Awaken (Vampire Nights Book 1)

by Sharon Stevenson

  “His spells are always fatal?” Theo had to know for sure. It seemed to be the consensus.

  Brody nodded as he opened the door to Liv’s flat. He held it open and closed it once Theo was inside, with Skye in his arms.

  Liv was standing, smoking, by the door to her bedroom.

  “Theo. Long time.”

  He nodded. He supposed it had been, thought they’d barely ever spoken to each other in the first place. She was kind of spiky, a strange choice for his good-hearted friend.

  “Where am I taking her?”

  She nodded to the bedroom.

  Brody pushed open the door. Theo laid Skye down on the bed. She was breathing steadily and her heart rate seemed normal.

  “So what did he do to her?” Liv had put her cigarette out when she walked in to the room. She had her arms folded.

  “He got her to cut her wrist. She bled out some, but I don’t think it was enough to pass out like this.”

  “Did you bite her?”

  Brody rolled his eyes. “Theo’s sex life is none…”

  “Please,” Liv said, staring at Theo. “There’s blood loss, and there’s blood loss. How much did she lose?”

  “I bit her twice. Barely a gulp of blood the second time. The first, maybe a few. I’m not sure.” He didn’t give a shit what anyone thought of him right now. He just wanted Skye to be okay.

  “Not enough for this.” Liv looked her over. “There are a few common spells for this kind of thing.”

  “It won’t be one of the common ones,” Brody said, a bored tone in his voice.

  “Of course not,” she snapped. “But they’re a jumping off point. He has to use a word that conveys the exact meaning of what he wants. We just need to find the right word.”

  He nodded slowly, his gaze drifting over Liv as she moved to the other side of the bed. He shook his head slightly and rubbed at his eyes as she turned hers on him. “Right.”

  Theo glanced at them as they squabbled over Skye’s sleeping form. “How long does she have?”

  They regarded him blankly. Neither of them had an answer, and that did nothing to calm him down. He rubbed at his jaw.

  “You have to save her. I don’t care what it takes.”

  “It looks like you interrupted whatever he did to her,” Brody said. “We can work this out. We’re going to start.”

  He barked some words in a weird language at Liv, none of which were familiar to Theo, which was probably the point. Liv screwed up her face, before nodding and glancing sideways at Theo. He knew that look, even if he didn’t know her very well. Things were as grim as he feared.

  “Okay, I have a few combinations to try,” Liv said, her gaze back on Brody.

  “One at a time, and give them thirty seconds to trigger a response.” Brody folded his arms as she started to cast. The atmosphere in the room began to change. Magic seemed to carry a vaguely smoky scent to it, as far as Theo had noticed since he’d become a vampire at least. He wasn’t sure if it was something humans could pick up on.

  Every thirty second break seemed to last a lifetime. He watched Skye’s serene face as every spell was cast over her, his nerves building every time they moved on to another. The final words that dropped had Theo praying this would be the one that worked. That the spell would reverse and bring Skye back, safe and sound.

  “That’s it,” Liv said, after a measured thirty seconds had passed. “That’s all I’ve got.”

  Brody frowned. “There has to be something we’re not thinking of.”

  “Oh, why don’t you just go ask Daddy Dearest what spell he used?” She glowered at him. “And while you’re at it tell him to stop fucking with our brothel. It’s not his anymore.”

  Brody sighed. “You know he would never tell me.”

  She shrugged. “Then we’ve done all we can.”

  She left the room, cursing under her breath.

  “She’s just pissed that we have no control right now,” Brody told him. “Give me a minute. I’ll try a few more spells.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed and started to cast.

  Theo waited, somehow knowing before his friend even made it through the half dozen attempts that he hadn’t locked on to the right one. He didn’t know what their time limit was, but he knew there was a timer ticking down to ending Skye’s life and if the strongest witches he knew couldn’t save her…

  “I could turn her,” he said, knowing as soon as the words were out that it was the only way to save her now.

  Brody got to his feet. “If you’re sure about that we can…”

  “It has to be me.” Other than the fact that Skye felt like his, he didn’t want Brody’s father to ever find out they’d escaped his clutches and the best way to do that was to turn her without their help. He wouldn’t know Theo had broken his spell. He wouldn’t know about this.

  Brody nodded slowly. “You haven’t done this before, so I’ll talk you through it.”

  Theo sat down next to Skye. He’d already bitten her, twice, but she would have to die to be reborn as a vampire. His choice was to wait for that to happen by this spell, or to take too much blood from her and force it to happen faster. The first option would have been his choice if he trusted that no nasty surprises lurked in the spell. He couldn’t rely on that. Brody’s father was too twisted. He wouldn’t risk Skye losing her soul. He propped her up to drink from her throat. The sound of her heart beat fading as he drank caused panic to rise within him. He forced himself to keep going, flashing back to the night Leah had died right in front of him, against his will. It was agony to do this to Skye, but he had no other choice. Her last breath left her body and he retracted his fangs from her neck to slice them across his wrist. He opened her mouth and dripped blood onto her tongue. Brody whispered the words to the blood magic spell, words he repeated out loud as he tried to hold himself together. He’d helped her to die, but he was bringing her back. He’d had no other choice. This was the only way to save her.

  He held her as she slept, waiting for her to wake up. He hoped against hope that she wouldn’t hate him for what he’d done to save her. Only time would tell.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It was dark in the room when she opened her eyes. Confusion clouded her thoughts as she realized she wasn’t at home, and she wasn’t in Theo’s room either, though his arm was draped over her. She moved it gently. That he slept without breathing still kind of freaked her out. Her brain still had trouble reconciling that to what he was. That he wasn’t entirely alive, an honest to god vampire, still seemed surreal to her, even after everything she’d experienced.

  She looked at her wrist as she moved out of the bed. It was healed, he’d healed it. She remembered that.

  Her dreams had been bloody and terrifying, but her memories of what happened would fade once enough time had passed. She got out of the bed, her stomach cramping as she moved. Shit, she thought. This so isn’t the time to be getting my period.

  She walked into the hallway and spotted the guy who’d brought her to Theo through the open door to what looked like a kitchen. She moved swiftly, about to ask insistently where the bathroom was, when she was driven to distraction by an odd, painful feeling she could only compare to extreme hunger. Not menstrual cramps at all then. She wondered if it would be bad manners to demand food.

  He looked up from the kettle, his eyebrows rising.

  “You’re awake.”

  “I am,” she said, wondering why the hell he smelled so damned good. She’d never noticed that before. What was that? It didn’t seem like aftershave but it was alluring as hell.

  “Theo’s still asleep, I’m guessing?”

  She nodded, taking a step closer, and trying not to make her sniffing too obvious.

  “Okay, here’s the thing, we had no choice.” He looked guiltily at her.

  She frowned at him. Whatever he was talking about wasn’t getting through. She didn’t understand a word. She could only think about how good he smelled. Damn it, she was act
ually salivating over it.

  He rolled up his sleeve and held his arm out. “You should probably do this before he wakes up.”

  She blinked, opened her mouth to yawn, and realized something was going on with her face, primarily with her teeth. The yawn she’d started wasn’t a yawn at all. “Holy shit!” She sounded strange, and her sharp teeth pierced her lower lip when she tried to close her mouth. She opened it again and Brody come closer, pointing out a place on his exposed wrist as he did so.

  “Bite here, and I’ll tell you when to stop.”

  She pulled his wrist up, closer to her face, and bit him. The sensation of piercing his flesh, followed by the rush of euphoria as the blood hit her tongue was all too strange to take. She swallowed a few times before she removed her teeth from his skin and backed off. He didn’t need to tell her to stop, she was too freaked about what she’d done to keep drinking, even if it tasted good. It did not taste good, she told herself. Don’t be disgusting.

  “What the hell?” She watched him do something to the puncture wounds, cast some kind of spell that smelled like burning wood. They healed right in front of her eyes. She remembered Theo licking hers and that having the same effect.

  “What am I?” She felt stupid asking, but she had to do it. Someone else had to confirm it to make it real.

  “You’re a vampire now.” He went back to making coffee, as if her change of species was no big deal.

  She wiped at her mouth as the fangs retracted. “This has to be a dream.”

  Maybe if she went back to bed and slept, she’d wake up and everything would be normal again. When she got back to the bedroom and slid in beside Theo, she knew she didn’t really want that. Normal was boring. Normal was dating guys she was never really sure about and wondering how much longer until she threw in the towel at work and ended up evicted from her flat for not being able to pay the bills. Normal was uncertainty and bullshit, at least five days out of seven. She didn’t want that, not anymore. She touched Theo’s arm as she lay down beside him.

  He didn’t move, he didn’t wake up. She closed her eyes. She would wait.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  He was lost for his first week as a vampire. Being controlled and then set entirely loose messed with his head, not to mention fighting off a demon who wanted to get into the driver’s seat and took every opportunity to overwhelm Theo’s own soul. He’d killed people when the demon got his way. There was no getting around that. Yet every time he tried to find his own exit from this hellish existence, that foreign thing invaded his body and refused to allow it.

  He was close to losing his grip. The demon was winning. He was going to be in complete control soon.

  Theo was in a human bar, trying to convince himself not to let the demon take over, when Brody first approached him.

  “Hey, you’re new around here,” he’d said, slipping into the seat next to Theo.

  Theo barely glanced at him, before he went back to sipping at the beer he could barely stomach. It’d been three days since he’d fed. He was beginning to get sharp pains in his abdomen that he hoped would mean death, but wasn’t certain about.

  “Look, I’m going to cut through the crap,” Brody turned his way.

  Theo got ready to tell the guy to get lost. Then he spoke again, and Theo found himself stunned into silence.

  “I know who you are.” He nodded as he looked him over. “And I can help you.”

  “You can?” He wasn’t getting alarm bells yet, but he was sure they were coming.

  “I can, but you need to stop starving yourself.”

  “Okay,” Theo agreed.

  “I’m Brody McIntosh.”

  They shook hands.

  It turned out Brody knew exactly who’d done this to him, and why. That night, they went after the men who taken the life of his girlfriend and turned him. His maker saw it coming, but he hadn’t factored in what Brody was.

  “Turn on your human friend. Drain him,” the big guy ordered, as if he was flicking a nuisance insect off his shoulder. He turned away as Theo launched himself at Brody, who halted his attack with a single command.

  Brody smiled at him. “Say goodnight, Blackburn.”

  The stake that launched through his body appeared out of thin air. The shock on his face melted as his remains spattered the ground.

  Theo breathed a sigh of relief, released from his maker’s hold.

  Brody smiled at him. “What do you say we go after his brother next?”

  Theo found a grin. The creep wasn’t going to know what hit him.

  ***

  Theo awoke next to the girl who’d given him a reason to hang on to his life. He smiled as she opened her eyes and gazed at him. “You’re okay.”

  “You were sleeping for a long time,” she let him know.

  He blinked. “I was?”

  Brody had warned him it might happen but he really hadn’t felt tired when he lay down next to her. He was energized now, though his stomach was cramping a little. Feeding regularly was going to be a requirement. He needed to be back at full strength if they were going on the run.

  “I’m a vampire now,” she said, smiling wryly at him. “Apparently.”

  “It was the only way.”

  “I know.”

  “We should probably get out of here.”

  She sat up as he moved. “You sound worried. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t think Brody’s father knows we survived his attack, but if we hang around he might find out.” He got up and went to the window. “It’s getting too close to dawn. We need to be somewhere else right now.”

  “Where, exactly?” She didn’t think going back to her place was an option considering the dead body they’d left on her bedroom floor. She could just imagine Sian getting home from work and freaking the hell out. It would have happened by now. She wished she could have spared her the trauma, but she’d been too busy dying.

  “I haven’t figured that out yet.” He shook his head. “Brody will think of something. He always does.”

  “Why did he come after us, anyway?” She remembered something the creep had said to her in the kitchen, something she didn’t think he could possibly know if he wasn’t Sian’s boyfriend. The glowing eyes told her he was possessed at that point, if the threatening behavior didn’t.

  “I’m not sure,” Theo said. “But he mentioned something that might mean he targeted me for something I did a few years ago. When I met Brody.”

  “He mentioned something to me too,” she said.

  He frowned. “What was it?”

  “My perverted boss had tried to get me to agree to go on a business trip with him. I said no, but he mentioned that, said I should have done it.”

  “Okay, that’s a little worrying.”

  “I thought so. What was your thing about?”

  “Brody helped me kill the vampire who turned me, and his family.”

  “His family?”

  “His brother and father. They were killers, rapists, psychos,” he elaborated quickly. “But they were rich, connected. Kind of like Brody’s dad.”

  “Shit,” she said. “But wait. How long ago was that?”

  “A few years.”

  “Why would he suddenly care about that now?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t.” Theo shook his head. “I don’t know. His MO is torturing Brody for things he decides he’s doing wrong. That usually includes hurting someone he has some kind of feelings for. Friends. Lovers.”

  “So we need to get as far away from here as possible.”

  He nodded. “Now.”

  She looked him over. “We should get you some new clothes too. You still smell like a stoner.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Theo mulled over what they’d talked about as he waited for Brody to get done with his emails. Apparently Shayne had found it as a way to contact his boss without breaking the barriers Mr. McIntosh had put in place. He didn’t really know why his friend’s dad would be so determined to
kill him, truth be told, but the reason didn’t matter as much as making sure he never found out he wasn’t successful did.

  He wasn’t the kind of person to let a loose end dangle, and in spite of Brody’s relief at the thought of the old man biting the bullet, he doubted it would be quite so cut and dry if Theo actually managed to kill him.

  Brody put his mobile on the table after a lengthy bout of typing. “Stacy’s freaking out about sleeping in the brothel.” He sighed. “I really don’t know what the hell he’s doing it for this time. We changed a lot more things to his liking after the last time.”

  “Do you think he might have found out about what we did three years ago?”

  Brody laughed. “You think this is about that?”

  “He mentioned it.”

  His laughter cut off. “He found out the night after that happened. He thanked me for taking down that arsehole.”

  “He did?”

  Brody nodded. “They didn’t exactly get along. I doubt it has anything to do with that.”

  His gaze wandered to the kitchen door. Liv’s sigh in the other room seemed to be a singular noise. But it distracted his friend’s attention all the same.

  “Are you still seeing Marina?”

  Brody snapped out of it and nodded slowly, picking up his mug. The coffee had to be going cold now, but if it was he didn’t seem to mind as he took a sip.

  “On and off. Nothing serious,” Brody murmured, putting the mug back down quietly.

  “Skye said he mentioned her boss. She said he’s a creep, he tried to get her to go on a business trip with him.”

  Brody’s focus came back. “Hmm. Might be nothing. He likes to know things. Probably went and searched after he rifled through her bag at the brothel. He was messing about behind the front desk for a bit. Stacy said he went through some of the personal effects in the cabinet.”