by Laken Cane
Lightbringer
By Laken Cane
Copyright © 2019 Laken Cane
All rights reserved.
The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, association with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment. Ebook copies may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share with a friend, please buy an extra copy, and thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Playlist for Lightbringer, Silverlight #4
-RISE WITH ME (IN THIS MOMENT)
-NOTHING ELSE MATTERS (METALLICA)
-ANIMAL I HAVE BECOME (THREE DAYS GRACE)
-VOLCANO (DAMIEN RICE)
-WHO MADE WHO (AC/DC)
-WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE (GUNS N’ ROSES)
-THUNDERSTRUCK (AC/DC)
-ZOMBIE (BAD WOLVES)
-THE CITY (EXITMUSIC)
-BONES (IN THIS MOMENT)
-MY NAME IS HUMAN (HIGHLY SUSPECT)
-THE UNFORGIVEN (METALLICA)
-GREY ROOM (DAMIEN RICE)
-THE SOUND OF SILENCE (DISTURBED)
-TOXIC (2WEI)
-HURT (2WEI)
-WICKED GAME (FEAT. ANNACA, URSINE VULPINE)
-DELICATE (DAMIEN RICE)
-VAMPIRE SMILE (KYLA LA GRANGE)
From the Author
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Table of Contents
Playlist for Lightbringer, Silverlight #4
From the Author
Book Three (Peacemaker) Recap
PART ONE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
PART TWO
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
About Laken Cane
Laken’s books:
Book Three (Peacemaker) Recap
A little reminder about Peacemaker—Silverlight book 3—and major players:
Rifters break free from the prison in which the vampire elders trapped them—helped along by the Byrdcage warden’s son Jamie Stone and his imprisoned witch mother. Trin will sacrifice herself to save the city, the humans, the vampires. In the end, she dies, burned by the dragon, and Amias brings her back as a vampire.
Characters:
Angus Stark: Alpha werebull. Trinity’s protector, lover, heart.
Amias Sato: Master vampire. Raced to the island at the end of Peacemaker, carrying Shane, to save the one he loves.
Clayton Wilder: Finally retrieved his hunter status with his freedom. Has all the protection he needs in the sword made from his former tormenter, Miriam Crow.
Shane Copas: Hunter, Trinity’s dark obsession. The end of Peacemaker saw him dead and slung across the shoulder of the master vampire, Amias Sato.
Rhys Graver: Tall, dark, and sexy. The dragon.
Miriam Crow: Taken to hell, forged into the sword Blacklight. Now she belongs to her former slave, Clayton.
Captain Frank Crawford: Captain of Red Valley Police Department, friend to the supernatural.
Leo Trask: Powerful half-giant that Trinity freed when she went after Angus. He’s hers now—she just has to claim him.
Alejandro Rodríguez: Rhys’s human assistant, badass extraordinaire.
Jamie Stone: Son of the warden of Byrd Island. His mother was an imprisoned witch. He helped her destroy the island. He’s under the protection and care of Alejandro Rodríguez.
Jade Noel: Mysterious supernat. She’s a lot of things. Nice ain’t one of them.
Amanda Hammer: One of Jade’s crew. There’s some power in those hammer fists.
Derry Stark: One of Angus’s daughters.
PART ONE
GROWING A VAMPIRE
Chapter One
BEGINNING
It was like being born.
It was like being born, because it was a birth. A rebirth.
I clung to Shane, unwilling to release that connection to reality, and the vampire master pulled me from the awful, black despair that tried with greedy eagerness to hold me.
If I hadn’t been turned, would I have had the same death, the same afterlife?
No. I was pretty sure not.
Time had no meaning. I absorbed the changes in my body and my mind. I grew from grasping infant to feral adult, and quickly.
Amias was unsure—I felt his doubt. It didn’t scare me. Not then.
All I wanted was food.
Blood.
And I wasn’t me enough to feel shame over that.
Amias fed me, cared for me, coaxed me from death to a different sort of death—my new existence.
He held me, stroked my hair, murmured meaningless words into my ear, and did his best to heal a body ravaged by vicious rifters.
A body he put back together.
“You must be prepared for scars,” he whispered. “They will not disappear. Not all of them.”
I did not care.
I’d had scars before.
There were other physical changes, as well. My fangs began to come in, and I felt them growing inside my gums the way I felt Shane’s motionless, unresponsive coldness.
Shane’s return to life was different than my own.
Because Shane had not been a bloodhunter. He didn’t have my blood. He was not me. And when he stirred to life and began screaming, the master took him away from me.
Why? I’d wondered.
“Because eventually, he will hate me for forcing his turn, and he will hate you for seeing it.”
I didn’t know how much time I’d spent in the ground, with crumbly dirt like chocolate cake cradling me, the master feeding me, my mind slowly, so slowly, becoming something almost whole once again.
Time passed.
And when Amias bore me to the surface, I was changed from the girl I’d once been. New in some ways and ancient in others.
I was one of the bloodsucking parasites I’d hated and hunted.
I was undead.
I was a vampire.
Chapter Two
PRIMAL
I watched him as he revealed his body, watched him the way he watched me, with anticipation and hunger.
He never fed me without fucking me.
He
never fed from me without fucking me.
I was his to do with as he pleased. He was my master. And sometimes when he said my name, “Trinity, Trinity…” it took me a minute to realize he was speaking to me. Trinity was my name.
At least it had been, once upon a time.
A million years ago.
I shivered, clenching my fists, my naked body tightening with…something. Dread, maybe, or anger. I couldn’t tell. My emotions were too new and chaotic to be trusted.
“Do you want to taste me, my darling?” he asked, his voice low and full of promise. “Be still.”
The blood of the master was something his vampires would crave until they were ended. It was a sickness, almost, eventually softening into a low level humming that would never really disappear. It became easier to control as a vampire matured.
But for new vampires, and especially for me…
“Yes,” I breathed.
He stared down at me, waiting.
“Master,” I added quickly. “Yes, please, Master.”
Something sad wafted through his eyes. “Trinity,” he murmured. “I do not want to break you. I do not want to see you broken. Do you understand that?”
I cared only for the blood. His blood. His words meant nothing. I nodded eagerly, my entire body screaming with consuming hunger, unbearable need, and breathtaking anticipation. “Please, Master. Please.”
He climbed into the bed, his bare body warm and comforting against mine. He drew me into his arms and we lay face to face, our lips almost touching.
I didn’t dare move. I didn’t dare do anything that might cause him to retract his offer. I stared into his eyes, unblinking and unmoving, my new fangs cutting into my bloodless bottom lip.
“Trinity,” he whispered, at last, and brushed my lips with his. “Trinity.”
He spoke my name often because he said I’d forgotten who I was.
I hadn’t forgotten. I just didn’t care.
I didn’t care about anything but his blood, his body, his existence.
“Master,” I replied.
He voice was suddenly sharp, almost angry. “Will you not fight me?”
I drew back, alarmed. “Never, Master. Never.”
He sighed and rubbed my torn lip with the pad of his thumb. “Once upon a time you would have. You would have demanded your release. You would have wallowed in devastation at Shane’s desertion. You would have been impatient to return to Bay Town, to your men.”
“Now there is only you,” I told him. “Nothing else matters.”
He closed his eyes and didn’t open them again until I patted his cheek softly, insistently. Then he stared at me, emotionless, blank. “You have to come back,” he said, finally. “You have to return to us, Trinity.”
“I never left you. I am here. I am always here.”
But his eyes were full of frustration. “Only part of you,” he muttered. “The blackest part. The broken part. The fucking vampire part.” He squeezed my arm, hard. “Where are you? How have I lost you?”
I disliked his disappointment, his desolation. I wanted to do and be whatever he wanted of me.
I didn’t know how.
“Time,” he whispered, finally. “You just need more time.”
I smiled. “Yes. Time.”
He slid his fingers from my arm to my breast, and my nipple stiffened immediately at his touch. I shivered as between my legs, I began to throb. He had only to hint at what was to come, and my body responded.
I was a feeding, fucking machine.
And I did not care.
I had come back with parts of me missing. Perhaps someday they’d return. Amias was impatient—desperate, nearly—and that was the only reason I hoped I would become whole again. Not because I needed to feel something other than lust and hunger, but because he needed me to.
I gripped his erection, and a flare of jealousy streaked through me, there and gone almost before I understood what it was. He’d fed, of course he’d fed. He couldn’t feed from me, because he allowed me to feed from no one but him.
His eyes widened and he tensed. “What did you feel?”
I squeezed his hardness. “Jealousy, Master. Your cock is filled with the blood of someone else. I don’t…”
“Yes?”
“I don’t like that you fed from someone else.”
He inhaled sharply. “I fucked someone else, too, my love. Does that make you jealous as well?”
I only realized I was hurting him when he jerked and covered my hand with his. He didn’t try to force my grip from his erection, but I eased up immediately. I was strong. Very strong. And I forgot that sometimes.
But he was the master. I was his servant. I had no reason for or right to my jealousy. He would take care of me. He knew what I needed, what was best for not only me, but his entire coven.
I relaxed. “I’m sorry, Master.”
The spark in his eyes dimmed. “Trinity, Trinity,” he said, mournful, dejected. Then, “It is a start.”
“A start,” I repeated, a good little blood-sucking parrot. I licked my dry lips. “A taste, please? I’m so very hungry.”
But he wasn’t quite ready. “You forbade your men from having sex with others,” he murmured. “Do you not see me as yours?”
I understood, distantly, that he’d lied to me. He’d fed from another—he had no choice. But his cock belonged to me—as did his heart. “You didn’t fuck anyone,” I realized.
He turned me to my back and nudged open my legs, and with one sure, smooth push, he slid inside me. I was wet, ready, and eager. He pulled out, almost all the way, then slid back inside, deep, deeper still, his cock filling me up, rubbing against a million bundles of nerves.
I tingled with pleasure. Shook with it.
I groaned, but never took my stare from his. He’d taught me early on to keep my eyes open, to look into his as he fucked me. He liked that connection, that closeness.
I liked to be fucked. And fed.
Oh, how I liked that.
I wrapped my legs around his strong body and gripped his arms. “Master?”
He offered me his blood as he pumped his hips. “Take it, my love.”
I struck without hesitation, my body trembling with desire and hunger. The hot, sweet magic of the master’s blood exploded into my mouth, then slid down my throat and into my life, my mind, my existence, and as I drank, I grew stronger.
More alive.
Darker.
I would come back.
But I wasn’t sure I really wanted to.
I wasn’t just Trinity, and I wasn’t just a vampire.
I was something unspeakable.
It lived inside me.
And I belonged to the darkness now.
Chapter Three
PAIN
Amias leaned over the bed, staring into my eyes as he always did, hoping to see the changes that would make him happy. He wanted to see something other than darkness and emptiness and hunger. He’d told me many times.
“Where are you, Trinity?”
“I’m here.”
“No. Not yet.”
A thousand times we’d had that conversation.
Someday it would end differently. At least, that was what he believed. What he waited for.
He wore a suit, fresh and crisp and smelling, somehow, of humans. Of the world outside the bedroom in which I’d been ensconced since he’d brought me to the surface.
I darted out my tongue to taste his skin, then nipped his bottom lip. Beneath the soft sheet, my naked body stirred. “You smell good. It makes me want to bite you.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled. “You are a greedy vampire.”
I was stuck on the beauty of that smile. I slid my hands up over his arms, closing my eyes at the cool, almost unfamiliar fabric covering his flesh. “You are an irresistible vampire.”
Every day, I changed a little more. I was maturing, but slowly. That snail’s pace irritated my master.
I knew
it frightened him, as well.
A spark of sadness lit my insides when I thought about it. I, as I was now, would never be enough for him. He wanted the old Trinity, even though he’d made me the vampire.
He sighed. “My love, I dislike the sadness I see in your eyes.”
And before I could reply, he brushed my lips with his and continued. “But I am happy to see you…thinking.”
“Changing,” I whispered, into his mouth. “Growing.”
“Yes.” Then he pulled back, so he could stare once more into my eyes. Whatever he saw there seemed to please him.
And that was all I wanted. To please him.
Then he hurt me. “Soon, you will no longer be the shallow monster. Soon, you will be Trinity.” He kissed my forehead, understanding my pain, but he never pulled his punches with me. “And I will force you out of the nest.”
Fear, immediate and sharp, rose up inside me. “No.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “No?”
My entire body tightened at his disapproval. “I don’t want to leave you,” I whispered. “Please don’t make me.”
“Only when you’re ready,” he promised.
Being ready didn’t mean the same thing to him it did to me. I would never be ready to leave him. But he believed he would need to shove me out when the time came. For my own good.
Tough love.
“You’ll always be mine,” he said. “Wherever you are, whatever you become. You are mine.”
“Always,” I swore. “Forever.”
I wanted nothing more.
Nothing.
But an image of Angus’s face slipped into my mind and pain streaked through my chest. I gasped and concentrated on that pain, which was both familiar and strange.
Amias’s stare sharpened. “Tell me.”
“Angus,” I murmured. “It hurt me to think of him.”
He said nothing for a few seconds, and I couldn’t read his face. “Good,” he said, finally. “Slowly, like a turtle with one leg, but you will get there.”
I didn’t return his smile. “I don’t want to get there. I’m happy here.”
He pulled away from me and went to stand in front of the mirror, where he straightened his tie and smoothed down his jacket. “You’re happy to lie naked in bed, doing nothing but eating and fucking.”