Chapter One
…
I nodded slowly as I crawled to the head of the bed and climbed under the bloodstained blankets. “Whaboutyou?” I slurred, my eyelids drooping despite my effort to stay awake.
“I'll stand guard. Someone has to. We don't know when Sedgrave might attack again.”
Too true, I thought as I drifted off to sleep.
It wasn’t really an end. More like a very gory beginning.
Josh leaned over my shoulder, watching my progress as I typed the last few lines of my newest book. I had a feeling my publisher would be blown away with the sudden transformation in my writing. It wasn't a work of fiction like my past efforts; it was my real-life story. Granted, I wouldn't be telling anyone that. They'd lock me up in a padded room and swallow the key. I couldn't blame them for that response. I had trouble believing the sudden change my life had endured.
Endured was the right word. My first week as a vampire had been full of clinging tree faeries, slobbering werewolves, frozen houses, and vampire-sacrifices. I'd survived it, but just barely. I now spent my days and nights cooped up in my studio apartment, trying to reassemble my life. It wasn't going well.
I had a lot of ground to cover. Granted, I had been nearly tortured to death—a difficult feat considering how hearty we vampires are. I'd been whipped, skewered, burned, etc., but the worst of it wasn't what had happened to my body. The ritual, which we thought required my life, had slowly taken my memories—my very essence. So I guess in some ways it had taken my life, it just did it in a way we hadn’t expected. I had regained a lot of them, but not all.
“This is fabulous,” whispered Josh from his position just above my right shoulder. Though he spoke softly enough, it startled me, pulling me from my own thoughts.
“Thanks,” I murmured.
“Hardly,” sighed my cat from his position on the desk next to my antiquated computer. Tereus was a gray Scottish Fold. Though I'd named him Muffler when I first got him, he had asked me to call him Tereus after I discovered he could talk. It turned out my cat was really a very old and powerful fae trapped in a cat's body after he impregnated a friend's sister. “You want a fabulous book read Les Miserables.”
“Don't listen to him,” suggested Josh. “Hugo rambles.”
Josh was the one member of Mikhail's seethe that I thought of as a friend. The others I put up with out of self-preservation. I had no chance of survival if I wasn't part of a seethe. They provided support and safety during rough times, which already proved to be a necessity in my life. I just didn't like it. I'd been a lone wolf—forgive the phrasing—for such a long time, I wasn't sure if I could conform to a group again.
“C’mon. You should start getting ready for tonight,” said Josh, still keeping his voice soft; he knew how easily I was startled.
He gently placed his hands on my shoulders and guided me away from the computer. Josh had spent many hours, days even, helping me recover. He'd even gotten me wireless internet so that he could work from my apartment. Though Josh had been a Jazz pianist when he was human, he was presently trying his hand at trading stocks online. So far, he was barely paying his own bills.
Granted, he had fifty years of savings he could tap into if necessary.
I forced my shoulders to relax under his hands. I felt a little better after getting the story down on paper, but not well enough to face this night. It was my Joining—a short ceremony to finalize my initiation into the seethe, followed by “one hell of a party,” or at least that's how Josh had described it. Whoever had been put in charge of my Joining had decided to make it a masquerade. Josh was very excited, while I was considering a way to run away. This would be my first time out of my apartment since the attempted sacrifice. I say attempted because I didn't technically die.
Nevertheless, the warlock had been freed.
I watched Josh move to my closet and pull out the dress someone had purchased for me. I took it and silently went to my bathroom to put it on. Josh stayed, knowing I'd need help with the laces. I slipped into it, the girlish part of me reveling in the stiff fabric that draped from my hips in heaps of emerald loveliness. The bust was tight and strapless. I held it on as I came out of the bathroom and allowed Josh to lace up the back, which left my pale skin half revealed to the small of my back. Just as he finished, a small, half transparent puppy burst through my closed door.
It bounced around the room, ignoring Tereus as the cat jumped onto the bed and hissed at it. It came up to where Josh and I stood and tried to bite the lower folds of my dress. We both turned away and ignored it. The ghost dog had been haunting Josh ever since we dug up its twisted mistress, who had chosen to be buried with her dog.
“You look beautiful. I got something to go with it. Now, this is just to borrow for the night. So don't lose it,” he added before opening a felt box.
I felt just like Julia Roberts as I stared at the overwhelming display of silver, diamonds, and emeralds lying on the cushion.
I smiled reflexively. “It's gorgeous! Josh, where did you get it?”
“I know a guy.”
I smiled again, the movement feeling unnatural, and turned around so he could put it on. Josh—or a sick display of diamonds—was the only person who could make me smile.
“Now let’s get your hair and makeup done before your date arrives.”
I tensed at the thought. I couldn't help it. Nik had insisted on escorting me to my Joining. He claimed he had the right considering how much work he put into keeping me alive. Never mind that he'd wanted to kill me himself when I was first turned, or the fact that Josh had asked me first.
I had a long list of enemies at the time and Nikolai considered me a threat to the seethe's safety. He wasn't wrong, but Mikhail had chosen to protect me, mostly just to piss off Richard, the Lacey seethe's primus. Evidently, when you're a couple hundred years old that's enough motivation to risk countless lives. I didn't get it.
“It'll be okay,” Josh said as he pushed me toward the bathroom. My curling iron was already plugged in and hot. I sat on the toilet lid while he curled my hair. The ghost dog ran into the bathroom, lost control on the linoleum, and skidded through the edge of my tub. I couldn’t tell if it had any control when it interacted with the world around it or not, but occasionally it couldn’t go through a wall or chair leg. Today evidently it was the floor that it connected with.
“Where'd you learn to curl a girl's hair?” I asked, immensely grateful that he could.
“I studied a few years of college theater. I know my way around a bobby-pin.”
I laughed. It felt good. I hadn't spent much of the autumn laughing. In fact, this might have been the first time. It wasn't that I was depressed. Rather, I couldn't remember what was funny and what wasn't.
Josh wanted me to allow Jordan and Chloe to visit—my only two friends from my human days. The problem was, I knew if I saw them I wouldn't be able to carry on a normal conversation, not to mention I would probably kill them. Josh had made the annoyingly accurate point that if I didn't start getting out, I'd never recover the rest of my memories, or gain any control over my blood lust.
Granted, there was another problem, and one I refused to mention to Josh. To see Jordan and Chloe I would have to see Nik. They were now both Nikolai's sheep—Jordan because he'd stumbled upon us after I'd been horribly wounded and Nik had to control him; Chloe because Jordan wanted her to be in on the secret. They now spent half their time with Nikolai in his mansion.
It would take a lot more than my love for Jordan and Chloe to get me into Nik's mansion again. I absolutely loathed Nik. It wasn't just the wanting to kill me when I first came to the seethe. In fact, I was mostly over that. After all, he had saved my life many times since that initial introduction.
It was something else entirely.
I knew that he had, at one time during his long life, sacrificed one of my ancestors in an attempt to raise Sedgrave, the maniacal though charismatic warlock who could creat
e daywalkers. Granted, that was just a parlor trick. His real skill was manipulating politics—a much more subtle and terrifying gift.
Still, Nik had tried to bring him back to life, and yet, he never mentioned it to any of us when we were actively trying to prevent that from happening. I hadn't told anyone that I had seen him in one of my freaky ritual visions. In fact, no one even knew I had been transported back to all the other attempts at raising Sedgrave.
I couldn't figure out how to bring the subject up. In lieu of coming up with a plan, I chose to avoid him—until tonight. I couldn't get out of it. The party was for me after all, and I couldn't tell him he couldn't escort me. He'd saved my life after all; he'd earned the right. Besides, if I refused him, he'd want to know why, and I wasn't ready for that conversation.
“You doing okay?” Josh asked as he finished tucking the delicate curls of red hair into a beautiful design.
“I guess. Don't really want to do this.”
“I know. But you need to. You need to start going out, being around people.”
“People?” I asked.
“You know what I mean.”
“Josh... I can't even remember what my mother looked like... or if I liked chocolate chip cookies when I was human. I'm not sure I even know who I am anymore... and you want me to go out and... mingle?”
Josh grabbed my knee and spun me around on the toilet lid until I faced him. “Then spend time with those who do know you. We'll remind you.”
“Who, other than you, knows me in the seethe?”
“Nik.”
I waved my hand, dismissing the idea. Josh took me by the shoulders and gave me a gentle shake.
“What is this thing with you and Nik?”
“It's nothing.”
“That's a load of bullshit. Whatever it is, you need to talk to him. Get it out in the open. He can't figure out why you've avoided him for the past two months.”
I stood up, pushing Josh out of the bathroom so that I could put my own makeup on. I wasn't sure why I needed makeup when I would be adding a mask, but Josh seemed to think it was necessary. I was halfway through the process when Josh opened my front door.
“Fine, be stubborn. I'm out. Nik will be here soon. See ya there.”