Dark Nights Boxed Set: The Complete Series Read online

  Dark Nights Boxed Set

  Skye Warren

  This boxed set contains the complete Dark Nights series of twisted dark romance from New York Times bestselling author Skye Warren! Sign up for the newsletter to find out about new releases and sales at skyewarren.com/newsletter.

  Enjoy the series…

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  About the Series

  Keep Me Safe

  Praise for Keep Me Safe

  Warning

  Author’s Foreword

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Trust in Me

  Praise for Trust in Me

  Author’s Foreword

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Epilogue

  Don’t Let Go

  Praise for Don’t Let Go

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Thank You

  Excerpt from The Pawn

  Other Books by Skye Warren

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Keep Me Safe

  Skye Warren

  Praise for Keep Me Safe

  “KEEP ME SAFE is a very intense, well-written story. Very hot. But, just when I think I’ve got it figured out, the story takes an even darker and twisted path. Ms. Warren does not play it safe in her writing and has no remorse about it!”

  —The Forbidden Bookshelf

  “I couldn’t help but put everything I was working on aside and read all 125 amazing pages of it. It’s dark, gritty, disturbing, and amazingly fantastic!”

  —Day Dreaming

  “This is erotic fiction for a very specific reader who likes a darker story, a story that takes you to those disturbing places in your mind where emotional discomfort lingers.”

  —S. Richards, Amazon Reviewer

  “This is a very dark, gritty, violent, and emotional story that is conveyed in an unapologetically raw, candid voice.”

  —Shawna, Goodreads reviewer

  “Zachary and Rachel find some kind of love through all of this but what a horrible journey. Very good, disturbing book.”

  —Carolyn F, Goodreads reviewer

  “It’s well written, and I was riveted from the very first line until the very end and read it in one sitting.”

  —Romance in Review

  Warning

  This book contains explicit sex and graphic violence. Not intended for anyone uncomfortable with these situations or anyone under the age of eighteen.

  Author’s Foreword

  Dear Reader,

  In medieval times dragons and sea serpents were drawn onto maps to warn travelers about dangerous places. Well, this is my drawing. This is my warning. What follows is a dark tale that only grows darker.

  Keep Me Safe is the prequel to the Dark Nights series, where each book follows a different couple. Both Keep Me Safe and the next book, Trust in Me, contain a particular man. A very bad man. He’s the villain of these first two stories…but the “hero” of the last. Of course, only you can decide what you’ll call him. Hero? Anti-hero? Sociopath?

  I hope you’ll stay for the ending, but now you’ve been warned. Here be monsters. Only in this tale, they are in human form.

  Yours,

  Skye Warren

  Chapter One

  Let me tell you how all this started—with a tray of cold beer bottles so heavy they threatened to topple me over. With shoes pinching my feet and a football game on the television.

  An innocuous beginning to a nightmare.

  The bar was packed for a Friday night. At least that meant I’d have money for groceries this week. Assuming the frat boys watching the game actually tipped me.

  “What time do you get off, sweetheart?” one of them slurred.

  His friend snorted. “He wants to get you off, all right.”

  Charming. “I have a boyfriend.”

  It was a lie, and they clearly knew it. Or they didn’t care. The first one reached for my ass, and I slapped his hand away. My tray of drinks wobbled but didn’t fall. Thank God, because that would come out of my check. And I seriously doubted Dumb and Dumber would chip in even though it would be their fault.

  “Your tab,” I said, slapping down the bill.

  They both groaned. Soon enough they were arguing over who drank how many, and I slipped away to deliver the rest of my drinks.

  I weaved through the busy barroom with an agility born of practice. Waiting tables in a too-tight tank top was not a career anyone aspired to, but after watching my grandmother deteriorate and the money dwindle, it was all I could manage. The last of my student loan money had gone to pay her funeral arrangements. I didn’t regret doing it, but six months later I had a mountain of debt and no college degree.

  “Rachel,” someone called.

  My coworker waved me over, a worried expression on her face. Shit. I knew her kid’s fever had been spiking when she’d dropped him off at the sitter’s.

  After sliding the last few drinks onto the correct tables, I met her with any empty tray. “You okay?”

  “I am, but Dylan’s not,” she said, her forehead creased. “I got a call. His fever went to 104.”

  I knew nothing about kids but that had to be bad. “Did she give him medicine?”

  “It’s not working. I…I need to be there.”

  “Of course.” I understand that, and Krissy had supported me when Gram was sick. Still, we’d been understaffed all night, just me and her. If she left… “Of course you have to be with him. I’ll handle things.”

  She made a face. “Vincent picked up some tail and left an hour ago. I seriously doubt he’s coming back tonight.”

  Vincent was the owner and used the bar as his own personal breeding pool. “Then I’ll close up. It’s not like I haven’t done it before.”

  But I hadn’t done it alone. This wasn’t a safe neighborhood.

  Krissy frowned and glanced toward the back. “And you’d have to take over my tables.”

  Case in point—the group of scary guys occupying the corner table. I’d counted myself lucky when they’d sat in Krissy’s section, but it looked like fate had other plans. “Then I’ll take over your tables. Look, it isn’t ideal, but we don’t have any other choice. You can’t just work here if your kid needs you.”

  I wasn’t kidding about that, she was vibrating with worry and already inching toward the other end of the counter.

  “I’ll owe you,” she promised. “Big time.”r />
  “You’re just collecting on a favor,” I told her. “I’m sure I racked up more than one from when Gram… well, from before.”

  Her smile was sympathetic. “Call me when you get home, or I’ll worry.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Seriously?”

  “Someone has to,” she said with one last wave. And then she was gone, grabbing her purse from behind the bar and practically running out the door. I sent a little prayer up that she and Dylan wouldn’t have too rough of a time.

  A whistle came from behind me. So much for break time. I’d be running to keep up with the place.

  My heart began to pound when I realized just who had been calling me. One of the rough-as-hell characters from the back. I’d hoped they would leave soon.

  Luck was not on my side tonight.

  I forced a pleasant but bland smile on my face. Something agreeable but that wouldn’t invite them to feel me up. “Evening. I’ll be your new server.”

  A hush came over the group, and I swallowed hard. Six men stared at me, all of them hard and intimidating. Some had tats and others had beards. The one furthest back, in the shadows, caught my attention. Maybe it was his green eyes.

  Or maybe it was the way he’d been watching me all night.

  “What happened to Miss Krissy?” one of the men near me asked.

  Worry whispered down my spine. It wasn’t a good sign that he knew her name. That means they’d been trying to get close. “She had to leave. Family emergency.”

  In other words, back the fuck off.

  He smiled slowly, though it was really more of a leer. “Then what’s your name, sweetheart?”

  I wished I could tell him where to put his sweetheart but direct engagement tended to make things worse. I knew that from experience, so I gritted my teeth. “I’m Rachel. And I’m taken.”

  The men exchanged looks. “I’ve heard that before,” one said in a low voice. “Funny enough, it doesn’t always matter.”

  Gross. I wanted to brush it off but the twist in my gut was actual fear. I took a deep breath, smelling the stale alcohol and sweat that infused the place. I couldn’t do this. “Look, do you want me to you anything else before we close the bar?”

  The man in the back leaned forward, his eyes even greener in the faint light. “You’re closing?”

  Midnight was way too soon to close. Vincent would be pissed when he saw the receipts were short, but I didn’t care. Really, I couldn’t serve this many people. We needed three waitresses to start with, not two. And definitely not one. But most of all, these guys had spooked me. I couldn’t sit around and watch them leer at me, a strange sort of promise in their eyes.

  “Yeah, we’re closing early,” I said. If it got taken out of my check, I’d skip a few lunches.

  The man with green eyes nodded, as if… relieved?

  I wondered what his name was. Except, what did it matter? I shook my head. What a crazy idea. Wanting to know the customer’s names was as dangerous as them wanting to know mine.

  “Good,” he said. “We’ll take the bill.”

  Thank God.

  I dropped off their check on the way from one table to another, not even stopping, even though I felt their eyes on me. All their eyes, from the creepy ones to the compelling green ones.

  It was a relief when they were gone. I closed up most of the tables pretty fast. Even with people leaving I had to run around, getting sweaty and exhausted fulfilling last call and collecting payment. And yeah, the frat boys had shorted their bill by five bucks.

  So much for a tip.

  When I glanced at the corner table, it was empty. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least they were gone. It took a full hour and a half by the time last people paid and left. Then another hour while I wiped down all the surfaces of the spilled alcohol and bodily fluids. By the end, I was exhausted and thoroughly disgusted.

  At the sink I turned the hot tap to full and let the scalding water flow over my hands and forearms. Hopefully it would burn away all the grossness. I wouldn’t feel totally clean until I went home and repeated this under the shower in my apartment. Not that it ever got that hot.

  Although if I were honest, I never really felt clean.

  I was constantly struggling, always fighting to pay the bills, to buy food, to keep the landlord off my back. Every day was a little cut, wearing me down until there’d be nothing left but broken skin.

  Behind the bar was a faded, murky mirror, and I stared at myself. A girl with dark hair and dark eyes stared back at me, obscured and distorted by the mirror. It seemed somehow more accurate this way, my edges blurry, my expression indistinct.

  I knew I should have better than this. Should find some way to go back to college or at least find a better job than fighting off frat boys and gangbangers. But I didn’t know how, with all this debt weighing me down.

  Most nights I was too exhausted to try.

  As I left the building and shut the door, I spared a thought for Krissy. Hopefully she’d managed to settle Dylan down and maybe even get some rest herself. I should probably call her like she’d said, but that might wake one of them up.

  I was still thinking about that when I locked the door. Maybe that was why I didn’t hear footsteps behind me. Maybe that was why I didn’t know I was prey until I was already captured. Whatever the reason, I knew I wouldn’t be calling Krissy tonight. Maybe not ever again.

  Chapter Two

  So that was how I got here. A tray of cold beer bottles and a football game on television had somehow led to me in some kind of warehouse—on my back, legs spread wide with a man about to hurt me. About to use me.

  At least now I knew his name. They called him Zachary, the man with the green eyes.

  He was beautiful. My first thought when I saw him there was that he didn’t belong, but he did. He dressed like them in grungy but expensive jeans and a leather jacket. He looked like them with unkempt hair and a bad boy goatee. He talked like them, gruff and coarse and lewd, except when he spoke to me and no one else could hear.

  “You have…you have done this before, right?” he asked, pushing two fingers inside me.

  “Been hurt?” I asked, and his hand paused a beat before thrusting in again.

  “Had sex,” he said in a low tone.

  “Yes to both.” I hadn’t been kidding about the shitty neighborhood, and I’d been defenseless for too long. Something he knew. Something he’d taken advantage of, along with his friends. I didn’t know if he’d been the one to clap his heavy hand across my mouth until I passed out, but it didn’t really matter, did it?

  He shut his eyes and bowed his head. “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely.

  His thumb found my clit and circled. A twinge of pleasure shot through my body.

  “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t make me enjoy this.”

  He stilled for a moment, looking at me. His eyes were dark and unfathomable. For someone getting what he wanted, he didn’t look happy about it.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to make you ready.”

  He continued fucking me with his fingers, loosening my body and drawing out the wetness, but he didn’t touch my clit again. I knew it would help me, make this hurt less, but I almost wanted the pain. That was what a girl wants when she’s being forced into this. It was only right.

  “Hurry up and fuck her,” one of the other men called from across the room. My breath quickened.

  “I won’t let them hurt you,” he told me, quietly enough that they couldn’t hear.

  “No?” I didn’t believe him. “But you’ll do this.”

  “Yes,” he said grimly.

  With his other hand he reached down to unzip his jeans and pull out his already half-erect cock. It surprised me, actually. The other men leering and groping at me had noticeable bulges, just from slapping me around and tearing my clothes off. Even though he appeared to have a good-sized cock, hefty in his palm, it wasn’t fully erect. Was he not attracted to me?

  Then why had he insisted o
n having me over the other men’s objections?

  Maybe it was a problem for him, this almost-public performance of ours. I wouldn’t have expected shyness from a hardened criminal and gangbanger. That was my role here. The naive one, the innocent. The fearful one, though I’d found that even my fear had deserted me.

  He stroked his growing erection in time with his fingers inside me, creating a rhythmic link between us, a live wire formed by his hands, end to end. His gaze narrowed on my breasts, exposed, so vulgar, and his lips parted. He seemed to notice the bruise that had already formed, from where the other man had grabbed me. His eyes darkened before he looked away.

  He glanced down at me, where his fingers were pressing into a place that should have been private, even scared. No longer. His cock thickened in his fist, lengthened, preparing to replace his fingers. His breathing grew labored as his arousal increased.

  Finally he removed his hand and pressed the head of his cock to my folds. He paused, breathing hard. God, this is really going to happen.

  “Christ, I’m sorry,” he muttered.

  He pressed inside me, the tip, and froze.

  “I don’t think I can,” he said. “You have to tell me it’s okay.”

  Oh God. Of course I’d get stuck with the rapist with morals. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing, except that there were ten other guys lined up to take his place.

  I should fight. No, I’d only get hurt. I was locked in with a bunch of armed, ruthless men; I had no chance of getting away. They looked a hell of a lot rougher than this one, who’d claimed me.

  He said he’d protect me. If I pleased him—that part was assumed.

  I just wanted this to be over. I’d be a fool to pass up the possession he offered in a place like this. He was the thin rope while I tumbled down raging rapids. It might not be enough to hold me, but it was all I had.

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  As if I’d released him, he slammed all the way inside, held himself deep and let out a low groan. The breath whooshed out of me in shock and sudden sensation. I’d given him permission. I’d consented to this farce of a coupling, so what did that make me?