Dancing with Darkness

By Mary Martel

Isobel finds herself in a place she never expected to be again— living out yet another nightmare come to life.

She thought all the monsters were dead and gone. She thought wrong. And so had everyone else.

Rain, Romero, and Finn are lost and back to being broken men without their female witch. They’ll do anything to get her back. And, fortunately for them, they aren’t alone. The Alexander coven is right there with them in the search, because that’s what family does for each other.

Isobel might think she’s alone but she’s got family looking out for her, people who love her.

Will they find her in time?

Will they get to be happy and all finally together after all?

Or are some things too broken to ever be fixed? And will Isobel end up being one of them?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary Martel
• Release date: May 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215575499

Mary Martel

Mary Martel was born in West Michigan and spent most of her life there. She currently resides in North Dakota with her two daughters and husband. She loves reading, zombies, mermaids and all forms of art.Follow on Instagram: @mary.martelEmail address: [e-mail]

Book preview

1

What’s Wrong?

Finn

Iwoke up feeling oddly empty. Almost as if something was wrong, but I didn’t know what because I went to sleep feeling content and incredibly happy for the first time since I was a child. Not that there were many of those times.

The change was drastic and terrified me.

I reached out for the ultimate source of my comfort and found the bed beside me empty.

I didn’t panic right away because we were at Rain’s cabin, so Isobel was home and there could be plenty of places for her to be outside of this bed with me where she belonged.

I opened my eyes and saw the bones from my dream catcher dangling from the ceiling. That explained why I’d slept so great, but it didn’t explain why I’d woken up feeling like this.

I got up feeling sick to my stomach. Something was definitely wrong here, but I still stupidly held out hope that everything was going to be okay.

I should have smacked myself right in the face for hoping because nothing good in my life ever lasted. I wasn’t one of those people who found happiness and had it last. I was cursed, or some shit like that.

I moved through the cabin looking for her. She wasn’t in the bathroom and when I checked the room next to hers I found Baxter sleeping peacefully with no Isobel in sight. The kitchen and the living room were both empty.

I had never ventured down the other hallway before and didn’t really want to now because I didn’t want to encroach on Rain’s space. I was trying to walk a careful line with him where I didn’t step on his toes. Right now he was tolerating me, but I knew he didn’t like me.

I didn’t want to be kicked out of the coven before I was really even let into it. That would be heartbreaking, to say the least.

The first room I checked had furniture in it but it seemed stale, almost as if it belonged to someone but they were never around to use it. It was probably Ariel’s room. Which seemed kind of ridiculous to me because she’d had a room at the house next to Quinton’s and a room at Romero’s when it had belonged to his son. And then there was her room at Quinton’s.

Jesus, did she need to live with everyone? I tried not to judge her but it was hard to be kind to someone when they hated your guts. But I was trying. Trying and failing.

I knocked quietly on the next door instead of just opening it up and peeking inside. I didn’t want to walk in on Isobel and Rain in bed together because I knew I wouldn’t be welcome to join them in Rain’s bed. If it was Isobel’s bed it might be different.

Rain whipped open the door with a severe frown on his face. His shoulder length dirty blond hair was messy and I’d clearly just woken him up. His bare chest was on display and he was only wearing sleep pants that rode low on his hips.

I kept my eyes locked on his green ones so I didn’t ogle his chest like a creep and make him uncomfortable. Or piss him off.

It was too early in the morning for a pissed off Rain to be on my hands.

What’s wrong? He immediately asked in a low, gravelly voice that did things to me I’d rather be tortured than admit out loud.

I cleared my throat before speaking. Is Isobel in there with you? She wasn’t in bed when I woke up and I’ve checked the rest of the house and haven’t found her.

His frown deepened and he pushed the bedroom door open the rest of the way.

The covers on the bed were messy but the person still sleeping in the bed was easily visible. His broad back was on display in all its pale splendor. His long red hair was fanned out all around him.

Fuck. If Romero was in Rain’s bed then where the hell was Isobel?

God fucking dammit, Rain growled as he pushed me out of the way with surprising gentleness. Where the hell has that girl got off to now? Did you check the back patio?

I shook my head in the negative because it honestly hadn’t even occurred to me to look outside for her yet. I had just hoped she’d been in Rain’s room with him.

I still stupidly held onto hope that she was here somewhere and now that Rain was up he would be able to find her.

Wake up Romero, Finn. Rain ordered in a voice that matched his gentle touch. I’ll check outside and wake up Baxter to see if he heard her or she said anything to him.

This was the nicest Rain had ever been to me and I didn’t know how to deal with it.

He headed off in one direction and I went into his bedroom.

I wanted to enjoy the sight of a half naked and in bed Romero but my stomach had gotten even more sour by the second. Finding out Isobel wasn’t in here had only served to make the feeling worse.

I moved around to the side of the bed he was laying on and crouched down beside him. I reached out and gently brushed the hair out of his face.

Romero, I murmured quietly. You have to wake up now.

His gray eyes snapped open and focused on me. A slow smile spread across his face and he reached for me.

I moved back and stood up, not wanting to be touched at the moment. Isobel’s missing and Rain went to check and see if she’s outside. You need to get up and get dressed.

Fuck, he groaned as he sat up.

He said something else but I didn’t hear what it was because I was already on my way out of the room.

I found Rain in the living room with a tired looking Baxter on the couch rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. The look on Rain’s face told me everything I needed to know.

Isobel was not here.

The SUV’s gone and there’s no sign of her.

Something was seriously wrong, I just knew it.

Why would she leave in the middle of the night without saying anything? And where the hell could she have gone?

2

A Total Failure

Rain

Finn looked absolutely devastated and like he was two seconds away from having a complete and total meltdown. I had questioned if his feelings were real before but seeing him like this there was no doubt in my mind that at least what he felt for Isobel was the real deal and maybe he even loved her.

Baxter sat huddled up in a corner of the couch, and he looked both confused and scared. I wanted to comfort the boy but I was the only one of us adults in the room keeping my shit together and if I sat down to hug him I’d likely break down and lose it too.

Romero had completely checked the fuck out. Physically he was in the room staring out at the backyard. Mentally he was somewhere else entirely. All I knew was that wherever he’d retreated to inside of his head it wasn’t a good place for him to be because he had a look about him that screamed dead inside.

It absolutely killed me to see him like that. He’d been so vulnerable with me the night before and to see him so shut down was truly devastating.

Seeing Baxter freaked out also killed something inside of me.

Fuck, even seeing Finn in his state messed me up too.

Isobel brought us all together and I was seeing very clearly now how we all fit. This would be our coven, we just needed her to come home so that we could make it official.

My stomach sunk at the possibilities of where she could be.

When I’d called her, her phone had gone straight to voicemail. I texted both Toby and Baylie to see if she’d been in contact with them. She hadn’t and all I had accomplished was upsetting and worrying them. Their responses had surprised me because they both were very closed off and I hadn’t thought they’d been on friendly terms with Isobel. They both sounded as if they were just as upset as we were. They promised to let me know if they heard from her.

I called Trenton and asked if he and Simon would go to the shop to see if she was there or if there was any sign of her.

I didn’t want to leave the cabin in case she showed back up. Romero and Finn were almost useless to me at the moment because it wasn’t like I could trust them enough in their current states of mind to send them out to look for her.

Trenton texted me back to say she wasn’t at the shop and there was no sign of her. They went back through the camera footage for the whole night and she hadn’t been to either Fortune’s or the tattoo shop.

She had never done something like this before and I didn’t understand why she’d run off now. She had seemed happy with the way her relationship’s with Finn and Romero were progressing. I had finally come around and opened up to having a relationship with her and I thought that would make her happy because she hadn’t hid that’s what she wanted since she’d gotten here.

So why had she left and where had she gone?

Was she okay?

Did she see Romero sleeping in my bed and get upset by it so she left?

Fuck, I rubbed my palms into my eyes as I sunk down onto the couch. I needed to get my head on straight so I could figure out how to find her.

Are we just supposed to sit here and do nothing while we wait for her to show up? Finn asked. He sounded and looked like a broken man.

I had nothing to say to him because I didn’t know what the fuck to say to him. I didn’t know what to say to any of them.

I felt like an absolute and total failure

This was a crushing blow to my soul and one I wasn’t sure I’d be able to survive. When I’d lost my daughter after she’d been taken away from me by my repulsive sister it had been the absolute worst thing that happened to me.

Then my wife and my father had died.

I’d gotten my little girl back but not until she’d gone through hell and had grown up without me.

Now here I was with another crushing blow thinking I might have potentially lost another important person to me. My mind went down a dark, dangerous path, dancing and writhing in my own misery.

My future snatched away from me before I’d even had the chance to fully grab hold of it and embrace it. I feared I wouldn’t be coming back from this.

From the looks on the faces of every other person in this room I wasn’t the only one with this fear in the front of my mind.

We were all fucked without her, even Baxter.

Shit like this was partially why I had been so hesitant to do this again with another partner. Good things for me didn’t last and they always ended horribly.

Jesus, fuck, where could she be?

Maybe she just ran out to grab breakfast for all of us, Baxter suggested in a small voice.

I got him, but at the same time I wanted to shake him and tell him he wasn’t this stupid, after all he’d been through he should have been smarter than to hold onto foolish hope.

I didn’t do any of those things. I was already feeling like a giant fucking failure, I didn’t need to add being a bad dad on top of it.

Have you checked in with that other coven she stayed with? Romero asked quietly and my eyes snapped to his.

Fuck.

My mouth ran dry.

He meant Raven and his crew. As far as I knew she’d made friends with them and still kept in touch with them on the regular. Isobel didn’t make friends easily so I knew she held onto the ones she did make.

The problem was, I had no way to contact Raven or the other members of his coven. That had been Ariel’s doing and she’d know how to contact them. But I didn’t want to call her and ask. I didn’t want her involved in this.

I was worried she’d look at me and she’d see me as nothing more than a failure as well. I couldn’t hack it.

Someone banged on the front door and before anyone had the chance to get up and see who was on the other side of it it was pushed open.

It wasn’t Isobel who walked into my house.

No, my daughter and her husbands, plus her bodyguards, barreled their way inside.

I should have fucking known that Trenton and Simon would have gone home and ran their mouths. I hadn’t even thought to ask them to keep their mouths shut.

Ariel ran right over to me and dropped down onto the couch beside me. She wrapped her arms around me in a sideways hug but I didn’t have the heart to lift my arms so I could hug her back.

She didn’t seem to notice or care. Is she here? Did she come home? Where is she? She sounded slightly frantic but was trying to keep her emotions under control. And failing.

She’s not here, Romero answered her in a dead, empty voice.

We have no fucking idea where she is. Finn helpfully shared in a voice that rivaled Romero’s.

Ariel chewed on her bottom lip as her eyes darted nervously between Romero and Finn, and then back again. Maybe she just needed some space. This is a lot you guys have going on here, it’d be a lot for anyone, and maybe she just needed a second to herself to breathe or something. You know, some girl time, or alone time, or whatever.

Her words made sense but no matter how much I wanted to believe they could possibly be true I knew without a shadow of a doubt in my mind they absolutely were not. When Isobel needed alone time she went out back on the patio and got stoned, but she never wandered off on her own.

I cleared my throat and still my voice came out rough when I said, "Baby girl, will you check in with Raven and see if