by ERIN BEDFORD
Until Sunset
Erin Bedford
Until Sunset © 2018 Erin Bedford
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also by Erin Bedford
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Thank You for Reading!
Also by Erin Bedford
The Underground Series
Chasing Rabbits
Chasing Cats
Chasing Princes
Chasing Shadows
Chasing Hearts
The Mary Wiles Chronicles
Marked by Hell
Bound by Hell
Deceived by Hell
Tempted by Hell
Starcrossed Dragons
Riding Lightning
Grinding Frost
Swallowing Fire
Pounding Earth
The Celestial War Chronicles
Song of Blood and Fire
Fairy Tale Bad Boys
Hunter
Pirate
Thief
Mirror
Stepbrother
Crimson Fold
Until Midnight
Until Dawn
Until Sunset
Granting Her Wish
Vampire CEO
Chapter 1
The Glade wasn’t anything like I remembered it. It was funny because it hadn’t been more than a year since I’d been here. Nothing had changed. It was me. I’d changed.
The sun was brighter, almost blindingly so. The entire place was louder too. What used to be the background noise of sheep baying and cows mooing was now blaring in my ears. It took all my effort just to tune it out.
Oh! And the smell!
Who knew the fields I’d loved to play in and used to work in as a teen now stunk of manure and rotting vegetables. The moment we crossed out of Middleton into the Glade, my nose burned from it. I’d have preferred the wretched coal smell.
I was lucky the house my father hid me in was farther away from the fields and closer to the edge of Alban. It didn’t eliminate the smell, but it dulled it a bit. I’d rather smell the woods up against the back of the one-room, one-bathroom house in any case.
Most days, I sat in the corner of the room, staring at nothing. My mind reeled, reliving every moment of my conversion. Being tied down to the cold slab of concrete, Patrick hovering over me, the taste of his blood in my mouth. My throat swallowed thickly, my hunger reminding me I hadn’t eaten in the days I’d been there.
My father left food for me, but while Patrick had told me human food would help with the cravings, they didn’t completely stop them. I could feel my stomach trying to eat itself from my lack of feeding, but I refused to use one of the humans in the Glade. They barely had enough nutrition for live themselves, they didn’t need me adding to their issues. Besides, I didn’t exactly stay around for vampire orientation. I wouldn’t know how to wipe their memory, and then I’d have victims claiming there’s a monster in their midst.
Might as well put a glowing sign up saying, Come, kill me!
Too bad I didn’t have that book, A Guide for the Newly Converted. It would have come in handy about now. Not that I hadn’t read the whole thing back and forth, but it didn’t compare to the real thing. I was kicking myself for taking off without searching for it in Marsha’s room.
My heart clenched painfully at the memory of him, his soft smile, and kind words. I wished all the time that I’d have said something to him before all this. That I hadn’t been so dense to notice him noticing me. We might have hit it off and then gotten married, had children, and then neither of us would have been eligible to be elected.
But it was too late for that. I wasn’t human anymore, and Marsha didn’t even know who I was. He might not even remember who he was before all this. Not like they let me question him during the five minutes I got to see him at my wedding.
My wedding. I snorted. More like the Crimson Fold’s way of showing everyone I belonged to them now. That I was one of them.
A series of knocks, first two then a pause before another three, pounded on the door. I stood from the floor and dusted off my pants. Not that it would do any good. The shack I was staying in was filthy, probably because no one had lived in it for a few years. I’d been too consumed in my own misery to bother trying to clean it up. Hopefully, I wouldn’t be here long.
I twisted the handle and put on my best ‘hanging in there’ smile as my father’s face came into view. When I saw his strained, worried look, guilt ate at me. It was my fault he had extra lines on his face. That his hair had grayed almost completely. I wished I could blame that on my stepmother, but in this situation, I knew it was me. It was hardly fair, I got to live forever, and he was aging before my very eyes.
“Hey, Clarabelle,” he smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes, another thing to add to the list to be guilty about. “How are you holding up?”
I shifted to let him inside the cabin. “I’m alright.” I let out a nervous chuckle. “All things considered.”
My father nodded. “Understandable.” He sat the bag he held on the small table, if you could even call it that. It was more like a wood top being held up by a milk crate. I shut the door and leaned against it, crossing my arms over my chest, watching as he unpacked the care package he always brought with him.
“You didn’t get this from ...?” My voice trailed off, waving my hand toward the mixture of fruits and vegetables on the table.
He pulled out a bag of jerky as he turned. “No, of course not.” My father shook his head sadly. “These people can barely feed themselves, let alone a fugitive.”
I winced at his description though it was true. We didn’t have fugitives often in Alban. Usually, they were caught before they ever got close to the Glade. I wondered if they had sounded the alarm yet, or if they ever would. I’d imagine Patrick and the rest of the Crimson Fold wouldn’t want it getting out that one of their own, their poster child for the Core, had gotten away. I was surprised they hadn’t hunted me down in the middle of the night to cut my head off. That worry was probably why I hadn’t slept well since arriving - or at all.
“So, if you didn’t get it from here, where did you get it from?” I asked, trying to get my mind off the possibility of decapitation.
The look on my father’s face said everything.
I sighed. “Does she know?”
&nb
sp; “No, your stepmother doesn’t know. None of them do.” He moved away from the makeshift table and placed his hands on my shoulders. “I would never put you at risk like that.”
“Yeah, cause we both know none of them can keep a secret to save their lives, let alone mine.” I snorted, earning me a frown from him.
“You know, your stepmother only wants what’s best for you.”
I snorted again and shook my head. “And that’s why she told me to do whatever was necessary to keep Patrick happy, so her daughters could have a charmed life?” I raised a brow and then sighed. “Face it, she only sees me as a nuisance. She hates the fact that I was invited to the election over Julianna. That I actually won. Sure, it might have given her all the prestige and wealth she could hope for, but it didn’t make her care about me any more than she did before.”
“Now, that’s not true,” my father tried to argue. “Belinda talks about you more than you think. Often praises you for your ability to adapt.”
I forced myself not to roll my eyes. I was sure anything nice Belinda had to say about me was meant negatively. How my father couldn’t see it was beyond me. They didn’t have anything in common.
“Do you love her?” I asked suddenly.
My father dropped his arms from my shoulders, surprised by my question. “Of course, I do.” I stared at him, my brows up at my hairline until he let out a tired breath. “Clarabelle, you have to understand. When you get to be my age, you make compromises for those you care about.”
I didn’t mention the fact that I’d never be his age. Instead, I said, “I don’t understand. What compromises?”
He took my hands in his, his fingers stroking over the top of them, his eyes down. “I loved your mother with all my heart.” He let out a heavy, gut-wrenching sigh. “And when she passed, you were the only thing keeping me going. The light in the dark so to speak.”
A thickness filled my throat as he spoke. He’d never really talked about my mother. It’d always been something taboo in our house. We both missed her so much that thinking of her was too much to handle. It was easier to push her to the back of our minds and forget. Or try to.
“I saw what life in the Glade did you to your mother, and what it does to all its residents every day.” His eyes moved up to meet mine. “I didn’t want that for you. I wanted better.”
I saw where this was going even before he said it. “So, you married her to get me out.”
A small smile played on his lips. “Belinda was all refinement and poise. I’d see her every time I made a delivery. We would make small talk, usually about our children.” His eyes sparkled with amusement. “Then the next thing I knew, we’re having dinner, and we’re discussing our late spouses. Even though we have our children, Belinda was just as lonely as I was for companionship. So ...”
“So, you married her.” I finished for him, my guilt at an all-time high. How selfish of me to wish he’d never married. To be so caught up in my own misery to never notice the sadness in his face or the loneliness in his eyes. I’m such a horrible daughter.
He shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “Yes, I married her. I had hoped it would give you a better life and a chance to be a little less lonely as well. I see that didn’t work out as I had planned.”
“The girls are fine,” I said lying through my teeth. “We just didn’t have much in common is all.”
“Ah, I could see that.” He grinned down at me fondly, brushing my hair away from my face. “You a farm girl and them from the big city. I’d imagine it would be hard to find something in common.”
“Yeah,” I murmured as the realization came over me. I told him I didn’t have anything in common with my stepsisters, but really, I didn’t even know them. Lea, a few years my junior, was funny and might have been a great little sister if I’d spent time with her.
The same with Julianna. We were close to the same age, but I’d let her materialistic personality get in the way of finding out what she was genuinely like. I’d looked down my nose at them from the beginning. And now, I’d never know what it would have been like to have real sisters.
I wasn’t even bitter about my stepmother’s dislike of me anymore. I couldn’t be. She was just like my father, trying to do what was best for her children in her own way. But if I was really honest with myself, I didn’t feel much of anything besides the unending hunger. Even then, standing there with my father, I had to use all my strength to focus on his words and not the pulsating of the vein in his neck. The blood surged through his body, calling to me.
My teeth ached, and a low rumble came from my throat.
“Whoa!” My father chuckled. “You must be hungry. Why don’t you sit down and eat?” He moved over to the table, throwing things together on a plate he’d brought.
I stared down at the food in disgust. Vegetables and meat weren’t what I was hungry for. The only thing that would slack my hunger was beneath my father’s dry and wrinkled skin. If I could just taste it, it might be enough to hold me over until I could find something else to eat.
“Hey now,” my father voice drew me out of the fog I’d been in. I was just a foot from him now, my shoulders hunched as if I were about to pounce on him. I hadn’t even realized I’d moved.
My father withdrew the plate with a nervous laugh. “I know it’s not the gourmet stuff you had in the capital, but it’s some of the best stuff in the Inner Circle.” He picked up a piece of the jerk and bit into it. He chewed it around in his mouth and forced a smile. “See? Delicious!”
I swallowed thickly forcing my need for blood down. “I’m sure it’s great.” I took the plate from him and shoved a piece of something in my mouth. I didn’t know what it was, it all tasted like ash to me. Nothing would make me feel whole again until I found some blood. I just had to hold out until my father was gone. He was the only thing left I cherished, and I didn’t know how long that would last, not when he found out what I’d become.
Chapter 2
Medicine in the Glade wasn’t as advanced as it was in the Core. In the Core, if I got hurt, all it took was one trip to the infirmary, and I was all healed up. Here though, they didn’t have the fancy gadgets or creams that the elite had.
We did have herbs. Lots of herbs that tasted horrible and sometimes worked and other times ... didn’t. The was one herb in particular that our herbalist would use to help dull the pain. It also made you hallucinate vividly, but when you had to have your tooth pulled, or a limb cut off, a few extra distractions were never a problem.
The medic never used the opiate often, only when they had to. People became addicted to it and then next thing they knew they were stealing the small stores we had of it. If you grew addicted, the withdrawals were said to be even worse than the pain you were trying to avoid in the first place.
Those withdrawals made them unpredictable and easy to spot. I remembered seeing a man going through withdrawals. He had been curled up in a ball against one of the broken-down shacks. His eyes darted all around him, bloodshot and full of paranoia. He shook wildly and sweat secreted from every pore until his clothes were drenched with them. I imagined the way that man felt was probably about how I felt right now but worse.
After my father left, I watched the light coming through one of the windows, desperate for it to fade, for night to fall so I could leave this piece of crap place and be out in the open air. My fangs ached in my mouth, pressing against my lower lip and just begging for something to sink into.
I held my knees tight against my chest as I moved in a rocking motion. It didn’t do much to soothe my thirst, but it distracted me from running out of the shack to attack the first person I saw. It’d be kind of hard to convince the leaders that I meant them no harm if I was feeding on their people.
The food my father had left sat discarded on the table. The taste of it no longer held any appeal and did nothing for my hunger. I could hear the animals moving in the fields just north of me. My hands tightened harder around my legs until the tangy smell of bloo
d touched the air.
Moving my hand away from my leg, I glanced down at my palm. Little half-moons decorated my skin. I watched curiously as the small marks closed and faded almost as quickly as they had appeared.
Well, that was good to know.
If I could heal fast, then it made what I had to do that much easier.
When I looked up from my hand, the sun had set. I stood to my feet in a whoosh and had my hand on the door handle before I could process what I’d done. I forced myself to stop and wait. Just because the sun had set didn’t mean that the Glade was empty. There would still be people out and about, finishing up their chores or just visiting before they each went to their separate homes for the night. As much as I wanted to rip the door off its hinges and find something to sink my teeth into, I had to be patient. I would only be putting myself in danger otherwise.
The last few hours were brutal. I leaned against the shack door just to keep myself from running out. Even worse, when someone got too close to where my little shack stood, I could hear their blood rushing through their veins.
How did Patrick and the other do it? Was the bloodlust weaker at their age? Or was it a constant never-ending need to feed that bogged them down every day? If so, I could kind of see how they could do that to all those people.
I scoffed. Not long ago, I was berating Patrick for having a feeding room. For wiping people so much that they were puppets just so they could feed without issue, and now, here I was, thinking I would do the same. How was I any better than them?
I wasn’t, I reminded myself. The Fold made sure to make me into a monster just like them. But the difference between them and me was that I wasn’t going to let it change me. I wouldn’t feed on those unwilling or entranced. In fact, I didn’t plan to feed on humans at all.
Blood was blood, right? Animal blood had to be the same thing as human blood. My stomach gurgled in response. I forced myself to ignore it. It was the same thing. Blood was blood.
And if I kept telling myself that, maybe it would be true.