Shattered: Paranormal Vampire Romance (Immortal Love Series Book 4)

by Anna Santos

  Amazon CA

  Amazon AU

  Read the preview for Rescued by the Alpha. A new sexy standalone in the Immortal Love Series Universe.

  RESCUED BY THE ALPHA—Preview

  CHAPTER1

  Startled awake, Fiona blinked several times, frowning as she tried to figure out what had disturbed her sleep. She winced at the crash of a vase shattering against the floor downstairs. Instead of being alarmed, she relaxed and sighed, a deep heaviness overcoming her. She wasn’t afraid of the sounds that disturbed the otherwise stillness of the night. She had replaced that vase, twice this week already, and the familiar crash had become a wakeup call that dearest dad was home.

  After another crashing sound followed by swearing, she gave up the idea that she could roll over and go back to sleep. She was afraid if she didn’t get to him in time, he might cut himself trying to clean up. At least, that was one thing he was always keen on, cleaning up his messes. If only he wouldn’t make such a mess in the first place, then their life would be much easier.

  Sickened by the constant need to be the adult in their family, she pulled back the covers and slid out of bed. She turned on the bedside lamp and reached for her robe. Stuffing her feet into a pair of slippers, she hurried from the room, while pushing her arms through the holes in the robe. By the time she was halfway down the stairs, she had the robe righted on her small frame and the band tied around her trim waist.

  “Shit!”

  At the swearing, Fiona took the stairs two at a time. Her father could be a pain in the ass, but he was her pain in the ass. She loved him despite his weakness for the bottle. In some ways, she understood. He had loved and lost and had turned to the bottle to numb himself to the memories. He had no idea how his actions had impacted her. Not only did he steal her own right to grieve her mother, but Fiona had to be focused on him and ensuring that he didn’t break his neck climbing the stairs when he returned home drunk.

  He had turned on the ceiling lights in the hall and, as she rounded the corner, she paused and swallowed hard. Her throat bobbed with emotion, trapping the sob that automatically rose within her. He was on his knees on the floor amidst the broken pieces of the beautiful Oriental vase she had found this time. She wondered why she kept buying one vase after another to replace the ones he was always breaking. She could solve the problem by removing the vase altogether. But, all her life, a vase had been placed on the table in the hall. That was the way her mother had done it, replacing the flowers with fresh ones from the gardens each time they wilted.

  In some ways, she kept up the tradition in the hopes that the next vase would be the last. Then he would have overcome his grief and be ready to move on with his life. And then, maybe she would get the opportunity to grieve for a mother she had loved more than life itself.

  “Dad, let’s get you up to bed,” she said and reached for him.

  Fiona tucked her arm around his frame and eased him to his feet. The stench of alcohol hit her, and she wondered which good Samaritan had driven him home this time. She’d started making it a habit to hide his keys on the nights when he was going out. One car crash in the family was enough. Even a drunken father was better than none. He was the only person she had left in the world.

  He hung his head in shame and said nothing to her as he leaned on her. His weight was nothing to scoff about, and he weighed down her small frame, but she supported him just the same. She walked him over to the stairs then took her time, climbing the steps, ensuring he had his feet firmly planted before she took the next. The trek was slow and tiring, but her shoulders were now used to his burden. Still, by the time she got him to his bedroom, and they crossed the threshold for her to place him on the bed, she was out of breath.

  “Here, let me help you take off your shoes.”

  She knelt on the ground and slipped off one shoe, then the other. Her heart clenched, and icy tentacles of fear snaked through her soul when she heard his soft weeping. This was new. She couldn’t remember him crying before during his drunkenness. When he was inebriated was probably the only time he smiled anymore.

  She suddenly wanted out as fast as possible. She didn’t want to know. By God, she didn’t want to know what he had done. She pushed his shoes under the bed and without looking at him, rose to her feet and began to walk backward to the door.

  “Try to get some sleep,” she whispered, afraid if she spoke any louder, she would shatter the calm she’d found for herself. The peace was already so fragile, the shreds fastened together by denial.

  “I lost it.”

  She was almost at the door when he spoke for the first time. Her hand on the doorknob, she pleaded with herself to leave and close the door behind her. She could shut out whatever it was that he wanted to tell her. But still, she waited, her back turned to him, her nose flaring from her heavy breathing.

  “I lost everything,” she heard him say. “The house, the lands. Everything.”

  Fiona’s breathing became labored, and she turned to stare at him, her eyes roaming his penitent figure with head bowed. And, just for a miniscule second, she hated him. Hated him for being selfish and stripping away her right to mourn her mother, her right to have a normal life.

  “What do you mean you lost everything?” she asked, her voice strangely calm for the news her father had just divulged.

  He raised his head then to look at her. His face was etched with haggard lines, his eyes dull and lifeless. “It’s not just the drinking,” he said, gripping his head in his hands. “It’s also the gambling. And this time, I lost everything.”

  As calmly as she could, Fiona left the bedroom and closed the door behind her. She walked, her legs moving but her mind far away, not paying attention to where they were carrying her. She walked down the stairs, her steps jerky. She walked past the broken vase in the hall, stepped over the fragments as her father had stepped over the fragments of her heart in his own grief. She walked through the front door, leaving it hanging as she made her way down the porch. And she continued walking for a few minutes until she came to the poinsettia tree that her mother had loved so much.

  In the dark of the night with the moon as her witness, Fiona sank to her mother’s grave and cried.

  Chapter Two

  A bride could have never asked for a more perfect day for a wedding, Fiona thought as she stared outside the window at the brilliant sunshine and clear, blue skies. Or an unwilling bride could have never asked for a worse day to be getting married as was the case with her. Any hope she had for this wedding to be postponed wasn’t going to be fulfilled with the help of mother nature. She was well and truly on her own.

  Hands tugged and prodded her limbs to get her into the expensive wedding gown that her fiancé had delivered to the estate that morning. She hated the gown. She hated that it was perfect. That she would have loved walking down the aisle in this dress to the perfect man. A man she loved and wanted to promise vows to. But, she wasn’t about to marry the man she loved. In fact, she would never have the opportunity to find out what it meant to love.

  The familiar resentment of her father’s transgressions reared its ugly head, and she tried to squash it. The man was about to walk her down the aisle in the next half an hour. The deed would be done then, and her hatred would have no place in her new life. Hating him wouldn’t change the fact that he had gambled away her future. He had gambled away their fortune, and when he had nothing left, had gambled their home. For one second, he hadn’t even stopped to think that his dead wife whom he professed to love so much was buried on that same property.

  She had no way out of this marriage. This time, the mess her father had created was too deep for him to dig his way out. He had made her into a pawn to be sacrificed, and she was willingly going into it because, despite everything, despite the fact that at times she hated him, she still loved him. Fiona closed her eyes and remembered him as he was before her mother’s death. She would need those memories to get her through today.

  “Daddy, daddy!�
�� An eight-year-old Fiona flew across the room and into her father’s arms as he walked through the front door. He swung her up in his arms then threw her high in the air.

  “Edgar!” her mother warned but her father only walked up to her, Fiona still in his arms and planted a kiss on the disapproving line of the woman’s mouth.

  “Make her swoon, Daddy!” Fiona chanted and giggled. “Make her swoon.”

  Her mother swatted him away, her cheeks turning red. She touched a hand to her lips, her eyes twinkling with love for both her husband and her child.

  “Fee, you go to your room and wash up for dinner,” her mother told her. “And you, Ed, get comfortable, and I’ll set the table.”

  “Amazing.”

  Fiona was brought out of her reverie to find herself smiling from the memory of happier times. The two women hired by her fiancé who had been helping her get ready for the wedding stood back and admired the fine image Fiona cut in her wedding gown. She was almost afraid to turn to and look in the mirror, but curiosity got the best of her. Even she had to gasp when she saw herself.

  “You look amazing,” the younger of the two women said.

  “Thank you,” Fiona responded without tearing her eyes away from the mirror. She looked stunning, and this only made her even more depressed. Her beautiful, long, reddish-blonde hair was pulled to the back of her head with gold combs that once belonged to her mother. They matched the gold highlights in her wedding dress. Tendrils of her hair were left to trail over her high cheekbones. The dress carried a basque waistline and a low-cut V-neck which displayed the creamy mounds of her breasts. The skirt was full chapel length, the white tulle and organza material interwoven with gold artwork which matched the appliques on the bodice. She turned to reveal the intricate design of the back which exposed the unblemished expanse of her skin.

  A knock on the door startled her, and she spun around, the sound of her dress rustling with her movement. The other two women turned to face the door as well. Fiona sucked in a deep breath at the sight of the bridegroom. She still couldn’t bring herself to think of him as her future husband. There would be a bride, and there would be a groom today. If she had anything to say about it, which she had very little, she would be as far removed from the ceremony in spirit as she could.

  Gareth Kaiser was a handsome man, although a little paler than she would have liked in a husband. He was tall, almost four inches taller than her five-foot-six-inch frame. Whenever he smiled, it never quite reached his eyes, and his hair was always slicked back. She couldn’t help thinking that it must have taken a lot of grease for him to slick back the black hair that brushed his shoulders. His eyes were an unusual darkness. A deep black that made her feel like Alice plummeting down the rabbit hole.

  He was the sweetest man she had ever met, but she wasn’t fooled one bit. If he were a sweet man, he would have never forced her father’s hand. Her father had gambled with what was not his. Now she had to marry this man because once she turned twenty-one—which was in a couple weeks—her husband would be able to control not only her property but also surrounding the woods. Which he seemed to crave greatly. He never answered her question about the importance of the protected forest to him. Her childhood home didn’t seem enough. To save her father from humiliation and jail, she had agreed to be Gareth’s trophy wife.

  “Leave us,” he said.

  The two women scrambled away, leaving Fiona alone with him. Despite her nervousness, she was determined to not let him know how she felt.

  “Why do you want to marry me if you want to jinx our marriage by seeing the bride in her wedding gown?” she asked, lifting her chin.

  He smiled, his eyes twinkling in amusement. “Come now, my dear. I’ve found you a forward thinker. I’m quite sure you don’t believe in that nonsense.”

  She shrugged. Every day for the past week, since Fiona discovered that her father had gambled away their legacy, Gareth had visited her for exactly one hour. During that hour, he would ask her random questions about herself and invite her to do the same. She had deemed the visits unnecessary, but he had insisted on a proper courting. His mannerisms freaked her out at times. Like him showing up now when they were supposed to be married in less than an hour.

  Or is he here to call off the wedding? Hope flared inside at the thought.

  “Why are you here?” she blurted out, unable to contain the question.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Can a man not visit his bride to tell her how exquisite she looks?”

  “You could have told me that at the ceremony.”

  “Okay, you got me.” He reached inside his coat and removed a box. He handed it to her and she reluctantly took it from him. “Open it.”

  She removed the lid from the box and found the most beautifully cut pair of diamond earrings inside, nestled against black velvet. “Oh, my.”

  “These have been in my family for centuries,” he remarked, removing the earrings from the box. “The diamonds, I mean of course. They have been reshaped many times but still remain an heirloom that is passed onto a bride when the time comes. My mother wore them on her wedding day and her mother before her. And now, you will wear the same.”

  His words were perfect and sweet. He was saying all the right things which was the big problem for her. He barely knew her. He didn’t love her, and yet, he was acting as if he did which made her suspicious of him.

  “I can’t wear them,” she told him, taking a step back. “They’re your mother’s.”

  “And you will be my wife,” he answered. “For that reason, you will wear this gift.”

  A little voice told her to accept the gift, but she shook her head. “Really, I can’t. I’m sure your parents were in love when she got these earrings from your father. It would be almost sacrilegious for me to wear them under these circumstances.”

  If it was possible, his eyes became even darker. “The circumstances are the same. You’re about to be my wife.”

  “Why are you doing this?” she cried, hitting at his arm when he reached for her ear. She stepped back, her chest heaving with emotion. “Why are you pretending like this is normal? It isn’t. You’re forcing my hand in marriage to get my lands. This is not a happy occasion! The dress! This engagement ring! Now this. Will you just stop? Please, just stop!”

  After her outburst, a heavy silence weighed down on the room, disturbed only by her sharp intake of breaths.

  Without a word, he placed one foot in front of him and then another. She backed up until she hit the wall and could go nowhere. Leaning down, he reached for her ear. She trembled but found she could not move under his stare. His hands were cold as they touched her face and goosebumps broke out on her bare arms.

  “I won’t make you wear them.” He reached for her hand and brought it up to his lips. They were as cold as his hands, and she regretted not having slipped on her gloves yet.

  “Please,” she heard herself croak. “I don’t want to marry you.”

  Her words fell on deaf ears. Gareth reached up to run his finger from behind her ear down to her throat and over her jugular. She swallowed hard, not sure if she was justified in feeling as threatened as she did by that movement.

  “Make no mistake about this, my dear, sweet wife.” His lips barely moved with each word. “You are mine. The land, the house, everything is mine. Now, I’ll see you in thirty minutes. Don’t let me wait too long in the gardens.”

  She was too frightened to point out to him that she wasn’t his yet and the estate was technically still hers. Even when they married, it would still be hers unless she signed it over to him.

  She watched him walk from the room and then she slumped against the wall, blinking against the tears that welled up in her eyes. If she cried, she would ruin her mascara, although God only knew why she cared if she looked like a raccoon, walking down the aisle.

  Chapter Three

  “I don’t know why the hell we have to dress in these monkey suits,” Andrew grumbled as they barreled down the stree
t, barely adhering to the speed limit.

  “Because we have to blend in,” Joshua answered his younger, hot-headed brother. If given the chance, Andrew would head to their mission in nothing but his birthday suit and fur. Joshua wouldn’t allow this to happen though. As the leader of his pack, he would always strive for the best for them and what was best was to maintain the harmony that existed between all people.

  “We shouldn’t have to blend in with them,” Andrew snarled, and his brother could see the savage in him dying to get out. “We are the superior species. They should bow to us, treat us like gods.”

  “Andrew, enough!” Joshua snapped.

  This was the kind of talk that made him worry about his kin. They were born of different mothers, but the same father and Joshua knew that Andrew’s personality was largely shaped by his mother’s pack. Still, Andrew’s ideology worried him. Worse still was the persuasive way he could get the younger members of their pack to listen to what he had to say. Joshua feared if he didn’t curb his brother’s ways, he would have to kick him out of the pack for the greater good of everyone involved.

  “I am trusting you with this mission, brother,” Joshua told him, gripping his brother’s arm hard so he could see just how serious he was. He tightened his grip until his brother was staring him in the eyes. Words failed Joshua for a bit as he became lost into eyes so like his own, a clear, blue sky with flecks of amber. “The entire pack is depending on you to get this done. Don’t let us down.”

  “I’ll do what’s best for our people,” Andrew answered, and his vague reply worried Joshua. In his brother’s mind, what was best for their people, might not necessarily be best for them.

  As they drew closer to the estate, Joshua’s mind moved from his brother to the man who was responsible for all this mess. There was no way he could allow Gareth to marry that girl and get his hands on that preserved forest.

  A security detail was located at the entrance of the property just as he had expected, hence their disguise. The security guard didn’t even glance in the truck. He took in the vehicle which was marked as a delivery truck. No doubt, the man thought the truck was there for the wedding.