The Serenity Series: Box Set: Books 1-3

by Marissa Farrar

  Serenity couldn’t help her resentment toward Sebastian. If he hadn’t come into her life, neither would Madeline. But if they’d never met, she wouldn’t have her daughter. In Serenity’s eyes that wasn’t a life worth living.

  “I can take you away from here,” Sebastian said. “Somewhere safe, somewhere he won’t find you.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t just up and leave. I have a life now, a job…”

  The memory of being in the underground car lot flooded back; the horrendous stench, the sound of footsteps behind her and the rancid breath on her cheek.

  The color drained from her face. Suddenly she felt the urgent need to be by her daughter’s side, to make sure she was safe.

  “What’s wrong?” Sebastian said.

  “I think he’s already found me. Someone was following me at work today. I didn’t see anyone but I was sure someone was there. The smell was terrible.”

  “You need to come with me, Serenity. We need to leave, now, tonight.”

  Again, her thoughts went back to Elizabeth. “You don’t understand. I can’t leave.”

  “Jackson can walk in the light,” Sebastian said. “I can’t protect you all of the time.”

  “So he’s not like you or Madeline? He’s not a vampire?” She held onto the tiny thread of hope, her heart hitching. She’d dealt with Jackson once before, however horrific the event. She could do it again.

  Sebastian shook his head. “No. He’s something much, much worse.”

  Serenity couldn’t breathe. Here was the man she’d once loved more than anything else in the world and he just told her that her worst nightmare had come true. She couldn’t handle this – it was all too much.

  She stared at the ground, shaking her head. Being so close to him hurt. Every fiber of her body wanted to throw herself against him, rest in the safety of his arms, but now she had more than her own desires to consider.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this again,” she said, her voice breaking. “You can’t just come back into my life bringing all your bullshit with you.”

  “No, you don’t—”

  “I don’t need you to save me anymore, Sebastian,” she said, louder now. She looked up, staring into the eyes she’d once fallen in love with. “I saved myself.”

  Before he could say another word, she turned and fled back inside the house.

  This time he let her go.

  Serenity slammed the door shut and leaned back against the wood. Her legs gave way and she slid down the door. Every muscle in her body shook and she hugged her knees into herself, trying to stop her body trembling. Emotion welled up inside, her mind a blur.

  She couldn’t go back to this; back to living in constant fear, terrified something unspeakable was going to hurt her. Only now the situation was so much worse. Her nightmares had been confirmed, actually spoken out loud, and now she didn’t only fear for her own life but that of her child’s. The terror of losing her baby-girl was so, so much worse.

  Filled with panic, she leapt to her feet and raced around the small apartment, checked every room, made sure every window was deadlocked, the door double bolted. She caught sight of the street outside her window. No figure stood on the sidewalk. Sebastian had gone.

  Knowing at least the house was secure, she allowed herself to fold. Her knees gave way and she ended up on the floor, doubled over. Tears barreled over her, consuming her.

  “Mommy?”

  Serenity glanced up to find Elizabeth standing in the doorway. She held her arms out to her daughter. Obediently, Elizabeth allowed herself to be pulled into Serenity’s embrace and Serenity crushed the child against her. She cried into her soft dark hair, knowing she was probably frightening her daughter, but was unable to stop.

  Chapter Nine

  Distraught at her rejection, Sebastian fled back into the night.

  Revealing himself to Serenity had been the most terrifying experience of his existence. He’d stood, waiting in the shadows, trying to build up the courage to speak to her. When she came out of the house, he forced himself to call out her name.

  Sebastian only wanted to help, to make sure she stayed safe, but she no longer wanted him around. The strength and independence shown by her rebuke made him proud of her in some perverse way. The fragile, frightened woman he’d met four years ago no longer existed.

  He hadn’t expected her to be pleased to see him, but for her to look at him in such as way—as though he were no better than Jackson—cut him to the bone. His sudden reappearance was always going to be hard on her, especially considering the news he brought, but he’d hoped she would at least want to see him again.

  No, he was lying to himself; deep down he hoped she would fling herself into his arms, tell him how she missed him and beg him to never leave again.

  Sebastian hadn’t prepared himself for the total rejection, for the pain and resentment trembling in her eyes. Clearly, she still blamed him for leaving.

  Now the need for blood surged over him, as strong as an addiction. Like any other addict, during times of extreme emotion, he sought the one thing that would numb the pain.

  Sebastian ran through the night, away from the woman he loved. He needed a victim, someone whose blood would fill the chasm inside his chest.

  Things hadn’t worked out for Serenity the way he’d hoped. Despite his pain at believing her to be with another man, if she’d been living the happy life she deserved perhaps she would have understood his leaving was best for her in the long run. But that had not happened. Serenity lived alone in a crappy apartment. She didn’t have the life Sebastian wanted for her and she held him responsible.

  Had he done the right thing, leaving her all those years ago? Or had they both been living in pain all this time, pining for the person who would stop the loneliness?

  The faintest flutter of hope beat deep inside his heart. He’d done what he thought was right at the time. Had she simply proved him wrong?

  Whatever he thought, two things existed that he couldn’t escape; firstly, Serenity hated him, and the second was Jackson.

  Jackson’s presence somewhere in the city terrified Sebastian. If Serenity wouldn’t trust him to help, he would do things his own way. He couldn’t just accept her demands to be left alone and allow Jackson to slaughter her.

  He had to find Jackson before Jackson could find Serenity.

  Sebastian hardly knew where to start. Los Angeles was a big city and Jackson could be anywhere, searching for Serenity. Jackson obviously hadn’t learned where she lived yet or he would have been there already.

  Sebastian needed to pick up on some kind of scent or trail. The only other option was to stake out Serenity’s apartment and wait for Jackson to come to her, but that felt like hanging Serenity out like bait.

  The forest held the most promise. Jackson must have been buried somewhere while his resurrection took place.

  The monster may be forced to return.

  The rumor of vampires sleeping with a handful of dirt from the place they were created did, like most other myths, stem from the truth. A very young vampire had to go back to the ground where they completed their transformation until strong enough to survive above ground.

  From what Sebastian discerned, Jackson wasn’t a vampire, but the way he’d been created must have initially begun the same way. If the creature needed to go back to the forest, perhaps it was his weakness. Maybe Sebastian could pin him down and kill him, without letting him get anywhere near Serenity.

  Sebastian hated leaving Serenity alone and defenseless. But then he gave himself a mental shake. Perhaps he didn’t give her enough credit, underestimating her once again. After all, she’d dealt with Jackson the first time and tricked Madeline.

  He needed to feed. If he found Jackson, he needed to be strong and several weeks had passed since he last fed.

  Not yet midnight, Sebastian headed out of the city. Los Angeles Forest called to him, but he needed to feed before reaching his destination.

  The v
ampire was a predator, every part built to hunt down and kill prey; from his strength, to his speed, to his ability to heal quickly.

  And his prey was human.

  Though he only ever killed men and tried to only hunt those who wouldn’t be missed, for him to never cause pain verged on impossible. Even the worst of men normally had people who loved them and would miss them.

  In many ways, he was no better than Jackson.

  Since Serenity, Sebastian had killed for pleasure. It had been the one thing he’d been able to lose himself in, if only for a moment or two. It had been the only way he’d been able to forget her. He hadn’t been proud of his actions, but whatever humanity he tried to retain, at heart he was always a vampire.

  He walked through the streets, keeping every sense alert for a suitable victim. He would know the right person when he came across them.

  Within minutes, he approached a park. A homeless man sat on one of the benches, a brown paper bag containing a bottle clutched between his hands.

  At once, Sebastian’s nerves went on high alert.

  He wanted the kill to be fast. Though the victim needed to be alive during the feeding, Sebastian had no wish for the man to die in terror.

  In an instant, he stood in front of the man. “Excuse me, Sir,” he said, “Do you have the time?”

  The man—a skinny, worn-down guy in his fifties—lifted his head and Sebastian struck.

  His jaw realigned, the muscles and bones distorting. The top of his jaw protruded forward, extending the fangs normally hidden further back in his mouth. His now yellow glowing eyes narrowed, his mouth opened wide—like a baby latching onto a nipple—and his teeth sank into the man’s jugular.

  The man batted at him weakly, his defenses no more than butterfly kisses to Sebastian.

  Sebastian drank, thick warm blood flooding down his throat.

  He caught glimpses of the brain waves of the person he fed from. A glimpse of a child, now grown, but not seen for many, many years, but the man’s last thought was of a bottle.

  The man’s struggles grew weaker and eventually stopped altogether.

  Fresh blood coursed through Sebastian’s veins, flooding his body with warmth. The man’s pulse still beat inside Sebastian’s head; thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump. The sensation of a beating heart would not last but he enjoyed the rhythm while it did.

  The guilt Sebastian thought he should feel did not come. Maybe he’d made his own peace with his identity, or perhaps, with all his emotions tied up in Serenity, there was simply no room for anything else.

  Emotions warred within him. He fed on humans, murdered countless men to survive. Yet he was in love with one of them.

  Perhaps that he used to be human explained the reason for his connection with Serenity. Others of his kind would ridicule him, but he didn’t care what they thought. It wouldn’t be the first time a vampire brought over a human for companionship. After all, that was exactly what happened to him.

  The memory of what Madeline did bit down on his heart like shock paddles. He didn’t want his thoughts to follow this route. The other vampire had taken him unwillingly. If he ever turned Serenity, it would be because she wanted to become like him.

  He struggled to comprehend how he and Serenity were even compatible. He had lived for over two hundred years, seen and experienced things she would never have even given thought to. He’d experienced numerous wars, watched while plagues stole thousands of lives. He’d born witness to the world growing from single story homes to huge skyscrapers. The speed of the growth of technology over the past few decades left his brain whirling.

  He shouldn’t even think of them being together, yet the last few years without her had been the worst of his existence. The idea of spending hundreds more was unbearable.

  Had her life not panned out the way he’d hoped because of his involvement, or had she already experienced too much pain to allow her to live a normal, happy life?

  Could he change her? Did he dare to even think it?

  Sebastian couldn’t help the frisson of hope sparking through him. He’d been lonely throughout his vampire existence. The possibility of that loneliness ending overwhelmed him.

  Could he change her? Would she even let him?

  Four years ago Serenity begged him to turn her. She’d told him she wanted to be with him, no matter the consequences. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to make her a vampire because he wanted her to have a normal life, but what if her life wasn’t happy? What if, because of him and everything else she’d been through, she would never have that life? Surely then it would be better for them to be together. Serenity had killed before—both human and vampire—so he knew she contained what was necessary to be one of his kind.

  Sebastian carried the body of the man with him. The weight was no greater challenge than carrying a bag of laundry. He wasn’t going to just leave the body in the street. The dead needed to be dealt with properly—buried. Sometimes they came back and the result wasn’t pretty—a zombie-like creatures that didn’t last long.

  The strength from the live blood coursed through his veins like PCP: brute vigor and vitality. His skin flushed with warmth, his muscles loosened and flexed. To have fresh blood after weeks of a drought beat any other feeling imaginable.

  He would need all of his strength, though he doubted Jackson’s ability to defeat him—Jackson was newly turned. What Jackson was made him nervous. When, years ago, Sebastian brought Jackson’s body to the forest, Jackson had been dead. Could there have been some small spark of life still left in Jackson when Sebastian buried his body?

  Madeline had been much older than him. Had she detected the faintest beat of Jackson’s heart or even the firing of brain cells? It was the only explanation, unless she had brought Jackson back from the dead? Had Madeline known some kind of evil making her able to raise the dead?

  Although technically the vampire was dead—the physical body needed to die—it did so with vampire blood coursing through its veins. He’d never heard of someone who’d already died being turned.

  So if Jackson wasn’t a vampire, what was he? A devil? A demon? A fiend?

  What sort of black magic had Madeline used to bring him back?

  Sebastian headed back into the forest, drinking in the night. Picking his way easily through the undergrowth, he made his way back to the place he’d found the body of the girl who looked so like Serenity. Previously, the sight and scent of the murdered girl blocked out all other senses but now, with his body full of fresh blood, he realigned his mind, searching for something else.

  Without the girl’s blood saturating the ground, Sebastian picked up on a smell jarring his whole body. Acrid and dank; the stench of decomposition and decay.

  Jackson’s trail.

  Sebastian took off at a run, bounding through the bush, following the scent of death.

  He reached the patch of ground he took to be Jackson’s place of metamorphism—a hole several feet deep, clods of earth scattered either side. The scent was stronger here, but not strong enough. Wherever Jackson was, he’d not been back to ground—not here at least—in a good day or two.

  “God damn it,” Sebastian swore, kicking at one of the clods, sending it smacking against a tree trunk. The clod shattered into fine earth at the impact.

  The monster must be in the city somewhere, hot on Serenity’s trail.

  Chapter Ten

  Sitting, distraught, on her hallway floor, holding her daughter in her arms, Serenity lost track of time. She eventually calmed down, when the immediate flood of adrenaline subsided, and regained her senses. Serenity glanced down to discover Elizabeth had fallen asleep. Her daughter looked so peaceful; a gentle flush of pink in her cheeks, those thick dark lashes sheltering her eyes. Serenity barely believed someone so perfect came from her.

  Guilt at letting her daughter down spiked through her heart. Despite all her efforts, she’d put Elizabeth in even more danger than Serenity had been exposed to during her own horrendous childh
ood.

  Self-doubt swamped Serenity, uncertainty in her ability as a mother. She’d spent the last few years trying to re-build her own shattered self-confidence, but her new found independence and strength had been nothing more than a fragile façade. In the end, it had only taken a few words to break down everything she’d rebuilt.

  Carefully, Serenity got to her knees, still cradling her daughter in her arms. She used the wall for balance as she got to her feet. Her legs were stiff from the time she’d spent on the floor and her hips groaned and clicked in protest.

  As she walked toward the little girl’s bedroom, Elizabeth shifted in her arms. Serenity held her closer.

  Please don’t let anything hurt her, she prayed, her throat constricting at the thought.

  She put her daughter back to bed and Elizabeth rolled to her side, sighing gently. Serenity pulled the flower-fairies cover up over her shoulders and smoothed her hair away from her forehead.

  Serenity felt as though she’d been run over and left for dead. Emotional exhaustion dragged down on her limbs and every time she blinked, she struggled to reopen her eyes. Her mind flicked between Sebastian and Jackson, not sure which to focus on, each topic seemed too big for her to grasp onto for long. She struggled believe Sebastian was back, that he’d been standing in front of her, that he’d touched her face.

  Serenity lifted her own hand and touched her cheek, mirroring the position of Sebastian’s cold palm.

  Why did he have to come back now? Why did he have to tell her such a terrible thing as Jackson coming back to get her?

  She didn’t know what to believe. How did he even know the murderer was Jackson? Had he actually seen him?

  Serenity desperately wanted to believe Sebastian was wrong, of course she did, but what did that leave? If she didn’t believe Jackson was back, it meant someone murdered the Bainbridges for no reason, or at least for a reason the police couldn’t figure out. It also meant the feeling of being chased in the garage had just been her imagination. Then there was the big one—the fact the police found Jackson’s fingerprints in the Bainbridge’s blood. How was she supposed to explain the fingerprints away, except to say someone made a mistake with the forensics?