Forsaken

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “Don’t,” he said, his voice harsh. “Don’t cry. I don’t mean to hurt you. It’s just…it’s just the best I can do.”

  She laughed again, this time with more genuine mirth. She pulled back so she could look into his eyes, their warm brown looking troubled and confused. He didn’t know how to reconcile her tears with her laughter. He couldn’t figure out what she was thinking.

  “Leo.” It was all she said before walking away. Just his name. And for that instant he thought his chest was going to rip wide open, leaving him bleeding at her feet. To know she was turning her back on him hurt more than he had ever thought it possibly could. Even more than the first time she had left. In all the times he’d given the “It’s not you it’s me” speech to women as a means of escaping their emotional attachments, he’d never imagined himself ever being on the other end of it. He’d never understood until that instant how horribly painful it was. How cold and callous and unsympathetic he had been when utilizing it.

  He should have turned and walked away. Scooped up his shattered pride and ego and cut his losses. But he couldn’t move. Couldn’t even breathe. He watched her move to the desk in the room, reaching for a stack of Post-it notes and a pen. She wrote something on the Post-it, stuck it onto the inside of the old, ridiculous box, then replaced the cover. Confused and numb, he took the box from her when she held it out to him. Unable to do anything else, he opened the box and read the Post-it.

  Faith loves me.

  Stunned, he read it twice more before looking up into the luminescent yellow of her eyes.

  “See?” she said. “We’re off to a very good start.”

  “I…” He was speechless. He was soaring and heart-sore and empty and full all at once. He had never felt anything like this swirling storm of emotion before in his life. He had thought he would never let anything touch him that deeply. The only thing that had ever occupied his heart had been his mother, Jackson, and Docia. It simply didn’t know how to function with the enormous emotions being stuffed into it and dragged back out of it.

  “Faith, I don’t know what I did, or where I did it…I don’t know how fate could possibly think that I deserve you.”

  She took the box from his numb fingers and laid it very gently on the table next to her, as if it truly was his heart and must be handled with all due care. And that was when he realized she would always take care of it that thoughtfully. That carefully. Not the stupid cardboard box, but the stupid thing beating in his chest.

  She opened her mouth to say something, but he ringed an arm around her waist and dragged her up against his body, squeezing her so tightly a little meep squeaked out of her. He covered her mouth with his, anchoring himself in the softness of those plush lips. He drank deeply from her, felt the way she breathed hard against him, felt the way she clutched at the fabric of his shirt at his shoulders, pulling it so tightly he could hear threads popping in protest.

  She was so alive. So strong and so damn beautiful it hurt just to think about it, never mind lay his eyes on her. How had he not seen it from the very start? How could he not have felt this feeling the very moment he’d first seen her?

  “I realized I needed to stay here. I’m just human, but Jacks and Docia need people around to protect them in daylight. That sounds like a job I can do. And it lets me stay near the people I love. I asked if you could stay too…if…if I could get you to, that is. We’re building something here, a force of Nightwalkers and humans…a force needed if we’re going to fight Apep. You would be a valuable part of that.”

  Faith laughed at him. He was pitching the idea at her like he was trying to sell it. As if she would want to go anywhere where he wasn’t.

  “I think that’s a perfect idea,” she said, smiling through another rush of tears. “Just…perfect. Now make love to me.”

  “Very well,” he said, sweeping her back up against his body and kissing her so deeply she was breathless. “Your wish, as always, is granted.”

  EPILOGUE

  Apep was eating banana peppers. For some reason he was craving the hottest, spiciest foods imaginable. It was ridiculously delightful. Cravings meant that his pregnancy was well on its way and was advancing quite properly.

  It was a disappointment to have lost Chatha, but there were always more lackeys to be had. The Wraiths, for instance. Although, none would quite have Chatha’s special touch. But he would avenge Chatha one day. Actually, Chatha had nothing to do with it. He would set those people down a peg before they got too cocky. Yes, he would. But this time he would take the time to prepare and plan. After all, he couldn’t just rush in with him being in such a delicate condition. He might have to wait until after the pregnancy altogether before doing something about it. Then he and his son could lay waste to all of them. They could rout out every Nightwalker on the planet!

  In the meantime, he was going to look into how to reverse his curse. Yes. It was a very good idea to be prepared should the need arise.

  A very good idea indeed.

  BY JACQUELYN FRANK

  The World of Nightwalkers

  Forbidden

  Forever

  Forsaken

  Three Worlds

  Seduce Me in Dreams

  Seduce Me in Flames

  Nightwalkers

  Jacob

  Gideon

  Elijah

  Damien

  Noah

  Adam

  Shadowdwellers

  Ecstasy

  Rapture

  Pleasure

  The Gatherers

  Hunting Julian

  Stealing Kathryn

  Other Novels

  Drink of Me

  Anthologies

  Nocturnal

  Supernatural

  For Darynda, my writing buddy.

  You make me work hard

  to keep up with you.

  Love you, even when

  you karate-chop my larynx!

  Read on for an exciting sneak peek of

  FORGED

  By Jacquelyn Frank

  The next book in

  The World of Nightwalkers series

  “It is not an ugly monument of metal with no purpose. It’s an ugly monument of metal that’s allowing us to carry on this interference-free phone call.” That small bit of logic released a tirade of venom about the evils of modern technology from the other end of that lovely connection and Katrina Haynes rolled her eyes heavenward, as if that were going to help deal with her mother for whom logic was a fluid thing. The ugly cell tower they’d just placed on her mother’s neighbor’s property on the mountain above was a blight and an eyesore and entirely not necessary said she-who-was-infamous-for-bitching-about-dropped-phone-calls and she-who-was-attached-at-the-hip-to- her-barely-understood-smartphone. Her mother had to have the best, whether she could use it to its potential or not.

  Katrina’s own smartphone had been a gift from her mother for Christmas, otherwise she’d still be making do with her much beloved flip phone, and being quite content with it. Although, she had to admit to an Angry Birds addiction.

  “Well Mother, then you’ll have to be content with looking down the mountain and not up the mountain where the cell tower is. After all, isn’t that what a vista is all about? Looking down around you?”

  She whistled sharply, looking down her own drive to where Karma had disappeared. She exhaled, her breath clouding on the deep sigh. It was cold and crisp, just the way she liked it, and as she looked down at her own vista, a breathtaking view of the valley and the small town of Stone Gorge, Washington, where she lived, she guessed she’d probably be a little pissed off, too, if something marred her view in any direction.

  “Momma, Karma’s disappeared again. I’m going to have to call you back.”

  “That dog,” her mother tsked. She didn’t like the thundering Newfoundland dog. Her mother said it was because the dog reminded her too much of a black bear rather than a dog, and being so close to the wilderness where bears often came down and
ravaged her mother’s birdfeeders, Katrina could understand the trepidation. Although Karma was a bounding bundle of soft, sweet, slobbering devotion and wouldn’t hurt a fly.

  Kat said her goodbyes and hung up the phone before moving down the steeply sloping drive whistling again for her dog. But as she came around one of the drive’s many curves, she found the dog snuffling into the thick leaf fall left over from that autumn’s annual shedding. Karma’s big body was blocking her view of whatever it was she had found. Fearing she’d come up with a skunk, Kat hurried forward.

  “Karma, come out of there!” she ordered sharply.

  And that was when she saw it. Him. It. She couldn’t decide and she was frozen in place, rooted with fear and shock, her heart pounding with sudden madness in her chest. He was probably the largest man she had ever seen in her life, and living in nearly-wild mountain country that was saying something. He was almost twice as big as the gigantic dog snuffling at him. But the most shocking thing about him was not that he was clearly nude in the slush of the last snowfall that was half melted yet, but that half his skin was gray, like the coarseness of a stone, and half was dusky, perhaps deeply tanned or maybe racially swarthy with an acre of sculpted muscle. He was lying on his stomach, seemingly dead.

  Then he groaned, proving himself alive, and rolled onto his back, and all her fear melted away when she saw a copious amount of bright-red blood. She lurched forward, shoving her dog aside, as she dropped to her knees and reached out to touch him. Her hands fell onto his shoulders, one of which was chilled human skin, the other of which was as rough as stone. But that couldn’t be, she thought in some corner of her mind. Skin simply did not turn to stone. Perhaps it was a full thickness burn or some other kind of injury…But the sectioning of skin to stone fluctuated under her touch and suddenly the shoulder opposite turned to stone and the other to flesh beneath her trembling hands, robbing her completely of any further excuses.

  But with that change came a sudden gush of blood down the ridges of his defined abdomen before it dripped heavily into the snow, much of which was already stained a melting red.

  “Don’t…move,” she said, fumbling for her phone. “I’ll call for help.”

  “No!” He reached out to grab her by her front, her thick coat suddenly feeling like nothing in the grip of his fist as he jerked her forward. All of a sudden she felt like something fragile, like he could snap her in two at his whim. “You see what I am. I canna control it. The pain…they would see what I am.” He looked up then, searching the dark predawn skies. She and her mother had always spoke in the freakishly early hours before dawn, and they always called each other through a cup of tea and coffee, respectively, touching base and bookending their days to the sound of each other’s voice. “I need shelter. Please. I canna be caught out in the daylight.”

  Katrina sat there on her knees, the wet snow melted by her body warmth seeping into her jeans, frozen with fear and indecision. In the end it was the bright red of another gush of blood that galvanized her.

  “This is crazy, this is crazy,” she said under her breath in a fast, heated whisper. “Okay,” she said so he could hear her. “I’ll bring you inside. But…that doesn’t mean I won’t call for someone. If you try to hurt me…my dog will attack you.”

  “Oh,” he said, his chiseled lips turning into a wry smile, “the dog that was just merrily licking my face?”

  Crap. Damn it, Karma, she thought with heat.

  “W-well…I-I’ll scream or call for help.”

  “Thanks for the warning. Once we’re inside I’ll snap your neck to shut you up.” She gasped as he gave her another wry smile. “Doona tell the villain what you’re planning tae do when you doona know what he’s capable of. I willna hurt you. I need your help. And fast. I’m getting weaker by the second and you willna be able tae move me if I become dead weight. You’re far too small.”

  He mentioned her smallness almost as if it were a terrible failing on her part and that got her back up. People had treated her like this tiny little missish thing all of her life and frankly it just served to piss her off. She was small, no doubt about that, but she could pack a punch if necessary. And after his warning about keeping her plans secret, she bit her lip to keep herself from saying as much.

  Instead she reached out to help him up. It was clearly all he could do to gain his feet, and she realized just how critically wounded he was. But she couldn’t see the damage just yet with all that blood obscuring her ability to determine the worst of it. Despite his concerns over her diminutive shortcomings, he leaned heavily into her all the same, making the disparateness of their heights seem suddenly more obvious. As they trudged up the sloping drive she began to fear her ability to get him to safety. Her muscles began to burn under the strain of climbing with his significant weight against her just as the house came into view through the thickness of the pines.

  “How much…”

  Farther, he wanted to know. The blood coming from him was soaking the left side of her clothing and she knew why he couldn’t speak. He was using all of his focus to stay on his feet.

  “It’s here. Right here. Not much farther. You can do it,” she encouraged him. It seemed to give him strength and he lifted his weight farther onto his own feet and propelled them forward quickly. At the walk of the house, however, he stumbled and went down, staining her stone walkway with his blood. “Come on,” she said, fearing he couldn’t go farther and, like he had said, she wouldn’t be strong enough to get him into the house. She glanced up at the sky, the dawn doing nothing to lighten it because of the bitter cloud cover heavy with snow. Worse still, the wind was picking up, promising a blustering and brutal blizzard.

  But the weather was a ways off and it was the least of her worries. Except, a storm could cut her off from any help, and she would be helpless to him…

  But right then it was he who was helpless to her, and that galvanized her into action.

  “Up!” she commanded, yanking at the arm he’d lain across her shoulders. “Get up. Only a little farther. The dawn is coming,” she warned him, not knowing why that should trouble him so much. Maybe it was the coming storm that worried him. Rightly so. Washington was known for some mighty mean snowstorms. Especially at this altitude.

  She pulled him up and he got his feet under himself in what she suspected was his final act of strength. They stumbled to the door and she hastily juggled him and the doorknob, his weight on her making her fumble at it. Finally it gave way and they staggered into the house.

  “Somewhere dark. No light. Protected.” His words jolted out of him on groans of obvious pain. Far be it from her to argue.

  “I know the feeling,” she muttered.

  She went for the nearest bedroom, which turned out to be the master suite. All the other rooms were on the second floor and she knew navigating stairs was out of the question for them both. Even without his weight, the burning muscles of her legs couldn’t possibly have gotten her up them.

  “That’s it,” she said with a grunt, “I’m getting my fat ass in gear and getting on the treadmill. In the spring it’ll be better…a few treks up and down the mountain, right?”

  After much grunting and bumping into walls, they made it into her bedroom and fell onto the bed together, his weight flattening her until she could barely breathe. She shoved at him, but he was barely conscious and she realized that the weird stone thing was once again shifting in and out of being on his body…if that were even possible. Hell, it had to be possible. She was watching it with her own eyes. Feeling it against her own skin. Before he turned to stone completely and she found herself trapped under a ten-ton statue, she strained to push him off her with what remained of her strength. But as much as she shoved at him, she knew it was his help alone that allowed him roll to off her.

  She wriggled out from under him and gained her feet by the bed, panting hard for breath. Damn it, she thought inanely as she saw him lying big and bleeding in her bed, she really loved that quilt set and she
was never going to be able to get the blood out.

  Thinking he was unconscious, she reached out and poked a finger against the stone-looking skin on his arm. She couldn’t believe it, but it really was stone! A rough stone like that of an unpolished statue. How in the hell was that possible? It couldn’t be…but it was. She was feeling it right under her fingertips.

  “No outside light. Please,” he said, startling her. Begging her. “The daylight will make it impossible for you to help me, and I will die. I promise you, I will die.”

  She nodded hastily, reaching out to give him an awkward pat of reassurance on the large, curving muscle of his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ve already closed the storm shutters.” And started a fire in the fireplace that warmed both the master bedroom and the living room with shared sides, its warm light dancing over them both. That and the bedside light was enough.

  He exhaled then, a long shuddering breath of his final strength bleeding out of him, and suddenly she remembered what all of that blood meant and forgot about her damaged clothes and quilts. She ran for her bathroom, yanking out the supplies she had squirreled away in dribs and drabs over the years just in case…well, just in case. And now, it was in case. She found a basin and loaded it up with gauze, iodine, and 2.0 vicryl sutures. She belatedly washed her hands and snapped on a pair of purple nitrile gloves, even though she was already drenched in his blood. She would work better with clean hands and the traction of the gloves.

  She hastened to the bed, moving up to him and hitting both of the bedside lights. She turned him and realized there was no more stone skin on him. He was entirely a flesh-and-blood man. For some reason that comforted her a little. But the idea that that could change at any moment sat heavy in her thoughts. Suddenly she felt the burning presence of her phone in her back pocket. She should call for help, never mind his protestations. He was out like a light and there was nothing he could do about it, he was just that weak. But he had surprised her thus far with his ability to power through his weakness, and even if she called for help, it could take anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour before anyone would make it up the mountain to her. This was what she had feared, and the only thing she had feared, about living alone so remotely. She had imagined things like this, evil men stumbling upon her house and she alone and helpless.