Bitten by darkness, p.1
Bitten by Darkness, page 1
Evernight Publishing
www.evernightpublishing.com
Copyright© 2013 Marie E. Blossom
ISBN: 978-1-77130-249-4
Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs
Editor: JS Cook
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
For Terry. You said write a vampire book and I almost always listen to you, my darling.
BITTEN BY DARKNESS
Marie E. Blossom
Copyright © 2013
Chapter One
Jasper Librae fell in love three hundred years ago with a backward planet at the edge of the galaxy, far from his home of Dekcol. Two hundred and fifty years ago, his heart was broken when the last of his family died violently. He remembered how fragile his step-brother Ambrose looked on the steps of their home, covered in blood. He remembered what it felt like as their family bond frayed just before Ambrose turned to ash. He remembered searching the wilderness of their adopted world for his sister-in-law and nephew and failing. But mostly, he remembered how their enemies forced him to leave everything behind: the sunrises and sunsets, the moon’s sad face, his beloved forests, the house he and his brother built together. He remembered his lack of power, his naiveté.
That all changed.
Three hundred years later, he wanted nothing more than to go home, back to where he'd loved and lost everything.
Tomorrow the star-skimmer would be finished.
Chapter Two
Sienna Lange knew she was different. All her life she'd been stronger, smarter, more resilient than her peers, but really, that wasn't what made her feel so isolated. The biggest problem was that something inside her was missing, some essential element that would turn her into a whole person, if only she could fill up the empty space. She sighed, rubbing a piece of bark between her fingers until it crumbled. It made her fingers itch.
Her mom felt it too, she knew. That sense of emptiness. When Sienna was a teenager, her mother told her not to talk about it to anyone—not her friends, not her father. It upset him most especially. He'd look at her sometimes, eyes shuttered, and she knew he was wondering if she was really his child or some other man's spawn, but she truly was his. She could feel the tiniest connection between them simmer, thinner than a spider’s silk, quiet but undeniable. The connection with her mom felt a little brighter, a little wilder. She cherished that sense of family, whatever it was, but even so, it wasn't enough to fix the hole in her soul. She would always be different. Nothing would ever change that.
She sighed and carefully stepped back onto the trail. Dappled sunlight lit the forest in gorgeous patterns of light and dark. She wished she could hide all day, spend it staring at the abandoned castle hidden in the trees, but she knew her friend Linda would be coming to find her any minute now.
“Sienna!”
She turned, a wry smile quirking her lips. Right on time.
“I swear, how do you disappear like that? I know you said you had native blood in you, but really, it's like, two hundred years removed. And you’re blonde. You shouldn't be able to stalk around without making any noise.” Linda hurried up the trail and stopped in front of Sienna, panting. “What are you, some kind of Pocohontas?”
Sienna laughed. “You just need to look where you're going and not step on anything that dry. Like leaves and sticks.” She looked pointedly at where her friend was standing, eyebrow raised at the broken branch under Linda’s left foot. “It's not that hard.”
“Oh please, give me a break. You think I don't notice that you disappear right around this part of the trail every time we go hiking?”
A stab of fear shot through Sienna. Did Linda suspect? She hoped not. This was her place. Her special hideaway. She glanced behind her, involuntarily squinting through the trees, even though she knew she wouldn't see anything. The mansion was well hidden. When she turned back around, her friend was smirking at her. She forced a smile and tried to look natural. “Just because I generally have to pee at this point on the hike doesn't mean I 'disappear,' Linda.” She used air quotes to emphasize her point. I hope she buys it.
Linda rolled her eyes. “Yeah, whatever you say. Listen, the guys are setting up the camp. If you want to eat something that isn't charcoal, we'd better hurry and talk them out of pouring lighter fluid on the wood.”
Sienna grinned with true amusement this time and not a little relief. “Lighter fluid? Are they crazy? I'm starving and if they torch the hotdogs, I'll be pissed.”
Linda was already walking. “And it's not really safe out here alone anymore, remember?”
Sienna frowned. “You're not buying into that vampire paranoia, are you?”
Linda stopped so abruptly Sienna almost ran into her. “Look. I know I get a little crazy sometimes, but I'm serious. There was another killing just two days ago. The body was drained.”
“I didn't hear about that.”
Linda ran a hand over her face. “My dad told me. He said he was supposed to keep it under wraps, but he knew we were going on this camping thing. The only reason he let me come was because the body was found in New York, a long way away from here.”
Sienna pursed her lips. “You're a grown woman. It's not like your dad can keep you from going somewhere.”
Linda stared at her in disbelief. “I would've canceled if he asked me and you know it, because my dad isn't a total asshole like some people I could mention. And he knows what he's talking about. He doesn't mention his job a lot, but I know that being an analyst for the FBI isn't always easy.”
“You have a point.” Sienna thought about her dad and their total lack of communication for the past ten years, ever since she'd turned eighteen. The bastard had left her and her mother without saying a word. One day he was there, the next he was gone.
“You know I do. And anyway, my dad is your honorary father now. If he said not to go, you wouldn't either.”
“Yeah.” Sienna slung an arm around her friend and hugged her. “You're right.” She started walking, arm comfortably draped over Linda's shoulders.
“Good. Glad to hear you haven't lost all the brains in your head working that incredibly boring job. All you do is move colors around on a computer screen. I don't know how you can stare at it so long without going insane. Now get your arm off me. Just because you're a giant doesn't mean you can rest your giant limbs on any available surface.”
Sienna laughed and let her arm slip down. “I'm not a giant. I'm only five-ten. That's not that tall. And I like my loser job. It's quiet. Peaceful. I like designing websites.”
“Oh please, you tower over everyone. You’re a freak of nature.”
“John is taller than I am.”
Linda snorted. “My boyfriend is six feet. He's barely taller than you and it's mostly because his hair stands straight up from his head.”
Sienna shrugged, knowing when she was losing an argument. She chuckled and insulted Linda’s car. That was a safer topic. They bickered good-naturedly until they hit camp. John stood over the fire, hands wrapped around a plastic bottle. When they walked into the clearing, he looked up guiltily.
“Drop it! No lighter fluid, you moron!” Linda dashed forward. John yelped and ran away with her chasing after him and laughing like a maniac.
Sienna shook her head at Dillon, John's little brother, who grinned shyly. Poor kid. He was fourteen and had a terrible crush on her. She set about making him forget she was both a blonde and a woman with a few well-placed jokes at his brother's expense.
A few hours later, she lay in her sleeping bag, trying desperately to fall asleep without much success. She could hear Linda and John snoring quietly in their tent and Dillon was passed out near the fire. Sienna wasn't surprised she felt restless. The darkness called to her, it always had. It made her feel alive. It also kept her from sleeping much for far too many nights.
“And tonight is one of them,” she muttered as she unzipped her bag. She stood up, stretching. The forest wasn't quiet. The bugs and creatures too timid to make noise during the day made up for that silence once the sun dipped below the horizon. Sienna headed down the trail, not bothering with her shoes. Only rarely did anything break her skin and she didn't want to wake her friends as she fumbled with her laces. After walking for ten minutes, she headed into the trees, stopping when she saw the mansion.
It lay in a clearing, but there was no moon to illuminate the old, weathered rock from which it was built. She’d been there so many times she didn’t need light. She could sense its shape, using memory to supply the details. It had broad front steps that reached to a long portico running the length of the house. Two towers stood at either end of the building. She believed there might be a rear courtyard, but Sienna had never explored around it or been inside. Always, she approached from the front, walking up the steps slowly. No one else even knew it was here. She wasn’t sure why she could see it: a curtain of energy that made the castle invisible to everyone else, like some kind of futuristic shield device. When she’d dragged Linda here once, her friend had thought she was crazy and refused to even leave the trees.
The barrier prickled her skin as Sienna passed. When she reached the steps, she sat down and let her body relax on the stone. She didn't know why this place made her feel so … content. It just did. Even though she couldn't open the door. Couldn't even walk up further than the third step without another, secondary barrier blocking her way. It didn't matter. She closed her eyes and gratefully let the dark settle over her like a blanket.
Chapter Three
Jasper stood on the balcony of his penthouse, in the tallest building of Kroy City. Below him, the reddish light of unending twilight lit the streets, filled to bursting with people hurrying about their business. He hated this place. Hated the oppressive atmosphere, so unlike the crisp air of Earth. He hated the sun, hanging like a red eye on the horizon, always watching … watching. It usually made him want to crawl out of his skin, but today more so than usual. He’d discovered a secret cache of data in the Blood Council’s database. It was encrypted, but that wasn’t what worried him right now; it was only a matter of time before he broke into the data. No, it was discovering that the Council, of which he was a member, kept secrets at all. Secrets that needed to be hidden so thoroughly that they’d locked it in a vault then encrypted the files, and then neglected to inform most of the other members of the government. He wasn’t naïve. He knew power led to corruption, but he was … disappointed to find proof.
He ran a finger along the metal railing, knowing that he could break it to pieces if he wanted. He was that strong. Not that doing so would serve any purpose. It wouldn't even soothe his bitter anger, held so long and so tightly in his gut. His enemies had broken many things over the years, thrown them at him in fits of anger. None of it mattered. He healed. He stood up. He left, turning his back on their teeth. And now, it was almost time to go.
A footstep behind him had him turning sharply. “I thought I'd asked to be left alone.”
“Forgive me, master. Count Alucard insisted.” The old man who played at being his servant wouldn't meet his gaze.
Jasper knew it was because he wasn't really the old man's master. He knew it was because Count Alucard had paid him to spy on him. Jasper also knew Jack tormented himself because he dishonorably accepted the money the Count offered as compensation. Jasper didn't blame him or hate him. He knew Alucard had the man's daughter in his dungeon.
“Well, well, Count Librae. Brooding on your balcony. Again. How cliché.” Count Alucard stepped onto the metal shelf and leaned uncomfortably close.
Jasper imagined the rivets of the railing giving way. Plunging to his death alongside with this worm. He shook the image away. The fall probably wouldn’t kill them, anyway. Satisfying though it would be to watch his enemy bleeding out on the concrete far below, his true revenge was already plotted and set into motion. He wouldn't get to see Alucard suffer personally, but his eventual death would take longer and be all the sweeter for having kept his patience so long and so well.
“Alucard. Go away. You bore me.” Jasper resumed his position, staring down at a taxi shoving its way between two smaller vehicles. The driver of one of them shook a hand out his window in an obscene gesture but the taxi ignored it, squeezing into the parking space. Jasper knew how the man felt: cut off, pushed aside.
“No manners. That's what happens when one loses one's parents so young.” Alucard rubbed a finger over his sleeve, smoothing imaginary wrinkles.
One must always be perfectly insulting, Jasper thought. Out loud he said, “Manners preclude barging into one's house.”
“Oh come now, Jasper. Must we do this verbal sparring thing every single time?” Alucard huffed. “The council, of which you are a member, may I remind you, demands your latest research. If you don't produce it, you won't get paid.”
Jasper rolled his eyes. “I don't need the money. Go away.” He felt the older man stare at him.
“I haven't wanted to bring this up, but I see I must since obviously you still bear some sort of grudge or disgruntlement or childish attachment to the past, even after all these years.”
Jasper held back a laugh. He was going to mention it now, was he? The bigot. The imbecile.
“Let it go. Your family is gone. Both families, your natural parents and your adopted one. Your step-brother and his vile offspring are dead. They broke the law, daring to stay on that wretched planet, what was it called…” Alucard frowned in thought then his face cleared.
Jasper knew the entire display was affectation. Alucard knew very well the name of his lost home.
“Oh yes, Earth,” Alucard continued coldly. “They paid for their rebellion. We have forgotten all about it. So should you.” He ran a hand down his sleeve, checking to see that his cufflink was perfectly displayed at the end of his jacket. The diamond glittered obscenely.
“Go away.” Jasper's voice stayed perfectly level. He knew the creature standing next to him had no idea what he felt. What he was capable of doing, to this city and to Alucard, personally.
“Count Librae, you have five cycles. If you don't hand over your research, you will face the Blood Guard.” Alucard spun abruptly and stalked away, never knowing how close he'd come to a premature death.
Jasper ran a contemplative finger over his palm, over the scar put there by the Blood Guard two hundred and fifty years ago on the distant planet he still considered his true home. Then he turned northward, gazing at the night side of the cursed planet on which he stood. Not long now, he thought as Alucard's tiny figure crossed the street below him.
“I will never forget,” he whispered to the dark.
Chapter Four
Sienna jerked awake, frowning into the silent night. Not even a lone cricket broke the quiet. “Something's wrong,” she said aloud, just to make sure she wasn't going deaf. “Linda. Are you there?” She listened, straining to hear something. Anything. No response, not that she expected any so far from camp. Suddenly, a low growl drifted through the trees.
“Shit.”
She was off the steps and running out of the clearing before her brain fully realized what her body was doing. She ran past the barrier and hit the trail, hardly slowing. She couldn't hear it anymore, but the urge to find Linda and the guys was strong. She pounded up the trail and lurched into the campsite, panting. Linda stood by the fire, her hands red.
“Linda, what happened?” Sienna walked over. She didn't want to touch her until she found out what was going on. If it was safe.
Linda looked at her, eyes blank.
“Linda? Where's John?” Sienna twisted around, trying to see where Dillon was, too. He wasn't sleeping near the fire anymore. His bag was rumpled and empty.
“She's dead, I think. Sienna, I think she's dead!” Linda exclaimed, her voice rising. “I didn't know what to do. Oh my God, oh God…”
Sienna's heart gave a slow thump and started pounding. “Who's dead, Linda? Where's Dillon?”
Linda started crying. “They're up the trail. My hands are all dirty.”
Sienna grabbed Dillon's canteen and tugged at Linda's elbow. “Here, let's rinse you off.”
Linda stood awkwardly with her hands held out. Sienna ran water over them, but it didn't do much. Her hands were coated in blood, hopefully not John's or Dillon's.
“Linda, what happened?” Sienna urged as gently as she could. The need to find John and his little brother was growing stronger. She knew that she had to get Linda somewhere safe first, though.
Linda blinked and her eyes cleared a little. “I had to pee. I didn't want to go by myself so John came with me. I went up the trail to that spot with the tree and the big rock, you know the one we ate lunch at yesterday?”
Sienna nodded, handing her a handkerchief. Linda took it from her and scrubbed at her hands. “When we got there, a man had a girl bent over the rock. I thought they were having sex but when he lifted his head, his mouth was all red. I tried to scream, but something blocked my voice. It was like being in a dream and trying to yell and you can't make a sound. How is that possible?” She was sobbing now, hiccuping and panting. Sienna hugged her.
