River of Shadows

by Karina Halle

  “I’m going to kill her,” I seethe. “I’m going to cut her fucking wings right off.”

  “And if she doesn’t die, it might mean she’s the one,” Vipunen says. “And you’ll have to rule alongside her for the rest of your life, or face the end of your reign.”

  Fuck.

  “Fuck!” I roar, throwing my head back, my yell echoing throughout the cave. I’m breathing hard, my heartbeat in my head, and I just want to rage, rip this mask right off and break everything in this cave. But Vipunen would no doubt break me first.

  So I have to live with the rage for a few moments. I have to make friends with it. I have to let the red turn to black, let it settle in my bones.

  And there, hidden underneath all the molten hot torment, is the source of my rage.

  It’s pain.

  It’s a dull ache in my ribs, right around my heart.

  The same kind of ache I would get when I looked at her beautiful face as she came.

  Oh, I ached for her. Craved her, possessed her, relished her when my cock was deep inside, when I felt she was no longer mortal but instead part of my skin and bones.

  I ached for my little bird.

  Now I break for her.

  I swallow it down, welcoming the anger again. The anger I can deal with, the rage I can use. I just have to learn to control it so it doesn’t get the better of me. I need to wield it like a weapon against the one who spurned me.

  I need to make her suffer too.

  “I’m getting her back,” I growl, and start storming out of the darkness of the cave, using all my senses to find my way back to the light. “I’m getting her back and I’m making her pay. No one escapes Death, not even her.”

  Especially not her.

  * * *

  More to come…May 2022

  Black Sunshine

  A Dark Vampire Romance

  Here’s a sneak peek at my paranormal contemporary vampire romance, Black Sunshine, out now in KU and paperback.

  * * *

  * * *

  Black Sunshine

  All Lenore Warwick wants for her 21st birthday is to hang out with her friends, finish her second semester at Berkley with flying colors, and maybe catch the eye of a hot musician playing a show at a club that she can now (legally) get into.

  Unfortunately, fate has other plans for her.

  A week before her birthday, she’s kidnapped by the brooding and dangerous stranger with cold eyes and a lethal touch who has been stalking her on San Francisco’s fog-shrouded streets. Absolon Stavig isn’t your average criminal though. He’s a centuries-old vampire who’s caught between wanting to kill Lenore and wanting to save her.

  You see Lenore, too, is a vampire.

  She just doesn’t know it yet.

  Taken by a pair of vampire slayers when she was just an infant, Lenore was raised never knowing her true nature. All Lenore knows is that she has parents who love her, that she’s exceptionally smart, and she’s squeamish around blood. But once she turns twenty-one, she’ll fully turn into a vampire, and Solon hopes he’ll be there to guide her, opening her eyes to her deepest hunger, both sexual and otherwise.

  But this turning can’t be kept a secret. Soon, both slayers and vampires are hunting Lenore, with only Solon and his unpredictable motley crew of vampires to save her.

  If they don’t kill her first.

  Black Sunshine is a dark adult standalone romance with a paranormal twist, about sex, love, secrets, and revenge, set in contemporary San Francisco.

  * * *

  PROLOGUE

  Orcas Island, Washington State

  Nineteen Years Ago

  * * *

  It’s the snapping of a branch that gives them away.

  Elaine Warwick immediately winces as the sound ricochets through the forest—a mix of cedar, Douglas fir, and alders that should have muffled the noise, in theory. But Elaine knows better.

  Up ahead, Jim stops running, shooting his wife a harried look over his shoulder. He knows better too. The expression of pure disappointment mixed with fear threads through his eyes, but Elaine can only nod at him to keep going.

  They’re so close.

  And now they’ve lost their advantage.

  The Virtanens will hear them coming.

  Even isolating yourself on an island in the Pacific Northwest, withdrawing from society in some sort of penance for your many sins, doesn’t take the amplified senses out of the vampire. Once a vampire, always a vampire, until you die.

  Which is why Jim and Elaine are here tonight.

  To find Alice and Hakan, the famed Virtanen vampires, who inflicted centuries of pain upon people before they decided to have a change of heart — “retirement” as some in the guild called it — and put them to death.

  It’s going to be nasty work, and there’s a chance that neither Jim nor Elaine will survive this, but it’s personal. It’s been personal for years, since Alice killed Elaine’s sister. The guild doesn’t even know that the Warwicks are here on a vengeance trip. They long ago said it was best to concentrate on vampires that were still doing damage, but Elaine hasn’t forgotten, and the damage is never going away. She knows that since the guild didn’t sanction this kill, there’s a chance they could get in trouble for it.

  Executed, even.

  Then again, what the guild doesn’t know, can’t hurt them.

  Besides, they might die here anyway.

  That snapping branch didn’t help.

  They continue running, as soundless as possible. They’ve trained most of their lives for moments like this. How to be quiet and quick, especially against predators who are faster than they are. Predators who must know they are quickly approaching the property.

  Elaine feels her knife burning at her calf, the energy coming off it seeping into her own skin, her own skin feeding back into the knife. The vampires won’t know that knife is there, protected under a cloak of spells, buried by the sigils and fire agate threaded into her black pants. Slayers have evolved to try and trick their prey, just as their prey have evolved to try and trick them.

  Jim’s silhouette in front of her gets clearer, the trees tapering off, night sky peeking through. There are so many stars that it steals Elaine’s breath for a moment. The moon is full, shining so brightly that her eyes burn, but even though she worships the moon, lets it influence everything she does, tonight she has the sinking, damning feeling that the glowing orb isn’t on her side.

  Focus, Jim’s words come into her head. We need to pull this off.

  Elaine swallows hard and nods, coming to a stop beside him, the two of them crouching down as they survey the scene.

  There’s a field of high grass between them and the house, the ocean behind it, the moon gleaming on it like light on a steel blade. The house is small, modest, looking like it would belong in Scandinavia rather than here in the Pacific Northwest. Moss completely covers the roof, the paint red and peeling. Elaine was never an empath like her husband, but even she can feel that there’s no malice in this house, only warmth and love.

  It makes her hesitate, enough that her husband puts his hand on her shoulder and gives it a squeeze. We don’t have to do this, he says in her head.

  She knows this. But she also knows it has to be done. She will find no peace until Alice pays for what she did. They say revenge is poison, but she’ll gladly take it if it helps her sleep easier at night.

  They must move fast. Though the house seems silent and the lights give off a warm glow, the smoke from the chimney puffing, she knows they are waiting for them. Although, something about the scene does seem odd.

  It’s the fire, Jim says soundlessly. Why have a fire if they never get cold?

  Elaine nods. That’s what it is. But vampires can be strangely sentimental about old ways, hanging on to their past. It’s possible that either Alice or Hakan was raised around a hearth, back in the days when a fire was a house’s only source of heat. While their parents wouldn’t have a need for it, a child won’t
turn until they’re older. Perhaps they keep the fire out of habit, remembering the good old days.

  Elaine shakes the images of vampire families out of her head. It does her no good to view them as anything but monsters. She was born to kill them and that’s what she’d do.

  Suddenly, the door to the house opens and a woman steps out. They’re too far to see her clearly, but there’s no doubt that the vampire can see—and smell—them, like the apex predators they are.

  This must be Alice.

  The knife burns against Elaine’s leg, coming to life, and she knows they have seconds to act before Alice attacks them. Vampires move fast, faster than the human eye can see. Luckily, being a witch, and a slayer in particular, they can track her, even when Alice uses the Veil.

  But she doesn’t move, not even when Elaine and Jim take their knives into their hands, the metal glinting with electric blue currents. The knives aren’t as big as one would think, but they can be thrown with startling accuracy. One shot to the heart is all it takes. Of course, Jim has a machete back at home, but decapitation is a messy ordeal.

  The husband and wife look at each other and, in that moment, they know they’re committed.

  They both run forward toward Alice, the element of surprise gone, and the risks of them dying at the hands of a vampire increasing with each and every step.

  They cross the field quickly, moving soundlessly through the grass, but still Alice doesn’t move. Her arms are out to her sides, but she is unarmed.

  She’s protecting something.

  “Stop,” Alice calls out, her voice melodic, but the pitch is off. Like she’s uncertain, perhaps afraid.

  Elaine and Jim stop. It is not by choice. The vampire is compelling them, even at this range. It won’t last, it rarely does with witches, but it’s enough to give Alice yet another advantage.

  “Leave this place,” Alice says. “Now.”

  Elaine breaks free from the bonds, feels them snap. “I can’t,” she says. “You know what you did, you know what you must pay for.”

  Suddenly, Hakan appears behind Alice, a tall lanky creature built for precision, and puts his big hands on Alice’s shoulders. “I didn’t think revenge killings were allowed by your guild,” Hakan says in a light Finnish accent.

  “I don’t have to do everything the guild tells me,” Elaine says.

  “Turning against your own?” asks Hakan, his eyes deep gray and hypnotic. Elaine needs to keep watching them, but she’s finding it more difficult by the second. “You’ll be punished.”

  “So long as you’re dead, I don’t care what they do to me,” Elaine says. “Besides, they won’t find out. We’ll make this quick and easy. Not a trace of you to be found.”

  Her words are strong and clear and they don’t show the wildness in Elaine’s heart, the fear that this could go either way. Witches have magic and the blade that can kill vampires. Vampires are predators that would love nothing more than to kill a witch, and with their strength, speed, and penchant for violence and blood, they make an equal match.

  But there’s something different here. Elaine knows it. There’s a vulnerability to this couple that shouldn’t be here. They asked them to leave. Vampires never ask to do anything. And even now, they still aren’t making a move.

  Which means Elaine has to make hers before it’s too late.

  In the back of her mind she conjures up the image of the blade leaving her fingers and going right through Alice’s heart. Her intention will set the fate, unless something else intervenes.

  She throws the blade, quick as a wink, the power shooting out of her fingers, guiding the knife forward. Before it can hit Alice, she’s pushed aside at lightning speed as Hakan steps forward.

  Taking the knife to the heart.

  Saving his wife’s life, but ending his own.

  Hakan immediately falls to the ground, his body seized by the blue currents as it spreads out from the knife, overtaking his limbs, making them shake.

  Alice cries out in horror, dropping to her knees beside Hakan.

  “Why?” she sobs to him, trying to take the blade out. “Why did you do that?”

  Hakan stares at her, pain engulfing him as the last vestiges of life are leaving him. It must be quite the feeling of being almost immortal.

  While Elaine stares at the scene, transfixed, Jim points to the house, closing his eyes, and draws the fire out of the fireplace inside. Flames spread immediately, as if the place was doused in gasoline.

  Alice screams. “Lenore!”

  Elaine and Jim exchange a sharp look. Lenore?

  “Go to her,” Hakan says to Alice, spitting out blood. “Save her and maybe they will spare your life.”

  Elaine’s heart clenches. Who is Lenore?

  Suddenly a child’s cry fills the air, rising above the roar of the flames, and Elaine’s mouth drops in horror.

  A child.

  Alice and Hakan have a child.

  This they didn’t know.

  Alice gets to her feet and runs into the house.

  But Jim is fast, throws the blade so it gets her in the back, knowing the knife’s power will penetrate to her heart that way, slipping past her ribs.

  Alice stumbles but keeps running, right into the flames, fueled by a mother’s love and protection.

  Elaine looks at Jim in horror. What do we do?

  We wait for them all to die, Jim says. And we leave.

  But from the fraught expression on her husband’s face, he feels as torn about the situation as she is.

  And there’s something more than that.

  There’s something that is calling Elaine to the house, the child’s cry that doesn’t stop is reverberating around her heart, tugging at her, making her feel. How can it not, they both know that a child is only a vampire in waiting. At the moment, the child doesn’t drink blood, lives with innocence in the soul.

  The child is burning to death, burning alive.

  Elaine stares down at Hakan, his lifeless body, and knows the flames will reach him too.

  “We have to go,” Jim says. “People will see the fire, they’ll be here soon.”

  Elaine just blinks, numb, and he puts his arm around her, leading them away from the house, the fire hot at their backs. The child has stopped crying, which means it’s dead. And it’s their fault.

  “Please,” a tiny shaking voice says from behind them, stopping them in their tracks.

  The Warwicks whirl around to see a child standing beside her father, staring down at his body. She can’t be more than two, her clothes burned off of her, but the rest of her untouched. Her hair is long and dark blonde, like amber honey. “Daddy.”

  Elaine’s heart breaks and she feels a calling to the child, like a haunting siren song that rises from the moonlit well in her gut.

  The child raises her chin and looks at Elaine, right in the eyes. They’re large and hazel, all the colors of nature in them.

  “Please,” she says again. She can’t be more than two, but she’s so soft-spoken.

  Elaine knows she’s asking for them to save her.

  The fire leaps forward, licking the child’s back, causing the remains of her burned dress to catch on fire and fall away, but the child isn’t even hurt. She doesn’t seem to notice.

  This is no ordinary vampire child. Fire kills them. It kills witches too.

  But it’s not killing her.

  Elaine looks at Jim and he nods. He knows what she’s decided to do. Perhaps he can feel the child calling inside him as well.

  Letting them both know that she’s not just a vampire.

  But one of their own.

  Something that should never be.

  Elaine runs forward, into the fire, scoops up the girl, the fire burning her bare arms. Elaine doesn’t scream, though the pain is unbearable. She just takes the girl in her arms — Lenore — and brings her toward Jim.

  Being the bigger and stronger of the two, Jim holds on to the child, and they both start running off into the woods,
letting the fire burn all evidence to the ground.

  * * *

  CHAPTER ONE

  San Francisco, California

  Present Day

  * * *

  I think I’m being followed.

  My friends have called me paranoid once or twice before, so there’s a chance they might be right. But I still can’t shake the feeling that someone’s been following me, all the way from my apartment down in Hayes Valley, to here in Upper Haight. Doesn’t help that the further up the hill I go, the thicker the fog gets, making every shadow extra ominous. That’s what I get for taking the shortcut past Buena Vista Park.

  I pause, coming to a standstill, and listen.

  I’m a couple of blocks away from the speakeasy, in the residential area close to Haight Street, which is busy on a Friday night, and yet everything seems eerily calm. Hushed. Like the houses around me are holding their breath.

  Slowly I turn around and stare back down the street.

  There’s a lone streetlamp on the corner, showcasing the mist rushing past it.

  A shadowy figure, a man, suddenly appears out of the gray, stopping right beside the streetlamp.

  Staring right at me.

  Into me.

  And it’s like all the air is knocked from my lungs.

  I’m literally gasping, my body stiffens, going ice cold.

  And then the streetlamp goes out.

  Plunging the man into darkness.

  Oh fuck this.

  Feeling strength returning to my limbs, I take in a sharp breath and spin on my feet, running like hell up the street. I’ve always been athletic and fast, despite what some extra pounds might say, and I run like I’ve never run before, not stopping, narrowly colliding with a couple as I sprint down Frederick until I hit Ashbury.