Vampire born, p.1
Vampire Born, page 1
VAMPIRE BORN
FALLEN BLOODLINES
BOOK 1
VIOLET HOWE
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, events, and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
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 permission in writing from the author.
www.violethowe.com
Cover Design: Elizabeth Mackey
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Published by Charbar Productions, LLC
(v1)
Copyright © 2022 Violet Howe/LM Howe/Charbar Productions, LLC
All rights reserved.
E-ISBN: 978-1-7327269-9-4
P-ISBN: 978-1-7339634-0-4
BN-ISBN: 979-8-8231627-7-7
BOOKS BY VIOLET HOWE
Tales Behind the Veils
Diary of a Single Wedding Planner
Diary of a Wedding Planner in Love
Diary of an Engaged Wedding Planner
Maggie
THE CEDAR CREEK COLLECTION
Cedar Creek Mysteries:
The Ghost in the Curve
The Glow in the Woods
The Phantom in the Footlights
Cedar Creek Families:
Building Fences
Crossing Paths
Cedar Creek Suspense:
Whiskey Flight
Bounty Flight
Fallen Bloodlines:
Vampire Born
Soul Sisters at Cedar Mountain Lodge
Christmas Sisters
Christmas Hope
Christmas Peace
Christmas Secret
Sail Away Series
Welcome Aboard
Moonlight on the Lido Deck
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For Leslie
You be you.
CONTENTS
Prologue
1. Nick
2. Aria
3. Aria
4. Nick
5. Nick
6. Aria
7. Nick
8. Nick
9. Nick
10. Aria
11. Nick
12. Nick
13. Aria
14. Aria
15. Nick
16. Aria
17. Nick
18. Aria
19. Nick
20. Aria
21. Nick
22. Nick
23. Aria
24. Nick
25. Nick
26. Aria
27. Aria
28. Aria
29. Aria
30. Nick
31. Aria
32. Aria
33. Nick
34. Nick
35. Nick
36. Aria
37. Aria
38. Aria
39. Aria
40. Aria
41. Aria
42. Nick
43. Aria
44. Nick
45. Aria
46. Aria
47. Aria
48. Aria
49. Nick
50. Nick
51. Nick
52. Nick
53. Aria
54. Nick
55. Nick
56. Aria
57. Aria
58. Nick
59. Nick
Also by Violet Howe
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Thank You
PROLOGUE
NICK
I should have told my wife the truth from the start.
Instead, my past has lurked in our background like a viper hidden in the shadows waiting to strike, tainting what is otherwise pure and unmarred.
The weight of that secret, the awareness of the damage it would do, has been a cancer to my sanity. I can't help but know I'm unworthy of her love.
So many times, I've wanted to tell her. I've longed to bare my soul and wipe the slate clean so that nothing stood between us. But somehow, the timing never seemed right to reveal my darkness to the woman I love more than life itself.
My omission is a form of deceit, but deceiving her has never been my intent. I’ve never outright lied to Aria, and I never will. I would never betray her, never forsake her, and never waver in my loyalty to her. My love for her is absolute and without measure.
For her, I surrendered my destiny. For her, I sentenced myself to death. For her, I willingly traded away every trait that set me apart from the mortals and embraced their frailty as my own.
And I would do it all over again. Without question or qualm.
Our love, our marriage, and the family we've built has brought me more joy and fulfillment in the past five years than anything I experienced in the one hundred twenty years preceding our time together.
I'd like to believe my deception served to protect my wife and daughter and keep them safe. But I know my decision to withhold the truth was much more selfish than that. Physically, I may have had the supernatural strength of the ancient bloodlines I was born to, but emotionally, I am a coward. For I've never been strong enough to risk losing her.
If Aria had known what I was—if I'd confessed my true origins—she would have taken Sage and fled.
And rightfully so. I am a monster. An abomination. The shunned among the cursed.
I hoped they would never need to know. I've done all I could to put that life behind me. To fully embrace being a husband. A father. A mortal.
But something had gone horribly wrong.
I sat in the middle of my wife's brand-new cream rug. The rug Sage and I were forbidden to carry food or beverages across. The rug we couldn’t walk upon without first removing our shoes.
How can I explain all the blood?
ONE
NICK
As the clock on the wall behind me finished its tenth chime, I struggled to process how I’d gotten to my present state.
I had no memory of the moment my mortal existence ended and my immortality returned, nor any recollection of anything since then.
The last hazy image I could conjure was from two and a half hours earlier. I’d been cruising down Storm King Highway with the windows down as I belted out the lyrics to an AC/DC song blasting on our minivan’s radio. Despite the chill in the air, I had the windows down, enjoying the rush of fresh air and the brilliance of the spring sun in the cloudless sky.
I remembered feeling good about the day ahead. Shelia, a CEO I’d been hoping to get as a donor, had called the night before asking to meet first thing this morning. Aria had agreed to take Sage to school so I could make that meeting happen, but I didn’t remember attending it.
I didn't know if I'd reached my destination or how I came to be seated on my living room floor with a half-drained deer splayed across my lap.
The blood coating my hands as I lifted them was still warm to the touch. I spread my trembling fingers wide and studied them, my chest tightening as the delusion I'd nurtured of a normal life shattered. I could no longer escape who I was—who I'd become once again through no choice of my own.
The deer's mangled body had left a smearing trail where I'd dragged it over the rug. It ran like a red river across our living room toward the door, and though I recoiled at the scarlet evidence of what I'd done, I couldn't deny that blood was every bit as intoxicating as I remembered.
I licked my lips, savoring every drop of the rich, spicy pungency that had long been forbidden. After five years of a strictly plant-based diet, my blood indulgence had jolted my system like a potent drug coursing through my veins, and I shuddered with the heady sensation. It was as though I could feel the life force moving through my body, returning it to its glorious original state.
My muscles, for so long too lean from the limited sustenance of mortal nutrition, had begun to fill out and plump up once more, and the extra layer of insulation I'd acquired as a human had begun to melt away. My lungs felt as though they had expanded tenfold, and with my advanced respiratory system back in operation, the active motion of pushing air in and out every few seconds became optional once more.
I had regained my full range of senses, all heightened to their previous acuteness, and though my gut was full, I took another deep draw of blood from the deer's rear flank simply to delight in the number of subtle flavors that danced across my tongue.
The intense magnification of my vision allowed me to differentiate between each individual hair in the deer's pelt with only a casual glance, and my hearing was so sharp that the fidgeting of the two men standing on my front porch could no longer be ignored.
They hadn't spoken, but even at such a distance, I recognized the familiar scents of two of my mother’s most steadfast servants.
Their unexpected presence alarmed me almost as much as the loss of memory or my sudden return to a decidedly carnivorous palate.
When I’d embarked on my mortal journey, I’d severed all ties with my parents and the complex organization I’d been born into, known internally as the Gilde. Though my mother had been devastated by my choice, she’d agreed to respect my decision and, for the most part, had honored our agreement. On the rare occasions contact had been made, she’d been careful to guard my secret and not do anything to compromise my newfound existence.
But now, two of Mam’s highest-ranking representatives stood on my suburban front porch in the middle of the morning.
What on earth would make her take that risk? And was it connected to my unexpected circumstances, or purely coincidental?
Shoving the deer from my lap, I stood and immediately swayed, unsteady on my feet. I felt drunk from the blood satiation and disoriented by the inexplicable metamorphosis I'd been through. Despite the clarity in my senses, my thoughts were still hazy as I struggled to put the pieces together.
One of the men began to knock, and a shiver of foreboding crept up my spine as I moved toward the door, careful to avoid the bloody trail saturating the carpet. Not that it mattered where I stepped now. The rug was beyond repair, and my bare feet were caked with a ruddy mixture of mud and blood that further destroyed it with every step.
Knowing how greatly the ruined rug would upset Aria distressed me almost as much as my sudden transformation and my mother's messengers. If I couldn't find a way to get rid of the deer and replace the rug before my wife got home from work, she might kill me before I even had the chance to confess I was a vampire.
I reached for the doorknob but then pulled my hand back to try to wipe away the blood, but my pants and shirt were both covered with it. After cleaning it off as best I could, I flung the door open but immediately slammed it shut, cursing at the searing pain that tore through my eyes.
With a loud stream of expletives, I pressed my palms against my eyelids, desperate to ease the scorching sensation. How had I forgotten how sensitive to sunlight a vampire’s eyes can be?
“Are you all right?” Graeco called through the door.
“I’m fine,” I growled, grabbing a pair of sunshades from the foyer table. I shoved them on my face and opened the door more slowly, squinting against the light and using my hand to shield my eyes further.
The two men stood at attention staring at me. If my bloody appearance alarmed them, they didn’t show it.
"Eligio? Graeco? Why are you standing on my porch?"
Eligio lifted his chin. "Waiting for you, sir."
"Why? Why are you waiting for me?"
“We’ve been sent to bring you to Madam.”
My confused state grew even more muddled, and despite the bright light, I stepped out onto the porch, certain I must have misunderstood.
“Bring me to her? Why?”
“She wishes to speak with you.”
A formal summons for a conversation seemed a little dramatic, even for my mother, who always leaned toward the most theatrical approach in any situation. Unless…
“Does this have anything to do with what’s happened to me? Does she know why this happened?”
With a glance toward the houses surrounding mine, Graeco cleared his throat and made a pointed nod toward my blood-soaked clothing. "Perhaps we should discuss this indoors. Madam did stress the need for discretion.”
I started to point out that the two of them standing on my porch mid-morning in black suits was not exactly discreet, but given that I looked like a serial killer fresh off a murderous rampage, my appearance was more apt to raise questions than theirs.
Thankfully, my neighbors all worked away from home during the day, but on the off chance that someone had stayed in, Graeco had a point.
I hesitated, though, uncomfortable with the idea of vampires breaching the sanctuary I’d created with Aria and Sage.
Of course, I’d already breached that sanctuary when I’d brought home my kill, and if I didn’t get answers and find a solution before Sage needed to be picked up from school, it would all come crumbling down anyway.
Bristling with unease, I stepped aside and let the men enter my home, giving the neighborhood a quick scan as I shut the door.
Once inside, they both stood staring at the deer in silence, expressionless, as though they saw dead animals lying in living rooms every day.
I resisted the urge to offer any explanation, a choice made easier since I had none to give and they didn’t ask.
“Okay, so talk,” I said, eager to find out what they knew and be rid of them so I could concentrate on my own crisis. I tossed the sunglasses back on the table, though my eyes still stung. “Why are you here, and what does my mother know about my current predicament?”
Graeco turned from the deer to look at me, his thin face as pale and gaunt as ever.
I'd known the man my entire life, and he'd always looked so frail it seemed as though he might keel over at any moment. Looks, in his case, were most definitely deceiving.
“I cannot speak as to what Madam knows or does not know,” he said. “When she got off the phone with you this morning, she instructed us to come and retrieve you as soon as possible.”
“You’re saying I spoke with Mam this morning?” Yet another thing I had no memory of. “So, I must have told her what happened. Did she mention anything I said?”
“Madam only told us you’d be coming here, and we should intercept you to prevent your being seen.” Graeco cocked his head with a lifted brow. “No one answered when we arrived, but moments later, you emerged from the woods with a quivering deer wrapped around your shoulders.” His eyes darted to the deer and back to me. “We thought perhaps our best course of action was to guard the front door and give you a moment's privacy."
"Wait—so you saw me come back to the house? I came walking out of the woods?"
"Yes," Eligio said with one quick nod.
I followed his gaze down to the mud caking my bare feet, and though I'd noticed it before as I walked across the rug, it hadn't really registered as odd then in the entanglement of my other thoughts.
What was I doing in the woods without my shoes? Where was my van?
My mind reeled as I searched for memories but came up empty, and then panic hit. "Did anyone else see me?"
Eligio shrugged one shoulder. "Not that we know of, sir. Though, we can't speak as to what happened before you stepped from the woods."
"Did I say anything to you?"
"No, sir," he said. “You walked right past as though you didn’t see us. You seemed a bit...dazed."
Dazed was an understatement.
"I have no idea what happened," I said to the men as I paced across the rug, careful to step over the streaks of blood. "I don't know how I got here. I don't know why I'm..." I looked down at my body again, marveling at the changes I'd undergone since I'd left the house that morning.
“We should go,” Graeco said. “We’ve wasted too much time already. Perhaps now that you've finished your meal, you could get cleaned up, and we'll take you to Madam.”
“I can’t leave. I have to get rid of this mess. I’ve got to figure out how to fix…this.” I waved my hand up and down in front of my body. “How to set things straight before it’s too late.”
Graeco clasped his hands behind his back, drawing his chin up. “Nicolaas, I understand this must be a trying time for you, but you need to know there are pressing issues beyond your situation here that demand a level of urgency. Madam needs to speak with you right away.”
