Awakening Storm

by Larissa Emerald

  Rhianna smiled as a warmth spread into her chest. “I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say at once.”

  Aidan’s mouth fell open. He shut it and scowled. “I pour my heart out, and that’s all you have to say?”

  She dipped her chin and looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. “That’s not pouring your heart out.”

  He hesitated, seeming to think. He didn’t seem amused that she’d boxed him in. “I love you, Rhianna. I want you to stay. I want you happy. I want you—”

  She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I love you, too, you crazy Guardian.”

  Aidan kissed her again as Takeshi decided he was finished playing hard to get and came over and sat at their feet, her shoe still in his mouth.

  “Now if only my grandfather could spend his last days here, to see the beauty and the peace of this place, everything would be perfect,” she said wistfully.

  “That can be arranged,” Aidan promised.

  •

  Moloch, the Demon Prince, stood on a hill within sight of the Divine Tree. He watched the Guardian Aidan, the old man, and the woman. It was thirty-two degrees out, and they were doing some exercise in unison on the lawn.

  Idiots.

  He rarely if ever ventured to freezing climates in December.

  But never matter. That was not why he was here. Aidan and the woman had taken the ring and scepter from Theodora, and he intended to get it back. Eventually. Just not in the freezing winter.

  He pulled his mink coat tighter around him. At the moment, he had a date with a foxy feline in Peru. But before he headed there, he intended to leave Aidan a little taste of what was to come. He set the three-foot-square box on a nice, flat rock.

  The box shifted sideways. The snake must be extremely unhappy to be thrashing about violently enough to cause such a movement. Then again, the snakes of the Dark Realm didn’t appreciate being transferred earth side. It would strike whoever opened the box. Moloch didn’t care whether it was the humans or Aidan who did the deed. Any and all would cause Aidan heartache.

  Aidan should find it relatively quickly. His tiger should have the skills, even if the man didn’t.

  He narrowed his eyes on the woman.

  Rhianna. Such a pretty little thing.

  Too bad he couldn’t stick around and watch. But he would know the outcome through Migda, the supernatural path of connections and networking within the Dark Realm.

  * * *

  Thank you for reading Awakening Storm. If you enjoyed this story and want to stay up-to-date on my next book and release dates then sign up for my newsletter. (I promise your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.)

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  Stay tuned for the next book in the

  Divine Tree Guardian Series

  Awakening Vengeance

  to be released in 2018.

  Get a glimpse of the book at www.larissaemerald.com

  Read on for a sneak peek of Forever At Dawn.

  Excerpt from

  Forever At Dawn

  by Larissa Emerald

  CHAPTER ONE

  San Francisco, Present Day

  The wind coming off the Pacific created a sad, hollow whistle as it whipped upward along the stone walls of the mansion and hit the eves. Connor Langley peered out the window to sea.

  “I’m traveling through the porthole this evening,” he said.

  He turned to look at Gavin. Connor’s personal assistant drew himself taller and angled his gray head. “Isn’t that dangerous with the impending storm?”

  “Not really.” Best not to get him worked up.

  Gavin pursed his lips as if withholding a comment. The vampire no doubt knew he couldn’t dissuade Connor.

  “Don’t fret. I won’t be gone more than a day our time. I am simply going to bring back the mined cobine crystal our people need.” He clenched his hands into fists and held back the growl at his lips. “To replenish the stores that were stolen.”

  “I take it the artificial manufacturing hasn’t produced results.”

  Connor shook his head. “Unfortunately, no.”

  Over the years, vampires had led the way producing artificial diamonds, and rubies, and other precious gemstones—things humans seemed to be ecstatic over—in an effort to reproduce a synthetic cobine. But the precious substance abundant on their home planet of Cest eluded their scientists. And it was a substance his race needed to survive, much as humans needed salt. An item extremely valuable to them, not just to wear and show off but to prevent them from feeding on humans.

  He began to pace the room, fists tight by his sides. A cobine deficiency in vampires meant brain swelling, coma, and acute blood loss. Such a state would produce a feeding frenzy beyond reason to compensate for the deficit. It was up to each Czar to care for his region to ensure that didn’t happen. The cobine he had procured eleven months ago should have sufficed for years, and yet the supply was critically low once again. He needed to move fast.

  “Take me with you,” Gavin suggested. “I’m good with horses.”

  Connor hid his surprise but could easily guess where the comment was coming from. What vampire wouldn’t desire to go back in time to a simpler existence? “I will not remain there, Gavin, no matter how much I’d like to. Nor will you. I will not desert my people.”

  “It’s become an obsession, this traveling back in time,” Gavin warned.

  Connor looked down at his clothes as his fangs descended. He inhaled a calming breath. “The world was so different then. The blood purer.”

  “Ah. I was wrong, you’re not just obsessed . . . You’re addicted, and―” his brows shot upward.

  Waving a hand, Connor cut him off. “Like hell.”

  “Then send someone else.”

  Connor strode into the massive closet, making it clear the conversation was over. He dressed in jeans, a button-down shirt, and boots. It was time to find out who’d dared steal from him. And why.

  In the past, he’d always known his enemy, and death occurred daily. But today, the battle was more mental and strategic. That’s not to say there wasn’t bloodshed. It just had to be with good reason.

  When Connor walked back out of the closet, Gavin was staring at his watch, seemingly deep in thought. His old friend glanced up, and Connor tried to reassure him. “When I return, I’ll increase our efforts to find another source so we aren’t dependent on a past portal anymore. Perhaps it’s time for a visit to London. And you can accompany me then.” He slung on his period topcoat. “Except for the cobine, there is nothing in that time I can’t leave.”

  Gavin gave a reluctant nod. “Something happens every time you go back. I can’t explain it . . . I . . . I just feel the disengagement. It’s like a fracture.”

  Yes, Connor knew what the man meant. But leaders had to stand strong and endure. He needed to help his people by doing the very best with the talents given to him.

  Gavin crossed his arms over his thin chest. “You need to find the right woman to make you settle down,” he blurted out.

  “Where the hell did that come from?”

  “Well, it’s true. If you were in love, perhaps you’d stay at home.”

  His servant must truly be aging to bring up the subject of mating. “That’s absurd. Besides, women are too much trouble. In all these centuries, I haven’t found my destined mate.”

  “Obviously.” Gavin cleared his throat and nodded with conviction. “Or else she’d be here to stop you now. Once you meet her, the mating thrall will take care of the rest.”

  Connor had heard enough. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He spun on his heel and exited the room, taking the hall that led to the west end of the mansion.

  In the den, he paused at the old mantle clock that rested on a pedestal table. He grabbed the small boy-with-horse figurine at its right, opened the clock case, and placed it inside, just out of range of the pendulum. Once the case was closed again, he pushed on a hidden panel door
that led down into a tunnel. It opened with only the slightest creaking sound and he stepped inside.

  The motion sensors noted his presence as he progressed, the lights coming on to guide him to the cavern he sought. The familiar wet, musty smell welcomed him.

  At the base of a boulder, he knelt and removed the top of the largest stalagmite. The inside had been meticulously carved out to conceal the time rod. He removed the transporter piece, which resembled a long stained glass pen. He held it up to the light, pleased with the swirl of colors within, liquid energy beyond anything known to humans.

  Warmth radiated through his body as he closed his fingers around it. Perhaps Gavin was right. He was addicted.

  This was the connection to his past, the roots to his mother planet―the story of who his people were. Humans had named them “vampires” and the mysterious lore they’d created had not worked in his race’s favor. Oddly, now they’d become popular. Indeed, his people were immortal, but not because of being undead. Yes, they fed on blood, and traced, and avoided daylight, but humans could never know the real truth.

  There were truly evil beings walking the shadows of the Earth. In comparison, vampires were the good guys.

  Connor fit the tip of the rod into the appropriate hole in the stratum of the rock, the vein that was formed in 1876. He forced the end in a little harder until a light ignited within the rod, causing the energy inside to swirl faster and heat up. He braced his palm against the rock wall above his head and closed his eyes, leaning in.

  Impressions of this world, bits of light and a sense of the waves crashing on the shore, streamed by in a dizzying blur, with a rumble of friction so enormous it knocked him off his feet, his consciousness fading.

  ~ ~ ~

  He awoke to the dripping of water landing on his ear. He shivered, shook his head, pushed to his elbows, and regained his bearing. He’d had the mansion built in the early eighteen hundreds and lived in it ever since. Lifetime ownership. He snickered at the thought and smiled as he stood. It was his favorite of several homes he owned around the globe.

  He took the steps two at a time as he exited the cavern. When he reached the ground floor, he checked the clock. No figurine whatsoever. Good deal.

  He really didn’t want to engage the staff just yet, so he immediately traced to his office in the hotel he owned on Main Street. He deposited his coat on the coatrack. First order of business, he needed to track down the whereabouts of his mine foreman. It was a Friday, so he should be in town. Connor scribbled out a message, requesting the employee to meet with him, and went in search of an errand boy.

  “It’s stuck,” a man yelled from outside, his voice wafting in through the window. Out of habit, Connor straightened his clothes. Not that anything was out of place. It was just what he did.

  A few more people shouted, and Connor made his way out front to discover what the ruckus was about.

  “Mornin’, Mr. Langley,” a housekeeper said as he passed. “I didn’t know you was back.”

  Connor tipped the brim of his hat, shifting into the mannerisms of the day as easily as he traced.

  Standing in the lobby, he looked outside. Even as people gathered on the steps in front of his hotel to take cover from the rain, he breathed in the freedom of the era. No hidden cameras, or paparazzi, or media pressure. A huge temptation.

  No, he reminded himself. Get the cobine and go home.

  A steady rain beat down on a hearse stuck in the mud. Perhaps he should lend a hand. He wouldn’t find this sort of action back in present time, that’s for sure. So he set aside his hat and coat, tucking the message inside the folds to keep it dry and handed it to one of the hotel staff to hold for safe keeping. He rolled up his sleeves, loosened his collar down to the second button, and stepped out into the rain.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Take heart, Steph. I can see the hotel from here.”

  Stephanie Davenport glanced sideways at her “cousin.” Eric Bronson wasn’t truly a relative but a close childhood friend who had agreed to accompany her on this cross-country adventure. At fifteen, she’d had an enormous crush on him, especially so after he’d been the first man to kiss her with tongue. The thought still made her stomach do flip-flops. But to her great disappointment, they’d only had the one encounter, and even though she’d no doubt looked at him with moon eyes every single time he’d returned home from college, he’d never kissed her again.

  She sighed. The sunlight filtering through dreary, gray clouds was barely enough to highlight his golden flaxen hair and didn’t do justice to his handsome features. At twenty-eight, and six years Stephanie’s senior, Eric was a worldly man, and it showed in the way he spoke, walked, even smiled. She’d also caught the desirable way he’d glanced at some of the lovely women on their journey. She craved for a man to look upon her with such heat in his eyes. But she pushed those desires to the back of her mind. She was thankful he’d even agreed to accompany her on this journey to retrieve her inheritance.

  She nodded to herself, focusing on the task at hand. It was time for her to strike out an independent path, and the money from selling her father’s assets would turn into her best recourse. Beyond that, she wasn’t sure where this escapade would lead.

  A shiver of excitement mixed with unease skated down her spine.

  Stephanie stomped the thick mud from her boots as she walked. She crinkled her nose, first at the muck, then at herself. She should be disgusted by her boldness. She was far from a gambler by nature. Yet here she was, after crossing the rough, untamed miles that stretched across America, tracking down a swindler named Connor Langley. The man her estranged father had empowered with her future.

  A boisterous crowd lined Union Street, pulling her from her thoughts. Except for the steep, rocky hills, the scenery scarcely resembled the picture in the travel tome she clutched to her breast. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but this place had a wild nature that New England didn’t possess.

  She hugged the book closer, comforted by the small roll of bills she’d tucked into her bodice as it scraped her sensitive skin. She sighed. At least she had return train fare.

  The coach driver had dumped them in the drizzling rain, minus their luggage, on a covered walkway at least a block away from their hotel. “The driver said he’d deliver our belongings when he could get through,” Eric shouted over the din.

  She leaned closer to Eric to avoid yet another unladylike event. “There seems to be quite a commotion.”

  Eric took hold of her elbow. “Let’s move on, shall we?” Angling an umbrella over them, they slipped between bystanders.

  Odors―rich and heavy―of fish and oysters, wine, and baking bread, mingled with the salty wind from the Pacific, reminding her once more that they were a long way from Connecticut.

  Stephanie mimicked Eric’s motions, craning her head this way and that, glancing through the clusters of people lining the muddy street. What exactly had prevented their carriage from reaching the hotel? Why the crowd?

  Eric tugged her along for a few steps, and she resisted the urge to pull free. It wasn’t until they reached the elevated safety of the hotel’s covered porch―her dear departed father’s hotel, she noted with great relief because they’d finally arrived―that she discovered the attraction.

  There, right in front of the hotel, smack dab in the center of the roadway and skewed sideways, was a huge black hearse with a set of four equally coal-black horses, a man built as strong as a buffalo by its side.

  For an instant, she expected a villain to emerge from the darkened doorway and brand the man hammering the carriage wheel with his fist a fool. But a funeral hearse didn’t harbor villains, she immediately corrected, and when the man stretched to his full height, her heart jolted. No, this man wasn’t a fool, she thought as she tried to work her suddenly dry throat. His stance revealed pride and distinction.

  “Oh my,” she finally said, astonished. “That man is half-naked!”

  She shivered. He was practically
shirtless, and drops of rain trickled over his wide, pale shoulders where his shirt had been torn half off of him. A smear of mud drew her attention to the well-defined muscles of his broad chest. Water mixed with the wet earth, and she watched, eyes wide, as the brown silt traveled that long, hard path to the waistband of his trousers. Farther south, rain-soaked black fabric clung to his powerful thighs, emphasizing a physique obviously familiar with hard work.

  Certainly, the pictures of Hercules in her books on Greek mythology were no comparison to the living, breathing specimen, heroically laboring to raise the vehicle from the mud. Her face flushed hot. Was it sinful to watch him?

  Her fellow educators at Hartford Girls’ School would undoubtedly think so.

  The man turned his head, and drops of water flung from the ends of his dark hair. Stephanie frowned. It didn’t bother him in the least that he was the crowd’s entertainment. In fact, it was as if he was reveling it in.

  His gaze met hers and held. Her first instinct was to turn away, but she couldn’t. Instead, she brazenly returned his gaze. Her heart thrummed in her chest. Why was he staring?

  Then his brow creased and eyes narrowed, as if he recognized her and was trying to place her. But that was impossible, for this was her first—and last—visit to San Francisco. Besides, one didn’t forget such breathtaking good looks.

  Stephanie tore her gaze from Hercules, scanning the spectators. “Look at all the people, Eric,” she said softly. “They remind me of an audience watching a carnival.”

  “Indeed. I imagine this to be the best entertainment in their monotonous lives.”

  She plucked at the high collar of her dress, assaulted by the persistent humidity and press of the crowd. “We should be going.”

  “In a minute. I want to see him in action.”

  Shamefully, so did she. Her pulse skipped and she nearly forgot to breathe when the handsome rescuer forced heavy boards into the muck beneath the front wheels of the hearse. He ordered the nearby men to take action. The coachman, still wearing his dripping-wet top hat, snapped a whip and urged the horses forward. Another man stepped out to assist in guiding the team.