Realm of Shadows (Vampire Alliance)

by Heather Graham

  He looked up. “So what shall we do?”

  “Um,” she mused. “Let’s see . . . you don’t actually fly, do you? I’d kind of had this fantasy about being swept away to the highest spires in the city, and ravished there, of course.”

  “Very uncomfortable,” he told her, shaking his head. “I could kind of fly with you into the deepest forests, up the highest mountains ... but you’re facing the same problems there. You know, stones, rocks, twigs, scratchy things. Not exactly what I had in mind.” He was joking, speaking lightly, but he took her hands, looked down at them, and then into her eyes. “Actually, it doesn’t matter to me where I am, if I’m with you. But you’ve had a tremendous amount to grasp and understand lately, and to me . . . well, I’m asking a lot of you. You’re an incredibly beautiful, talented woman. You left a full life behind you—it’s waiting, if you wish to return.”

  She smiled slowly, choosing her words. “My old life is waiting . . . but before then, I was waiting. I knew that there was something else out there, waiting for me. The Alliance, what happened here, yes. But something else. I never told you, but the dream began long before I came here. The dream, the nightmare, the premonition, whatever it might be called. And from the beginning, within it all, I was calling to someone. Brent, you’re what I’ve been waiting for my whole life. And if you were to walk away from me, I’d spend the rest of my life waiting for you to come back.”

  “You really do understand all about me?” he queried. “I’ve been around a long time, you know. I wouldn’t want to pretend. There have been others all along the way, but never . . . never like this. I never felt . . . all right, in all honesty, at first I was so afraid for you. There was the terrible need to be with you. And then I knew that it was more than fear, the need to protect. It was, perhaps, the same. As if there could be nothing . . . until I saw you that day in the crypt, and from then on, every move I made cast me deeper and deeper into longing . . .”

  “I like that. Nice to hear I was really desirable.”

  “Well, that, yes. But longing for much more. It was the same . . . as if I had been waiting.”

  “But I’m afraid that my appearance gave us serious problems. You might have stopped Louisa from ever rising.”

  He shook his head. “If she hadn’t escaped that night, we might not have known about Gerard being here. I’m not anywhere near as old as Lucian, so I didn’t really understand what happened during the Sun King’s day. Nor would I have envisioned that her legendary lover might have been the man—the man who caused me such agony during the war. He had been so careful here, as well, kidnapping or seducing his victims, hiding the bodies . . . until he grew careless. He could have gone on for months, years, undetected. I don’t know ... I believe in the free will of man—a free will even when the normal course of a man’s life is disrupted. And yet . . . it’s hard not to think that it was destiny, when you appeared in the crypt that day.”

  She smoothed a finger over the top of his hand. “Well, then, if it’s destiny, we should accept the fact that we’re meant to be together.”

  “Well, then . . .” he murmured, repeating her words. And he met her eyes again with a rueful grin. “Rocky hilltop, elegant hotel room. Hm. My vote is for the Ritz.”

  “The Ritz . . . sounds lovely.”

  “A short stay, or extended?”

  “Extended, of course. Katia and Roland are with Jacques . . . he’s quite all right. And you seem to think that I need time . . . and I do. Endless days, and nights, of course.”

  “Life will never really be normal again, you know,” he said softly.

  “What is normal? No one ever knows what each new day will bring,” she said. “And who wants normal? Who on earth would want to give up extraordinary for normal?”

  He stood so quickly that he nearly knocked the chair over.

  He reached out a hand. “The Ritz?”

  “Definitely.”

  Hours later, they ordered champagne. They lay on a gorgeous king-sized bed piled high with pillows and satiny-smooth sheets.”

  “So . . . you really think I’m extraordinary?”

  And she laughed. “Beyond a doubt. Oh, my God, yes, beyond any doubt.”

  Night fell, and a full moon rose over Paris. High atop the elegance of the landmark Parisian hotel, the balcony doors were open to the breezes of the night. Within the hearth, an electric “fire” burned. It might as well have been the real thing, for it seemed that the flames rose and fell, rose and fell, and burned with the fever of the night.

  Burned . . .

  And burned.

  After all, they had both decided . . .

  They had been waiting all of their lives.

  For a sneak peek

  of Shannon Drake’s next

  contemporary vampire romance novel,

  The Awakening,

  turn the page.

  She was screaming.

  In the terrible reality that was happening, she heard her own voice.

  In the darkness, she knew a spiraling fear that threatened to become overwhelming, to smother her. She had a sense of fatality, and she saw the shadow figure, saw him entering the room. Adrenaline raced through her, desperation, the sense that she must move, must fight for survival.

  The sound continued, it was all she had, and she screamed and screamed, knowing the deadly menace that had come to her. She knew, as well, that she had said something, done something, to precipitate this. She knew each step as it occurred, the figure appearing, the fear, the terrible understanding of what was to come. She felt the violence as he came upon her, his touch upon her hair first, her clothing, the blows against her as she resisted. The violation of her flesh, the hands around her throat . . .

  Faceless, he was faceless, but she knew him, she had to know him.

  Had to know his hands. Around her throat, then her hands, pressing her down, and she knew that she was going to die. She wasn’t sure how ... would the hands so powerful against her flesh crush the life from her, or was this only to subdue, would there be a knife blade, a pressing against her throat, creating a rich spill of blood . . . ?

  Whichever, it was coming, she knew that it was coming, and she still couldn’t see his face, only the darkness, and she was suddenly certain of a welling of sound, soft and low and underlying the chilling shrill of her screams, a sound of chanting, voices, many voices ...

  Whispers, laughter.

  Eerie laughter, evil laughter ...

  She screamed louder, fought more wildly, desperate now not just to save her life, but to still the cackling sounds that seemed to enter her very soul, wrapping around it, crushing the life from it, as the hands upon her seemed to be doing with flesh.

  She kicked, tried hard to keep screaming, but she had no breath, no sound could come, no air could come ...

  Only the pulse, the thunder of her heart.

  Fight, fight . . . even as a darkness deeper than night fell before her eyes. Kick, scratch, fight ... claw at the hands...

  The hands ... that slipped as she dug her nails hard

  Screaming, still the sound of screaming ...

  “Megan! Jesus, stop! Megan!”

  Hands, again, on her shoulders, shaking her. She struck out, hard, desperately.

  “Megan! Damn! Megan, wake up!”

  She awoke, stunned, still hearing distant screams, but they were coming from her.

  “Megan! ”

  Finn, straddled over her then, his right hand was vised around her wrists; he was rubbing his jaw with his left. He stared down at her, his eyes as brilliant as twin knife blades, his face ashen.

  “Megan! What the hell is the matter with you?”

  Abruptly, her screaming stopped.

  She was drawn from the incredible reality of the world she had entered in her sleep to the true reality of life. And in real life, she was in a quiet bed and breakfast, in a quiet, historic town that only went a bit crazy during the month of October.

  “Finn! Oh, my God, Finn!�
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  She tried to pull her arms free.

  “Are you going to sock me in the jaw again?”

  “I didn’t!”

  “You did.”

  “I’m so sorry . . . please! ”

  He eased his hold. She reached up, curled her arms around his neck, shaking, nearly sobbing.

  A dream. It had been nothing but a dream.

  He didn’t push her away, but his shoulders were as stiff as boards. When she drew back, the look in his narrowed green eyes was wary, distant, and accusing.

  “Megan, Jesus Christ, what the hell was that all about?”

  “I had the most awful nightmare.”

  “A nightmare—and you had to scream like a thousand hounds were after you!”

  He was interrupted by a hard banging on the door.

  She bit her lip, wincing. Finn jumped up and reached for the terry bathrobe she had discarded before bed.

  He opened the door. From the darkness of the room, Megan could see the dimly lit hallway. Mr. Fallon, the groundskeeper and jack-of-all-trades at Huntington House, stood grimly in the doorway.

  “What goes on here, Mr. Douglas?” he demanded sternly.

  “I’m so sorry. It seems that Megan has had a nightmare,” Finn explained.

  Mr. Fallon gave Finn an up and down glare that implied he didn’t believe a word of it. In fact. it looked as if he was about to call the police, and see that Finn was charged with some form of domestic violence.

  “Sounded like bloody murder!” Fallon said.

  Megan couldn’t just hop up and explain herself. She was naked. She called out weakly from the bed. “I’m fine, Mr. Fallon, really. I just had a horrible nightmare. I’m so, so sorry!”

  “Well, then, it’s a good thing you’re in this wing of the house,” Fallon said brusquely. “You’d be waking up the whole household, with such caterwaulin’! Do you have these nightmares often, young lady?”

  “No, no ... of course not!” Megan called.

  “As you can see,” Finn told Fallon irritably, “everything is perfectly all right in here.”

  “Actually, young man, there’s not all that much that I can see—since it’s darned dark and all. But we don’t take kindly to folks fighting around here—not in Huntington House. We’re a fine establishment with a good reputation.”

  “Of course,” Finn said.

  “The Merrills have a reputation in these parts, too,” he said, referring to Megan’s family.

  She wasn’t sure if the reputation her family had earned was good or bad.

  “I’m honestly sorry, Mr. Fallon. There were too many tales filling my head when I fell asleep, I believe.”

  “Hmph ! ”

  “I had a nightmare,” Megan said, her tone quiet but firm. She resented Mr. Fallon. She was suddenly certain that he didn’t think much of the Merrill family at all.

  “See that you keep it down,” Fallon said. “There can be no more such outbursts—sir!” He had started speaking to Megan; he ended with a word of warning for Finn.

  “Goodnight,” Finn said.

  Fallon nodded, and moved off. Reluctantly, so it seemed.

  Finn closed the door. Darkness descended with the nightlight gone from the hall. But a second later the room was flooded with light as Finn hit the switch at the side of the door. He leaned against the door, crossing his arms over his chest, staring at Megan.

  “He thinks I was beating you.”

  “Oh, Finn, surely not—”

  “Everyone knows that we’ve just gotten back together.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Fallon doesn’t know a thing about us.”

  “Well, he seems to know all about your family, and therefore, he probably knows that we’ve just gotten back together, and he surely thinks you made a major mistake and that I was about to slit your throat before he arrived.”

  “Finn, stop it. Surely, somewhere in his life, sometime before, someone has woken up from a nightmare, screaming.”

  “You think? I’ve never woken up before next to a woman screaming loud enough to burst my eardrums.”

  “Dammit, Finn, I’ve said that I’m sorry! I didn’t do it on purpose! I had a dream, a really terrible nightmare. Someone was going to kill me!” she said, surprised to feel a hint of the fear rising within her again, as if it would choke off her her speech. “In fact, a little sympathy would be in order.”

  He stood, still distant, staring at her for a long moment. Even the way he looked now, far too tall for the terry bathrobe, legs seeming impossibly long beneath the white hem, she loved him so much. From his tousled dark hair to his bare feet. Things were so tenuous between them now. Before . . . once, before, she would have flown from the bed and into his arms.

  “Finn!” she said, still shaky, and growing angry herself.

  “Excuse me, you nearly dislocated my jaw, Megan.”

  “Why can’t you understand? I was deeply sleeping. I had a nightmare. A really terrifying nightmare.”

  A muscle twitched in his cheek. Hair wild, arms folded over his chest, wearing her robe, he was both imposing and appealing. He had a great face. Not too pretty. Classic, masculine structure, strong chin line, solid, defined, cheekbones, fine, full mouth, dead straight, aristocratic nose. Not small, not too prominent. Deep green eyes set beneath a broad brow, beneath rich dark hair. He was a natural athlete, in good shape. Now, though they were in the cool autumn of October in Massachusetts, they had just come from a week in the Florida Keys, and he was solidly bronzed and sleek, and ever more appealing.

  She turned, lying back on her pillow, facing away from him.

  A moment later, he was at her side.

  She felt his fingers feather down her back. “All right, Megan, I’m sorry.”

  “I imagine it was the fireside tales,” she murmured, still resentful but not wanting the argument to go on.

  Wrong thing to say. “You’re from here!” he said with something that sounded like a snort. “You’re the one with family around here. And you were frightened by stories about Salem?”

  “They were different stories, not really about Salem, and certainly not in the historical sense,” she said.

  “Oh, right, let’s see, All Hallow’s Eve is coming, and evil is something that grows, that feeds on the atmosphere, and clings to the places where man’s cruelty to man has been strong? Get serious, Megan, consider history, and that would be almost any place on earth.”

  “Of course, you’re right,” she said stiffly.

  “Ah, but then, a full moon will be rising. And the fog and the mist will swirl, and there are those living today who believe in the dark powers, who mean to raise the dead from their unhallowed graves, and set dark winds of evil free to haunt the world.”

  She sat up, suddenly angry. “Finn, contemporary Salem is a lovely place peopled by those who scoff at witchcraft, and those who believe in their pursuit of wicca as a real religion, those who have darling shops and make a nice income off history, and those who run great restaurants and couldn’t really care less. And yes, sadly, the victims of the persecution here were surely innocent of the crimes attributed to them, but do you know what? There always were—and perhaps still are—those who believed in witchcraft, or not witchcraft, Satanism, or whatever you want to call it, and they do bad things in their belief. Damn, Finn—think about it! Are there still bad people out there? Yes, I think so. So I listened to stories about the evil in men’s hearts, in their belief in the powers of darkness and things that go bump in the night, and I had a bad dream. That’s not so bizarre, or unforgivable.”

  He lay back down, fingers laced behind his head. “And you have a cousin who operates a witchcraft shop.”

  “There’s nothing evil about Morwenna.”

  “I didn’t say there was.”

  “It isn’t illegal to be a wiccan now. It was illegal to practice any form of witchcraft in the sixteen hundreds.”

  “Right.”

  “Morwenna believes in earth and nature, and i
n doing good things to and for people, especially because any evil thought or deed is supposed to come back at a wiccan threefold.”

  “And her freaking tall, dark, and eerie, palm-reading husband, Ethan, is a fucking pillar of the community?” he said sarcastically.

  “Why are we fighting about my cousin and her husband?”

  “Because I’m starting to think it was a major mistake to come here,” he said.

  “You wanted to come,” she reminded him curtly. “This was a good move for your career.”

  “I didn’t think you’d come home and turn into a screaming harpy.”

  She turned her back on him once again, hurt more than she could begin to say. A mistake? Had it all been a mistake?

  From the moment she had first seen Finn, her first day of college, she had begun falling for him. She’d never wanted anyone so badly in her life, she had just about chased him shamelessly, but it had been all right, because he had returned her mad obsession. In a matter of days, she’d just about lost all thought of her classes, eager, anxious, desperate, to be with him at any given time. They’d eluded their friends time and time again to spend their precious hours together. At first, there had been no arguments—in truth, they hadn’t talked enough to argue, they’d wanted nothing more than to touch, to be in one another’s arms, naked, making love. The unfailing flame of simple chemistry had been so strong that they’d defied all advice and married one weekend, standing before friends and the priest in a small town in southern Georgia. For a few years, they had lived in the bliss of the young and innocent. Finn had graduated, and scholarships and student work programs had ended. Megan had another two years to go, finances grew tight; music equipment was expensive. They’d begun to struggle. There were arguments about what made money, what didn’t, what was good, what wasn’t. The differences between them, which had at first seemed so charming, became points of friction. She had hunches and intuitions; he was entirely pragmatic. She was from Massachusetts, and other than her initial, abandoned adoration for him, she tended to a New Englander’s reserve. Finn was from the Deep South, ready to plow into any situation and offer anything they had to anyone. She was close to her parents; his were divorced and remarried, and he made dutiful calls once a month, and sent cards and presents to his little half-siblings, but they seldom visited either of his parents. He loathed his stepfather, barely tolerated his stepmother, and had been on his own from the day he had graduated from high school. Then his father died of a heart attack, and he was torn between resentment that he hadn’t even been remembered in the will, and guilt that he hadn’t made more of an effort to communicate despite his unease about his stepmother. He’d started spending long hours out when Megan thought he should have needed her most. He took more and more out-of-town work. Jealousy, doubt, mistrust ... the little enemies that came together to tear down a relationship began to flourish and grow. Then, slowly, little shadows of doubt and anger began, and then, for Megan, the final, agonizing, hateful straw, the flutist Finn brought into his group. She didn’t leave right away; she was still too desperately in love. And arguments were too easily solved because anger was such a vivid emotion, and fights too easily solved by giving in to the heat and adrenaline of the moment, falling back into bed, and rising later to discover that nothing had been solved. At last, the doubts moved in too deeply, and she had no intention of losing all self-respect, or letting her own hopes for a fulfilling career become crushed by standing in the background, giving way completely.