Dark Secrets (The Black Lantern #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Rave venues were not my scene. Aside from being far too old for them—at thirty-eight, I was a good ten years or more older than anyone else here—they were far too crowded for my liking.

The music I could handle, even with its deep emphasis on heavy bass notes and faster tempos.

The strobe lights were annoying but didn’t really bother me much beyond that.

The problem lay with the energy—the undiluted vitality—emanating from all the people filling this vast but crowded old warehouse.

It woke the darkness in me and made her hunger.

I rubbed my arms in a vague effort to erase the chill that skipped across my skin despite the sweaty heat filling the room. I’d long ago learned to control that darkness, but sometimes, in situations like this, where the heat of life glowed so fiercely around me, temptation rose.

“Hey,” a warm, feminine voice said into my ear. “You okay? Because you’re making like a statue right now and it’s beginning to catch attention.”

I started lightly and tapped the earpiece to reply. “Yeah. Sorry, Ginny. Got sidetracked.”

“By that delicious-looking man gyrating not three feet in front of you? I don’t blame you.”

I snorted softly and moved around said gyrating man, who gave me a sweet if somewhat vacant smile. His pupils, I couldn’t help but notice, were huge, and I doubted the cause was the lack of lighting in the area.

“Aside from the fact said deliciousness is almost half my age—and yours, may I point out—he appears to have taken a happy pill or two.”

“I think that could be said about a lot of the kids here, but I feel it necessary to point out there is absolutely nothing wrong with admiring a fine piece of ass as long as it’s of legal age.”

“And you would be the first to get offended if a man said anything like that about you.”

Her laughter ran down the line. “No, I’d be the first to be offended if they touched said ass without permission. Admiration is perfectly fine, because hey, my ass is a thing of beauty. Monica is twenty feet ahead to your right.”

I rose on my toes in a vain attempt to see the woman we were meant to be protecting, but even with heels on, at five feet three, I was shorter than most here. But then, we Kang witches—or, at least, we females—tended to be on the smaller side.

I continued on, doing my best to push through the crowd without actually touching anyone. With the heat of life so fierce in this place, touch was... well, dangerous.

My inner darkness wasn’t vampiric, but damn if it didn’t feel like it sometimes.

“What’s she doing right now?”

“Dancing with her bridesmaids.”

“We run a background check on them?”

“You didn’t read the file?”

“Didn’t have time. Besides, you’re the brains of this outfit.”

She snorted. “That excuse is getting rather old, my friend.”

I squeezed past a couple who were all but having sex on the dance floor and, just for an instant, the fierce wave of their wanton desire washed over me. I half-raised a hand, then realized what I was doing and dug my nails into my palms instead.

“It might have been better if you’d taken the tracking role this time,” I growled, pushing on. “At least your height would have given you an advantage I don’t have.”

“And leave you in charge of the electronics? After last time? Dear god, woman, are you insane?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. While the earwigs were of a low enough voltage to cause me no problems, I was a grave danger to almost any other sort of electronics.

Merely being in their presence could sometimes result in them shorting out, despite the heavy layering of magical shielding I used to mute the force of my inner energy.

It was a problem no one else in my family had, not even my son.

But then, I wasn’t exactly like the rest of my family.

While there were three lines of royal witches—the other two being the Marlowes and the Ashworths—we Kangs were often considered the poor relations, thanks to a talent that dealt with living energy more than actual magic, though most of us could perform what our royal counterparts would consider “minor” spells when necessary.

It was the reason so many Kangs went into the law enforcement arena, working either as contractors for hire or as investigators for the High Witch Council or the Black Lantern Society.

I had brothers in both areas—Samuel, who was three years older than me, was the chief investigator for the High Council, and Michael, who was almost fifty-five and not only the overall second-in-command of the Black Lantern Society, but head of the night division.

I’d joined the Society some four years ago and hadn’t really progressed through the ranks as fast as some had expected—having two high-flying brothers had placed some rather outrageous expectations on my shoulders—but I was perfectly okay with where I was.

Aside from the fact that being rank-and-file meant few would ever have a good reason to dive deeper into my abilities or my past, I’d never officially finished high school or done any sort of skill training that would have allowed me to move into a more specialized area.

I did have a nose for trouble and the ability to see the darker energies within people, and both made investigations the perfect job for me.

Of course, that same nose for trouble had ruled out becoming a High Council investigator with Samuel. The Council expected rules to be followed. The Black Lantern Society often skirted the law and legalities in its quest for justice, and that was more my style.

Not that there’d be any law skirting in our current operation.

It was a simple protection detail—something the Society rarely did, and a task we were only doing now as a favor for one of Sophie Ashworth’s friends.

She was the Society’s matriarch, and a woman who’d steered the daytime ship for nigh on eighty years.

“Earth to Hanna, you out there?”

I laughed. “Why? Were you saying anything important?”

It wasn’t hard to envision her eye roll.

Ginnifer Baker and I had gone through training together and had become good friends, though we weren’t always teamed together.

The Society sometimes rotated their pairings to avoid “sexual distractions.” While I understood their reasoning, it was damnably naive to think rotating team members would stop sex from happening if both partners were so inclined.

Not that I ever had been, even when I’d been partnered with a male. Attraction was one thing, but sex? That meant touching, and touch... well, I knew the danger of desire overwhelming control all too well. My ex had been the only man I’d felt safe with in that regard.

“The ladies have just been joined by a man,” Ginny was saying. “I’m running facial rec, but you might want to get a little closer and check him out.”

“Will do.”

I squeezed past a couple who were dancing so enthusiastically it was a wonder they didn’t put their backs out, and finally caught sight of our four ladies.

Monica Ashworth—no relation at all to the Society’s matriarch—was tall and curvaceous, with porcelain skin and the crimson hair of a royal witch.

Her bridesmaids were similarly tall, but on the thinner side.

Two were also Ashworths, though not of the same family line as Monica, while our third—Lanie—was from a minor Marlowe line.

There might be only three lines of royal witches, but there were multiple lineages within each and very few who were actually related.

The High Council was very careful about “breeding” compatibility; anyone wishing to get married these days had to do a full DNA check and an ancestry search to ensure there were no close links.

The man dancing with them was the same height as the three women, with dark hair and thin features; instinct said he was human, but from where I stood, his eyes appeared to be silvery, which was the usual sign of a witch. Half-blood, perhaps?

“Well,” Ginny said, a little impatiently. “What says the inner seeker of darkness?”

“The inner seeker sees five people intent on having a good time and nothing more.”

“You cracked open the gates yet?”

“I have not.”

“Why not?”

Annoyance flickered through me. Ginny had never truly understood just how hard it was for me to open those inner gates—partially because I’d never fully explained the risk I took every time I did it, and partially because she, like everyone else, considered the Kang talent to connect to—and read—the energy or “spirit” of all living things to mine insights and hidden truths ultimately a benign one.

She and they were very wrong when it came to me.

“Because I’m not close enough.”

“Then get close enough.”

“Trying.”

“I’m tempted to say try harder, but I know that might be pushing it.”

“Yeah,” I replied dryly. “It might.”

I edged carefully around the bridesmaid dancing next to the stranger then tugged off the mental “gloves” that protected me from accidental touch and opened those inner gates.

The energy they were emitting was stronger than I’d expected, and it hit with the force of a tsunami, sending me staggering back a couple of steps.

I swore, braced, and fought for control over the inner darkness that so desperately wanted to dive headfirst into that wave; gradually, ever so gradually, I beat her back into submission. It was then that I felt it.

The nothingness. The stillness.

In the sea of vitality and life that surrounded me, it was an island of peace. Of serenity.

It wasn’t coming from the group in front of me.

I quickly swung around and scanned the nearby faces, searching for the person or persons responsible for that island. But the sensation disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, and I cursed again.

“Hanna?” Ginny was saying, “What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

“I felt something... strange.”

“Dark strange? Dangerous strange?”

“Just... strange.” My reply was absent, my gaze still searching the area.