Kissing Shadows (Kissing Monsters 2)

By Lynn Robin

“Come home with me.”
At that, Kiss tilts her head back to look at him, startled.
Zane gazes back at her—and there it is again, that rawness from those days they spent together, that honesty, that realness that was never part of the game they were playing back then.
Their emotions, at least, had been true.
But she has changed.

Kiss has left.

Zane thought he would no longer know loneliness—but he was wrong, and now he roams the earth kissing monsters into angels. Being a Gifted One, humans no longer recoil from him but instead are drawn to him like moths to a flame, begging for a touch of his lips; yet with every touch, all that he’s kissing are shadows.

He wants Kiss back. He craves her love.
But she has changed.

As he discovers the truth about her, Zane sets out to find a way to tame the beast in her heart, so he can once again claim her kisses—without turning her into an angel.

Yet as both monsters and angels try to come between them,
Zane and Kiss have to make a choice:
To give up on each other. Or to fight instead.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lynn Robin
• Release date: Sep 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005402211

Lynn Robin

Lynn Robin (1992) is an author of Paranormal Romance novels.Born and raised in the historical city of Leiden in the Netherlands, she has felt the urge to write stories ever since she was little— preferably ones with ghosts and other spooky things (probably because her parents let her watch Stephen King film adaptions when she was nine).Next to that, she likes to add a healthy dose of romance to her books; star-crossed lovers and forbidden romances, preferably about monsters hiding in the bodies of young men, and girls blessed with angelic powers—or at least humans touched by magical abilities.She made her debut in 2017 with her Dutch series entitled the Schimmenwereld Serie (the Phantom World series), containing six books about ghosts, angels, demons, music, dance, art, and—of course—love. She won the Best Book of 2018 award with the fourth installment, Schimmendroom (Phantom Dream), chosen by the jury of The Dutch Indie Awards.In 2020 she debuted internationally in English with the highly romantic Kissing Monsters series which concluded with 8 volumes in 2021. Her latest release is The Sea of Her, a still ongoing paranormal romance series in a tropical setting about the Weeper of Pearls, a Wild Stranger from the Sea and a long-lost King of the Ocean.Besides being passionate about writing, she’s also a rather dedicated running/fitness/yoga/martial arts enthusiast, and likes to spend time with her family, play videogames, or freak herself out watching documentaries about haunted houses (for research, she claims).

Book preview

KISSING SHADOWS

Kissing Monsters — Book Two

Lynn Robin

KISSING SHADOWS

Kissing Monsters — Book Two

Copyright (c) 2020 Lynnette Robin Slijkhuis

Cover and interior design: (c) 2020 Kimberly Jolanda

ISBN: 9781005402211

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the author.

www.lynnrobin.com

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Table of Contents

Kissing Shadows

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Epilogue

Coming Soon

Kissing Scarlet

About Lynn Robin

Connect with Lynn Robin

Books by Lynn Robin

PROLOGUE

jars, blood, red

Her tongue slips out, licking her lips.

Her pupils dilate, shimmering with hunger.

Her breaths shudder as she gazes up at them:

At the jars, neatly placed on the shelves, like one would lovingly arrange their plants on a windowsill where they could drink up the sunlight and unfurl their leaves and flower buds. The sun doesn’t reach this room, however, for drapes and tattered sheets cover the windows. There is only a glow of shivering candlelight, reflected in the glass jars.

They are all filled with something red.

Red, like roses.

Red, the seductive color of an elegant woman’s painted lips or nails.

Red, like the glow of the hottest, brightest fire.

Red.

Red like lives that have been taken.

Red.

Red like blood.

It is no wonder they call her Lady Scarlet.

Her hand trembles slightly as she reaches out to one of the jars, running her fingertips over the smooth glass, nearly moaning as she imagines the blood clinging to her skin, liquid and sticky and red. The color of it, the taste of it, the smell of it, it’s all so intoxicating.

She doesn’t merely see the redness of it; she sees the source of life it used to contain.

She doesn’t merely taste the iron; she tastes sweetness instead, and saltiness, and spiciness, sometimes even a mix of all three, depending on who it belongs to.

She doesn’t merely smell the coppery tang; no, she smells flowers and fruits and spices, because every human and every monster has its very own scent, fragrances she has learned to detect, smell, and cherish.

Because the scent of blood—anyone’s blood—is all she smells these days.

All she craves.

Blood is something her tongue wants to taste and never tires of, blood is something that makes her lips tingle in anticipation, like a kiss would do to others.

A fresh scent reaches her. She breathes in carefully through her nose. Something sweet, something spicy. It softens her features, it sharpens her gaze, it makes her run her tongue across her teeth. The Dark Thing that lives inside of her lifts its head, and she can tell it has an appetite. For something new. Something red.

After all, there are still many jars left to fill.

She sinks into a crouch as she pulls open a drawer, revealing dozens of empty jars tinkling out a shuddering melody with the motion of it. She reaches in and then holds up the jar in front of her face, letting it catch the candlelight.

And—

With that, a sudden memory comes to the surface.

A memory, an echo, so fragile, so foreign—

A memory—of her own hand, looking different and yet the same, holding up another jar, filled with water that shimmered in sunlight, drenching her in rainbow colors—

And swimming in the water, there was a fish, a tiny thing of a fish, with a tail that streamed out elegantly behind it as it moved in lazy circles, such a delicate little thing—

Then, the sound of breaking glass—

The jar, smashed to a wall—

Shards and water everywhere—

The fish, so vulnerable, splashing wildly as it quietly, helplessly begged for oxygen—

A hand that struck her—

She, fallen to the floor as well, feeling shattered like the jar, feeling breathless and scared like the fish, while shards dug into her skin. And words—sharper even than the glass—cut into her heart, her soul, her very being—

The memory stops.

As the visions fade, they leave behind a hollowness, as if her insides have been scraped raw, as if her soul is beaten and bruised.

A frown pulls her eyebrows together and she nearly looks around, expecting to find a shattered jar and a dying fish. But all there is are the jars on the shelves, the candles and tealights behind her, the drapes and tattered sheets in front of the windows, the couch and the bed and the chairs and the tables half hidden in shadows.

And the jar in her hand, perfect and unbroken.

Waiting to be filled.

She narrows her eyes as—once more—various scents drift into her nose, the promise of a taste coating her tongue.

A hunger. A craving.

It grabs ahold of her again, because it’s simply something that grows. It’s something that’s insatiable.

It’s a hunger out of her control.

Jars, blood, red.

It’s all she needs.

It’s all she wants.

She—Lady Scarlet. The Collector of Blood.

CHAPTER ONE

moths to a flame

Zane once asked Kiss what would happen if she, a Gifted One, would kiss a human.

The answer is nothing.

Nothing at all.

He would know.

Slouched down on a couch, his arms spread wide as he leans his broad back against the cushions, he glances up from behind the tousled locks of hair falling over his forehead. The bar’s air is thick with cigarette smoke, thick with the moist, early autumn night clashing with the last days of summer, thick with an almost sensual anticipation as everyone is scanning the faces that are present, hoping to find someone, searching for a soul or at least a body to spend the dark