Dark Awakening

by Kendra Leigh Castle

Page 23

 

  It was a step into madness… but a madness she had seen many times before and knew well.

  She stood in a beautiful temple, white marble columns soaring above her. And all around her rang the screams of the dying as the floor ran red with blood. Lily stumbled forward as the battle raged, as men and women garbed in red and gold forced their way through the crowd that had gathered, fangs bared. Their silver blades flashed like lightning as they came down, again and again, like the Reaper’s scythe.

  Vampires, Lily saw. But not only the aggressors. The innocents had fangs as well, visible with every battle cry, every dying scream, and they fought valiantly though it was obvious they had been taken by surprise. This had been meant to be a celebration. Lily knew it, in the way that the reality of dreams seems certain to the dreamer. Instead, it was a massacre.

  At the head of the temple, a woman stood, both a part and not a part of the scene. She was the most beautiful creature Lily had ever seen, with wild red hair that tumbled over the shoulders of a simple, one-shouldered gown made of jade-green silk. Her skin was alabaster, her lips as red as blood. She watched the horror with sad and ancient eyes that rose and then locked with Lily’s, as green as the dress she wore.

  Around her upper arm, a golden snake was coiled. From her neck hung a pendant shaped like a star.

  “So fell our people,” she said to Lily, her voice echoing as Lily approached her up the long central aisle, drowning out the screams. “So fell the first dynasty, the bloodline of the Mother. ”

  In the woman’s arms, Lily realized, was a baby, swaddled in rich cloth. Lily could hear its cries rise above the din.

  “You are all that is left of me, daughter. In you the blood will be reborn or will vanish forever. Do not let them take it. They will try. Better we are gone forever than corrupted by what coveted our power. Our sisters will carry on as best they can, though most have forgotten the promise that was given. ”

  The woman turned and handed the baby to another woman wearing a long cloak. The baby was hidden beneath, the woman’s hood drawn so that no features were visible. They clasped forearms, the woman and the goddess, before the one with the baby rushed off, cloak flowing, looking like little more than a wraith. It was fitting, Lily thought as she moved more quickly toward the red-haired woman. This was a haunted place. Panic rose in her throat, telling her that the end of this dream, so terrible and familiar, was nigh. She started to run, feeling the evil in the air pressing in on her, all around her. Something horrible was going to happen. She didn’t want to see.

  But she knew she had to.

  The power crackled in the air around her, and it was then Lily realized that the men and women fighting for their lives were fighting not only with their hands and blades, but also with something that emanated from within them. She looked to her left, and a bloody but triumphant vampiress hurled a red-clad intruder away from her as a flash of light burst from her hands. Another look around her, and Lily saw it was much the same everywhere. After the initial shock of the ambush, the temple vampires had rallied.

  But for every attacker who was beaten back, two more took his place, and these were strong and lightning fast, so quick that their movements were only flickers.

  If only they had been prepared, Lily thought. If only they hadn’t been taken by surprise, they would have triumphed.

  The goddess-woman was gathering her own power. Lily could feel it, as she’d felt the same sort of power gathering in herself the night she’d left Tipton. Lily rushed toward her, hoping the woman would be triumphant but knowing that the worst was to come. And then she saw her, slim and dark, her lips peeled back in a snarl and a glittering, curved blade held high above her head. She moved into position directly behind the red-haired woman, whose eyes were closed, readying for the final burst of power that would scatter her enemies to the four winds.

  “Bride of the demon! Whore! You’ll destroy us all with your madness!”

  “No!” Lily shrieked as the blade came down, slicing right through the long, ivory neck.

  The world flashed bright red, bursting into flames, and then went dark as Lily’s scream rang painfully in her ears. A baby cried. A woman screamed her command, though it echoed as if she were hearing it from across a great distance.

  “Find the child! Where is the child? It must be destroyed!”

  “Break his chains, free our blood. No house can stand alone. ” It whispered through her mind as Lily jerked awake. Ty was shaking her.

  She gasped in a breath of blessedly clean air, not a trace of the acrid smoke of her nightmare remaining. Her lungs expanded painfully, and her body surged upward as though she were surfacing from underwater.

  She was okay. It hadn’t been real. In some ways, it was the same scene she had witnessed dozens of times since she’d been a child. But in others, it had been utterly new.

  The woman had never looked at or spoken to her before tonight.

  Ty’s eyes gleamed above her in the darkness. His hands gripped her shoulders tightly.

  “Lily, damn it, are you all right? Wake up!”

  She tried to focus, to come all the way back. “Yeah. Yes. I’m here. ” Her voice sounded gritty and rough. It took her a moment to remember where, exactly, “here” was. Then, slowly, it came back. The burning club. The ride to a decidedly more upscale part of the city, which had been marked by the uncomfortable silence between the two men she was with. And then they had come here, to a loft in a converted warehouse where it seemed Jaden had been staying.

  Jaden. Lily’s eyes darted around the darkened space as she thought of him, but she and Ty seemed to be alone. There was a vulnerability in Jaden that she hadn’t seen in Ty, and it made her worry about where he might have gone, even though she’d only just met him. Though he’d stayed guarded with Ty, he’d been nothing but solicitous of Lily. He’d even fed her—some wonderful pasta and sauce he’d had in the fridge. At her surprise, he’d given her a tentative smile and replied, “Just because we don’t have to eat regular food doesn’t mean we can’t or that we don’t like to occasionally. I’ve always enjoyed cooking. ”

  The food in her stomach, coupled with the excitement and the radical change in the hours she was keeping, had made her logy. She knew she must have drifted off while Ty had stepped out for a moment, and Jaden had busied himself cleaning up. The leather couch was comfortable, and the apartment, with its high ceilings and exposed brickwork, was cozy and inviting despite the strangeness of the evening.

  One minute she’d been brooding over what, exactly, Ty had gone out to do—she was fairly certain of what the meaningful look he and Jaden had shared meant, and the thought of him with his teeth in some random woman provoked a wave of irrational and somewhat violent feelings in her that she’d rather not explore in-depth—and the next minute, darkness.

  Then the temple, and the woman, and the fire.

  And now there was just her and Ty. From all appearances, alone.

  The sudden warmth that fleeting thought provoked was unwelcome, and Lily pushed it away, shuddering. Someone had covered her with a blanket, she saw, strangely touched. And there was a pillow beneath her head.

  “What time is it?” she asked, noticing that Ty kept his hands on her. She knew she shouldn’t be glad of it, but the connection, however small, was still a comfort.

  “About three a. m. ,” he said. “You’ve been sleeping quite a while. I was going to wake you before I went to sleep, just to tell you where we are and where you’ll want to stay during the day. But you screamed, and I was wor—I thought you’d probably slept long enough. You really do need to get adjusted to sleeping when we do. ”

  He was worried about her. Lily found that simultaneously sort of sweet and a little hard to believe. This was, after all, the man who had tied her up so she couldn’t run away, despite her promises that she’d stay put. But his flustered expression and sudden refusal to meet her eyes ga
ve his near-confession the ring of truth. It pleased her, even as it made her uneasy.

  “Just a bad dream,” she said quietly. “It was nothing. ”

  “What do you dream about, Lily? You seem to have a lot of nightmares for someone who’s lived, from the looks of it, a quiet life. ”

  She frowned, and now that her eyes had adjusted to the lack of light in the apartment, which was not pitch-dark but illuminated by the light that came in through the high windows, she could see him quite a bit better. And he looked worried. Another surprise.

  The memory of eyes, green and full of sadness, and the woman raising the dagger to close those eyes forever, flickered through her mind, and Lily shuddered. They weren’t just dreams, and she knew it. But she didn’t know what to do about them, what they meant. And she certainly had no intention of sharing them with Ty, who for all his efforts to decipher her mark was not exactly working in her best interest. He had his own agenda.

  Break his chains, free our blood. Now, what was she supposed to make of that? She almost wished the woman hadn’t spoken to her. At least before, Lily had always been able to chalk it up to some sort of symbolic vision. Though being abducted by an honest-to-God vampire had messed with the “symbolic” portion of her interpretation almost immediately.

  “Lily?” he repeated.

  She knew she wasn’t imagining the concern in his voice. She needed to ignore it; otherwise, thinking he actually gave a damn was going to mess with her head. Attraction was one thing, but she knew she shouldn’t get in any deeper. It would only hurt her. She forced herself to focus on the present.

  “How do you know I’m prone to nightmares?” she asked, then frowned and shook her head to ward off whatever Ty might say. “No, never mind. I’m assuming the answer is going to be creepy and stalkerish. I’d rather not know. ”

  “I could say you’re right. But that’s not an answer to my question,” he prodded with a light squeeze.

  Lily considered Ty watching her while she slept, and the very thought of it made her flush with heat that had nothing to do with the temperature in the apartment.