humiliated—and then his head tilts toward me, hesitant, halting, as if it’s the first time he has ever been touched, even though that can’t be true.
I reach for his mouth, but he pushes me away.
He sets me roughly onto the seat beside him, with a muttered, “No, No. That’s enough. ”
I run my hands over my arms, where goosebumps have formed. It feels like I’ve encountered a bear, stroked his fur, faced him head-on, and lived to tell about it.
Something gold and glittery appears in my lap. A mask.
“It’s a masquerade,” he says gruffly.
The mask feels solid, as if maybe it’s made of real gold. It fits over my face as if it’s been crafted for my features. It feels good to hide, especially as my cheeks are warm. Did he like the kiss? And more importantly, should I have liked it so much? I’m being paid for this.
He pulls out a black mask that covers half his face as the limo slows into a circular drive. I stare out the window as we approach the mansion—there’s no other word for it. It looks like a sprawling English manor was transported only an hour and a half outside Manhattan. Thousands of fairy lights and plush oversized feathers hang suspended above garden walkways. Every window in the manor glows with festive yellow light.