The Ravana Clan Vampires: a Young Adult Paranormal Romance (Complete Series)

by E. M. Moore

  “Just listen,” he said, his hands coming up. “It was back when Jake’s father died. He was in the service, do you remember that?”

  I shook my head. It was a long, long time ago.

  “Maybe we should do this some other time,” Connor said. “She looks—”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I want to know.”

  Stephan knelt in front of me. “When Jake’s father died in the service, his mother went through a depression. To look at Jake reminded her of her husband. It was during this time that she promised him to my mom because she couldn’t take care of him on her own. You and your mother were over there all the time, weren’t you? Your mom never let you go over there by yourself, do you remember that?”

  I nodded. Whenever I had memories of Jake, my mom was right there, too, but that wasn’t unusual was it?

  “You trust us, right Ariana?” Stephan asked.

  “With my life.”

  He nodded. “Good.” He took a deep breath and started again. “Jake’s mother couldn’t take care of him. She wasn’t mentally healthy enough which was why your mom was always there, and which was why she had promised him to our mom. But, when Isabelle went to get him, Jake’s mom wouldn’t give him up.”

  “A trip,” I said suddenly. “That’s where we were going.” Little pieces of the puzzle started to click together. Mom had woken me up early which was why I fought with her over the pigtails. I was tired. Then, we were in the car, and they told us we were going on vacation. Jake and I were so excited. I remembered my mom peeking back and snapping that picture. Then, the car sped up when Mrs. Lawrence’s phone rang. We were going faster and faster until Mom told her to slow down or pull the car over.

  “Mom didn’t mean for anything to happen, Ariana. You have to believe us. She said she went to Jake’s house again, and you guys weren’t there. She was promised him. It would be like someone stealing her baby. He was her baby. We’d been talking about our new brother for weeks. Isabelle called Jake’s mom. When she didn’t answer, she ran after the car, hoping she’d be able to track it down. That was when she heard it…the accident.”

  I cringed, remembering the sickening crunch and metal on asphalt. It wasn’t a pretty noise at all. It was horrific.

  “She tried to help, but…”

  “Your mother was already gone, Ri. On impact. Jake’s mom died shortly after.”

  “She took Jake,” I said, now knowing why I could never find him in my dreams. It was because he wasn’t there. Then, those months afterward when I asked about him, and no one knew anything, they weren’t lying like I thought they were. I thought they just didn’t want me to see him again, but that wasn’t the case. He went to the Ravanas. “Where is he?” I asked, my voice high. “Why isn’t he here?”

  A tear slipped down Stephan’s cheek. Oh no. This was their loss. Our loss.

  “What happened?”

  “Trev—Jake,” Nic said again, shaking his head. “He didn’t take to being a vampire very well. Remember how you met Alex Short at the party, and he told you he could remember certain things, but not others? It’s the same for all vampires. Some of us remember a lot. Some of us remember nothing. It all depends.”

  “Jake remembered everything from his previous life,” Christian clarified. “Including you.”

  “Me?” I asked, my voice disbelieving. “He remembered me?”

  All around, tentative smiles appeared. “To be honest, he wouldn’t shut up about you,” Nic said. “When we got older, we sought you out. We found you. We looked after you for a long time.”

  Emotion rose up my throat. Me? Someone had been watching out for me all that time and I hadn’t known. The tears came quicker now.

  “Each of us saw something in you that turned us into Jake,” Stephan said, almost smiling now. “Soon, all we wanted to do was go check on you. Make sure you were okay. You were such a fighter, still are.”

  “How long?” I asked. I was seeing my life in a whole different light now. There were people that cared. One of them was Jake, and the rest of them were standing in front of me right now.

  “Twelve.”

  I gasped. Twelve. For six years they’d looked after me and I had no idea. “What changed? What happened to Jake?”

  My voice cracked, and they looked pained. “There was just something in Jake that didn’t take to being a vampire,” Christian said. “His body almost refused the change. At first it was just mentally, then at the end, it was physically too. He’s the first vampire to ever die of natural causes.”

  “Natural causes? That’s not possible,” I said, searching for another answer. They were like superheroes. They had super strength, super everything. They were practically indestructible. “The only way vampires can die is from a stake.”

  Stephan squeezed my hand. His glassy eyes blinked. “It’s not. Trust me, I saw it with my own eyes. He just deteriorated right there in front of us. He was a shell of nothing.”

  “But you guys can’t die,” I said, voicing my disbelief. “You’re immortal.”

  Christian licked his lips, his voice thick. “No one knows what happened. They’d never heard of it before, but all of us were with him until the end, and we’ll tell you the same thing. He just withered away. He was fourteen.”

  Stephan wiped at his face. Nic looked away, staring at the wall as he said, “After that, you were like a lifeline for us. All we did was follow you around and make sure nothing bad happened to you. You had a shit life, Ri. One day, we kind of all just got together and realized we wanted you here with us. We used to talk about it when we were younger, but of course, it just couldn’t be done. It was just a dream we imagined sometimes. Well, as we got older, we decided to say, fuck it. When Lex announced she was retiring, we came up with the plan. We insisted on having an outside guard brought in, claiming that we couldn’t trust anyone on the inside.”

  “Which is true,” Christian tacked on.

  “That is true, but the main reason was because we wanted you here with us. We’ve always wanted you here with us. All of us,” Nic said, bringing his arms up to gesture around the room.

  Images floated in and out of my head. For so long after the accident, I’d thought I lost everything. I didn’t have my mother. My best friend just disappeared. If it wasn’t for them, I’d still be alone. I wouldn’t know there was someone else out there looking after me who cared. If Jake hadn’t told them about me, if he hadn’t remembered our bond, I might still be in that shitty apartment just scraping by, missing my four walls, missing that freedom that I dreamt about, but was sure would never happen to me.

  I put the picture back on the nightstand. “Thank you,” I said, forcing down the rush of emotion overwhelming me. “I’m glad you told me.”

  The guys all looked at one another, surprise etched into their faces. Connor moved forward. “You’re not mad?”

  I smiled at the shocked look on his face. “No. Do you want me to be?” I chuckled when his mouth dropped open. “What is there to be mad at? You just gave me my childhood friend back. Now I know what happened to him. Now I know that his love for me brought me here with all of you. Now I know that all those years I felt alone, you were out there somewhere watching over me. That’s like…a gift.”

  Christian shot forward. My back hit the bed, and he was on top of me, stealing my breath away with a kiss. Then, he was gone, and Nicolai was there. His lips sealed onto mine, making me swim with emotion.

  “Alright, my turn,” Connor said. Nic barely moved before Connor’s ocean blue eyes stared down at me. He pressed his lips to mine and my eyebrows rose into my hair. The pure relief on their faces was evident.

  He pulled away and then there was Stephan. He grabbed the back of my head and kissed me senseless. He pulled away, his chest heaving in front of him. “We were so scared to tell you.”

  “We thought you were going to hate us,” Connor said.

  “Well, I just thought she’d be pissed for a little while,” Nicolai countered.

>   Christian sighed. “She has every reason in the world to escape us, yet she keeps sticking around…” He looked at me in awe.

  “You guys don’t listen very well, do you? If I don’t have you, I’m nothing. Maybe you weren’t looking hard enough when you used to look after me. I was alone. Always was. Sure, sometimes I lived with other families, but they never made it into my heart. Not like you guys. I wish all of you would realize that and trust me more. You’re so scared I’m going to run away or figure out this is too hard and leave, but I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to fight for my world. I’m going to fight for what I think is right. You can tell me anything, and it won’t affect my decision to stay or leave because leaving isn’t an option. I’ve found my home.”

  The guys all tackled hugged me. There were arms and legs and their rich, musky scents. Cocooned under them, I’d never felt so surrounded in love before.

  Maybe the only thing that would’ve been more perfect was if Jake was still alive, or if they saved me from my life earlier so I could’ve actually been around to say goodbye to him. They would’ve saved me from having to ask that ‘Why’ question over and over and over again. Why me?

  Not anymore. My whys were on top of me, filling me with nothing but the deepest love I’d ever known.

  A woman’s voice cleared her throat. “Boys…”

  18

  Everyone froze, then they were flying off me, landing on their feet across the room. I sat up quickly, smoothing my hair down and making sure no skin was showing anywhere as Isabelle Ravana stepped into Jake’s room. She eyed all five of us, her eyebrow arched high up her forehead. Her face was red, and she had the same unnatural lilt to her I’d noticed when she was at the Council meeting. “Is this your idea of being discrete?”

  The princes all looked at the floor except for Christian. “What’s going on? Are they still meeting downstairs?”

  Her already angular jaw tightened. “You would know if you were down there, wouldn’t you?”

  Connor stepped forward. “It was my fault. I wanted to get Ariana safe.”

  “Trevor’s bedroom is safe?”

  Nicolai walked up and put his hands on his mother’s shoulders. He was at least a head taller than her. She instantly relaxed. “We’re sorry, okay? We weren’t being smart, we weren’t even thinking. It just freaked us out when Checkov started—”

  “I understand that, Nicolai. What good are you doing up here though? You have so much say down there instead you leave me and your father to fight your battles. I need all four of you down there right now. If you want her, you fight for her. You don’t go running away from your problems. We’re Ravanas.” Her hands turned to fists at her sides. “We fight.”

  My eyes widened just watching her. She was fierce and protective and caring all at the same time. She was the kind of person I wanted to be. The kind of person I liked to think my mom was before she’d died. She’d evidently helped out Jake’s mom quite a bit. She probably didn’t even know what she’d gotten herself into.

  Stephan hurried to my side. “But—”

  “I’ll stay here with her, Son. Go. All of you. Now.”

  They turned to look at me before they left. I always hated to see them go, but this was exactly what I was telling them before. They were of so much use here sticking up for what they believed in. We would be of no use running away from our problems.

  Isabelle shook her head once Stephan pulled the door closed behind him. “I love them dearly, but they need to be smarter.” She looked around the room, a sad smile skittered across her face as she looked around.

  “Did you know why they brought me here?” I asked tentatively, not wanting to anger her, but I really wanted to know. I related to Isabelle Ravana in many ways. I’d like to think she knew about me before.

  She nodded. “All five of them were enamored with you from the start. I couldn’t keep them away from you before, and apparently, I can’t keep them away from you now. They were always sneaking off, going to check on you. When Trevor died, it got worse. They were gone all the time then. It was almost as if it brought the boys together again to see you. Besides the family link, yours was the only other.”

  “And Gregor?”

  “Of course, he knows. He doesn’t agree with it as much as I do. He thinks you’ll be the ruin of them.” She paused. “Not because you can’t fight, but because it takes time to change things, people’s ideals especially. My boys are stubborn, and they won’t wait. Now that you’re here, I’ve seen them each fall harder and harder. It’s only a matter of time before something happens. Especially when they don’t think before they act.”

  I picked at a spot on the bed. Isabelle moved toward me, and I scooted over, so she could sit next to me. “Checkov is going to get his way, isn’t he? I heard the audience, and they were scared. When fear comes into the picture, people don’t think with clear heads.”

  “Exactly what I’ve just been saying about my boys,” she said, sighing. “And yes, to answer your question, I think he’ll get his way for now.”

  “Can’t Gregor do anything?”

  “There’s one thing we’ve learned about power over the centuries, Ariana. You can’t abuse it. The moment you start abusing it, that’s the moment you lose all trust. Sure, he could overrule just Philippe, but what if he worms his way into getting the majority on his side? What good would it do to overrule him? They would never listen to a thing Gregor said again.”

  I turned toward her and grabbed her hand. “If that happens, you need to keep them away from me. I’ll go back to The Fort alone. I’ll go through the training and finish at the top. But to save all of us, they need to stay away.”

  Isabelle blinked, her pupils dilating. After a few seconds, she focused on me. “Did they tell you about me? That I can sense things in people?”

  I gave her a funny look. I so wasn’t expecting that. “No…”

  “I have a gift, Ariana. When I come into contact with people, I can sense things about them. That’s why I could tell the other day that Connor had started to phase.” She looked at me and winked. A wave of embarrassment hit me in the chest. “With you, I sense the purist of love, and survival. You have the healthiest fighting reflex I’ve ever witnessed before. Not physically, but this extra something inside you that says you won’t go down without a struggle. It’s admirable.” She let go and smiled fondly. “With Nicolai, it was his determination even as a young child that drew me to him. Stephan’s ability to love and care, Connor’s joy for life, and Christian, he reminded me the most of Gregor. He has a great mind and a strong will. Then, there was Trevor.”

  Jake, I thought, my heart aching. He’d always be Jake to me.

  A far-away smile floated across Isabelle’s lips. “When I first saw Trevor, I knew he would change something for us. He was fragile, not a child I usually would choose, but he had this heart that was undeniable.”

  I peered at her. “So, you chose your children based on what you could perceive in them?”

  “I knew we needed the strongest children we could get, that there was going to be an era of great change, and that our children would need to be mighty enough to be able to withstand it. The ones I didn’t see coming were Trevor—and you.” She stared at me. “Behind every great mind, every warrior, is the reason to fight. With my boys, that’s you. And that’s more than I could ever ask for. You’ve done for them in such a short while what Gregor and I have tried to instill in them since they were younger. They just needed their reason.”

  I smiled at that. Who wouldn’t want to hear they’d made the persons they cared for better people? “Can you tell what’s going to happen?”

  Her eyes clouded over, and she stood. The connection between us broke apart. I’d seen a flicker of something in her eyes before she turned away though. A moment that turned my stomach. She smoothed her dress down. “It’s never good to know the future. Trust me. What I do know is that you’ll do the right thing for them, and that’s all I need to know.” Sh
e gave me a brief smile and then excused herself.

  I threw myself back on Jake’s bed and stared up at the ceiling. All around me, dust had risen into the air and floated. I wondered if they buried bodies in this world just like they did in the human one. If they did, I’d like to go see where Jake was. I owed him a lot. They hadn’t all just left me behind like I thought, he’d found a way to get me again. I had everything to thank him for and I wanted to do just that. After a little while, I sat up, touched the picture of us, and then left his room.

  My heart hung in my chest, suspended, not knowing what to feel or think. The boys were still downstairs. Did that mean they were fighting for us down in that Council room? But they weren’t just fighting for us, they were fighting for every guard and every vamp who wanted to love whoever they wanted. Basically, they were fighting for the choice. Without choice, we were destined to live a stagnant, dull life with no opportunities. So, the princes could think they were fighting for just us like Isabelle said, but they were doing so much more than that.

  * * *

  I awoke with a start. Red lights flashed on and off in my room accompanied by the wail of what sounded like a fire engine. But the sound wasn’t coming from outside, it was right in the room with me. I closed my hands over my ears and looked around. It was now dark outside, and it was just me, by myself, with no princes.

  I hurried out of the room and peeked down the hall. A knot formed in my throat, but aside from the alarm, it was eerily silent and vacant. If the princes had returned from the meeting, they would’ve found me. I ran down the hall and took the stairs two at a time. There was much more activity on the first floor. Servants were running into other room and slamming doors behind them. “What’s going on?” I called out, pulling on one woman who was trying to veer around me.

  “It’s the breached alarm. Run!” she screamed.

  Run? Run where?

  I shook my head and barreled out the front door. I looked toward the guard wing. Guards dressed all in black ran toward the front of the estate. I took off running with them. If there really was a breach, we needed to stop it. Somewhere in that castle were my princes and the royal family. No one was getting past the gates for even the chance to get to them.