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  Return to the Darkness

  The Coveted Book 3

  Ripley Proserpina

  Rebecca Royce

  Copyright © 2020 by Ripley Proserpina

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Book Cover by Fiona Jayde

  Content Editing by Heather V. Long

  Copy Editing by Jennifer Jones at Bookends Editing

  Proof Editing by Meghan Daigle at Bookish Dreams Editing

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Other books by Rebecca Royce…

  About the Author

  Books by Ripley:

  Chapter 1

  The speed with which I actually wrapped up my life in Anchorage amazed me. In just a matter of days, I had closed down everything that had made me—well—me in this city. My house was rented—it helped that I lived in such a desirable area. My car had been scrapped, since the accident had pretty much totaled it, and all the documents that held my fake name were changed to my real one.

  Rick could be so devious when he needed to be, and he knew just the people to get it done.

  I’d hugged him goodbye, holding back tears I refused to shed, and left with the four men I was in love with to head back to the lower forty-eight. When I’d arrived on the bus that brought me here, we’d all been teenagers. Leaving, this time with them by my side, we were adults. In fact, half the time, I felt ancient.

  Aaron slept, his head pressed against the airplane window. We’d been airborne for the last half an hour. I’d never flown before, and my stomach didn’t love the bumps. Even if I hadn’t been beyond worked up about being so far from the ground, I couldn’t have slept if I’d wanted to. I hadn’t had a restful night in over two days. I certainly didn’t count the lucid dreaming I’d done to defeat Mara as rest.

  The battle with the nightmare hag had left me a little trepidatious about sleeping. The others weren’t having that issue. They were exhausted, and I couldn’t blame them. We needed to find Mr. Chee. He’d vanished, and we were all convinced we knew exactly where he’d gone. It was a place I’d never intended to see again as long as I lived—the small town where I’d grown up.

  But the best laid plans…

  “Hey.” Colton opened his eyes, staring at me. He was in the aisle seat, Aaron had the window, and they’d stuffed me between them in the middle. I didn’t mind. I wasn’t sure I could do this if I wasn’t squished protectively between them. I had no question of how tough I was, and didn’t need to prove that to anyone. So if I wanted to reveal a little weakness in this, then so be it.

  Not everyone liked to fly.

  I smiled. “Hey.”

  He squeezed my fingers in his and then kissed my cheek. I loved the clean, fresh smell of his soap. “Nervous?”

  “Yes. About a lot of things.”

  He pressed his forehead to my shoulder. “That’s normal, Lace. This is big. We’re going back. Returning to the scene of the crime, so to speak. I wouldn’t have wished this for you.”

  In my absence, they’d become each other’s families. I was part of their group now, in the center of it in some ways. They hadn’t suggested I not go. Where they went, I went, and vice versa. “You should sleep.”

  He shook his head. “Think I haven’t noticed that you haven’t been?”

  “Maybe I should take something.”

  He kissed my neck. “Maybe you should let me hold you.”

  Now there was an idea. I put my head on his shoulder and sighed. It was safe here, between them. They wouldn’t let anything happen to me.

  “You know,” he whispered, “I found you in a dream once. If anything were to happen, I’d find you again.”

  Chuckling, I closed my eyes and wrapped my arm around his. He linked our fingers, bringing our hands to his lips.

  “You’re quite the hero,” I said. And he was. They all were, chasing me through dreams to lock Mara in a nightmare forever.

  I glanced out the window. Aaron had propped his head on his hand and snored lightly, but beyond him was blue sky and clouds. The sun filtered in, bright and blinding. I was surprised he could sleep with it in his eyes like that.

  It reminded me of the desert. Blue so bright, it hurt. No shade. I was willingly walking right back to that place.

  “Have you been back?” I asked.

  Colton sighed. “No. Well. Briefly to see my parents. But in and out. I can’t stand that place. It would be beautiful if it weren’t so…”

  “Haunted.” I filled in the word for him. That town loaded with memories, none of them—for me at least—good.

  “Yeah,” he replied. With his free hand, he pushed my hair out of my face. I thought he would do it once and stop, but he kept on. He slid his fingers through the strands, pushing them back before he smoothed them across my forehead and then back again.

  The rhythmic motion lulled me closer to sleep. I focused only on the feel of him—not on what was ahead. Not on the stress of running into people who some demon had forced to hate me. Just the quiet sound of his breathing and the glide of his fingers over my scalp, and eventually, I fell asleep.

  The plane touching down on the tarmac jerked me awake. Colton’s head was on my shoulder, but Aaron was stretching. “Hey,” he said. “I’m glad you slept. You needed it.”

  Beyond him, the world was rainy and gray. We’d landed in Seattle. The first stop before we caught another flight to Santa Fe. Then from there, we drove.

  “How long is the layover?” I asked.

  Next to me, Colton stirred. “That wasn’t too bad.” He looked at me and smiled. Touching my face with his finger, he ran it along my cheekbone. “You have a sleep crease.”

  Great. “It’s because I’m almost thirty,” I said. “Shut up.”

  He only shook his head. “It’s adorable. You slept hard. I think my shoulder is wet.” My gaze immediately went to his shoulder, but it was fine.

  “She just woke up,” Aaron said, “go easy on her.”

  “Sorry, Lace.” He kissed me on my nose and then on my cheek. “I was just teasing.”

  “It’s fine,” I replied, because I’d figure out a way to get him back later.

  We found our next gate just fine. Colton and Aaron left for the bathroom while I found a spot at a table large enough for all of us at a nearby airport diner. I drank my coffee, lifting my gaze to stare at the lights that had started to flash when we’d sat down at the gate.

  “Are we about to be visited by a ghost?” I asked Oliver as he plopped down next to me and handed me a danish he’d bought at the coffee shop.

  He winced. “Airports are always a beacon for this kind of thing. We probably won’t see one. It’s one of those situations where we travel through here and maybe they do, too.”

  Thorn took the seat on my other side. “We get you on the next flight. I had to content myself with watching the back of your head the whole time.”

  Oliver laughed. “Don’t believe him, love. He conked out the second we took off and didn’t wake up
until we landed.”

  Thorn rolled his eyes. “Okay. So maybe it was more like longing for you in my sleep.”

  “Now, that I get.” Oliver’s gaze suddenly hardened. “I can’t believe my father did this,” he muttered so low I barely made it out.

  It was hard to hear him over the constant announcements, so we descended into silence, nibbling our food and sipping coffee. Each time someone spoke over the loudspeaker, I jumped. Were they talking about our flight? I hadn’t thought an airport would make me so anxious, but I was afraid I’d miss something. The guys, on the other hand, were relaxed. It struck me that this must be something they did all the time, whereas for me, the experience was brand new.

  A lull came over the cafe, and for the first time, I could hear myself think. I turned toward Oliver. “We don’t know what your father did yet. For all we know, he went there to do something completely benign.”

  “And ignore my mother? No way. She knows this is bad. It’s why she contacted us. Something is off. What is there to do back there except for Erdirg?”

  Yuck. He was probably right. We’d been over and over this for the last two days, going mad with speculation as Aaron tried to reach their dad. “Maybe there is another creature.”

  It was still everything I could do not to say monster. They really were that to me and likely always would be. Mara was one too, as far as I was concerned. I might be one—my darkness was certainly monstrous—though I was beginning to obsess about it a little less.

  Not to mention, I’d had absolutely no time to deal with what we’d learned about me probably having pouque-slash-fae blood. Whatever that meant.

  I scooted my chair closer to Thorn and leaned my head on his shoulder. This was a day for that, cuddling to alleviate discomfort. “Can you find out more about me and the pouque?”

  He leaned his head on mine. “A gorgeous woman with eyes that call to me and long legs that go on forever? I’m not sure I can find out more than that, babe. Men have been trying to work out the secrets of women forever, but you guys guard those truths pretty closely.”

  I rolled my eyes as Oliver laughed again, but I wasn’t going to let this go. “I mean, about what I probably have in my genetic line. The non-human part that calls to these creatures so strongly.”

  This time Thorn didn’t make a joke. Sobering, he answered, “Yep. I can do that. We’ll get information for you. Maybe there’s a way to make you less interesting to them. After we find Mr. Chee and convince him that it’s better to let sleeping demons lie.”

  “I need a refill.” Oliver looked into his coffee cup. “Anyone else?”

  I shook my head. One cup was good. Flying already made me jittery. They didn’t want me anxious, jittery, and caffeinated on the last leg of the trip.

  Oliver kissed me on the cheek and, after checking with Thorn, headed into the crowd. He passed by an approaching Colton, stopping briefly before continuing on his way. I followed him with my gaze until I lost him in the crowd.

  A child shrieked with laughter, and I smiled, watching him bounce after his harried looking parents. “What’d I miss?” Colton asked, taking Oliver’s chair.

  “Discussion about Mr. Chee,” Thorn replied quietly.

  “He wouldn’t have done that,” I said, almost to myself as I thought about the man going into the desert to single-handedly slay a demon. “Erdirg is beyond all of our abilities.” The father of the laughing child turned around and scooped him up in his arms before grabbing his suitcase and walking away. “He’d want to protect his boys.” I glanced over at Colton and Thorn. “Right? He wouldn’t put them in more danger.”

  They were silent. Finally, Colton leaned forward. His gaze went to the table before it flicked up to me. “Danger like moving them around the country to chase monsters and ghosts?”

  “Shit.” My entire body tensed, and I swore I got a crick in my neck just from stress. “You need to work on your delivery.”

  Thorn reached for my shoulder and kneaded it. I shut my eyes. Slowly, the tension drained away. He was staring at me when I finally opened my eyes and gave me a sad half-smile. “No parents are perfect, Lace. And with Ray, it’s hard to know his motivation. He is one of the most famous Trappers in history, and when it really counted, a high school girl defeated this massive, ancient evil. It stung him. I know it did. And I’d bet that was when Oliver and Aaron decided they wouldn’t follow in his footsteps. For them, the accolades never mattered. They just wanted to be safe. Then they wanted you to be safe.”

  I’d never thought of Mr. Chee in that way. To me, he was this larger than life figure who knew everything about everything. Now, I wondered if that was just because I’d never seen a family unit before. I’d taken the Chees—with their family dinners and clean, clown-free house—as the thing to aspire to. Turned out, they were just as flawed as my own family, just in a different way.

  It made me view Aaron and Oliver differently. When Oliver said he didn’t like talking to his dad, I couldn’t understand that. If I was honest with myself, I even judged him for that.

  “I’m an asshole.”

  “What?” Thorn shook me a little. “Why?”

  “I think I might have been pretty judgmental when I heard they didn’t talk so much anymore. I should have kept my mouth shut.”

  Colton snorted. “Lace. The last thing we ever expect from you is that you hold back. You wouldn’t be you if you suddenly had a brain-to-mouth filter.”

  Leaning forward, I flicked his shoulder. “I hold back.”

  He merely lifted his eyebrows, but he was a smart guy, because he tried to hide his smile. I couldn’t even be mad, not when his bright eyes twinkled like that.

  Aaron plopped down across from me in the other line of chairs. “Where should we stay while we’re searching? I think we’ve all been a little worked up about going and not focused on the nitty gritty of it. We have no place to stay.”

  Thorn shook his head. “I already took care of it. Details are kind of my thing. I rented us a house for three weeks through one of those vacation rental websites.”

  I stared at him. “Please tell me it’s not at your ranch. I don’t think I could handle three weeks at Doc Holiday’s. Of course, I don’t understand why anyone would want to go to our town on vacation.”

  “Oh come on, Lace.” Colton’s smile was huge. “We are ten miles from the largest mud pit in New Mexico. People are lining up.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Thanks for thinking of it, Thorn.”

  “Always.” He smiled. “And it’s not Doc Holiday’s. It’s just a big house. Six bedrooms. We can rotate who sleeps with you.” He raised his eyebrows. “Put you in one room and we move in and out of it with you. On like a sleep schedule. If you want.”

  He was good with the details. “This may fall under the concept of TMI but—”

  Oliver returned, interrupting. “Good timing. I love TMI. Please distract me from whatever my father has done to once again drag my family, this time including the three of you, into some kind of hell. TMI. Go for it.”

  I continued on. “I will get my period sometimes. And I’m a human being. Sometimes I may not want to have sex. Like I might have a headache. Or a stomachache. Or I’ll be mad at you. Like, the schedule sounds great, but you would have to build in allowances of some kind. To be fair. Or if you go out of town. Equality or something.”

  Colton raised his hand. “I don’t object to having sex with you during your period.”

  Oliver shoved his shoulder. “Fuck, man.”

  Nope. That didn’t work for me. “I realize we haven’t faced the particular problem yet, but I’m going to put it out there that during that time of the month, I am objecting to having sex. That’s a hard no.”

  Thorn nodded fast. “I’m getting on this. The schedule will be made. It will be adjustable and meaningful. It will work. And after we find their dad, we’ll figure out permanent living situations. It did not go well the last time the four of us tried to live together. But we didn’
t have you then. We also had less money, so we had rooms we had to share. That was an issue. If we bought a big house, it could probably work. Or put you in an apartment where we all stay with you for periods of time.”

  That felt less like family. My chest tightened. How was any of this going to work?

  Thorn waved his hand. “Forget that second one. I always want to be with you, even when it’s not my turn. We have to make one house work. We’ll figure out how everyone can be happy.”

  Aaron leaned on his hand. “I think as long as none of us have to share a room with you or Colton, it’ll be fine. I don’t know how Lacey does it.”

  Thorn groaned. “I get it. I snore. Fine. Feel free to sleep across the house.”

  Oliver stared at me. I could almost feel his gaze on my face. Turning to him, I lifted my eyebrows, but he only lifted his in return. “What’s really going on?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms. “I just want to get some things cleared up.

  “Lace. We’ve been apart ten years, but I still know you, and it feels like you’re trying to push us away. So in answer to the unspoken announcement of needing space, I’m saying too fucking bad. I don’t want space from you. I don’t care if you don’t want sex, this isn’t about that. I want to go to sleep knowing you’re safe. So whether that means you’re in my arms, or Colton’s, or Thorn’s, or my brother’s, doesn’t matter. It’s going to be someone’s. So suck it up, buttercup.” When he finished, his face was flushed and he was inches away from me.

  Unfortunately, his voice had also become louder as he spoke, and we were getting some pretty interested glances from nearby parties. Well. Fuck them. Yeah, I was sleeping with four guys. I met the gaze of one the lookie-loos and held it. She looked away first.