Obsessed (Book #12 in the Vampire Journals) (21 page)

Caitlin and
Caleb ran through the mansion doors. They’d seen the vampire army descend on
the estate, followed by the police and military. But knowing their daughter was
inside was enough to make them enter, too. They braced themselves for carnage—but
what they saw was far worse than they’d ever imagined.

There, lying on
the floor, bleeding, was Scarlet. Her breath was rapid. She was covered in mud
and dirt. She looked like she’d been dragged through Hell and back.

Scarlet’s
friends were watching her with looks of horror on their faces. A police woman
was standing solemnly beside them.

Caitlin screamed
in anguish and rushed forward to her daughter. She grabbed her limp body and
pulled her into her chest.

“Drink,
Scarlet,” she said, offering her arm to her dying daughter. “Drink. Please!”

Scarlet was
trying to say no but she couldn’t make a sound at all.

“Listen to me,”
Caitlin said sternly. “I’ve read all the prophecies, all the texts and books
and literature. I’ve been transported to Egypt, to the lost vampire city
beneath the sphinx. I am the last vampire, Scarlet. Not you. Drink my blood and
you’ll become human again.”

As soon as
Caitlin said the words ‘human again’ a strange look passed over Scarlet’s eyes.
It was a look of grief, a mournful sorrow. But the girl took her mother’s arm
in her mouth nonetheless. A tear trickled from her eye as she bit into the
flesh and began to drink.

Caitlin winced
but didn’t want her daughter to see her in pain. She rocked Scarlet back and
forth like a baby, trying to soothe her. Caleb stood by his wife, rubbing her
shoulders, trying his best not to weep, to look like the strong protector he
was supposed to be.

Scarlet drank
and drank, and as she did so, she grew stronger. But Caitlin, in turn, became
weaker. Then, suddenly, Caitlin lost consciousness. She fell to her side,
flopping against the marble floor with a thud. Caleb swooped her up into his
arms and settled her into a window seat, holding her limp body tightly against
his.

“I’m sorry!”
Scarlet cried as sat up and wiped the tears and blood from her face.

She stood and
ran over to her parents.

“Mom!” she
screamed. “Mom, I’m sorry! Wake up. Please!”

But it was too
late, her mother was on the brink of death, and Scarlet knew that if she died,
it would be all her fault.

The doors to the
mansion burst open and Kyle ran in, covered in mud from his wrestle with Sam on
the banks of the Hudson. He surveyed the carnage, took in the sight of his
floundering vampire army, and roared in despair.

“You!” he said, seeing
Scarlet.

He zoomed
towards her as quickly as a bullet from a gun and grabbed her round the throat,
wrenching her into the air. Caleb leapt up and pounced at Kyle. He began
pummelling Kyle’s back but it was no use. Kyle was far too strong and far too
determined to be stopped.

As Scarlet
dangled in the air, kicking her feet, Kyle squeezed. The look in his eye was
one of murderous intent.

Then all at
once, Kyle froze. He dropped Scarlet and staggered to the side as though in
tremendous pain. Something was happening. Something strange and mystical.

“You’re human!”
he cried, spitting out the word at Scarlet like an accusation.

Scarlet touched
herself all over. It was true. Her mother had been right. She’d had taken the
vampire out of Scarlet and turned her back into a human.

But that meant
that Kyle no longer had a sire. The mystical vampire bloodline that passed from
one vampire to the next was gone, evaporating like steam from a puddle. It was
as though it had never existed.

Kyle clutched
his chest as he was gripped by pain. Elsewhere in the mansion, the sounds of
screaming and shouting began ringing out.

“What’s
happening?” Scarlet cried.

It was Caleb who
answered. His expression was gravely serious.

“They’re
reverting back to humans,” he said. “Without their sire, the vampire part of
them is disappearing.”

“I don’t
understand,” Scarlet said.

Caleb looked
back over at Caitlin slumped in the window seat.

“Your mother is
an extraordinary woman,” he said. He smiled in spite of his anguish, proud of
her wife and that amazing brain of hers. “She’s changed the timeline, changed
the course of events. By reverting back to the original vampire, it’s as though
you were never a vampire in the first place. And if you were never a vampire,
then he couldn’t have been turned.” He pointed at where Kyle was writhing on
the floor in agony. “It’s like he never existed in the first place.”

Scarlet watched
on, her mouth agape, as the high schoolers who just moments before had been
rampaging through the city streets killing innocent people became suddenly
conscious of what they had done.

“Stand down,”
Sadie Marlow cried into her megaphone.

She went over to
Kyle and handcuffed him. Then everyone looked around as the former teenage
vampire army dissolved into sobs of grief.

A cold gray
morning light settled over the mansion. As the fire fighters trudged out,
having put out the large fire that had raged in the bedroom, an eerie sort of
calm settled over the manor and the people still within it. The high schoolers
were weeping, huddling up together, mourning the loss of friends who had been
killed whilst vampires and would not be returning to their human form.

All morning a
series of prison vans had come and gone, taking with them the inmates that had
remained humans, along with those who’d had the brief pleasure of being
vampires before reverting back to human form. A series of undertakers had also
come and gone, removing the police and army personnel who’d lost their lives in
the fight.

Standing in the
middle of the whole thing were the stone statues of Octal and Lore’s mother.
Then further into the living room were Lore and Lyra in their lovers’ grip,
together forever like a work of art.

Finally, the
stone body of Sage lay in his position on the sofa. Scarlet rested her head on
his chest. The stone he’d turned into was still warm. If Scarlet closed her
eyes, she could almost pretend to hear his heart beating.

What hurt her
more than anything was the cruel irony that the reason he hadn’t gone to the
vampire city was because a vampire and human could never live peacefully
together. And yet here she was, no longer a vampire, but just a lowly human
girl.

Scarlet sat up.
She had a sudden idea. It was a long shot but surely it was worth it.

Using the hand
that had not been put into a sling, she pried the vial from Sage’s hand. The
drop of immortal blood glistened at the bottom. Scarlet unplugged the stopper
and pulled out the long, thin, tapered glass dropper. She held it over Sage’s
lips. The drop of blood fell into his mouth.

Nothing
happened.

Then, desperate,
her heart pounding, tears flooding her face, she leaned forward and kissed his
stone lips.

At once, the
gray stone that had replaced Sage’s skin began to crack. He took in a deep
breath, making shards of stone shatter to the ground. His eyes flew open and he
sat up in one swift movement. The stone shell that had been encasing him fell
to the floor and shattered. He looked more alive than Scarlet had ever seen him.

“Sage!” she
cried, not quite believing it had worked.

Sage looked at
her, his eyes wide with shock.

“What’s
happened?” he said, glancing at the debris and carnage that surrounded him.

“We have a
second chance,” Scarlet said, too happy to hold back her tears. “A chance to
both live normal mortal lives.”

Sage’s eyes
widened with emotion.

“I don’t
understand,” he said. “How?”

Scarlet gestured
to where Caitlin was resting in the window seat. Hours had passed but she was
still pale and weak. She hadn’t regained consciousness. She was being tended to
by Caleb. Her uncle Sam was there too and even Polly had turned up to support
her family.

“My mother found
a way to turn me back into a human,” Scarlet said. “She took the vampire blood
out me completely.”

Sage could
hardly speak through his joy.

“You mean we
could still go to the vampire city?” he said. “And I could become a human?”

Scarlet nodded.

“But the last
vampire,” Sage said. “Wasn’t that part of the spell? Didn’t I have to drain the
blood of the last vampire?”

“There are no
more vampires,” she said. “Everything has changed. Fate itself has changed.”

Sage laughed and
shook his head, so shocked he didn’t know what to say.

“When do we
leave?” he asked.

Scarlet stood
and offered her hand to him.

“Right away,”
she replied.

“And how do we
get there?” he said, taking her hand in his. “I thought the vampire city was
lost.”

Scarlet looked
back at her mother.

“She told me she
had been there. She must know a way.”

Together, Sage
and Scarlet walked over to where her family were tending to Caitlin. Caleb
pulled his daughter into an embrace.

“Is mom going to
be okay?” Scarlet asked.

“I don’t know,”
Caleb replied. “How are you feeling?”

Scarlet smiled.

“Human,” she
said. Then she looked up at her father. “Dad, I need to ask you something. Mom
told me she’d been to the lost vampire city. I need to go there too.”

Caleb frowned.

“Why?” he asked.

Scarlet glanced
over at Sage.

“We don’t have
much time,” she said. “But if Sage and I go to the vampire city, he can become
human too. He can become mortal, like me.”

Caleb eyed the
man who’d stolen his daughter’s heart. Then he pulled the leather box from his
pocket and handed it to Scarlet.

“This will take
you where you need to go.”

Scarlet took the
box and ran her finger over the flower design on the front.

She knelt beside
her mother.

“I can’t go if
she won’t live,” Scarlet said, wiping back a tear. “Mom? I love you mom.”

Caleb lay a
reassuring hand on her shoulder.

“Go,” he said.
“She will live. And she would want you to go.”

Scarlet kissed
her mother slowly. Then she turned to Sage. The couple held hands, walking away
to find some privacy and begin their journey to the lost vampire city beneath
the sphinx.

Caleb watched
his daughter go, then turned back to his wife. She’d made the ultimate
sacrifice for the love of their daughter. She’d given up her humanity, possibly
even her life. Only time would tell how much of a sacrifice she had truly made.

Caleb sat with
his wife the whole morning through, until the sun was high in the sky. Though
it was a cold day, it was bright, and light glittered off the Hudson river. The
others filtered out, and soon it was just Caleb and Caitlin left.

Caleb stroked
his wife’s pale hand and watched the river rippling from the window. He was
exhausted and couldn’t even remember the last time he’d slept.

Just as he was
nodding off, he was startled by a voice. His eyes pinged opened and he looked
down. Caitlin’s eyes were open.

Caleb pulled his
wife into an embrace and let the tears he’d been holding up fall freely.

“I thought I’d
lost you forever,” he said.

Caitlin held her
husband tightly.

“I’m not going
anywhere,” she replied.

Caleb let go and
moved back. He studied his wife’s face.

“Are you human?”
he said. “Or vampire?”

Caitlin smiled,
showing off a tooth that was somewhere between normal and a fang.

“I think,” she
said, “I’m a bit of both.”

He leaned in and
they kissed, and that kiss transported them both back. Back in time, back
through all the places they had been and lived. Back through their relationship,
from the day they’d met, to having Scarlet, to now. Back through everything
they had been through. So many obstacles had come in their path. So many
people, vampire, human, immortalist, had tried to tear them apart. But none had
succeeded. After all this, all they had been through, here they were, still
together.

And they would,
they both knew, be together forever. No matter what.

Her vampire
journals, after so many centuries, could finally be sealed.

It was time for
them to start living again.

NOW AVAILABLE!

A FREE DOWNLOAD
(IN KU)

BEFORE
DAWN

(Vampire,
Fallen—Book 1)

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

"A book to rival TWILIGHT and
VAMPIRE DIARIES, and one that will have you wanting to keep reading until the
very last page! If you are into adventure, love and vampires this book is the
one for you!"

--Vampirebooksite.com (re
Turned
)

In BEFORE DAWN (Book #1 of Vampire,
Fallen), Kate, 17, hates her life. An outcast in her own family, who doesn’t
understand her, she is hated by her more popular and beautiful sister, and
despised by her controlling mother, who favors her sister over her. Kate’s only
solace is her friends and her smarts. But even with that, her life seems
destined for a dead-end—especially when her mother announces she will have to
stay back from college to pay for her sister’s tuition.

But one day, all that changes. On her 17
^th
birthday, one of the popular boys falls for her. At the same time, a mysterious
new boy, Elijah, arrives at her school, and their connection is undeniable. All
seems to be turning her way—when a terrible accident turns her life upside
down.

Kate is supposed to die. But on the
verge of death, something happens, something which keeps her alive, which
transforms her into something she was never meant to be. In the twilight
between life and death, Kate becomes something no one has ever been before.

The debut of a spectacular new series
rife with love, loss, heartbreak and redemption, BEFORE DAWN offers a fresh
take on the vampire genre. With its heart-pounding suspense and characters you
will fall in love with, it will keep you reading late into the night and make
you fall in love with fantasy all over again.

"Refreshing and unique, has the
classic elements found in many Young Adult paranormal stories….Easy to read but
extremely fast-paced....Recommended for anyone who likes to read soft
paranormal romances. Rated PG."

--The Romance Reviews (re Turned)

“Grabbed my attention from the beginning
and did not let go….This story is an amazing adventure that is fast paced and
action packed from the very beginning.”

--Paranormal Romance Guild  (re Turned)

BEFORE
DAWN

(Vampire,
Fallen—Book 1)

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk