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

It was late. I looked everywhere for Dammon, but he was nowhere to be found. Burling was a small town. There weren't too many places he could've been. I tried to figure out where his mother, Guenevere, lived, but no one would tell me.

  No one would talk to me.

  It was when Dammon did not meet me in the alley behind Jesters, that I really started to worry. I kept thinking about that check mark next to his name. As the night dragged on and on, I became more and more distraught. My gut was telling me that something was horribly wrong. That Sean had done something to Dammon. I tried to ignore it, but it just kept nagging and tugging on my insides.

  The sun had set long ago. I didn't know what time it was, but I was certain it was long passed my curfew. Addy was going to pawn my Harley. As much as this was going to suck, it really didn't matter right now. All that mattered was that I find Dammon.

  I decided to check back at his house, for the third time that night, so I started walking in that direction. This time I took the Highway for its straight and quicker route to the trailer park.

  As soon as I saw the police cars and ambulance parked at the car wash, I knew in my heart what had happed.

  There in the middle of the deserted Highway, I came to an abrupt stop.

  I was afraid to move forward.

  I could only stand there, at first, staring at the flashing lights. I was too afraid of what I might find if I were to keep walking.

  Finally, I was able to peel my bare feet from the pavement and will my legs to start moving me forward.

  The commotion seemed mostly to be between the car wash and the trees, which gave me a little false sense of relief. But the closer I got, the more I realized that it was in the trees where the emergency response teams were gathered.

  In the trees, where Sean had thrown me down and threatened Dammon's life.

  Suddenly, something like adrenaline shot through my body without warning, and I took off in a mad dash. I shot across the Highway, sloshed through the mucky ditch and ran into the trees at the front of the car wash. I made a big circle, following the stream, until I reached the other side of the concrete structure. I slowed my pace when I was able to see the light through the trees.

  Then I crept closer.

  A spotlight shown in the trees in what looked to be the same exact spot where Sean had taken me when he warned me to stay away from Dammon. Yellow police tape had been wound around the trees, creating a large perimeter around the spot of light. It was, indeed, the same exact spot where Sean had thrown me to the ground.

  I crept closer.

  My heart caused my entire body to pound.

  Uniformed men were coming and going in and out of the circle of light. I could hear their voices but I couldn't make out what they were saying. There was a camera flashing. People were circled around something on the ground.

  I crept closer.

  I heard someone say something about identifying the body through dental records, before the voices, the sounds, the commotion, all slipped into the backdrop of my mind, and I could see what everyone else was looking at.

  "Dammon," I heard my voice but I was not aware that I had even used it. I was not aware of anything anymore. Except for the fact that Dammon's body, now unrecognizable to anyone but me, was lying in a pool of crimson blood. He had been stabbed so many times that it looked like he had been ground-up in a meat grinder. The dagger was still there, stabbed into his right eye with a force that had driven it deep into the earth at the back of his skull. The hilt was just barely above his eye socket.

  I couldn't feel my legs. They buckled-up beneath me and my knees stabbed into the ground.

  But my eyes could not leave Dammon's face. At least, it used to be Dammon's face. Someone's fury had turned it into a meaty, mangled, bloody mess.

  Tears filled my eyes, blurring my vision, smearing the image of Dammon's body like water on ink, and I collapsed into a ball on the forest floor, consumed by the sea in the corners of my mind.

  ****