New Dawn

by Sharon Stevenson

  I need to be alone to go after Dawn. I only hope this time that Nadine’s charm will keep Tristan from surfacing.

  Chapter Eighteen

  There’s no trail to follow to track her down. All I can do is walk the streets and be on the look-out. Nadine is right that she’s stronger with less weaknesses than me. She doesn’t need rescuing now.

  I’m not sure what I’m doing. I just know I have to see her.

  Frustration was building with every step I took around town. Then, I try the last place I want to look and there she is.

  The brunette in the corner booth is drinking something pink in a tall glass. She’s wearing the same body-hugging dress she’d been in the night before, when Tristan chased her to Nadine’s place. I hesitate to approach. The strange, conflicting feelings she inspires in me are potent. Separating them had never been easy and I could tell she struggled with the same odd problem. Her eyes meet mine from across the room. I can’t back out of this now. It’s time to confront the girl I’d freed.

  She straightens in her seat, but glares icily as I approach and slide into the seat opposite from her.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you.”

  She rolls her eyes. It does sound like a line. I smile.

  “It’s safe to go back to Nadine’s now,” I tell her.

  She shrugs. “Maybe I don’t want to go back there.”

  “Then let me help you find someplace else.”

  She narrows her eyes. “Why are you so keen to help me anyway?”

  I open my mouth and close it again. We sit in silence for a few minutes, during which I’m sure she was thinking about bolting.

  “Can we just start over?”

  She raises an eyebrow. “Um, what?”

  “I’m Connor,” I say.

  “I’m pretty sure you already know my name.” Her gaze drops almost the moment I meet her eyes. I can almost read her thoughts. And all the rest.

  I’d known this would be awkward. Why can’t I leave it alone?

  “Did you really trade your soul for me?”

  “It only goes to hell if I lose this body.”

  Her gaze drifts over my upper half. I can’t help the smile her appraisal brings out.

  “What about your demon?” She leans forward, keeping her voice low.

  “Nadine helped with that. I’m working on it.” It doesn’t sound as much like bullshit as I’d expected it to. I’d need to be crazy to think I could get rid of Tristan. Supressing him for as long as possible is the best I can hope for.

  She sips at her drink, watching me thoughtfully. “I don’t think we should be around each other.”

  Pushing the drink away, she gets up. It’s the last reaction I’d expected and it throws me. The shock lasts a few seconds before it breaks. I move before I can give it a second thought. She’s rounding the corner to exit the back alley when I catch up with her.

  “Dawn.”

  She turns when I speak her name. Her full lips part, a question forming as I let my instincts override everything else. She doesn’t get the chance to speak. I pull her in, crushing her body to mine as my lips claim hers. She kisses back hungrily, feeding my desire with her own.

  The idle reasons I’d given myself for seeing her again are eclipsed by the truth in our embrace. I craved this, her. There’s no more denying it. This is what I’d set her free for.

  New Dawn: Part Five

  Surfacing Sins – Dawn

  Chapter Nineteen

  He wants me so badly I can barely stand to look at him. The desperation in his voice, the ravenous way his gaze trails over my body. It’s all too much to stand. I have to get away from him. All I can think about is how good I knew it would feel to be with him.

  He wouldn’t let me go, his true intentions coming out the moment he chased me. I was his before he even pulled me into that kiss.

  When he let my lips go to look me in the eyes I could barely think straight. “Tristan…”

  He shakes his head. “He’s not coming back. I promise.”

  The first flush of lust wanes as I realise I have no idea who this guy even is. For all he’d done for me, I barely know much more than his name. It hardly seems to matter, but I know that’s the heat of the moment talking.

  “This is too fast.”

  He smiles. “You don’t sound sure about that.”

  “Well, it’s kind of confusing. You have to admit.”

  “I wasn’t planning on doing more than kissing you out here.” He still hasn’t dropped his arms from around me though. He doesn’t seem to want to let me go.

  “Are you staying at Nadine’s?”

  If he is, there’s no way we’d be able to restrain ourselves for long. It would be asking for trouble.

  He shakes his head. “I’m staying here, actually.”

  “Here?”

  “There are rooms under the club. Kind of perfect for vampires.”

  “Oh, well. Good.” I bit at my lower lip. “Walk me home?”

  He obliges with a smile, letting go to take my hand.

  We walk, mostly in silence. The streets are quiet. It’s strangely relaxing. He stops outside Nadine’s apartment building, and I can tell from his searing gaze that there’s a reason he isn’t coming inside. There’s no way I wouldn’t drag him into his old room if he walked me up those stairs.

  “Goodnight,” he murmurs, placing a soft kiss on my lips before he leaves.

  “Goodnight,” I repeat, a sense of dejavu falling over me. The night he’d given me the rose, the one Nisha had wanted to crush in her hand, that night had felt like this. Like it had just been him and me, only I hadn’t known who he was and I hadn’t realised I was more in control than my demon.

  Talk about confusing. I walk up to the flat door and fumble in my bag for the key. I get inside and dump my bag next to the door. The lights are out, which is not that surprising considering the time. I’d managed to stay out after midnight. At least I’d made it home. Knowing where Connor’s staying is not going to make going to that club again easy.

  “Connor,” I murmur, reminding myself of his name. I was so used to seeing him called Tristan. He was used to me being Nisha, too, I supposed, though he seemed to be less confused about calling me by my real name now. I wondered where he’d even first heard it. Nisha had never used it, neither had Tristan as far as I was aware.

  Must have checked my ID when he wrote that note. That had to be it.

  I fell into bed and crashed out almost instantly.

  Chapter Twenty

  The TV is on when I get up in the morning. The sombre tone of the narrator warns me it’s a news channel, which seems like an odd thing to be watching on a Saturday morning, but then again, I don’t know Nadine that well. I haul myself up, groaning the moment I realise I’ve worn my make-up to bed, and head straight for the bathroom.

  Nadine is staring intently at the TV screen when I get into the living room. She’s practically on the edge of the couch.

  It stops me in my tracks. “Um, hey.”

  “Hey,” she mutters, not tearing her eyes from the screen.

  I move over to stand behind the couch and try to work out what she’s scrutinising. The story seems to revolve around the confession of a gang member. It takes a second for everything to click, and that only happens when Connor’s name flashes across the screen.

  “Holy hell!”

  Nadine’s frown is directed at my outburst. She turns up the volume on the set. I listen intently to work out what the story is and as soon as I do, a barrage of questions flood my thoughts. The confessor has claimed Connor killed one of their own men, and that was why he’d had to kill him. The reporter is stating that despite his claims, neither body had surfaced and that the police are presently holding the man for questioning. There’s a plea for information from the public, and pictures of Connor and an older man flash up on the screen.

  “Shit,” I whisper.

  Nadine turns the sound down w
hen the news caster moves on to another story. She turns to me. “I need to go find my brother. This is big trouble he’s landed himself in.”

  I think about the demon and what it wanted to do and have to hold back the burst of laughter that threatened to break forth. This was nothing compared to what our demons had done, either of them.

  “I might know where he is.”

  She raises an eyebrow at me. “Really?”

  I nod. “He told me last night.”

  She frowns at me as she grabs her jacket. “Where?”

  I make a dash for the bathroom. “Give me ten minutes and I’ll come with you.”

  She sighs loudly as I close the door on her. There’s no way I was going to let him see me like this for the third day in a row. It couldn’t be as urgent as Nadine seemed to think.

  “Hurry up!” Nadine yells at me through the door.

  I clean myself up, have a quick shower and get dressed. It’s probably closer to fifteen minutes later that I finally give Nadine the name of the place her brother is staying at. She’s seriously riled by then and rolls her eyes when I tell her.

  “Okay, whatever. You know what room he’s in, right?”

  I open my mouth and close it again, shaking my head. “Sorry. Not that kind of girl.”

  That’s a lie. A few more seconds of his touch and I would have been exactly that kind of girl.

  Another loud sigh and we were out the door, heading to the guy I could barely think straight around. It felt like a mistake. At the same time, I didn’t want to miss a chance to see him again, not to mention all the questions that were filling up my head over what we’d seen on the news.

  “Was he involved with those guys?” It’s the most obvious question and I can’t seem to stop thinking about it.

  She glances at me. “He didn’t tell you?”

  The snap to her tone made me wince. “It’s not like we did a lot of talking,” I say, playing into the slutty role she seems to have jammed me into.

  She doesn’t direct the scowl on her face my way, but she may as well have. She marches right in to the hallway for the rooms, takes a crystal out of her pocket and snaps out an activation word that is masked by her anger. The crystal floats through the air and drops down outside one of the doors.

  She turns to me. “My brother was never a one-woman kind of guy. You might want to prepare yourself for a shock here.”

  I flinch at the punch behind her words. This whole situation seems to be turning her into a real piece of work. “I’m not worried.”

  She knocks his door and I fold my arms, staying back.

  The door opens slowly, and the young guy who stares out at us seems confused.

  “Did we order room service?”

  “I told you not to open the damned—” Connor’s voice cuts off as he spots us in the hallway. He tries for a smile, but it’s kind of awkward while he straightens, moving away from the blonde on the bed.

  Nadine smirks at me. “What did I tell you?”

  Connor pushes the young guy back. “She’s fine now. She just needs time to recover.”

  “Still the same old womanizer, I see.” Nadine smiles sweetly at him.

  He rolls his eyes. “Hardly. What are you doing here?”

  He glances at me, and I try not to let his gaze melt me.

  “She’s got a pulse,” his teenage friend calls out, relief in his tone.

  “Been teaching the kid to hunt. He hasn’t quite gotten the hang of when to quit feeding.”

  My shoulders relax. I’d been instinctively sure he wasn’t that kind of guy, but what the hell did I know? Nothing. I had to keep reminding myself.

  “I’m assuming you haven’t heard yet.”

  “Heard what?”

  “Your old friend Mad confessed to your murder. Oh, and he blamed some other guy’s death on you too.”

  He winces. “What? You’d better come in.”

  She steps inside and I follow, the brush of his hand on my lower back sending tingles of anticipation through me. I seriously have to get this attraction under control.

  He closes the door and leans against it. “This is Rob, by the way.”

  “Hey,” the kid says, moving away from the sleeping girl on the bed. He looks me over quickly before his gaze settles on Nadine. He grins at her. “Hey, gorgeous.”

  She glares at him, before she turns back to Connor. “Keep your little boy under control.”

  “I’m not a little—”

  “Go into the other room, Rob,” Connor commands.

  The teenager walks into the bathroom and closes the door, his scowl obvious to us all before it bangs shut.

  Connor turns back to us. “Mad confessed. Publicly, I assume?”

  Nadine nods. “There’s an appeal for information on your whereabouts, so you’re going to need to be careful.”

  “Great,” he says, with a wry smile.

  “What’s going on, Connor?”

  He shrugs. “Same old shit as always. Other than the whole demon thing, I mean.”

  “I’ll make a charm to change your appearance.” Nadine went into her bag and came up empty. “Don’t leave this room. I’ll be back in ten.”

  Connor gets out of her way and she leaves without giving me a chance to follow. I’m left alone — almost — with the man I can barely resist. He leans back against the door.

  “You’re stuck with me now,” he says.

  I force myself to stay rooted to the spot, a few feet away from him. You don’t know this guy, and things are getting seriously shady. “So, you were involved with those guys before you were a vampire?”

  “I was.” He doesn’t elaborate, his tone telling me not to push any harder.

  “Did that guy who confessed kill you then? Was he the one to—”

  He shakes his head. “Mad was a friend. It’s kind of a long story.”

  “I think we have time,” I tell him. “Don’t you?”

  “I killed someone to save the kid.” He motions to the bathroom. “They found him again and killed him anyway. So, I brought him back, turned him. Mad—” he sighs deeply. “Mad was sent to make sure I wasn’t going to be problem anymore. I should have—” He presses his lips together. “What I should have done doesn’t matter now. I compelled him to tell his boss he killed me. That he put my body in the river.”

  I can’t help the shiver that passes through me listening to him speak.

  “So now you know.” His gaze drifts to the bed and back to me. “I’m going to need to keep a low profile for a bit. Leave town in a few days, once I’m sure there’s not going to be a retaliation.”

  My knee-jerk reaction is to tell him not to go. I bite it back. This is serious. Dangerous people and a deadly situation. “Do whatever you need to.”

  It feels like a goodbye, but maybe that’s what this needed to be. It can’t be healthy to want someone this badly. Yet every second I stand here staring at him, I want to close the distance between us and never let go. His intense stare seems to invite all my primal urges to come out and play. I break eye-contact to watch the unconscious girl on the bed. She’s fully clothed at least, though if she hadn’t been I’d have suspected the younger vampire of bringing her to bed anyway. She looks like a teenager; too much make-up and too thin to be an adult.

  Connor doesn’t seem to have anything else to say to me. The silence is beginning to feel awkward, but I’m too afraid to fill it with words. I can’t trust myself around him, and I don’t want to say something I might regret later.

  Nadine comes back a few long minutes after I start to scrutinise the girl on the bed. She passes her brother a new charm, smiling wryly at him as she hands it over. “I hope you like the new you.”

  He takes it and she touches his chest. “This one needs renewed.”

  He frowns at her. “Can you do it while I’m wearing it?”

  She shakes her head. “I’ll make another. That way you don’t have to risk setting the demon loose.”

  He puts the ot
her over his head and looks at her. “What do I do to get it to work?”

  She passes him a slip of paper. “Say this to activate, and take it off to deactivate. The magic stored in the pendant is limited so you can only activate and deactivate a couple of times each. I’d say take it off when you don’t want to look like someone else, but you probably don’t want to risk someone seeing that happen so you’ll need to be careful either way.”

  “You two should go,” he says.

  “Are you going to leave town?” Nadine asks.

  He nods. “It’ll be safer. For everyone.”

  He opens the door. I move quickly to leave before Nadine. Last words don’t need to be spoken. I can’t stand the thought of it. She doesn’t catch me up until I’m outside.

  “We should go home.”

  I nod slowly, her words sinking in. “Yeah. Home.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The flat is exactly as I’d left it. I dump my bag on the ground and start to tidy the place up. Rent free accommodation without a roommate who doesn’t particularly seem to like me seems more sensible than staying at Nadine’s place. With Connor’s demon under control it’s unlikely that I’d need to watch out for him anymore. Besides, I’m strong enough to lift the fridge on my own now. I’m sure I can handle a single vampire.

  “Sunlight and holy water,” I mutter to myself.

  Nadine has given me some of the latter, just in case. She hadn’t said much when I’d told her I was going home. Just asked if I’d call the office on Monday and tell them myself that I wasn’t coming back to work. Then she’d given me a couple of things and told me to look after myself, because her brother wouldn’t like it if I got hurt.

  I wonder if anything could really, truly, hurt me anymore. At least physically. I don’t seem to feel pain, though my bones could still break and my skin could still bruise. What would it take to kill me? I get the shivers just thinking about that.

  I settle back in, enjoying the peace and quiet of my old flat. It’s all mine, even if there’s a shadow hanging over the place, one Nisha and Tristan had left behind. It will disappear in time. I’m sure of it. But to make sure it went quicker, I had a rifle through my wardrobe and ripped every dress that bitch had worn to shreds. The moment I get done with that, I stuff them into a bin bag and take it down to the wheelie bin.