Finding His Eden
Silverdale Coven, Volume 1
Mandy Greenwood
Published by NaomiAoki, 2019.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
FINDING HIS EDEN
First edition. May 6, 2019.
Copyright © 2019 Mandy Greenwood.
ISBN: 978-1386910824
Written by Mandy Greenwood.
Also by Mandy Greenwood
Silverdale Coven
Finding His Eden
A Baby for Albie
Love You Forever, Drayce
Silverdale Wolves
Their Librarian
His Protected
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also By Mandy Greenwood
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
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
About the Author
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Chapter One
Not many could say that they knew the moment there fated one was born into the world. But Alric Drayton could. Two thousand years of waiting, wondering if he’d ever find that one person meant for him and his patience had paid off. The Fates above had looked kindly on him and gifted him with his fated one’s presence.
An electrical charge shot through the air dragging the faint but delicious sweet-spicy scent with it. However, the faintness of the alluring aroma frightened Alric, sent him chasing after the scent trail concerned at what might have caused it to be so faded; feared the worse when it brought him to the doors of St Augustine Hospital in the centre of Silverdale City. Anger and panic duelled in his veins at the thought of their long awaited fated one lying inside hurt. Blood lust roared and caused his eyes to shift despite Alric’s attempts to keep it restrained, instinct demanding he seek them out and turn them before it was too late. But such actions would draw attention to him. The wrong kind of attention in a place that was crowded with people whose emotions were already on edge and it wouldn’t work in Alric’s favour. Would ruin the carefully cultivated image he presented to the world and enabled him to protect others like him from those who knew nothing of their existence outside of fairy tales.
Breathing deep he stepped away from the bright lights of the entrance and into the shadows as he tried to capture a stronger hit of the delicious scent of his fated one. He glanced up at the eight-storey building, safe here in the dark Alric could allow his eyes to shift; to let them see the trail of scent and take note of the floor it disappeared: the fifth floor. Grabbing out his phone he pulled up a directory of the hospital and located the information needed, fully prepared to storm into the building, slap down money if he needed too to reach his fated one if it showed even the smallest chance that they might be in trouble.
But what he found confounded him: Maternity Ward. Alric quickly dismissed that it had been his fated one who’d given birth. He would have sensed their presence in the city long before tonight which only left one possibility...
Alric tipped his head back and laughed. Shoving his phone back into his jacket pocket and stalked away from the hospital. Were the Fates being kind or were they taunting him with the knowledge that he had a fated one when he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it until they became a man. Yes, the scent was definitely male. Alric needed to wait until his fated one turned twenty-five years old, because turning his fated one earlier than that would only create headache inducing problems.
Twenty-five years of knowing, and of waiting was ending tonight. Alric would finally get to stop hiding in the shadows of his fated one’s life.
ALRIC PUSHED BACK HIS chair as he stood and wandered away from his desk stopping in front of the large corner window in his office. From twenty-floors up he could see right across the city of Silverdale that he’d watched grow from a small fishing village to the sprawling metropolis it was today. A city filled with architecture that paid homage to its gothic past and churned out never ending rumours of city inhabitants that weren’t quite human, many Alric had heard before, yet now they came without the tinge of fear. Werewolves, Vampires and other supernatural creatures no longer seen as the scary beasts; the things of nightmares as they’d been portrayed in the past and that suited Alric fine. So long as the city’s residents continued to believe they were a thing of myths and fairy tales, they could all move around with ease, hidden in plain sight.
And somewhere out there Eden was heading out to the bars to enjoy a night with his friends not realising that Alric was about to turn his world upside down. Or maybe it was right side up? Alric shoved his hands in his pockets as he rocked on his feet and snickered. His gaze tracked a path across the night sky as he followed Eden’s movements through the city streets, by the time Alric finished with his last meeting, he’d know if Eden had arrived at the bar or if he’d chosen to ignore Alric’s request to meet. Not that it mattered, Alric would chase Eden down to whatever establishment he was drinking at, because after having waited twenty-five years for this night, Alric wasn’t going to let Eden go.
“Excuse me, Mr Drayton... your last appointment has arrived-” Alric turned away from the window to stare at the door where his secretary, Mrs Walterson waited. “-a Mr Fredricks.”
“Send him in, thank you.” He walked back to his desk grabbing two glasses and the bottle of hundred-year old whiskey Alric kept next to them. It was the last bottle unfortunately of this vintage, not that it had been a vintage when he’d bought twenty cases of the promising tipple. “And if there is nothing else you need to do, then you may leave for the night.”
“Thank you, Mr Drayton. Have good night.” She stepped away from the door and let Albie Fredricks enter the room before closing it behind him.
Albie strolled across the floor, grinning and not hesitating to pick up the glass of whiskey before slumping into the seat opposite Alric. Even as he sipped his whiskey, his grin didn’t falter. “I think that’s the first time I’ve met your secretary, or this one at least. How long has she worked for you?”
“Ten years.”
Alric leaned back in his chair and waited for the rebuke. Ten years was a long time for a human to be employed by them in any capacity, not needing the suspicious questions that came once someone noticed they hadn’t aged. It wasn’t that they didn’t age, time just moved slower. Alric himself looked no older than thirty-five when in fact he was over two-thousand years old. He honestly couldn’t remember what his exact birthdate was, it wasn’t important anymore. No, the most important date to him was not the one that told him he’d got another year older, but the one that brought him a little closer to Eden. Today. Eden’s birthday.
“Risky isn’t it? You’ve not changed at all in at least a couple of hundred years. Either she’s blind, ignorant or...” waving his hand in the air.
“She’s good at her job. Doesn’t complain about the weird hours she’s required to work-” His needing to avoid the hottest parts of the day meant Alric started work early, took a break in the middle of the day for several hours before working into the early evening. “-and if she has any suspicion as to what I am, then she is
smart enough to keep her mouth shut.”
Albie chuckled again. “Heaven forbid you provide us with the delicious company of your too nosey staff at our dinner parties.”
“I don’t think the heavens like it very much whatever we do.”
“But that’s not why you called me in early tonight.” Albie swirled the whiskey in his glass, his teasing manner dropping away. “Twenty-five years is a long time to wait.”
“Compared to two-thousand years of waiting for him to appear... twenty-five years passes in a blink of an eye for us.” And yet Alric had noticed every one of those years, Eden’s scent growing stronger, more tempting. It had been hard to keep his distance; to remain on the peripherals of Eden’s life until the time to reveal himself was right.
“Tonight, however, he turns twenty-five... you don’t have to wait any longer Alric, so why did you need to see me?” Albie knocked back the whiskey and placed the empty glass on the desk as he leaned forward. “You planning to drop everything about us in his lap tonight... about his importance to you?”
Alric shrugged, he really hadn’t planned how he’d explain his world to Eden. It was a conversation that couldn’t be avoided and one that shouldn’t be rushed. “Don’t know... I’ll play it by ear. But once I make contact everyone will know who Eden is and he’ll be a target to all those wishing to encroach on our territory or wrestle control of Silverdale out of our hands.”
Albie rubbed at his chin. “Playing things by ear, complicates matters a little. If you were bringing him back here-” jerking his head at the apartment on the floor above them. “-or back to the mansion, then security would be easy. If he doesn’t come back with you, then anything I put in place needs to be discreet until he understands our world.”
“I can’t assume that even if I tell him tonight that he’ll believe it and I won’t stop him returning to his own place... in the short term at least.” Alric loved a chase, the sweetness of victory as adrenaline surged through his prey’s blood stream, but Eden wasn’t prey. “If I had my way however, after tonight Eden would never be out of my sight.”
He scowled as Albie chuckled at the possessive threads tangled in his words. One day Albie would find his fated one and then Alric would enjoy laughing at his friend’s frustration.
“Okay... I can put a few more human guards near his place, around the campus and following him as he travels about the city. Where possible they’ll be paired with wolves and at night they’ll be switched out with our own men. But seriously, my job will be made so much easier once he knows the truth and you can convince him to move into the mansion.”
Alric sucked in a breath and closed his eyes. He’d spent the last twenty-five years imagining how his first meeting with Eden would go – the highs and lows of what might happen. Spent many years cultivating Eden’s interests, pointing him in a direction that should provide a more favourable reaction once Alric could reveal himself; Eden’s decision to study Cultural Mythology had pleased him, even more so as he focused on topics related to vampires as though drawn to them and maybe because of their bond, while faint, Eden had been. But those imaginings had also included the pros and cons of when to bring Eden to the mansion – a large sprawling estate on the outskirts of the city that the majority of the Silverdale Coven resided at.
“I can’t guarantee anything, regardless of what I’d prefer to do myself, though bringing him back to the mansion while he’s still human is risky.”
Albie snorted. “Like anyone is going to touch him. They’ve all seen you pine after for the last twenty-five years.”
“I haven’t been that bad,” he retorted as Albie rolled his eyes and smirked.
“No, of course you haven’t. It’s not like we all got regular updates on Eden’s milestones, his achievements... his first boyfriend that we had to stop you from killing.”
Alric flipped him off. “The boy shouldn’t have touched Eden... no one should but me.”
“They were fourteen!” Albie sighed heavily and shook his head no doubt remembering that it had taken three of his best guards to restrain Alric that night. “So, where are you meeting him?”
He smirked, took a sip of his whiskey and rattled off the name of a bar popular with their kind and other supernatural beings who lived in Silverdale City. Human’s hardly frequented it at all, avoiding the place as though their subconscious knew entering it would be dangerous. Those who did were either invited or had carelessly wandered in and quickly became the nights entertainment, disappearing without a trace. But it was safe to meet Eden there, no one would bother him while he waited for Alric. He supposed there was some benefits to his talking about Eden for the last twenty-five years.
Chapter Two
Eden sat at the bar, a pint of lager sitting in front of him untouched as he idly tapped a card on the counter. He’d been there an hour, and no one seemed to be interested in shifting him along. No one seemed interested in him at all and that was strange, staring around at the other customers curiously. Eden never had to work had to get their attention, men enamoured by his porcelain beauty: his almost translucent skin, his bright blue eyes and the darkest of black hair that didn’t go with the rest of him at all. Questions were always asked about it, wanting to know if he wore contacts or dyed his hair. None of them happy with the answers he gave, quickly pointing out that genetics just didn’t work that way; explained it in very simplistic terms that had Eden rolling his eyes. He’d taken high school science and aced it too.
Hell, he’d graduated top of his class. Done it again at university too, allowing him to take his pick of graduate schools. Eden would have happily stayed at the university he’d attended, two major cities over from his home of Silverdale, but the local university was the only one to offer the courses in Cultural Mythology that he wanted to study. Not surprising really considering all the myths, legends and other paranormal tales associated Silverdale. If you believed half the rumours that did the rounds then Silverdale was overrun with vampires, werewolves and other species spoken of in folklore. Eden did not. But he was however interested in why such stories persisted in modern society.
But none of that explained why he was sitting in a bar that thrummed with a dangerous energy; curious eyes that never strayed from his back while waiting for a mysterious stranger. A stranger that had sent Eden the card he tapped against the bar, just like all the other cards that arrived every year on his birthday since he’d turned eighteen. An invite that invoked a level of trust Eden knew he couldn’t have explained to his mates, sneaking out of the house they shared without telling them where he was going or who with, not that he could have given the mysterious stranger a name. Not even the sizeable deposits into his bank account each year gave him any clue as to who the man was and that should have frightened him. Should have scared him into not showing up as the invite requested... yet, Eden wanted to meet them, felt in a way he owed them, when he wouldn’t have been able to afford university without their financial assistance.
Eden just wished the invite had come with more than a time and a place.
Sitting in a bar, alone, was not how he’d intended to spend his birthday. If his mysterious benefactor didn’t make an appearance soon, then Eden would leave; head down to another club where he wouldn’t remain lonely for long. Except, if Eden had been serious about leaving, he wouldn’t have sat here, tapping the card on the bar, for forty-five minutes longer than he’d normally wait. The urge to walk out the door simply wasn’t there.
“Do you plan on drinking that?”
Eden glanced up at the deep voice expecting the question to have come from the bartender, but he was down the far end of the bar talking with customers. Turning sideways, he stared at the man sitting on the bar stool next to him; a well-dressed businessman who a wore questioning smirk, not at all worried at the time it was taking Eden to answer. Eden wasn’t sure how to, when it was obviously a badly thought-out pick-up line.
“Sorry... I’m waiting for someone.” He flashed the man a small
smile and turned away to stare at his pint, grimacing at the idea of drinking it now. Warm beer. Blech.
“How do you know,” the man murmured, leaning in close enough for Eden to get a whiff of his cologne: sweet-spicy and hint of something...metallic? “that I’m not the one you are waiting for-” Eden turned back to dismiss him but was thrown by the confident smile that greeted him. Breath catching in his throat before noticing the man was gesturing at the card Eden held. “-Eden?”
“I don’t.” He narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on the card – black cardstock with white and gold design – not wanting to let on how rattled he was becoming. Yet somehow the man knew, his confident smirk turning into a dangerous, almost feral grin as though he could see right into Eden’s chest to count the panicked beats of his heart. He wished again that the card held more information than the name of this bar and the request to meet. A name would have been useful.
His body stiffened watching the dangerously handsome stranger reach into his suit jacket and pull out a silver card case. Ornately engraved design on the front of the case looked achingly familiar, an antique he guessed as the man flicked it open and retrieved a card. Passing it over to Eden, he could see that it was like the card he already held, the same weight and cardstock except this one wasn’t blank, didn’t have a handwritten message on it, but looked like an ordinary business card.
It was far from ordinary.
Eden’s hands shook as he read it. Stared back at the man not quite believing it. There was no way this man was Alric Drayton... that his mysterious benefactor was the CEO of the largest corporation in Silverdale, the richest man in the city. Rumours talked of the man never aging in the last ten years, longer depending on who you listened too. His name forever entangled with the conspiracy theories that clung to the stones of the cities gothic architecture concerning the existence of the supernatural, the very creatures Eden studied in Cultural Mythology... He shook his head and gripped the edge of the bar fearing he might topple to the ground as the room spun. The stranger- No, Mr Alric Drayton lurched forward, his confident smile faltering as he reached out to steady Eden. It couldn’t be him. Couldn’t be real. It had to be a hoax; some joke being played on him by his friends because it was his birthday.
Finding His Eden Page 1
