Copyright 2015 Scarlett Dawn
First Edition
All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of these publications may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the Author. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Editing by Rogena Mitchell-Jones Manuscript Service
Cover by J.M Rising Horse Creations
A huge thank you goes out to my beta readers, Jennifer and Sylvia.
You both rock so much!
Copyright
Acknowledgment
Kenna's Story
Juliet's Story
Susan's Story
About Fan. X
About the Author
Preview of Gargoyle
Preview of the Cold Mark Series
Preview of King Hall
Age 13
The screech of tires and crunch of metal outside had me running to the front window. I dropped my overnight bag on our couch and pressed my knees against the cushions, leaning over the sofa. My hands parted the curtains.
An unwelcome view was on our street.
I groaned and turned my head to the side, shouting over my shoulder, “Mom! Some idiot just rear-ended our car!” The trunk had been open for our bags—in preparation for our monthly visit to our cabin. The vulnerable part presently rested on top of my Mom’s car, and the bumper was flush with the now-out-turned back wheels. “They fucked it up bad.”
“Watch it, Kenna,” Mom interjected, rushing into the living room. She dropped her own luggage and glanced at her watch. Her white brows furrowed, and she adjusted her glittery pink wig. At least it wasn’t the green one. The fake hair on it looked like it came straight off a horse’s ass. She yanked the front door open and stared outside…and then muttered under her breath, “Fuck.”
I smirked and crossed my arms. “Watch it, Mom.”
The door slammed shut.
When her eyes turned to me, I froze. I lifted my hands and stated, “I was just kidding. I’m sorry.”
She gazed above my head, her eyes unfocused. “Kenna…”
“What?” I crossed my arms again. “I said I was sorry.”
She waved her right hand absently, her attention still above me. At the clock above the mantle. “State the rules.” Her eyes swung to the closed door, and she messed with the fake pink crap on her head again. “Now.”
My mom was crazy. “Really? Right now?” I rolled my eyes, my voice dry.
“The rules, Kenna!”
I inhaled heavily. The words that came from my mouth had been ingrained in my head since I could remember. Insane words. “Never have sex before I’m twenty. Never open a black wooden door. Never kill anyone—even accidentally. And once I’ve had my period, never be around a man on the night of a full moon.” My mom was cray-cray…but I loved her anyway. Pink hair and all.
My mom nodded once. Efficient and short. Her eyes were still on the closed door. “I need you to do something.” I scratched my left arm, my regard caught on her chest. It was pumping hard, her breathing labored. “We won’t be going to the cabin tonight.”
“Um…duh.” Our transportation was wrecked.
Her dazzling green eyes snapped to my identical green gaze. I scratched at my arm again. She had a predatory gleam in her peepers, her back straightening as she eyed me. As if she were on guard. “Listen to me. This won’t make sense, but you need to do exactly as I say.”
I snorted and forced a chuckle, my bones stiffening in awareness. “When do you ever make sense—”
“Shut it,” Mom snapped.
Yes, something was definitely wrong. Mom never yelled at me. We didn’t have that type of relationship.
She glanced at the door. To the clock. Then back to me. “Just do what I say this time. Just this once, dammit.”
I swallowed and stuffed my hands into my pockets. My tone was respectful. “Okay.”
A hard knock jarred the front door. But she didn’t glance at it.
Instead, she placed a hard hand on the door, as if she were holding the person out.
Her voice was whisper soft. “Go out the back door, and then go out the back gate. Follow the white roses. The flowers will lead you to a love tree. A white love tree.” Another peek at the clock. “At this time, you’ll hear music if you get lost. Follow it. Once you’ve found the love tree, step between the trees.” She pressed harder on the door as another bang announced the—obviously—unwelcome visitor. “Don’t be scared with what you find on the other side. The people there are pure. Good people. You can trust them.” She jerked her head to the back of the house. “I’ll come to get you as soon as I can, but it may be tomorrow morning by the time I arrive.” Another head jerk. “Go, Kenna. Now.”
I stared, my lips pinching. I pulled out my cellphone. “I’m gonna call the cops.” I pointed at the front door. “Whoever’s out there is scaring you.”
Her spine stiffened and she slammed a sharp finger in my direction. “If anyone is calling the cops, it’ll be me. Now…go!” Green eyes narrowed. “Or I’m taking away all your electronics for three months.”
My thumb paused on the screen. I peered up at her. My words were so slow. “Mom, past all the other weirdness you said, you want me to stay the night with strangers. Do you understand how wrong that sounds…is?”
“I know them,” she huffed, placing both her hands on the door. “And I know these jerks outside. I’d rather you be with the other group. Not here.”
My thumb hovered over the screen. “You sure you don’t want me to call the cops?”
“I’m sure.” With both hands on the door, she lifted her left leg back, pointing it at the back of the house. She waggled it in the air. “Get going. I have to deal with these idiots.”
“Okay.” I scratched my arm and pocketed my phone. “Call the police if you need them, though.”
Her expression was pure exasperation. “I am the mother here.”
I grabbed my overnight bag from the couch and walked through the living room. “I know. I know.” As I shut the back door to our house, I heard the front door open.
Mom’s words were muffled, but still loud. “Are you the morons who fucked up my car?”
I grinned and raced across the back yard. “Watch it, Mom.”
I was following a path of white roses. I couldn’t believe it myself. The ridiculousness of the situation wasn’t lost on me. Most people thought my mom was my older sister when they met her—because she appeared so young—but they didn’t know just how weird she could be.
But she had never led me astray.
Or down the wrong path.
I snickered quietly. A ‘path’ of flowers tonight.
The sun hovered between the trees, just on the horizon. It would disappear soon, and all I would have to light my way would be the moon. The full moon. Mom and I always went to the cabin on the night the moon was the fullest. Away from any men.
My bag rubbed against my side as I walked quickly. I kept my phone in my hand, just in case any creepers were out in the woods tonight. I usually loved this area, but tonight was different. This night my mom had been frightened by who she saw at the front door…and I had left her there.
Alone.
Just because she told me to didn’t make it any easier.
Sometimes adults were stupid.
I kicked at one flower, the dirt flutteri
ng up into the air.
I stared at the crushed white petals.
Lifted my phone.
Then placed it back down by my side.
I wouldn’t call her. She had never made a mistake before. And that was saying a lot. My classmates’ parents were always fucking up. The stories I heard at my private school gave me nightmares on occasion. Like real live nightmares. The kind that woke me in a cold sweat.
But my mom? No. She was always right in the end.
I kept walking.
White rose after white rose led me down a small hill. I pulled on a low-hanging tree branch to swing over a tiny stream. Up the flowers went on an incline. I dug my tennis shoes into the ground and used my hands to climb. Grass stuck to my fingers and dirt wedged under my fingernails.
I brushed my hands off on my jeans as I landed at the top.
I blinked. Glanced left and right.
All I saw were more trees in the setting sun. And the flowers.
But now I heard a gentle tune on the breeze.
It sounded like a flute. Lots of flutes.
Mom had tried to get me to play one of those in the school band.
And…she hadn’t been pleased when I’d quit.
And…she wasn’t pleased now that I had a boyfriend—thanks to all of my free time.
Actually, she wasn’t pleased a lot of the time with my choices.
We agreed to disagree.
I tilted my head to the side. There was a particular tune that was haunting inside all of the others. I could single it out while the rest mashed together in painstaking revelry of the unknown.
I followed the unforgettable tune, my shoes trampling the white roses as I trekked through the thick brush, the crushed white petals left in my wake. My feet picked up in speed until I was in a full sprint. My bag bounced heavily against my side, and I knew I would have a bruise.
But that song…
I could almost touch it, the melody was so severe. It hovered around my body like a simmering flame from a campfire, heady and inviting. It pulled me. The music guided me, tempting me to find it.
“I’m coming,” I whispered.
I was just as crazy as my mom—talking to music.
I shoved through two bushes. I stopped.
“Maybe she’s not so crazy,” I mumbled. My attention spanned the enormous white love tree before me. Its roots climbed from the soil, coiling and dangerous. I took care not to trip over them before grabbing onto the lower bank where the tree split into two. The branches full of beautiful leaves curved up and over the gaping hole, in a lover’s embrace. I shoved my torso up…and tumbled over the trunks onto the other side.
I grunted and grabbed my bag.
Absently, I flicked leaves off my clothing.
But I only had eyes for the…castle.
“What in the hell?” I hissed, jumping to my feet. I barely noticed my legs were still moving toward the haunting song, my gaze glued to the freaking castle. Trees outlined the property I had stumbled onto, a massive evergreen lawn surrounding the out-of-place fairy-tale home. “I’ve never seen you before.”
Understatement.
Massive spiraling pillars shot up into the air on the four corners of the castle, the gold at the tips glinting in the last rays of light. Windows splattered the sides of the structure, and open doors could be seen at the ground level, inviting any stray animal or person inside.
I rubbed at my eyes to make sure I was seeing this right.
My vision didn’t change.
It was a castle.
Not more than a mile behind my home.
My house in Arlway, Minnesota.
Not England.
Or some other foreign place where they actually had castles.
“That’s freaky-fine,” I muttered. I lifted my cell phone and snapped as many pictures as I could while I raced across the lawn. Toward the back of the property. To the music. My pictures were going to be screwed up from the jostling.
But I needed to touch the music.
“Yep. I’m just as weird as my mom.” My arms pumped as I ran. I peered off to the right and saw a man with white hair dancing as he played a flute. But I didn’t stop. Though his music did as he caught sight of me, his mouth gaping. I kept moving, my body still in motion.
His wasn’t the song I was looking for.
And he wasn’t the first man I passed in my frantic dash across the massive yard. There were white-haired men playing their flutes, hidden amongst the trees or in gazebos. All were extremely talented. But none were who I was searching for.
I hopped over the last guy’s legs as I entered the trees into the back of the forest.
He yelped in surprise from his seated position.
His shock didn’t last long, though.
His unique melody charged the air as soon as I disappeared into the shadowed land.
I swiped at small branches.
Ducked under the larger ones.
The music…the music…I could see it. Literally.
White tracers, like smeared paint drops, hovered in the darkness before me, leading me to my destination. My fevered flesh cooled as I darted straight into the cadence of life. Because it was life. The currents on the breeze rushed into my veins, fortifying my tired limbs on their course.
I would find it.
I had to find it.
I needed to find it.
I stumbled on a rock but righted myself.
Only to be jerked to a stop by a strong arm curled around my stomach.
I kicked out. I was so close. I could feel it.
The heavy grunt from my captor didn’t distract me. His arm loosened from my direct hit to his shin, and my feet were moving again. I reached out my right hand, running my fingers through the white music surrounding me. I twirled in a circle, giggling as the rightness of the night gripped my soul.
Until I halted.
My knees smacked the soft grass. My hands were not my own.
I pressed my fingers to the man’s forehead lying on the ground. It was his music that I desired. The flute was pressed to his lips as he played his song.
My previous captor stopped directly beside us, his words quiet. “Oh. This is gonna be fun.”
Eyes the color of black onyx shot open.
The man I was touching.
Our eyes met.
The white power floating in the air arced down, aiming straight at the two of us.
Captor-man jumped back, landing hard against a tree.
The music scissored straight through my chest. The man’s own music attacked him too, shooting into his torso. The melody connected us, a line of pure perfection.
But…it was so much.
My mouth opened as a silent scream left my lips.
The white turned to black as my eyes closed.
My limp body fell on top of the man before me.
Someone was lightly tapping my right cheek. My eyes shot open, and I grabbed the unfamiliar hand. I blinked quickly in the darkness, my vision gradually adjusting. I stared up into captor-man’s blue eyes. “Um…who the hell are you?”
His white brows rose, and he readily released his hand from mine. “I’m Randor.”
I still stared. “Why am I on my back?” I tapped the ground. “Outside.”
“You fainted. Outside.” He tapped my cheek again and then altered his position to lean over the man who was lying next to me. The flute player. He was out cold. Randor was much less gentle with him, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him. “Wake up!”
The man didn’t move.
I leaned up on my elbows but quickly lay back down. My head spun in a disgusting swirl. I swallowed down the bile, my voice choked with it. “He’s not dead, is he?”
Randor stopped his shaking of possibly-dead-man. He glanced down at me as I placed my right hand on my forehead…and he laughed. It was all consuming, his knees even wobbling on the ground. “No. He’s not dead.” His eyebrows lifted again, eyeing me. His gaze lingered on my h
air. “It’s kind of hard to kill an immortal, kid.”
“Uh.” I must have hit my head hard when I fell. “Come again?”
“It’s kind of hard to kill an immortal.”
“What? Did you say…immortal?”
“Yeah.” He shook not-dead-man. “That’s what I said.”
My attention lifted to the tree limbs hanging over us. “I bet you’re friends with my mom.”
He chuckled quietly. “I’m sure I know who she is.” He paused. “What is her name, by the way?”
“Juliet.”
“Last name?”
“Julius.”
He nodded once. “She’s definitely one of ours, but the first name doesn’t ring a bell. I’ll check the database…,” he jostled helluva-sleeping-man, “…as soon as I wake him.”
“Randor, why are you shaking me so?” Sleeping-beauty slapped at the hands on his shoulders, his tone irate. “Wait. Why am I on the ground? Outside.”
Randor snickered. “You fainted. Outside.”
Still too dizzy to move much, I lifted the flute lying between the man and me. I held it in front of his eyes—that were glaring at Randor—and asked respectfully, “Would you mind playing that song again?” My brows furrowed. “Though without the special effects that you guys put on. Something went haywire.” I patted at my chest with my free hand, making sure there were no singe marks on my shirt. “I think we got electrocuted or something. There may be a loose wire around here.”
The man froze, and then shot up to sit straight. His right hand went to his forehead, and he braced his body with his other arm. But his black onyx eyes stared down at me with an intensity that made me decidedly uncomfortable.
Too late, it really occurred to me that…I was lying on the ground. Someplace I didn’t know. With people who were strangers. And they were men who looked college-age. In a dark forest.
I dropped the flute and rolled away.
My stomach turned with me, but I kept the puke at bay.
I grabbed my bag and managed to climb to my feet on shaky legs. “Actually, never mind. I think I’m going to…go.” To the castle. I never thought I would imagine that. Much less, it be in my reality. This night was weird as hell. “My mom will be here soon to pick me up.”
Blood Tree: Silver Edition Page 1