by S. K. Ryder
“Jérôme has told me—”
“The truth. And I will tell you everything else you need to know. But in private,” he added, turning to Jérôme, who gave him an incredulous look. “Please. Just wait for me over there.” Dominic nodded at another clump of shadows. “I will explain later.”
Jérôme huffed with indignation before retreating, reaching for his cigarettes as he went. Dominic hated shutting him out, but Jérôme was already more involved than was safe for him. The less he knew—and saw—the better.
In between sips of water, Dominic spun his tale for Ramos in his francophone Spanish. He started with all the truth this man would ever know—the location and description of the yacht Apokryphos—and improvised from there. There were hostages aboard, sex slaves and drugs. Untold kilos of contraband. Weapons, too. And she was owned by one of the Middle East’s most notorious traffickers. As Dominic spoke in a grim hush, the tale became taller, the laws broken more numerous, the potential consequences of failure borderline apocalyptic—and his voice grew ever more persuasive.
Ramos was a skeptical man, and he asked detailed questions, which Dominic barely heard over the excited beating of the man’s heart. The water bottle neared empty before Ramos’s expression finally drained of the last remnants of suspicion and his jaw set with stern resolve.
It was then Dominic delivered the crucial command. “The yacht will make ready to leave at dawn, so you must strike right before, when all his accomplices are aboard.”
Ramos nodded in thought and stroked his tidy black mustache with one finger, his other hand propped on his hip. “Of course. We can do this.”
Dominic put a hand on Ramos’s broad shoulder. Modulated his voice. “Then go and prepare.”
The Puerto Rico drug division’s lead inspector left without another word. As Dominic had suspected, several others separated from the shadows at his signal and followed.
Jérôme’s cigarette smoke enveloped Dominic from behind. “What did you tell him?”
“What he needed to know.”
“And I don’t need to know?”
Dominic faced his oldest and dearest friend. His last friend. Somewhere beneath the beast’s stirring, his heart cramped. “It’s safer for you this way.”
“Why? I still don’t understand. He’s going to confiscate that boat, no? Arrest the people who are keeping you? You are free now, aren’t you?”
I will never be free of what I am. Dominic clenched his jaw against saying this aloud. “Did you find what I asked?”
Jérôme snorted with ill-concealed disgust at the evasion. Taking one last drag off his cigarette, he tossed it into the sand before pulling a folded slip of paper from his shirt pocket. “This made no sense at all and took me most of the day, but, yes. Here.”
Dominic scanned the instructions penned in Jérôme’s swerving, expansive script, and the information engraved itself in his mind along with the map the words described. There was no need to hold on to the note, but he tucked it into his back pocket anyway. It would be the last contact he would ever have with anyone from his former life.
“Merci beaucoup, mon ami.” Inhaling deeply of Jérôme’s cigarette stench to club the beast into a squirming ball, Dominic took his best friend into his arms. He felt Jérôme’s heart drum against his own and wept when Jérôme held him tight in a lifetime of love and affection.
“Why does this feel like goodbye?” Jérôme said, the words thick with emotion.
Dominic almost couldn’t do it. Almost couldn’t draw the breath he needed to speak. Almost couldn’t force his voice to pitch in just the right way. Almost couldn’t break his own heart.
But only almost.
“Because, Jérôme…you never found the Dominic Marchant you knew. And you never will.”
10
Midnight Folly
Dominic didn’t quite trust it when he woke the following night, didn’t dare hope his insane gambit had worked. But the grumbling vibration of the engine was more powerful and more distant, the pitching of the world less severe, and he was still encased by the same plastic-sheathed mattresses he had wedged himself into at dawn. Had he been able to draw a breath, he might have laughed with giddy hysteria.
He did it!
He was free.
And alone…
Already the beast roused, eager for blood. How long could he go without feeding? Without taking lives?
Only now did Dominic realize the truth—he had never expected to succeed. Had never believed even a vice squad closing in on Apokryphos had any hope of holding Kambyses’s attention long enough for Dominic to evade his notice until the sun rose too high to retrieve him.
Or…had he succeeded? If Kambyses had any notion of where Dominic had taken shelter, tracking him down would be laughably simple. Apokryphos might at this moment ride the wake of his new transport, the aptly named Midnight Folly.
Horrified by that possibility, Dominic pushed his head free of the mattresses and stilled, listening to the world beyond the corrugated steel walls of the shipping container. He hung like this, half-born to freedom for what seemed like hours, when steps finally approached. Human steps.
His gut twisted with both relief and hunger.
He freed one arm. Pounded a quick tattoo against the wall. The steps came to an abrupt halt. Jérôme had come through for him. Not only had he found a freighter departing that day and a container due to be loaded on it, but also a container assigned to an accessible location. If Dominic had to, he might have been able to punch a hole into the wall. But that would have drawn attention he would not have been able to handle without creating a ship full of corpses. No, a polite request to be released was better by far.
Squirming free, he spilled into the narrow space between the tightly packed cargo and the container’s door. He pounded again.
Seconds later, the massive external locking mechanism rattled and clanged the way it had when the dock worker he had compelled sealed it behind him. It heaved open on squealing hinges. Damp sea wind tinged with diesel and unwashed body blustered inside. The instant the opening was wide enough, Dominic blurred past the crewman.
“You saw nothing, you heard nothing,” he whispered at the young man’s ear. The compulsion stuck on the first attempt. The crewman had no expectations of finding anything, so he was easy to convince that he hadn’t.
Jérôme had been far harder to persuade that an entire day’s worth of emotional events never happened. He had pulled away, frowning, his troubled gaze unsure. “What do you mean I never found you?”
Fighting the tight knot in his throat, Dominic had tried again, “You found someone who looks very much like your friend. But it was not him.”
The furrows on Jérôme’s forehead had deepened. Dominic repeated the command three more times before Jérôme’s gaze slid toward the placid sea.
Dominic could not bear the anguish in his friend’s face, so he whispered into the space between them. “There is nothing for you on St. Barth anymore. Go visit your friends in Europe. You always wanted to study culinary art there. Do that for a while. A long while,” he amended, strengthening his persuasive powers to the max. How he hated doing this. Jérôme loved his home. But if he didn’t disappear from there, Kambyses might well find him. And then… “Go tonight, Jérôme. Follow your dream. Be free.”
A deep, shaky breath.
Still, Dominic did not look at Jérôme. Not until his friend shuffled away through the sand. By the time he had reached the hotel’s pool area, his shoulders had squared again and his stride became more purposeful.
“Adieu, Jérôme. Be happy.”
The container door slammed shut and yanked Dominic back to the present unimaginable moment. He was alone and free—and hungry.
Before the beast could seize him and drive his fangs into the hapless crewman, he fled to the vessel’s stern. There, the foaming wake stretched to the horizon with not a shadow in sight. Hope soaring, he climbed to the top of a container and peered around. In
every direction, the only lights on the inky water were from distant freighters and cruise ships and star-spattered tropical skies.
“Mon Dieu,” he whispered, incredulous with wonder. “I did it. I truly did it.”
He was free.
Melting into a pocket of darkness, Dominic pulled out the sheet of paper Jérôme had given him. It detailed the location and schedule for the mattress container in Jérôme’s familiar hand and concluded with “Whatever you do with this, be safe.”
Dominic ran his thumb over the last few words. Before emotion could get the better of him, he refocused on the rest of the information.
Four nights. That was how long it would take Midnight Folly to reach her next port. That was how long Dominic had to conceal himself, keep the beast at bay. She was small for a freighter—only an inter-island transport—but far larger than Apokryphos and crewed by nothing more than a handful of bored sailors. Staying hidden would not be an issue. He should be able to find fresh water, too, to help curb his appetite, and maybe he could swipe a pack of cigarettes. Lately, he had needed less blood to keep his head clear, only two or three veins instead of the five or six in the beginning. Still… The thought of four nights without blood caused a low-grade panic to flare.
A scrabbling sound drew his attention to another stowaway hustling along a grid suspended above him. The rat was either oblivious to him or brazen enough not to consider his presence a threat. Dominic watched it go about its foraging as his thoughts came into sharper focus.
No, he had to avoid the humans running the ship at all cost. Anything unusual they reported over the marine radio—be it a disappearance or just a ghostly apparition—was sure to come to Kambyses’s attention. Nothing would justify that. No amount of hunger or torment or peril. Dominic had managed to escape one impossible situation. He could deal with this.
Only one thing mattered now. A need superseding all else, even the bloodlust. He would find a way to reverse what had been done to him—or die trying.
Dominic’s eyes narrowed, his vision shifting into the high-definition infrared of the hunt.
There was no price he wouldn’t pay for a chance to walk in the sun again. Nothing he wouldn’t suffer.
Nothing he wouldn’t do.
To his eyes, the rat glowed, plump with life and blood. He waited until it was directly overhead before he struck. Its light, wriggling weight warmed his cold palm. His teeth drove home. Sweet relief made his knees weak. With a deep, primal growl, Dominic slid to the deck and fed.
By the time he realized the wind had tugged Jérôme’s note from his fingers, it had already fluttered far out into the void.
A Note from S. K. Ryder
Thank you for taking the time to read Dark Awakening. If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a review at Amazon USA, Amazon Canada, or Amazon UK.
Curious about how Dominic’s escape upends Kambyses’s carefully ordered world? Subscribe to my mailing list through my website and receive Ancient Hunger, a short story that will shed some (moon)light into that particularly dark corner. Subscribers are notified of new releases and special promotional opportunities. On my site you can also contact me directly and find me on social media.
Dominic's trials and quest for redemption continues throughout the Dark Destinies series where he is joined by a long list of new and old friends and foes and a spirited mortal woman who manages to steal his heart (and survive!) against all odds. Turn the page for details.
https://skryder.com
—S. K. Ryder
The Dark Destinies Series
Book 1: Dark Heart of the Sun
As a newborn vampire, Dominic Marchant has dangerous enemies, and when Cassidy Chandler, the headstrong young woman with an unknown vampire’s mark on her neck, invades his lair, he’s sure she’s about to get him killed. Or end up dead herself. Instead, Cassidy helps him rediscover his lost humanity and steals his heart while he fights to protect her from his foes and his own deadly desire for her.
Available at Amazon: USA | Canada | UK
* * *
Book 2: Dark Lord of the Night
The fragile new relationship between vampire Dominic Marchant and human Cassidy Chandler is pushed to the brink of shattering when powerful forces from his past introduce him to terrifying new appetites. He will do anything to protect her from the depraved horrors taking over his life. She will do anything to fight for the man who is her heart. Even if this means becoming the latest pawn in a cunning game played by the ancient vampire who claims Dominic as his own.
Available at Amazon: USA | Canada | UK
* * *
Book 3: Dark Child of Forever
Vampire Dominic Marchant only wants his human life back, not rule the kingdom of night. But with the help of his human queen, the indomitable Cassidy Chandler, he takes on the challenge of reshaping his domain into a world where vampires feed on love instead of terror. Not all his subjects are pleased with this change in policy, however, and a powerful old one and his cadre of followers serve Dominic his greatest challenge yet—just when seeing the sun again might be a real possibility.
Available at Amazon: USA | Canada | UK
Acknowledgements
First as ever, my heartfelt thanks to my family for putting up with me when I mentally check out and follow fictional characters into fictional adventures. I'm ever so grateful someone feeds and waters me at regular intervals during the many weekends I spend hunched over my laptop.
Many thanks also go to first readers Máirín Fisher-Fleming, Anne Cleasby, and Iuliana Foos for their comments and insights and a-ha moments. A special thanks to reader Marianne Boutet for her assistance with the French language. Also Cynthia Shepp for her editorial wizardry and awe-inspiring attention to detail. And last, but certainly not least, my gratitude to all the writers who have encouraged and inspired me over the years, and all the readers who venture into my world. You are the reason I write.
About S. K. Ryder
S.K. Ryder is a software developer by day, a scribe by night and answers to Susan any time. She writes the type of stories she loves to read: heart-pounding adventures full of supernatural mysteries and relationships between strong, compelling characters. Though she calls South Florida home, she has also lived in Germany and Canada and has traveled widely, usually in the hot pursuit of wild and scenic nature. When not debugging code, complicating her characters' lives or plotting her next rafting adventure down the Grand Canyon, she can be found beach combing, scuba diving, sailing or just hanging out with a good book. When push comes to shove, she can also bake a halfway decent cake and stand on her head, though not at the same time.
