The Forbidden Chapters Part 1: Afterlife Saga

  I was almost afraid to look down but found myself glad I did when I burst out laughing at the knee-high socks that were made to look like a wonder woman costume, complete with cape. This she added wonder woman converse shoes to match… which was something she rarely ever did.

  “At least I’m wearing shoes,” she said pouting.

  “I’m laughing because I think they’re great,” I said honestly, never having the guts to wear them myself personally but still admiring the diversity in the design.

  “Oh, well that’s alright then…Right time to say bye, bye my pretty,” she said in a witchy voice before jumping on my lap like last time.

  “You know you could warn me before just launching yourself at me like that.”

  “Oh, Tootie cake, you’re no fun. Good luck honey.” She gave me what I could only assume was a gangster sign before slapping her hands to the side of my head and plunging me into a world six hours away.

  I opened my eyes to find myself in the very familiar club Afterlife’s VIP. It was dark, quiet and empty, something that only ever happened very early into the wee hours of the morning. I wondered why I would have ended up here with no one around but then I saw Sophia come storming into the room with Vincent hard on her heels. I don’t know why but I decided to step further into the shadows near the bar to hear this out.

  “Sophia, he will handle it, calm yourself.” Vincent said in his usual soothing tone.

  “I will not! Keira has been gone less than a week and this is the behaviour that is being tolerated! Why are you not as outraged as I, brother?” Sophia whipped round and folded her arms at Vincent in nothing short of an accusing manner. He just frowned and folded his own arms, making the sleeves on his long sleeved black t-shirt strain and tighten around his impressive biceps. The material moulded to his upper body as if it was trying to be another layer of skin, which showcased his fine physique beautifully. This was combined with black dress trousers and it had to be said, the man sure knew how to wear clothes that created a drool worthy effect! I shook my head to get myself back in the game and remembered why I was here and from the sounds of things it might not be the happy, optimistic answers that I had hoped for.

  “Because when Dom tells me he will do something, then I have no other option than to place my trust in those words as should you.”

  “Bullshit! This goes deeper than Dom’s word! I am surprised, as you of all people should be more outraged on Keira’s behalf, considering how you feel.” I couldn’t believe it when Vincent actually growled.

  “You go too far, Sophia! Back down and just leave it be or Dom will no doubt find out about your interference and as you know, my anger compared to his is quite different.”

  “As you know I am not afraid of our brother’s temper and besides, don’t you think he has more pressing matters on his hands than my personal feelings on what he is doing?” She really looked upset and it didn’t sound like the reasons were going to fare well for me. Was it possible… was Draven with her right now? Was this what Sophia meant? I felt like praying to every God in the Heavens for it not to be true.

  “Be careful, Sophia!” Vincent warned in a low gravelly voice that sounded threatening. Sophia looked like she was going to say more but in the end she lost all the heat of her argument and deflated into a nearby chair like a wilting flower. As usual, her appearance was flawless and her floor length dress floated around her where she sat. Surrounded in midnight coloured silk that made her hair look like it shimmered for the same reason, its softness hard matched, she looked like a queen goddess and it made me feel like praying to her instead.

  “I miss her, Vincent,” she said dejectedly making Vincent’s scowl fade and my heart break. I wanted to pop up and shout ‘I’m here’ like a live jack-in-the-box but I didn’t think they would like a supernatural heart attack!

  Vincent walked to her chair and knelt down on one knee to get to her face level. He tilted her head up with a soft grip on her chin and wiped away a stray tear that rolled down her ivory skin.

  “As do I Sophia, much more than anyone truly knows and much more than I ever should,” he said and I couldn’t help but shove my fist in my mouth to prevent the gasp that wanted to escape my tactless brain.

  “If we feel like this, then Dom should be feeling it tenfold…” He nodded in agreement so she carried on.

  “Then tell me why he is now in the room he shares with the girl he loves with one he never did?” This time I couldn’t stop my reaction. Nothing could have stopped me.

  I saw Vincent look up and take in the sight of me stood there, no longer in the shadows but now very visible, right down to my fisted hands and my body that was wracked with a disbelieving tremble. No, it couldn’t be true…it just couldn’t…could it?

  “Keira?” Vincent said my name with the same disbelief my body was displaying and now Sophia had turned to witness it as well.

  “Oh, my Heavens…Keira…it’s you!” She got up and for a long moment we were all frozen like actors in a play who had all forgotten the next set of words that were meant to be heard by an invisible audience. Silence…just bitter, air slicing silence.

  A silence so thick it would soon crack the skin stretched across my knuckles, my fingers were fisted to my palm that tight, until finally I could no longer stand it.

  “Where is he?” I asked still shaking with a rage that I foolishly still hoped unnecessary.

  “Keira, I don’t think…” I cut Vincent off with an action I didn’t even know I had done until I heard my fist bang down on the table top in front of me.

  “DON’T!” The one word came out like the cracking of ice under a heavy foot, dangerous and fatal.

  Vincent looked like he was debating whether to run to me and scoop me into his arms or not. In the end, I took that choice away from him by turning away from them both. I found the door that would give me the answers I needed to see and found myself running towards it before either one of them acted. I was actually surprised at how fast I was running. I knew they were making chase but I was faster…faster than I had ever been in my whole life. Was this because I wasn’t really here and my soul was faster than my body or was it the side effects of being with Draven. Was this what it was like being supernatural?

  I started to think it was, when I could hear his voice before I ever should. So, it wasn’t just my speed then, it was also some other senses.

  “I am not afraid of speaking my feelings Aurora, not when those feelings are of love.”

  “Oh, Draven.” I heard Aurora say as if close to swooning.

  “I am not finished my dear, as I said earlier, I do not regret our time together as it has brought us to this point but I refuse to hide the way I feel any longer. You must know of what I speak, I have presented you with enough evidence.”

  “The physical evidence that night was enough for me to understand your feelings, my Lord. I know what you want and I can only be happy in the knowledge that I can finally give you what you want, what you need…from me.” I almost crumpled to the floor when hearing this, for I had found my answer. Layla hadn’t been lying and I was the fool.

  I felt myself start to waver back to my body as no doubt Pip could feel my distress but I had one last thing left to do and I had to summon all my courage to follow the truth through to the bitter, twisted end. I locked my legs and placed my fading hand on the door, ignoring the desperate pleas of my name being called by Vincent and Sophia.

  The door opened and there in our sacred place was the most beautiful woman I had ever known in the arms of the most beautiful man I had ever known.

  They were utterly perfect together. Two flawless beings entwined in an embrace so deep and meaningful my presence wasn’t even known. I couldn’t even penetrate their senses enough to become another heartbeat in the room.

  A heart that at that moment had started to replace a beating muscle with cold hard stone that didn’t even know what it meant to beat.

  A heart that Draven had stolen in a meadow of be
auty and destroyed in a grand room of ugly truth. A heart he no longer wanted and a heart…

  I no longer needed.

  Chapter 27

  Vampire Date

  Book 3

  Pip released me and fell backwards when I screamed out in my grief. I didn’t even look back as I ran into the bathroom and threw up an already empty stomach. The painful retching pulled at my stomach muscles in a pain I welcomed.

  He didn’t want me. Plain and simple. But how could something so plain and simple be so confusingly agonizing to comprehend. I knew I should have stuck with my instincts and trusted my insecurities the way I did around Draven but to witness the truth in my fears was too much to bear. I had wanted to be wrong! I had wanted my fears to be spun from not believing myself good enough and all those times that his arms held me so close to him had said otherwise. But it had all been lies.

  And what hurt the most…I had foolishly let myself trust in the first man to take my heart and make it beat solely for him. No matter all the problems we had run into, the one thing we had was an unstoppable love that should had stood the test of all that Heaven or Hell threw at us but in the end…

  It hadn’t even stood the test of time. Not even a week.

  My stomach clenched again and I spat out the remains of my disgust. I then felt a little hand at my back and without a second to hold it back I threw myself into Pip’s arms and broke the dam on my heartbreak. I sobbed into her bare shoulder and she softly uttered words of ease in a different language. Gone was the energetic Pip that couldn’t ever hold back the avalanche of words she usually used to describe things and in its place was a friend’s comforting security. And I couldn’t have needed it more.

  After a time, when my eyes were too sore to even close let alone produce tears, I found myself sat outside on the balcony wrapped up in a soft woollen throw. I looked out to the white world and I found myself wanting to join it. To become lost in winter’s nature, one so cold that it would steal my breath and with it, the excruciating pain. I just wanted to be numb.

  Pip had left me alone as I had asked, although I could tell she hadn’t wanted to but what could she do…send me back for more proof on how Draven didn’t need me. Didn’t…didn’t want me. I swallowed that thought with a thick lump of cold hard reality. Hell, I wished I was one of those girls that could find the anger in it all. Find the guy and bitch slap the hell out of him for cheating on her but there was one solid reason why I couldn’t find it…

  I still loved him.

  And it burned me to think that I loved him enough to want him to be happy and if I wasn’t enough to give him that then…well…

  Well then, here I was now. Alone and forgotten.

  NEW

  I couldn’t help but wonder what was next for me? Because no matter what love I still held for Draven, it didn’t change the fact that I was still stuck in this place. I was here held captive by a man who needed me to bargain with but I couldn’t help question just how much of that bargaining power he had left.

  Would Draven simply try and get me back out of some royal duty or even worse…out of guilt? I had no answers to anything, only painfully empty questions like ‘what do I do now?’ or even worse, if I finally made it out of this alive, then ‘what would I do when I made it back home?’

  Home.

  The single word even hurt, as I had once considered Afterlife to be my home but even that had been taken from me. I wanted to be angry at so many people. I wanted to lash out and blame those that had made this happen. Like Lucius. But to be honest, what had he done, other than open my eyes to an unfaithful love. No, there was only one person I was really angry with, and that was myself.

  I should have known.

  “I should have known,” I said aloud this time before letting my head fall back on the seat feeling the tears rolling down my cold cheeks once again. In the end, I don’t know how long I had been sat out there but it was after the sun went down when someone interrupted my private misery. I didn’t even turn my head to see who it was, because truthfully, I just didn’t care anymore.

  But the person that entered my room didn’t care for my winter misery and simply plucked me out of my seat. He lifted me into his arms and carried me back inside, making the door slam shut. I didn’t even flinch with the noise or when flames erupted from the fireplace.

  “Gods Keira, you’re freezing,” Lucius said after placing me down on the sofa and running the back of his fingers down my cold cheek. I said the only thing I felt about his statement in that moment, shocking him.

  “Fuck the Gods!”

  “I very much doubt you mean that, Pet,” he told me softly and this just pissed me off. I didn’t need someone being so nice to me now! So, I got up and pushed past him, nearly tripping but righting myself just in time.

  “And what if I do! It’s not as if the assholes ever did anything for me!” I shouted looking up as if I could see them for myself. I raised my arms out to my sides, the throw still around me like a cloak and I shouted,

  “CAN YOU HEAR ME YOU BASTARDS!” I shouted with even greater rage this time.

  “So, this was your plan all along was it!? To torture my young soul into seeing living nightmares and for what? For what exactly?! So that I would know the insane reasons behind a mad man I had to slit my wrists to get away from?” I saw Lucius flinch as I lowered my head and looked to him. His grip on the arm of the chair was all but destroying it. But I didn’t care. I was too far gone in my rage, my pain, my…my loss.

  “I died that night you know. I saw it all happening before me and I made my peace in life just as I hit the stone-cold floor. I looked down at my blood and I knew I would die in that shit hole…that prison and for what? I hadn’t even lived…I hadn’t even loved yet.” I told him, saying the words of my past I had never uttered this way to another living soul.

  “And now the Gods were getting ready to take me away unless I fought for it. So, I did and look where it got me. They threw me to the wolves and I gave my heart and soul to one. And do you know what he did with it…he stepped all over it the moment he took her to his bed.”

  Lucius moved and looked ready to contain me but I stepped back, holding my hand out to him.

  “Oh no! I don’t need your comfort or your pity!” I told him making him think twice.

  “I tell you this now because I have hit my limit on life Lucius, and I have hit my limit on all this Supernatural, Chosen One bullshit! I am done, do you hear me…done! So, do with me what you wish Lucius, because I no longer give a fuck! Sell me to the highest bidder for all I care but I am telling you now, there is no way that …that man is going to give you shit for me…do you understand what I am telling you! He won! And we…well…we…”

  “What Keira, what are we?” he asked me once my outburst had started to die. I deflated into the seat behind me and answered him,

  “…We are just the losers, Lucius.”

  Lucius took a deep breath and slapped his hands to his thighs before getting up. Then he looked down at me and said the last thing I ever expected.

  “You have five minutes.” I frowned as I wiped away my tears.

  “Five minutes for what?” I asked shaking my head a little.

  “To get your shoes on and your shit together.”

  “Why…where are we going?” If I lived to be a hundred and guessed each day of my life I still wouldn’t have guessed right.

  “I’m taking you out.”

  “Out? As in outside?” I questioned further and just before he walked out the door, he turned back to me and said,

  “Yes Keira, outside…” And then he left me with the biggest bombshell of all when he finished that sentence before leaving the room,

  “…on a date.”

  I soon found myself in the last place I ever thought I would on this cold winter’s evening. Sat on a bar stool in a German pub, with a roaring fire behind us, on a date with the very man who kidnapped me…oh and not forgetting that he was a Vampire King. No, we
couldn’t forget that. Although I had to say, looking the way he did, he didn’t exactly scream the Dracula type. Not unless the King of Darkness liked to wear stonewash jeans, long sleeved dark grey t shirt and a fitted leather jacket on his days off. Oh, and let’s not forget the heavy biker boots.

  “Zwei Biere, Krombacher dunkel für mich und ein Hefeweizen für die Dame.” (Means ‘Two beers, Krombacher dark’ for me and a Hefeweizen for the lady’). Lucius ordered our drinks in perfectly fluent German and the sexy bastard even made that sound erotic. The lady at the bar, who wasn’t dressed like a Bavarian barmaid as I expected, nodded kindly and went to pour our drinks. After of course, giving Lucius the once over and obviously liking what she saw.