The Awakening (The Bryn And Sinjin Series Book 6)
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THE AWAKENING
Book 6 of the
Bryn and Sinjin Series
by
H.P. Mallory
Copyright ©2019 by HP Mallory
Published by HP Mallory
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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Acknowledgements:
To my son, Finn: Thank you for making every day a happy one.
To my editor, Teri, at EditingFairy.com: thank you for an excellent job, as always.
ALSO BY H.P. MALLORY
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Reverse Harem Series:
The Sacred Oath Series
Paranormal Romance Series:
The Jolie Wilkins Series: (New York Times Bestselling Series!)
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Virtual Reality Romance Series:
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Standalone Contemporary Romances
Contemporary Romances
About The Awakening:
While returning from a scouting mission to attempt to locate Luce’s camp, Bryn stumbles on a wolf-girl strapped to a rack and left for dead.
Once rescued, the girl, Dayna, tells Bryn and company all about the newest flavor of Luce’s evil and, most specifically, what Luce plans to do to Bryn, if he ever takes her as prisoner again…
And Bryn’s time in Luce’s breeding program will pale in comparison to the newest torture he’s devised…
Upon returning to the queen and Kinloch Kirk, a new arrival starts heating up the scene and making waves. Audrey Chevalier, Dureau’s beautiful French sister, seems to be overly interested in Master Vampire, Sinjin Sinclair.
And unless Bryn’s mistaken, Sinjin appears to return Audrey’s affections.
Will this budding new romance push Bryn into the arms of Dureau? Or will it make her second guess her decision to avoid a romantic attachment with Sinjin?
Meanwhile, Jolie continues to gain allies as it appears the Underworld is soon to go to battle with Luce’s forces yet again.
That is, until Dureau informs Bryn about the true nature of her ancestry, information which could absolutely change the tide of the war for all involved.
And, prepare yourself, for an ending to this book that will leave you speechless…
The Awakening is book six in the Bryn and Sinjin vampire romance series.
Chapter One
Bryn
“Help… me…”
I’d seen a lot of horrible things over the course of my life, but the vision of this woman tightly bound to a medieval rack quickly shot to the top of the list. The wolf-girl’s body was covered in light grey fur that must have been beautiful at one point, but was now snarled and matted. She was showing all the signs of a cursed werewolf stuck in mid-transition. And being confined to that stage was rumored to be one of the most painful things that could happen to a werewolf.
Dureau Chevalier, the French fae ally of the Underworld and the only reason I had any happy memories from childhood, approached the woman. I wasn’t surprised, because he was a kind person. Truthfully, I was lucky to have had him by my side during our last few adventures. He was definitely a reliable and capable soldier, loyal to my sister, the queen of the Underworld.
Dureau took the girl’s face into his hands and gazed deeply into her eyes. His eyes glowed in a way I hadn’t seen before, and it took me a moment or two to realize he was using his fae magic. Why, I wasn’t sure.
“She’s not well,” he informed us as he dropped his hands and turned around to face me. “She’s injured badly.”
“I believe that is quite obvious,” Sinjin Sinclair—former vampire, now turned human, and Lord Protector to my sister—answered flatly.
“How bad is it, Dureau?” I asked, deciding to ignore Sinjin’s jab. He and Dureau were constantly at one another’s throats, and it was entirely owing to the fact that they were both trying to win my affections.
“Her condition grows worse by the moment and her injuries could prove to be fatal,” Dureau answered.
We were silent as we absorbed the horror of what was transpiring in front of us. Sinjin pulled us from the silence as he faced me and frowned.
“Before you develop any ideas regarding healing the unfortunate creature, bête noire, please do keep in mind that this brutal scene may very well be a trap laid by Luce.” Sinjin knew me well—I had intended to heal the woman and would have already begun doing so if Sinjin hadn’t interrupted.
“Trap? What kind of trap?” asked Damek, the youngest member of our group. He might have been merely infantile in terms of the time he’d been alive, but he appeared much older. To the unknowing onlooker, he appeared to be a teenager but was truly only a few months old, owing to a disease that caused him to prematurely age. Regardless, Damek was a valuable asset to us, and he’d proven himself more than once on the battlefield.
“Well, my young scholar, in healing this pitiful individual, Lady Bryn would expend a significant amount of energy, which could affect her abilities adversely,” Sinjin began to explain. “Therefore, it is not beyond rational belief to imagine Luce would be granting himself the upper hand by rending our warrior princess of her abilities. Furthermore, there may also be some type of magical connection between this sorry half-wolf and Luce. Perhaps, in healing this wretched creature, Lady Bryn might also heal Luce, himself?” He shrugged. “The possibilities are quite endless.”
I hated to admit it, but Sinjin had a point—albeit one that took a long damn time to arrive at. Trickery was exactly the type of thing Luce, my former leader and the greatest threat to the Underworld, would do. Luce liked playing with your good intentions and turning them against you.
“I get what you’re saying, Sinjin,” said Damek reluctantly. “But we can’t just leave her like that!” His mouth dropped open as he turned to look at the wolf woman.
“Damek—” Sinjin said, but Damek cut him off by shaking his head.
“That’s the difference between us and Luce: we help people who need helping. We don’t turn our backs on them. Healing her is the right thing to do—and no matter what, you should always do the right thing.”
Damek’s words hit me hard. The boy’s moral compass was infallible; but his ideas could put us all in danger. We were definitely stuck between the metaphorical rock and the hard place. But, Damek was also right—there was no way I could, in good conscience, leave the girl here.
“You make me proud, Damek,” Sinjin said, but his tone suggested he wasn’t convinced by what Damek was proposing.
Damek continued. “We fight for the Underworld and for Queen Jolie. And Jolie didn’t turn my mom away when she found out she was pregnant with me, despite the fact that allowing mom to stay could have put everyone in jeopardy.”
“Yes, well—” Sinjin began but again, Damek cut him off.
It wasn’t lost on me that Dureau was completely silent.
“Queen Jolie did the right thing for mom and me! And we have to do the right thing now!”
“So what?” Damek demanded, crossing his arms against his chest and frowning at Sinjin as though his point were meaningless.
“So, Luce held great power here and may still maintain some semblance of control over this encampment. We cannot traverse blindly. In fact, I recommend we proceed with great caution regarding this woman, harmless though she may appear,” Sinjin continued.
It seemed cold, but Sinjin’s advice made sense. Yet, when I turned and faced the wolf-girl, something about his concerns suddenly felt wrong. This girl needed help. She’d suffered at the hands of Luce just as I had...
Dureau broke the silence. “I hate to agree with Sinjin, but I do.”
“Will wonders never cease,” Sinjin grumbled. I had to admit I was surprised, too. In general, Dureau never agreed with Sinjin.
Dureau ignored Sinjin and continued, facing me squarely. “Luce has used glamours to trick us before. This could very well be another such instance. As difficult as it is to admit, I don’t believe healing the woman is the best idea—at least, not immediately.”
I thought about Sinjin and Dureau’s arguments for a minute. They’d both made good points and, honestly, this was exactly the type of game Luce would play with us to get the upper hand. Even so, Damek’s words resonated with me the most.
“There’s only one way to know what we could be up against,” I started.
“And what is that?” Dureau asked, eying me narrowly.
“I’m going to read her mind,” I answered with a shrug.
“My pet, please reconsider before you take such rash action,” protested Sinjin. He held his hands up in front of him, as if he were trying to play the part of negotiator. “You are aware that as soon as you venture into her head, Luce could have you exactly where he wants you.”
“I’m aware,” I assured him, my lips tight. My mind was already made up.
“And that is not a position I will allow you to be in,” Sinjin continued, his eyes narrowing as he studied me. Mine were just as narrow.
“If you start up with all that Lord Protector crap, I’m going to vomit,” I warned with a frown.
“It is my duty—” Sinjin began, his chin held high.
“Enough,” I interrupted. “I don’t want to pull rank on either of you,” I added as I varied my gaze between Sinjin and Dureau.
“Pull rank?” asked Dureau. He frowned at me, clearly irritated. Sinjin didn’t appear surprised. Guess he was getting to know me well.
“I’m the Princess of the Court and my opinion matters more than either of yours,” I announced staunchly as I glared at both of them in turn.
Yes, I sounded like a bitch. No, I didn’t care.
“And she can also flame you out of existence,” Damek added, nodding aggressively. “Or she could grow real big and stomp on you.”
Both were true.
“Or, she could listen to her elder who has worldly experience on his side,” Sinjin muttered, his mouth downturned and anger appearing in his ice-blue eyes. “And be a good, little princess.”
“That was quite the wrong choice of words,” Dureau murmured to Sinjin out of the side of his mouth.
“A good, little princess?” I repeated, throwing my hands on my hips.
“Whoops, Sinjin,” Damek said and shook his head.
Sinjin never took his eyes off me but exhaled slowly, even though he didn’t possess a respiratory system. Old habits die hard, I guess.
“’Good, little princess’ this,” I spat out as I approached the wolf-girl, who had grown even more ill in the short time since we’d arrived in her cell. Her body twitched every few seconds, otherwise she pretty much looked dead. It was clear she wasn’t long for this world if I didn’t heal her, and quickly.
I was surprised when she looked up at me; I’d thought she was unconscious.
“Help… me… please…” she rasped as I touched her face.
“Shh,” I whispered back. “I’m trying.”
With my hand still on her cheek, I closed my eyes and began to form a telepathic link with her. A white glowing light emanated from the point where my fingers touched the fur on her face. I poured myself into that link and entered her mind.
It was time to hear her story.
***
“Who are you?” the wolf-girl asked as soon as I appeared in her mind’s eye.
I stood before her, where she was still attached to the rack, and even though we were in her mind, everything looked the same as it just had.
“My name is Bryn,” I said.
“Who sent you?” she nearly interrupted.
I held up my hands in a supplicating gesture. “I’m not here to hurt you. I just need to know who you are and if you’re an enemy.”
“Do I look like an enemy?”
I shrugged. “I can’t be sure. This is Luce’s stronghold.”
“It was,” she responded and appeared utterly defeated. “But he left me here to die, so if you’re an enemy of his then you’re no enemy of mine.” She studied me from hollow eyes. “How do I know you’re an enemy of his?”
I nodded, because I understood her point. “I’m the sister to the queen of the Underworld.” Of course, she knew who Jolie was—all werewolves had proven their loyalty to Jolie and were members of the royal court.
“Then you’re definitely Luce’s enemy.”
“What pack are you from?” I asked. Werewolves existed in packs, and I figured she’d been abducted from hers. There was no other reason why she’d be prisoner to Luce. In general, all werewolves were in good standing with my sister.
“I was on my own until Luce found me and made me his prisoner.”
“Then you didn’t belong to a pack?” I asked, eyeing her warily. A werewolf without a pack wasn’t a usual occurrence. And it made me immediately suspicious.
“I once belonged to the same pack as someone you undoubtedly know well… Trent,” she admitted with a frown.
I swallowed hard at the mention of Trent. He was one of the chosen few who had been on Jolie’s advisory panel, until he’d been imprisoned for unknowingly spying on us for Luce. I’d never liked Trent, anyway—he was a braggart and an asshole.
“What happened?” I asked.
Yes, I was maybe wasting time on details that didn’t matter much at the moment, but I was curious as to why she would have decided to go rogue. In many instances, going rogue as a werewolf could mean death. A werewolf relied on her pack for pretty much everything. So, if her story struck me as fishy, I figured I’d leave her right here, where we’d found her.
She shrugged. “I didn’t like him. At the time, we were vying for the position of alpha. I was the best hunter in the pack and a better choice as leader, but Trent was a man and so he was named alpha, instead of me.”
“Crappy,” I said.
She nodded. “I kind of understood—the werewolves making the choice were from an older generation. As it turned out, I was right about Trent not being as powerful as he’d have the rest of us believe.”
“What do you mean?”
“Luce wanted that Tyr collar on Trent and Luce got what he wanted, because Trent wasn’t a powerful enough werewolf to defend himself.”
I eyed her narrowly. The fact that she knew this information surprised me. “You know about the Tyr collar?”
She nodded.
“How?”
“Luce knew I was a powerful female werewolf and he wanted me for his sick experiment.” That sick experiment was Luce’s breeding program, I figured. “Because Trent had watched me over the years, he knew exactly where I went to hunt, and he fed that information back to Luce through the collar. When Luce kidnapped me, I never saw him coming.”
“Did Trent do it on purpose?” I asked.
She tried to shrug but didn’t manage much
movement. “Not sure. The collar allowed Luce to read all of his thoughts, so maybe it wasn’t intentional. I hope it wasn’t.”
It wouldn’t have surprised me if it had been. Trent was that sort of person.
“I’m sorry,” I said, not sure what else to say. I’d been a victim of Luce’s barbaric breeding program as well, but luckily, I wasn’t able to get pregnant. Hopefully, this woman was equally lucky. That is, if I believed her story. And so far, I had to admit I did.
“Apparently, I was the first werewolf participant in Luce’s breeding trials,” she continued. Because we were in the landscape of her mind, she had no trouble conversing with me, though she clearly would have lacked the energy to do it in the real world. “Luce theorized that Werewolf-Elementals would be even more powerful than Daywalker-Elemental hybrids. He figured the offspring would have all the magical abilities of Elementals, but also be able to transform.”
I inhaled deeply; the mental image was all too familiar to me. “So, what happened?”
“Well, I wasn’t about to go along with Luce’s plan quietly. When my first… visitor… came to me, I transformed into the wolf. And I mauled him, leaving him a bloody mess on the floor. I told Luce I’d do the same to anyone he sent.” She swallowed hard. “But I should have figured Luce would find a way around my defenses.” She laughed then, but it was a laugh full of anger and pain. “And he did. He set up magic barriers around my cell to prevent me from transforming.” She sighed. “And it worked.”
“How did you end up on the rack?” I asked softly, wondering why Luce had left her behind.
“After I mauled the first guy who came to me, my reward was being shackled to this thing,” she answered. “It was another means of making sure I couldn’t transform, in case the magic wards failed.”