Death Awakening (The Society Series)

by Mason Sabre

  Yvette nodded solemnly, telling herself that Troy was right. She pulled the collar of the girl’s shirt away, revealing the festering wound. It wasn’t bleeding, but it was open. If it had not been a vampire bite, she would have bled to death, but Henry’s saliva would have made the blood congeal. It would also be fusing with her system.

  Yvette closed her eyes. Please let this be the right thing to do. Please make it right.

  When she opened them, she sunk her fangs into the girl’s neck, biting over the wound that was already there. Hot blood pumped into Yvette’s mouth, and she groaned from the sheer pleasure of it. God, she had never tasted anything so divine. The girl’s pulse throbbed and Yvette sucked hard, drawing the warm blood into her mouth. She had never imagined that it could be this way. It was like nothing she had ever thought it would be.

  She had fed on other vampires before—fed on Troy—but it was nothing like this. The girl’s blood filled a part of her hunger that she didn’t know existed. Yvette pressed the girl closer to her and with each moment that went by, the girl seemed to grow limper against her, her muscles sinking as they lost blood. Yvette lowered the girl to her lap, letting her head rest there, and then she leaned her head back and let her eyes close slowly. She slid her hand along her body, across her chest. Just the sheer touch of skin sent shivers of electricity coursing through her. She thought she would have had to let go of the girl, not sure she could take much more of this onslaught of pleasure inside her.

  She didn’t realise Troy had moved until she opened her eyes again and saw him standing guard, watching her and glancing all around them at the same time—the perfect protector. “You have to finish it,” Troy said gently. “Or she will die.”

  Yvette licked her lips, across her fangs, taking in every last drop of blood. The girl would not die. Not tonight. Not if Yvette could stop it. “Help me turn her. We can do it together. She can be tied to us both.” She reached down for the girl’s arm, sliding her fingers along the tender flesh. Her temperature had dropped, but she was still alive—barely. Each breath came out laboured, slower than sleep. Yvette picked up the girl’s arm, turned it so that the wrist was exposed and held it out to Troy. “Turn her with me. Drink with me.”

  He hesitated. “We will be tied forever.”

  “I know.” He sank to his knees and brought the girl's arm to his mouth—the forbidden fruit. He inhaled her skin, his eyes blazing. He had never bitten a Human, either. Curling his lip back, he plunged his fangs into her skin.

  The girl’s eyes shot open and Yvette placed a calming hand on her chest, keeping her in place—and then she bit her again, too. They sucked on her blood until the last drop of it was taken from her body.

  Chapter Eight

  The girl lay limp between them, her heart no longer beating. She was dead. So much as Yvette needed to, she couldn’t bring herself to move. If she could, she would stay there and not move at all. But the sun would be up soon, dawn was on its way. Already she felt the shift in the air, but it wasn’t like she was used to—this was something new, something different. It had to be from the girl’s blood. There was no other explanation for it.

  Troy was sitting on the back seat with her, the girl’s legs resting across his knees. His head was back, his eyes closed. Blood smeared his lips, the only evidence of their lawless deed. Yvette fought the urge to let her own eyes close. She was just happy to sit there, to watch Troy and to rest.

  “We need to move,” she said begrudgingly after a few minutes.

  He gave a slow nod, lifting his heavy head as he, too, fought to open his eyes. “We have to bury her.”

  This was the next step for her transformation to be complete. They needed a place where she could rest undisturbed for the day while her body changed. She would rise tomorrow—she would hear the call—when the sun had set and fed life into the earth. But she needed somewhere safe. They couldn’t go home to do it. Henry would surely go there to look for Yvette. But it had to be somewhere the Humans wouldn’t come and find them.

  “We could take her to the Hill,” Yvette said.

  “The Hill? But it's closed.”

  No, the Hill was the perfect place. Where the girl had been first bitten. There was enough ground to bury her and no one would go there—not even the Humans would search there when the reports of missing kids surfaced. And they would surface—soon. When their loving parents found them missing. When they didn’t show up for class or work, or even just to moan about their hangover. “It isn’t anymore.”

  At Troy's quizzical look, Yvette quickly explained what had happened. Well, kind of. She didn’t really tell him the part where she decided to go alone. She hoped that he wouldn’t ask about it and that it could all just pass like that. When she was done, Troy's features were tight with anger, but he seemed to realise this was not the time or the place to discuss the foolhardiness of her actions.

  He slid out of the car and stood by the side of the road. He was mad, she was sure. He had every right to be, but all of her decisions had been done with the best intentions. He had to understand that. She hadn’t done any of this for herself. Shit. Shut up. She shook her head at herself, determined not to overthink all of this. It was all okay. All of it was.

  She let herself out of the car and walked around to where Troy stood. “I feel like my heart should be beating,” he said finally, his hand on his chest. He grabbed her hand and pressed it over his heart, but there was nothing there. Just the hardness of his muscled chest.

  “We should take the girl before the sun comes up.” They didn’t have too long now. “We will go home?” With no master around them, they didn’t really have order in their world. They were young in the grand scheme of vampires—babies. When Yvette had been turned, it had been in the home of her maker and he had laid her in the dark in the basement of his house. But she had seen others buried, left to rise by themselves and find their own way back to the one who had made them. That was part of the challenge—the training to hone in their senses.

  “I think so,” Troy said. He reached down for Yvette’s hand, warmth seeping into her skin. She pressed her mouth to the back of his shoulder, breathing in the earthy scent of him.

  Something slammed into her, startling her. Not physically, but into her mind. A flash of ice-blue eyes pushed against her mind and seemed to wrap itself around her. She stumbled back, letting go of Troy’s hand.

  “Vet?”

  She fell back against the car, clutching her head. Her stomach roiled, threatening to bring up the blood they had just taken. Heat bubbled up inside her ... All she could see in her mind were those eyes. Henry’s eyes.

  “He’s looking for me,” she spluttered. “I …” She raised her eyes to Troy. “I gave him blood.”

  Troy’s eyes widened. “What? Fuck, Vet, please tell me you didn’t.”

  “I’m s-sorry. I didn’t know what to do.” She couldn’t even fathom why she had done it. It was right at the time. Right to help that girl ... and maybe Henry, too.

  “We need to move.”

  He was close—a beacon behind her somewhere calling her home. The comforting place in her mind that would fill that darkness inside her. The pull was so strong she wasn’t sure she would be able to deny it. Even for Troy or the girl. Was this what they meant? When the girl woke tomorrow, is this the pull she would feel to Yvette?

  Troy grabbed Yvette by the shoulders. “Come on, get in the car.” He opened the door and bundled her in. The weight of Henry’s imminent presence pressed against Yvette's senses. She struggled to tear herself away from the heavy burden of it. It was so easy to just let herself sink into it.

  Troy started the car and pulled away from the lane, taking them back to the road. Henry was there. She couldn’t see him, but she could feel his eyes on her—in her. They were everywhere. He had a hold of that piece of her soul that she still retained, the part that awoke every night when the sun went down. Troy sped along the road, and Yvette gripped onto the girl. It was the only thing kee
ping her from heaving open the door and running to Henry to throw herself at his feet.

  Yvette spent the entire time with her head in her hands, her eyes tightly shut. She would not let Henry inside. Not like before. But he called to her, beckoned her to come to him, his voice a silky echo in the back of her mind. She was going fucking crazy with it.

  “Hold on,” Troy said as he drove. He got the car to the Hill, parking almost at the same place Yvette had before. Getting out of the car, he raced around to the back door, yanking it open. Yvette almost fell out onto him, blood dripping from her nose. Troy used the cuff of his shirt to clean it away, cupping her head gently. “You have to fight, Vet,” he begged her.

  “He’s s-so strong. I cc-an’t …”

  “You can. Come on. We’ve done more than this shit together. Haven’t we?”

  The look on Troy’s face meant business. Her Troy. Her strong Troy. The man always by her side, always there for her no matter how shitty her moods, how happy, how cranky. It didn’t matter. He was her Troy. He never left. “Yes, we can,” she whispered. With him, she could do anything. She reached out, placing her hand in his and let him pull her from the car, sliding out from under the girl’s head.

  “We’ve got to get her in there. We have to bury her.”

  “We don’t have a shovel.” Yvette had no idea why that came to mind, but it did. They had no shovel. Of all the fucking reasons they would get caught, it was because they had no god damn shovel in the car. How stupid was that.

  “We’ll work it out. Don’t you worry. Come on. Help me.” Troy pulled the girl out of the car while Yvette struggled to try to keep herself steady. She clenched her eyes shut as Henry’s voice echoed in her mind.

  No. No. Leave me alone. There was no way she was going to go to him. She had come too far and she wasn't about to fail now. She gritted her teeth, determination setting in. She would save this girl if it was the last thing she did. She grabbed hold of the girl’s legs as Troy took the bulk of the weight and carried her into the Hill. The place was thick with the scent of blood still—old dying, rotting blood.

  They carried the girl to the farthest point from the gate—to the back, where no one passing by would see them. Not that anyone passed by, but why take the chance. The earth was softer here, unlike at the top where the sun baked it, and it was cracked and dry. But here, where moisture ran down, the earth was soft. “We’ll dig with our hands if we have to,” Troy said as he laid the girl down.

  Yvette nodded, glancing around for anything that might make that a little bit easier. Bushes, dead flowers and wild flowers were all she could see. The stone wall that kept the place apart from the world was tall, with slate wedges in the gaps. What did the Humans think? That Others would suck themselves through the gaps? She pulled one of the dark purple slates out—it was sharp. “What about this?” she said, dropping to her knees and digging it into the earth.

  “That could work.” Troy got his own slate, a little bigger than hers, and started to dig with her. The jagged edges bit into their skin, and blood ran down Troy’s slate as he dug frantically. She mimicked him, ignoring the ache in her arms and the pull in her chest. She closed her mind off and focused all her energy into digging.

  The sound of an engine broke the silence around them and they both froze. It wouldn’t be Henry ... he couldn’t drive. Troy rested a hand on Yvette’s, ready for whomever it was that came.

  They heard a car pull up and then the sound of the gate squealing open. “Oh God,” a female voice said. “What the hell happened here?”

  Chapter Nine

  Troy slid back from where they were, moving himself around so that whoever it was that had come to the Hill would have to get through him to get to Yvette. Yvette tried to peek around him, but he put a protective arm up to stop her. They both listened and waited, though it didn’t feel like Henry. He wasn’t close.

  Footsteps crunched against the path—there was more than one person coming. Yvette put down her slate and wiped her bloodied hands. She moved to stand next to Troy—he would not be going into this fight alone, no matter who was there.

  “Yvette? Are you here?”

  They both sagged in relief. “Raven?” Yvette rushed forward. Raven had to be okay. He had to be. She swallowed hard, wondering what she would see when he came into view. Was he badly hurt? When he came around the side of the Hill, she ran to him and threw her arms around him for a quick, tight hug. “You’re okay?” He had a gash across his cheek—nothing that wouldn’t heal—but the sight of it filled Yvette with guilt. She had brought this to him. He had a bandage around his hand, too, but other than that, he looked okay. There was a young, auburn-haired woman with him—stunningly beautiful. Yvette recognised her, but couldn’t quite place her.

  “I’m alright.” Raven assured her gently. It could have been worse, she guessed. She was thankful it wasn’t.

  “And Henry?” she dared to ask. He wasn’t dead. She knew that much.

  “He’s alive.”

  “How did you know I would be here?”

  Raven grimaced. “Because that vampire of yours, as soon as you both took off, he sat on the ground, eyes closed ... didn't give two shits about what I was doing, and then he said, The Hill.”

  “Where is he now?” Troy asked.

  “Probably not very far away,” the girl said.

  “He took off after that. He wasn’t bothered by me. It’s the Human he wants. This is Gemma, by the way,” Raven said, introducing his new friend. “She is Council Leader Davies’ daughter.” Yvette must have had a shocked expression on her face, because he said, “Relax. She's a friend. I figured we might need some back up.”

  He walked around the hole they had dug, which wasn’t much of a hole just yet, more a dent in the earth. Their hands were so shredded that they would take a good hour to heal.

  “We have to bury her," she said to them before hesitantly adding, "I turned her.” Raven wouldn’t like it. He wasn’t one for the laws of the world, but he had morals. And turning a young girl over to the Other side was not something he would approve of, especially when she hadn't been given a choice.

  “You did what you had to do,” he said. “What now?”

  “We need to bury her,” Troy repeated. “She’ll rise tomorrow, but she has to be underground, one with the earth.”

  Raven slipped his jacket off his broad shoulders and threw it on the top of another headstone. “Then I guess we better get digging before that vampire shows up. Won't he want the body now?”

  Yvette didn’t really know. Maybe he would. Maybe he would just kill her now for the spite of it, because Yvette had gone against his wishes. But she had had to. There had been no choice.

  “He shouldn’t do,” Troy said. “She won’t be of any use to him.”

  Raven kicked at the hole with his boot. “You’re going to need to get this dug. It’ll be dawn soon.”

  “I know,” Yvette said. “I just don’t have anything to dig with.”

  “I have a shovel in the car if you need it. Two actually.”

  “You have shovels in the back of your car?” Yvette asked in disbelief.

  Raven held out his hands with a shrug. “For digging.”

  For digging? Of course. She didn’t ask for digging what. Some things were probably best not known. He went out and came back moments later with the said shovels, handing one to Gemma and the other to Yvette. “You two do the digging; Troy and I will clean up. It’s a real blood bath up there.”

  “What are you going to do with them?”

  “Best bet is shove them inside and seal it back up again,” Gemma said.

  “What about their families?”

  Raven shrugged. “It’s those kids or us. People will ask about them, and they’ll be told they came to my bar. I’ll say they left, give them the CCTV shit and prove it. After that, who knows what happened to them. We’ll just overwrite the return. If those kids turn up dead on moon-night, who do you think they are going to blame?” />
  It didn’t sit right with Yvette. There were parents out there right now who were missing their children. Well, they probably didn’t know that they were missing just yet, but in a few hours, the search would begin. Newspaper adverts would start, calls for help, offers of cash for information. It would go on for months until they became old news; but that family, those mothers and fathers, would never have rest. They would never know what happened to their child. But then maybe if the bodies weren’t found, the parents would always have hope. No body meant there was a slight chance their child could be alive. It didn’t matter how Yvette tried to justify it to herself. It still felt so wrong. What those parents would go through.

  “I still don’t like it,” she said to him. She got it, though. It had to be this way. Stupid Humans with their rules. They cause this shit.

  Raven and Troy went up the Hill to clean up, and Gemma and Yvette started digging.

  “How deep does this have to go?”

  “I don’t really know. I've never done it before.”

  Gemma was fast, strong. She dug more in that hole than Yvette and Troy had managed already. At this rate, she wouldn’t need Yvette’s help. “I’d say we do the usual six foot then. Or at least as close to it as we can get.”

  Yvette agreed. As long as there was enough to cover the new vampire, it would be okay, she guessed. She started digging at the opposite end to Gemma—it needed to be long. This girl wasn’t tall, but shit, when digging the hole to bury her, it certainly seemed that way. “Have you known Raven a long time?”

  Gemma paused mid scoop, her shoulders tensing.

  “Sorry,” Yvette said. “I talk a lot when I'm nervous.”

  Gemma raised her head, her long hair falling down over her shoulders. “It’s okay. I’ve known him a few years, but these last few months …" She paused, then glanced away. "My brother died. Raven was his friend, and, well, I don’t know, but right now, he’s like some kind of connection for me.”

  Yvette nodded. “I understand. I lost my sister before I became a vampire.”