The Transformed Box Set: Books 1, 2, 3, 3.5

by Stacy Claflin

  My father spoke first. "They've found Alrekur! The witch is on her way and we need to get there as soon as possible. We must leave now."

  "We don't even have time for you to go inside," my mother said. "We must get in the car immediately."

  I looked at Karlie, both of us wide eyed.

  "Let's go!" my father ordered.

  My parents and I ran to the limo. The driver was holding the door open. He returned to the driver's seat after closing the door and we peeled through the turn around and were headed up the driveway before I even had a chance to buckle in.

  "We were right about his being in those caves," my mother said.

  My father nodded. "There were so many different tunnels and blocks that it took an exceedingly long time to finally find him. Whoever killed him hid him well. Alrekur never would've been found by accident. The tunnels and caves had traps all over them, and many entrances were sealed with rocks cemented together."

  "Did they bring him back to life already?" I asked, feeling nervous about the events that were about to unfold. What would all of this mean for my future?

  "No. There's a very strong force field around him. Nobody has been able to get close to him, and everyone on the mission to find him is from the first line. So if anyone could get near him, it would only make sense that it would be someone descended from Alrekur himself."

  "When will the curse be broken?" I asked. "Once he awakens, will we be able to tell any others about my mark?"

  "Nobody really knows for sure, and who would want to risk it?" my mother asked. "It's widely believed that we won't be able to speak of it until the wedding."

  My heart dropped into my stomach and I felt like I was going to get sick. I didn't even want to think about the wedding, my wedding to a dead guy, even though all vampires were dead, so I shouldn't have been too creeped out by it. "Why do I have to marry him? I'm descended from him. That's, like, incest."

  "Vampires don't have inbreeding problems," my father said. "Marrying within the same line doesn't pose any issues, biological, moral or otherwise."

  I wanted to ask about the gross factor but I kept the thought to myself. I just nodded and sighed. I wanted nothing more than to have Cliff by my side, telling me that everything would be fine and that we'd be together forever. I hoped more than anything that I wouldn't have to marry Alrekur before I could make my own choice to choose Cliff.

  "What if I don't want to marry Alrekur?" I asked. "I am still in love with Cliff, and I want to marry him."

  My father gave me a look that expressed his fatigue about the topic. "The prophecy is bigger than any of us, Alexis. You could try to outrun it, but you won't be able to. Your true destiny is with Alrekur, and once you meet him, you'll feel it."

  I didn't answer, but thought that there had to be a way out. Maybe the three thousand year old vampire would want nothing to do with me. He'd been dead for the last thousand years; he might not even like modern girls. Or maybe he would really like them, and me. I shuddered at the thought.

  My parents started talking to each other and I let my mind wander. I couldn't stop thinking of ways to get out of this mess.

  There was a lull in their conversation. "How far away are the caves?" I asked.

  My mother looked out of the window. "Maybe another half an hour, at this speed. I haven't actually been to the caves myself, but I know about where they are."

  After a while, we turned onto a gravel road that barely looked wide enough for a bike. I thought for sure that the limo would get scratched up by the prickly bushes on either side of the road, but I couldn't hear anything.

  "Those bushes are an illusion," my father said, seeing me look at them. "It was a spell cast by the witch who helped to hide Alrekur. They've done a good job at keeping most everyone away for a thousand years."

  I examined the bushes as we drove by, and they looked as real as my own skin. I was sure that if I reached my arm out of the window, it would get scratched up. The road got really bumpy and I started to feel nauseated. "Is that an illusion, too?" I asked.

  My father laughed. "No, the road really is rough."

  Eventually, we reached an open field and the limo parked next to four others. I couldn't help laughing at the sight. "What a funny place to see a bunch of limos."

  "It really is," my mother agreed. The driver opened the door and we all got out.

  Darek and Raine emerged from one of the other limos. "Glad you're here. The witch is already inside. I've got a map that one of the searchers drew to get us to the resting place. We may have to go through some optical illusions. The path is full of distractions to keep people far away from Alrekur."

  We all looked at each other in silence. Then, without a word, we walked into the entrance. It didn't look like much; it barely looked large enough to hold a family of bears.

  It was very dark and cold. I could feel the drop in temperature immediately. I was glad to be a vampire, because neither element bothered me. I remembered being a human and hating the cold.

  The little cave looked innocent enough, even though I knew what we were entering. On the far end, nearly hidden by an enormous rock, was small opening leading to the tunnels. We all squeezed around the rock and entered a tunnel that was significantly darker and colder than the cave. It appeared to lead in three different directions, but I didn't trust my vision. I'd wait for the others to lead the way with the map Darek was holding. It showed the traps and tricks of the tunnels.

  He took us down the tunnel on the far right, which went down a steep decline. I could hear the constant sound of drips coming from overhead along the way. The tunnels gave me creepy feelings, but I knew we were actually the scariest things in the tunnels.

  It felt like we were in a maze as we followed Darek's lead. About ten minutes into our journey, we ended up face to face with a massive stone wall.

  "This is supposed to be an illusion," he said. "Not that it matters; most modern vampires can go through walls anyway."

  I nodded, a lump forming in my throat. It was bad enough that we were headed to find Alrekur, but it was almost torture that we had to go through a maze of nightmares. Why was Cliff never around when I needed him?

  We started walking again after we walked through the fake wall, going deeper and deeper into the earth. We took many paths, going left and right so many times, it nearly made me dizzy. We eventually came to an open area, but there was a huge body of water there that blocked us from going any further.

  "This isn't real," Darek assured us.

  An alligator jumped up out of the water and snapped at us. I jumped into my father's arms. "Is that real?" I demanded. Some powerful vampire princess I was. I knew that I'd just earned myself some serious training time when we got back home.

  "No, it's a very elaborate trick," Darek said, looking at the map. He walked right through the water without even getting wet. The alligator even ignored him.

  Raine followed him, and then my mother. I shook my head at my father and begged him with my eyes for us to stay. He grabbed my hand and dragged me through the path.

  "Don't you see that the illusions can't harm us?" he asked. I could tell I was beginning to try his patience, which seemed to run a lot higher with me than anyone else.

  I nodded and apologized. I ignored my feelings after that and went through the rest of the traps without fussing. I knew that I had to pull myself together. I focused my thoughts on how powerful I was. I thought of how I'd defeated the Moretti's. I could surely handle this.

  We continued to go through twists and turns.

  As we rounded a corner, we were met with a ten foot, roaring dragon!

  I trembled in fear and begged my father to turn back.

  It roared again and this time it stared at me and blew fire down on our group.

  "It's only an illusion," Darek said. He walked right around the dragon.

  "You go next," my father said. "I'll be right behind you."

  Even though I'd just seen Darek go right around, I did
n't want to try it. On any other day, it would have been a fun challenge. At this moment, I felt like I might burst into tears. Sighing, my father grabbed my hand and we squeezed around it together.

  Finally, we heard voices. I hoped they were actually from the other vampires and not a trick. We followed the direction of the voices and ended up in a large, open area. There was a group gathered in there. Candles were set up along the perimeter of half of the room; for the spell I guessed.

  Several of the vampires rushed to us, talking over each other. I couldn't understand anything that any of them said.

  "One at a time," my father commanded.

  All but one stepped back. He said, "The witch can't break the spell of the force field. She thinks she might need another witch to gather more power. The spell is stronger than any that's ever been seen."

  The middle of the room, where the candles stopped, must have been the edge of the force field. On the far end of the room, I could see a makeshift bed on a massive stone. There was a body lying on it. There appeared to be some kind of stake in his heart. It was hard to tell for sure, as it was so far away. The room was enormous.

  "Let me give it a try," said my father. He walked over to the middle of the room and put his hand out in front of him. It looked as though he'd walked into a glass wall, except that there was nothing there at all. Only air. My mother also tried, and had the same result. Darek and Raine tried, too. My father wanted to see everyone else try. I stood back and watched as everyone appeared to walk into a glass wall at exactly the same spot. He ordered the witch to try it, and she of course couldn't get through either.

  Then he turned and looked at me. "Now it's your turn, daughter."

  I wanted to scream, but because there were so many eyes on me, and I was the Sonnast, I stood taller and nodded yes. I was princess and needed to act as such. I walked to the point at which everyone else had stopped, and kept going. Gasps and applause broke out. I turned around to walk through it again, but ran into the force field. It felt like glass.

  I was trapped inside!

  "Go to Alrekur," my father said. "You need to pull the stake out of his heart. Once it's removed, he should wake up."

  Then I'd be trapped in the force field with the oldest and strongest vampire ever! He would probably be extremely unhappy to be woken up. Either that, or he'd be angry about having been killed, and might take it out on me.

  I sighed. What other choice did I have? I put my hand against the force field again, but it was obvious that I wasn't going back to the other side. Not alone, anyway.

  I walked slowly towards the corpse lying on the stone bed. As I approached, I could see that the body was purple and blue. My stomach turned. When I was close enough to stand over it, I saw that the skin was wrinkled all over. I'd seen dead bodies before, but nothing compared to this. It was truly gross and scary.

  "Pull the stake out slowly," my father instructed from the other side of the invisible wall.

  Wishing that I could wake up from this horrible nightmare, I reached for the stake. It had to have been made out of Populus Tremola wood, but it hardly even looked wooden. It had been intricately carved with images of snakes wrapped around it. If it hadn't been stuck into the chest of a long dead vampire, I would have been impressed by its beauty.

  I wrapped my hands around the stake and began slowly pulling it out. I heard some disgusting sounds that reminded me of walking through gooey mud. It started to stick, and I had to give it a solid yank. The stake came out and the force of it knocked me back about a foot.

  Still holding the stake, from which I could feel very strong, negative energy emitting, I watched as Alrekur's skin turned lighter shades of purple and blue and became smooth. When it reached a light, peachy-white color, the hole in which the stake had rested for a thousand years closed up almost immediately. I looked all over him, waiting to see what would happen next. It seemed like an eternity passed.

  His eyes opened and he gasped in a breath of air. I jumped back another foot, having no idea what would happen next. He stood up and got into a fighting stance. He shouted, "Where is Heinrick? Where did that scoundrel go?"

  "He…he's not here," I whispered.

  He glared at me. "Where is that coward? He tried to kill me!"

  "I think he did kill you." I held up the stake for him to see.

  He stared at the stake. "Yes, that's his weapon. He claimed that it was made from a Populus Tremola tree."

  "It was," I said. "You've been dead a long time. Heinrick is probably dead, too."

  "Let me see that thing." He grabbed it from my hand, and as he did our hands touched. A strong jolt of electricity ran from my hands, down my arms and all throughout my body. The look of shock in his eyes indicated that he felt the same thing.

  At the exact moment it stopped, a searing pain shot through the right side of my neck. I grabbed my neck with both hands and stumbled backwards. The pain intensified to a point at which I was sure I'd pass out. I wanted to watch Alrekur, to see what he was going to do next, but I couldn't keep my eyes open.

  Suddenly, a bright light shined all around me. I forced my eyes to open and saw that the light appeared to be coming from within me. It was an intense, sparkly blue light that swirled all around me. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Alrekur watching me.

  The pain receded and as I let go of my neck the light began to fade. My hands were glowing silver, and I could see the vague shape of a shooting star on them.

  "The mark!" Alrekur said, dropping the stake. It made a loud noise as it bounced on the cave floor. He fell to his knees and stared at my neck.

  As the light around me continued to fade, so did the silver marks on my hands—they must have taken on the glow from holding the mark, which I assumed to now be visible. The light then disappeared completely and Alrekur stood, reaching for my neck and gently rubbed it where the pain had been. A light wave of electricity ran through my body at his touch.

  "You're the one," he whispered. "The one that I've been waiting two thousand years for. You're the Sonnast." His eyes were soft, and at that moment, I was overcome by his beauty. I'd never seen anyone so glorious in all my life. Our eyes locked, and I couldn't pull away. I didn't want to.

  As our eyes held each other's gaze, I saw images in my mind of him searching numerous locations throughout the world for…me. I saw the longing and desperation to find the one that he longed for, the one who was supposed to fill the empty hole in his life. I watched as he poured over scrolls, trying to solve the mystery.

  Finally, I got my bearings again. "Actually, you've been waiting three thousand years. You've been…here for one thousand of them."

  He broke our eye contact and looked around. "I've been in here for a thousand years?" he asked in disgust.

  I nodded, afraid of the anger that was building in his face.

  "I will hunt him down and make him pay!" Alrekur swore. He looked past me and noticed the others for the first time. "Why did it take that long for you to wake me up?" he demanded. I wasn't sure if he was asking me or them.

  "What did he say?" the witch asked.

  I raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean? You heard him."

  "We can all hear him," she said, "but only you can understand him."

  "What…what do you mean?" I asked.

  "The two of you have been speaking in Icelandic," my father told me.

  "I wasn't speaking in Icelandic!" I insisted.

  My mother nodded. "You were just speaking it with him. In fact, you were speaking the ancient dialect."

  "How do you know that?" I demanded.

  "We learned it hundreds of years ago in order to communicate with the Fyrsturae."

  "How am I able to speak ancient Icelandic?"

  "It's because of your mark," my father said. He turned to Alrekur and said something in Icelandic.

  "I can tell that you just spoke Icelandic and I couldn't understand a word of it!" I told my father.

  "You can only understand him becaus
e of the mark. I told him to speak to you in another language so that I can test that theory."

  I shook my head in disbelief.

  Alrekur looked at me. "Where have you been all these years?"

  "I'm only seventeen. You spent all those years searching before I was born."

  I heard gasping behind me.

  "You're speaking in ancient Hebrew."

  "He speaks Hebrew?" I asked.

  "I speak many languages, Sonnast. I learn them quickly. You'll teach me the language of your people."

  "If we understand each other no matter what language we're speaking, then it might not work for me to teach you."

  He pursed his lips. "You have a point. Back to my earlier question, why did they not wake me earlier?"

  My father spoke to him in Icelandic again. He turned to me and said, "I just explained to him what we went through to find him. You two were back to speaking Icelandic, so I understood what he asked you."

  Alrekur walked past me and stood in front of my parents, just before the force field. "I know you two."

  "That's not possible," I whispered.

  He turned around and looked at me. "Why would that not be possible?"

  "They're eight hundred years old," I said. "You've been dead for a thousand."

  "I may have been dead that long, but I can guarantee you that they are not eight hundred years old. Maybe they've been in these forms for that long, but they are older than me."

  I looked at my parents, hoping they would explain. When they didn't, I asked, "What does he mean? How can you be older than him?"

  "What's going on, Geoffrey? Caitlyn?" Darek asked, looking concerned and confused.

  My parents looked at each other. My mother said, "We knew that we'd have to explain this sooner or later. It looks like it's going to be today."

  "Let's get out of this cave," my father said. "We can all meet up at our mansion, and we'll explain everything."

  "Can they get through the force field?" Raine asked.

  Alrekur tried to walk through, but he couldn't pass. I grabbed his hand and we walked through together.

  TWENTY THREE