Deep, Dark & Dangerous

  Hot Pursuit

  Madalyn’s breathing grew labored and perspiration broke out on her forehead and between her breasts. Ice-cold terror set in anew. She couldn’t believe this was happening. From Hollywood darling to dead woman in the blink of an eye.

  She could hear the crunch of heavy boots on the snow growing closer; she could all but feel the hot breath of her pursuer on her neck. He was only about four giant steps from reaching her.

  “Noooo!” she cried out as his rough hands seized her hips from behind. She screamed as she fell to the ground, his heavy body coming down hard on top of hers.

  “You are fine,” a deep, heavily accented voice murmured to Madalyn. “Be still.”

  Sweet God, she had never been so frightened. Black eyes locked with scared green ones. She felt this close to passing out.

  “What do you want?” she asked, her voice catching.

  “I want you.”

  Also by Jaid Black

  Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down

  by Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Melanie George

  Jaid Black

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2006 by Jaid Black

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 1-4165-2315-4

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Visit us on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.SimonSays.com

  To my agent, Ethan Ellenberg, for putting up with me. To my editor at Pocket Books, Micki Nuding, for her unwavering enthusiasm and keen editorial eye. And to Napoleon and Vinny for greeting me every morning with excited pants, slobbery kisses, and wagging tails. (Now if only I could get my husband to do that…)

  Prologue

  Viking stronghold of New Sweden,

  Present Day

  Verily, a time of great suffering shall fall upon the whole of the world, for its women will dwindle in numbers. Disease shall soon spread, female babes will not be born, and bloodliness will die out. But, yea, the strong Vikings shall live on, for almighty Odin has seen fit to warn us. We are His chosen people.

  Take to the earth, the haven bequeathed to us; the belly of the gods. Dwell below her dirt and leaves, now and forever, untouched by the Outsiders and their ways. Yea, let each warrior cling unto a wife, that his seed may bear fruit and our race prevail. Should a time come when there are fewer females than warriors in our stronghold, then hunt on the Outside and take them.

  By any means necessary, take them.

  —Viking legend

  Otar Thordsson absently stared at the words on the seven-hundred-year-old statue. Like his people, the carved image of Erikk the Mighty, his great-grandfather many generations removed, had endured through the passage of time. Both were built from the same unyielding grit and mettle.

  Lost in thought, Otar stared at the statue. A grim frown shadowed Otar’s features.

  The Revolution was coming. Soon, the time would be upon the warriors of New Sweden to seize back the kingdom and place it in the hands of the jarl who was meant to rule it—Nikolas Ericsson.

  The Thordssons had lost much under Toki’s regime, the current jarl-king. Once of the ruling class of nobles, his family had been sentenced to toil amongst the laborers.

  A cousin to Toki, Otar hadn’t been shocked when the inevitable came to pass. Toki could stomach no threat to his reign; he retained his position by snuffing out any potential blood rivals to the kingship. Or so he believed…

  Otar ran a hand over his plaited back raven hair. In truth, he had posed less of a threat to Toki amongst the soft nobility. Now, a decade later, his six-foot-six-inch frame was not gangly and thinly postured, but powerful, honed, and heavily muscled.

  Perfect for snapping Toki’s twiggy neck with his callused hands.

  Otar didn’t wish to retain the kingship for himself. Truth be told, he’d rather remain amongst the laborers than endure such a headache. Leastways Toki’s sire had wished Lord Nikolas Ericsson to rule the Underground kingdom of New Sweden upon his death, and so it would be.

  Otar picked up his hammer and headed toward the grindstone. There was a lot of work to be done, pounding metals into goods that could be bartered amongst the other Underground clans of New Norway and New Daneland for more weapons.

  Now was the time for laboring. Soon it would be time for the Revolution. It had to be so. There was more at stake than a personal vendetta.

  Someday, when the prophecies came to pass, it was imperative that their people be led through tumultuous times with a strong hand and keen mind. Toki could not and would not ever be that man. Under his regime, their race would die out.

  Under Nikolas’s rule, the Vikings would thrive, and once again their people would rule the whole of the world.

  Chapter

  One

  Hollywood, California

  Present Day

  “Why hast thou forsaken me?” she raged to the heavens. “Why? Oh God…why?!” She shook as she turned away from Alejandro’s bulging biceps. She felt his heated stare searing her back with its intensity. “I cannot bear this temptation another minute, Lord. I cannot!”

  Alejandro’s nostrils flared as he turned her in his embrace. “You will make love with me, Sister Alexis.” He shook her as she cried out for mercy. “You are mine.”

  “Noooooo!”

  “Leave the church, my beloved.” His voice was low and insistent, his breathing heavy. “Let us consummate our love.”

  “Never,” she gasped, backing away from him.

  Sister Alexis tightly clutched the rosary beads she held, wielding them like a talisman. Her eyes were drawn to his bare washboard stomach and the beads fell to the ground, forgotten.

  “No!” she protested, even as she threw herself in Alejandro’s awaiting arms. He wildly kissed her as he ripped at her nunnery clothes. “Nooooooo!”

  Thirty-year-old Madalyn Simon frowned up at the movie screen. Sweet Lord above, what had she been drinking when she agreed to play the role of a cloistered nun who fell in love with a matador? There were low points in an actress’s life and then there were low points. This farce was a bottomless pit of lowness.

  “I have fought the horns of many deadly bulls,” Alejandro purred, “but never have I been caught by them until you, Sister Alexis.”

  Madalyn winced. How bad would it look if she walked out on the premiere of her own movie? Her agent would maim her. Her manager would kill what was left of her after the maiming.

  “I have prayed for many souls,” Sister Alexis gasped as she stroked Alejandro’s hard belly, “yet I never really understood what having a soul meant until I locked eyes with you.”

  But then, her agent and manager didn’t have to see themselves dressed like a nun in the arms of a shirtless Spanish matador muttering some of the dumbest lines ever put to paper.

  She sighed. She really had to quit making movie deals over nachos and piña coladas.

  “Take me, Alejandro! Show me what it means to be a woman!”

  That’s it! She no longer cared what anyone thought. She wasn’t going to watch herself look foolish for another second. There were still thirty torturous minutes left to endure until The Taming of the Shrewd was over; the rest of the crew could endure those minutes without her
.

  Delicately clearing her throat, she smoothed the French twist her golden-red hair had been fashioned into as she stood up. If there was ever a perfect moment to suck down a piña colada, this was it.

  “Where are you going?” her manager whispered through a tight-lipped smile from beside her. He tugged at her arm.

  “I need some air.”

  “You can’t walk out now,” he whined.

  “I can and I am.”

  His dark eyes looked desperate. “The studio won’t take kindly to this.”

  “Bruno—”

  “Sit!” he barked under his breath.

  “You sit!” Madalyn hissed back.

  If she didn’t leave now, it would be even more difficult to skip the after-premiere party, and there was no way in heaven or hell she was showing up for that.

  Oh yes, the “glorious” after-premiere party! Jealous actresses lying through their teeth about how fabulous The Taming of the Shrewd was, while secretly gloating that America’s beloved Madalyn Simon was going downhill. Wannabe actresses doing the same thing, but for the purpose of getting in her good graces instead of disparaging her. Bruno looking scared that he’d have to settle for ten million instead of twenty million for Madalyn’s next movie. The studio executives whispering to each other about what to do for damage control…

  Where had it all gone wrong? Madalyn wondered not for the first time. In the beginning, she had picked roles with the panache and eye of a high-stakes gambler in Monte Carlo. These days she picked them like a has-been at the bingo hall back in her hometown of Athens, Alabama.

  Because you no longer care.

  Madalyn briefly closed her catlike green eyes and sighed. It was true. She really didn’t care anymore.

  Hollywood had turned out to be the very epitome of glitzy superficiality it was touted as. Nobody could be taken at face value, everyone wanted something from you, divorces could be ordered up quicker than a stiff drink, and lies were as commonplace as the L.A. smog.

  During the past decade she had seen countless actors and actresses give in to the dark side of the force, becoming as jaded and artificial as legend bespoke. Madalyn, on the contrary, never had.

  At heart, Madalyn Mae Simon was an Alabama girl in a Barbie world. Given to being something of a drama queen, she wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but she was decent and kind inside. She wanted things to stay that way.

  Her heartbeat picking up in tempo, Madalyn yanked her porcelain-colored arm out of Bruno’s meaty, tanning bed–bronzed hand.

  “I’m leaving,” she said definitively. She felt like the exorcist, battling Bruno for the possession of her soul. Yeah, she was a drama queen. Oh well. “Unless you want a scene, respect that.”

  Shocked gazes followed her as she made her way to the back of the theater. Picking up the hem of her dress, Madalyn notched her chin up, waved to her limo driver, and regally left the building. The perfect exit. At least she could still do those with gusto.

  Her shoulders slumped as soon as the limo doors were safely shut behind her. Sweet Lord above, she needed that piña colada.

  “YES, I REALLY AM DOING IT, DRAKE. I’m leaving Hollywood behind for good and moving someplace where nobody knows me. Quit laughing!”

  “I’m trying,” her sister chuckled. “Really.”

  “Uh-huh. I can hear that.”

  “Oh come on, Maddie Mae, do you know how many times you’ve said this very same thing to me?”

  Madalyn sniffed. “I don’t remember—”

  “I do. Twenty.”

  “And don’t call me Maddie Mae.” Her lips pinched together. “It makes me sound like I live in a trailer with ten kids and a potbellied husband named Earl.

  “Listen,” Madalyn said, haphazardly throwing clothes into suitcases. The cordless phone was perched between her ear and shoulder. “I’m serious this time, Drake. I’m packing as we speak.”

  Her sister chuckled. “And do you remember how many times you’ve packed your suitcases only to unpack them an hour later?”

  “Not really,” she ground out.

  “I do. Twenty.”

  “You’re starting to irritate me. Why do I even bother to call you for support?”

  “Because I’m your sister and I love you. And by the way, guess how many times you’ve said that to me?”

  “Twenty?”

  “Nope. Thirty-five.”

  Madalyn’s shoulders slumped. She couldn’t deny what her younger sister said. She had, in fact, done all those things, perhaps even more often than Drake had counted. And yet…

  Deep down inside, Madalyn knew that this time was different. This time she meant it. Perhaps turning thirty last week had indelibly changed something. Realizing that she was a thirty-year-old woman with piles of money, no family save Drake, and no real friends, had been jarring.

  It had changed everything.

  The desire to bolt from Hollywood was as all-consuming now as it had been several hours back when she’d left Bruno and the movie showing behind. Usually she calmed down an hour or so later, telling herself things would get better—but they never did. She didn’t aspire to money and a career—she had those things already. What kept her going all these years were dreams of making real friends, finding a loyal, trustworthy mate, and…

  Her nostrils flared. It didn’t matter. They were all illusions. In this superficial world, they would always be illusions.

  “If you’re serious this time,” Drake said after a long pause, “you know you’re always welcome to live with me.”

  Madalyn tried not to snort. “Yeah, I can already see the headlines: ‘Madalyn Simon Gives Up on Life After the Humiliating Flop The Taming of the Shrewd and Flees to Utah to Live with Alarmist, Antigovernment Sister.” She sighed. “I appreciate the offer, but I want to go where I can’t be found. As soon as I leave Hollywood, the first place the reporters will flock to is your head-for-the-hills barricade outside Salt Lake City.”

  “Don’t knock it. The facility we’ve set up here is primo. Once chemical warfare commences, we’ll be the only human survivors. And, oh yes, war will happen soon. Did you read in the paper about…”

  Madalyn plopped down on her Arabian princess haremesque bed, tucked a stray curl behind one ear, and smiled into the phone. She and Drake couldn’t be more different if they tried, but she loved her little sister fiercely. More than once, she’d chewed out a reporter for making fun of Drake’s beliefs and lifestyle in the paper. Nobody, but nobody, said anything negative about Drake Simon and got away with it. Not if Madalyn had something to say about it.

  Drake and Madalyn: no two blood sisters could be less alike. The only things they shared in common were green eyes and five-foot-eight-inch frames. There the similarities ended. Madalyn favored their mother with her ivory skin and long, curly, golden red hair. Drake took after their father, with long, straight, inky black hair and skin that tanned easily. After both of their parents died, Madalyn made a permanent move to California. Drake took off with her the-sky-is-falling-and-the-government-cannot-

  be-trusted friends and headed for an underground barricade in Utah.

  Madalyn lay back on her bed and patiently waited for her sister’s political rant to come to an end. When Drake was through pontificating on how the CACW—Citizens Against Chemical Warfare—were certain that the United States government was experimenting on alien corpses, Madalyn interjected.

  “I’m serious this time. I really am leaving, Drake.”

  Silence.

  “Where will you go? I doubt there’s any place left on earth where people won’t recognize you.”

  Unfortunately, Drake was probably right. “I don’t know, sis,” Madalyn sighed, “but I’m going to find it.”

  Chapter

  Two

  Arctic Seacoast

  Two Months Later

  Madalyn fell onto her bed with a happy sigh. She was probably the only person in harsh, rural Alaska with a seventy-thousand-dollar bed that loo
ked like it belonged to a sultan’s favored ‘harem’ girl, but oh well. There were some things she’d been willing to part with when she secretly sold off her estate, and some things she hadn’t been willing to give up. Her beloved bed had been one of the latter.

  “I can’t believe I did it,” she told the log cabin walls with a smile. “But I did.”

  The papers and TV were abuzz with reports of Madalyn Simon’s disappearance—or so Drake had told her via the phone. Newspapers were scarce out in the Arctic and television sets were even rarer, so all her reports came secondhand.

  Madalyn’s closest neighbors were a nearby village of Eskimos. Nice people, and thankfully they spoke enough English to communicate with her, but they didn’t have a clue as to who she was. Perfect!

  Every few days Madalyn would don one of her en vogue ski suits and drive her expensive snowmobile into the Inuit tribe’s village to buy the necessary survival supplies. She enjoyed the trips, mostly because they gave her a reason to be around other people.

  When she’d dreamt of chucking it all and leaving civilization behind, she hadn’t realized how lonely life would be. It was a solitary life out here, but still far superior to her old, emotionally devoid one.

  Madalyn turned over on her belly, propped her hands beneath her chin, and sighed. As much as she was enjoying this sojourn from reality, she didn’t know how much longer she could withstand it. Life out here was more demanding than she’d realized—especially for a woman who hadn’t cooked a meal, made a bed, or done her own cleaning in over fifteen years. She had assumed it would all come back to her, sort of like riding a bicycle. She had assumed wrong.

  Every time she chipped a nail, she dropped everything until it was once again neatly manicured. Whenever she was attempting to clean her log cabin and dust got into her nose, she sneezed for a solid ten minutes. Madalyn grimly wondered just how badly it had gotten to her.

  It—Hollywood. Had the Alabama girl become part of the Barbie world without even realizing her soul had been lost? Lord, she needed an exorcism! And a piña colada. Bartered goat milk was getting a little boring.