Dominion

by Marissa Farrar

  DOMINION

  Book Four in the ‘Serenity’ Series

  eBook Edition

  ISBN 978-0-9571524-9-6

  Copyright © 2012 Marissa Farrar

  Warwick House Press

  Edited by Wade-Staten Services

  Cover art by RT Designs

  License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

  Publisher’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products 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.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  *You can click on the title to be taken to the selection. Additionally, clicking on the chapter titles will bring you back to the table of contents.

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  For my family

  Acknowledgments

  First of all I need to thank you, the reader, for continuing to follow Serenity and Sebastian’s story. Without you, there would be no series and I’m grateful to every single person who has looked forward to being able to read this next installment. I hope you love this book as much as the others.

  Thanks, as always, to my editor, Shontrell Wade from Wade-Staten Services. With each book, I feel like your eye for detail has only grown better and better, and I appreciate each time you push me further in my writing. I think we make a great team!

  Thanks to my proofreader, Lori Whitwam, for not only polishing off the novel, but for also providing some uplifting words of support and encouragement when they were needed.

  Special thanks to my harshest critic, Glynis Elliott, who I know will always tell me the truth, whether I like it or not!

  Chapter One

  Over the restaurant table, their champagne flutes clinked together, bubbles bursting within the delicate glass.

  Around them sat other couples or small groups of well-dressed men and women, all talking and laughing with the sort of self-conscious awareness that came with sitting in an expensive establishment.

  Serenity lifted her glass to her lips and took a sip, enjoying the dry, tart taste of the wine and the way the bubbles tickled her nose. She maintained eye contact with her date, his green-eyed gaze never leaving hers. He wore his dark, wavy hair swept back from his face, though the slightly too-long length still curled around his broad neck. The style highlighted his strong bone structure, his square jaw and high cheekbones. His beauty never lost any of its impact for her.

  “Eight years. Can you believe it?” she said.

  Sebastian smiled. “Eight years since I first chased you down on the street.”

  “Eight years since you saved me,” she corrected.

  He gave her his lopsided smile. “Hmm... I thought you saved yourself?”

  “Maybe I did, but I had a little help.”

  Serenity grinned and leaned across the table, her fork held in one hand. She speared a piece of his uneaten steak—cooked rare, naturally—and popped it in her mouth.

  Though Sebastian had mastered the art of appearing as though he were eating by cutting up his steak and occasionally chewing, he couldn’t make food vanish. The waiter appeared beside them and cast an anxious glance at the still-full plate.

  “Is everything all right with your meals?” the young man asked.

  Sebastian flashed him a smile. “Perfect, thank you.”

  The waiter’s eyes flicked to Sebastian’s plate again. He obviously decided not to push his luck, not wanting a complaint, and instead gave them a small nod and hurried away.

  Serenity put down her fork and reached back across the table to loop her fingers through Sebastian’s. His skin was cool to touch, but, to Serenity, the sensation now felt normal. She thought it would almost be strange to have a warm body lie against hers.

  “Do you think she’s okay?” she asked, referring to their daughter, Elizabeth, who was away on a Girl Scout camping trip for the weekend. It was Elizabeth’s first real time away from home, apart from the occasional sleepover, and Serenity couldn’t help but worry. She’d not wanted Elizabeth to go at first, but her daughter had pleaded, stating that all her friends were going and, apparently, Serenity was about to ruin her life by not letting her go. She’d made a call to the mom of one of Elizabeth’s best friends and discovered she was going as chaperone, which put her mind at rest.

  But, in the end, it had been Sebastian who had talked her around, reminding her about the significance and convenience of the date Elizabeth would be away for—something Serenity felt sure had bought him plenty of brownie points in their daughter’s eyes.

  Sebastian gave her hand a squeeze. “Are you kidding? She’ll be having the time of her life. She’s hardly a nervous, withdrawn type.”

  Serenity’s shoulders relaxed. He was right. Elizabeth had shown no nerves at the prospect of being away from her family. She acted far older than her seven years and, where most girls may have gone through the sorts of things she had and come out more nervous on the other side, Elizabeth had emerged seemingly unaffected. But then Elizabeth wasn’t like other girls. She was a Dhampyre—half vampire, half human—so she was never going to experience things in the way a normal child did. Even so, Serenity was a fully human mother, despite the drops of vampire blood she took once a month, and she worried as much as any other parent. Almost losing her daughter a little over a year ago had made her crazily paranoid at first, but then something surprising had happened. Any of the small accidents the child had—falling off her bike, cutting herself on a piece of glass left in the park, getting carpet burns while sliding down stairs—revealed something new about her. These injuries healed with some of a vampire’s speed, knitting before Serenity’s eyes. Also, all of the usual illnesses that plagued children, such as colds and tummy bugs, seemed to bypass her.

  Serenity knew the new ability was the result of Elizabeth taking her father’s blood to heal her after the fall in Demitri’s club. Her old nanny, Bridget, had been wrong. The blood hadn’t made Elizabeth a vampire, but it had certainly enhanced her vampiric abilities. This made Serenity a little less nervous, slightly quelling her twenty-four-seven overprotective instincts where her daughter was concerned.

  She offered Sebastian a smile. “I must admit, though I miss her like hell, I have enjoyed having the house to ourselves.”

  Even though they’d first met a long time ago, they’d not spent much of that time together. Their relationship had been the ultimate extreme of long distance, with Sebastian enforcing their separation when they first met, and then Serenity’s dead husband, Jackson, ensuring the second. But now, they’d managed over a year together, happy and undisturbed, and they were
still very much in the honeymoon period.

  She glanced down at the table and pressed her lips together in a coy smile. With Elizabeth away, they’d been making the most of having the house to themselves, making use of all the spaces in their big home—the stairs ... the kitchen counter ... the living room floor...

  Serenity was suddenly no longer interested in her meal. And as for the dessert, well, she thought she could do better at home.

  She looked up and tilted her head, her long, dark hair falling to one side. Why don’t we get out—?”

  A gasp of shock escaped her lips, her fingers digging hard into the edge of the table.

  A dark shadow flitted across Sebastian’s features. A cloud across the sun. Black melted into his green eyes, flooding across his pale cheekbones. His chiseled, straight nose seemed to blend with the rest of his face as the darkness took over. It rippled to his right eye, a flood of black tar, and then, just as quickly, vanished.

  His face was back to normal.

  The moment had happened so fast she wondered if she’d imagined the whole thing. But, from the way her heart beat so hard she thought the organ might burst from her chest and her whole body trembled, she knew she hadn’t.

  Sebastian pushed his plate to one side and leaned forward, a crease appearing between his dark brows. “What’s wrong?”

  She opened her mouth, but only managed a stammer. “I ... I ...”

  “What?” he asked again, his eyes widening in alarm. “What’s happened?”

  “I ... I saw something.”

  He threw a glance over his shoulder as if expecting to find someone standing behind him and turned back to her. “Like what?”

  “Something happened to your face. Like a shadow moved under your skin.” Serenity raised her hand to her own face, running her fingers across her eyes and nose, mimicking the direction she’d seen the shadow pass in.

  He lifted his hand and touched his own face. “I don’t feel anything. Is it still there?”

  She shook her head.

  “Are you sure you didn’t imagine it?” He smiled and nodded at her now half-empty glass of champagne. “The wine hasn’t gone to your head?”

  “Sebastian! Don’t tease me. I’m not hallucinating things.”

  “I’m sorry, but you must have seen a trick of the light or something. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Okay,” she said, not convinced. She looked down at her chicken breast wrapped in Parma ham and the little bundles of julienne vegetables. She suddenly didn’t want her meal anymore, but for an entirely different reason than before.

  She pushed her food around with her fork and snuck glances at Sebastian who sat across the table watching her with an amused expression on his face.

  “Stop looking at me like that!” He laughed.

  She gave her head a slight shake. “Sorry. I can’t help myself. It was just so ...” She sought for the right word and failed. “Weird.”

  The smiled melted from his lips and he studied her face, his thoughts seeming to turn to something else. He moved quickly, his hand no more than a blur, and pushed a small, square, robin’s egg blue box with the words ‘Tiffany & Co’ written on top across the table towards her.

  “Serenity, I want to ask you something ...”

  For the second time in only minutes, she felt as though someone had snatched the air from her lungs. Her mouth dropped open and the world seemed to swim away, as though the floor had vanished and she found herself suspended above a vast drop.

  “Please, Sebastian. Don’t ...”

  His deft fingers flipped open the lid, and a platinum band set with a row of six diamonds stared back at her. The jewels cast a pattern of colored beams across the table—a rainbow of fractured light.

  Serenity lowered her gaze and shook her head. “I don’t need a ring.”

  Hurt flickered across his handsome features. “Okay,” he said, slowly. “No ring, but I still want to ask you to marry me.”

  “I was married before, Sebastian. Look how well that turned out.”

  “This isn’t the same. We live together, we have a child together. Surely, getting married is the next natural step?”

  Her forehead creased in a frown and she leaned forward and lowered her voice. “It’s not like we’re a natural setup, are we?”

  “We love each other. We have a child together,” he repeated as though trying to drum these facts into her head.

  She pressed her lips together. “I meant because of what you are ...” She trailed off, wanting to choose her words, not wanting to hurt him, but still amazed he’d even thought to go down this route. Sebastian was a vampire. Committing to spend eternity together when you literally had eternity was one hell of a commitment.

  She sighed. “We can hardly stand in front of a priest and declare ‘til death do we part.”

  “Maybe not a priest, but a Justice of the Peace.”

  “Isn’t marriage a religious union? Isn’t that the whole point?”

  “Since when have you been religious, Serenity?”

  She gave a slight shrug. “I’m not, not really. But I don’t need us to get married to know that we’re going to stay together. After all, I need your blood to keep my sanity. It’s not as though I’m going anywhere.”

  Sebastian glowered at her from beneath his thick, dark lashes. “Necessity isn’t exactly a romantic notion, Serenity.”

  “Romance doesn’t get you far in this world. You should know that.”

  He shook his head. “This isn’t like you, Serenity. You love me, I know you do. I thought you’d want us to get married.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just the first person I think about when you talk about being married is Jackson.”

  He flinched, but said, “I understand.”

  “And frankly, it is a little ridiculous,” she said, trying to lighten the tense mood that had appeared between them. “Are you even allowed to do such things?”

  “I can do whatever I want, Serenity,” he said, his voice hard. He stared at her across the table, his normally full lips a hard line. “I’m a vampire, remember?”

  “I know what you are and I’ve accepted it. But I don’t need to get married, Sebastian. I don’t want to get married.”

  She reached back across the table to take his hand. Their fingers touched only briefly before he withdrew his hand and tucked it under the table.

  “Sebastian. Please don’t ...”

  “It’s fine,” he said, his tone curt.

  She stared at him, feeling like he was slipping away, but almost unable to believe what had just happened. Sebastian proposing was the last thing she’d expected, she’d never even considered the idea. She thought they were out to have a meal to celebrate their time together, like a normal, happy couple. She’d never thought his idea of normality stretched as far as this.

  She sighed and lifted her napkin from her lap and dropped it beside her barely-touched meal. “Let’s get out here. I’ve kind of lost my appetite.”

  Sebastian got to his feet without another word.

  Serenity’s stomach churned with anxiety. Perhaps she should have said yes to make him happy? She shook the notion from her head. No, she’d been in a relationship once before where she’d been forced to agree to things she didn’t want because she needed to keep a man happy. While she couldn’t draw any kind of comparison between Jackson and Sebastian—and wouldn’t dream of doing so—she had no intention of falling into that sort of trap again.

  She trusted Sebastian with her life. She had to. Her need for his blood to keep her sane meant she had little choice in the matter. But that wasn’t the whole story. She did trust him and knew he’d lay down his life for both her and Elizabeth. Yet, the memory of the time he’d left her still haunted her. The pain and loneliness, the possibility of the same thing happening again, made her keep just a tiny portion of her guard up.

  Her residual fear of pain wasn’t the only reason for her refusal of Sebastian’s proposal. T
hough she’d never admit it to Sebastian, her need for his blood troubled her. She didn’t like being so reliant on him.

  Marriage in the past had meant only one thing to Serenity: control. Perhaps she was scared the same thing would happen between her and Sebastian. To be his wife gave him another hold over her, an ownership of sorts. She loved him with all her heart and the last thing she ever wanted was to end up resenting him because she felt trapped once again.

  Just like she had with Jackson.

  Sebastian threw a couple of fifty-dollar bills on the table, more than enough to pay for the meal. He didn’t attempt to touch Serenity as they left the restaurant. No hand against the base of her spine to guide her between the tables or touch of her fingers.

  They caught a cab back to their big house in the Hollywood Hills. A house that used to be Sebastian’s alone, but Serenity had come to think of theirs. They rode in silence, the tension between them palpable.

  Maybe he’s right, she thought. They did live as though they were a married couple. What difference would it make if they made their setup official? But the uncomfortable, slightly sickening sensation in the pit of her stomach—which had appeared at the same time as the ring—refused to go away.

  They sat in silence in the back of the cab. The air in the confined space was permeated with the strong scent of the vanilla air freshener swinging from the rearview mirror, together with an underlying taint of cigarette smoke. Serenity reached out and took Sebastian’s large hand in her own, resting their linked fingers on his thigh. He glanced over and gave her a smile, but the expression was tight and restrained. No pleasure lit his eyes.

  Sensing the tension, the driver made no attempt to strike up conversation. His eyes kept flicking to the rearview mirror, catching sight of Sebastian’s expressionless, pale face, as though he knew something was not quite right, but couldn’t put his finger on it.

  The cab pulled up in front of the gates to their home. Sebastian paid and both he and Serenity climbed from the vehicle. They passed through the towering wrought iron gates, feet crunching across the gravel.