by Dale Mayer
Celeste
Book #3 of Glory
Dale Mayer
Book in this series:
Genesis
Tori
Celeste
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Back Cover
Complimentary Download
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Author’s Note
Complimentary Download
About the Author
Also by Dale Mayer
Copyright Page
Back Cover
This is the 3rd book in the Glory Trilogy
Being last sucked. And so did going home less than triumphant.
Celeste is injured only this time it’s her leg and not her pride. There’s no room for the latter when she’s being stalked. And now someone is out to destroy her and her sisters…
Matt has been waiting for Celeste to return – to him. She was a strong energy worker and trying to track her down would be futile. And pointless. She’d be found only if she wanted to be.
Considering she’d stayed away as long as she had, he worried that maybe she wasn’t planning on coming back – ever.
But Glory is heating up and life for Celeste and her sisters is coming up to crunch time. They need her back. And she’s come back – on her terms.
The three sisters must unite to fight the secret enemy in their midst and to preserve their way of life. That means Celeste must make peace with herself and Matt – before it’s too late.
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Blood doesn’t just make her who she is … it also makes her what she is.
Like being a sixteen-year-old vampire isn’t hard enough, Tessa’s throwback human genes make her an outcast among her relatives. But try as she might, she can’t get a handle on the vampire lifestyle and all the … blood.
Turning her back on the vamp world, she embraces the human teenage lifestyle—high school, peer pressure and finding a boyfriend. Jared manages to stir something in her blood. He’s smart and fun and oh, so cute. But Tessa’s dream of a having the perfect boyfriend turns into a nightmare when vampires attack the movie theater and kidnap her date.
Once again, Tessa finds herself torn between the human world and the vampire one.
Will blood own out? Can she make peace with who she is as well as what?
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Chapter 1
Celeste Chandler couldn’t go much farther. Her leg was throbbing with pain. She should have returned before this, not wait until the last minute. She closed her eyes and breathed through the discomfort. Then she took a deep breath and started again.
Finally, Granny’s cabin was just ahead of her. Celeste cautiously glanced around. Good, she was still alone. Her nerves tingling, her body tense with excitement, she stared at a wall of greenery blocking her view. She was almost home. For the first time in over a year. And she had to admit her heart ached with yearning to reconnect. She was the youngest of three sisters—by mere minutes—and she’d missed them terribly.
So much had happened, and she didn’t really understand all the changes. But she was home now, and after she healed, then eventually she’d contact them all and catch up. Finally.
It was as if the bomb blast from Granny’s death had destroyed the core of their lives and blown the family apart. Genesis had stayed home to hold the fort down, which was always her thing, being a homebody and Tori had run as far and as fast as she could. Celeste, well, she was like neither of them, but she’d gone into hiding close by to find herself. Close enough to keep track of the goings-on, but far enough away that no one could find her. Not that anyone was looking.
Except Genesis. And damn, Celeste felt bad about that. Living several towns away, she’d been close enough to hear a lot of what had gone on, but not enough to know all of the details. Her co-worker, an avid gossip, who drove from town to town doing deliveries, had shared that Genesis had been involved in a major kerfuffle, but she had a new partner, and they were living full-time in the Paranormal Center. That had caused Celeste a ton of sleepless nights. It shouldn’t matter, as she’d been the one to walk away from Matt… But there was no way she would ever be okay with him being in a serious, committed relationship with her sister.
It had been weeks before she found out that Genesis’ partner was not Matt.
After she’d been able to breathe again, she’d mentally beaten herself up for being such a fool.
Celeste leaned against a thick tree, catching her breath. Just a few more feet. Then she’d be safe. And home. Once she’d heard her sister, Tori, had gone home, Celeste knew she was the last one to return to the fold. Granny had always said that she was slowest of the bunch, and that was fine, as she did things in her own time, and rarely made mistakes.
Boy, had she been wrong. Devastated at the loss of the woman who’d raised them, destroyed by what she could only imagine as being a complete betrayal by her lover and the man she thought was hers forever, Celeste hadn’t been able to cope and had walked.
Leaving Genesis to mop up the mess behind her.
She owed her sister a lot. Just the thought of seeing her again made her arms ache for a hug. Genesis and Tori were special. They’d been the idols Celeste had looked up to. The models by which she’d always tried to copy.
And look at what she’d done.
Smurg flew down to land on a sweeping branch beside her. The look in his eye was one she’d seen many times before.
“I know. It’s a big step. And once again, I can’t force myself to take it.”
Smurg tilted his big feathered head, and stared at her with those wonderful, owlish eyes, silently encouraging her to take this step.
And she was rather desperate to do so. Her leg, injured only a week ago, hadn’t improved. And now it was at the point that she was afraid she’d left it all too long. She needed Granny’s healing pool. But it was on the other side of the energy barricade.
And the minute she crossed it, she would trigger an alarm that would tell her sisters she was here.
Was she ready for that?
Did she really have a choice?
Her leg throbbed and pounded the longer she stood there. She looked back the way she’d come. That was the biggest issue. She wasn’t likely going to make the trip back with her leg like it was. And was she truly alone? The entire way in, she hadn’t been able to shake the sensation of being followed. Tracked. An abrupt flash of fear spurred her into motion.
“Okay,” she whispered to Smurg. “I’m going.”
A small hand slipped into hers. She looked down at Minkel, who walked ever at her side. Her spirit pets were the only reason she’d survived being alone as long as she had. And technically, the pets meant she was never truly alone. Granny had had many in her care. Some had left with Granny upon her death. Many others had left with Celeste, and some had found
new homes. It had hurt to lose some of them. But she’d come to understand. Granny would be proud of her. She’d often told her how possessive she was and she’d have to learn to share.
Sharing was one thing, but what about when sharing didn’t work and you lost? How did one lose a special someone when you were bonded by love?
Silky whispered reassuringly in her ear. She tilted her head into his warm belly. He stayed snugged up in the crook of her neck.
“I know. I know,” she said. “You guys just don’t understand how hard this is.”
But that wasn’t true. They did understand. They’d been here before, too. They loved Granny as much as she had. They’d been lost in the spirit world, as they’d never connected to their human soul mates or lost them before their time had come. Granny had been the one to rescue them. But it had been Celeste who’d had the affinity to them, and they’d bonded to her in a big way. But some were hers in ways she hadn’t realized, until she lost a few and had seen the bond had only gone one way.
Silky murmured encouragement at her.
And she knew she’d procrastinated enough.
Hopefully, her sisters would give her time to heal. To adapt to being here, before they crashed into the silence her world had become.
She bowed her head and raised her arms. In a gentle series of flowing movements, she opened the energy barrier and stepped through the oversized foliage to the protected space around the small cottage.
It looked just the same, as though it had been frozen in time. As soon as she laid her eyes on it, tears started to flow. Would she ever adjust to Granny no longer being here? She’d been the stability, the rock, the driving force behind the girls. So much of their history had been mired in mystery, but Granny had forged a strong path for them. And when she’d died, it was as if everything died with her.
How sad was that?
But first things first. She shuddered as the pain in her leg deepened. As if it knew they were somewhere where it could get help—and maybe didn’t want that help.
She hated her wild imagination. How could her leg scream at her to leave this place? To go away before it was too late? Too late for what?
At the cottage door, it took another moment to open the locks. She frowned at the double-energy alarm system in place.
There’d been trouble here.
And it was recent trouble. She stepped over the threshold, and carefully relocked the door. Dropping her bag on the table, she hunched over, her pain so severe she could only focus on the healing pool. It called to her, yet her leg injury screamed against her progress. As if it didn’t want her to move forward. She didn’t bother looking around. She’d known that the cabin was empty of people as soon as she’d entered the protected space.
Good. She stripped, dropping one item at a time as she crossed the room to the closed door on the far side. She pushed it open and cried out in joy.
Inside, in the deep recesses of her mind, she’d been afraid that the healing pool wasn’t going to be here. That something really bad had happened to damage the pool.
Instead, the waves of glittering, blue water surged toward her. Reaching for her. She kicked off her shoes and slowly, painfully removed her pants, crying out as her sore leg was free at last. Her socks and panties hit the ground right after. It was all she could do to sit on the edge of the pool and swing her leg over the side, when the water surged up her calves and up to her thighs. By the time it hit her hips, she was lifted above the glistening waves for a tiny second then slowly lowered into the bubbling pool below.
She cried out once, before her head was completely submerged, and then she sank to the bottom of the pool. Relief and joy washed through her.
Her last rational thought, as Silky detached from her ear to float at her side, and Minkel perched on the edge above, was, why had she taken so long to come?
*
Matt handed the sheaf of papers over to Connor. “We need to check out the disturbance at Grandfather’s place. Take Devon with you. The investigation is going well over there, but something is still not as stable as it should be. And we need it to be.”
As Connor reached out, Matt froze, his senses firing up inside. His hand still holding the papers slowly sank to the desk. “Jesus. Finally.”
Connor reached for the papers. “Matt? What’s up?”
Matt released his pent-up breath and murmured, “Your soon-to-be sister-in-law just arrived.”
The office door burst open and Genesis raced in, with Tori one step behind her.
“Matt,” they both cried.
He held up his hand. “I know. I can feel her, too.”
The two sisters hugged each other.
Genesis frowned. “She’s hurt. She’s triggered the healing pool.”
“It’s the first place any of us would go. Just think of the emotional trauma we all felt after Granny’s death. Celeste is confronting that for the first time,” Tori said softly, her hand gently stroking Genesis’ back.
“True.” Genesis stared out the window at the darkening sky for a moment before she whispered, “But it feels like it’s more than that.”
There was another odd eruption of noise on a different level, as their spirit animals conversed.
Matt stared as Darbo spoke with several other spirit animals crowding into the space. They could connect to Celeste’s animals in a way that no one else could. And in this case, since Darbo had been hers at one time, he had a deeper bond than most.
“She’s hurt,” he said, standing abruptly. “Darbo said her leg is bad. Can barely walk, Minkel says.”
“Then it’s a good thing she’s in the pool,” Connor said, wrapping an arm around Genesis. “Let’s keep calm, everyone. We knew this time would come. We all want this. It’s a good thing. I know she’s hurt, but we can’t go rushing up there and scaring her off. She’s come back on her own…”
“What if she’s only come back for the pool?” Genesis whispered, tears in her eyes. “Her leg must be bad, if that’s why she returned.”
“Hey, don’t look at this as her being forced home for the pool,” Tori said. “This all has to happen in its own time, you know that.”
Genesis nodded, but her gaze was locked on Tori’s face as if waiting for her to make a decision.
Matt knew the decision had to be made by the two sisters, not him. But damn it, this one should be his decision. She was his. She’d run from him and what they had, but she’d been in his heart. Part of his soul. And damn it, she should have come home a long time ago.
His world had improved so much since adding Genesis and Tori to his life, but the one person who belonged there still refused to have anything to do with him. Maybe that would change now.
Darbo reached out a small paw, and gently brushed it down his cheek. Matt stroked the super-soft fur of the tiny lemur who lived attached to his heart, but hung most of the time from his ear. “I know. She’s home, and she’s hurting.”
But the lemur’s actions also said he knew that Matt was hurting, too. So hard to deal with this when everyone was caught in their own cycle of pain and hope.
So much had happened since Celeste left. Had she any idea of what had gone on? What was still going on? The world she’d walked away from didn’t exist any longer. At least, not in a form she’d recognize. The town was likely hers and her sisters, although that legal fight might still come. He was waiting on the judge’s ruling now. They had deeds proving the land, for as far as they could see, belonged to the three sisters. And as for Grandfather…Celeste’s old enemy was no longer the same man, either. The healing pools had affected even him.
Not fully a normal, peaceful man yet, but the change had already happened enough that there was no going back. But no one knew just how much he’d changed, so no one could trust him.
The pools were healing, the forest was healing. There were still massive electrical storms and system-wide energy outages that no one could explain. Some hypotheses had been formulated. A few of those were downright
scary.
Beside those events, some things had happened to Tori that even Matt wondered if their granny had set something into motion before her death. But she died over a year ago—and had sparked a year of severe trial for the sisters. He could only hope that Celeste would survive hers—and that he’d be the one she’d turn to for help.
He loved her. Always had. Would have given his right arm to not have hurt her. But after Granny’s death, everything had changed for her. And she had gone to pieces. The slightest things bothered her, and slights that would have normally set her off in a small way, had devastated her. He was a patient man to begin with, and he’d desperately tried to wait. To be there for her. To help her. To be the one she leaned on to get through this. But she’d been confused and overwrought, and his patience had worn thin. To her, it seemed like everyone had let her down. And perhaps that was understandable, given that fragile state she’d been in at the time. And then Darbo had chosen Matt, and she’d taken it as a horrific betrayal. Matt hadn’t understood. He’d so wanted Darbo to be his, understood that Celeste had dozens of spirit animals to choose from, and had wooed Darbo away.
He hadn’t realized he’d crossed a line until she’d disappeared.
That’s when he understood the connection between the three of them for what it was.
Darbo had gone into a deep depression. It had taken Matt months to bring him out of it again. But now, Darbo was lit up like he was on Glory juice, and his voice…well, Matt hadn’t seen him this excited—ever. The connection between Darbo and Celeste—indeed, Celeste’s spirit pet Silky as well—had been at the deepest level and he’d broken it. Something that had caused them all horrific pain.
There was no way to atone for this—especially when he couldn’t see Celeste to apologize. And besides, an apology wasn’t going to cut it. Not now. Even when she did see him, there was no way she could avoid seeing Darbo, and that wound would hurt her again.
He dropped his face to his hands and groaned.