Beyond the Veil (Vampires of Velum Mortis Book 1)

by Stephanie Summers

  “You do know. You had a choice. Kill me or kiss me. You chose to kiss me, and that can only mean one thing. You felt what I’ve felt while I slept, while I dreamt of you and the life we can have. My body and soul cried out to yours, just like yours did to mine. We were meant for one another, fashioned from the same cloth in the great beyond.”

  “Like hell,” I spat in disgust as a thinly veiled effort to convince myself that he wasn’t right and that I was crazy to feel the way I had felt when I first saw him. “And you were put down, what? Twenty years ago, was it?”

  He nodded in agreement.

  “And you dreamt of me this whole time? I was a baby when you were put under, you pervert.”

  “I didn’t dream of a child. I dreamt of you,” he said, brushing the knuckles of his right hand against my cheek. “Of the magnificent woman you are today… I dreamt of what we will become, the love we will share, and the children born out of our union. I dreamt of my mate. My queen.”

  The pull he had over me only continued to grow, even in that moment.

  He had to be using his vampiric gifts to trick me into feeling so strongly for him. There was no other possible explanation. No way the daughter of Drew Adams would ever be caught dead canoodling with a vampire… Except that I had kissed him and apparently had done so again in my sleep. The daughter of Drew Adams should never have done that.

  “I only kissed you because you made me,” I said, pulling away. “Whatever this is, it’s not love.”

  “I made you?” he asked, that cocky and irresistibly sexy grin forming on his lips. “I didn’t make you do anything, but it’s true, you didn’t exactly come to the decision on your own either.”

  “Then you did compel me?”

  “I didn’t… The curse that was placed upon me had a built-in loophole. There was only one person who would ever be able to break the curse. The only way to take me out of the game was to put me to sleep. She agreed to it, but she resented your father. I heard all of this during a conversation they had after the curse was put into place. He used her to take me down, promising that he would start a life with her. She found out he was leading her on and set out to punish him. Instead of weakening me so he could strike the fatal blow like she’d promised, she made it so that my mate would be the only one to break the spell. To his dismay, my mate was you.”

  I shook my head and tried to formulate what I would say next, but my tongue remained silent. Why had no one told me? They sent me there knowing I could blow it without so much as a mention of the possibility. Maybe had I known about the curse and all its details, I could’ve resisted the urge. I could’ve killed him and been back at home, warm and comfy in my own bed. But at least I knew now why I’d been so drawn to him. I didn’t believe for a second that I was his mate, but I did believe the witch wanted to hurt my father any way she could, and in an effort to do so, she cursed me as well as the vampire.

  “And the way I want you… Goddamn it, Delia… The pull you have over me… I want you like I’ve never wanted anything else before. I want to lay you on this bed and make love to you for forever. An eternity with you could never be long enough.”

  “How can you feel so strongly so fast?” I asked, my head spinning.

  “Because I’ve been searching for you for a thousand years. You feel it, too, don’t you?”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” I said and shook my head. “My favorite book, my favorite movie or TV show, my favorite color or the kind of music I like, my hopes, my fears… Nothing.”

  “Your favorite color is purple, and you don’t have a favorite book. There are too many you love to choose from,” he said, gathering me into his arms. “And correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe your favorite TV show is Stranger Things… Just to name a few.”

  “How do you even know what Stranger Things is?” I asked, peering up into his eyes, relishing the way they sparkled at me. “You’ve been knocked out for twenty years.”

  “Because I heard it in your thoughts when I visited you over these past couple of years, and I’ll relish every second it takes to learn everything else there is to know about you. I’ll never stop looking at you in amazement and wondering how I got so lucky to be mated to you.”

  I wanted to give in, to believe everything coming out of his mouth, but I couldn’t allow myself. This had to end here and now before I did something stupid that I would regret even more than waking him in the first place.

  “You can return to Velum Mortis alone. I have to go back to my people,” I said, pushing him away.

  “They won’t accept you.”

  “And yours will?” I asked, waiting for a response that would never come. “It’s a chance I’m willing to take,” I said and left without so much as a glance backward. The devil I knew was better than the one I didn’t. I’d go back and confront Master Lewis and the council. They’d have to listen to me, and maybe I’d be punished or maybe I’d be cast out, but it was my only option.

  It’s not your only option.

  The further away I could get from him, the better. If I never saw him again, it’d be all too soon.

  So then why did the urge to run back to him strengthen with every step I took to get away?

  8

  Delia

  I had no money to get back to Mallory Falls, so trekking through the woods it would have to be. The journey wouldn’t be short, but at least it would give me time to think and to sort out exactly what I would say to the council when I got back. Hopefully I wouldn’t run into any werewolves along the way.

  Liam was right. They wouldn’t just welcome me home with open arms. No, I’d have to convince them that I was set up to fail and that I should’ve been made aware of the curse going into the mission. Make them see that they were as much to blame for sending me there in the first place, and then I would vow to do everything in my power to correct my mistake, even if it meant taking Liam down eventually, if he could even be killed without some sort of magical intervention. From what I’d seen, I wasn’t so sure either way, but at least I had first-hand experience with him now. I could convince the council that looking to outside help was the only way to go. Maybe the wolves could aid us. I was willing to bet they could be convinced if the council agreed to it. Not an easy feat even if I could find where they dwelled to ask them, but I’d have to try. It was my only hope. But even as I contemplated killing Liam at some point in the future, it didn’t feel right.

  My thoughts turned to Harmon. No way could I be with him now. There had always been a niggling feeling taunting me when it came to him, whispering that he wasn’t the one for me, that I would never know true happiness with him, but still, I continued on with him because it was expected of me.

  And since he obviously knew about the curse, he should’ve been more understanding of what happened. He should’ve understood that I didn’t really want to kiss the vampire. It had been the witch’s magic that made me do it. The same magic that had tricked me into feeling things for Liam that I wouldn’t have felt otherwise, or at least I was trying hard to convince myself that it was her magic and not that I actually was his mate.

  But had it really been the witch’s magic that kept the way his lips felt against mine lingering like a beautiful nightmare? I could almost taste him now just thinking about it.

  I headed deep into the forest but wasn’t alone for long. Just as I was about to stop for a quick break, a rustle in front of me had me as still as a boulder. Had Liam tracked me down? Or were the wolves still patrolling the area?

  But it wasn’t Liam or the wolves. Within moments, I was surrounded by a group of slayers from Mallory Falls with Harmon leading them.

  “You’re under arrest, Cordelia,” Harmon said.

  “You know it wasn’t my fault,” I replied. “You should’ve told me what I was walking into. Maybe if you had, it would’ve turned out differently.”

  “Not only did you swap spit with someone else while you were engaged to me, but you did it with a vampire,”
he said, hate dripping from his words. “And you woke him up. After everything we did to prepare you to make the right decision when faced with him, you still went with the most despicable choice. You’ll not be laying any blame on me.”

  “What do you mean what you did to prepare me?”

  “You were never supposed to be a slayer, Delia,” he said, shaking his head. “Your father didn’t want this for you and decided before you were born that being a slayer wouldn’t be your path in life, but when that witch made you the loophole to killing or waking the king on your twenty-first birthday, he changed his mind. Hoped you’d take your training seriously so that you wouldn’t hesitate to kill the fiend when it was time to face him. It’s why he made the arrangement between you and me, too. Maybe if the draw to wake him was too strong, you’d rely on your love for me to resist. Clearly, that didn’t work either.”

  “Did it never occur to anyone that maybe if I’d had the knowledge of what could happen that I might be able to, oh I don’t know, use my damn brain to make the right decision?”

  “You’ll have the chance to plead your case before the council,” he said and moved toward me with a pair of handcuffs.

  I contemplated resisting, but what good would it do? Between Harmon and the other three slayers, I had no real hope of escaping. Not after everything I’d gone through over the last two days and all the energy I had spent. My muscles were weary, and my stomach was about to cave in on itself from hunger.

  A brief hint of regret at leaving Liam passed through my thoughts before I locked it away into the dark recesses of my mind. Whatever I may have felt for him or about him were lies. Lies that had been forced upon me by dark magic. Keep telling yourself that and maybe it’ll become the truth, I thought to myself.

  “Don’t suppose you have something to eat?” I asked, not knowing what, if anything, I might be granted as a prisoner.

  Harmon looked at one of the other slayers and nodded.

  The slayer, Kit, reached into her bag and pulled out some jerky, tossing it to me. I barely managed to catch it with my wrists cuffed together in front of me.

  We walked through the rest of the day and into the night, though I nearly collapsed on three different occasions before arriving in Mallory Falls.

  They escorted me to the building just at the edge of town that I had mostly avoided. Growing up, Dad said that the town’s most dangerous criminals and beasts the council couldn’t kill for whatever reason were housed there. After finding me lurking in the hallways when I was about ten years old, he’d made me promise to never go there for fear I might be harmed. I wondered now if Liam had ever rested there before being moved to the tomb. If he had been one of the beasts my father spoke of.

  Now I was one of the town’s most hated enemies, destined to spend the rest of my days locked away there, however long that might be.

  Harmon took me inside and down the set of stairs toward the long hallway lined in stone with cells every few feet on either side. The place was eerily quiet, like whatever monsters down there were studying me from the shadows of their pens. We went to the end of the hallway, and he opened the door to a cell. Ripping the harness carrying my sword off my side, he pushed me into the cell, slamming the door shut behind me.

  “This is council property. You are no longer worthy of carrying it.”

  The absence of my sword felt like a piece of me had been amputated.

  “Put your hands through and I’ll take off your cuffs,” he commanded.

  I did as I was told, thankful to have them removed.

  “Do you feel nothing for me?” I asked, rubbing my wrists.

  “How could I?” he asked, peering down at me as if I were dirt beneath his feet. “You betrayed me, betrayed the council, and betrayed your fellow slayers. You were faced with what should have been the easiest task of your life, and you failed.”

  “How? How was it easy? You tell me that,” I said, raising my voice. How dare he presume to know what it felt like for me. “I went in there with a witch’s magic working against me. Do you understand what it was like to walk in there and be so drawn to him that I couldn’t think straight? I thought I’d lost my mind for being so attracted to a fucking vampire, of all things. And to find out it was all because of some curse that none of you had the decency to even tell me about? You clearly never felt anything for me because if you did, you would’ve wanted me to be prepared to face the real challenge, which was resisting the curse, not killing the vampire king.”

  “You’re right. I loved your father like he was my own, and you were nothing more than a brat I tolerated because he asked me to. When he approached me about marrying you someday, I was elated. Not because of you, but because then he really would be my father by law. I grew to enjoy our time together, but no. I never did and never will love you. The only good to come out of this is that I’m free to be with Kit now. She’s the one I’ve always loved, not you.”

  His footsteps faded quickly as he left me speechless and alone in the dark.

  Tears stung my eyes before spilling over my cheeks as I thought of the way the two of them had always looked at one another. And it didn’t help that Kit was my biggest critic. I could have slayed the devil himself and she would’ve found fault in it. Of course, they loved each other. It was so obvious, yet I’d ignored what was right in front of me all these years.

  My chest tightened as I struggled to breathe. Everything I had felt and experienced that day erupted from me in the form of jagged sobs. I slid against the wall to my butt, wrapping my arms around my knees and pulling them to my chest.

  “You’ll be okay,” a fragile voice echoed through the dark. It was so quiet I almost missed it over the sound of my own crying.

  “I doubt it,” I said, wiping away my tears. “Everyone hates me, and my life has completely fallen apart with no chance to rebuild it. I’m the epitome of making bad decisions.”

  “The people of this town are an unforgiving folk, for sure, but I take it you were cursed from what I overheard you saying. Surely, they’ll take that into consideration when passing judgement.”

  “How long have you been down here?” I asked.

  “Hard to say,” he replied. “Years, for sure. Maybe decades.”

  “And what was your crime.”

  “I loved a witch… She was kind and caring and only used her magic for good, but the council didn’t see it that way. They only saw her as an evil creature that had to be exterminated.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, genuinely empathetic to his situation. I found it pretty hypocritical that they would condemn this man for who he loved, but not my father, who turned to a witch in his time of need and pretended to love her, which told me he likely had spent a considerable amount of time with her.

  “Oh, they never got her as far as I know. Thank the stars for that.”

  “And she’s never tried to find you?”

  “Doubt she knows I’m still here. My death sentence was never carried out, and I’ve been here ever since. But I don’t regret loving her. Not for one second,” he said, I could almost hear the smile passing over his lips.

  “Do you think they’ll put me to death?” I asked, my breath catching in my throat at the thought.

  “I wish I knew,” he said. “Best get some rest. By the sound of it, you’ve had a hard day.”

  “Yeah, you could say that,” I said, stretching myself out on the stone floor.

  Comfort wouldn’t come easily, but my eyes were already starting to close by the time I took my next breath.

  Liam’s face haunted my dreams shortly after. Would it have been so bad to join him in Velum Mortis as his queen? He had been mostly kind to me, sparing my life and complimenting my fighting skills. Not once had he made me feel small the way Harmon had. And despite the witch’s magic, his feelings for me seemed genuine somehow, though he’d had twenty years to get used to the idea of me, probably more like a thousand if I really were his mate and he really had been searching for m
e for that long.

  Still, it was hard to shake the way he’d looked at me, the way he watched me when he didn’t think I noticed. The way he held me so tightly in that bed. He made me feel wanted, desired even… And there was no mistaking the chemistry between us or the way my body reacted when he was within arm’s reach of me.

  I dreamt that night of sitting at his side, holding his hand as hundreds of subjects bowed before us, feeling the love he’d spoken of that we would share. After everyone had a chance to greet us, he swept me away to our private chambers, laying me softly on the bed. His lips touched mine as his fingertips explored my body, but before we could go any further, I saw us together fighting to protect ourselves from people hell-bent on ending Liam’s reign. I fought at his side, protecting him the same way he protected me, fighting as equals. It was as if flashes of what our life could’ve been spurred my desire for him, coaxed me into believing I’d made a mistake the moment I left him behind.

  The last thing I remember was Liam whispering into my ear that he was coming for me.

  I wished it were true, but it was just a dream.

  The next morning came far too quickly, washing away Liam’s presence and the life we could’ve shared. The life I thought I might actually have wanted. One where I was respected, loved, and treated as an equal. I could almost smell him on my clothes when I woke up, could almost feel his skin on the tips of my fingers, but alas, he wasn’t there and would never be there again.

  The sound of the cell unlocking startled me the rest of the way awake. I squinted, trying to see what I could through the flickering light of a candle as Harmon came into focus.

  “It’s time,” he said, bending over to yank me to my feet.