Inception (The Marked Book 1)

by Bianca Scardoni

“Ah, Julian, right on time,” smiled William.

  I followed his eyes to a slender, dark haired man that had come up from behind us. He greeted William and my uncle but made no eye contact with me or Gabriel.

  “Julian here is one of our top Sentinels,” informed William. “He’ll be overseeing your training with Gabriel.”

  “Overseeing?” I couldn’t help but wonder what that meant. Was he going to be evaluating my performance and reporting back to the Council? Or was he there to spy on us because they didn’t trust Gabriel to be alone with me?

  “Think of him as a guard of sorts, for your protection. You won’t even notice him there.”

  “Right.” I eyed Julian suspiciously. Spy it is.

  “Very good then,” chimed my uncle after a brief repose of uncomfortable silence. “What do you say we leave them to it?”

  “Certainly,” agreed William and then turned to Gabriel with his hand extended. “She’s in your hands now, Gabriel. Do right by her, and your brethren. I’ll expect to hear an update on her progress by the end of the week.”

  “Of course.” Gabriel shook his hand, and then my uncle’s before leading us out of the room and back into the atrium.

  I followed behind Gabriel and Julian as they led us through a slender corridor that connected to a large steel door on the opposite side of the atrium. We passed through the threshold in silence and descended a dark, winding staircase into the lower level of the building. The underground tunnels—built with a mixture of concrete, steel reinforcements, and fortified wood paneling—stretched deep into the underbelly of the cellar, and seemed to split off into several directions, each one peppered with doors at various points in the procession.

  “What is this place?” I asked as we veered left down the first intersection. My voice sounded small here, distant, as though it had been insulated from itself.

  “We call it the Lab. It houses our main training facilities and weaponry vaults.” He stopped in front of a bolted door and pressed his finger into the reader.

  I glanced up at Julian who stood beside me, towering over me by nearly a full foot. “I’m Jemma by the way,” I said, extending my hand to him as I examined his features—dark eyes, strong Roman nose, goatee.

  “I know who you are.”

  He peeked down at my hand but didn’t bother taking it.

  Okay then. Chatty and friendly. “Nice to meet you, too,” I muttered to his back as he walked into the room ahead of us.

  “After you,” said Gabriel, holding the door open.

  The room was extensive and surprisingly well lit in comparison to the dank hallway we had just come in from. The concrete floors were covered in blue sparring mats and the walls were railed with an impressive assortment of artillery and other oddly shaped weapons I couldn’t name.

  “What is all this stuff?” I asked, peering around the room.

  “Just a few of the many weapons you’ll eventually learn to use,” said Gabriel, his demeanor all-business. He seemed perfectly at ease here as though he himself were a biological extension of the room.

  I watched as he walked over to the bench lined up against the back wall and carefully removed his leather jacket. He placed it down on the bench and then moved to the matted area at the center of the room. Eyebrows furrowed, he crooked his finger and motioned for me to join him as Julian took his seat next to the door.

  I dug my feet into the ground and crossed my arms. This whole training-with-a-vampire-to-kill-vampires thing just got a little too real for me.

  “Is there something wrong?”

  “I just...I don’t...” I shifted my weight around, trying to form a cohesive thought. “It’s a lot to take,” I finally said.

  He stared at me expressionless.

  “Being here, seeing all these weapons.” I shook my head, feeling overwhelmed. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  His eyebrows rose.

  “Figures,” snorted Julian.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He didn’t bother looking up from his magazine.

  “Never mind him,” said Gabriel as he sauntered back over to where I stood. “Just focus on why we’re here.” He took me by the wrist and towed me to the mat. “We’ll start slow. Just the basics,” he added, carefully removing my zippered hoodie and tossing it onto the bench behind us.

  I noticed he took great care not to touch my skin and wondered if it was for Julian’s benefit, or his own.

  “What are the basics?” I asked, rubbing my arms for warmth.

  “Whatever it is you need to know to get to the next level. Right now, for you, the basics are defensive tactics.”

  I actually liked the sound of that.

  “Once you’re comfortable with your ability to self-defend,” he said as he repositioned the mat, “you’ll move on to other things like offensive striking, unarmed combat practice, assault drills, weapons training—” He stopped abruptly, remarking the horror in my eyes. “But for now, we’ll just stick to the basics,” he reiterated in a gentler tone.

  I glanced down at my skinny jeans and camisole. “What about my clothes?” I had assumed tonight was going to be more of a meet-and-greet session and didn’t really think to dress for an actual training session.

  “They’re fine,” he said without looking. “You need to be able to do this in your everyday clothes.”

  “No one’s going to care what you’re wearing, kid,” snipped Julian, his tone unmistakably mocking.

  “No one was talking to you!” I snapped back. What the heck was this guy’s problem anyway?

  “That’s right, I have a pulse. I’m not your type.”

  “Exactly.” Wait. “What—?”

  “That’s enough, Julian.” Gabriel put himself directly in front of me. “If you’re unable, or unwilling to perform your duty, I’ll be more than happy to have the Council reassign you.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” replied Julian, looking embarrassed now. He quickly shifted his attention back to his magazine and didn’t say another word to either of us.

  Gabriel turned back to me, his eyes doleful. “Come on,” he said, ticking his head towards the mat.

  The truth was, I still wanted to ram the magazine in Julien’s big mouth but figured it would only make things worse for me. I tied my hair back into a ponytail and followed Gabriel instead. “So...where do we start?”

  “We start by assessing what level you’re at physically.”

  “That’s easy. I’m the level right before beginner.”

  His mouth hitched up at the corner. “I was hoping for something a little more concrete.”

  “What did you have in mind?” I asked, uneasy.

  “I was thinking we could simulate an attack.”

  I shook my head. “No. No way.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because...” I wanted to tell him that I was too afraid, that I didn’t want to be reminded of the way I felt that night, or the time before that—scared, powerless, weak—that it was already enough that I had to relive it every time I closed my eyes. But all I could manage to say was, “Just because.”

  He grimaced, examining me as though he might find the rest of my answer hidden somewhere on my face. “Look, I know this is difficult for you,” he said after a thoughtful pause. “And I imagine you’d rather not be in that position again, but...”

  No buts. I hate buts. “But what?”

  “But it’s going to happen again whether you want it to or not,” he said candidly. “I’d rather it happen here first—with me, so that I can teach you how to take control of the situation and get out. That’s all this exercise is about.”

  That didn’t sound nearly as bad as what I’d envisioned in my mind. “So what your saying is, I won’t be suffering any traumatic brain injury or blood loss tonight?”

  “Of course not. I would never hurt you,” he assured. A slow moving grin appeared. “In fact, I want you to do the hurting.”

  I couldn’t help but
smile at that.

  “If you start to feel uncomfortable or it becomes too much for you, just say the word and we’ll stop,” he added, raising his hands in a solemn gesture. “You have my word.”

  I couldn’t explain why, but I believed him. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. I knew he’d stop if I told him to. I knew I’d be safe as long as he was near me.

  “Alright then, let’s do this,” I said, feeling a false sense of bravado wash over me. “Show me what you got.”

  His eyebrows shot up in surprise—or amusement—though I could tell from the shrewd way he began to circle around me that he meant business. Not wanting to feel like his prey, I mimicked his moves and circled right along with him as my heart rate nervously kicked into overdrive.

  “I’m going to come at you from the back,” he warned, his lips slightly turned up at the corners. No doubt he was in his element. “I want you to try to break out of my hold, okay?”

  I didn’t have a chance to respond. One minute we were circling face to face, and the next, he was behind me—one arm around my collarbone and the other one around my waist, pinning my arms to my side.

  I gasped in surprise.

  “Break out of my hold,” he ordered when I did nothing but stand there frozen in his arms.

  Ah, hell.

  I immediately began pushing and squirming around in his arms, doing everything I knew of to try to free myself from his death grip, each time ending up with nothing to show for it but a bruised ego. Even when my squirms morphed into a full body buck, the only damage I managed to produce was self-inflicted pain from my own burning muscles.

  “I can’t,” I cried out after a series of failed attempts. I was already winded and I hadn’t even made a blot on his map.

  He let go and spun me back around to face him.

  “Well,” he said, raking a hand through his dark hair. “I’m not going to lie. That was really bad.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I replied sourly.

  “Take a breath and try it again,” he ordered and began another slow stalk around me, calculating his next move—my next move. There was something incredibly primal about it.

  Distracted, I tripped over my foot and stumbled back a step. He shook his head and buried the smile.

  In the span of time it took for me to look back up, he had already reached out and pulled my arm, spinning me to him and landing me with my back against his chest. His arms wrapped firmly around my torso once again locking my limbs to my body. There was something about the way he pounced with such speed and agility that seemed to leave me in a stationary stupor.

  “Break out,” he said into my ear when I didn’t move.

  I snapped out of my daze and began to squirm and buck again, digging deep for any semblance of strength I could find, but once again, all of my efforts came up short. No matter how hard I pushed, he remained immovable. It was like trying to lift a solid block of concrete off of me with a plastic kiddy shovel.

  “Why are you doing that?”

  “Doing what?”

  “Wiggling,” he said repugnantly. “Do you honestly think you can escape a Revenant by wiggling your way out?”

  I stopped moving. “Well what do you suggest I do?”

  “Use your strength to push out.” He said it as though it were the simplest, most obvious thing to do. “You’re a Slayer. You already have it inside of you.”

  “Then where is it?” I snapped back, annoyed. “Why isn’t this working?”

  He dropped his arms and took a step back. “My guess is it’s probably the spell,” he said, focusing in on me with a deeper intensity. “You need to understand the mechanics at play here, Jemma. Slayers are biologically built to kill Revenants. It’s in your blood—right there in your DNA,” he said, gently pushing his fingers into my clavicle.

  I looked down distractedly and crossed my arms.

  “Normally, you only need to be in the general vicinity of one to feel it,” he went on. “That feeling is physiological, like a sensor or a switch that turns on the Warrior part of you—the part of you that isn’t human, and that part takes over so you can do what you were created to do. That’s where all your power and strength lies, but if that switch was never accessed before, then everything else that follows it remains dormant.”

  “So what you’re saying is, my Slayer powers are sleeping?”

  “For lack of a better term, yes. You have an entire part of you that’s never been touched before.” He started to circle me again.

  “What’s the point then?” I asked, my arms still crossed tightly across my chest. “As long as I’m still Cloaked, I have no chance of fighting you off, or any other Revenants for that matter. Not if my powers are dormant as you say.”

  “That may be true,” he said, rounding out from behind.

  “So what are we going to do?”

  He tweaked his eyebrows. “We’re going to wake them up.”

  20. FRIGHT NIGHT

  After soaking in a hot bath for nearly an hour, I changed into my favorite camisole and fleece cutoffs and all-but crawled into my bed. My first training session with Gabriel was brutal and had me using muscles I didn’t even know existed. Muscles that I knew I’d be paying dearly for tomorrow morning. Thankfully, I didn’t have to worry about it for too long. Exhaustion took over and pushed everything else onto the back-burner as I effortlessly drifted to sleep.

  However short-lived it was.

  I wrenched upright in my bed sometime after midnight. I had been dreaming about him again—the blond hair and curls—though I didn’t have a chance to experience the particular brand of terror those dreams usually caused. Something else had woken me. I remembered a knock and turned to stare at my bedroom door, still struggling to snap out of my slumber. Then, another knock, and I realized it was coming from the outside terrace.

  I stumbled out of bed and walked to the door, cautiously pulling back the curtain to see who was out there. I was almost expecting it to be Dominic Huntington arriving straight out of my nightmares to torment me, and was equal parts surprised and relieved to find Trace standing there instead.

  My eyes never left his as I pushed open the door. The cold air immediately rushed inside, twirling around my damp hair as it took up residency in my room, but I barely felt its chill. My skin was already warming from the inside out.

  “What are you doing here?” I whispered, peering over his shoulder into the darkness. “How did you get up here?”

  Even in the pitch of night, his eyes gleamed like two sapphires. “Can we talk?” he asked without answering my question.

  I didn’t see the point in reminding him that we weren’t on speaking terms, or even asking if this could wait until tomorrow. The guy had just shimmied up my balcony in the middle of the night, and frankly, I wanted to know why.

  I took a step back to let him inside doing my best not to notice when his arm brushed up against me as he passed. Or that he smelled really, really good. I flicked on the desk lamp and stalked back to my bed, taking a seat on the edge of it as I waited for him to say something.

  Trace stayed by the door, leaning against it as his eyes moved curiously around my room taking in the sights. I tried to read his face for any hints as to what this late-night visit was about, or what kind of mood he was in, but as per usual, his expression gave nothing away.

  His eyes settled on me just then and I watched as they moved down the length of my body and then back up the other way before shifting away. If I didn’t know any better (which I did), I would have thought he just checked me out.

  “So, um, what did you want to talk to me about?” I asked, still feeling the heat from his stare embedded in my cheeks.

  “I heard you started training today.”

  “And you rushed over to congratulate me?”

  “No.” He seemed to be studying me. “So it’s true then? You’re training with Gabriel?”

  I nodded and watched as he pushed up from the door and took a few steps in, circling around the edge of my
desk.

  “You know he’s a Rev, right?”

  “A what?”

  “A Revenant—a vampire,” he said distractedly, looking down at something on my desk.

  “Yeah, I got the memo this time.”

  “I’m just making sure.” His eyes met mine again briefly. “I wouldn’t want you accusing me of being a jerk or anything.”

  “I’m sure there'll be plenty more opportunities for that.”

  His dimples pressed in, making it look like he was fighting back a smile, though it never made it to the surface. “So that’s it then? You’re really doing this?”

  I wasn’t sure if he was referring to my training with Gabriel, or the whole Slayer thing in general. My answer was the same either way. “What choice do I have?”

  “Aren’t you protected?” he asked, leaning back against the desk now. His arms were crossed over his chest and his sweatshirt was pushed up to his elbows, highlighting his brawny forearms. “Like with a Cloaking spell or something?” he continued when I failed to produce words.

  I nodded, clearing my throat. “They’re trying to break it. My uncle said it’s too dangerous to stay this way—that the spell won’t hold.” I couldn’t find the courage to tell him that I’d agreed to break it for reasons completely unrelated. That I wasn’t out to save anyone’s skin but my own. “Why do you care anyway?”

  “I don’t care,” he answered coolly. “I just wanted to hear it from you.”

  “And why is that?”

  His dark lashes swooped down. “So that when I told you to stay away from me,” he said, looking back up. “I’d mean it.”

  “You want me to stay away from you?” I blinked into him, unsure that I’d heard him right.

  He clenched his jaw and gave a slight nod.

  “Why? Because I’m training with Gabriel?” I sounded like a child getting reprimanded unfairly.

  “That’s part of it.”

  “And the other part?” I stood up from the bed, wanting to keep the uncomfortable feelings from rising to the surface. “What exactly was it that made you feel so compelled to ban me from your life that you had to run over here in the middle of the night to do it? Do you really hate me that much?”