Season of Sin (Finding Astrid Book One): Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance Read online

  Table of Contents

  Welcome to the world of JL Caid

  SEASON OF SIN

  The first thing I would learn about death… was that it wasn’t all that lonely.

  DEAD

  It’s a sharp, soft touch…

  TRUTH

  Okay, I’m dead…

  CONFESSION

  It’s like I fade out…

  Want more?

  Season of Sin

  Finding Astrid Book One

  JL Caid

  Jaxson Kidman

  Contents

  Welcome to the world of JL Caid

  SEASON OF SIN

  The first thing I would learn about death… was that it wasn’t all that lonely.

  DEAD

  It’s a sharp, soft touch…

  TRUTH

  Okay, I’m dead…

  CONFESSION

  It’s like I fade out…

  Want more?

  Welcome to the world of JL Caid

  The pen name for worldwide bestselling author Jaxson Kidman

  Visit JL Caid here: https://www.facebook.com/JL-Caid-610680042657579/

  SEASON OF SIN

  (Finding Astrid Book One)

  I wake up dead. No, that’s not some cliché thing to say after a long night of partying. I’m really dead. Now I have to figure out a few things.

  How did I die?

  Why am I in this massive bed with purple, silk sheets?

  Why are there four seven-foot-tall, hunks of muscle and man staring at me?

  The first thing I figure out is this: They aren’t men. They have fangs. And they’re not afraid to show them – or use them. They tell me why I’m there and what my destiny is with them… in and out of bed.

  Realizing I’m dead is only the beginning.

  The first thing I would learn about death… was that it wasn’t all that lonely.

  DEAD

  1.

  It’s a sharp, soft touch, sliding against my skin, like the very pointed tip of a knife. Of course, I don’t remember ever having a knife to my neck before, but that’s what comes to mind. Then again, I don’t really remember all that much about myself. At this point in time, I don’t even know my own name. I’m just here… in this blackness. Like a swelling universe ready to explode. When I look down, I see my feet but no ground. It’s as though I’m floating. I wiggle my toes and somehow, my brain and body know how to communicate. I count ten bright red toenails and I let out a deep breath.

  I reach up and touch my neck but feel nothing. But I can still feel something against it. I swallow hard and put my head back. Sometimes I can see stars. I remember what stars are. Beautiful shining diamonds that hide way up in the night’s sky. The glimmers of hope that so many stare at. Wonders with nothing but random facts and plenty of dreams. I even remember that you could buy a star for someone. Seriously. A star becomes someone’s name.

  “Why do I know this?” I ask myself.

  There are no stars tonight. Or maybe it’s today. It’s just always black. But yet I can see. I see my feet, my hands, everything I want to see on myself, if that makes sense. All these things I know are just random impulses of thought and…

  “Sweet angel, relax…”

  The voice is an echoing thunder, like a coming spring storm. The kind of storm that waters budding flowers, turning them into some summer’s marvel until the first cold frost of October kills them all.

  I gasp for a breath and feel myself falling. I put my hands out to brace myself, but there is no falling. Just the sensation of falling. My hands are forever touching the blackness surrounding me. I’ve been like this for a long time now. Longer than I think I know how to admit to myself. Sometimes I cry in the blackness because I don’t understand it. Sometimes I catch myself spinning and dancing in the silence.

  Right now, I’m on my back.

  I feel the touch to my neck again. It’s sharp. I feel pressure. My teeth grit tightly together. My jaw tightens and I try to turn my head but I can’t. A sudden chill touches my temples, ice spreads across my forehead as I try to move again but cannot do so. Warmth spreads across my arms, from my elbows to my shoulders. The same feeling on my legs, from my knees up… cutting to my inner thigh.

  I gasp, unsure of which sensation to focus on first.

  “Do you feel it? Can you take her?”

  It’s the second voice. His isn’t quite as thundering as the first one. In fact, his voice sounds like it’s coming from right above my legs. I strain my neck again, wanting to see if I can see him.

  The feeling is gone from my neck, the iciness has gone from my head.

  I can move my head now.

  I lift my head and look around. There’s nobody in sight. I look at my arms. I see something that makes me want to scream. Outlines of handprints on them. A really dark and rich purple outline. Massive hands. Long fingers. That’s what is holding me down right now.

  I look down to my legs and see the outlines of hands there too. A dark red color, softly shining against the blackness that I’ve been comforted with to call home.

  “What is this?” I ask. “Who is there? Hello?”

  My voice carries with a white glittering color, like sparkles and stars colliding, chasing each other, racing until they fade into the nothing.

  There’s no response. There’s never a response.

  I open my mouth again and I feel the icy chill against my head again.

  I want to scream, I really do, but screaming leaves me with nothing. If I scream, then I’ll cry. If I cry, then I’ll watch my tears fall into oblivion. My tears fall, but I never do. I’m trapped right here in this suspended moment in time.

  I can’t move my neck again.

  “Tease her, brother. Tease her so she bleeds for you…”

  I know that third voice. He’s the one who speaks to me the most. When nobody else is around, he’s there to speak to me. Whispering in my ear all the time, telling me stories of places I’ve never been. Never speaking of who I am, what I am, or why I’m here. Or why I know what I know, but can’t remember something simple like my name, the color of my eyes, or my favorite food.

  Food.

  I haven’t eaten since I got here.

  Got here.

  I didn’t know what that meant. It was just like being thrown into existence.

  The prickly feeling touches my neck again. More pressure this time, a sharp drawing pain that makes me cry out. I feel my body jump as I open my mouth to scream, but make no sound at all. Instead, my mouth is invaded by a sweet honey taste. That’s quickly followed by a smoky, musky kind of smell that mixes with the taste. My jaw instantly quivers as heat rushes throughout my entire body. I close my mouth a little and hurry to open it again. I inhale the smell and the taste again, suddenly wanting more. Craving more.

  That’s when I realize something.

  Someone is kissing me.

  2.

  I open my eyes (my real eyes, not the eyes in the darkness) and two things happen.

  First, I hadn’t realized my eyes were shut. In the darkness, they were always open. But they weren’t open like they are now.

  Second, I’m in a room draped with dark purple velvet. Silk sheets move so smoothly against my skin, a black sheet covers my body and the smell of incense burns so heavily that my newly opened eyes begin to water.

  I blink fast and look around the room.

  I reach up and touch the corner of my eye and collect a tear on the very tip of my finger. I move my hand forward and stare at it. It’s almo
st hovering as though it’s being sucked into the air. Instead of sliding down my finger and absorbing into my skin and the air, it’s just there. Suspended in time, like me.

  The sight is so beautiful that my eyes begin to gloss over even more.

  I let out a breath and watch the small tear move around my fingertip but never fall off.

  I then have the urge to taste the tear.

  What else do I know other than follow whatever instinct hits me?

  I bring my finger to my mouth and stick my tongue out. My lips taste of the honey… the blackness… the feeling in my mouth… the kissing…

  The tip of my tongue touches the tear and it explodes into a white ball and makes a quick sizzling sound before vanishing.

  I put my hands to the silky sheets and lean to my right.

  I scream.

  I can really scream now. Here. In reality.

  And it’s for good reason.

  There’s a man on the floor, face down next to the bed.

  3.

  My scream echoes through the room and I can feel my chest tightening. That means it’s all really happening. I am now part of an existence where I can feel. I shed a tear and felt that tear and looked at that tear. And now, seeing a man face down on the floor, I knew to scream with the instinctive hopes of getting help.

  That help arrived with the sounds of thudding cracks of booming thunder that shook the bed. I thought for a moment the floor was going to open with a jagged crack straight down the middle and I was going to be swallowed up by the darkness again.

  Has this happened to me before?

  The thought is chased away as the door to the large room opens. There are actually two doors to open, both of them a distance away, directly across from the bed. The second door opens and a figure enters, so breathtaking in size and look that I gasp for air and feel an icy chill stab the back of my throat and shoot down to my stomach.

  He’s tall. He’s seven foot tall. Easily. His hair is jet black, touching his shoulders. His skin is creamy like warm milk. His facial features are so striking, combined with the most defined jaw I have ever seen in my life.

  My life? Do I even have a life? Is that what this is?

  I still can’t breathe as he steps forward.

  That’s when I see the glow from his eyes.

  The bluest eyes… a color blue very familiar to me.

  It’s so overwhelming to my core, my soul, my new existence, that I feel as though I can cry.

  A man so… perfect.

  He’s in a black robe, untied, the slit of an opening showing a body cut with muscle that belonged in a museum with a velvet rope for protection and a stern warning to not touch. Yet all I want to do in that moment is touch. My fingertips are burning as though I have pressed them to blacktop on a hundred degree summer afternoon.

  “She’s awake,” his voice speaks, thundering across the room, shaking the bed. Shaking me.

  But what strikes me more is that I know his voice. His was the first voice I heard so many times. Voice one.

  I reach and point at him.

  He approaches the bed as though he’s floating. Moving so slowly and perfectly, each inch destroyed between us brings him closer to me. The look on his face is vicious, his eyes wide open, his high cheekbones looking as though they’re fighting to keep his lip from curling. I swear I can see his nostrils flaring, inhaling the air around him.

  “What is it?” he says to me. “Speak something, sleeping angel.”

  “Sleeping… angel…”

  My first words out loud.

  I hear my own voice.

  I think it’s annoying.

  He’s at the foot of the bed, touching it. There’s a blue hue that seems to radiate from him, matching the beautiful color of his eyes. My head tilts to the side, feeling lost, yet feeling found, wanting to stare at his eyes for the rest of my life.

  Then he does something I do not expect.

  He falls to his knees at the foot of the bed. When his knees hit the floor, the room shakes. He puts his hands out. The robe opens, showing me his well-built chest. His head moves back a little and I see… fangs.

  Leaving his mouth open, his lips quiver, but my attention is on the fangs. I lean forward and study them. Beautifully white, perfectly pointed, slightly curved, like nothing I can ever remember seeing. Then again, I can’t remember my own name. Who I am. Why I’m here. And why I feel so much, yet feel nothing at the same time.

  He’s frozen in place, mouth open.

  I have an urge to touch him. To touch the fangs.

  “Fangs,” I whisper.

  This massive man with fangs…

  The word vampire floats through my head, but I’m not exactly sure what that means.

  I move forward and wrap the black silk sheet around my body and hold it behind me with one hand to keep from exposing myself to him. My mind screams at me that there is a man on the floor next to the bed.

  What if he’s dead? What if this vampire killed him? What if I’m next? Did this man… this thing… creature… did he kidnap me? Erase my memory? Prep me to die?

  The words race as I slip forward on the bed, using one hand to crawl.

  My hair falls forward. I see that it’s curly blonde and smells of a smoky honey scent. The exact smell I remember from the darkness. The smell that became the taste in my mouth.

  I’m shivering with excitement when I get to the edge of the bed.

  He’s so tall that it’s like he’s not even kneeling before me.

  He hasn’t moved, arms outstretched, just waiting for me.

  I prop myself up on my knees and reach forward. I think about touching his face, but I’m drawn to the fangs. They’re glistening as though they are made of diamond and the sunlight is shining on them. But there is no sunlight in this room. The curtains are thick, folded into themselves over and over, as though they were meant to keep all sunlight away.

  The middle finger of my right hand touches the left fang.

  I shudder and let out a sigh.

  “Oh…”

  I feel a rushing sensation in my chest.

  My finger slides down to the very tip. I turn my finger and lift just the slightest amount… and I feel the fang puncture my skin.

  I gasp and pull my finger away.

  I watch a bright red droplet squeeze from the super tiny wound.

  That’s when the man - the vampire - jumps to his feet and leans forward, mouth still open.

  4.

  “Don’t hurt me,” I say.

  “As you command, sleeping angel,” his super deep voice speaks. “But I must… try…”

  His fingers slip around my wrist. The cold sensation that goes through me makes me shiver. Everything tingles. I feel my muscles tighten, all ready to explode.

  “Try what?” I say, my teeth chattering.

  “May I?” he asks as he pulls my hand up toward him.

  The tip of his tongue cuts from his mouth, between his beautiful fangs.

  He nods at my fingertip, the single droplet of blood balancing there like my tear had done before.

  “You want to taste my blood?” I say.

  “Yes,” he says.

  His voice is warmth and his touch is ice. My body is confused.

  “Taste me,” I whisper.

  I watch the way his mouth curls as I speak the words. I suddenly felt a surge of warmth in tender areas, realizing what my comment could imply.

  Heat rushes to my cheeks and I swallow hard, trying to contain myself.

  Images flash in my mind… this man touching my waist, guiding me to the bed, the tips of his nails scratching against my tender skin, the tip of his tongue searching for something even more tender.

  I blink fast and chase the thoughts away as he brings my fingertip close to his mouth. The way his face looks and the way his lips quiver, it’s as though he hadn’t had a drop of water to drink in weeks.

  His tongue comes forward and I see him lick the droplet of blood. I see the droplet
move with his touch. He shuts his eyes as he curls his tongue, expecting the blood to enter his mouth.

  Except it doesn’t.

  The blood remains on my fingertip.

  He growls and squeezes my wrist tighter. He tries again. And again. And again.

  Each time, squeezing my wrist harder. Each time getting angrier.

  “Stop it,” I finally say. “That’s enough. Stop it.”

  But he doesn’t listen.

  He pulls my wrist and I feel like my arm is going to rip from my body.

  I let out a cry and realize I may be in a spot of trouble now.

  I pull at my wrist and he pulls back with more strength.

  “I must,” he says. “I fucking must…”

  He licks again. Nothing happens. He puts my finger into his mouth and closes it. There’s warmth, but as he begins to suck, it’s the most powerful thing I’ve ever felt. I try to scream, but my breath is stolen and my eyes fill with tears. I feel as though whatever existence I now have is being taken from me. I want to slap him across the face, but I don’t want to let the sheet go and have my body exposed to him.

  “Stop,” I say, shivering. “Stop right now.”

  I pull at my finger and manage to get it out of his mouth. His hold is still fierce on my wrist. And the droplet of blood is still on my fingertip.

  “No,” he says. “Give me more.”

  He pulls again.

  “I said enough,” I yell.

  He freezes and looks me in the eyes.

  “That’s enough, Seth,” another voice says.

  It’s not the man face down on the floor.

  Which means I am now alone in a room with three men… and at least one is a vampire.

  5.

  I tighten my grip on the sheet behind my body as I watch the second (well, technically third) man move toward the bed. He’s in a white t-shirt with arms defined with muscle. A throbbing vein in each bicep. His arms are smooth looking, his skin a very slight shade darker than the first man. Seth? Seth. That’s what the other guy called him.