Circle of Embers (Shadow Realms Series Book 2): A vampire hunter novel

by Kelly Carrero

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I can smell them.” I grinned and quickly ran my tongue across my fangs before snapping my mouth shut so as not to freak anyone out.

  10

  Entering the restaurant was like stepping back in time. I’d only been gone for a few weeks, but I was so far removed from this life it was painful. I should’ve missed it, but I didn’t. Looking around at the crowd I used to run with, I felt sorry for them. They were living a lie, not knowing the true world they lived in. As much as I wished Mason was never taken, I never wanted to go back to being as naïve as they all were.

  Max stood behind me, brushing his chest against my shoulder. He leaned down and whispered in my ear, “There he is.” He curled his hand around my hip and gave it a gentle nudge to the right.

  Following his direction, my gaze landed on my brother—and our dad. Mason was surrounded by my friends, completely in his element, with our father passed out beside him, slouched against the wall, head back, and a gurgling-snoring sound coming from his wide-open mouth.

  For a brief moment, I felt relieved. Then all heads turned in our direction.

  “Kali’s returned from the grave!” Jacob yelled.

  “She’s going to suck our blood,” Kirsty said in her best Dracula impersonation and fell into a fit of laughter. They were all clearly off their heads, and for once I was glad I was clean. Actually, I was far from clean. The effects the vampire blood had on me were better than any hit I’d gotten from any drug I’d taken.

  “Show us your fangs,” Charlie said with a straw shoved over each of his canines.

  The rest of the table cracked up laughing as Mason sat there with an apologetic look on his face.

  I gave him a closed-lip smile then strode toward them and placed my hands on the table. “You mean these?” I flashed them my pearly whites and watched their faces drain of blood. I was so sick of hiding in the shadows, pretending I was something I wasn’t. My friends would’ve thought the worst when I disappeared, and now I had just confirmed their suspicion.

  “Kali.” Max stood beside me and gave me one hell of a scornful look as he slowly shook his head.

  The only person who was going to give the hunters away was the guy standing beside me, chastising me for my actions.

  “Whoa.” Charlie stood and grabbed one of my knives from the sheath. His glistening eyes fixated on the way the light reflected off the blade. “Is this thing real?”

  Ignoring him, I snatched it out of his hand and placed it back in its sheath. Then I looked at Mason. “Let’s go.”

  “What’s the rush?” Kirsty said in a sultry tone, her gaze fixed on Max as she flicked her rose gold hair over her shoulder and subtly pushed out her chest. The girl was blessed with boobs I could only dream of, and she certainly knew how to display her assets to her advantage.

  To my relief, Max’s attention stayed on me, completely oblivious to her advances. Either that or he didn’t care to acknowledge her flirtatious ways. He was in protection mode—he was always in protection mode. Even when we were in the compound, he was still on edge, almost as if he didn’t trust that Orphelia could keep the protection wards secured around the compound.

  Max maneuvered his way around the table, slipped his arm under my father’s body, and lifted him onto his feet.

  Mason stood and grabbed Dad from his other side. “See you guys around.”

  “That’s it?” Kirsty asked. “You’re leaving already?” She pouted her lips.

  Again, Max ignored her. He paused beside me. “Let’s go.”

  I nodded. I had no plans to stay there any longer than necessary. I just wanted one thing.

  Pizza.

  Leaning over the table, I grabbed a slice of pepperoni, my mouth watering as the cheese stretched then snapped. “Later, dudes.”

  Taking a bite, I spun around and ran smack into my best friend. “Ashley.”

  A wave of emotions swept over me as she wrapped her arms around me, almost trapping the pizza slice between us.

  “Holy shit,” she said, squeezing me tighter before releasing her grip on me. “I can’t believe you’re back. Mason said you were alright, but you know his idea of okay and my idea of okay are two totally different things.”

  Guilt clawed its way up my chest as I stared at her eager face, filled with relief. By the look in her eyes, she probably thought she was never going to see me again. We’d been inseparable since we were kids and now… Now, I had to leave again.

  The smile dropped from her eyes, quickly turning into apprehension. “What?”

  “She’s got fangs,” Charlie said, baring his own tiny human ones.

  Her eyes practically popped out of their sockets. “You’ve turned?”

  I shook my head. “It’s not what it seems.”

  Ash’s gaze homed in on my teeth and widened. “Holy shit.” She took a step back. Ash, unlike the others, rarely touched drugs. Before Mom died, I never dreamed I would ever snort any substance up my nose, let alone swallow or smoke something that was made in a backyard chemistry lab. After… I needed to escape. But Ash took her best friend duties to a whole other level. Most people would’ve given up on me. Not Ash. And I was about to walk out on her again.

  “I’m not a vampire,” I said, trying to come across as my old easy-going self, which was almost impossible with my heightened senses. “I just have these.” I pointed to my teeth.

  “Don’t trust her,” Jacob snickered. “She wants to eat you.” He made a disgusting slurping sound that made me want to gag him.

  The others barked out uncontrollable laughs, a tell-tale sign they were under the full effects of the drug high.

  Unable to put up with their shit any longer, I grabbed her wrist and dragged Ashley away from the others. Stopping near the bathroom door, I said in a hushed tone, “Look, I know this is freaking you out, and I wish I could sit down and tell you everything that’s happened since I’ve been gone, but I don’t have time to give you a proper rundown.”

  “What do you mean you don’t have time?”

  Max opened the door to the restaurant and called out, “Kali, we have to go—now.”

  “Who the hell is that?” she asked. The look of fear in Ashley’s eyes was digging into my heart like a rusty knife.

  She was like family to me, and after these last few weeks of thinking I was going to bring her back to the compound, I wasn’t sure she would choose to leave her family to come stay with me. I furrowed my brows. No one said she had to stay. “I have to go, but I want you to come with me so I can explain.”

  “I can’t just leave,” she said. “My parents will freak out if I don’t come home tonight.”

  “Kali,” Max called again. “They’re on to us.”

  Shit. Of course, the Society was on to us. They probably had a GPS tracking signal implanted in me, not just the vans.

  Ashley screwed up her face in confusion. “Who is that? And who are they?”

  “That’s what I want to explain to you, but we have to go now.” When she didn’t move I said, “Do you trust me?”

  She stared at me for a few moments then nodded.

  “Kali!” Max snapped, irritation swirling in his eyes. The guy looked seconds away from throwing me over his shoulder and dragging my ass back to the hunters. As enticing as that sounded, I owed it to him to do the right thing. He’d stuck his neck out for me tonight, and I wasn’t going to let him pay for my actions.

  “You ready?” I asked Ashley.

  With her mouth slightly ajar, completely lost for words, she nodded again.

  I took her by the hand and dragged her outside.

  Max placed his hand on my stomach, stopping me from going further. “You can’t bring her.” He gestured to Ashley. “They’ll flip if we bring in a civilian, let alone two.”

  I could barely process what he’d said because I was so caught up in the way my stomach had gone to mush thanks to the simple touch of his hand. He wasn’t even touching my bare skin
, and I was turning into a hot mess.

  “Civilian?” Ash asked. “What the hell is he talking about. Is this guy military? Have you joined the army?” She had her voice back and was slipping into panic mode.

  “Uh,” I shoved my inappropriate thoughts to the back of my mind. “He’s talking about some ridiculous rule the Society has in place. But lucky for you, I don’t give a shit about their rules.”

  “Who’s the Society?” Ash asked. “Are they a secret government agency? Were they the ones who took Mason?”

  Max gave me a look telling me not to say any more about them.

  Nothing about the hunters’ secrecy made sense to me. Maybe if the humans didn’t know vampires existed, but they did. They would’ve been relieved to know that there were hunters out there, protecting them from the monsters that hunted them.

  According to Lana, I only had a few weeks until I was no longer in control of myself, and I wasn’t going to leave my best friend in the dark. She needed to know the truth. Hell, everyone needed to know the truth, but I would settle for just telling Ashley.

  Keeping his gaze locked with mine, I said, “The Society is a group of hunters that protect humans from the shadows.”

  Ash’s mouth fell open. “Hunters?”

  Max breathed out harshly as he shook his head, pissed off at me for breaking the sacred code of silence.

  Mason popped his head out of the back of the van. “Guys, we gotta go. They’re about two minutes away.”

  Those GPS tracking systems in the vans were both a lifesaver and a hindrance. The other hunters knew where we were, and we knew where they were.

  “Shit,” Max said. “We don’t have time for this.” He shook his head again. “Get in the van.”

  “Not without her.” I pointed to Ash.

  “Yeah, you’ve already made that clear.”

  I bit down on my smile. “Thank you.”

  The corner of his lips tipped up. Then he headed toward the driver’s seat, jumped in, and started the van.

  “Come on.” I hopped in the back of the van, being careful not to tread on my father, who was sprawled out across the floor, already snoring.

  Ash paused a few feet away from the van. “You’re not going to stick a bag over my head and drag me off to some vampire lair to use me as a blood bag, are you?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Get in here.”

  A grin crept across her face as she climbed in the back and slid onto the bench seat beside Mason, her eyes going wide when she spotted the arsenal of weapons strapped onto the divider between the back and front seats.

  I closed the back doors then took a seat on the bench opposite Ash and Mason. Seeing her sitting there, face pale, in a world she didn’t understand, it hit me that I should’ve left her alone. She wasn’t a hunter. And as far as I could tell, she wasn’t in any danger. Lana had said the vampires would come after everyone Mason cared about, but so far, all they had done was turn my place upside down and possibly wait for me to arrive. There’d only been a handful of them, which was a little unusual if they suspected they were going to go up against the one.

  Ashley had been safe, and now I was the one putting her in danger.

  Shit.

  Her horrified gaze finally diverted from the weapons and landed on me. “Tell me everything.”

  11

  Trying to figure out what I should tell Ashley was doing my head in. Whatever I said next would determine the rest of her life. I had the chance to let her go home with only a few crumbs of truth, or I could tell her everything and let her decide.

  Lana’s family had given me strict instructions that I needed to stay away from my father and friends, and I had once again gone off, defying their orders and doing whatever the hell I wanted.

  I had responsibilities, and now the weight of them was crippling.

  Deep down, I knew I needed to tell Ashley the truth. Everyone deserved to know the truth. Still, it was hard to be the one to shatter someone’s life.

  “Well?” Ashley asked with anticipation.

  I took a deep breath then released it slowly. “Long story short, Finn is alive and—”

  Her eyes widened in shock. “Finn’s alive?”

  I nodded. “He belongs to a secret society of vampire and demon hunters. He found me when I was trying to become a vampire and brought me in. Max—the guy driving this van—wanted to kill me because he thought I was a demon.”

  “Vampire,” Max called out from the front. “I thought you’d completed your turn.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, Max hates me—”

  “Hated,” he corrected.

  I glared at him through the rearview mirror. “Are you telling this story, or should I?”

  Max grinned. “Go ahead.”

  Mason bumped his shoulder against Ash and whispered loudly, “He doesn’t hate her anymore.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

  “Shut up, Mason,” I snapped as I cast a quick glance at Max, blood rushing to my cheeks when I saw him staring back at me.

  Quickly averting my gaze back to Ash, I continued, “Max hated me but then saved my ass when I went rogue trying to get in on Mason’s recovery mission.”

  “If I remember correctly, it was you who saved my ass,” Max interjected—again.

  I breathed out harshly, wishing everyone would just shut up and let me tell the story. “Max saved my ass, then got taken by the vampires—”

  “Which is when Kali got all hot and bothered that the guy she was crushing on was going to die because of another one of her rash decisions.” Mason winked at me.

  I groaned. “Really, Mason? I don’t know about you, but when I was getting the life sucked out of me by a vampire, the last thing on my mind was my dating life. All I could think about was that Max was going to die because of me. After everything he’d gone through, I was his undoing.” A lump formed in my throat as I remembered the savage monsters dragging him into the van. “I couldn’t let him die, and I couldn’t let you die. So, I did what I had to do.”

  “And what was that?” Ash asked, her body language void of all fear, replaced by excitement and anticipation.

  “I bit the vampire and drank his blood.”

  “Holy. Shit.” Ash pointed to my mouth. “Is that how you got those?”

  I nodded.

  Mason bent down to check on our father. “Only, she didn’t become a vampire.”

  Ash leaned forward, on the edge of her seat. “What are you then?”

  “I am—or will become—the demon huntress the Society of hunters have been searching for. So now vampires all over the world are looking for me, trying to kill me before my eighteenth birthday when I’m supposed to go through this transition into becoming the one.”

  Ashley barked out a laugh. “You’re trying to tell me you’re some badass kung fu chick that can kill a vampire?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  She could barely contain her laughter. “You, the girl who can’t even gut a fish and got your ass beaten by Jessica Mitchell in third grade?”

  Raising my brow, I folded my arms across my chest. “Yes and yes.”

  Ash turned to Mason, her smile dropping when she saw he wasn’t taking the piss out of me with her. She glanced at Max, who gave her a nod. “You guys are serious, aren’t you?”

  I breathed out harshly. “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “Which is why we need to get her back to the compound,” Max said.

  She slowly narrowed her eyes at me, creasing her forehead. “You came out here, where they could kill you?”

  I shrugged. “You know I don’t like being told what to do.”

  Ash broke out into a fit of giggles—or more so, hysterics. She did that when she was nervous or afraid.

  It wasn’t a good sign.

  I waited for her to get her shit together, but she seemed to continue to spiral out of control.

  Crap.

  Standing, I made my way to the front of the van, climbed into the passenger seat, and b
reathed out harshly. “Don’t suppose you’ve got something I can give her to calm down—or erase her memory of the last twenty minutes?”

  Max chuckled as he shook his head. “You wanted to tell her. Now you have to deal with the consequences.”

  I peered over my shoulder and saw Mason had his arm around Ashley, comforting her. “Maybe we should take her home.”

  Max smirked. “A little too late for that.” He cocked his head toward the looming walls of the compound.

  My eyes widened, and my heart leaped into my throat, choking me as I stared at my mother, standing in the middle of the road, her ghostly figure raising her hand straight out in front of her, palm facing us.

  I waited for Max to slow down, but it was as if he didn’t see her.

  Without thinking, I leaned over, grabbed the steering wheel, and spun it—hard.

  12

  The next few seconds felt like an eternity as the van tipped on two wheels and flipped, tossing my body around the cabin like I was in a washing machine, slamming me into Max before throwing me against the passenger side again. The windows exploded, sending shards of glass into my body as the van rolled down the street. The sound of the metal screeching against the bitumen reverberated through the van until the vehicle hit the grass and slid down a small embankment.

  My vision swayed and my head pounded as I tried to focus on my surroundings. Every inch of my body ached, especially… My stomach lurched when I saw the large piece of twisted metal sticking out of my thigh.

  I quickly averted my gaze and tried to focus on Max. He’d been sensible enough to buckle in and was now hanging upside down, head dangling, blood slowly dripping from the side of his face, probably thanks to me being unbuckled and flying around the front cabin.

  Panic ripped through me, fearing I had just killed him to save my ghost of a mother. Without thinking, I wrapped my hand around the metal stuck in my leg and yanked it out. Ignoring the blood oozing from the wound, I pulled myself into a semi-standing position and tried to block out the ringing in my ears so I could focus on Max’s vitals.