by Kade Cook
“Welcome back, kiddo,” Ethan says with a smile of relief.
She lowers her lids in response of his answer. A sliver of pain gnaws at her temples from the sound of his voice—even though it is low and soft, it booms through her ears just the same. She forces her lids to open under a pressed brow, and grimaces at him, her eyes merely two slits of a broken line, and wonders why she is tethered to her own bed, covered in bruises and in tattered pajamas. “What is going on?” she inquires, raising her hands to indicate her bindings. “And why do I feel like I just survived a train wreck?”
“That is because you did,” he says to her as he unties her left wrist. “Well, sort of.”
She half-glances over in Shane’s direction as he loosens the other binding around her right wrist. She pulls it away quickly and rubs her skin, giving him an icy glare—warning him to keep his distance.
“What?” She looks back at Ethan. “I am confused. I survived an actual train wreck? What was I doing on a train?”
“No, no. You were not on a train.” Ethan gives her a coy grin and tries to explain it to her. “It was just a figure of speech...” He stops for a moment and looks at her seriously. “You were kidnapped and compelled by a very dark and devious Vampire that long ago was bound into the Darkness of Erebus.”
Gabrian’s face twists as she bites on her lower lip, her head shaking involuntarily as she struggles to comprehend the words coming out of Ethan’s mouth as he tries to explain all of the sordid details of her capture. She tries to remember, but she cannot recall anything. She struggles to believe any of the things Ethan tells her to be true. She can only gather fragments of thoughts and creates a compilation of chaotic visions of her struggling to help her friend find freedom from the Covenant’s grasp.
She catches Ethan’s eye. Leery to talk about her secret friend, she decides it is all right since they have all seen him. “He was a Vampire turned apparition? How could a Vampire become a living apparition? None of this makes any sense. And why would he want to hurt me? He was my friend.”
“I don’t understand it either, Gabrian. All I know is that somehow he managed to return to this dimension. Then he decided to use you as his personal power supply. He was using your ability to harness energy to strike out at us as a defense while he drained you of your life essence.”
Gabrian quickly jumps to her friend’s defense. “He would not do that,” she snaps at him with wide-eyes—her mouth ajar as she openly grows upset—refusing to believe that the only one that took her side when she needed it most, would turn on her.
“Here, sift through my memories, and you will see it is true.”
Trusting Ethan, she relaxes and tries to tune into his mind frequency to find his projections, but every time she touches on an image about that night or her friend, a piercing light rips through her head and blinds her mind from seeing any of them.
She releases her connection with Ethan and rubs her temples. “I can’t, it hurts when I try.”
“It is no doubt a compulsion he implanted in your subconscious as a defense mechanism,” Ethan concludes. He edges toward her window and stares off into the distance in thought. Then he turns back to her and crosses the small distance between them to sit down beside her on the bed. “It does not matter now. All that matters is that you are safe, and that he is gone.”
“It was the woman who led me out,” she says softly, looking down at her hand.
“What?” Ethan says.
“Cera,” she says, still looking down. Ethan lifts her chin with his fingers, making her meet his gaze. Gabrian looks up at him, her eyes glassy from the tears threatening to surface, but she holds his gaze, unleashing her words slowly while remaining calm. “I was surrounded by the Gargons. She grabbed my hand and told me to run toward the garden gate. Once we made it, she pushed me through. I tried to reach out for her, but the Darkness grabbed her before I could help her.”
Ethan pats her hand gently to try and calm her. He glances over at Shane who is sitting quietly and observing it all with attentive eyes. He hides the tremble of his lips beneath his folded hands, pressing tight just below his nose. “Try to get some rest, okay?” He jumps up off the bed and clears the used vial from the bowl. He rests his hand on the top of her shoulder and turns to leave the room. “We will talk later.”
Gabrian follows him with her eyes as he disappears out the door, becoming brutally aware that Shane is still there with her. The anger and the hurt that has been building inside her bubbles to the surface and she snaps. “Why are you here?”
His emerald green eyes show the hurt from her tone, but Shane understands that he deserves it. “Because I was worried about you.”
Gabrian swings her head to the left and crosses her arms in front of her chest as she stares out the window, not wanting him to see she is still hurt by his rejection. “What do you care anyway? I thought you hated me.”
He lowers his head and gapes down at the floor, building up the courage to come clean. “I cannot hate you, Gabrian,” he whispers.
She turns quickly at his reply and snaps at him again. “Oh, and why is that?”
He raises his eyes to meet her glare and swallows down his pride. “Because my heart will not let me hate you.”
Gabrian’s angry glare fades, and her eyes soften under her wrinkled brow as her heated emotion is suddenly replaced with confusion. “What?” she barks at him taken aback. “What are you talking about? Last night you made is painfully clear that you and I were a conflict of interest!”
He looks at the ceiling and runs his rugged fingers recklessly through his hair then exhales. “I am an idiot! Okay?” Shane’s bottom lip quivers subtly as he faces her, eye to eye, completely defenseless and at her mercy.
She pulls herself upright on the bed into a sitting position, wincing in pain, and rests her shoulders on the pillows behind her. “But, you...”
Shane stands up out of his chair and quickly moves to sit on the side of her bed. He reaches out with his left hand and touches the side of her cheek softly. With the other hand, he presses his finger against her lips, barely touching them. He exhales in a low seductive hiss then carefully lowers his forehead to touch his skin against hers, slowly meeting her lips with his own. Wanting to push him away, and yell at him—still angry from their last encounter—she feels the angst subside and everything around her starts to spin and the heat between them begin to rise. Shane pulls back just far enough to see her face. “How do you feel about experiments?”
The simple words melt away any remains of ice in her veins as a smile curls at the edges of Gabrian’s mouth, sending Shane’s desire for her into overdrive. “Experiments are good,” she whispers.
He leans forward and kisses her again, softly at first then pulls her in close, longing for the sweet taste of her mouth. Gabrian raises her left arm and fights through the pain ripping through her muscles, ignoring their plea to remain still, and places her hand behind his head to entangle her fingers in his loose curls. Holding him close, she pulls him in tighter to her as she relishes the fire that has begun to burn within her.
At this moment, Gabrian does not care if this is real or not. All she knows is that the pain in her heart that has tortured her for so long has stopped.
“Looks like someone is feeling better,” Ethan teases as he enters her room.
Gabrian and Shane slowly pull themselves away from each other, their eyes still locked in deep desire. Gabrian breaks the connection with Shane’s eyes but lowers her hand to lock her fingers in his. She looks across the room, meeting Ethan’s eyes with confidence, and he returns her acknowledgement with a grin of delight, waiting a moment to approach her. She smiles back, welcoming him in.
Ethan checks her vitals over and notices that her bruising seems to be healing already. The herbs that Kaleb gave her to boost the regenerative abilities within her veins must have started working. He does a quick mind sweep to see if he can assess what kind of damage Adrinn has caused, but he cannot get a good
connection in order to say how bad it is.
“How are you feeling?”
“Tired, but good, I guess,” Gabrian says, trying not to complain. “I have a headache, though.”
“You are lucky, that is all you have.” Ethan reaches out with his hands and places them on each side of her head. He closes his eyes and finds the source of the pain. He pulls at its colour, loosening its grip, and releases it from it nestled spot. Ethan then presses a small wave of light into the space where the Darkness was embedded within her mind. His eyes open, and he looks at her.
“Better?”
Her face relaxes in gratitude. “Better.”
“Listen, I have been thinking.”
“Oh, about what?”
“I am not sure what your plans are, but when you are feeling better, I was thinking that maybe we can have a chat, and I can talk you into sticking around Northeast Harbor.”
She cocks her head to the side and gives him an old fashioned stink-eye, trying to decipher his roundabout intentions.
“…and coming to work with me.” He glances at her with a sly grin as he tidies up the table beside her. He grabs the empty glass and turns to her. “I have heard a lot of good things about your practice in Manhattan, and Bar Harbor could use another gifted psychologist. Especially in a small town overrun with, well, let us say...unusual clients.”
Gabrian returns Ethan’s grin then looks over at Shane who still has a hold of her tiny hand. “I will think about it.”
Already knowing what she has decided, Ethan nods and starts for the kitchen with the empty glass in his hand. “Okay, kiddo. You do that.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
Greetings from Erebus
THE HEADLIGHTS FLASH, reflecting off of the front window as Gabrian pulls into her new parking spot outside of Ethan’s office. She exits her car and steps up on the sidewalk in front of her. She takes a moment and listens as the distant chatter of the other early morning risers make their way to the smell of coffee as well. Judging from the emerging lineup, she is glad she decided to grab her caffeine from the Coffee Hound first before heading to work, and takes a much anticipated sip of her Acadian Turtle Mocha. Breathing in the delightful aroma of coffee mixed with a hint of salt wafting in the air from the ocean nearby, she looks down the sleepy street lit only by dusk-til-dawn lamps and the first fragments from the light of dawn and smiles, grateful to be alive and welcoming the morning.
A movement in her peripheral vision catches her attention, and she turns to see the familiar feathered stalker watching her from the street sign above marked Main Street. He dances back and forth across the top of the sign with his head bobbing up and down, a low cooing sound rumbling from his throat.
She smiles at his persistence and decides that since he has decided to become a constant, he should have a name.
“Good morning to you, Theo.”
The raven rumbles an uneven call to her to signify his approval then fluffs its feathers.
Gabrian laughs at her new friend and crosses the concrete sidewalk block to unlock the purple office door. Pushing it open, she begins the trek to the top of the stairs that leads to her new office. Reaching the top, she flicks the switch on the side of the wall to her left and the soft glow of the overhead lights illuminate the main waiting room. The office is empty because she is in an hour earlier than she needs to be. She wants to get a jump on the paperwork that awaits her.
Gabrian makes a mental note to send a quick email to Thomas to let him know her new contact information since she did not have it with her when she went back to Manhattan to gather her things and make good on her promise to visit him at the bar. Though their encounter was less than what Thomas had hoped for, he was still happy to see her and something told Gabrian that her new acquaintance was going to become a good friend she would be able to count on if need be in the future.
She wanders across the small waiting area to the filing cabinet that sits behind Rachael’s new desk and takes out a couple of the client files that Ethan has distributed to her. She opens them, hoping to familiarize herself with her new clients before they meet later. Hearing a noise coming from her office door, she turns and notices that it is slightly ajar. She does not remember leaving the door open when she went home yesterday afternoon.
Strange.
She idles over and presses her right hand against the door, then pushes it open. She edges her head forward and peeks into the darkened room. Something does not feel right. Stepping just inside the doorframe, she slides her hand up the wall on the left side, and flicks the switch to the small pot lights at the back of her office above her desk. She freezes, noticing movement in the swivel chair behind her desk.
Instinctively, her energy flares out searching for signs of whom or what sits in her chair. Seeing the back of a head above the backrest, she is quite certain that it is a male and there is familiarity about this intruder—a familiarity that tells her he is not a stranger.
Her heart races wildly, filling her veins with unhealthy doses of adrenaline as her mind spins noisily with chaotic thoughts, torn between her fear of what he may have tried to do to her and the longing to see her friend again. Ethan’s horrifying accounts of their last encounter echoes through her mind, continually conflicting with the memories of her selfless attempts to save his life.
She feels her body readying itself for anything as the chair begins to turn; her muscles tense—trembling and poised. She stops breathing and her assumptions become confirmed once the chair comes to rest.
Leaning his head against the back of her leather chair with his fingers erect and taping against each other rhythmically, his mouth begins to rise upward in the corners, displaying to Gabrian the most terrifying grin she has ever seen.
“Hello, little Vampire. Want to come out and play?”
His cynical laughter fills the room, echoing loudly through her head and tearing at her eardrums. She raises her hands to cover her ears, trying desperately to drown out the excruciating noise. Her fingers become hot, igniting with fear. Gabrian feels the coldness of death reaching out for her, suffocating her, and cutting off her air. She struggles to breathe, trying find enough air to call out for help, but finding very little, she falls to the floor—choking on the lifeless vapors.
Gabrian refuses to give in to the Darkness. Its toxins threaten to engulf her, but she fights to stay awake and wills her eyes to open. Feeling a presence close by, she presses her body from the cold floor beneath her and looks up to see Ayden standing above her.
Gasping for air, Gabrian gathers the last remains of her strength and reaches out to him in despair, but he laughs at her in her final attempt to save herself. Closing his brown hazel eyes, he opens his mouth and inhales, drinking in her last ounce of life.
The feeling of falling sends a strange helpless sensation through her. Her arms instinctively extend before trying to prepare for the point of impact, but it never comes. Twisting aimlessly in the Darkness, Gabrian struggles against the thought of death and the void that consumes her.
Anxiety stirring deep within her subconscious mind eats its way violently to the surface, sending her understanding of reality into shock as her flailing arms fetch up with something solid and she is propelled forward. With her arms extended and her torso erect, she sits straight up in bed.
Her hands clutch at the damp cloth tangled around her body, drenched in her feverish sweat. She searches frantically in the dimly lit room for any signs of Ayden then realizes it was only a nightmare that she has survived.
She exhales in relief, but her body still trembles from the vividness of her dream. She is alive but within the welcomed embrace of safety also harbors with it the reality of knowing what this message truly means. A foreboding chill runs down her spine as she whispers the words softly to herself in the darkness of her room.
“He is back.”
The Covenant of Shadows
CALICO
Book Two
Kade Cook
A
ll souls
Harbour the colour of darkness within them.
What they allow to surface
Is but a mere glimpse of what lies beneath.
PROLOGUE
THE TROUBLE WITH TROUBLE
“Will somebody explain to me what in the Realm happened last night?”
The hum of murmurs around the High Table quiets, replaced with deafening silence. Orroryn, Ethan, and Cimmerian glance over at Caspyous’ flushed face then twist their heads forward, eyeing each other with senses quite aware and in tune with the comprehension of his irritated demand.
“And why a psychopathic lunatic—who was supposed to be sealed in Erebus, mind you—was running around loose causing all kinds of havoc and went completely undetected.”
The low hum around the table resumes as the Elders whisper comments of the previous night’s occurrences.
“Why weren’t the Covenant Elders alerted?”
“Now, Caspyous, I am sure that Ethan, Cimmerian, and Orroryn have a perfectly good explanation…”
“Enough of your niceties, Vaeda, how can you sit there so calmly? Being co-holder of the House, you should be irate that you were not better informed.”
Vaeda shifts in her seat at his deliberate attack but lifts her chin, refusing to let his vicious attempt make her falter. “Caspyous, really, must you act this way?” she says more rigidly, face flushing.
“Tell me that you are not the least bit upset that you had to learn this second-hand from the Vindere no less?”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Ariah shoots Caspyous a poisonous look, aura flaring wildly about her body.
The room becomes an explosion of tempers and fears mixed into a toxic cocktail of unanswerable questions.
Orroryn sits quietly for a while, watching the confusion. When he’s had enough, he rises from his seat and stands squarely in front of all the commotion. He lifts his hand and slaps it down upon the cold smooth surface of the marble table before him, releasing a thunderous clap to echo throughout the Covenant, silencing everyone.