In Her Shadows
Page 1
In Her Shadows
A Tribes of the Vampire Novella
Michelle M. Pillow®
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In Her Shadows © copyright 2016 - 2019 by Michelle M. Pillow
Electronic Printing December 2016
Cover art © Copyright 2019 Book Cover Media
Published by The Raven Books LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
ISBN-10: 1-62501-202-0
ISBN-13: 9781625012029
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Previously part of the Taming the Vampire anthology.
Published by The Raven Books LLC
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All books copyrighted to the author and may not be resold or given away without written permission from the author, Michelle M. Pillow.
This novel is a work of fiction. Any and all characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or events or places is merely coincidence. Novel intended for adults only. Must be 18 years or older to read.
Michelle M. Pillow® is a registered trademark of The Raven Books LLC
Contents
Praise for Tribes of the Vampire
About In Her Shadows
Tribes of the Vampire
Michelle’s Bestselling Series
Author Updates
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Love Potions
Join the Exclusive Club!
About Michelle M. Pillow
Free Reading Guides
Please Leave a Review
Praise for Tribes of the Vampire
5 Stars!
“I can honestly say that I have not enjoyed a vampire story this much since reading Anne Rice’s novels. Ms. Pillow has written a book which I found difficult to put down, and I highly recommend it. “
RJ Reviews
5 Stars!
“The story took me over so completely that I was unable to put it down. “
Novelspot
5 Stars!
“Michelle Pillow has again shown us what a versatile writer she is. She has now explored the domain of the vampire and has given us a very deep, dark story of vampire love and legend...The plot moves along smoothly and will have you turning the pages in anticipation.”
LoveRomances Review
5 Stars!
“With her penchant for creating memorable, immortal characters, Michelle M. Pillow has penned one the darkest yet tormented vampires I have ever had the pleasure to read.”
eCataRomance Reviews
About In Her Shadows
Urban Fantasy, Dark Paranormal Vampire Romance
Tribes of the Vampire Book Four
When Olivia was a child, she witnessed the slaying of a pack of vampires and now refuses to tell who did it. Some of the elders of the vampire tribes want her turned. The others just want her dead. The seductive Jaxon may be her only hope for survival. Unfortunately, since he’s her vampire guard, she’s not sure where his loyalties lie.
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A Tribes of the Vampire Novella
Tribes of the Vampire
Redeemer of Shadows
The Jaded Hunter
Eternally Bound
In Her Shadows
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Barbarian Prince
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To Rebecca, a wonderful audio book narrator and friend. Thank you for sharing your city.
Chapter One
London, England
Olivia Baker held very still as the sun threatened to peek over the tall buildings of the quiet street. She liked to sneak out of her apartment early in the morning while her parents slept to play in the sunrise. Very few people were out at this hour, which is why she preferred it. During the day the city was so busy and loud. In the evenings it was full of drunks staggering home from the bars. The abandoned streets of pre-dawn were peaceful, making her feet and breath the only sound. Well, except of the occasional blare of a horn or the echo of distant police sirens. It was during this brief moment that she could pretend she was anywhere but here. She was the only survivor of the apocalypse and must find shelter. She was queen of all she surveyed and her subjects were so frightened of her they refused to come out of the house. She was a ninja-spy sneaking into enemy territory for the good of the kingdom.
She was a dreamer. That’s what her daddy said.
She was a dilly-dallier. That’s what her mum said.
Today she was a fool. Her parents told her not to leave the house without their knowing, but she never listened. She should have listened.
No longer was her playground abandoned. This morning it played host to many—a large pile of lifeless, pale bodies stacked neatly in the middle of the brick road. She wasn’t an idiot. She’d been to her granddad’s funeral. She remembered the look on his face while they paid their respects. The dead had a plastic appearance to them, their undertone of their skin so white. These corpses’ cheeks lacked any color in their eerie silence. They were dressed like some of the drunks she’d see in the streets at night—tight skirts and skintight pants, tank tops and unnaturally colored hair.
“Club kids,” her daddy had called them.
“Stay away from those soulless types,” her mum had added. “There’s something wrong with them. Close your window.”
Olivia kept within the shadowed stoop, too scared to move, as one hooded figure walked amongst the dead. He carried another body only to throw it down on top of the others, working as if he hauled stacks of wood. The green of his cloak fluttered in the light breeze and illuminated only by the pale street lamp and the last traces of moonlight.
Olivia knew o
f evil things, had heard about them in school. She knew of body dumps and genocide. She knew monsters were lurking in the world. Her parents had warned her about going out alone, and she never listened. She was ten after all, old enough to be out on her own. All great artists needed to experience life. Life was fuel. That’s what her art teacher told her, and Olivia was going to be a great artist.
Her heart pounded violently, and she tried to swallow back her panting breath. Every part of her brain told her she should run when the man’s back was turned, but her legs wouldn’t move. Despite trying to be quiet in the shadows, the man somehow found her. His hooded face turned toward her as if narrowing in on her hiding spot pressed against the locked entryway.
Time made no sense as the man was suddenly standing in front of her. She had not seen him move, but there he was, his pale hand with long fingernails extending toward her face. An emerald ring glinted on his finger, catching the threatening dawn. The sunlight was close, but not quite there. Long, black hair hung out of the hood, down his chest, over the antiquated green cloak.
Slowly, the emerald hand lifted, and he pulled the hood from his head. Wrought iron street lamps held on to their last flutters of light. The flickering revealed just enough of him to cement her fear, as shadows parted to reveal marble skin—pale and white and flawless, yet hard as if made of stone. He looked like a piece of art that had escaped the museum, perfectly formed but not quite human. Brown eyes flashed with an inner light as he gazed at her, making it impossible for her to run away.
“Do not look at me in fear, child.” The man’s accent felt familiar, but she was unable to place it. His voice cracked as if he’d not used it for a very long time.
Olivia nodded her head in agreement, too enthralled to protest.
“If anyone asks, you did not see me this night,” he insisted.
Olivia nodded again.
“Look at you, pressed against the wall like a little piece of fruit clinging to its branch.” His hand extended to touch her face, and he stroked her cheek. His fingers were colder than an icicle against her flesh.
“Who are you?” she asked, her voice soft and trembling as not to startle the creature.
“Who does not matter, little one.”
“What are you?”
“A wiser question.” He gave a faint nod as if he approved.
The green swirl in his eyes drew her in, and she felt him inside her mind. He silently told her to lift her hand, and she lifted it. He told her close her eyes and she let her lids fall. If he had told her to jump off a building, she would have run for the tallest one.
“I am death. I am a monster,” he whispered. “And I am infinitely more powerful than the will of one tiny girl. Do you want to see my power?”
She tried to shake her head in denial, but he made her nod. A flash of fire lit up her body, and she tried to scream. It was over in a second, but the memory of the brief flash remained tingling against her skin. The monster let her open her eyes as he reached for her arm. She had no will to pull away.
“I am the nightmare you will carry with you from this life into the next.” The man sliced her with his finger, and she gasped but was too mesmerized to protest as he brought her arm to his lips. His mouth was as cold as his fingers when he kissed the wound. A strange vibration made its way up her arm to her shoulder. “Now I know you, curious little one, more than you know yourself. And you will mean something to me.”
“Are you going to put me on the pile?” she asked. “Please don’t make it burn again.”
“No. You will be my missed chance. You will be a memory I can carry for a few hundred years until you fade.”
“No one can live that long,” she countered.
“No human can.”
“You’re not human?”
He again touched her cheek, like a grandparent looking to see how much a child had grown since his last visit. “I told you. I am death. I will watch you and then I will mourn you.”
“I don’t understand what you mean. What do you mean you’ll mourn me? Why would I be mourned?” She trembled at the cold fingers, feeling the truth of his words in their grave-like touch.
“Even death becomes tired, little one. Things cannot stay as they are.” He touched the bridge of her nose, swooping his finger down to the tip. The light gesture was oddly playful.
“I don’t understand? Does that mean you are going to kill me?”
“I am sorry you glimpsed into my realm. In that way, I did kill you.” He sighed, and it was at that moment she realized he hadn’t really been breathing—not like regular people did. “I gave you a taste of my power so you would know what it means to be powerless against death. Stay and watch the bonfire so that you may know what happens, but do not tell, or others like me will come for you, and those monsters will not let you go. They will probably come anyway. Once you mortals see us, there is something in you that searches to see us again.”
“I won’t tell.” She trembled as he finally let her go. As quickly as he’d come to her, he was gone. The first ray of sunlight made its way over the building to the street. She felt the blood trail down her wrist and hand as her arm dropped to her side.
The orange glow of the rising sun hit perfect and beautiful against the stone and empty storefront windows. The crispness of the early hour was nothing compared to the chill of the man’s touch. There was a sadness in his eyes that remained with her as the first rays hit the pile of dead bodies.
Suddenly, one of the corpses screamed. The woman’s loud screech echoed over the quiet streets. The bodies began to squirm with violent life, tearing at each other. One of the men shot straight into the air like a rocket only to burst into flames as the full sunlight hit him. His body kept moving before finally popping like a firework. The ash of his remains fell toward her like snow.
Cries rang over the neighborhood. Olivia wondered why no one came running at the sound. Then again, maybe the cries were ignored just like the late night antics of the drunks were ignored. Pale creatures swarmed for the shadows while others shot out as the first man had done in all directions. They, too, burst into flames before exploding into ash.
A woman crawled toward her, screeching an ugly sound has her skin bubbled and melted from her body. She tried to wriggle into the safety of the shadows, but the sun quickly found her. The woman’s head loosened from her shoulders and rolled flaming onto the pavement like a deformed ball. Within seconds all that was left of the creature was dust.
A single being appeared to escape the fiery death, at least from what Olivia could see from her place on the stoop. He huddled against a shadowed brick wall like a fly, suspended over the ground in a way not humanly possible. For a moment, the creature’s rage-filled green eyes seemed to find her. The intense color of his gaze seemed to glow in the bursts of exploding creatures. The sunlight discovered his leg, instantly decaying the limb until only a bloody stump remained as he crawled into the dark entryway leading from the deathtrap.
The cries faded, and the street was silent once more, save the distant honk of a vehicle. Olivia stood alone, feeling the light, feathery kisses of ash landing against her skin. It hit her parted lips, and she covered her mouth and nose while trying not to cough. The ash surrounded her like a warm blizzard, and she realized it was the remains of the dead. She blindly ran, fearfully tripping her way toward home.
When the flakes cleared enough so that she could see, the sun still hadn’t taken full claim of the sky. Ash and dust covered her clothes and skin. It blanketed the brick, waiting for the wind to carry the evidence of what happened away. So short was the bonfire, and yet she knew those screams would never leave her. Even now they echoed inside her soul. And now she knew there were two monsters out there—the one who had created the fire, and the one who had escaped it. Both had seen her face.
Chapter Two
Riverfront Park, Spokane, Washington, Fourteen Years Later…
“You will mean something to me.”
Olivia st
ared at her forearm in the moonlight as the memory whispered through her. The beat of the pulse inside her wrist caused the flesh to jump in a steady rhythm. She often thought of it as a dinner bell, calling out to the vampires of the world to come and feast. Above it, the old scar, given to her by the first vampire she’d ever met, served as a reminder of the fragility of life—both mortal and immortal. He had not returned, and each passing year gave her a sense of false hope that he may have forgotten about her. Nothing could stop the nightmares though.
“I am death. I will watch you and then I will mourn you.”
Immortality. What a horrible concept—for who would want to live forever?—and what a deceitful one. There was no immortality. All things ended. Vampires only put off the inevitable, some longer than others. The dawn explosion of vampire bodies had proven how mortal the creatures truly were.
Below the suspension bridge, the rush of water falling against jutted rock formations gave the illusion of being in isolation when really they were in the middle of the city. Spokane was large enough to disappear in but still maintained a small town atmosphere. She wondered what the locals would think if they knew the kind of neighbors they actually had. Then again, they might not care. Olivia had seen an old school bus filled with zombies being chauffeured earlier in the day though those were actors being driven to the set of a popular television show. Zombies weren’t real. Vampires were.