Gena Showalter - Ecstasy in Darkness

An added thank you to the freakishly amazing Kresley Cole, who often has to talk me off the ledge.

Turn the page to read praise for Gena Showalter
and her novels of danger and desire...

Pocket Star Books A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 www.SimonandSchuster.com

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

Copyright 2010 by Gena Showalter

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Pocket Star Books paperback edition November 2010.

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Cover design by Lisa Litwack
Illustration by Cliff Nielsen

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN 978-1-4391-7577-4
ISBN 978-1-4391-7579-8 (ebook)

We all need a girlfriend we can trust with our life, love, adore, cry with, laugh with, just. be. I have four. To Jill Monroe, Kresley Cole, P. C. Cast, and Sheila Fields. Not to mention my sisters Shonna Hurt and Michelle Quine, and my kiss-ass mom, Vicki.

One

And I thought you were rough. Those girls are Dallas Gutierrez shuddered. Whats way worse than rough? Cause thats what they are.

What, exactly, are you trying to say? Mia Snow leaned away from her desk, crossed her arms, and peered at the gorgeous man across from her. Perfectly tanned skin, perfectly symmetrical featuresor so he liked to bragand the perfectly formed body of an underwear model. Lean, yet sculpted with muscle. All that perfection aside, he was an absolute pain in her ass. And by the way, Im not rough.

Perfect ice blue eyes rolled. You once kneed me in the balls and asked me how they tasted. Just to say hi. Youre rough.

She had, hadnt she? Memories were fun. Why are you complaining? There were no complications during your testicle retrieval operation. So, anyway, whatd they do this time?

They. Best friends. AIRAlien Investigation and Removaltrainees Ava Sans and Noelle Tremain.

Dallas tangled a hand through that thick, dark mane of his, looking like a lost little puppy rather than the stone-cold killer he was. Get this. I took all ten of the advanced placement trainees on an assignment last night. Call came in, you see. Was told a predatory otherworlder was picking on humans at a bar. The fine group of boys and girls I took was just supposed to observe as I threw my pimp hand around, bitch slapping as necessary, and calming things down.

Okay. What had happened to the morose, utterly annoying Dallas of the past few months? The one who whined and complained about, well, everything? Theres a smoking-hot alien queen who wants to screw me, but I cant encourage her because her partners always turn into cannibals, whaa, whaa, whaa. My best friend Devyn married his vampire lover so I dont have anyone to play with, whaa, whaa, whaa. Im your husbands blood slave, whaa, whaa, fucking whaa. If she heard that last one more time, she was going to make him taste his balls again.

He was alive, wasnt he? He had cool new powers like mind control and superspeed, didnt he? Kyrin, her too-sexy-for-words husband, had saved Dallass ass by sharing his Arcadian bloodand was now training Dallass ass. Dallas should have been this happy all along.

But at least the old, everything-is-a-joke Dallas was making an appearance today, she thought, rather than the new I-want-to-slash-my-wrists Dallas. Courtesy of Ava and Noelle, a two-woman Apocalypse? Shed have to send the girls a fruit basket. Or maybe something they could actually use, like a fire and brimstone basket.

Continue, Mia said with an imperial wave of her hand.

Dallas nodded, a bit disappointed. Probably because she hadnt complimented his bitch-slapping abilities. Baby. The otherworlder refused to calm vdown, said the humans told his woman she hadnt just been hit with the ugly stick but the entire tree had fallen on her, and the assholes owed her an apology. The humans, of course, told me theyd only spoken the truth and that I should arrest the bastard alien for harassing them about it.

Which you didnt. Even though the arrest would have been standard protocol. But Mia was head of AIR nowthree cheers for her boss deciding to retire early!and was in the process of making a few changes. No longer would aliens be arrested for defending themselves or demanding respect for their race.

Secretly part otherworlder herself, she was flat-out done with prejudice. And now that Kyrins blood flowed through Dallass veinsagain secretlyDallas thankfully was, too.

Nope. I didnt, her second-in-command confirmed with the slightest hint of relish. Anyway, while I was apologizing to the otherworlder for all humans and their idiot tongues, Ava and Noelle went Death Match on the assholes in question. Now, I didnt see who started it, you understand, just heard a commotion and turned around. By that time the humans, who were both big, burly males, were unconscious and bleeding on the ground, and Ava and Noelle were grinning and banging their fists together in a job well done.

Mia cut back a moan. Changes, good. High incident rate, bad. There was going to be helland apparently hospital billsto pay for that Death Match. Not just for the males, but for herself. Cause yeah, top brass would rip into her until she begged for mercy. Which meant they would pretty much rip into her until she bled to death, because she never begged for anything. Well, except when Kyrin got her into bed.

Three boos for her boss deciding to retire early. Had he stayed, this would have been his problem.

So whatd the girls say when you asked about the carnage?

Ava said her hand accidentally slipped and made contact with her guys nose. I said, Repeatedly? And she said, Uh, yeah. Im really clumsy. And Noelle said her guy was trying to escape, so she took him down like wed trained her. And oh, we shouldnt worry about the gaping wound in his neck because he probably had that before he entered the bar.

First, how was Noelle such a hardass? The girl was Jaxon Tremains cousin, and Jaxon was one of AIRs staunchest rule followers. Not to mention, both were richer than Kyrin, who was richer than God. Noelle had been raised in a mansion, for all that was holy, her every need attended to by servants. She should be delicate.