Dark Needs at Night's Edge

Néomi Laress, a famous ballerina from a past century, became a phantom the night she was murdered. Imbued with otherworldly powers but invisible to the living, she haunts her beloved home, more >>

Néomi Laress, a famous ballerina from a past century, became a phantom the night she was murdered. Imbued with otherworldly powers but invisible to the living, she haunts her beloved home, scaring away trespassers -- until she encounters a ruthless immortal even more terrifying than Néomi herself.

To prevent him from harming others, Conrad Wroth's brothers imprison him in an abandoned manor. But there, a female only he can see seems determined to drive him further into madness. The exquisite creature torments him with desire, leaving his body racked with lust and his soul torn as he finds himself coveting her for his own.

Yet even if Conrad can win Néomi, evil still surrounds her. Once he returns to the brutality of his past to protect her, will he succumb to the dark needs seething inside him?

Stay sane, act normal,he chants to himself as he strides down the rickety pier. On either side of him, water black like tar. Ahead of him, muted light from the bayou tavern. A Lore bar. A lone neon sign flickers over flat skiffs below. Music and laughter carry.

Stay sane...need to dull the rage. Until the endtime.

Inside. "Whiskey." His voice is low, rough from disuse.

The bartender's face falls. Like last night. Others grow skittish.Can they sense that I ache to kill?The whispers around him are like metal on slate to his ragged nerves.

-- "Conrad Wroth, once a warlord...madder than any vampire I've seen in all my centuries."

-- "A killer for hire. If he shows up in your town, then folks from the Lore there'll go missing."

Missing? Unless I want them found.

-- "Heard he drains 'em so savagely...nothing's left of their throats."

So I'm not fastidious.

-- "I heard he eats them."

Distorted rumors. Or is that one true?

Tales of his insanity spreading once more.I've never missed a target -- how insane can I be?He answers himself:Very fucking much so.

Memories clot his mind. His victims' memories taken from their blood toll inside him, their number always growing.Don't know what's real; can't determine what's illusion.Most of the time, he can scarcely understand his own thoughts. He doesn't go a day without seeing some type of hallucination, striking out at shadows around him.

A grenade with the pin pulled, they say. Only a matter of time.

They're right.

Stay sane...act normal.Glass in hand, he chuckles softly on his way to a dimly lit table in the back.Normal?He's a goddamned vampire in a bar filled with shifters, demons, and the sharp-eared fey. Christmas lights are strung up in the back -- through the eye sockets of human skulls that frame a mirror. In the corner, a demoness lazily strokes her lover's horns, visibly arousing the male. At the bar, an immense werewolf bares his fangs, bowing protectively as he tosses a small redhead behind him.

Can't decide if you should attack, Lykae? That's right. I don't smell of blood. A trick I learned.

The couple leaves, the redhead all but carried out by the Lykae. As they exit, she peers over her shoulder, her eyes like mirrors. Then gone. Out into the night where they belong.

Sit. Back against the wall. He adjusts the sunglasses that shade his red eyes, dirty red eyes. As he scans the room, he resists the urge to rub his palm over the back of his neck.Watched by someone unseen?

But then, I always feel like that.

He swoops up the drink, narrowing his eyes at his steady hand.My mind' << less