Seared [Pain & Love 1] (BookStrand Publishing Romance)
Page 12
When Judith had died, she’d almost been a year old. She’d already known how to say, “Mama.” Reyna thought she’d never hear that word from the lips of a child ever again, but when the female escorting the little girl let go of her hand, the child raced toward Reyna on chubby little toddler legs and squealed with delight, “Mama! Mama!”
“You brought her here for me,” Reyna whispered in awe as she snatched Judith up for a tight embrace. Silent tears poured down her face and collected under her chin as she clutched the miracle child to her and pressed herself cheek to cheek with the little girl. “You brought my baby here.”
“For us,” Tyler corrected as he embraced the two of them. “Our baby girl. I told you to trust me.”
Judith, with tumbling golden curls and the brightest of grins, nuzzled against Reyna’s neck and repeated, “Mama,” over and over again. If there was a Heaven, Reyna couldn’t imagine it got any better than that.
Epilogue
Lydia had taken the reciprocation for her actions with nothing short of a smile on her face and a fire in her heart. She knew the injuries to her body that Jerry had meted out would take weeks or months to heal, but her injury to his pride would take much longer. He was a pretentious asshole, so she could be all right with that arrangement. She just wished it would stop hurting so damn much when she breathed.
Fire was the purifier, her mother had always said. Fire saved, even as it destroyed. Fire was pure. Fire was salvation. Lydia’s mother had been crazy, but when it had come to her thoughts about fire, she’d been spot on.
She kept coming back to the thought that she’d done what she had to do. Every time pain burst through a fractured bone, she remembered. Every time she winced because she’d moved wrong and jostled something delicate, she reminded herself it had been worth it. After spending some time in Reyna’s house, Lydia had started to have her doubts about Jerry’s focus on the woman and her alien mate. He’d promised her when she signed on that they didn’t hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. They destroyed demons, he said. Demons, Lydia was fine with getting rid of. But when she’d seen what Jerry was going to do to Reyna and Tyler…well, she was a bitch but she wasn’t a murderer of good people.
During her punishment, Lydia had almost wished she could have let it slide, just that once. Jerry and his drones were strong. Inhumanly strong. Lydia was, as well, and could take most of what they dished out, though she suffered dearly for it. She hadn’t died, so that much was good, she told herself.
Plus, her sisters were still safe. Daria and Jade were the only other dragon souls she’d ever known besides herself, and they were the only family she had left. With the Hunters keeping all of them contained to human form with some sort of mystical bullshit, it was either work with them or be at their mercy. Lydia refused to be at the mercy of anyone, especially those pricks.
There was more going on with the Hunters than she’d first assumed, and Lydia didn’t like making an ass out of herself. Until Tyler and Reyna, she’d only ever been involved in the hunting of actual demons. She felt she’d been doing some fucking good in the world. Path to hell, and all of that, she supposed.
Now that she knew what the Hunters were and weren’t, Lydia had decided she had to start working on some insurance for her imminent retirement. No way was she down with straight-up murdering good, innocent people. Something had to be done about the Hunters, but until she had a sure course, her focus needed to be on keeping herself and her sisters safe.
Lydia healed, she planned and she got back to work.
* * * *
Mallory waited a week before she was willing to talk to her father again. She’d taken the time and come to the conclusion that Luke had been right to take her away from the safe house when the only thing she could have done was gotten herself killed. She’d mourned for her friends and dealt with the cops in the aftermath. She knew that Tyler and Reyna were gone, but the official report was more elusive phrasing and simple confusion than anything really solid.
When Mallory had walked through the house—after the police had combed through it and she’d put it back on the market—she’d found a large envelope addressed to her in masculine script. When she opened it, she found more money than she could immediately count and a letter from Tyler. It read,
Mallory, you wouldn’t take money when I offered it, but if the worst happens, I want you to know how much I appreciated you for everything you did to help us. Know that in my short time here, you defined friendship for me, and I know that everyone you touch will benefit from your influence as much as I did. If the Hunters are able to do with me as they wish, please ensure Reyna is kept safe. She is truly the only thing that matters. Please tell her I will be waiting for her and to keep her from sorrow, let her know that if I was able to do as I tried, her Judith will be waiting, as well. We took a walk this morning, and we watched the sunrise. It was wonderful. If by chance we do not get to speak again, watch a sunrise one of these days and think of me. I will think of you from time to time. Thank you, my friend.
When she pressed the letter to her chest, she felt an inexplicable surety that everything had turned out for the best with Tyler and Reyna. And then the crushing grief came back to consume her. Mallory sat down with the envelope and note and cried until she didn’t have tears left.
The shadows of night had crawled into the house to keep her company by the time she was done with her weeping and she stood, feeling the barest sense of relief and closure. The two new friends she’d become amazingly close to in the woefully short time she’d known them were irrefutably gone, but Mallory liked to think that wherever they’d gone, they’d ended up happy and together.
A male voice saying her name startled a high-pitched yelp from Mallory’s throat and she grabbed the first available weapon her hand landed on—a heavy vase.
“Please, my dear, there’s no need for that,” the man stated in a soothing, supernaturally seductive tone of voice. “I’ve come with an offer to help you.”
“Who are you?” Mallory asked suspiciously. She didn’t release her hold on the vase. He moved from the shadows and if Mallory wasn’t scared to the point of nearly wetting herself, she might have drooled. He was tall and large with a muscled chest and brawny arms that would have made a professional weightlifter envious. He looked like a Viking or a gladiator—all dangerous, powerful, and predatory. His eyes gleamed in the darkness, and Mallory saw they were gray like morning fog. His hair was a shock of black darker than the shadows he moved through and it fell to barely above his shoulders in thick waves. He was sex in black leather boots, and he was still moving toward her.
“Who are you?” Mallory repeated, raising the vase threateningly. The man stopped moving, bowed low, and replied, “I am Leighton. Leigh for short, per your pleasure. I am a vampire and I come with an offer to help you reclaim your family from the Hunters.”
His words chilled Mallory down to her marrow. She dropped the vase and it thudded on the floor like thunder.
“The Hunters don’t have my family,” she refuted in a trembling whisper. Leigh arched one night-black brow in her direction and a slip of fang peeked from beneath his full upper lip as he asked in a voice that dared her to argue, “Don’t they?”
THE END
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
My name is Ashlei Hawley. I mainly work with fantasy fiction and I love otherworldly and apocalyptic future-scape environments for my stories to take place in.
I love movies and I am a voracious reader—I can kill a novel in a day given an uninterrupted couple of hours. Horror is my guilty pleasure and zombie movies would have to be my niche. I love all Romero films and am in the process of writing three zombie-type movies of my own. The theater is my favorite place for a date, but only if the movie is preceded and followed by animated conversation.
I have a young son named Nathaniel Kristopher who is the most challenging and awe-inspiring
experience I’ve ever been lucky enough to have enter my life. He is amazing and difficult, loving and frustrating, and a blessing in every sense of the word.
I have been writing novels since the fifth grade and I never intend to stop. When I’m old and doddering, I will still undoubtedly have half-filled journals littering my home, a laptop on my kitchen table and a flash drive around my neck, unless of course they come out with some new and nifty way to store documents, which they undoubtedly will.
Writing is all I’ve ever wanted to do. It’s one of the biggest parts of who I am. I am a mother, a student, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a grandchild, a friend, and a partner, but the truest aspect that I know of myself is that I am a writer. And I’m happy that I know that part of myself intimately and absolutely.
Please find my work at amazon.com/author/ashleihawley I also have a blog at ashleidaylen.wordpress.com that I occasionally post synopses, poetry, and short stories to, when I’m not working diligently on the many novels I am trying to finish. My author Facebook page can be found at:
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For all titles by Ashlei D. Hawley, please visit
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