The Awakening Series: Volumes 1 - 3

by Dean Murray

  I opened my mouth to ask her how likely that was, but before I could get the words out a gigantic shadow detached itself from the darkness and threw itself at Kat. There wasn't time to yell a warning. I pushed Kat as hard as I could, using every ounce of amped strength to send her flying forward.

  I tried to change direction at the same time, but a jolt of pain across the bottom of my right foot brought me down to one knee as the piece of darkness clipped Kat in the shoulder and sailed over me. Bethany grabbed onto my hair with both hands as I went down, but she managed to keep from being thrown free of my shoulder.

  "Selene, that's Fenrir!"

  Kat swore as she threw herself into a tree to bleed off some of the kinetic energy I'd just imparted to her, and then spun around to face the gigantic wolf now standing between us. Ari was still hanging limply across Kat's shoulder, but one of her arms was angled wrong, and Kat was bleeding from her shoulder on that same side.

  My hand brushed across a stick that was nearly an inch and a half in diameter as I scrambled to my feet, and I picked it up as Kat forced her damaged arm up and launched a blast of pure golden light out of the tips of her fingers.

  Fenrir tried to dodge to one side, but Kat was just the tiniest bit faster and she tracked his movement and managed to connect with his flank for a split second before it flickered out. The trees that the beam had raked across exploded into burning splinters, but all it did to Fenrir was leave a fist-sized hole in his flesh that didn't seem to be slowing him down at all.

  Kat ducked to one side, using the trees and Fenrir's ox-like size against him, but he shattered the first tree he hit from the titanic force of his collision, and a splinter the size of my fist took Kat through the outside of her leg.

  The next tree in Fenrir's path was big enough to stop him cold, which was all that saved Kat and Ari as Fenrir's teeth snapped shut inches behind Ari's head. Kat tripped and went down to one knee as she launched another blast of light back at Fenrir, but this time he barely moved out of the path of the attack. It left a black, charred line across his shoulder and he pushed the tree in front of him over, toppling it directly towards Kat.

  There wasn't any time to second-guess my next move. I yelled for Bethany to run away and then I stabbed Fenrir in the back with my improvised spear.

  The jagged end of my branch pierced his flesh and sank in more than six inches before he spun around, snapping at me. I should have died right then. I was fast, nearly as amped up as Kat, but I wasn't a match for Fenrir at close range. The only thing that saved me was the fact that him spinning around slammed my spear into my ribs and launched me backwards down the mountain.

  Kat hit him with another blast of light, but it flickered off even more quickly than before this time. Blood loss and emotional fatigue were catching up with her.

  Fenrir dodged to one side without even looking back at her and continued to stalk towards me. I heard Bethany come buzzing towards me as I skidded to a stop and realized that the skin over my ribs had torn from the force of the branch hitting me.

  "Selene, there's a rock next to your right hand, two inches to the right."

  I grabbed it without looking away from Fenrir and started backing away from him.

  "You're bleeding, tiny girl-child, and I've yet to touch you. Are your abilities not even up to keeping your skin whole in the face of the stresses you're putting on it?"

  In the heat of battle I'd forgotten about the pain in my right foot, but it was as though him pointing out my injuries brought them back full-force. He was right, my skin-strengthening effect wasn't up to the task of keeping the skin from splitting when I used all of my strength like I had when I'd avoided his initial lunge. I was facing one of the biggest, baddest nastiest things in all of Norse mythology, the monster that was supposed to kill the god Odin, with nothing more than a rock. I was screwed and I knew it, but the anger that had been powering my effects hadn't gone anywhere and when I opened my mouth I didn't feel any urge to surrender and beg for mercy.

  "You're bleeding too, you overgrown labradoodle. It must really smart to have someone whose gift has been working for less than a day stab you like that. What are all of the other dogs in the pound going to say when they find out?"

  His eyes were an unearthly yellow that made my skin crawl. He hadn't blinked even once since he'd started stalking me.

  "It won't be an issue, because they aren't going to find out."

  I felt Kat's effects flicker out and I feinted an attack at the precise instant that she hit him with another blast—one that was white-hot and bigger around than my leg. This time he yowled in pain as he threw himself to the side in an effort to put a tree between him and the worst of the attack.

  Fenrir sprang at Kat, but now he was moving around on just three legs. He was slower than he'd been, but that wasn't going to save Kat, not now that she wasn't amped at all. I took three quick steps toward him and launched the rock in my hand at him with all of my might.

  Moving as I was at three times normal speed, even my amped body struggled to accelerate the projectile at anything that felt like a decent clip. I could feel the air pushing back against me, trying to resist my efforts. When I released the rock it seemed to crawl across the distance between Fenrir and I, but he was moving even slower than that and he didn't hear it coming until the very last instant.

  The rock crashed into him with enough force that I heard ribs break. I'd succeeded in distracting him from Kat, who was pulling herself back to her feet, but now I had two or three tons of angry Unseelie wolf charging back towards me.

  I threw myself to one side, narrowly avoiding his jaws again as he streaked past me and landed further down the mountain. I'd gotten out of his way, but that was only because he was hobbling on three legs. I heard a familiar buzzing sound and then something materialized in my hand. It was my spear again, bloody on one end and splintered on the other from where Fenrir had used his jaws to rip it out of his side, but it was perfect.

  Bethany zipped away from me unsteadily, obviously exhausted from whatever she'd done to get my weapon back, but I couldn't spare any time to be worried about her. The entire mountain shook again as the Awakened who'd been chasing us took another shot at Jace. I couldn't count on Jace showing up and saving us at the last minute.

  Fenrir spun around and started back up the hill, but he didn't seem to be in as big a hurry this time. Probably because he knew it was down to just him and me. Kat had obviously worn herself dangerously thin with her last attack.

  "Hey, Kat, what are our options here?"

  "I'm good for maybe one more beam of light, but that's like pissing on a bonfire. Fairies naturally absorb a portion of the memories powering any attack thrown at them, so you have to hit them incredibly hard to do any real damage."

  "How do we stop him then?"

  "There's a reason that most of the old legends have the gods fighting things like him with more mundane types of weapons. When you hit him with a rock, there aren't any memories to absorb so he takes the full damage from those kinds of attacks."

  "I've been super lucky so far, Kat, but I don't think I'm going to be able to drive this stick into his heart."

  "I know. I've got just enough juice left that I could amp myself and bend time, but I can't survive closing with that monster while I'm carrying Ari. Hell, with this arm the way it is right now and a massive chunk of wood buried in my leg, I'm not sure I could manage to fight him even if I put Ari down."

  Fenrir's lips pulled back from his teeth and I knew exactly what he was thinking.

  "Don't put her down, Kat. As soon as you do that he'll kill her. As big as he is, there's no way we can stop him from getting to her."

  "Okay, well, I'm all ears if you've got any bright ideas, but it's looking like this is the end of the road."

  "Run away, Kat. You're not as fast as you were before, but then again, neither is he. You run and I'll do everything I can to slow him down for as long as I can before he rips my throat out."

 
; "That's suicide, Selene."

  "Probably, but I prefer to think of it as being heroic. Besides, there's always a chance that I can keep him busy for long enough that Jace will work his way back here. This overgrown mongrel may be able to beat you and me, but Jace will rip his head off and spit down his throat."

  Fenrir growled, but I just gave him the finger and stoked what was left of my rage up a little higher. I was trying to talk a good game because I needed Kat and Ari to survive, but the truth was that I was hitting the end of my endurance too. I'd started the fight already emotionally spent and been relying on the echoes of rage from my last incarnation to get me this far. I could feel my anger guttering now—I figured I might have another minute or two before my effects started giving out one after another. It wasn't long enough to run, but it might be long enough to take out another of Fenrir's legs.

  Apparently flipping off Fenrir was going too far because he exploded up the slope towards me. I yelled for Kat to run as I tried to dodge to one side at the same time that I aimed the tip of my weapon at his right shoulder. I wasn't going to make it. I'd started moving too soon and he'd started adjusting his course.

  I tried to summon a bit more speed, but this time it was my left foot that gave out as I stressed my skin beyond what it could take. My right shoe had gotten wet and heavy and I had an instant as my left knee hit the ground to wonder just exactly how much blood I'd lost already.

  I felt a tiny weight land on my shoulder a split second before the impact and I wanted to scream in rage. After everything I'd done to try to get Kat and Ari away, why did Bethany have to throw her life away too? She'd done her part already. She'd gotten me my spear and she'd been clear. She'd been safe.

  The rage that had been guttering fanned itself higher at the thought of one of my few links to the old me dying, but it was far too late to do anything about it. I grounded the butt of my spear. It was much too frail to hold off two tons of charging wolf, but at least Fenrir would impale himself on it before he got me.

  I wanted to close my eyes, but something refused to let me. Some tiny, iron-willed piece of me not only refused to go to my death with my eyes closed, it summoned my rage and used it to send a stream of memories out into the world.

  It all happened so fast that there was no way for me to shape the power into an actual effect even if I'd had any other effects to work. Jace had warned me against unfocused bursts of power, had told me they always ended badly for the Awakened involved, but rather than being engulfed in an inferno of undirected power, I saw the tip of my spear turn silver as it entered Fenrir's shoulder.

  The heavy branch should have snapped like a toothpick, but instead I felt it bow slightly as the tip caught on one of the massive bones inside of Fenrir's body. My spear—now completely silver—sank several inches into the hardened ground, and then hit solid rock and Fenrir's course was instantly changed.

  He still caught me with one heavy paw as he sailed over my head and slammed into the side of the mountain. The force of the collision sent me tumbling further down the mountain. I didn't stop moving until my head slammed into a rock, but before the darkness claimed me I thought I saw a slender figure drive a sword into Fenrir's throat.

  Chapter 29

  I was more than just disoriented when I woke back up—I was surprised. I'd never hit my head that hard and part of me hadn't expected to ever open my eyes again. I reached up to touch my head and saw that my hands were both bandaged.

  That didn't make sense. I didn't remember Fenrir getting his teeth on me there, but then again it was always possible that I'd just stressed my skin too much on my palms too. I turned my head and started taking in my surroundings.

  I was in a windowless room that was more than twice as big as my entire house back in Cold Springs. The lack of windows should have made it feel dark and foreboding, but the bright lighting somehow worked together with the dark wood trim to create something that felt both inviting and elegant.

  The bed I was resting on was only slightly smaller than Jace's had been and included a canopy of burgundy velvet that hung down far enough in some spots that it very nearly touched the ground. I reached a hand out to the black wood and got a sense of age from it that I hadn't felt with anything else I'd ever touched.

  The room had a curved wall, which made me think of Jace's bedroom, but rather than just being a quarter of a circle, this one was half of a circle. I wasn't surprised to see that there was a heavy set of wooden shelves built into the far wall, or that most of the space was taken up by a series of white-leather books that were eerily similar to the journals Jace and Kat used. Size, width, texture, everything looked exactly the same but for the colors.

  Other than the bed and the shelves, the room was largely empty. There wasn't a breakfast nook or a desk. There wasn't even a television. It was a room for sleeping, not for working or socializing. In fact I suspected that the journals were there simply because their owner didn't like sleeping with them more than a few feet away from him.

  I was a little nervous that my legs wouldn't work, but I was able to roll to the edge of the bed and when I put my feet down on the carpet I was able to feel the texture of the soft fibers that gave it such a luxurious look.

  As I experimentally stood, I heard footsteps coming from the open door on the left. A second later my rescuer stepped into the room and I got my first look at him. In that last split second before I'd slammed into that rock I'd somehow thought it was Jace who had saved me, but Jace hadn't had a sword when I'd last seen him, and if he'd saved me he wouldn't have left me to wake up in a strange place all alone.

  I didn't know what to expect when I saw my savior for the first time, but I never could have anticipated what I actually saw.

  It was like looking at a dark version of Jace.

  The blond hair had been traded for a brown so dark it could have passed for black, and he looked older, mid to late twenties rather than late teens, but it was Jace's incredible bone structure that framed eyes that were the exact same shade of blue as the ones that I'd fallen in love with just a few days ago.

  The eyes were the same color, but they looked wrong somehow. It took me several heartbeats to realize that was because there was a brooding quality to them that I'd never seen in Jace. That more than anything else was what told me I wasn't looking at my Jace in some kind of weird alternate universe. My Jace could never have looked so cynical. Not in a million years, not through ten thousand incarnations.

  It took an act of will to force myself to look away from those darkly captivating eyes, but once I did I took in the rest of my captor's appearance. He was wearing designer jeans and a silk button-up shirt that looked like it must have cost a few thousand dollars, but it was the sword that was the most shocking. His hand rested on it, but the gesture wasn't so much threatening as it was a reflexive attempt to make sure that the weapon was still there, still attached to his belt.

  "Who are you, and why am I here?"

  "My name is Kyle. Once upon a time I was your husband and you're here because I have a proposal for you."

  Dying sucks for everyone, but for Selene there are added complications.

  Becoming one of the Awakened, a group of godlike beings, should have been the end of Selene's worries. Instead, dangerous people who want the secrets she hid away in a past incarnation are hunting her, and every time Selene uses her abilities she pays a price—losing memories that are impossible to get back.

  Selene's hunky ex-husband Jace has promised to protect her, but when Selene is kidnapped by Jace's brother Kyle—who she was married to before Jace came into to the picture—things get strained.

  Without Kyle's help, Selene can't save the people she cares about, but trusting Kyle could have unfortunate consequences.

  Immortal

  by Dean Murray

  Copyright 2014 by Dean Murray

  Chapter 1

  "My name is Kyle. Once upon a time I was your husband and you're here right now because I've got a proposal for yo
u."

  The words hung in the air between us like smoke that refused to dissipate. The idea of having been married to someone I had no recollection of should have been absurd, should have been impossible, but it wasn't.

  I already knew that I'd been married to Jace in my last incarnation. Once I'd accepted that, it was only a tiny stretch to believe that there could have been others, other men whom I'd shared my life and body with.

  "When?"

  "Three hundred years ago. You were mine before you were Jace's."

  "What happened to us? Do you remember?"

  Kyle's knuckles went white around the hilt of his sword, but that was the only visible indication of the maelstrom of emotion I somehow knew he was feeling. "I don't remember, but I've read about it in my journals."

  "Did one of us die? Is that how we ended up apart?"

  "No, at least not the way you mean. You and I were two of the best researchers for more than a hundred years. We pioneered everything from more efficient standing wards to time manipulation. Our knowledge made us powerful, but it also made us tempting targets. At one point, the two of us were cut off from our pantheon and I burned through all of my memories in order to get you to safety."

  His story reached out and grabbed hold of me in ways I hadn't expected it to. It didn't make any sense for it to affect me so strongly. This was just another story, just another piece of ancient history. It had happened to me, but it hadn't happened to this version of me, to this incarnation. I didn't remember any of it, but that didn't stop tears from racing down my face.

  "What happened after that? Were we separated?"

  "No. You spent several months helping me put my life back together, and then you informed me that you didn't want to remarry me. You married Jace and never looked back."