by W. J. May
4 authors will each take a different daughter born from the Prince of Darkness, Vlad Montour. (Also known as Vlad the Impaler, an evil villain from history)
Blair – Chrissy Peebles
Jezebel – Kristen Middleton
Victoria – W.J. May
Lotus – C.J. Pinard
––––––––
Young Adult Vampires
The Crush Saga (book 1 is free!)
The Crush Saga Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/LbfIsKTsPhw
––––––––
***
* * *
Chapter 1
I can’t believe I’m about to die.
My day didn’t start out like this. There was nothing unusual or out of the ordinary. Nothing to indicate that my world as I knew it was about to fall apart.
I got up at seven a.m. just like I always did. Battled the alarm clock for those precious extra five minutes, then dragged myself to the shower to get ready for work. Memorial South was just a short subway ride away, and by the looks of all the traffic, I was happy I was travelling underground. I made it in to work with ten minutes to spare. Just enough time for me to duck into the on-site blood bank and slip a few bags of O-neg into my purse.
Oh yes, perhaps I should take this time to mention that I’m a vampire. Well...half. But that’s a long story.
What’s a vampire doing working as a nurse in the grittiest urgent care center in Salem, Massachusetts, you might ask? Simple.
Atonement.
I’ve never killed anyone. Never plan on killing anyone. And going by the ninety-plus years I’ve worked in medicine, have probably helped save more lives than most anyone on the planet.
I’m an ‘atoner.’ And a nurse. And a college grad. And a girlfriend.
My life doesn’t just have to be about being a vampire. Or a witch for that matter. But again—long story.
And speaking of being a girlfriend...
I couldn’t wait to meet my man tonight. I hurried home and ripped off my name badge and uniform, showered, then threw on a pair of heels and a slinky black dress. We were meeting for cocktails since it was Friday night. Tony pulled up to the curb just as I stepped outside. I crossed the pavement to the car, I couldn’t help but smile. Tony was like a breath of fresh air.
Tall. Handsome. Long dark hair that waved around his shoulders and fell into his eyes.
A witch. Someone who understood my long story.
I giggled as I ran the last few steps and jumped into his arms. Warm hands wrapped around my back and pulled me close as I buried my face in his neck and breathed in his scent.
I loved days like this. Days when everything unfolded exactly how it should.
Shower. Work. Co-worker gossip. Boyfriend.
Days when the world went right on spinning, and I had my own little place in it. Tucked away into some forgotten corner. Content in my private bubble of happiness. If only for now.
But the day wasn’t over yet.
For the last few weeks, Tony had been planning a big surprise. He always said the word surprise, like it jumped out of his mouth with a life of its own. As he opened the passenger door and threw his jacket in the back seat to make room for me, I could almost hear his heart thumping away in his chest. With a carefully stifled sigh, I flashed him a grin and climbed inside.
You see, Tony may be able to do a lot of things, but the one thing he can’t do is keep a secret. And needless to say, this was not the secret I was expecting.
I thought Tony was going to propose.
Childish, perhaps. But it did make sense. We’ve been together for some time now, ever since he moved to Salem and joined my coven.
My coven. I should say, my coven the sequel.
I grew up with the first coven. Full-blood witches, every one of them. By the time my witch-mother died giving birth to me, my vampire father was already long gone. My Aunt Martha took me in and raised me within the confines of the coven. The witches were kind to me, became my family, even though my bloodline wasn’t pure. And even though my vampire father happened to be one of the most evil monsters of all time. (Hearsay, but I tend to believe it. I mean, Vlad the Impaler? How good could he possibly be?) But family is more than just blood. We can choose what sort of people we want to be. That’s what Martha always told me. Up until the very day she died.
It was this sort of wisdom that I passed on to the next generation of the coven, and the one after that. While their parents grew old and died, I watched them be born. Watched them grow up. Stayed a flawless twenty-two while the world around me changed.
Hence, ‘coven, the sequel.’ I had a couple of those.
Tony was a part of that coven. They’d taken him in and embraced him as family just like me. That’s why tonight was so important. Tonight, he was breaking their rules. Tonight, he was helping me tap in to my magic. So it wasn’t the proposal I’d hoped for, but it was still very exciting. I had no idea what it would be like to have powers.
“I still don’t know why we couldn’t have done this in daylight,” I complained as we stomped through the underbrush. After driving four hours outside the city, we’d come to a stop in the middle of the woods. From here, we continued on foot. It was a feat that quickly proved too much for my expensive, city-slicker shoes.
“Yep,” I continued as my pointed heel snapped defiantly in the crook of a rock, “there goes the other one.” I took it off and glumly tossed it into the thick underbrush rising up on either side of our path.
Tony laughed and the sound brought an automatic smile to my lips. “Well why did you wear heels to go hiking anyway?” He scooped me up so I wouldn’t bruise my feet on the gravel underfoot. Moonlight streamed through silhouetted branches, and somewhere up ahead, an owl hooted softly in the trees.
I rolled my eyes and snuggled gleefully into his arms. “They were my comfortable heels. Perfect for hiking.”
He shook his head. “I’ll bet.”
“I thought you were taking me out for a drink, to that little jazz club we talked about last week.”
He winked. “But this is much more adventurous.”
“Yeah. Your average girl doesn’t tromp through the woods at night after a long, hard day of work to look for a way to tap into her magic.”
“Normal is overrated.”
We travelled on a bit further. The smell of wet moss, damp dirt, and decaying leaves mingling with the scent of pines. There was a break in the trees as the ground leveled out into a grassy clearing, illuminated by the stars.
Perfect for a proposal, I thought sullenly. But I kept it to myself.
“I think we’re about here.” Tony fixed his eyes on the mist at the far end of the clearing and we walked slowly toward it. “This looks familiar.”
I looked around and cocked a dubious brow. “Tormaina?” There was a crunching sound and I glanced down at an empty beer can I’d just flattened. “This is the sacred land infused with deep magic?”
He smiled. “What were you expecting?”
I pulled my jacket tighter around me. “I don’t know, it just looks so...ordinary.”
He regarded me intently, his hair swaying in the soft breeze wafting in from the silent woods. “It might look like just a forest, but trust me when I tell you that there’s nothing ordinary about this place.”
I sighed with a little shrug. “If you say so.”
His sparkling laugh rang out over the clearing. “Let me guess...you were imagining a whisper on the breeze? For the trees to wake up and grab you with their gnarly branches?”
“Well, they threw apples at Dorothy and the Tin Man.”
He chuckled and pointed up at the sky. “I’ll warn you if I see any flying monkeys.”
I shivered involuntarily. “Don’t even joke...”
With a grin, he scooped me up again, holding me firmly against his chest as he stared intently into my eyes. I grinned back in spite of myself and pushed back a stray lock of hair from his eyes.
I lived fo
r moments like these.
Safe in the arms of the man I loved. Feeling the heat from his body radiate into mine.
Before I met Tony, I was grimly resigned to the fact that I would live forever alone. After you watch an entire generation of people you love wither with age and die, you give up on the notion that you could ever find someone of any lasting importance. Tony changed all that. He changed me. Got me to open up. Take a chance on something again.
Of course...time was always working against us.
“So what do you say,” he interrupted my thoughts, leading us deeper into the mist, “are you ready to tap into your magic?”
I swallowed hard. “I didn’t spend an hour hiking up here to wimp out.” But beneath the words, I was nervous. This coven had accepted me, raised me without question as a member of the family. For a hundred and ninety-nine years, I had lived with the witches as one of their own.
The only condition was that I didn’t tap into my magic. And now here we were, marching into the sacred woods to break that promise.
“I don’t see why you’re so nervous,” Tony said as we waded through the tall grass. “You’re a witch just like the rest of us. There’s no reason why you should be forbidden from tapping into your powers.”
“You’re assuming I have any at all,” I reminded him. “I’m not pure like you. And there’s no telling what using magic will do to my vampire side. What if I go all crazy and terrorize the city on some kind of feeding frenzy—”
“Hey,” he cupped my face, “you’re the sweetest, gentlest, kindest person I’ve ever met.”
I playfully nudged him. “You have to say that. You’re my boyfriend.”
“And you’re my beautiful, hybrid girlfriend.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “In fact, the only thing I see wrong with this picture is that you won’t make it permanent.”
My breath caught in my chest. Was he talking marriage? Or was it...?
“I just don’t get why you won’t make me your bloodsucking beau.”
Oh great. This again.
I spoke with a practiced patience. “You know I can’t turn you. I’m not full-blooded. It wouldn’t work.”
“How do you know? You’ve never even tried.”
I looked at him incredulously. “Do you want me to bite you?”
He sighed and pushed his hair out of his eyes. “I want you to want to be with me as much as I want to be with you. Forever. Side by side.”
I bit my lip and forced my eyes forward. It wasn’t as simple as all that.
“Seriously, Blair, imagine how it’s going to look. You, young and stunning as ever, and me, a decrepit old man.”
“I don’t care how it looks,” I said softly. “You know I’ll never leave you.”
“But I’ll leave you,” he said abruptly. “I’m going to die. In sixty, seventy years. I’m going to die and leave you—because you won’t try to stop it.”
“You have no idea what you’re asking for. You have no idea what this kind of life will do to you.” It was impossible to keep the bitterness from my voice. “Are you ready to watch all your loved ones die, right before your eyes? Are you ready to see everything you love fade away from the world while you remain unchanged, like nothing ever happened? To be left with nothing?”
“I wouldn’t have nothing...I’d have you.” He stopped moving and turned to face me. “I want to marry you, Blair. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But in order for that to happen, you’re going to have to open up and take a chance. You’re going to have to bite me.”
I touched his face softly. “Is that why we’re here? Did you bring me out here to turn you? Or to tap into my magic?”
He signed and ran a hand through his hair. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I just...got off track. You do that to me. Of course we came here for you.”
For me to break my promise, was more like it. I’d promised the witches I’d never try to get my powers.
* * *
Chapter 2
I shivered again as we made our way into the mist. “Are you sure you want to do this? You know it’s forbidden. If the others ever find out, they’ll kick you out.”
“So what? I’m twenty-five and living on my own. If they kick me out of their clan, so be it. You deserve this, Blair. You deserve to know both sides of yourself.”
I took a deep breath, afraid but deeply moved by his willingness to sacrifice everything.
“I’m just not sure how to do it,” I murmured. “I’m not sure how to access my power.”
Tony was confident now. “They hid it from you. The same way they hid you from your father. They were afraid of what might happen. But not me. I know you.” He winked. “We’re gonna do this tonight.”
“Great.” I rolled my eyes with a grin. “I’m like your little Blair witch project.”
He started laughing but fell suddenly silent as we came across a long slab of stone lying in the center of the grass. The wind rustled the leaves and he turned back to me, almost urgently, and pressed his lips softly against mine.
“It’s time.”
“Time?” I repeated as I ran my hand over the smooth stone. There were ancient carvings cut like jagged runes all along the sides. “What are you going to do, sacrifice me?”
I looked up with an expectant grin, only to see that Tony was no longer there. He was standing several feet away, half-covered in mist. A strange expression flitted across his face, something I had never seen before. It was like a dark cloud. Sharpening lines and accentuating his handsome features.
“...that’s the general idea.”
My smile still clung to the corners of my lips, but an inexplicable feeling of dread was rising inside me like a bubble, ready to burst. “What? What are you talking about?”
The corner of his mouth twitched up into a little grin, but it wasn’t the one I was used to. The one I saw when I told a stupid joke, or when I woke up to see him watching me in my sleep. This was something else entirely.
“I don’t want to marry you, Blair.”
It was like a dam burst. Something inside me was tearing and I didn’t know how to make it stop. Breathe, I told myself. There has to be an explanation.
“I don’t...I don’t understand. You just said you did. We’ve talked about it for ages, and...why are you looking at me like that?!”
All at once, my eyes flickered down to the stone. Of course!
“Tony—get away from the stone, it’s possessing you or something. I think it’s cursed!”
“It’s not the stone. It’s you.” He took a step toward me and for the first time in my life, I found myself edging away. “You’re tainted, a bad apple in our clan. Martha tried to protect you, but she’s been dead for ages now. The rest of the coven is ready to finally finish this.”
The world around me tilted. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be true.
“If this is your idea of a joke, it’s—”
“It’s no joke.”
I waited for him to keep talking. For him to say something that would make this make sense. But he just stared at me with this strange anticipation. I started to hyperventilate.
“You guys are my family! I—”
“No!” he spat, cutting me off. I took an automatic step back. I’d never seen such hostility from him. “Your real family died off a long time ago. You just clung to us, the next generation, and the one after that, because witches are all you know.”
The massive lump in my throat thudded down to the pit of my stomach like a lead weight.
“Well, if they don’t want me here anymore, I’ll leave. We can run away together—just you and me, like you always wanted.”
“Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?” Tony’s eyes were cold. Removed. Unfamiliar. “I don’t want to run away with you—I don’t love you, Blair. How could I?”
I tried to speak, but the words died on my lips as I stared back at him in the dark.
“You’re an abomination. A half-breed. You make me sic
k.”
“...you can’t mean that...”
He glanced over his shoulder, and for the first time, I wondered if we weren’t alone. “I’m just glad this whole little charade is finally over.”
“What are you talking about?!” I scanned the woods, trying to focus my senses and listen for other people, but I couldn’t hear past the ringing in my ears.
“You’re too dangerous, Blair. Too dangerous to be allowed to live. It ends tonight.”
I swear the air in the clearing dropped ten degrees. “What...exactly ends tonight?”
He raised his head and looked me straight in the eyes.
“Are you going to kill me?” The air between us crackled with tension. “Are you going to murder me right here in these dark, lonely woods?”
For a moment, he faltered. His eyes dropped to the forest floor and when he looked back up, he couldn’t quite meet my gaze. “I’ll make sure it’s quick, no suffering,” he promised. “We all agreed on that at the last council meeting.”
Tears trickled down my face as I stared back in silence. When he saw them, he took a compulsive step toward me, but then caught himself. When he spoke again, he was angry.
“Look, this isn’t my fault, okay—this is you! Hybrids shouldn’t be allowed to exist. Who knows how many you could kill if your vampirism mixed with your witchery?”
“I’m a nurse. I drink from blood banks. And until you suggested it, I was fine letting my witch side stay dormant. I am not your enemy!”
“You’re a monster!”
My temper flared. “Really? If I’m such a monster, why did the coven allow me to stay all these years? Why did you start dating me?!”
“I was ordered to.”
Such simple words, but they cut a hole in my heart. “What are you talking about?”
“When I moved to Salem to be closer to the coven, I didn’t know anything about you. In the beginning, you hid it well, and nobody bothered to fill me in. When you finally revealed your true nature, I was sickened by it. I tried to get past it, I did. We kept dating, but finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I confided in our elders and told them my dilemma. I also told them I was breaking up with you. But the clan ordered me to stay with you, keep you close like they had been doing. Until the night of Ravena, which wasn’t all that far away.”