Fractured (Vampire Awakenings, Book 6)

by Brenda K. Davies

  They’d been spending time together for nearly three months; nothing serious, no promises exchanged. If she really tried, she could probably remember his name, but from the very beginning she hadn’t cared what it was and only thought of him as number twenty-three. She’d only cared about those minutes that she could experience with him which would allow her to keep from thinking.

  When twenty-three left, she realized she’d spent three months with him, the longest she’d spent with anyone since her parents died, and she felt nothing about his departure from her life. He’d been just another man passing through, and not one of them had done anything to ease the sadness in her.

  After her parents’ deaths, she’d tried to bury her grief in one guy or another, and in one place or another, as she’d also moved constantly. In those four years, all she’d succeeded in doing was burying herself in an attempt not to think about what she’d lost, or grieve for it.

  At one time, she’d dreamt of a family all her own. She used to love to read and learn, especially anything having to do with astronomy. The stars had always held a special place in her heart and fascinated her from the time she was old enough to look at them. After number twenty-three, she realized she hadn’t read a book or stared more than passingly at the stars in four years.

  She could blame her disconnect from life, and the things she’d once cared about, on the fact that everything had been torn away from her in a single night, but she knew it couldn’t all rest there. She’d made her choices. She’d lain in those men’s beds and tried to forget everything she’d once been in a cowardly endeavor to hide from the painful truth of being an orphan instead of facing it.

  Maybe if she’d cared for any of those men she would have felt differently, but she hadn’t given a crap about any of them. She’d used them far more than they ever could have used her.

  On that day three years back, she’d realized she had nothing except endless loneliness and sadness ahead of her, unless she did something to change her life.

  And change it she would. She became determined to get her life together. She knew it wouldn’t happen all at once, but gradually she’d rebuilt it. She’d stayed off the dating scene, though she hadn’t actually been dating any of those men, not really. She’d gone to the library and picked up books on astronomy once more.

  She’d moved back to the East Coast from California. If she was going to rebuild her life, she couldn’t continue to run and hide; she had to go home and face it. She’d never been able to bring herself to go back to what remained of the home she’d shared with her parents, but she’d at least made it back to Connecticut. It had been a huge step for her on her road to healing.

  She’d enrolled herself in a couple night classes. She didn’t know what she would ever do with an education, but school had been something to do with her time, and it had given her a purpose. She’d found a job at a local coffee shop and rented an apartment down the road from it.

  She could have survived without a job; she’d fully matured by that point and could use her abilities with far more consistency. However, she’d spent the last four years taking from others and manipulating minds the best she could. She was determined to change that, to do something different with her life. To stand on her own.

  On her days off work, she spent a lot of time exploring museums and traveling the coast to see the sights. She watched the sunset and stars appear from numerous locations. If she had any extra money, she put some in savings and donated the rest to a shelter in the city that specialized in runaway children. Twice a month she made the hour drive into Hartford to volunteer there.

  Over the course of the next year, she was able to get the panic attacks plaguing her since the fire under control. She took back her life, and she finally grieved. For the first time since her parents died, she sat down and truly acknowledged everything that had been taken from her, and she wept.

  She’d cried when they died, but only on that first night while she watched the flames consume everything she loved. She hadn’t cried again until years later, and then she hadn’t stopped for weeks on end, until one day she finally felt a scab healing over a wound she hadn’t realized festered so badly.

  For three years, she worked to rebuild herself. She abstained from sex, and she regained control of her life. Until three months ago, when all control had been torn away from her again….

  Mia closed the door to her room, pulling the too-large coat off as she struggled against the memories trying to burst free. She draped the coat over the desk chair nearby and leaned against the door. David stood before her, his coat still unzipped, his body coiled as if he were about to pounce. She desperately wanted him, but if he touched her she may lose it and rethink everything about this.

  How could she yearn for him so badly, yet still feel a burgeoning panic at the idea of him touching her?

  Would she ever be normal again?

  Mia shook her head and dropped it into her hands as she struggled to suppress the emotions and memories rocking her.

  David took a step toward her before he stopped himself from getting any closer. Touching her would send her over the edge, but the battle he saw her waging with herself tore at his insides. He’d never felt so helpless in his life. He had no idea how to comfort the only woman he’d ever longed to comfort in his life.

  “Mia—”

  “I can touch you!” she cried, not sure if she was convincing him or herself of this. “Just let me touch you.”

  “If you’re not ready for this, then let’s go to the gym or swimming or something else. I’m not willing to risk pushing you away.”

  Tears pricked at her eyes, but she swiftly wiped them away. “I’m not sure I am ready for this,” she admitted, “but I want you, and I want to try.”

  She didn’t know what this would all mean. She may not be able to do more than touch him. Then again, she might be able to do much more, and she might end up discovering he wasn’t her mate, but just another guy.

  No, not just another guy. He would forever be David to her. He would never be number twenty-four. Already he meant more to her than any of the other numbers in her life.

  David’s eyes were drawn to the rise and fall of her breasts against the black sweater she wore. Despite her distress, the musky scent of her desire filled the air. He could ease her need—she might even let him if he went slow enough—but what would the consequences of that be? He’d seen Liam lose control. That loss of control was something he never would have believed his friend, or himself, capable of. He knew it could happen, and it could happen to him.

  “If we do this, Mia, and you are my mate, it will advance things rapidly between us. The bond will have to be sealed. Before this progresses, you have to be certain you’re ready for that.”

  “Do you always try to talk women out of touching you and possibly having sex with you?” she muttered.

  “No, but I’ve never cared if they were still there the next day or not before. I do with you.”

  Mia sucked in a breath. “I’ve never cared if a man was there or not the next day either,” she admitted. “Until now.”

  “If you’re not ready now, I’ll wait until you are,” he told her.

  “Why are you so understanding?” she whispered.

  “Because you’re worth it.”

  “You don’t know that. You know so little about me.”

  “Then tell me about you. I want to hear it all.”

  “What about you and your life?”

  “You know most of it already, or at least the important things about it, and you’ve met or at least heard of those I care for most. I’d prefer to hear about you right now, but I’ll tell you anything else you want to know about me.”

  Mia stared at him before stepping away from the door, her gaze dropping to his erection. He had to be uncomfortable; there was no doubt what he would prefer to be doing with her right then, yet he was asking about her life. He may not be able to touch her, but they could both figure out a way around t
hat. He wanted to know about her, and not as some attempt to get into her pants.

  Her gut clenched. She knew there would be an intimacy between them she’d never experienced before if they did this. She had a feeling David could destroy her, if he walked out of her life or was taken from it. The funny thing was the thought didn’t terrify her as she’d assumed it would.

  “What do you want to know?” she asked.

  “Tell me more about your life after your parents died. Tell me what you did and where you went after they were killed.”

  “As I said before, I went to Hartford first. We lived in a very rural area that was nothing like the city. I have no idea what drew me to the city, but it’s where I found myself roaming around when I….” She paused as she tried to think of the right words to describe what it had been like for her. “Came to, I guess you could say. I spent those first couple days almost in a fugue state. When I became aware of my surroundings, I had no idea where I was. My feet were bare, black with dirt and soot and caked with both dried and fresh blood. I had no pants on, only the T-shirt I’d worn to bed the night of the fire, and it was a burnt, smoke-stained mess. My thighs had been burnt to the bone while I’d been trying to reach my parents during the fire, but they were already healing when I became aware of the burns again.”

  Her hands instinctively fell to rest over the burn scars still marring her thighs. “If they’d been normal injuries, they would have healed without any hint of damage left behind on me, but I still bear the scars. I think it’s more than the burns being bone deep, or that I was an immature vampire at the time they occurred. I think it was also because my soul had been torn open too, and a part of me felt I deserved those scars for failing to save my parents when I succeeded in getting myself out.”

  David clasped his hands behind his back to keep from trying to console her when she lifted her head to look at him. In the powder blue of her eyes, he could almost see the flames of the fire playing through her memories. Her suffering washed off her in waves that he’d never felt from another before.

  “The last memory I had before I came to in Hartford was standing in the snow, watching while the fire consumed my family. I could hear my mother’s screams from within, but there was nothing I could do to get to her. I’d already tried and failed. Burns covered my face, my hands, my feet, but my palms and thighs were the worst.”

  “Why is that?” David inquired.

  Mia turned her hands over to study her palms. Unlike her thighs, the skin on her hands remained clear of any blemishes. Her palms had been burned nearly as badly as her legs, but the burns hadn’t covered as much of her body on her hands as they had on her thighs.

  “When I first woke that night,” she said. “I tried to get down the hall to my parents’ room. Flames rolled across the ceiling over my head, but despite the glow of the fire, I couldn’t see anything through the smoke.”

  That was an understatement. She’d never known darkness could be as complete as what she’d experienced in that hallway. The smoke clogging her nostrils, choking her lungs, and blinding her was something she would never forget. Nor would she forget the racing of her heart or the sweat streaking down her face and stinging her eyes.

  “I swung my hands helplessly back and forth to feel my way along a hall I’d known inside and out only hours before. I remember feeling as if someone had dumped me into the middle of a fucked-up funhouse and twisted things all around on me, making it impossible to find my way to the one destination I never reached—my parents.”

  Mia kept her gaze on her palms as she continued to speak. “I was almost to their bedroom when the floor gave out beneath me.”

  She wiped away the sweat beading across her forehead as the memories she’d labored to overcome brought forth a wave of fresh panic. She’d gotten better at dealing with her grief, but she’d never revealed what had happened that night to anyone before. It made her feel almost as vulnerable as she’d felt in the fire. She had to get through this, had to finally face it completely, and David had to know just how deeply scarred she was both outside and in.

  Lifting her head, she focused on him again. She may have stopped talking if she discovered pity in his eyes. Instead, she saw only compassion. “I plummeted into the living room. Before I could register my broken ankle, a burning beam fell across my legs, pinning me to the ground. The pain….”

  Her screams echoed in her ears, and the blistering heat of the fire beat against her flesh once more. Sweat slid down her nape, gluing her sweater uncomfortably to her flesh. She didn’t bother to pull it away. It had taken her years to realize there would never be any escaping her memories.

  “At first the pain was so encompassing I couldn’t move. All I could do was scream as the flames ate away at my skin and muscle. Then I heard my mother shouting my name and my survival instinct kicked in, as did my need to get to her. The beam was the size of a tree trunk, but terror gave me a rush of adrenaline. I shoved the beam off me enough that I was able to pull myself out from under it.

  “I dragged myself toward the main foyer as debris and showers of sparks fell over me. The heat was impossible to escape as flames encompassed everything around me. I screamed for my mom the best I could through the smoke, but I’m not sure she ever heard me. When I got to the foyer, it was impossible to tell if the top half of the stairs still existed with all the smoke, but the fire had already consumed the bottom half.”

  Mia’s gaze went beyond him to the window over his shoulder. The cardinal had returned to the tree. It ruffled its feathers and puffed itself out as it settled in, seeming to listen to her story too.

  “I couldn’t see my mom, but I could still hear her. I also knew I couldn’t get to her, not that way, but there was no other way for me to go. My path to the back stairs was blocked by more fire.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Mia’s eyes deepened in color to an almost ocean blue as she spoke. With every word, her voice became increasingly raw and lanced with anguish. She sounded like smoke choked her once more, and David knew that in some ways it did—the memories, at least.

  “What did you do?” he asked when she remained silent.

  “I dragged myself to the front door. I pulled myself up to open it, before clawing my way across the porch, down the steps, and to the snow beyond. I can still recall the sound of my burnt flesh sizzling when it came into contact with the snow.”

  David winced and twisted his hands behind his back until he was sure he’d torn some of his skin away. It kept him from pulling her close though.

  “Then I looked back and I knew it was over. There was no way I could get back inside to my parents. The fire was everywhere, and it consumed everything I’d ever known. I stood there until I heard the distant wail of sirens. I still had enough sense to know I couldn’t be taken to a hospital. I think it was my last coherent thought.”

  “Until Hartford.”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you do there?”

  “When I came back to myself, I managed to get a hotel room and clean myself up. I stole some clothes from the people in the room next to mine. Unable to stay there for long, I returned to the streets after I’d fed on those people. At the time, I couldn’t pull myself together enough to do anything else. I had nowhere else to go, no one to turn to. As turned vamps, my parents’ families had died years before. I’d been homeschooled, and I had no friends. My parents were all I’d ever known.

  “So I wandered the streets, feeding from the people there and grouping together with other homeless teens. Our histories may have been different, but we all felt the cold and we were all doing everything we could to survive. I knew one day my abilities would grow enough that I wouldn’t have to be homeless, yet I didn’t care. There wasn’t much I did care about during those days.”

  “That’s understandable,” David said when her gaze went to the window beyond him again.

  “Eventually, I moved to Florida with some guy I met. I can’t remember his name, only that he was numb
er three, and the first vampire I was with.”

  David’s teeth clamped together and his fangs lengthened at the mention of her and another man. He would have gladly torn the head from that man if he’d been standing in front of him right then. It was not a rational compulsion, but the idea of anyone else touching her made him feel anything but rational.

  “Number three?” he grated out.

  “I numbered the guys who moved through my life. It was easier that way, and I didn’t really care to know their names.”

  “I see,” he murmured.

  Her eyes narrowed on him. “I’m not ashamed of my past or anything I’ve done in it. I may have some issues—okay, probably more issues than Astronomy magazine—but I’m a survivor. There are many who wouldn’t have made it through what I have, and despite the fact I hate that there are times I can’t control my own body, I am proud that I’m still here.”

  He could practically feel her anger blistering against his skin. No matter how jealous the knowledge of another man touching her made him, she was right. There were many who never would have made it out of that fire, never mind getting through everything that followed. She’d done what she needed to do to survive and stay anchored to this world. If she hadn’t, he never would have found her.

  Now that he had found her, he would do everything he could to keep her. If he became ensnared in his jealousy, he would ruin things with her. There may be an intricate bond between them, but they would have to work at trust and love. Being mated did not guarantee those things, and he wanted them both with her.

  “You shouldn’t be ashamed of anything that has made you who you are today, Mia,” he replied. “I’m not even sure of the number of women I’ve been with, let alone remember all their names.”

  She’d kick him in the nuts if he ever judged her for the men she’d been with, but she had to admit the idea of other women out there, knowing what it was like to be with him, made her blood boil.

  “I know the number,” she said.

  He nodded as he held his hands out before him in a conciliatory gesture. Her gaze fell to his reddened, chapped skin. The last of her annoyance melted away when she realized he’d done that to himself in order to keep from touching her. In that instant, she knew where the end of this conversation would lead them.