Secrets (The Serenity Series Book 1)

by Dawn Kirby

  I couldn’t believe it. Until now, I thought the possibility of a Day Walker was totally absurd. After all, I was only half vampire. Any man they might want to force on me couldn’t be a full vampire or it wouldn’t work. He’d have to be in the process of becoming one like David had been. Even then it would be a game of chance.

  All that changed with her revelation. If a small amount of my blood allowed him to go outside, even for a little while, they wouldn’t need me to conceive a child. All they’d need was an endless supply of my blood.

  Seeing her chance, Julie jumped on me and wrapped the rope around my neck before I could get my head clear. I clawed at her hands, trying to get loose. I got the rope off, but her hands easily slipped into its place. She had a death grip on my throat now and she wasn’t letting go.

  I needed help and I needed it five minutes ago. The only thing I could think of was calling Declan to me. He’d heard my thoughts before, maybe he would this time. Anger was making Julie crazy strong. I didn’t know how much longer I could fight her off. I concentrated as hard as I could and whispered for him to come and help me.

  Somehow I got her hands off my throat and took a deep breath. I knocked her off of me and scrambled back towards the bedroom. She stayed on my heels until we heard several people banging on the bedroom door. She stopped chasing me and started looking for a way out. I ran to corner of the room and waited.

  The door burst open. Julie tried to push past them. Kale and Raine ran to the bathroom, calling my name the whole way, but I couldn’t answer. Donovan had caught Julie just outside the door. She said, “Please don’t-” and then her heart stopped. I sank to the floor, realizing Donovan had killed her. All I could do was stare towards the open door.

  “She’s in here,” Declan yelled to the others from my spot on the floor. Kneeling on the floor beside me, “Darlin’, I shoulda known.”

  I frowned at him. How could he have known? She smelled like Judith. I wouldn’t have known that before because I’d never met her. Nobody ever saw her. There’s no way any of us would have known she and Raif were lovers.

  “You heard me,” I said gratefully.

  “Aye, I did,” he said quietly. “Are ye okay?”

  I looked at him, tears burning in my eyes. My life as I knew it was about to change drastically. As soon as other vampires found out what my blood could do for them, I was sure to be the most valuable commodity in the vampire world.

  “Declan, I don’t think I’ll ever be okay again.”

  “What’s wrong?” Raine asked breathlessly. He knelt beside Declan and took my hand. “Are you hurt?”

  I lost my composure at that point. Not half an hour ago we were talking about a house and a future. Now I had to tell him this. I was probably going to spend the rest of my life hiding from something I couldn’t outrun.

  Raine lifted me off the floor and sat me on the bed. He and Declan looked at me with nothing but concern on their faces. Raine ran his fingers over the whelps Julie’s fingers had left on my neck, his anger rising with every stroke of his finger. I knew they thought I had some physical injury that would heal quickly, but neither of them expected the truth.

  “He saw the sun,” I said softly. “Raif saw the sun.”

  Raine lost all color in his face. It looked like the air had been knocked out of him. Declan stood up and put his hand on my shoulder. He looked as sad as I felt. Donovan walked into the room, oblivious to what I had just said.

  “Leah, why have I just killed my one and only housekeeper?” he asked curiously.

  “She wanted me dead,” I told him.

  “Really? Ya think?” Kale said sarcastically. He came into the room looking at a piece of the chair with a puzzled look on his face “Which one of you two took out the chair?”

  “She wanted Raif back,” I said, ignoring Kale’s question. “She thought killing me would do it.”

  “They were involved?” Donovan asked.

  “Look at her, Donovan,” I said exasperated. “She’s got bite marks all over her. I’m positive she’s the one that let him back in before.”

  “You said she wanted him back. What do you mean?” Donovan asked.

  “My blood heightened all his senses. He didn’t want hers anymore, just mine.”

  “How exactly was he affected?” Donovan pushed.

  “He could see through walls, hear better. She said my blood was like a drug to him,” I took a deep breath. “He thought he could tolerate the sun. For an hour he could. She said after that he was burned pretty badly. Now that he’s healed up, he wants more.”

  “He’s not getting it,” Raine said furiously.

  “Put her in your room, Raine. She lives in there now,” Donovan ordered. “I’m sure no one else knows yet. Raif is not stupid. He’ll only use this if it suits his purpose. I doubt the vampire he is working for even knows about it yet. The information is far too valuable to give away.”

  “If anyone else finds out, no one will be able to protect ‘er,” Declan said urgently. His lavender scent was gone and that scared

  me.

  Donovan put himself between Raine and me. He had something to say and he wanted to make sure I heard it. Judging by the intensity I saw in his face, it wasn’t going to be good.

  “Leah, I have to know what we are protecting. I must experience each and every side effect for myself.” He put his cool hands gently around my neck and locked his eyes on mine. The hair on my head stood on end. Donovan’s mind moved in on mine. “I would not ask this otherwise.” His voice was soothing as he spoke. I suddenly felt like putty in his hands. “I need to-”

  “Bite me,” I finished for him. He nodded his head slowly.

  Raine and Kale both had horrified looks on their faces. Raine started to protest but Kale shot him a stern look of warning and he backed down. We all knew he wasn’t asking because he wanted to. It was because he had to.

  Donovan’s hands slowly massaged my neck. It felt heavenly. My head felt a little fuzzy too, but I didn’t care. The cool touch of his hands was so relaxing I could barely think anymore. His thumb found the vein pulsing in the side of my neck. Gently, he tilted my head and leaned in closer to me. His fangs came out and I snapped back into myself, knocking his hands off my neck.

  “You’re not biting me,” I said firmly. “I’ll give you what you need, but you will not bite me.”

  I went to Raine’s bathroom and picked up his straight razor. It was a better alternative to being bitten. I couldn’t tell him no, but I could control where he took it from. I returned to my room, keeping my eyes on Donovan. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Raine. I held the razor to my left wrist prepared to slice it open, but Raine took the blade from my hand and did it for me. The sharp pain brought tears to my eyes. A river of blood fell to the floor along with the blade.

  “You better get all you need now,” I said flatly. “I will not do this again,”

  Donovan’s eyes glassed over when he took my wrist in his mouth. I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to watch it. Kale couldn’t stand to look and had gone to look out the window. Raine, thankfully, stood behind me and let me lean on him for support. His body was burning up. I knew he was angry, but until now I hadn’t realized exactly how mad he actually was.

  I could feel the sharp points of Donovan’s fangs sink further down into the open wound. My blood freely flowed from my wrist into his mouth. It was odd to feel the life being sucked out of me, but I knew it would be over in a few seconds.

  The longer he stayed latched on to my wrist, the quicker he sucked. Strangely, it wasn’t alarming at all. The rhythmic motion was like listening to a sweet lullaby. My body went limp against Raine’s. It was too heavy for me to support any more. All I wanted to do was go to sleep.

  “Declan, help me,” Raine yelled. He really was too loud. I wanted to tell him to be quite but my mouth wouldn’t open. “He’s taking too much. He’s gonna kill her!”

  “I’m not dying silly, I just want to go to sleep,” I th
ink I said out loud, but I couldn’t be sure. I was too tired to care.

  I felt a tug on my wrist then a loud thud of a body being knocked to the floor. The sucking on my hand got even faster. I thought something might be wrong, but I knew they would fix it. None of them would ever let anything bad happen.

  Suddenly my wrist was ripped out of Donovan’s mouth. I felt the skin tear when he tried to hang on. Alarmed, my eyes shot open. Kale jumped between Donovan and I. Raine pulled me behind him while Declan stepped in beside Kale and forced Donovan from my room.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I woke up, not realizing I’d fallen asleep. I lay in my bed, a towel wrapped tightly around my wrist. It had little stains of blood on it and my arm was on fire. My wrist should have already healed. I tried to lift my head, but the muscles in my neck wouldn’t support it.

  Raine sat beside me on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. I patted his leg gently to get his attention. I wanted him to know whatever was wrong would be okay. He turned to face me, his eyes storming. Small lightning bolts shot through them, one right after another and I couldn’t see the dark blue haze around him.

  “How do you feel?” he asked, leaning over me.

  “Tired,” I said taking in his stormy scent. “Did Donovan get what he needed?”

  “That and then some,” he mumbled. “We couldn’t get him off of you, Leah. He took too much.”

  “Is that why my wrist is killing me?”

  “Yeah. I’m not surprised. It’ll take a while for it to heal up, even with Declan’s help.”

  Something about the way he said that bothered me, a lot. The fact that he couldn’t look me in the eye bothered me even more.

  “The last thing I remember is Kale in front of us and Declan pushing Donovan away.” I pictured the scene in my head. Donovan should have been able to control himself. “Donovan’s okay isn’t he? The blood didn’t hurt him, did it?”

  “Donovan’s fine. He left here high, and you barely with a heartbeat,” he said angrily. “He almost killed you.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m never doing that again,” I assured him. “He has what he needs.”

  “You’re damn right you’re not doing it again,” he growled. “It took Declan’s blood to save you!” I sat up to look him eye to eye, hoping I had heard him wrong. “I can’t lose you, Leah. I refuse to.”

  “Tell me what happened,” I said. I was way too tired to tip toe around the truth.

  “We couldn’t wake you up. You barely had a pulse. Drinking vampire blood was the only way we could save you,” he said. “Declan didn’t think twice.”

  Obviously, he thought I would be mad, but I wasn’t. Grossed out, yeah, but they did what they had to do to keep me alive. Now I owed Declan big time.

  “Raine, I’m not mad. Y’all did what you had to. If it had been you, I would have done the same thing.”

  I couldn’t see his haze, but I felt his temperature rise. His scent now rivaled that of a severe thunderstorm.

  “But it’s not me, it’s never me. You didn’t ask for any of this, but you deal with it with grace. You’ve been beaten to a pulp, nearly choked to death, and I just took a razor to your wrist. Since you came here, you haven’t had one minute to yourself. When do you get to live?”

  “Look at me, Raine,” I said softly. “I’m still here.” I put my hands on his cheeks and ran my thumb across his lips. “Every day I’m with you, I live. Just because we have a little baggage doesn’t mean our life together stops.”

  “It does if I can’t protect you,” he mumbled.

  There was so much sadness behind his eyes. I knew he felt like a failure, but he wasn’t. He’s been there for me any time I needed him. His unwavering presence in my life is more important to me than anything else in the world. There was no way he could protect me all the time and it would be unrealistic to think he could.

  I pulled him to me and gave him the most passionate kiss I could. He was gentle and loving in return. That single kiss made me feel more loved and needed than I ever have before.

  “When tonight is over,” he said, playing with my hair. “I want to start on our house. We’ll have to find some land; but I think it’s time.”

  “I think you’re right,” I whispered. “Now, speaking of tonight, you better help me get ready.”

  “You really don’t have to go, Leah,” he said, glancing down at the towel on my wrist.

  “Yes, I do,” I said quickly. “This is what families do.” He grinned and put his hand on my cheek. I kissed his arm and smiled warmly back at him.

  “Have I told you that I love you?” Raine asked me.

  “I love you, too.”

  I waited on the bed while he searched through my closet for something fitting to wear for the occasion. He made, and then rejected, several selections, finally coming out with a pretty white dress in a soft, flowing fabric. Instead of sleeves, it had dainty one-inch straps and a scalloped neckline.

  Apparently, the two women left nothing out. In one hand, he had a pair of white, lacy panties and a bra to match. In the other was a sheer pair of thigh highs. A mid-thigh length slip was thrown over his shoulder. He sat them all on the bed beside me and left again. When he came back, he had a white pair of three-inch heels in his hand.

  The clothes weren’t a problem for him as he dressed me. I was in them in a flash, but the hose drove him crazy. His big hands fumbled with the thin, transparent material for a long time before he finally managed to get them on. I offered my help, but he said he didn’t want or need it. Pride can be a man’s worst enemy, even when it comes to women’s clothes.

  “You look beautiful,” Raine said, leading me to full-length mirror. He grabbed a brush and started running it through my hair. “How do you feel?”

  “I’m still a little tired.” I pinched my cheeks, trying to get some color back into them. “I hope it doesn’t show too much.”

  “It doesn’t,” he assured me.

  I still couldn’t see the blue haze around him. It was funny, but I missed it. Normally I could look at it and use the range of color to figure out what emotion he was feeling. Without it, I couldn’t be sure. His stormy scent was still there, but it got stronger and softer for all kinds of reasons.

  “Raine, how do you feel, really?”

  He smiled at the back of my head, as if he thought I was asking him a trick question or something.

  “You tell me,” he said. He wrapped a ponytail around the braid in my hair, smiling into the mirror.

  “I can’t,” I whispered.

  His smile vanished as I watched him deflate for the second time tonight. His eyes lost their sparkle, too. Losing the ability to see hazes shouldn’t have been a big deal, but it was. I felt like I had lost a connection with him. It had always been there. He and I were the only ones that knew his was permanent and now it was gone.

  “Maybe, when you’re back to yourself, it’ll come back,” he said, trying to reassure me.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said quietly. “You better fix my wrist now. We’re running out of time.”

  “I’ve got the stuff in my room. Do you mind waiting while I get dressed?”

  I laughed when I gave him a once over. I was beautiful, put together, and ready for a big night. He was disheveled, bloody and looked totally comfortable. I followed him to his bedroom wishing we could lock the door and stay there.

  My wrist didn’t really look too bad. It was red and had already scabbed over. He put some medicine on it, bandaged it up, before he jumped in the shower. He was in and out in about five minutes. I sat on the edge of the bed and waited for him to get dressed.

  Raine came out of his dressing room wearing a white button down shirt and a pair of khaki dress pants. He had on a brand new brown pair of loafers instead of tennis shoes. It was the first time I’d ever seen him dressed up and he looked good. I winked at him when he took my arm in his. He smiled broadly and led me out the bedroom.

  Declan met us halfway do
wn the hallway, smiling. “I’m relieved to see yer okay, darlin’,” he said softly. Tonight was definitely a special occasion. Declan had tossed out his insurance salesman look and put on a gorgeous black suit. “Leah, I feel it’s my place to apologize for Donovan’s severe lack of control.”

  “You don’t have to apologize, you didn’t do it,” I told him sweetly.

  “I didn’ stop ‘im either.” There was an audible tone of utter disgust in his voice.

  I grabbed his hand and looked him straight in the eyes. This was not his fault and I was not going to let him carry it.

  “Donovan told me before that it was easy to lose control once blood is involved. None of this is your fault,” I assured him.

  “Not like that.” His blue eyes darkened. “We never lose the ability to thin’ straight. It’s vital to be able to stop. Donovan, physically, couldn’t.”

  “What does that mean for me?” I asked.

  “I promise ye this, if the choice between yer life an’ my death faces me, I’ll gladly die to save ye.” Something had changed in him the night we went to Michael’s house. It wasn’t clear to me what it was yet, but I didn’t take his promise lightly. “Raine, take these papers to yer room.” He handed him a folder with my name on it. “Change the account numbers and passwords. Make sure ye put all o’ this in yer safe. I can’t trust that Donovan will freely hand ‘em over, not right now. He’s drunk on what her blood ‘as done to ‘im.”

  “Can I trust that you’ll stand by her if he comes after her?” Raine asked cautiously.

  “Aye,” Declan said nodding his head. “I’ll take Leah to May. The sooner ye take care o’ her affairs, the better.”

  While Raine stayed behind to protect my financial future, Declan escorted me downstairs. His cold hand didn’t fit the man he really was. Truly, Declan was a warm, caring man.

  “Thank you for saving me,” I told him gratefully.

  “I only did what was right,” he said, rubbing my back. “Someone did the same for all o’ us not too long ago.” He turned to face me when we entered the kitchen. “Until the effects of yer blood wear off, stay away from Donovan,” he warned. “Julie was right, yer blood is a drug. I fear he won’t be able to resist a craving. When ye see ‘im, ye’ll understand. Stay close to Raine. He can, an’ will, protect ye if anything goes wrong. Donovan has asked that I stay by ‘is side tonight.”