Kissing Passion (Kissing Monsters 8)

By Lynn Robin

“This is exactly what Lock wanted.
His plan works; already, he has driven them apart.
And begun to shatter her heart."
Kiss was the only one in the world who could defeat the Collector, the strongest monster in recent history.
Now, she is the only one who can vanquish the Great Nightmare.
Or so Seraphim and the others believe, but Kiss silently doubts whether even her love is strong enough to turn Lock into an angel—because how can she muster any passion for the monster who destroyed her five years ago; for the beast that has now taken Zane away from her?
Being his creator, Skylar knows how mighty Lock is, and to atone for her mistakes before the angels will take her life, she tries to do anything in her power to make sure the world’s greatest threat will be eliminated—in case Kiss will fail.
She seeks the help of August, but will their plan work,
or be torn to pieces once again?
The world is on the verge of drowning in darkness.
Kiss’s passion might not be just Zane’s, but everyone’s salvation...
Or their demise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lynn Robin
• Release date: Mar 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005311483

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 PASSION

Kissing Monsters — Book Eight

Lynn Robin

KISSING PASSION

Kissing Monsters — Book Eight

Copyright (c) 2021 Lynnette Robin Slijkhuis

Cover and interior design: (c) 2021 Kimberly Jolanda

ISBN: 9781005311483

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 Passion

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Epilogue

Author’s Note

About Lynn Robin

Connect with Lynn Robin

Books by Lynn Robin

PROLOGUE

oh, scarlet

Oh, Scarlet.

Don’t keep me waiting too long, my darling.

Standing in the heart of the room—the room he’s just changed and shaped into an echo of the past, a room he hasn’t entered in five years after leaving a broken-hearted girl to die—Lock closes his eyes and breathes in deeply.

Yes. All is ready now.

He is the host, ready to receive his guest.

And oh, how long he has been waiting for this guest, even longer than he realized. The thing is, he never thought he’d see her again. He’d believed her dead.

Until several weeks ago.

Ever since that day, he keeps replaying the memory in his mind: he had been amused by the former Collector’s attempt at claiming his bone-ring and had deliberately allowed him to escape, simply to prolong the game. He then followed Zane’s trail into a monster’s lair… and there she was; lush waves of red hair cascading down her shoulders and pooling around her feet. Her skin, as dark and smooth as he remembered it. Startling gray eyes filled with a look so kind, so soft, not at all jaded despite everything she’d been through.

But Scarlet didn’t remember. She didn’t remember him at all.

The first thing Lock had felt, when she looked at his monster-shape without even a hint of recognition, had been this sharp pang in his chest he still doesn’t have a name for.

Then, he felt fascination.

In the end, he was thrilled.

Thrilled, by all the opportunities that were opening up to him when Scarlet surrendered herself to protect her darling Collector from harm. Lock took her to his lair, and there he watched from the shadows as she squirmed and sobbed in agony; through the ring, a connection had bloomed to life between them, and he’d been breathless with the knowledge seeping into his mind.

He found out that she had indeed died, but then been brought back to life by an angel.

He learned she had become a Gifted One.

He found out she’d then turned into a monster after kissing the Collector, taking on the curse of a demon’s life.

And he learned she was on the verge of remembering him, Lock, Julian Lock.

The girl he had broken once was there again, wholly mended, so he could break her all over again. Such a generous, heart-pounding gift the angels had given him.

Lock opens his eyes, forcing himself to return to the present. He studies his shadow stretched out on the floor before him: the wings emerging out of his back; the curled horns protruding from his head.

Gifts granted to him by Skylar.

His eyes narrow, still fixed on his shadow—but his mind’s eye is already wandering to the blue-haired girl who kissed him into an entirely different creature, only weeks ago. The same girl who then kissed him again, on the beach, almost as if she’d hoped it would turn him into something else once more; or worse, kill him.

He had tasted the anger on her lips, the desperation on her tongue. She had felt like a bird trapped in a cage and it had made his heart race. Kissing Skylar was an entirely different experience from kissing Scarlet.

Scarlet had been all sweetness and warmth, while Skylar… she’s a wild thing, dark and complex and confused. It excited him to a point he nearly forgot all about Scarlet—to a point that he, for a little while, started to believe she might be more than just a pawn, but rather his equal, his dark princess with which he would rule the earth and drown the world in shadows, all living creatures their captives which they would keep in cages until they tired of them.

They could have ruled, together.

But the moment she proved to be just as weak, just as soft as Scarlet, he’d lost interest.

Because, despite their similarities, she wasn’t truly Scarlet.

No, Scarlet, she is… something else. During the years after he left her for dead she was never far from his thoughts. It was as if her ghost haunted him everywhere he went. With every monster he claimed and kept as a slave, it was like he could feel her watching him. Sometimes, at night, he unconsciously reached for her as the feelings of lust and heat rose up in him—feelings he’d only discovered after meeting her, and then was unable to forget about. But no other human ever interested him enough to lure them into a trap. None of them shone as brightly as she had done.

Lock finally tears his gaze away from his shadow to glance at the open door, presenting him with a view of his lair, the place still in good state, even despite him not being an actual monster anymore. He studies the shifting dark shapes, the haze of purple smoke; the other creatures made by Skylar.

They’re even easier to control than average monsters. He doesn’t even need a cursed ring, nor an enchanted mirror to trap them. With a mere thought he can make them do his bidding.

As soon as Scarlet gets here, he will have the best of two worlds:

Lackeys made from darkness.

And a pretty slave who shines even brighter than an angel.

Her light—it’s addictive, he can’t possibly get enough, he always craves it, and yet his hands itch to extinguish it like a candle, because the light is too blinding and it grinds on his nerves.

Who knew fascination and disgust were such closely related cousins?

Lock turns and steps closer to the bed. Oh, Scarlet, he breathes, running his hands over the satin sheets. Don’t keep me waiting too long… my darling.

CHAPTER ONE

legacy of the kiss

Kicking up stardust as she walks, Kiss breathes in the cold, frosty air. Night is falling. From her peripheral vision she notices the pine trees and rocky boulders that are painted in a layer of glistening whiteness—that resembles but isn’t snow—to her left and right.

She keeps her gaze straight ahead, walking down the path to the clearing from which she can see even more angelic light. Any moment now, the glow will brush her bare feet.

Her pace falters slightly.

It has been several hours since Seraphim brought her, Skylar, and August to the Safe Haven. Any moment now, she is about to face all of the surviving angels.

To hear whether they are willing to entrust her with the very task of saving the world.

Of vanquishing Lock.

The Great Nightmare.

Again, Kiss hesitates in her steps, a visible echo of the conflict in her mind and heart. Could I truly, she can’t stop wondering, kiss Lock into an angel?

Could I truly kiss Lock out of love?

There is something hard, something dark inside her that has grown since the day Lady Scarlet was born; that has become stronger ever since she can remember her past; that, during the last few hours, after seeing Zane lose his body because of Lock’s trick, has stretched out its arms and legs and still demands to take up even more space.

She hasn’t given voice to these doubts, however, not even when she was still at Seraphim’s lair. Not even when the Angel Made of Fire put his lost and secret lover, Maren, back to sleep in her bed of stardust flowers. All she asked him was: Will you turn me into a Nightmare Kisser as you did Zane?

I am not certain that is possible, he answered after a silence, "for you aren’t human, nor a Gifted One… or dying. Despite the ring around your finger, you are a monster. However, he then added, glancing at the sleeping woman on the ground, Maren believes in you. And so, I believe it must be a possibility."

But then he explained that because of Kiss’s nature, he wasn’t able to give her the gift of a Nightmare Kisser all by himself. "Yet with the powers of all breathing angels combined, he said, there is a chance it would be possible after all. That is, if they agree with blessing a monster with this Gift."

A hollow feeling had filled Kiss’s stomach then. Will they, she asked quietly, agree to make me a Gifted One again?

Seraphim had merely looked at her.

Let us go to the Safe Haven, he said, and find out.

When they eventually arrived in a flash of white flames, Kiss had been relieved to find Althea healing one of the last injured angels, the others looking strong and elegant, fully recovered. Wasting not a single precious minute, Seraphim had instantly summoned them all to the clearing, leaving Kiss underneath the canopy of glittering pine trees with Skylar, August, and Althea, where they waited for the verdict.

The silence between them was tense. Althea silently looked over August’s wounds, who looked uncharacteristically grave; Kiss doesn’t know him that well, yet by studying him she could tell that Lock had broken something inside him and changed him forever.

Skylar avoided everyone’s gaze and sat a little apart from them, as if feeling like she wasn’t welcome. Kiss could only imagine the guilt that’s eating away at her, being the creator of Nightmares.

Sitting across from them,