Awakening (Willow Creek Vampires Series Book 3)

by Stephanie Summers

  Just as she was about to get up, his eyes opened. Longing to see them brilliant and green, a coldness settled over her as the dark abysses they’d become peered at her.

  “What were you doing?”

  “Nothing. I was just leaving.”

  He sat up, gazing at her with an intensity that made her stomach flutter. “Tell me.”

  “I wanted to touch you.” Her hand worked the end of her wavy hair, twirling it between her fingers. “I thought maybe if I touched you one more time, you’d feel it again… the love we have.”

  “Had…”

  “Yeah… It was stupid. I need to get out of here,” she said, standing suddenly.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I guess back to the library. It’s not like I can go anywhere else.”

  “Where would you go if you could choose?”

  “Home.”

  “Then go. I won’t stop you… for now.”

  She whirled around to face him. “Home isn’t there anymore. It’s for sale, and they’re gone. They never bothered to tell me where they went.”

  “Perhaps you could speak to Mary Mercy. Maybe she could help you locate them, though I don’t know when you’d be able to visit them. At least you’d know where they are.”

  Yes, Mary! Maybe she can help me find them. Maybe she can help me find my Remy, too.

  “I wouldn’t count on that. I am what I am, and though remnants of him and the things you have fond memories of may linger, they’re far below the surface. You’ll never find him.”

  “I guess you can hear my thoughts. I was wondering.”

  He hesitated for just a moment before standing up. As he looked at her and quickly turned his gaze away, a flicker of something passed behind his eyes. “Yes, you forgot to put on your bracelet after you took it off last night. I found it on the counter in the bathroom.” In an instant, he was in the bathroom and then before her. Taking her hand in his, he slid the bracelet Mary had given her to shield her thoughts onto her wrist. “There.”

  “Can you hear everyone now?”

  He nodded. “If I forget to tune them out. I can even hear Damen. It…” His eyes softened just a little before looking away. He dragged his hand through his hair.

  “It what?”

  “Nothing.”

  She knew how much the thought of hearing what was going on in other peoples’ heads bothered him. He’d told her he had no desire to listen in on anyone’s thoughts.

  “You can talk to me, Remy. Even if you feel like you can’t talk to anyone about what you’ve gone through, I’m still here. I’m still me, and I know you better than anyone else.”

  “It drives me mad. It’s so loud since I’ve been used to the quiet.”

  “It must be hard to adjust. I didn’t think you would want me to keep my bracelet once you remembered I had it.”

  “One less voice to keep out of my head is a good thing.”

  “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For everything you’ve been through. I can’t imagine what it must be like to die and then come back completely changed.”

  His face softened for just a moment before he stiffened again.

  “Whatever.” Pulling on a pair of jeans he’d slung over the back of a chair, he left the room without another word.

  *

  Walking through the mansion brought stares and silence from the human guests. Their thoughts assaulted him before he could put up a wall in his mind to block them out. Most of them were the same… variations of if and when he would give them their immortality back and if he’d set the offerings free.

  Remy walked out of the front door into the bright afternoon sun. For the first time in his immortal life, the dulling of his powers in the sunlight was barely noticeable.

  Racing into the woods, he found a clearing and sent out his energy. Within a second, he touched Damen’s mind and summoned him. A few seconds later, Damen stood before him.

  “You rang?”

  “What the bloody hell are we going to do with all of these people?”

  Damen shrugged. “Turn them?”

  “I don’t want that many vampires always coming to me for shit I don’t care about… and I don’t want to be bothered to feel them all the time. You were enough to keep track of, and I didn’t even really do a good job at that. That’s why I never made any others.”

  “At least they all know what to expect. It’s not like they’d all be brand-new baby vamps who don’t know how to do anything. Maybe just change a couple of them and let them sort the rest out.”

  “That could work. You choose an amount acceptable to you, and I will choose a few. I’ll instruct them to change the others, and we can be done with it.”

  Damen was keenly aware that Remy’s eyes weren’t nearly as dark as they’d been earlier. It was a subtle shift that only a vampire would recognize, but they were definitely lighter than they had been before. Whether or not it actually meant something, he didn’t know.

  “Listen, man, we need to talk,” Damen said.

  “About?”

  Damen raised his eyebrow. “Everything.”

  “I don’t have time to talk about everything, so how about you narrow the list?”

  “Fine. Sabine… Why are you being such a dick to her?”

  “I’m not being anything to her.”

  “After everything that happened in the last few weeks… You were willing to die if it meant she would be free of Bastian, and now you act like she isn’t worth your time. I don’t get it.”

  “It’s really none of your concern.”

  “Maybe it isn’t, but she’s the first one I’ve ever seen you have a connection with like that. Is it worth it to throw that all away?”

  “Shut your arse, Damen. I need Mary Mercy to come here. Go and make sure you bring her back. Use force if necessary.”

  “Oh, yeah, because force always works so well on a witch… I’ll leave soon.” Damen glared at his maker before turning away to disappear into the woods.

  “Wait…”

  Damen stopped. As he turned back, he noticed Remy’s eyes lightening to a shade of green closer to his normal hue.

  “What is it now, Your Highness?”

  “There is something else I need to speak to you about. I don’t really have anyone else I can discuss this with, and it needs to stay between us… at least for now anyway.”

  “Spit it out already.”

  Reaching deep within himself, he laced his words with power, compelling Damen to obey him. “You will not tell anyone about this part of our conversation. I can’t have anyone questioning me more than they already do, and I’m not sure that I’m not simply losing my mind.”

  Damen’s body instantly felt the influence of Remy’s command. “I’ll keep it to myself.”

  “Since I came back, I don’t feel like myself.”

  “No, shit. Really?” Sarcasm coated Damen’s words. “Couldn’t have guessed that.”

  “I lapse in and out of consciousness at times, and when I awake, my actions play like a movie in front of my eyes. I see myself as if I’m recalling a memory, but it isn’t. Right now, I know I want to take Sabine into my arms and never let her go, yet when she is in front of me, I can’t seem to think about anything but her blood and how she smells. The feelings I have for her disappear and she becomes… a blood bag.”

  “That’s pretty strange… It has to be a side effect of being dead. Maybe you didn’t come back right.”

  “I think I’ve gone off my trolley completely.”

  “You have to let me help. If it weren’t for the guidance and help you’ve given me over the years, I’d be dead by now. I know you think you screwed up as a maker, but you didn’t. Let me return the favor by finding a way for you to feel normal again.”

  Remy nodded, reaching out to touch Damen’s shoulder just before his body stiffened and the look on his face went cold. His eyes darkened and an evil grin spread across
his lips. “You’re so easy to fool. I really had you going, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, you did.” Damen left Remy standing in the clearing as he took off back toward the mansion.

  “Tell no one,” Remy said, sending his influence to Damen one more time.

  CHAPTER 4

  Creeping quietly down the stairs and through the short corridor to the dungeon, she expected to see Bastian just as bloodied and beaten as Remy had been when he was imprisoned in the same cell.

  She laid eyes on a perfectly kempt human Bastian, albeit with a bad case of what looked like bed head. Her mouth dropped open as she watched him for a few seconds without him knowing she was there. I cannot believe he didn’t hurt him.

  She whispered “Revelar” to herself so that Bastian could see her. How strange it was to make herself visible for Bastian when he was the reason she’d placed the cloaking spell on the dungeon in the first place. It was the only way she could visit with Remy when he was first locked up, before she had permission to see him.

  He sat with his back against the far wall with his hands crossed in his lap. “You have come to gloat?”

  Sabine’s skin prickled with a flash of fear. Seeing Bastian in such a vulnerable place was hard to wrap her mind around. Even in human form, his presence was graceful, yet commanding.

  “No. I came for answers.”

  “I have none… but there is an answer I would very much like to have from you. Would life as my bride have been so bad? Was escaping me worth all the chaos it created?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” she whispered. Was it worth it? Had she known Remy would end up like he was now, she would’ve tried harder to find another way. She begged him not to kill Nicas, and had resigned herself to the fact that if being Bastian’s wife temporarily meant they could free Remy and get the hell out of Willow Creek eventually, then it was worth it. “I don’t love you, Bastian. I would have never been truly happy.”

  “Do you think you could have grown to?” He stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed his feet.

  “I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter now anyway, does it?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “What’s it like? Being human after all the time you spent as a vampire?”

  “I ache… physically, emotionally, mentally… I feel as if I have a bruise on my neck from Remy’s fingers squeezing my throat earlier, though I cannot tell for sure… It hurts. I am exhausted, thirsty, and hungry. I do not care for it.”

  “Maybe he’ll turn you back.”

  “That would be a worse fate yet. I do not wish to be Remington’s progeny. He would make eternity unbearable for the wrongs he believes I have committed against him, ignoring all the good I have done for him over the centuries. His actions have shown me that he is not the same vampire I grew to love as my own son.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have treated him the way you did then. Ever think of that? What you did was despicable. You had no good reason for locking him up and stealing me away.”

  Bastian shrugged his shoulders and looked away. “What does it matter now, right?”

  “You have no remorse for locking him up, do you?”

  “No. He knew what he was doing when he chose to defy me, and he was punished accordingly. I only wish I had killed him when I had the chance.”

  “I bet you do,” Remy said from somewhere behind Sabine. “Reveal yourself, Sabine.”

  She whispered, “Revelar,” and faced Remy. “What are you going to do to him?”

  “Nothing he wouldn’t do to me.”

  “This needs to stop now. Remy, don’t hurt him. He’s weak and helpless. You’re above that.” She glanced at Bastian, and for the first time ever, she saw fear on his face as he stood up slowly in the cell.

  “Am I, really? You haven’t the slightest clue of who or what I am, do you? I don’t govern my life according to what you feel is right or wrong. I am pure-blooded vampire, Sabine.”

  “Yeah, so? You were a vampire before, and you’re still a vampire now.”

  “He was, yes, but his blood was diluted like everyone else coming after Nicas.”

  “I don’t want to hear this shit anymore. You really need to stop referring to yourself like that. It doesn’t make it any easier for me, contrary to what you think. All this ‘him’ and ‘he’ bullshit. Get over yourself already.”

  Remy watched her walk heavy-footed down the corridor and up the stairs. Though he felt nothing for her at the moment, there was still something about her he found intriguing. Probably just her blood that’s pulling me in. Nothing more.

  Turning to Bastian, he said, “You have no desire to be my progeny?”

  “No. What you have done is unforgivable.”

  “You seem to be confused here. You see, I am in charge now, not you. You have no authority over me, so why should I care whether or not you forgive me for what I’ve done?”

  “Nicas would have never condoned what you did. He wanted to sleep for eternity, but he did not want any harm to come to his vampire children. Of course, he thought we would all die instead of our vampirism being expelled.”

  “Not true… He knew exactly what would happen. He only kept it hidden because he knew that the vampire who managed to kill him would absorb his essence and become the most powerful vampire of all.”

  “You are lying.”

  “I’m not. I can see the sex and raw power of the demoness who offered immortality and immeasurable abilities to aid in the plight to take over that tiny village in the Carpathian Mountains and expand its lands. I can smell her smoky perfume, taste her hot flesh, and feel her body inside and out… We fucked under the full moon on a sacred burial ground three thousand years ago. Feeding on her was pure heaven, or hell, as it may be the case. It was her blood that created our race and her blood that runs through me now.”

  “You are speaking nonsense, Remy. You could not possibly know the origins of our kind. You are just elaborating on the origin stories you have heard. Even I know it was not a demoness who changed him. It was a demon, and there was no fornicating involved.”

  “I assure you, she was not male, and there was plenty of it going on.”

  “I still do not believe you. Nicas never fully explained how he came to be even to me, and I was his favorite child. ”

  “You were, and you will be again.”

  “Again? What do you mean again?”

  “I only meant that now that Nicas’ essence has merged with my own, it will be like having him as your maker again. I’ve decided to turn a select few. Though you will be my favorite by far but for more entertaining reasons than you’d like to think about, I’m sure.”

  “There is something you must know now. Brendon is still here. I am assuming she told you all about him once I lifted the coercion he placed on her. He is locked in a cell in the main holding area. Do what you will with him, but he will die if you do nothing. A pity it would be for him to not receive the punishment he so deserved.”

  “Brendon? Brendon? Who was Brendon again?” Remy tapped his chin, searching his memories for the answer. “Ah, yes. The little shit who thought it a good idea to taunt him while he was locked up. Why didn’t you take care of him yourself?”

  “Because I knew at some point you and I would make amends, just like we always have, and I was keeping him so that you could take your revenge on him. I thought you deserved to be the one to take care of him.”

  “How generous of you to consider him while you were claiming Sabine as your own and leaving his body to rot down here. I almost believed that for a second. Are you sure you just hadn’t gotten around to dealing with him yet and are looking for a way out of this mess now?”

  Bastian looked away from Remy, swallowing hard.

  “No matter. I will deal with him in time. See you soon.” With a menacing smile plastered on his face, Remy backed away slowly before disappearing into the dark.

  “See you soon, Nicas…” Bastian turned to sit down when a cold hand grasped
his neck and flung him across the cell.

  “I should’ve known you’d figure it out, my son.”

  Bastian, surrounded by a cloud of dust, coughed and tried desperately to inhale. After a few moments, he said, “How could I not? You practically spelled it out with the details you let slip. I did not buy that referring to yourself as ‘him’ just to ease her pain for a second, especially when you continued to do it even after she left. You are too arrogant not to be noticed. Is Remington still within you or have you banished him?”

  “He is still in here.” He tapped his long finger to his temple. “Strong one, that lad. He’s not easily subdued. He manages to break through occasionally before I pull him back. I see why you chose to turn him. He certainly is a strong fighter. It’s a pity I never met him in person before all of this, but no matter now. His body is quite remarkable. It suits me well since mine was destroyed when he snapped my neck.”

  “Why are you punishing me, my lord? I was only ever a faithful progeny to you.”

  “Yes, until you failed me by allowing Remington to get to me. I did not want to be disturbed, yet here I am. Though I suppose I might as well make the most of it now that I’ve been awakened.”

  “Why not just leave us in peace? You were not always this sadistic.”

  “You’ve only forgotten my true nature. Centuries have dulled your memories of the way we were. Do you not remember all the innocents we slaughtered or the wars I had a hand in starting for my own pleasure?”

  “I have not forgotten, but I also remember the maker who took pity on me when I was dying. You are capable of being something more than evil.”

  “I am taking pity on you again. You will become my child again, whether you like it or not, but in the meantime,” he knelt down, catching Bastian’s gaze, “be sure not to mention this little conversation to anyone. Wouldn’t want my secret getting out.”

  *

  I’m so over this. Sabine quickly threw a couple of items into a small suitcase, grabbed her purse, and hightailed it out of there before Remy could return from the dungeon. So what if he comes after me? Let him. I’ll just run again until he locks me away. Running felt like a natural solution to Sabine. This was the fourth time in almost as many years she’d tried to run away to escape her fate with Remy and Willow Creek Manor. Maybe this time, she’d be successful; though she had a feeling deep down that it would only be a matter of time before she was found. Still, she had to try.