Bloodline (Paranormal Romance, Dark & Twisted) Saving Demons Series Book 1

Bloodline

  Saving Demons Series Book One

  Shannon K Brown

  Bloodline

  (Saving Demons Series Book One)

  By

  Shannon K Brown

  Copyright 2012 Shannon K Brown

  Books available by Shannon K Brown

  Bloodline

  Warrior Rising

  Demon Slayer (Part One)

  The Book of Jade

  So Weeps the Demon

  (Demon Slayer Part Two)

  Beautiful Darkness

  Stealing Starlit

  So Sighs the Soul

  (Luna's Book of Dark Poetry)

  The Saving Demons Series is dedicated to the Lost Ones. It is my hope that one day you will be found!

  John:3:16

  Chapter One

  Luna

  When my mother Addy divorced my demon-infested father Barron and moved us to the town of Burling, I thought that I would finally be safe, that I would no longer have to fear the violent world in which I lived. I thought that I would have the chance to heal, that the distance between here and that evil world Addy had so graciously ripped me from would be saturated with peace and nothingness. Oh, how I craved for nothingness, for the world to simply move on, while I sat here completely unnoticed.

  But I was so horribly wrong to believe that I could ever be safe.

  Even if I had known, the day I met Sean Hylander, that fate had it so intricately designed into the fibers of my existence that I were to experience pain and violence to a far greater extent than I had ever imagined and that Sean played a very important role in this, I still would not have been able to do anything about it. Sure, I could have put a little more effort into running from him, could have probably tried to hide, but Sean Hylander would have found me no matter how fast or far I ran from him. No amount of running would have changed my destiny anyway. And there was definitely no possible way I could have stayed hidden from someone, or something, like him.

  The day I met Sean, I was sitting at the river's edge with a pen in hand and my journal open to a blank page, wondering if I would survive myself yet one more day. I had attempted to spill the contents of my head onto the pages of my journal, but I was having trouble with that. Something was wrong. And maybe I knew, somehow, that the beginning was drawing nigh. I felt very uneasy. Anxious. It had only been three days since Addy had left Barron, and even though my head was a total mess, I was pretty sure the unease that I was feeling had nothing to do with the kayos that was going on inside my head.

  I lifted my eyes from the blank page in my journal and looked at Moss River. Her rippling, twinkling surface had no answers for me. I gave her a dirty look, closed my little black notebook and stuffed it under the arm of my leather jacket. I stuck the pen in the back pocket of my blue jean shorts and I stood up. I climbed the steep, mucky riverbank, feeling a little offended. Being around a body of water had always seemed to soothe me before. Why not this time? This was the very same river that stretched and slithered through Barron's back yard, some forty miles or so away from here. The same river that had lapped at my wounds numerous times. The same river that had wrapped me in its liquid embrace and held me while I bit back tears and listened to the echoes of my screams inside my mind.

  It was when I reached the top of the river bank that I first saw him. And as soon as I did, I came to a halt.

  He was leaning against an Oak tree, just at the top of the riverbank, only a few feet away from me. It was as if he had been waiting for me. He looked like a medieval warrior with his massive body, strong, squared jaws and wild, silky black hair that fanned down and around his broad shoulders. He was wearing a white shirt that he'd left unbuttoned down to the top of his abdomen, revealing a large, mounded chest that had been kissed deeply by the sun.

  The unease that had crept over me earlier now made sense. Sort of. I didn't understand it, but I knew for sure this barbarian had something to do with it. And it had nothing to do with his unusual size or breathtaking beauty.

  This man was a demon.

  I recognized his demon, not only because Barron was a demon but because I was too. Ok, so I wasn't really a demon, but demons lived within me and inhabited my thoughts.

  Staring into his brilliant sapphire-colored eyes, I felt instantly connected to this man. Like we were part of each other somehow. And yet, I was instantly afraid of him. I had just escaped Barron and his vicious monsters. I knew all too well the sadistic violence inherent in someone like him, and I wanted absolutely nothing to do with the man who was now holding me captive with his eyes.

  And yet, I wanted, very much, to have something to do with him. Maybe this was simply because something unseen had tethered us together the instant I looked into his eyes. Or maybe because the darkness inside of me was lonesome. Maybe it was drawn to the darkness inside of him.

  "Luna Lanchester," he said. Even with the distance between us, his deep, husky voice reverberating through me, somehow, "That is your name, is it not?"

  I didn't answer him. He seemed to already know the answer to his question. Besides, I was feeling too awkward to speak. I didn't trust my voice quite yet. If I had answered him, I would have sounded like the freak that I was, and I didn't want him to know that this was what I was. Not that he couldn't figure this out all on his own. One look at me, in my leather jacket and blue jean shorts, with my snow-white hair falling to the back of my knees, with one green eye, and one topaz-colored eye, and it was totally evident that I was a freak.

  The man grinned at me, and I had this creepy feeling he had been listening to my thoughts. His eyes casually caressed the length of my body, from my face to my bare toes and then back up to my eyes again.

  I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling naked and exposed.

  "My name is Sean. Sean Hylander," he said. Welcome to Burling.

  I made a start to leave, but Sean took a sideways step away from the tree and blocked my path. Our sudden close proximity made my breath hitch in my throat. This man towered over me. He had to have weighed somewhere around three hundred pounds. He dwarfed me and my little ninety-eight pound body. Instinctively, intimidated, I took a step backward. I prided myself for being fearless and reckless, but deep down inside I knew I was only fooling myself half the time. A lot of things frightened me, really. And this man, Sean Hylander, was definitely one of those things.

  "Your timidity is quite entertaining. Quite refreshing," he said. He was still grinning, but the look in his eyes did not match the expression on his face.

  I started to go around him, but, again, he stepped in front of me and blocked my path.

  "What do you want?" I asked.

  "You. I've been waiting for you," he said. And he wasn't joking. I could see it in his eyes. But I had no idea why someone like him would be waiting for someone like me.

  Uncomfortable with how close he was now standing to me, uncomfortable with what he'd just said, I took a few steps backward. The urge to flee tightened every muscle in my body. But that connection between us, the feeling that our demons had already tangled together, had compelled me to stay.

  "You don't even know me, so just get lost," I said, trying to sound threatening. But I was now more enthralled by the look in his eyes than I was afraid of him, and I wasn't exactly sure that I really wanted him to get lost.

  "Your name is Luna. You are the daughter of the eccentric Barron Lanchester. Adeline is your mother. Even though all the boys want you, you have remained single. Despite the fact that you believe you are a freak, girls hate you because of your u
nusual, unique beauty. Adeline had moved you here to protect you from Barron. As I understand it, Barron can be quite extreme, in your mother's opinion. But she has not tasted extreme in the way that you have, has she? Barron is harmless. You, on the other hand, are the one She needs to protect you from the most."

  I looked at him through crushed brows. It wasn't what he'd said that disturbed me, it was how he knew these things. But he was definitely wrong about Barron, though. There was absolutely nothing harmless about him.

  "Have you been spying on me?" I asked him, accusingly.

  "Spying is done in secret. Have I been watching you? Oh, yes, I have been watching you. And for a very long time," he said. His expression was now cold and hard, but there was a softness in his eyes. I had never seen such delicate tenderness in a man's eyes before. It made me more curious about him than I already was. It made me almost ache to see more of it. To feel it. To feel anything other than the horrible, gooey blackness that swirled inside my soul like thick and mucky mud.

  "But, how? I've never seen you before."

  "Magic," he said. "You are here now, in my world, and that is all you need to know, for now." Sean took a step toward me. Confusion rushed through me. I needed to get away from him, while at the same time I needed to stay, right here, absorbing that softness in his eyes, embracing the entanglement of our demons.

  "You look like an animal that has been trapped in a corner," Sean said. His bejeweled eyes glittered with delight in the light of the setting sun, telling me that he liked the fact that I was afraid of him. Being accustomed to men wanting their woman to fear them, this did not surprise me. Instead, I was totally embarrassed. But I guess looking like an animal was much better than looking like a freak, I thought.

  "Wild and untamed." He spoke in a raspy whisper, as if speaking only to himself. "In desperate need of a master, you are. I will be your master, Luna," he said, confidently.

  The voice inside my head that had been ceaselessly urging me to run had finally prevailed. The battle of the urges was over. The urge to flee had won. I spun on my heel and ran away from him.

  I crossed the rope bridge that hung out over the dam and slowed to a jog. I followed the tree-nestled path that took me out of Oak Park and into the tiny town of Burling. The further away from Sean Hylander I got, the sadder I became. Putting an end to the war of urges and relieving the tension in my body were the only reasons why I was glad that I had fled from him. Every other part of me grew more and more regretful as I put more and more distance between us. I cut across the grassy field and stopped where the sidewalk touched the dirt. I stared at the small, run-down trailer house that was wedged inside a trailer park that was now my new home. Addy's car was gone, of course. She was always gone. She was always as far away from me as she could be. But I couldn't blame her, really. Even I wish I could be as far away from my self as I could be.

  Overcome by sadness, I dropped my chin and glared at the puffy, white scars in the center of my palms. They were a constant reminder of how I had become who I had become. I had no desire to move forward, to cross the street and go home. I could stay right there, for all I cared. What was the sense in moving anywhere? I only wished that the world would just move on around me and without me, that it would forget me right where I stood. What swirled inside me was just as cruel and ugly as what was swirling outside of me. For one brief moment, I wanted Sean to appear from behind with his magic and that beautiful softness and I wanted him tell me, once again, that he would like to be my master.

  Because he was right.

  I needed a master.

  And he was right about me being the one my mother needed to protect me from the most. I needed a demon slayer, because, as much as I hated to admit it, I sucked at it. I had spent seventeen years of my life trying, to no avail, to murder them, and I just couldn't do it. It was like they were immortal or something.

  I glanced over my shoulder at the field of dry, golden grass and honeysuckle. Sean was not there. I had to wonder if he was just a dream, for no one would ever wear softness in their eyes while gazing at me. Only lust or anger or blame.

  I drug the skin that I was in across the street toward my house, unaware that I was being watched, until I reached the steps of the deck, and a man's voice came from the trailer house beside me.

  "Welcome to the neighborhood. My name is Dammon," he said. Then I heard the sound of a guitar drifting across the yard. I looked up to find a man sitting on his deck. I couldn't see his face because it was hidden behind long, thick swatches of sunny-blonde hair. His shoulders were arched gracefully over a guitar. It was nearly dark under the overhang where he was sitting. The street lamp could not reach him there, but I could see him well enough to know that he was not a large man and that he wasn't exactly small, either.

  Dammon was playing my favorite song, Stairway To Heaven. And wow! He was definitely a musical genius. I was so enchanted by the sound that he was creating that it felt like I was floating through the night air, like I was the music and Dammon was playing me.

  When the song was over, I crash-landed out of the air, feeling stolen from, neglected and oddly out of place. It was as if interwoven with his music was where I truly belonged. And this was weird for me because I never had a place to which I felt that I belonged. Except in my dreams, when I dreamed of Bane. In my dream world, I belonged with him, my Dark Angel.

  "Impressive," I said. My voice sounded so plain and boring in comparison to the voice Dammon had created from the six strings in his arms. For a moment, I experienced an odd sort of jealousy for the way he held that hollow body so passionately in his arms, while having such beautiful mastery over it. I just had to wonder if Dammon was the demon slayer type.

  "Thank you. I would have made you a cake, but I seemed to have lost my apron," he said. His voice possessed the same ability that his music did, to wrap me in the sensation of drifting on air.

  "You bake cakes?" I asked, trying to pretend like he didn't affect me in any way.

  "It was a joke. My mother used to bake a cake whenever someone new moved to town. That is, until she became a recluse. You will hear about her soon enough. Her name is Guenevere, but people around here call her Whisper, after the woods she lives in."

  "Awe, I think I overheard my mother talking to her new boyfriend about her on the phone," I said, straining my eyes to see him. Oh, how I wanted to see him. It really bothered me that I could not put a face to that magical voice and musical genius.

  I had to wonder if he looked hideous. Maybe he was covered in scars or burns or something. Why else would a guy like this be alone on a Saturday night?

  "I'm sure. She's been the talk of the town for a very long time. She gets blamed for a lot of things that happen around here. Guenevere isn't evil like they say she is," Dammon said.

  I wasn't so sure what to say to that, so I changed the subject of our conversation. "I really loved the song. You really are amazing with that thing."

  "Thank you. You should hear it on a twelve string."

  "Twelve! I'm still trying to figure out how you can handle six of them. Will you play me something else?"

  "Sure I will." He stood up and did a one-handed-jump-twist-combo over the deck rail and landed softly on the ground, with not so much as a ploing sound from his guitar.

  I jogged across the yard and met him at the front of his trailer. He sat down, Indian-style, in the grass, in the pale pool of light that was coming from the street lamp down the road behind me. I mirrored his position directly in front of him. His face was still hidden behind his hair. A little part of me was glad that it was. I had convinced myself that the man must be hideous and that I wouldn't know how to react if I did so happen to see his face.

  Dammon's long fingers began to dance across the neck of his guitar, creating an enchantingly beautiful sound. I sat in some sort of trance-like state, listening, as the song moved through me like the breath I breathed. The world around me faded away. Even seeing his face didn't matter in thos
e moments. All that mattered was that his music kept embracing me and that I continued to feel hollowed-out like the body in his arms. It was wonderful to be swept away from myself, to feel so vacant and empty after seventeen years of feeling so full.

  "I haven't finished it yet," he said.

  The music stopped, and I was sucked back into myself, slamming into bone and sinew.

  Dammon raised his head. A soft breeze blew, sweeping all the hair away from his shoulders.

  And then I saw his face.

  I did not witness it, but sometime or another Heaven had to have opened up and leaked an angel, because here he was, sitting directly in front of me. Dammon was not scarred or burned or hideous in any way. He had the face of an angel. He was flawless and pale and perfect in every way, with eyes as blue and deep as a cloudless sky.

  I had never experienced the true extent of power until that exact moment when we looked into each other's eyes. Like a breeze, I felt him sweep through me, electrifying everything in his path and filling me with a deep-seeded longing for him to stay right there, touching me from within, caressing even the deepest, darkest places no one has ever gone before.

  That is when I knew: Dammon was a demon slayer.

  But then I thought about how silly this was. I even almost laughed. I reminded myself that Sean's magic was far more potent than Dammon's was. Sean was more my type. Sean was big, beautiful and dangerous, and these were the much-needed qualities of a fine demon slayer. Yes, beauty was important. I wasn't sure why, but it was.

  "Yeah, one's green. One's blue," I said, feeling a little awkward. I quickly dropped my eyes from his. I couldn't stare too long at him, for being in his gaze was completely overwhelming. It did things to my insides that I did not fully understand.

  "Beautiful," he said. "Even the spooky stuff."

  Everything he touched in me tingled at the sound of his voice, and every inch of my body responded with an incredibly deep, depth-less yearning.

  "Really? And how would you know about the spooky stuff?" I challenged him, still with my head down.

  "I am a very good people reader."

  "I'm so glad you didn't tell me that it was magic," I muttered to myself. "So, yeah? Then tell me, Mr. People Reader, what do you see? Right now?" I lifted my head, braving giving him my eyes to gaze within. I knew it was dangerous to do so, considering how powerfully he seemed to be able to affect me, but my rebellious nature had me doing stupid things like this all the time.

  His gaze settled in my eyes and a tingling warmth spread over my flesh, seeped into my pores and seemed to touch every cell in my body.

  Dammon shifted the guitar in his lap and draped his forearm over its hollow body. His hair fell over half his face, but I could still see one of his eyes. He had to have memorized the path he had taken through me just moments ago because I felt him there again. Only, this time he wasn't leaving a sweeping feeling. It was more like a warm penetration that hummed gently within me, probing me. Suddenly I felt inwardly naked and totally exposed.

  And I liked it.

  A lot.

  "Something draws you to me," he said in a soft, almost hypnotic voice. "Something you could not begin to explain. It's different than what ever it is that draws you to anyone else. It's more like the wind. When it weaves itself through the trees, it leaves its path, its touch, its caress, so that it can find its way back again. The two become one in this way. I realize you asked about right now. Though this is what you felt breaths away from this moment here, this is how you'll feel forever. Once the wind weaves itself through the trees, the branches and the leaves never will forget. Beneath that though, unaware to you right now, beneath your outer layer, there is a sorrow cloaked in darkness that wraps you in its blackest color, and you nurture it as if it were a babe in your womb. I wonder where it comes from."

  "You? Why would you wonder about me?" I asked.

  "Doesn't everyone think about you?"

  "Heck, I don't know. I'm not the people reader."

  "Well, I can tell you that they do, Luna."

  This conversation was feeling a little too intimate and it was making me feel uncomfortable. "How about we change the subject?" I smiled, feeling the warmth of embarrassment in my cheeks. "I met a guy in the park. He said his name was Sean Hylander. Do you know him?"

  Dammon seemed uncomfortable all of a sudden. He shifted his guitar in his lap and raised his chin sharply. The look in his eyes hardened. "Stay away from him, Luna. I'm not trying to be bossy, or anything, but you need to trust me. Stay as far away from him as you can!"

  The way Dammon was acting gave me the goose bumps. "Why?" I asked, but it seemed like a stupid question. I already knew the answer; Sean was a demon.

  But then again, so was I, sort of. I grew up with demons. I was accustomed to them. Monsters and madness and mayhem were all parts of my world, fibers of who I am. And to someone like Dammon, someone who had lived a much more sheltered life than I, it probably did not make any sense that I did not fear Sean to the point to where I would stay away from him. But it made sense to me. I was irrevocably drawn to Sean and his demon.

  "Sean is a high priest for the Sons of Hallows," Dammon said.

  "Who're the Sons of Hallows?"

  "They are a coven of male witches. Warlocks. The Sons of Hallows are a hive from a very intricate network of witches. There are numerous hives all throughout the world, all stemming from one single family. Burling has been The Dark Sons" Coven Stead for eons. There are only a handful of male covens verses female covens, which makes The Sons very valuable to the hives. But, of course, that isn't the only reason," Dammon said.

  Dammon may have been afraid of covens and witches and warlocks and whatnot, but I found all of that to be irresistibly alluring.

  "Sean said---" I stopped myself from telling Dammon about the odd encounter in the park. But maybe Dammon would be able to explain to me how Sean had been watching me? And why? It should have been the fact that he was watching me that bothered me the most, but it wasn't. It was the why that bothered me the most.

  "Sean said what?" Dammon seemed to go tense with anticipation. I couldn't just leave him like this, so I decided to answer him.

  "He said he'd been waiting for me. That he'd been watching me," I said. I carefully watched Dammon, trying to dredge more information up out of his expression. His eyes grew increasingly full of worry. This worry leaked into his face and swelled into concern.

  "What do you think he meant by that?" I asked him.

  "Exactly what he said. Sean Hylander always means exactly what he says."

  "But how could have he been watching me when I've never seen him before in my life?"

  "Warlock? Dark Sons?" Dammon got to his feet as if he was about to take off and fix whatever problems he thought I was having. "Do you have any idea how powerful a warlock can be?"

  "Not really. I mean, I've seen movies and read books and stuff."

  "Sean is dangerous. Very powerful. And I'm sure he doesn't even have to be anywhere near you to be watching you."

  "But why? Why would he be watching me?"

  Dammon squirmed in inner discomfort. It seemed to me that he did not want to answer my question, while at the same time, he did not want to deny me of an answer. "What is your last name, Luna?" He seemed so nervous now that I couldn't help but feel a little nervous too. And maybe his close proximity had more to do with it than anything else.

  "Lanchester. Why?" I managed to answer him despite the fact that I was breathless from his nearness.

  But then I saw fear trickle through Dammon's expression. Fear for me. This fear was deeply settled in his eyes, as if it had been there for much longer than I had known him. In the back of my mind I was aware that there was much more going on than I knew. There were things Dammon obviously knew about me that I didn't.

  A shiver slithered down my spine.

  "Luna Lanchester," he said, as if testing my name on his tongue. Now sadness filled his expression. And deep an
d dark it was.

  "What? Why are you acting like this? What is going on?"

  By the sudden shift in his features, the set of his fine jaw, I knew Dammon wasn't going to tell me.

  "What?" I probed.

  Dammon did not answer me.

  "Never mind, then! Gees, this town is weird." I turned around and swiftly crossed the grass between him and the stairs of the deck. I had one foot one the stairs when he called out my name.

  I stopped and looked at him from over my shoulder, hoping he had changed his mind and was going to tell me the secrets he was keeping from me. But one look at his face told me that wasn't going to happen.

  "Don't go anywhere near Sean Hylander. Or any of the other Sons," he said. I could hear defeat in his tone, as if he knew that I was already clinging to Sean's invisible web. As if he knew that I was irresistibly drawn to the high priest of The Sons of Hallow.

  I could hear Sean's deep, husky voice inside my head. I will be your master.

  My belly fluttered with excitement.

  "I'll try," I told Dammon. I knew this was a lie, but I just couldn't help it. The darkness within me was drawn to the darkness within Sean Hylander. Even my darkness needed a companion, even if it meant inducing or enduring a little bit of madness. I certainly was not afraid of madness. It ran through my veins like lifeblood. It had been passed down to me by the eccentric Barron Lanchester.

  I wanted --no, I needed-- to see Sean Hylander again, even if every part of my wiser-self agreed with Dammon about needing to stay away from him.

  ****

  Chapter Two

  Bane