Reawakening

by K. L. Kreig

  Suddenly it made sense. Vampires could not dreamwalk. That was only a human female skill. And yet somehow Taiven had reaped that power and was able to enter Sarah’s dreams. But why? Why would he pick her and more importantly, how exactly did he come to obtain this power himself? He was an entire continent away. Was Taiven in cahoots somehow with Xavier? And how long had Xavier been experimenting with this? For more than twenty years, if what Sarah said was true. “In my dreams, Taiven watched over me, protected me, my whole life.”

  “Like with everything else he’s developed, the formulas are hit and miss and have a very low success rate. In many instances it kills the vampire it’s given to. It appears to have much higher success in enhancing an existing power than fully creating a new one, so they don’t inject it until the vampire is at least fully blooded, at age twenty.”

  “That’s just fucking great. And how many of these amped up rogues are running loose?” Damian spat.

  “I simply don’t know.” Geoffrey shook his head, clearly distressed like everyone else. “I, myself, haven’t come across a vamp with a previously non-existent skill, but I have seen a few that have incredibly magnified powers. I thought it was just a result of the other chemicals that are being pumped into them from the time they were born, and maybe it’s a combination of the two. Who the hell knows at this point? But there were not any vamps or females kept in this facility, other than the human scientists.”

  “We need everyone one of those humans alive, along with every computer, every flash drive, every vial, every piece of equipment and every shred of paper, down to a Post-It note,” Dev retorted.

  Geoffrey nodded.

  A firm plan in place, they ended the meeting late afternoon. All told, they had over one-hundred warriors that would make the various raids tonight, at 11:30 p.m. sharp, when Geoffrey was expected to meet with Xavier. Rom, Circo and six others would accompany Geoffrey. Damian and the other lieutenants would also lead teams, but Dev would stay back with their mates. After almost losing Kate, he refused to leave her alone again, especially since she was pregnant. It was a good plan. They all had too much at stake on the home front with their mates here.

  They were to gather a mile to the west outside Devon’s estate in a wooded clearing at 10:30 p.m. The goal was to hit fast and hard and be back in no more than an hour with the humans.

  And while they argued about this for well over an hour, they finally agreed to save any child under the age of fifteen, that hadn’t had their second blooding, but destroy any older than that. According to Geoffrey, once they had their second blooding, they were to be kept in another area of the compound and they were significantly more dangerous as they started heavy training then and a vampire became drastically more powerful after their second blooding. It absolutely gutted him to have to destroy ones so young, but they couldn’t take the chance these rogues would grow into monsters, trying to emulate their sick and twisted leader.

  Devon and Kate had worked tirelessly these last few days to prep and staff an empty area of the shelter for the dozens of women they expected to bring back. Dev had others diligently working at another location to prepare for the children to be taken there. Like him, Dev didn’t want these unknowns anywhere near something as precious as his mate.

  “Rom,” Damian called as he tried to make a hasty exit. With only a few hours before the battle, he needed to see Sarah and if she was willing, spend it buried inside of her.

  “What?” he barked, moving quickly. He needed to shake his friend like a bad habit right now.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you, man?” Damian put a hand on his shoulder and his powers instinctively flared to life.

  Whipping around, he pinned Damian to the wall behind him. Everyone else had disbursed except for Dev, Circo and Geoffrey, who now stood frozen, watching the ugly scene unfold in front of their eyes.

  “Put your hands on me again, friend, and it will be your last,” Rom sneered.

  Damian’s jaw ticked and Rom felt his hands and forearms warm where he held Damian tightly to the Sheetrock. Realizing what he’d done, he quickly let him go and turned, grabbing his head between his hands.

  “Fuck!” he yelled.

  “Rom, you’d better pull your shit together before tonight or you’ll single-handedly jeopardize the entire operation,” Dev said harshly, scolding him like a child.

  Hell, he was acting like a child. He deserved every caustic word.

  “Circo, accompany our guest to his quarters,” Dev commanded, never taking his eyes from Rom. Until this evening, they weren’t letting Geoffrey out of their sight, so he’d reluctantly agreed to be strapped down in one of the rogue rooms Devon had in the lower quarters.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  As soon as they were gone, Damian was actually the one to speak first. “You’re acting very out of character, my friend. What’s going on?”

  “None of your goddamned business,” he snapped, sitting his large frame into one of the comfortable leather chairs.

  “I beg to differ. You fuck this up because things aren’t right at home, then you put all of our lives in even more danger and I will not allow you to do that to me, or my mate. Cut off the head, remember? And as the dragon slayer, you are on point to decapitate our foe. You fail, we all fail.”

  “No fucking pressure,” he grumbled. He wanted this stupid conversation over with so he could find Sarah. Why he was even indulging them, he had no clue.

  Damian laughed sarcastically. “Oh, there’s plenty of fucking pressure, all right.”

  “Spill it,” Dev said.

  Rom glared at the both of them. “What is this, the girls’ club? Jesus, did you two embrace your feminine side since becoming bonded or what? We are males. We don’t sit around and talk about our feelings—boo hoo—for fuck’s sake.”

  Dev chuckled, shaking his head. “Have you heard the human phrase a happy wife, a happy life?”

  Rom rolled his eyes.

  “Every time I’ve seen you like this, you’re in a tiff with Sarah. Probably over something you did. You don’t want to tell us, fine. But before ten thirty tonight, you’d better have smoothed things over with your mate, so you can concentrate on the battle and the confrontation with your father. Because you can’t afford any distractions. None of us can.”

  They all sat silently for several minutes, Dev’s words hanging heavily in the air.

  “My first Moira died,” Rom said gruffly. Wow. The relief at saying those words out loud was too great to put into words.

  Damian and Dev exchanged confused looks.

  “Uh … you can only have one Moira, Rom. You must be mistaken,” Damian said disbelievingly.

  Rom grunted. “I assure you, Damian. I am not mistaken. That’s why I’m in this fucking mess with my father. I didn’t believe it could be true either, but the second I laid eyes on Sarah, I knew. I knew she was my Moira, but I wouldn’t let myself believe it, so instead of trusting my instincts, I went to see my mother. If anyone had heard of such a thing before, it would be she. And to get to my mother, I had to go through my father.”

  He paused a few moments, wanting to spew the rest of his story to his friends, but suddenly it felt like a betrayal to not tell Sarah the entire sordid tale of Seraphina first. He should have given her the benefit of the doubt weeks ago and foolishly, he hadn’t.

  Dev and Damian were right. He needed to mend fences with his mate and to do that, he had to unburden himself of this heavy weight once and for all and trust that she could handle it as just part of who he was.

  Standing, he made his way to the door. “See you at ten thirty. I need to see my mate.”

  As he left, he heard Damian say, “A top-secret father and now a dead Moira? What the hell else hasn’t he told us?”

  God, he was such a whiny bitch.

  Chapter 55

  Sarah

  Wanting privacy, she’d spent the entire day in what she now referred to as their bedroom in Dev and Kate’s house. She’d spent t
he first half hour this morning just staring at the pictures of her mother before spending hours more scouring the Internet for any more pieces of information she could get her hands on.

  Not taking no for an answer, Kate had managed to drag her out of the room for lunch, but she’d hastily returned, devouring every piece of information and picture that was in the folder Giselle had left behind. Kate knew Sarah was keeping something from her, peppering her with dozens of questions, but until she’d had a chance to digest everything, she didn’t want to tell anyone else about her covert operation.

  And she didn’t want to discuss her fight with Rom this morning either. It was still too painful and somehow talking about it with her sister would make it more so. From everything she could see, Kate and Dev had a very open relationship and he didn’t keep things from Kate like Rom did from Sarah.

  Neither Rosie nor Nancy had been particularly helpful either and both had been warring with each other all day. Rosie told her to give him time and Nancy’s advice was a swift kick to the balls. Given her spitefulness at the moment, she was leaning heavily toward Nancy’s method.

  By mid-afternoon, her eyes were crossing and she thought it was time to stop for the day. She began scooping all of the photos and papers together and was straightening them when a small picture she hadn’t seen before fluttered to the bedspread. She picked it up and noticed it was a very old drawing of a family as the earliest photos were.

  As her eyes ran over the faces, chills ran down her spine. She frantically grabbed the family tree again, which had gone back all the way to the late 1300s, and scanned quickly.

  Looking for one name in particular.

  She hadn’t spent much time on the oldest members of her family because, well, they were all dead. Just as she was ready to chalk it up to coincidence, she spotted it.

  Seraphina Glynn. Born 1436. Died 1452.

  Oh God. It was her.

  An hour later she sat on the balcony, third glass of wine in hand. She couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d just learned.

  There were nine children in the picture. Three girls and six boys. And according to the family tree, all but three children died in 1452. There must have been some sort of pandemic or something, for it just wasn’t possible that all would have died so closely together otherwise. It made sense too, with what she’d witnessed in her dream. Only two boys and one girl lived beyond that year. How tragic for their parents.

  But what floored Sarah the most was that she was the direct descendent of Willa Flynn, Seraphina’s sister, only living daughter of the Flynns. That certainly explained their striking similarities.

  So now she finally knew who Seraphina finally was, but the one question that refused to leave her was, who was she to Rom? With his reaction at the mention of her name, she wasn’t sure she’d ever find out.

  As usual, she felt him before she saw him. And déjà vu hit, being in nearly this same position a couple of weeks ago after he’d locked her in the bedroom here. How fitting, given he’d locked her out in other, far more important, ways. At least this time she had alcohol to dull the ache.

  Very mature, Sarah.

  “I’ve messed up once again.” The velvet timbre of his voice feathered over every nerve ending, bringing a calm she’d needed all day. She was mad and hurt, but she wasn’t sure it mattered what Rom did. She would always forgive him because she loved him so damn much. But what kind of a cycle would that create? He would keep things from her. They would fight. She would forgive. And they’d never resolve anything. After years of that, she’d become a bitter, resentful, hateful woman.

  “You could never be hateful, Sarah,” he sighed, sitting on the couch next to her, grabbing hold of her free hand. “We’re going into battle tonight. It’s time to kill Xavier once and for all.”

  Anger turned to fear, spreading like fire ants under her skin and she turned toward him.

  “I—”

  “No. Let me talk. Please.” Releasing her hand, he stood, walking toward the banister, his back to her. She felt the anxiety eating holes in his stomach.

  “You don’t have to tell me.” And she meant it. If it caused him such angst, she didn’t need to know.

  “I was young, only eighty, and Seraphina was only sixteen. I saw her walking along a dirt road and I thought she would be easy prey. But the moment I looked into her eyes … I knew.”

  He turned around and held her gaze. “I knew she was my Moira.”

  Sarah tried not to, but she gasped anyway. His Moira? How could that be?

  “She was young and the eldest of nine children. She didn’t want to leave her family, so she refused me at first. After two long weeks, I finally got her to agree to bond, but she insisted I first meet her father and on that night when I arrived … the stench of death wafted from the shack like a thick fog.”

  Sarah couldn’t breathe and could hardly see him through watery eyes. He continued as if he had to unburden himself now or he wouldn’t be able. But he didn’t need to, for she knew how this tragic story ended. She saw it with her own eyes.

  “By the time I arrived, she’d already passed, as had two of her siblings. Two others were ill and died a short time later, I heard. Influenza.”

  Suddenly it all made sense.

  His irrational fear of losing her.

  His absurd, overprotective behavior.

  His difficulty letting people get close to him.

  And his secrecy.

  He turned, his back to her and held the railing so tightly she was sure it would crack. His next words dug like a sharp knife in her chest and if she looked down, she was sure she’d see blood seeping from the wound in her chest.

  “If I’d only forced her to bond, she wouldn’t have died.” His voice was filled with pain and totally unfounded guilt.

  “And she’d be with you now. Instead of me,” she murmured, barely able to utter the bitter tasting words that rose like bile from the depths of her gut.

  Twirling he knelt before her, holding her face. “No, Sarah. No. You are my Destiny. I can’t even find the words to tell you how much I love you. And yes, I won’t lie. It was agony losing Seraphina, but now I know there was a purpose to my suffering. It was you. It was always you. It will only ever be you.”

  His lips crashed to hers and he swept her up in his arms, never breaking contact as he strode to the bed and quickly shed their clothes. This time there was no prelude, no foreplay, no sweet talk or dirty words. Just slow, sensual lovemaking. Linking their hands, his heated, adoring eyes never left hers, deliberately and painstakingly gliding his thick shaft leisurely in and out until they both shattered, calling out the other’s name.

  Their sweat-cooled bodies were pressed silently together and he never stopped touching her. Her hair. Her face. Her neck.

  “I’m sorry,” fell repeatedly from his lips.

  “Enough.”

  He stopped his ministrations and rolled off her so they were facing each other on their sides. She feathered a finger down his scruffy, sexy jaw.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you. I was foolishly jealous and I pressed you on something that wasn’t my business.”

  “Sarah, I—”

  “No. It’s my turn to talk. I’ve been dreaming about Seraphina since right after I met you. I called her mystery girl at first because she would come to me and tell me things, but she wouldn’t tell me who she was. Or who she was to you.”

  He swallowed thickly and she knew this was still hard for him to talk about, but between his words that put her shattered heart back together, what Seraphina had repeatedly told her and what she’d discovered in her family tree, she was convinced this was where she was supposed to be. With Romaric Dietrich.

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Well, some of it I already told you. She said you’d suffered greatly. That you were in danger. And in order to save you we needed to bond. At the time she wouldn’t tell me exactly what that meant.”

  He sucked in a quic
k, sharp breath. “That’s not—”

  “Stop. I bonded with you because for some reason I’m madly in love with your pain in the ass and I want to be with you forever.” Smiling, he visibly relaxed. “I don’t know what your brother has to do with this whole thing, but she said he couldn’t make himself known to me until we’d bonded, but that reuniting you both was the key to saving you. So I don’t care how or why Taiven has been with me, but if it means you’ll be safe because of it, then you need to put that behind you.”

  His brows were furrowed, deep in thought, but he simply nodded.

  “And last night I saw Jack. I pushed him on a tree swing. Seraphina takes care of him.”

  “She does?” he asked softly. His fingers interlocked with hers.

  “Yes. He loves her very much,” she said wistfully.

  She wanted to tell him that she was a descendent of Seraphina’s family somehow, but now didn’t feel like the right time. One weight was off her chest, but too many still sat heavy and encumbering. “What time are you leaving?”

  His lips pursed together. “We meet at ten thirty. We’ll strike at eleven thirty.”

  She looked at the clock. It was already past 6:00 p.m. “Well then, I guess we’d better spend the next few hours making sure you’re in tip top shape for kicking ass and taking names. Or heads.”

  Chuckling, he dipped his head until his hot mouth found her aching, wanting flesh, teeth scraping and teasing. “I think that sounds like the best plan you’ve had yet, beauty.”

  Chapter 56

  Geoffrey

  It was nearly time. T-minus five and counting. He’d be a liar if he said he wasn’t nervous. This could either be the end or the beginning. They were outside the Kentucky complex, deep inside the Shawnee National Forest. Xavier’s compounds were always in very remote locations and always underground. It served two purposes. Keep away wandering eyes and nosy humans, but also to lock away the screams and cries of the kidnapped women who were regularly tortured at his direction. And countless by Xavier’s own hand.