by D L Blade
The Chosen Coven Series Box set
D. L. Blade
Contents
The Dark Awakening
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Acknowledgments
About the Author
The Dark Underworld
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
The Dark Awakening
Copyright © 2018 by D.L. Blade
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by an information storage and retrieval system – except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper – without permission in writing from the publisher.
Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.
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Editing by Christina Kaye www.xtinakayebooks.com
Formatted by Affordable formatting
All photographs by photographer Scott James Photography
Book design by Redbird Designs
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
First printing edition October 2018.
Independently Published by D.L. Blade
http://www.dlbladebooks.com
This book is dedicated to the strongest person I know:
My mother.
They were there in the shadows again. This was the third time this week I had thought I was being watched. The first time, I was getting out of my car to walk into the house when I heard the rustling of leaves and the crackling sound of old fallen branches beneath someone’s feet. I quickly turned on the flashlight from my phone, but when the light pierced the darkness, the sound stopped.
Tonight, it was a silhouette behind my aunt Lily’s fence in the backyard. It wasn’t someone walking by with their dog, or a neighbor taking out their trash. They were standing there, watching me as I walked to the sink to rinse my dinner bowl. I wasn’t going to tell her again. She’d just tell me what she told me the last time I brought it up. She’d say I was just seeing things and that it was normal to feel this way after trauma.
“Your turn, Mercy,” Lily said, pulling my gaze from the window.
“All right, all right. I’m coming. Are you that eager to lose?” I teased.
I took one last glance out the window. They were gone.
Maybe I am imagining things.
My two best girlfriends just rolled their eyes at me, and my ex-boyfriend, Riley, sat there patiently. He smiled in my direction as I sat down.
Lily tucked her short brown strands behind her left ear and looked down at her glass. She took a sip of her red wine, gripping her glass firmly, while her index finger tapped gently and rhythmically on the side of the slender wine glass.
I looked over at Cami and Shannon, who were watching Lily as she set the wine glass down on the table, shaking her head as she giggled softly.
I met my two girlfriends, Cami and Shannon, at cheerleading camp the summer before our freshmen year in high school. Shannon had beautiful, dark olive skin, raven-black hair, and stunning blue eyes. Cami proudly wore her signature ponytail tight against the back of her head, keeping her long blonde locks from falling in her face. Her thinly plucked eyebrows were shaped into the perfect arch, which complemented the curves of her eyes.
On a typical Friday night, the two of them would be dolled up and ready for a night out, makeup done and dressed to impress, but it was a Wednesday game night in, so the two of them were wearing sweatpants, tank tops, and little to no makeup. For me, on the other hand, that was my normal attire. I hated dressing up. I was happy in my yoga pants or ripped jeans and t-shirts that often consisted of my favorite band logos. I didn’t look like a tomboy or anything. I still styled my long, dark brown, wavy hair and slapped on some mascara to complement my bright emerald cat-shaped eyes.
“You’re going to draw this one out, aren’t you?” Lily asked, trying to hide her yawn by covering her wide-open mouth with her hand. “Not too long, though. It’s getting late.”
Even though my mind had been distracted by what I thought I had seen outside, I pulled my focus back onto the game we had been playing, Battle-Star Frontier. A brief glance at the clock told me we had been playing the game for over three hours. My head was fogging over, and my lower back ached from sitting on acrylic chairs for so long. I stretched out my legs, took a deep breath, and gave my cards a once-over. I just needed to roll an eight.
Cami lowered her brow and huffed. “I can’t keep my eyes open anymore.” She grabbed her water, took a swig, and glanced down at her phone, probably checking the time.
“I’ll drive your car. My energy drink is doing its job keeping me alive right now,” Shannon joked.
Riley flashed me his handsome grin again and shook his head. I glanced around the table one last time and gently tossed the two dice, so they didn’t roll off the table. One die landed right in front of me, showing five red dots, and the other landed in front of Riley.
“It’s a three.” Riley beamed.
An eight!
“Dang it!” Shannon tossed the remaining cards onto the table. “Surprise, surprise. Mercy wins again.”
I applauded myself and moved my hips from side to side in a victory dance while I grabbed the last Battle-Star, which would gain me the final, winning point.
Once I placed my Battle-Star down on the table, Riley grabbed my knee and my leg jerked to the side at his touch.
I looked up at his boyish face. He formed a small crease with his brow as he cursed under his breath. Thankfully, everyone else was so preoccupied with cleaning up their game pieces
, no one had noticed.
I leaned in toward Riley. “We need to talk.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know,” I said sharply. “We still need to talk.”
“Sorry.” His voice cracked and he lowered his head. This absolutely killed me. Riley was the nicest guy I had ever known, and I was crushing his spirit.
What is wrong with me?
Shannon looked over at us. “Sorry for what?”
“Nothing,” I quickly responded on his behalf. He stood up from the table and calmly walked out the backdoor. I hesitated, deciding not to follow him.
I’ll give him a minute.
Cami looked around the room at everyone. “What’s with him?”
Lily, too, had been watching the awkward encounter, and quickly stood up. “Do you girls care for anything else to eat?” She placed the lid on the game box and gestured toward the pot of homemade chili she had cooked for us.
Lily was an amazing cook and no matter how tired or stressed she was, made sure everyone visiting her home had a home-cooked meal ready for them. She’d never had kids of her own but taking care of me as if she were my own mother was natural for her. She looked to Cami for a response.
“We’re good, Lily. Thank you,” Cami responded for the both of them as she handed Shannon her keys.
She gripped the keys and turned to face me while pulling her purse over her shoulder. “Are you joining us tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Just not too early. I want to sleep in.” I sounded whinier than I meant to. Shannon always scheduled our Thursday morning breakfast meetups for eight in the morning since we had graduated.
“I really need to go, guys. I have to put my mom to bed,” Cami said as she tapped her foot impatiently.
Cami’s mom, Laurie, was an alcoholic. I honestly couldn’t recall if I had ever seen her without a bottle of booze in her hand, often drinking herself into a senseless stupor. Consequently, Cami found herself taking on the maternal role. On way too many nights, she put her drunken mother to sleep, usually helping to clean her of her own mess.
We felt so bad for Cami. No teenager should be wasting their youth by parenting their parent. Not to mention the danger she placed her daughter in every time she got so drunk.
Cami would be heading off to Parson’s School of Design in New York soon. It would be the perfect escape, so she didn’t have to be in that house anymore. We all were thankful for that, but we weren’t sure what was going to happen to Laurie. We often talked about how we hoped she would willingly choose to go to rehab, but it was a long shot. She repeatedly told her daughter that she didn’t have a problem.
“Where do you guys want to meet?” I asked.
“Probably Tippy’s Pancake House. It just opened last weekend,” Cami answered.
I looked at her curiously. “Tippy as in Ryan ‘Tippy’ Harrison?”
“The one and only.”
Ryan was in his mid-forties. He had moved here with his grandmother Joanne about a year ago from Los Angeles, after his parents had become too old to take care of her. Los Angeles was just a little too loud and chaotic for his grandma, so they had decided to move to a smaller, quieter town. Ryan hadn’t worked since he had arrived here. He was living off royalties from a few songs he had written while living the Hollywood dream. He did tell us once he was going to start a business out here, but he wasn’t sure what his heart was leading him to do. I guess he figured it out—pancakes.
“Well, good for him. And, yes, that works,” I said.
Shannon glanced over toward the window facing the backyard where Riley was waiting for me. “Call me if you need me.” Shannon offered me an empty wish of good luck with a strained smile and a shrug, as if to express how uncomfortable she knew the moment would be for Riley and me.
“I’ll fill you in at breakfast. Riley has a job working on Miss Darla’s car, so he won’t be there.”
Cami moved past Shannon to give me a warm hug, but I tensed. I always hid my discomfort when someone touched me. Someday I hoped I’d get better, but in this moment, I wasn’t ready. After Cami released me, Shannon followed her lead, and came in for a hug. I took a deep breath in and counted to five in my head. As I was slowly letting out my breath, she released me from the suffocating embrace.
As they walked toward Cami’s car, I sent them off with a wave. Closing the door behind them, I secured the bottom lock and strolled into the kitchen to see if Lily needed help cleaning up. I knew she’d tell me not to bother, but I always offered anyway.
Lily’s 1950s-style kitchen hadn’t been upgraded much, but she liked it that way.
“It gives it character,” she had once told me.
Her walls were laced with teal blue wallpaper, original white maple cabinetry, and floral drapes framing the kitchen window above the sink. Her dining table—which proudly stood in the center of the kitchen—was the only contemporary piece of furniture in the entire house. She had found it online from an artist who worked strictly with acrylics and designed custom pieces of furniture that cost way more than my 2013 Ford Escape.
I turned to Lily, who had been scrubbing the chili off the pot with her back toward me.
“Do you need help with anything?” I asked.
Turning to face me, she said, “I’ve got this covered. Go see Riley. He’s been waiting, hun. You can’t avoid him forever.”
She was right. I was stalling. Riley had more patience with me than I ever could have with anyone. I made him feel uncomfortable because he accidentally made me feel uncomfortable, but still, he was willing to wait for me to lecture him about not touching me.
While giving her a forced smile and a nod, I moved toward the door that led to the backyard.
When I entered the backyard, I scanned the fence a few times before taking a step forward. My heart sped up as I walked toward the gazebo.
No one is out here but you and Riley. Relax.
Lily’s low, red picket fence was surrounded by garden beds she had built a few years ago to grow her own vegetables. There was a long, stamped pathway that led to the gazebo which faced the back fence, allowing us to overlook the small man-made lake behind her property. I walked down the pathway and entered the gazebo, flipping on the lights lining the roof above us.
Riley was sitting on the bench under the gazebo, looking out toward the lake. He held his gaze, watching the bright glow of moonlight on the water’s surface. Small ripples of water rolled over each other, caused by the light wind coming from the west. I sat down next to Riley and shifted my body to face in his direction.
“I’m an idiot,” he blurted, standing up the moment I sat down.
I felt all his pain as he tore himself down. This was my fault, not his.
“No, you’re not.” I felt an overwhelming wave of guilt wash over me. Riley and I could talk about anything, and I mean anything. But in that moment, I didn’t know what to say. I was upset, but also felt guilty for being upset. I was angry with myself for how I had reacted toward his touch, but also frustrated that he just wasn’t getting it. I contradicted myself and I wasn’t quite sure if I should even be around people anymore, especially my friends. They were going to see right through me and hate me, eventually.
“It’s just a habit to touch you.” The grimace on his face was too difficult for me to look at, so I turned my attention toward the lake.
“I wish it was different,” I muttered. “You were the best boyfriend any girl could have. I was lucky to have you, Riley. I’m still lucky to have you in my life. I know I sound like a broken record when I say this, but us not being together was never your fault. None of this is about you.” I held out my hand, letting him touch it. He hesitantly placed his hand on mine and I gripped it, wrapping his fingers around mine.
Breathe, Mercy. Breathe.
“I know it’s not, but it’s not yours either. It’s hers,” he said.
He didn’t have to say her name. “Hers” sent a wave of panic and anxiety coursing through my veins. “She” was m
y worst nightmare.
He sighed and gently squeezed my hand. “You know we’ve been together since we were ten years old?” He paused, smiling for a brief moment, then lowered his brow. “I realize what happened to you was horrible, but you can’t run away from the good in your life when bad things happen.” He sat down again and looked into my eyes. “I want to take care of you. I’ve always wanted to take care of you.”
Even under the dim lights above us, I saw how his bright blue eyes glistened with the tears that were threatening to fall from his eyes. A gust of wind blew his blond hair over his eyes and the wind tickled my cheeks, like a feather tickling the surface of my skin. I balled up the ends of my sweater and pulled it tighter over my body.
“I need to work out my own issues and I can’t do it while in a relationship,” I said boldly.
“You mean … while in a relationship … with me?” He moved his hand from mine and wiped his cheeks; the threatening tears were now rolling down slowly. He used his hoodie to dry off his fingers.
