by K. L. Kreig
Dedication
For my mom, Linda. Thanks for instilling a love of fantasies so great that I had the courage to pen my own.
Prologue
Nearly six months earlier…
Sarah
Running late, Sarah ran across the dark snowy lawn to Swift Hall, pulling her coat tighter against the harsh winter wind. One look at the streetlights showed flurries in the air. The forecast was for another six inches of snow before morning. The winter in Illinois had been brutal this year and she couldn’t wait until spring finally arrived in a couple of months.
She ran faster, hating to be late, but had been so caught up in her research paper, she’d lost track of time. Not being on time was rude and disrespectful. Over her four years at Northwestern, she’d sat in class many a day waiting for a professor or TA to show up, only to leave after the requisite ‘ten minute rule.’
She was meeting Professor Bailey, head of the Psychology department, and that was the one person she did not want to keep waiting. He detested lateness more than she did. His mantra was ‘if you’re not on time, don’t bother.’ He’d turned more than one person away for a scheduled meeting because they’d shown up one minute late.
They’d met in her second year when she’d taken a psychology class taught by one of his TA’s, who was perpetually late. She’d complained to the professor about him and they’d struck up an unusual friendship. He’d been a great mentor and she really liked him, even if he was nerdy and a little skittish.
So a few short months ago when he’d asked her to be part of his dream study, she was thrilled. She hadn’t even known about the study until the end of last semester when they were having lunch and she’d discussed a particularly disturbing dream. He made the offer and she readily accepted.
If there were a perfect candidate, it was Sarah. Having been plagued with strange dreams on and off all her life, she was anxious to understand more about what they represented and why she had them. The study would evaluate underlying things like dream repetition, mental stability, primitive conscience and hidden messages. Of course, her main goal was dream translation. Like most people can and do, she carries on conversations with others in her dreams, except in her instance they were real conversations … remembered quite clearly by her the next day but not by the person she’d dreamt about.
At first, she’d thought everyone else was crazy, and then she began thinking perhaps she was the one with a screw loose. But she knew things she shouldn’t and couldn’t know otherwise, so they had to be real. Other than her parents, Professor Bailey was the only one she’d talked to about this strange phenomenon. She often didn’t know what she should and shouldn’t discuss so when she’d slip up and mention a fact she shouldn’t know, she played it off. “Oh, so-and-so must have told me”, or “I must have overheard a conversation you were having with so-and-so” or “You don’t remember telling me that?” It was a pain in the ass, quite frankly.
Pulling the door open to Swift Hall, she hustled down the long, quiet hallway to the professor’s office, melted snow leaving a wet trail behind her. Although the meeting time was unusually late in the evening, he’d said this was the only time he could see her in the next two weeks and needed her notes before the scheduled submission date. She’d offered to email them as usual, but he’d said he had questions from her last set, which needed to be reviewed in person.
Knocking on his closed office door, she entered when she heard “come in.”
“Hi Professor. I’m so sorry I’m late, I—”
“No apologies necessary, Sarah. Sit, sit. Take off your coat.”
She wrinkled her brows in confusion. He’d never been so forgiving the handful of times she’d been late before.
“Okay.” She sat, after removing her wet, heavy coat and placing it on the back of the chair opposite his desk. She handed over the thumb drive that held all of her notes.
“Thank you, Sarah.” He took it and simply placed it on the desk in front of him, never taking his eyes from hers.
A twinge of fear made her stomach clench. Something felt very off about this situation. Professor Bailey wasn’t acting at all like himself. When he rose and walked around the front of the desk and sat on the edge, knees almost touching hers, alarm bells rang loudly in her ears.
Suddenly she questioned whether his intentions for this meeting had been less than honorable. She’d never gotten that vibe from him in all these years, but she knew that didn’t really matter. This sort of thing happened all the time. She’d heard that most sexual attacks on women were by someone they knew.
Right before he grabbed her, she swore a twinge of regret flashed in his small, dark eyes. Opening her mouth to scream, nothing came out as her world spun and churned. Moments later, the dizziness passed, but everything was dark. As her eyes adjusted and she got her bearings, she looked around at her new surroundings through blurry, tear-filled eyes.
What in the hell had just happened?
She was alone, in a very dimly lit, small non-descript white room. The only thing that stood between her and freedom was a door with no handle. A filthy thin mattress sat directly on the cold concrete floor, the only other thing in the small area besides herself. She ran to the door, pounding and screaming and crying. Yelling into the silence until her voice was hoarse, she eventually stopped and stood there, not knowing what to do next.
Panic gripped her and she sunk to the cold floor, against the cool wall in the corner of the room and watched the door, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She wanted to be brave and put on a good front, but fear got the best of her and she sobbed uncontrollably.
Questions ran through her head at a rapid speed. What the hell was Professor Bailey that he could do something like this? How was she in his office one minute and somewhere else entirely the next? Where was she? What did they want from her? She couldn’t wrap her mind around what had just happened.
Little did Sarah know, at the time, that this small, lonely, terrifying room is where she would spend the next thirty-three days of her life. And as bad as she’d thought her captivity had been, she had no idea that unknown forces on the inside worked to protect her, or the days would have been far, far worse.
Chapter 1
Present day…
Sarah
“How did you learn to make such great sugar cookies?” Analise asked.
“From my mother,” Sarah answered, rolling out another lump of chilled dough. “Sugar cookies are one of her specialties, but she’d only make them at Christmastime because they’re too labor intensive.”
This felt nice. Drinking wine, listening to music and baking with her sisters. Except Kate had sparkling cider instead of wine, due to the baby. Too bad she couldn’t keep her mind on the task at hand, however, because of a certain icy blue-eyed vampire she’d crossed paths with last week. She’d already burned two batches of the buttery confection.
“Mmmm. I’m going to get fat if I keep eating like this,” Kate moaned, taking a bite of her third warm cookie. She closed her eyes in sheer pleasure.
“You’re preggers. You’re supposed to get good and fat,” Analise quipped, pulling a fresh batch from the hot oven.
“Easy for you to say. Just wait until you get pregnant,” Kate said to Analise.
Analise smiled a little sadly and Sarah didn’t know why, but decided it was time to change subjects.
“This is the last of it, girls.” Having cut the last bit of dough into a candy cane shape, she began to clean up.
Christmas in July, they’d dubbed it—minus the brightly wrapped presents and the decorated pine tree and the brandy-laced eggnog. Okay, so they only had Christmas-shaped cookie cutters on hand, but the reason didn’t matter. Kate said she’d woken with a craving for cookies, since it was one of
many topics of conversation last week at dinner, and she insisted Sarah make her ‘to-die-for’ recipe. And pregnant women always got what they wanted.
One would think that given the ordeal she’d been through, and the sick way she’d discovered vampires were real, that she’d be frightened to live in a house full of them, but one would be wrong.
The truth was she didn’t feel safe anywhere else, knowing that every vampire here would protect her with their lives and that’s why she stayed. Not that she had a choice now that it’d been discovered she was Xavier’s third daughter. But all that was beside the point. She felt like part of a family and didn’t want to leave anyway, so it was irrelevant that she couldn’t.
Ever since she’d been brought here, she had a deep-seated feeling it was for a specific reason. The events that had happened, as horrible as they were, happened for a reason. Was it to find her sisters, Kate and Analise? Was it to perfect her dreamwalking skills? Was it to help others like her? Or was it for a bigger purpose that had yet to identify itself?
Was it perhaps to meet an intense blue-eyed vampire whom she now couldn’t stop thinking about, but who clearly didn’t return the feeling?
And once again her thoughts circled around to him. Romaric Dietrich. The man—correction, vampire—whose gaze was so piercing when their eyes connected last week she thought she’d burst into flames and disintegrate on the spot. She’d actually felt the gush of desire between her thighs and her underwear had become most uncomfortable.
Even though she wasn’t that experienced, she knew when a man wanted her. Passionate desire had been etched over every inch of his hungry face and his eyes had devoured her like she’d been standing naked and exposed before him for the first time. And she’d wanted to be. She’d never been so captivated by anyone. In fact, now she couldn’t be sure she’d ever actually been attracted to a man before with the unfamiliar feelings Romaric had evoked in her. He reminded her of a wicked, avenging angel.
Sarah now knew he was the man, er vampire, who’d haunted her dreams all her life. Even though he’d never shown his face, she knew it was him once she’d laid eyes on his face. The face he’d always kept hidden for some reason.
“Earth to Sarah …” Analise gently shook her.
“Sorry, what were you saying?” She turned to check on the cookies, but they were cooling on the rack and everything was already cleaned and put away. When she turned back around, Analise and Kate were exchanging knowing glances.
“Sarah—” Kate started.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
She filled her glass with the last of the wine and headed into the sitting room. The last thing she wanted to reminisce on was the embarrassment of what had happened after she and Rom eye fucked each other over the dinner table. And make no mistake, that’s most definitely what they’d done.
She flopped into the comfortable paisley armchair and stared out the window into the sultry evening, taking a big gulp of the buttery Chardonnay. It was still so steamy that heat rose in waves from the blacktop and the cool liquid running down her throat was exactly what she needed to take her mind off things. Focus on that instead of the panty-wetting vampire who’d fled five days ago and hadn’t been back since.
Kate and Analise followed her, of course, settling on the couch across from where she sat. She knew they wouldn’t let this topic go. They’d pestered her yesterday until she’d finally retreated to the safety of her room where she could again replay the bizarre encounter alone, trying to make sense of it. She’d dreamt of him again last night, but as usual, he stayed in the shadows, his face hidden. It was frustratingly confusing.
“Are you hot for him?” Analise asked, taking a sip of her own cocktail.
“Analise!” Kate scolded.
“What? It’s a valid question. I’m surprised he didn’t throw her on the table and do her right there.”
Sarah shot her best ‘younger sister’ glare at Analise. Now she finally understood what it was like to have older, protective siblings and while slightly irritating, it was somewhat endearing as well.
“It wasn’t like that,” she hedged, glancing back out the window to cover her lie. Oh, it most certainly was like that. And the scary part was, if he had thrown her down on the table, she would have let him.
“Did Damian say anything?”
Kate’s question got her attention and she shifted her gaze back to Analise, anxiously awaiting the answer, but pretending it didn’t matter at the same time. Sarah knew that Damian and Romaric had some sort of close bond, so if anyone knew the details of what happened, it would be Damian.
Analise glanced quickly at her, before answering Kate. “No, Rom didn’t say a word. In fact, he postponed their strategy meeting, spouting some emergency bullshit back at home and returned to Washington with no explanation.”
“Well, there must be some interest there, because he asked Dev what your name was. And …” Kate left the word dangling, hanging in midair like a kite caught on a stiff breeze.
“And what?” she finally asked, not able to help herself.
“And he asked what happened to you when you were captive.”
Great. He thought she was damaged goods since she’d been kidnapped by those rogue vampires. She may still be recovering emotionally from the whole ordeal, but having heard what some of the other women had gone through, Sarah knew that, while traumatizing, it could have ended far, far worse for her. She knew she’d be in a far different place had she been repeatedly raped, or, God forbid, pregnant, like many of the women rescued.
Sarah tried not to let her heart, or her ego, take a hit, but damn if it didn’t feel like both had just been splattered all over the sizzling hot driveway out front. Taking another large gulp of her wine, she decided it was time to call it a night. Besides, Kate and Analise were probably anxious to get back to their mates. They’d been here for hours and while she enjoyed spending time with them, she didn’t need a babysitter. Which is exactly what this whole ‘Christmas in July’ ruse had been about. She wasn’t as naïve as everyone seemed to think she was.
“I think this wine has made me tired. I’m going to hit the hay.” They all rose and made their way to the kitchen.
Besides, she had things to do. When her brother died, she’d ended up delaying college for a year, so just turning twenty-four, she was a little older than most grads. Except, she hadn’t graduated yet and she’d decided that she really wanted to. Only six credits shy of her Human Development and Psychological Services Bachelor’s degree when she’d been kidnapped, since it wasn’t safe to leave the house, Kate had found a way to get her enrolled in the remaining two classes via Skype, which she started in a few weeks.
After her Bachelor’s, she’d been planning to get an advanced degree in clinical and counseling psychology, but now she wasn’t sure what she’d do. It was her intent to start as a counselor at the shelter when she finished her degree and while her original path leaned toward children, she knew these women needed her far more. She found it fascinating that both Kate and Analise studied in the same field she was interested in, but she supposed now that it was all meant to be. That this is where she was meant to be.
“I’ll let you know if I hear anything, okay?” Analise hugged her tightly and she squeezed her eyes together to hold back tears. She would not cry over some stupid vampire who wouldn’t give her the time of day. She wasn’t even really sure she wanted his attentions. He was so extreme it bordered on scary.
“It doesn’t matter, Analise.”
“Uh huh.” Winking as she waved goodbye, she turned and left for the main house. “We’re headed back to Boston, but I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”
“Yes, sure,” Sarah mumbled.
“Goodnight sweetie. See you tomorrow.” Luckily Kate didn’t say another word on the subject, which was good. Either she was going to blow up or cry. At this point, she may do both.
Finishing her wine, she retreated to her room, after checking on a couple o
f the girls, including Beth. Beth had slowly started to come around, talking a bit more about what had happened and so she’d made it habit to stop by her room every night before going to bed to insure she didn’t need anything. The night before last they’d ended up talking for two hours, mostly about mundane things, but it was the first time she’d cracked the door open enough for Sarah to learn about the real Beth. Sarah began to see how Analise and Beth had become so close.
But Beth was already sleeping, so she reluctantly went to her room, pulled up the university website and ordered the two books she’d need for classes, sending them to the university, where Thane would graciously pick them up.
It was still too early for bed, so she puttered around online for a while. Although she hadn’t been one for social media prior to ending up here, unfortunately with Xavier on the loose she was forbidden from using any of it for fear they would be able to trace her back here, even with the technological security they had in place.
Much to her dismay, Xavier, her psychotic-biological-sperm-donor-vampire father, wasn’t killed in that raid and, after five months, still remained on the loose. And was still trying to find the daughters he’d ordered dead, but were very much alive, so he could turn his twisted empire-building into a family business and take over the world.
Thanks, but no thanks ... Dad.
Try as she might not to, once again, she thought of the fear and despair she’d felt during those thirty-three days.
She thought of the terror she’d felt the first time she realized her captors were real life vampires. She thought of the day, two weeks into her captivity that she was saved from a horrific fate by an unknown vampire, who was true to his word that she would be safe. For the first several weeks after her rescue, whenever she closed her eyes, she’d relive that day. The day she was stripped naked, tied down and almost raped by a horde of rogue vampires. Thankfully, those nightmares now came few and far between.