Reawakening (33 page)

Seraphina came to Sarah in a
dream
? Why?

She said the next part so softly, and with such hurt, it stripped him raw. “You may not have locked me in a room this time, Rom, but this is so much worse. You’ve locked me out of
you
. And that … that is completely soul-shattering.”

The soft click of the door shutting was the last sound he heard as he stood frozen in shock and agony. His past and future had collided. And he’d just let his future walk out the door, leaving behind a visible, tangible trail of hurt and betrayal.

God, he was a bastard.

His heart wept. He
wanted
to move beyond this. He
wanted
to share every last shred about himself with Sarah, good and bad.

He just didn’t know
how
.

Chapter 53

Sarah

Lost. That’s how she felt. She should be happy. In a fricken wedded state of bliss. But all she felt right now was numb … and incredibly sad.

She’d missed her mate terribly these past two days and within minutes of seeing each other, they were already in an argument, because, once again, he refused to share something with her. Would it always be like this? Would he always shut her out? Would she ever be allowed into the deep recesses of his mind and soul?

Wandering around the large estate, she didn’t dare go outside, but it was almost unbearable to be in the same vicinity as Rom. She should flash home, but she also didn’t want to be too far away from him either. It was a conundrum that confused the hell out of her.

The minute she’d stepped foot downstairs, Jareth and Elliott had followed her around like the good little guard dogs they were. That was mean and, yes, she was being a royal bitch. They were just doing what their
Commander in Chief
had demanded. What she wouldn’t give to run into Giselle right now so she could go a couple of rounds with someone who could take it. God knows she wouldn’t be good company to anyone else less snarly than her.

As usual, she found herself in the library. This felt like a sanctuary to her. She’d spent an untold amount of time here over the last several months.

Walking along the expansive shelves chucked full of books, she ran her fingers along their spines, both old and new. It never failed to marvel her at how many books Devon had acquired over the course of his lifetime. And this wasn’t even all of them. His office was also stuffed to the brim.

Unable to focus on reading, she flopped on the couch, gazing out the large window. The view wasn’t much, since they were in the middle of nowhere, but it was peaceful. It was still early and birds chirped, unencumbered by anything other than finding food for the day or building their nests in anticipation of their new arrivals. She found herself slightly jealous of their easy-going and carefree existences.

Jealous of birds now?
She’d sunk to a new low.

Was 7:00 a.m. too early for a glass of wine? It was five o’clock somewhere, right?

So many things had happened over the last couple of weeks. Things that she wanted to share with Rom, but for one reason or another, never seemed to get a chance. They were either fighting or fucking.

Sigh.

She wanted to tell him about Jack and how they’d played. She wanted to talk about her biological mom and share that she had an aunt and grandfather that she’d love to meet. She had a gut-wrenching
need
to understand who Seraphina was and how she connected with them both. She’d tried, but she just couldn’t let that go. And she wasn’t sure she’d be able to until she knew the truth.

As if on cue, Giselle suddenly appeared with a folder in her hand. And she looked …
excited
. And dare she say …
happy
?

“Trouble in paradise?”

Or not.

Well … bring it bitch because Sarah was
not
in the mood to be fucked with.

“Nope. Just taking a break. My pussy’s sore.”

Giselle howled with laughter. “Oh my God, Sarah,” she wailed. “Who knew you were a mini me?”

Uh … what?
Sarah was
nothing
like Giselle. Oh God …
was
she? Right now she felt like it.

“That’s just plain offensive, Giselle.”

“Wow … that bad, huh?” Giselle threw the folder she held on the table between them before taking a seat opposite her.

“You do listen to the words that come out of your own mouth, right?”

Giselle shrugged. “I suppose I could try a tiny bit harder to be less bitchy.”

Her brows drew together in confusion. “Are you getting laid?” That’s the only thing that made sense. Sarah had long thought Giselle needed her lady bits oiled a little, or a
lot
, and perhaps that would help her sour demeanor.

Giselle didn’t respond, but a slight smile curved her lips.

“Oh my God! You are!” Sarah leaned forward, arms on her knees, her own troubles all but forgotten. “Who?”

This was surreal. She was sitting here, practically gossiping with Giselle.
Giselle
. The hardest, most jaded, frigid woman she’d ever met.

“Let’s not push it. I’m new at this …
shit
.”

“Okay. Fair enough.” Leaning back, she couldn’t help but say, “You look happy.”

A genuine smile graced Giselle’s face and the only word that came to mind was
wow
. She’d thought Giselle beautiful before, but when she
really
smiled, she was simply breathtakingly stunning. “I am,” she said finally.

“Did you just come by to chitchat and bond or was there another reason you stopped by?”

“I like the cheeky side of you better. I have a meeting with the lords in a few minutes, but I have something for you.” Picking up the folder, Giselle pulled out several papers, spreading them on the coffee table in front of them. “We have a pretty good family tree put together that I wanted to give you.”

“You what?” Shock almost stunned her speechless. “How?” Sarah hadn’t missed the use of the word
“we”
but was too dumbfounded to care.

“Well, turns out your grandmother was quite the genealogist herself and had done a lot of research already. My …
source
managed to take photos of the information when your grandfather spent twenty minutes taking a bathroom break.”

Oohh. She probably could have gone without knowing that little tidbit.

“There are pictures in there too. Some pretty old. The quality isn’t perfect and a few are grainy because they were printed from a camera phone, but I put everything in here we had.”      

Sarah could hardly believe her ears. Or her eyes. Which were now blurry. Swallowing hard, she tried twice before she could speak. “Thank you,” she finally managed to utter.

Giselle clasped her hand over Sarah’s. “You’re welcome.”

Giselle was leaving the room when she called back, “And Sarah … just lock him out of heaven for a while. Whatever he’s done, he’ll be begging for forgiveness soon enough.”

Sarah sat there, stunned. Not only did she have her maternal family lifespread in front of her, but she may have just made a new friend.
With Giselle
.

Huh? Who would have thunk it?

Chapter 54

Rom

It was another day spent filled with regret. After Sarah had walked out on him, he’d finished getting ready and found her in the library looking at pictures and papers. She’d quickly hidden them, but not before he’d gotten a good look.
A family tree? Where on Earth did she get that?

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” she replied curtly.

Apparently she was neither in the mood to share nor forgive. And he still couldn’t bring himself to discuss the elephant in the room … Seraphina. The words sat on the tip of his tongue, like poison he needed to expel in order to prevent it from spreading and rotting and ruining his relationship with the one woman he cared about above all others.

But he just couldn’t do it. So instead he’d told her he’d be in meetings all day and he’d find her later.

He was a goddamned coward.

And he hated himself for it.

So now, hours later, he sat once again around Dev’s conference table, unable to fully engage in their final strategy session because he couldn’t stop thinking about Sarah and Taiven and Seraphina. And what it all meant because there was no way in hell this was all coincidence. He was royally fucked if he went into the field without his head in the game and by the sounds of it they needed to make the hit on Xavier tonight because Geoffrey had a planned meeting with him. Who knew when they’d get another opportunity if they didn’t take this one?

“Rom, you with us?” Damian asked.

It was painfully obvious to everyone in the room his body was present, but his mind was absent. “You’re looking at me, aren’t you?”

Damian smirked but was smart enough to keep his mouth shut for once.

“Geoffrey, have you uncovered anything new in the last couple of days?” Dev asked, diverting their attention back to the issue at hand.

The blond vampire looked grim. Shit … this was going to be bad.

“Unfortunately yes. There is a very small compound that I happened to discover in the foothills of Nebraska, and only one vampire that I’ve run across is aware of this location. If the situation weren’t so dire, it would be incredible, really. I don’t know how or when he did it, but Xavier has managed to whisk away a very specialized group of biological scientists who have not only been able to successfully enhance existing vampiric skills, but they’ve also developed
new
vampiric powers that we’ve never seen. Invisibility, time travel, merging completely with another being to create a completely new one.”

Geoffrey looked gravely around the room. “And even dreamwalking.”

Holy fuck. This was so much worse than he could have imagined.

Suddenly it made sense. Vampires could not dreamwalk. That was only a human female skill. And yet somehow Taiven had reaped that power and was able to enter Sarah’s dreams.
But why?
Why would he pick her and more importantly, how exactly did he come to obtain this power himself? He was an entire continent away. Was Taiven in cahoots somehow with Xavier? And how long had Xavier been experimenting with this? For more than twenty years, if what Sarah said was true.
“In my dreams, Taiven watched over me, protected me, my whole life.”

“Like with everything else he’s developed, the formulas are hit and miss and have a very low success rate. In many instances it kills the vampire it’s given to. It appears to have much higher success in enhancing an existing power than fully creating a new one, so they don’t inject it until the vampire is at least fully blooded, at age twenty.”

“That’s just fucking great. And how many of these amped up rogues are running loose?” Damian spat.

“I simply don’t know.” Geoffrey shook his head, clearly distressed like everyone else. “I, myself, haven’t come across a vamp with a previously non-existent skill, but I have seen a few that have incredibly magnified powers. I thought it was just a result of the other chemicals that are being pumped into them from the time they were born, and maybe it’s a combination of the two. Who the hell knows at this point? But there were not any vamps or females kept in this facility, other than the human scientists.”

“We need everyone one of those humans alive, along with every computer, every flash drive, every vial, every piece of equipment and every shred of paper, down to a Post-It note,” Dev retorted.

Geoffrey nodded.

A firm plan in place, they ended the meeting late afternoon. All told, they had over one-hundred warriors that would make the various raids tonight, at 11:30 p.m. sharp, when Geoffrey was expected to meet with Xavier. Rom, Circo and six others would accompany Geoffrey. Damian and the other lieutenants would also lead teams, but Dev would stay back with their mates. After almost losing Kate, he refused to leave her alone again, especially since she was pregnant. It was a good plan. They all had too much at stake on the home front with their mates here.

They were to gather a mile to the west outside Devon’s estate in a wooded clearing at 10:30 p.m. The goal was to hit fast and hard and be back in no more than an hour with the humans.

And while they argued about this for well over an hour, they finally agreed to save any child under the age of fifteen, that hadn’t had their second blooding, but destroy any older than that. According to Geoffrey, once they had their second blooding, they were to be kept in another area of the compound and they were significantly more dangerous as they started heavy training then and a vampire became drastically more powerful after their second blooding. It absolutely gutted him to have to destroy ones so young, but they couldn’t take the chance these rogues would grow into monsters, trying to emulate their sick and twisted leader.

Devon and Kate had worked tirelessly these last few days to prep and staff an empty area of the shelter for the dozens of women they expected to bring back. Dev had others diligently working at another location to prepare for the children to be taken there. Like him, Dev didn’t want these unknowns anywhere near something as precious as his mate.

      “Rom,” Damian called as he tried to make a hasty exit. With only a few hours before the battle, he needed to see Sarah and if she was willing, spend it buried inside of her.

“What?” he barked, moving quickly. He needed to shake his friend like a bad habit right now.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, man?” Damian put a hand on his shoulder and his powers instinctively flared to life.

Whipping around, he pinned Damian to the wall behind him. Everyone else had disbursed except for Dev, Circo and Geoffrey, who now stood frozen, watching the ugly scene unfold in front of their eyes.