by Cat Miller
Unafraid
Unafraid
Midpoint
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Unafraid
A Forbidden Bond Series Novella
By
Cat Miller
Copyright © 2012 Cat Miller
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved. Except for use in any reviews, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form is forbidden without expressed written permission from this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are either 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.
Cover art by:
Regina Wamba
www.MaeIDesign.com
Editor:
Brittany Carrigan
The Cover and Everything in Between, Reviews and Editing
Dedication
To my readers.
Your support has inspired me to keep looking toward the future with an open and creative mind. This one is for you.
Author’s Note
Dear Reader,
After the release of Unbound many readers expressed a wish to know more about Griffin and Tessa. They have a very interesting beginning in the prologue of Unbound, but the story then moves onto the life of their only child. When Unforgiven was released and the relationship between them became more intense, I received another round of requests for more about the couple’s past together. Griffin and Tessa are my favorite characters, so I was pleased to have the opportunity to go back in time to explore the original forbidden bond. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I send sincere thanks to everyone who reached out to me and waited patiently for this story.
Cat Miller
ONE
Tessa had taken a short-cut from her crummy job waiting tables to get to her crummy little one room studio apartment. She’d gotten fired for cursing at a drunken customer who grabbed her ass one time too many. Apparently being a regular gave a man the right to talk to women like trash, treat them like property and touch them anywhere he pleased. Well she wasn’t putting up with that shit. She told the asshole exactly what she thought of him and his wandering hands. The manager of the restaurant Bella Notte waddled down the small aisle that ran between tables, bumping against them and apologizing to patrons the whole way. He carried her purse and a jacket that wasn’t hers in his chubby fist and thrust them at her before shoving her out the door. She was too angry to even consider going back inside to retrieve her coat. She would surely do or say something that would get her arrested and she had no one to bail her out.
It was cold, but she didn’t live far away. Tessa checked her watch. It was nearly closing time. Soon the street would busy with people making their way home from the local pubs and night clubs. Before she reached the alley Tessa had the odd feeling she was being watched. She scanned the street but saw no one, with the exception of a few girls who stumbled out of a bar. In a hurry to get home and out of the cold, she turned down an alley that cut through to her street. Halfway down the alley the hair on the back of her neck began to stand on end. She was being followed. She picked up the pace, but before she made it more than a few steps, a voice from directly behind her startled Tessa into freezing in her tracks. How the hell had someone gotten that close without her knowing they were there?
“Stop, little one. I won’t hurt you,” he told her in deep, calming voice. The sound pulled at her. It made her want to obey, but she shook off the notion and took off running down the alley. Tessa had no intention of going down without a fight. She didn’t get far before a large hand grabbed her, jerking her off her feet. The large male form she found herself pinned against thrummed with an oddly soothing buzz of energy that made her want to relax into his arms. She fought against the warm sense of rightness that told her to give in to the demands of this stranger. Tessa struggled violently against his hold.
“Damn it! I said stop!” he growled. The sound of his voice chipped away at her resistance. He spun her around and pressed her back against the brick building.
“Look at me!” he demanded.
She did, but not because he told her to do it. She looked at him because she needed to see the face of her attacker so she could describe him to the police, if she survived the experience. The moment their eyes met, the world seemed to tilt on its axis. He must have felt it too, judging by his look of surprise and quickly indrawn breath.
He was beautiful in a too-good-to-be-true sort of way. His elegant, yet masculine, face belonged to a cover model or a statue carved from stone. His square, masculine jaw, full lips, and straight patrician nose were remarkable. Her gaze rose to the white highlights in the front of his dark hair before drifting down to meet his stare. His midnight blue eyes shifted to black while she watched. A pair of sharp fangs descended from his gums. Holy shit! Were they real fangs? This had to be a dream. It had to be. She struggled to free herself, but it was no use. He held her firmly, trapped between his hard body and the brick wall at her back.
The angelic looking man had transformed into a demon before her eyes. He leaned in and Tessa was sure her life was about to end. Her heart slammed against her ribs and terror gripped her throat, preventing her building scream from escaping. To her surprise the beautiful nightmare did not bite her. He kissed her lips softly before moving his mouth to her ear. She shivered.
“I am your mate, little one. You will be the center of my universe.” He kissed the wildly thudding pulse at the base of her throat, “I will love you all the days of my life,” he licked her there, “and you will love me.” He kissed her chin, “I am coming for you, Tessa.” He kissed her mouth and licked at her lips until she melted against him. It felt so right. She wanted to taste him. She needed to taste him.
The buzz of the alarm clock jerked Tessa from her crazy dream. Confusion and annoyance coursed through her mind. Tessa smacked the alarm clock and pulled the covers over her head. The last thing she wanted to do was look at the run down hole in the wall that was her home.
It couldn’t have been a dream. He was real. She could still feel the heat of his mouth on hers. The imprint of his hands still warmed her hips. It was just a dream. She told herself that lie over and over again. But she knew it was more than a dream. It was a premonition. It was a curse. It was the reason she found herself living alone, with no family to speak of, at the age of twenty-one.
Tessa had been different all of her life. Just like her mother and her mother’s mother before her. She had a gift that allowed her to see the future in her dreams and it had ruined her life. She just couldn’t keep her mouth shut as a kid. She would see things in her dreams that she didn’t understand. She had no sense of fear or self-preservation. So when she informed the adults around her of upcoming life events, they would just laugh and send her on her way. Until the things she predicted came true. At the time it was difficult for her to understand the names she’d been called. Witch. Demon. Evil. She wasn’t evil. She didn’t know what those other words meant, but she knew evil was a bad thing. She was a good girl.
Her mother explained that she understood Tessa’s dreams because she had them too, but she was not allowed to share the things from her dreams with others. Other people did not understand what a special little girl she was. But Tessa just couldn’t stop herself from telling people when trouble was coming. That, in her child’s mind, would be evil. Her father insisted that they get psychological help for her delusional belief that she could predict the future, but her mother refused.
It was the cause of many fights between her parents and Tessa’s mother begged her to stop sharing her dreams. It wasn’t until the night Tessa dreamt o
f her father’s death that she understood why she had to keep her dreams secret. He wouldn’t listen when she told him to stay home that day. She screamed and pleaded with her father. Her mother joined her in trying to convince him stay in the house, because she knew that Tessa’s dreams were really premonitions. It enraged her father that his wife would encourage Tessa’s psychosis. He left the house in a furious temper and he never came back. Her father ran a red light and died when his car was struck by a semi.
That was the day Tessa learned that her dreams could indeed do harm. If she hadn’t told her father about her dream, her parents wouldn’t have been so angry with each other. He wouldn’t have been so distracted that he ran a red light. He wouldn’t have died. Tessa still blamed herself for her father’s death. She never shared one of her dreams again. Not even years later when her mother and step-father left for a night on the town that Tessa knew they would never return from. She couldn’t take the chance that her warning would spur the fates into action. Instead, the fact that she said nothing made no difference. They died on the street outside of the restaurant they’d just left when a man, speeding to evade the police, mowed them down in the crosswalk. Tessa had no other family. Her step-father’s family had never taken to her. So when she graduated from high school a year after her mother’s death, she struck out on her own.
Tessa peeked out of her hiding place under the blankets to look at what it meant to be on your own at that age. Her studio was dingy and falling apart. The stove was about ten feet from her bed and the oven had no handle. The ceiling had huge water marks from her neighbor’s constantly overflowing toilet. Her wall-less bathroom consisted of a toilet and a shower. She’d thumb-tacked curtains to the ceiling to give herself the illusion of having a bit of privacy when she needed it. Not that anyone ever came to visit her. She just didn’t like looking at the toilet while she ate her meals.
After spending entirely too much time bemoaning her sad existence, she finally dragged herself out of bed and into the shower. As hard as she tried to forget it, the dream kept creeping back into her mind. Tessa couldn’t believe it was anything other than a dream. If she entertained the idea that is was more than a dream she would also have to accept the existence of things like vampires. The beautiful, dark man from her dream had not been a man at all. He was a creature from nightmares and horror movies. He was death walk, not a man she should be thinking about while she soaped herself up in the shower. She needed to clear her head and get on with her day.
Tessa had to get groceries and go to the Laundromat before she could prepare for her date with Sebastian. She had been told it was a big no-no for him to date his employees. Jessica, another waitress at the Bella Notte, had been trying to get him alone since the day she interviewed for the position. Sebastian was the owner of the restaurant and he didn’t come around often due to his other business ventures, but when he did it was all about business. God knew the gorgeous Italian, with his flowing shoulder length hair, perpetually tan skin and midnight eyes, was not lacking in the relationship department. Why would he need to date a waitress he employed? That’s why it was a shock when Sebastian asked her for a date. Tessa had gone out with Sebastian many times and they always had a good time. They had even messed around a few times. He was hot and he knew how to please a woman. That was what Tessa was going to focus on today. Not mysterious, sexy, dream men with fangs who threatened to come and get her. A chill raced down her spine at the memory of his soft lips against the pulse in her neck.
* * *
Ten days had gone by and Tessa was haunted night after night by the dream. Every night when she crawled onto her paper thin sofa bed, she was filled with a mixture of longing and dread. She didn’t want to be confronted by her fear of the unknown things that go bump in the night. It annoyed her that she yearned to feel the press of his lips and hear him tell her in that voice full of need that he would love her forever. She always woke from the dream with a jolt, but every morning a bit of the fear faded until finally she was left with only the need to know if he would really come for her. Would he hold her in his strong arms and make her want to understand exactly who and what he was?
The dream had worked its way into her every waking thought. She was distracted and tired after long nights of sleeplessness. She had finally drifted off the previous night only to be awakened by a fear that was equal to the lust she had begun to feel for her dark stranger. Now she was exhausted and cranky.
Business was hopping at Bella Notte and Tessa felt like she was being pulled in ten directions at once. Giovanni, the head chef, was out with the flu and his back up had screwed up several of her orders. On top of it all, one of the regulars had too much to drink and was being loud and obnoxious. He kept dropping things and asking her to pick them up. He grabbed her ass when she got close while waiting on the table across from him. The guy was such a sleaze.
At the end of her shift Tessa changed into her street clothes. It was too chilly to walk home wearing the requisite black dress all the waitresses wore to work. When Tessa exited the ladies’ room, the obnoxious customer exited the men’s room and stumbled into her, grabbing her ass again on his way back to his table. She held her temper until he turned and eyed her suggestively.
“Now that I’ve seen what’s on the dessert menu I’m ready to order. Why don’t you come rest your pretty little feet at my table while we talk money?” he smirked.
“Why don’t you kiss my ass?” Tessa couldn’t hold her tongue any longer. He crossed the line and she would not put up with his disrespectful, not to mention disgusting, proposition. The jerk’s face reddened with anger. He reached out in the narrow hall to clutch her arm roughly and jerked her into his chest.
“You will watch that mouth of yours. Do you know who I am? I could buy and sell your ass. You should be grateful I’m interested.” He stopped his tirade abruptly when Tessa’s hand came up to slap the insult out of his mouth. The asshole released her arm and backed up in shock. Of course, that was when Sal, the manager, decided to make an appearance. He spun around, disappearing back into the kitchen. He returned with her purse and grabbed her arm with his plump fingers before marching her through the restaurant. He bumped several tables on the way past and apologized to the diners for the disturbance.
Sal shoved her roughly out the door and tossed her purse at her feet. “We are no longer in need of your service. Do not come back,” he huffed before shutting the door in her face. Taking a deep breath, she bent to retrieve her purse and a jacket she hadn’t noticed before. It didn’t belong to her but she was not going to go back inside to fetch her coat. She would surely be arrested for the commotion she’d cause if confronted with either of those idiots again.
Tessa was stuffing her arms into the jacket when it hit her. Oh, God. It was the dream. Things hadn’t played out exactly as she’d dreamed them but the results where the same. She stood on the sidewalk in shock while people walked around her on their way into and out of the restaurant. This was it. She would come face to face with her fantasy and a nightmare this evening if she walked down that dark alley. Slowly, she moved out of the walkway and lowered herself to the ground to rest her back against the rough stone exterior of the business that been her only source of income. It was all too much to absorb and she needed a moment to think.
Tessa was frightened to her core. How could she possibly believe in the existence of vampires? Ten days ago she had been terrified of the black-eyed creature with sharp fangs that had invaded her dreams. Night after night he returned to harass and captivate her until finally she was left with a feeling of resigned acceptance. Things happened that there was just no explanation for. Nobody believed in her clairvoyant ability either, but it was very real and her belief in herself was backed up by the many dreams that she had watched play out in her waking life. So how could she assume any other manner of being or people with other psychic abilities couldn’t exist? She couldn’t.
She had never been wrong. The fact of the matter was that si
tting there pondering her fate would do nothing but put off the inevitable. He would find her tonight whether she sat there warming the sidewalk with her ass or if she walked straight into his trap, and it was a trap. She was sure he meant to feed on her. Well, wasn’t he going to get a surprise? He was just out for dinner, but he was about to find his “mate” as he’d called her so many times in the dream.
As Tessa gathered her courage and got to her feet she realized that she was at a distinct advantage. She knew what was coming. Her sexy vampire didn’t have a clue that his life was about to change. That bolstered her spirits a bit. Real life events didn’t always play out exactly as they came to her in her dreams. This was her chance to grab her fear by the throat and choke it into submission. She would go to the alley to find her fate, but she would not go meekly into the unknown. Her dreams had brought her to this moment but she would not run like a frightened child as she had in her sleep. There were only two blocks between where she stood and the place he would find her. Tessa strode off with her head up and purpose in her step. She would meet her future head on and welcome it with open arms.
The closer she got to the alley, the more she felt like she was being watched. He was out there watching her from the shadows. Tessa turned to scan the street before turning down the alley but saw no one with the exception of a few girls staggering out of a bar, just like in her dream. Things were going just as they should so far but that was about to change. She turned the corner into the alley and walked a few paces before she stopped to wait for her pursuer.
The wind kicked up suddenly. Tessa stood there among the empty bottles and trash blowing in the wind with both hands on her hips, smiling. Nerves made her stomach queasy, but she was determined to not let it show on her face. A minute passed while she anxiously waited, and Tessa began to question her sanity. Would he show? Was she crazy for believing he would come?
