PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF

  KATIE MacALISTER

  Memoirs of a Dragon Hunter

  “Bursting with the author’s trademark zany humor and spicy romance . . . this quick tale will delight paranormal romance fans.”—Publishers Weekly

  Sparks Fly

  “Balanced by a well-organized plot and MacAlister’s trademark humor.”—Publishers Weekly

  It’s All Greek to Me

  “A fun and sexy read.”—The Season for Romance

  “A wonderful lighthearted romantic romp as a kick-butt American Amazon and a hunky Greek find love. Filled with humor, fans will laugh with the zaniness of Harry meets Yacky.”—Midwest Book Review

  Much Ado About Vampires

  “A humorous take on the dark and demonic.”—USA Today

  “Once again this author has done a wonderful job. I was sucked into the world of Dark Ones right from the start and was taken on a fantastic ride. This book is full of witty dialogue and great romance, making it one that should not be missed.”—Fresh Fiction

  The Unbearable Lightness of Dragons

  “Had me laughing out loud. . . . This book is full of humor and romance, keeping the reader entertained all the way through . . . a wondrous story full of magic. . . . I cannot wait to see what happens next in the lives of the dragons.”—Fresh Fiction

  ENTHRALLED

  A Dark Ones Novel

  Katie MacAlister

  Copyright © 2021 by Katie MacAlister

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Cover by Croco Designs

  Formatting by Racing Pigeon Productions

  http://katiemacalister.com

  This book is dedicated to my dear friend (and fellow WOW junky) Marian Goepfert, because she's wickedly funny, has an inner strength that amazes me, genuinely cares about other people, and loves her kitties. And she dies more than I do in WOW. Smooches, my darling!

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  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

  EPILOGUE

  NOTE TO READERS

  12 June 1889

  Madame:

  I return herewith the novel with which you attempted to beat me soundly about the head and shoulders earlier this afternoon in Green Park. As I stated at the time, I in no way intended to accost your person, and was simply attempting to rescue my coat from where you had sat upon it in mistaken belief that the City of London provides gentlemen’s coats as covering for benches in their metropolitan parks.

  The coat is a favorite of mine, and while I understand that you took umbrage with me wishing to reclaim it, I remain blameless in the assault you insisted I was conducting. I do not know the HR person to whom you threatened to report me, but I regret the incident nonetheless.

  Yours sincerely,

  Keeley Moore

  ONE

  “Hey, Beast, how they hangin’ today?”

  A spate of raucous male laughter followed the inquiry. Keeley Moore heaved a mental sigh, and sent up a prayer to whatever deity would deign to hear it.

  Please, just kill me. Right now. Kill me this very second, and I swear by all I hold dear that I will convert to whatever religion you lead, and serve you to the end of my days. Which would be forever, since I would be dead. That’s a hell of a deal. You’d be getting a devoted servant all for the cost of the time it took to smite me dead on the spot.

  “This here’s the Beast, Taylor. Don’t go beyond the yellow line on the floor of his cell. Last man who did that was a mindless slave in less time than it can take you to say ‘Mississippi.’ The director was extremely annoyed.”

  Right now, Keeley pleaded with the unknown deity. Do it now. If you do, not only will you earn yourself my undying—ha!—gratitude and promise of servitude; you’ll also save countless mortals from being turned into brainless playthings of monsters. Surely you must want to protect mortals from them. Killing me right here, right now, will save untold lives.

  “I thought the director wanted slaves made. Isn’t that why we’re all here?” a second male voice asked.

  Maybe the deities weren’t paying attention to him. Maybe they were all busy with other things. Fear gripped Keeley’s gut, causing his breath to hitch before he got control again. He reached out again with his awareness, every iota of his being trying to reach a benevolent god who could end this torment. Hello? Perhaps you don’t understand the gravity of the situation. I’m a Thrall. Yes, a Thrall. I used to be a Dark One, but then I was made a Thrall when a madman discovered a dormant Thrall, and used his blood to—but that’s a lot of backstory you probably don’t want to hear. Suffice it to say that now I’m a Thrall, and being used by monstrous men who won’t be happy until the mortal world is in their grasp. So you see that ending my life now will be a benefit to everyone, not just me.

  “Not us,” the first male voice said quickly. “Them, but not us.”

  “Them who?” asked the second.

  “The people. The ones who don’t have family to notice when they go missing. They’re the ones we feed to the Beast. Not members of the Collective.”

  No smiting occurred. In fact, nothing happened other than a sudden and intense desire to scratch an itch on his nose. Keeley held his breath, hoping against hope that the guards would think him dead. Thanks for nothing, he mentally snapped at the universe in general. If the whole world is enslaved because you couldn’t be arsed to smite me, don’t come crying to me!

  “He’s ... er ... he’s not breathing, is he?” That was the second man speaking. Keeley tried to smooth his expression out to one of vacancy, and mentally crossed his fingers. “Is he dead? He looks dead. I’ve never seen a dead person before, but he looks very, very dead.”

  “He’s not dead. That’s just the Beast up to his old tricks. He likes to try to lure us in close to him, then whammo! He’s on you in a second and your will is gone. He used to be a vampire, you know. Vicious, they are. Bloodthirsty. Literally.”

  “A vampire?” he heard the other man say on a gasp.

  “Well, they use another name for it. Dark Dudes or something like that, but it’s the same thing. Brutal nightwalkers. And everyone knows the only way you can kill those is a stake through the heart, and since the Beast here isn’t staked, he’s alive.”

  “Are you sure about that? He’s not breathing at all,” the second man repeated.

  “Absolutely. No way he could die in here on his own.”

  “Maybe someone did something to him?”

  If only someone would, Keeley thought.

  “Not possible. See those runes on the walls? Those are spells the director had drawn to contain the Beast. That’s what keeps the bad people out. Or in, if that’s what the director wants. All those runes mean there’s no magical crap going on here, including someone offing our prize possession. Get up, Beast. Your dinner’s on the way.”

  Keeley, with one last mental glare at what he imagined was a vast panoply of deities who refused to help him, cracked open one eye and stopped holding his breath. “Go away, Tennyson. I’m not hungry.”

  “Ha ha ha ha,” laughed the guard named Tennyson in a manner that irritated Keeley like nothing else. Well, that wasn’t strictly true. Life irritated him more. “Ha ha ha. Not hungry. You haven’t eaten in seven weeks. Another two weeks and you’d go into a coma. They go into comas, Thralls do, if they don’t eat for a couple of months.” The last was addressed to a new man whom Keeley had not seen before.

  Hope flared to life in him as he eyed the new recruit. Like all the other members of the Collective, he was dressed in a black suit and tie, white shirt, and black sunglasses—what was colloquially known as standard garb of the Men in Black. Unlike the urban legends, however, these men were all too real.

  “You stay here—no, don’t go beyond that yellow line—and open the door as soon as I fetch his meal. And don’t talk to him. He’s a master manipulator. He almost got the director himself when they first brought him in here.”

  The new man who had been addressed as Taylor turned to look at Keeley. Although his eyes were hidden behind the shades, Keeley was adept enough in the reading of expressions to note the man was apprehensive. Good. He might be able to use that. But he’d have to hurry. “So, you’re new. I’m Keeley. I’m not really a monster, no matter what Tennyson says. I am, however, a danger to everyone and,
without putting too fine a point on it, need to be put out of my misery. Let’s talk about what you want out of life. I have no doubt that whatever you seek, I can help you obtain ... assuming you destroy me.”

  It was baldly put, and Keeley wished he had more time to be properly persuasive, but there simply was no time for finesse.

  “Er ...” The man looked a bit startled. “What?”

  “The wish for my own death seems odd to you, doesn’t it? But if you were repeatedly forced to conduct acts of destruction that were morally repugnant to you, how would you feel? I’m willing to bet that you’re a decent sort of chap, and you wouldn’t want to continue to be a tool of torment any more than I want to.”

  Taylor shook his head. “No, I understand you wanting to die. I mean, you’re the Beast. You don’t have much of a life, right? But what did you mean by what I seek? You mean enlightenment?”

  “If that’s what would give you pleasure, then by all means.” Keeley sat up, straining his ears for the sounds of Tennyson returning. The clink of the shackles binding his wrists and ankles sounded loudly in the mostly soundless room, and had the new recruit backing up a couple of paces.

  “Er ... ,” he said again, glancing toward the door.

  “I can’t reach you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Keeley said, standing up. “This is as far as I can move away from the wall. But even if I could, I wouldn’t hurt you. I can see you’re different from the others. Smarter. More sensitive. Empathetic.” That was a long shot, but it behooved him to be as flattering as possible.

  “I ... my wife says that I am too sensitive about things, but I always thought of it as just being caring.”

  Keeley nodded, still straining to hear any sounds of the approaching Tennyson. Dread formed in his belly, dread and self-loathing and a bone-deep sense of sorrow that he knew would take weeks before it faded.

  Please, he begged again. Please don’t let them do this. Not again. Think of those who have been lost. And those who can yet be saved. Let me die now in order that they might live.

  “I’m not absolutely certain that I understand exactly what you do,” Taylor admitted, gesturing toward Keeley. “The lieutenant said that you chew people up and spit out the remains. But that can’t be right, because I’ve seen the enthralled, and they don’t have bits missing from them. So ... what is it you do?”

  “I don’t do anything willingly. Your friends—Tennyson and the group of mad scientists behind him—starve me until I’m barely alive; then they throw an innocent person in here, pump me full of a drug cocktail that drives me into a bloodlust, which in turn forces me to attack the victim, and then drag away the remains to be part of their mindless, soulless army.” In a moment of insight, Keeley knew that it was useless to continue. There was no way this man would help him escape. He was trapped there, alone, at the mercy of men who didn’t understand the concept of the word, and would be used to create an army of mindless drones until they used up all of his life force, bringing on the inevitable end.

  “Mad scient—”

  The words stopped as there came a knock at the door, warning that it was about to be opened. The guards had taken to doing so since the time Keeley had slipped his chains and had almost escaped before he was Tasered to insensibility.

  Despair and regret and guilt gripped Keeley. He wanted to howl that he was not a monster, that it was others who controlled him, controlled the outcome. ... His throat ached as he swallowed back the guilt, and said hurriedly, “They think I enjoy this. They don’t understand that with every enthrallment, they risk releasing an unstoppable fate. They refuse to believe that each person they force me to enthrall drives me closer to madness, and with that madness comes destruction.”

  “Of who?” Taylor asked, his voice a whisper.

  Keeley closed his eyes against the knowledge that he was close, so close to the edge of control. “Everyone,” he answered.

  The door opened. Keeley watched with black despair as the slight form of a young man was pushed into the room. The young man stumbled and fell, lying without a sound on the ground, either drugged by the Collective or perhaps overdosed on substances of his own choice. It didn’t matter which—the young man was now doomed to an eternity of hell.

  And Keeley was one step closer to being made the monster he’d fought against since he’d been captured.

  Tennyson smiled, a large syringe in one of his hands, while the other held a Taser. “You want to fight, don’t you? He always fights, Taylor, even though he knows he can’t beat us. Just don’t get too close while I bring him into submission. He came close to breaking the neck of a guard two months ago. You just let me remind the Beast that he’s here to serve us, and then I’ll let you watch while he turns this junkie into a servant of the Collective.”

  Keeley didn’t wait. He leaped forward, kicking out at Tennyson, catching him under the chin and sending the man staggering backward. In vain did he struggle against the chains binding him to the wall, hoping against hope that this time, he’d free himself.

  Tennyson snarled profanely, and shot him with the Taser. Keeley swore against the rush of pain, willing his muscles to resist the electrical charge, but it was no use, and he knew it. Even as he dropped to his knees, he struggled for control, managing to say, “One ... day ...”

  “That’s right, you make yourself sound as tough as you like, but just you remember that you’re the one crawling on the ground,” Tennyson said, approaching him to kick him viciously in the ribs several times. Keeley felt the bones give way, knowing that at least a few were broken, driving deep into his organs. He did no more than grunt with the agony of the assault, his muscles locked and refusing to heed his brain’s command. “And I’m the one who has the power of life and death. Don’t you ever forget that.”

  Anything. I will do anything you ask of me. Please take me now so that I am no longer the instrument of inhuman madmen, Keeley begged one last time, but even as Tennyson jabbed the horrible cocktail of drugs into his neck, he knew that his pleas had fallen on deaf ears.

  There was no salvation for him. No hope. Nothing but a future of endless nightmares.

  And blood.

  So much blood.

  TWO

  OTHERBOOK

  Social Media for the Otherworld

  To: Ellis

  You there?

  To: Ellis

  Ellis? Your little light is green, which says you’re connected to Face ... er ... Otherbook. Hello?

  To: Ellis

  Golden, glorious grape juice! There are days when I really dislike modern technology. What am I doing wrong with this Messenger app? Why isn’t it reaching you? Now I have to ask Merrick, and he’s busy with the whole doom doom doom thing.

  To: Ellis

  Wait, you haven’t fallen overboard and drowned, have you? Ack! Please tell me you’re not dead!

  To: Tempest

  Lovey! We just got into port (don’t I sound nautical?) and I see that you’ve been trying to message me for the last week. I told you that the interwebs would be spotty while we were at sea, and that I might not get any e-mails or messages you sent, so your grape juice panic is all for naught. We had a wonderful cruise from Dubai to Singapore. Our version of Drag Dracula was beyond fabulous, with everyone on board the ship truly enjoying it. We even got the captain up onstage one night! It’s been such a nice break from the club to do a season with the cruise lines, but alas, all good things have to come to an end, and we’re flying home to Monaco after a brief stop in Australia. What is a doom doom doom thing, and do I want to know what the ever-dishy Merrick is doing to it? Of course I do! Spill all.

  To: Ellis

  Thank the moon, stars, and zippy, zippy comets that you didn’t fall overboard! I was worried that someone might throw you overboard, since tolerance of Dark Ones in that region of the world is slim to none, or so Merrick says. I think it must be the sunshiny climate, because who in their right mind wouldn’t love a vamp? But that’s neither here nor there. The doom thing is rather sketchy, to be honest. It took me a while to pry the info out of Merrick, because you know how vampires are—über-protection mode when it comes to anything that concerns their loved ones. But eventually I did get out of him ... wait, let me do this properly. I signed up for a life-journaling class so that I can write down all the adventures Merrick and I get into. Running to the laptop so I can type rather than voice-to-text.