Stolen Sun: The Juliana Lucio Series
Book One
By: L.C. DeCarlo
Published by: Lisa Hargis
Copyright © Lisa Hargis 2011
ISBN-10:1463790600
ISBN-13:978-1463790608
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
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Copyrighted materials.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Cover Model: Kelly Marie
Table of Contents
Intro
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Acknowledgements
To, Daniel, my Husband for his unending patience and encouragement. I would not have done this if it weren’t for you. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
~ ~ ~
To Ethan and Dylan for teaching me what love really means, and providing me with the inspiration to write about it.
~ ~ ~
For my sister, Gina Villavicencio, thank you for your honesty, and helping me make corrections.
~ ~ ~
To, Regina Leon thank you for your guidance and support when I felt I was lacking, and encouraging me to continue.
~ ~ ~
To, Cheryl Grasso thank you for your knowledge, and for imparting a little of it in me.
~ ~ ~
And to my parents, thank you for instilling in me the love of reading.
I hope I can make you all proud.
It isn’t when you’re willing to die for someone, that you know your love is real; it’s when you’re willing to kill for them.
--LCH
Intro
My name is Juliana Lucio, and I’m about to finish my residency as an Emergency Medicine Physician at The University of Chicago Medical Center. Well, I would be that is, except my life, my human life, was just stolen from me, resulting in a chain of events that have thrust me into a world, which I never believed existed--outside the latest new release or odd dream. I still remember the first time I saw the woman who stole my life from me. Yes, it was violently stolen, not freely given, not asked if I wanted it taken from me, never even warned for that matter. I had only seen my perpetrator a few times; we worked together yet had never even met.
The first time I saw her I was working the night shift. I love the night shift. That’s when all the fun stuff happens; the drunks and traumas come rolling in the door. I had just started my shift and was walking toward the nurse’s station when I looked up and I saw her walking toward me. She was very tall for a woman; nearly six feet. She was slender with long straw-colored hair, and her skin was so pale that it was almost the color of ash from burning embers.
There was just something about her; something that made her stand out to me as being so different from everyone else that I actually looked around to see if anyone else was seeing what I was seeing.
It wasn’t her appearance that made a statement or brought attention to her; in fact, she appeared to be trying very hard to go unnoticed. It was her very presence itself that seemed to draw my attention directly to her, a magnetic pull that had me alarmed yet curious to know more. I felt a pulling in the back of my mind telling me to look away, almost as if a voice was there whispering for me to do so. I knew deep within my soul that I needed to pull my eyes away from her, but I simply didn’t want to. I wanted to try and figure her out.
She had a completely cold look to her face that was utterly expressionless. I thought this was the most different thing about her; everyone else always looked happy, sad, angry, confused, at the very least bored, but with her there was nothing, completely blank.
My deep consternation was broken through by the sound of the trauma alarm going off and an ambulance rolling through the bay. I ran to catch up with the rest of the trauma team catching the last of the report from the paramedics. As I glanced back over my shoulder, I could see her standing there giving me a considering evaluation of her own. By the time I had finished with the trauma she was gone, and I didn’t see her again for the rest of the night.
My next encounter with her was several weeks later and much of the same. I saw her coming toward me, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She gave me another hard look with no emotion; no twitches in her eyes, no change in her nonexistent smile as she kept walking past me. I had to find out who she was, how had I never seen her before? I stopped one of the nurses who knew everything about everyone, and loved to let everyone know it.
“Hey, Mary, how’s it goin’? Busy night so far?”
“Yeah, but you know how the weekends are, all the drunks come out to play.”
“I know, great isn’t it? Hey, did you see that new nurse? I heard she was interesting to work with?” I said fishing for information.
“New nurse? Oh, you mean Ana, she’s not a nurse. She’s our new attending, just transferred here.”
“Really, a doctor? I’m surprised no one’s introduced my new boss to me yet. Where’d she transfer from?”
Mary was shuffling through a couple different charts and wasn’t really paying attention to me by this point.
“Huh, what was that?”
“Nothin’, sorry to bother you. Hey, can you give room two his discharge papers when you have a second?”
“No problem.”
I turned and headed back to the desk that my computer was on and all I could think about was who this person was. All Mary could say was, “Oh, that’s Ana.” Nothing more, nothing less. It didn’t seem to register that something was off with her. I just thought to myself, who hired her? Don’t they know something isn’t right?
I started trying to research and find causes for her odd behavior and appearance, finding nothing plausible. I kept coming back to her ashen features, the pull I felt in the back of my mind when I was near her. Nothing seemed to make sense, and I was only finding websites with oddball blogs and the latest movie releases. I was getting nowhere.
The third and final time I saw her, while I was still human as least, was a week later at work. This time she was working in a separate section in the ER for the less critical patients. It was slow that night, so after treating a patient, I brought the chart over to be racked. She was typing away at the computer, only moving her fingers, and staring blankly at the computer screen.
I gave a silent huff, and thought, Oh, this isn’t obvious. Moving only your fingers with unnatural speed, the rest of you like a statue. How do they not know?
The moment I finished the thought her eyes shot to my face, and though they were only there for a seco
nd, I thought they might bore a hole right through me. They were the color of turquoise with gold specks throughout, and the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I instantly thought, Vampire. I couldn't say where the thought came from exactly, but I knew with absolute certainty that it was true: yet I simply turned and walked away.
I started becoming even more obsessed with figuring her out. I couldn't concentrate on any of my patients that night, only thinking about her.
Not only was I questioning my sanity by letting my over-active imagination run away with me, but I couldn’t help but wonder who would hire her to be around injured and bloody patients. Weren’t they worried? At the very least, she couldn’t have a very good bedside manner. My shift was finally over; I was going to go home and put her out of my mind.
The employee parking garage is about a block away from the hospital, sucks I know. I always seem to be stuck parking at the very top of the fifth floor structure because I generally work late. I try to park as close to the elevator doors as I can; this way I can get right into my car and leave quickly. I figure I’m safer this way. Not this night.
When I stepped out of the elevator I saw that there was someone standing on the other side of the parking garage. I was instantly nervous and went straight to my car with my keys in hand. I looked down at my purse to get my phone, and when I looked up again Ana was standing there in front of me. The movement was faster than my mind could even comprehend, and she had me instantly paralyzed with fear.
She looked straight into my eyes as she had earlier in the evening and deliberately stated, “You looked right at me.” Because it wasn’t a question and I didn’t think I could speak anyway, I didn’t respond.
After looking at me inquiringly for what felt like an eternity but what must have been only a moment, she did ask this time, “What do you see?”
After making sure I was still breathing and my heart hadn’t stopped yet, I was barely able to whisper, “Vampire.”
It was so quiet I could scarcely hear myself, but I knew she could hear me.
I decided later that it was the stupidest thing I have ever said. Why didn’t I lie? Why did I have to tell her? If I could have just kept my mouth shut, my life wouldn’t have been irrevocably changed in that moment.
Her simple response was, “I thought so,” and in that instant she was on me. She had clutched my wrists to my sides so hard that one of them shattered. Her teeth were in my neck, and I could feel my blood pouring from me into her.
I was going to die.
I was in excruciating pain and my heart was pounding in terror to the beat of a humming bird's wings. I couldn’t scream because of the hold she had on my throat. I couldn’t move because she had me pinned so tightly with my shattered wrist. All I could do was cry silently in agony, with tears of devastation. I couldn’t speak outwardly because of her grip on my throat, but in my mind I was screaming, “I have children! I have two boys! They need their mother! I have a good husband who loves me!”
It didn’t seem to make a difference, and as my strength faded, I thought of my children’s first cries as they came into this world; how I would rock them to sleep at night, making love with my husband for the first time, and one last time I told them all that I loved them.
That is how my first life was savagely torn away from me with bloody fangs, without ever having been given a second thought, and how my second life began with my sire; Ana Chase.
Chapter One
I woke up to find I could hardly move. I was expecting to have died, so hardly moving was an upgrade. I was in a room that was completely darkened, yet I could see. I was on a firm bed, lying on top of a plush comforter that felt like incredibly fine down feathers and silk. I wasn’t under a blanket, but I was neither hot nor cold. I just was.
As I began to look around there didn’t appear to be any other furniture in the room, yet it was large enough for several beds if the owner felt the need for it. I started to reach for my glasses, but stopped mid-stretch. I could see everything.
I could see the grout cracking between the bricks of the wall, the tiny pebbles imbedded into the brick, and the falling pieces of dust in the air. For some this might not be startling, but I was as blind as a bat without my glasses; in fact, I was getting eye surgery in a week for that very reason. The scary part, aside from the fact that I couldn’t normally see this well, was the room was completely dark. There wasn’t a light on in the room. There wasn’t any light streaming in from under the bedroom door, just darkness.
As more of my awareness started to come to me, I realized I felt as if I had been beaten to a bloody pulp, but my wrist seemed to work okay. I could tell that I had been bathed because I wasn’t covered in blood as I thought I should be. When I started to remember what happened, I realized that I must have gone crazy after all. I was an emergency room doctor and had dealt with my fair share of traumas; if that violence truly had occurred, I wouldn’t be alive.
Where was I anyway? I heard something brush to my right and I turned to see Ana, sitting in a chair in her favorite statuesque pose. I tried to speak, but my throat was so sore and dry that I could hardly make a sound. It felt like it was on fire.
I managed a raspy, “What have you done?” to receive only a glare in response.
I tried to get up, which I did though it was incredibly painful. As I started to assess the situation, I was afraid of what was about to happen, yet my heart wasn’t beating out of my chest as it normally would.
I looked at Ana and I was seeing every nuance of her face, every eyelash, every stray hair across her cheek and every turquoise and gold speck in her eyes in such detail I never thought imaginable. In that moment, I was seeing her for what she was, in every breathtaking detail. I took in a painful and unnecessary gasp of air as the clarity of my situation hit me.
I knew at that moment I was right, I was dead. I would never see my family again.
She had turned me.
“Why? Why did you take them from me?”
My green eyes were glowing with rage, yet I knew as surely as I knew myself I would never be able to hurt her.
All I could think of was my family, my two young sons, my husband, the thought of never being able to hold them again. This pain was worse than any physical pain she could ever bring me.
“You are hungry and weak. First we need to feed and then I’ll answer your questions.”
I wanted to agree with her. I also wanted to argue and fight, make her tell me what I wanted to know and tell me right then. I was feeling compelled to listen to her, and I was so thoroughly in pain that I just wanted it to go away. But even though I was changed into a new creature, I was still me. I was going to get what I wanted, and I wanted answers now; not when she felt like giving them to me.
“No. Why did you do this to me? I’m not going anywhere with you until you answer my questions.”
I had forgotten how fast she was, how strong, she flashed across the room quicker than I could see and threw me into the far wall of the room. Through the clearing dust of the cracked brick wall I could see her easing her way toward me in a graceful saunter. She moved purposefully slow showing that she was holding her power in check. As she made her way toward me she spoke in a low voice that was caught somewhere between being sultry and being a growl.
“You are not in charge here. You do not get your way simply because you order it. I am your Sire, and I will tell you why I have turned you, when and if, I feel damn good and ready to. You are in pain, you are hungry, and your blood lust is triggering mine. You will follow me or I will drag your ass outside in as painful a way as you make necessary.”
She finished speaking with her breath brushing across my lips, not quite touching, but just a hairs breadth away. When I looked up into her eyes I no longer saw the glowing turquoise I had seen before, but rather a solid pitch black. I assumed this was meant to indicate her hunger or anger with me. Remembering what happened to me the last time I spoke to her without thinking, I just nodded my agre
ement. She hesitated for a moment then turned to walk out of the room.
I stood there for a second thinking I had to find a way to get out of this place, wherever it was, and away from her. I needed to see my family, to let them know I was alright; a little different, but still alright. In the meantime however, Ana was right. I was hurt, and the burning in my throat was getting worse by the second. I would follow her if only to get strong enough to get some answers and get away.
As we left the room I found I was in the basement of what an incredible historic home in Hyde Park Chicago. The house has the structure and nuances of the 1800's yet the conveniences of a modern home. There are dark wood floors all throughout the first floor, and as I followed Ana out of the house I found I was walking slower and slower just to try to take everything in. I had never seen a home so amazing before.
As we passed through the library there was a huge stone fireplace that took up half of an entire wall. There was a large area rug on the floor that looked like it should belong on the wall, kept in preservation, rather than on the floor. The furniture is over-sized leather, yet elegant.
It is the perfect room for reading any of the books filling the expansive library. The inlaid book shelves cover the length of the far wall from floor-to-ceiling, end-to-end. As soon as my eyes laid sight on all those books, I found myself frozen in awe. There are several hundred books filling the huge expanse.
Upon closer examination I notice they aren’t just any books; these are original works by Hemingway, Dickens, Hawthorne, and other authors I have never heard of before. There are small books and pamphlets written by Captain John Smith dated back to the 1600’s, diaries of the events that happened after the Mayflower’s arrival, there was a novel by Susanna Rowson published in the late 1700’s.
Stolen Sun (The Juliana Lucio Series) Page 1
