Unafraid

A Forbidden Bond Series Novella

By

Copyright © 2012 Cat Miller

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. Except for use in any
reviews, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or
in part in any form is forbidden without expressed written
permission from this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and events are either the product of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales
is entirely coincidental.

Cover art by:

Regina Wamba

www.MaeIDesign.com

Editor:

Brittany Carrigan

The Cover and Everything in Between, Reviews
and Editing

Dedication

To my readers.

Your support has inspired me to keep looking
toward the future with an open and creative mind. This one is for
you.

Author’s Note

Dear Reader,

After the release of Unbound many readers
expressed a wish to know more about Griffin and Tessa. They have a
very interesting beginning in the prologue of Unbound, but the
story then moves onto the life of their only child. When Unforgiven
was released and the relationship between them became more intense,
I received another round of requests for more about the couple’s
past together. Griffin and Tessa are my favorite characters, so I
was pleased to have the opportunity to go back in time to explore
the original forbidden bond. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as
I enjoyed writing it. I send sincere thanks to everyone who reached
out to me and waited patiently for this story.

Cat Miller

ONE

Tessa had taken a short-cut from her crummy
job waiting tables to get to her crummy little one room studio
apartment. She’d gotten fired for cursing at a drunken customer who
grabbed her ass one time too many. Apparently being a regular gave
a man the right to talk to women like trash, treat them like
property and touch them anywhere he pleased. Well she wasn’t
putting up with that shit. She told the asshole exactly what she
thought of him and his wandering hands. The manager of the
restaurant Bella Notte waddled down the small aisle that ran
between tables, bumping against them and apologizing to patrons the
whole way. He carried her purse and a jacket that wasn’t hers in
his chubby fist and thrust them at her before shoving her out the
door. She was too angry to even consider going back inside to
retrieve her coat. She would surely do or say something that would
get her arrested and she had no one to bail her out.

It was cold, but she didn’t live far away.
Tessa checked her watch. It was nearly closing time. Soon the
street would busy with people making their way home from the local
pubs and night clubs. Before she reached the alley Tessa had the
odd feeling she was being watched. She scanned the street but saw
no one, with the exception of a few girls who stumbled out of a
bar. In a hurry to get home and out of the cold, she turned down an
alley that cut through to her street. Halfway down the alley the
hair on the back of her neck began to stand on end. She was being
followed. She picked up the pace, but before she made it more than
a few steps, a voice from directly behind her startled Tessa into
freezing in her tracks. How the hell had someone gotten that close
without her knowing they were there?

“Stop, little one. I won’t hurt you,” he told
her in deep, calming voice. The sound pulled at her. It made her
want to obey, but she shook off the notion and took off running
down the alley. Tessa had no intention of going down without a
fight. She didn’t get far before a large hand grabbed her, jerking
her off her feet. The large male form she found herself pinned
against thrummed with an oddly soothing buzz of energy that made
her want to relax into his arms. She fought against the warm sense
of rightness that told her to give in to the demands of this
stranger. Tessa struggled violently against his hold.

“Damn it! I said stop!” he growled. The sound
of his voice chipped away at her resistance. He spun her around and
pressed her back against the brick building.

“Look at me!” he demanded.

She did, but not because he told her to do
it. She looked at him because she needed to see the face of her
attacker so she could describe him to the police, if she survived
the experience. The moment their eyes met, the world seemed to tilt
on its axis. He must have felt it too, judging by his look of
surprise and quickly indrawn breath.

He was beautiful in a too-good-to-be-true
sort of way. His elegant, yet masculine, face belonged to a cover
model or a statue carved from stone. His square, masculine jaw,
full lips, and straight patrician nose were remarkable. Her gaze
rose to the white highlights in the front of his dark hair before
drifting down to meet his stare. His midnight blue eyes shifted to
black while she watched. A pair of sharp fangs descended from his
gums. Holy shit! Were they real fangs? This had to be a dream. It
had to be. She struggled to free herself, but it was no use. He
held her firmly, trapped between his hard body and the brick wall
at her back.

The angelic looking man had transformed into
a demon before her eyes. He leaned in and Tessa was sure her life
was about to end. Her heart slammed against her ribs and terror
gripped her throat, preventing her building scream from escaping.
To her surprise the beautiful nightmare did not bite her. He kissed
her lips softly before moving his mouth to her ear. She
shivered.

“I am your mate, little one. You will be the
center of my universe.” He kissed the wildly thudding pulse at the
base of her throat, “I will love you all the days of my life,” he
licked her there, “and you will love me.” He kissed her chin, “I am
coming for you, Tessa.” He kissed her mouth and licked at her lips
until she melted against him. It felt so right. She wanted to taste
him. She needed to taste him.

The buzz of the alarm clock jerked Tessa from
her crazy dream. Confusion and annoyance coursed through her mind.
Tessa smacked the alarm clock and pulled the covers over her head.
The last thing she wanted to do was look at the run down hole in
the wall that was her home.

It couldn’t have been a dream. He was real.
She could still feel the heat of his mouth on hers. The imprint of
his hands still warmed her hips. It was just a dream. She told
herself that lie over and over again. But she knew it was more than
a dream. It was a premonition. It was a curse. It was the reason
she found herself living alone, with no family to speak of, at the
age of twenty-one.

Tessa had been different all of her life.
Just like her mother and her mother’s mother before her. She had a
gift that allowed her to see the future in her dreams and it had
ruined her life. She just couldn’t keep her mouth shut as a kid.
She would see things in her dreams that she didn’t understand. She
had no sense of fear or self-preservation. So when she informed the
adults around her of upcoming life events, they would just laugh
and send her on her way. Until the things she predicted came true.
At the time it was difficult for her to understand the names she’d
been called. Witch. Demon. Evil. She wasn’t evil. She didn’t know
what those other words meant, but she knew evil was a bad thing.
She was a good girl.

Her mother explained that she understood
Tessa’s dreams because she had them too, but she was not allowed to
share the things from her dreams with others. Other people did not
understand what a special little girl she was. But Tessa just
couldn’t stop herself from telling people when trouble was coming.
That, in her child’s mind, would be evil. Her father insisted that
they get psychological help for her delusional belief that she
could predict the future, but her mother refused.

It was the cause of many fights between her
parents and Tessa’s mother begged her to stop sharing her dreams.
It wasn’t until the night Tessa dreamt of her father’s death that
she understood why she had to keep her dreams secret. He wouldn’t
listen when she told him to stay home that day. She screamed and
pleaded with her father. Her mother joined her in trying to
convince him stay in the house, because she knew that Tessa’s
dreams were really premonitions. It enraged her father that his
wife would encourage Tessa’s psychosis. He left the house in a
furious temper and he never came back. Her father ran a red light
and died when his car was struck by a semi.

That was the day Tessa learned that her
dreams could indeed do harm. If she hadn’t told her father about
her dream, her parents wouldn’t have been so angry with each other.
He wouldn’t have been so distracted that he ran a red light. He
wouldn’t have died. Tessa still blamed herself for her father’s
death. She never shared one of her dreams again. Not even years
later when her mother and step-father left for a night on the town
that Tessa knew they would never return from. She couldn’t take the
chance that her warning would spur the fates into action. Instead,
the fact that she said nothing made no difference. They died on the
street outside of the restaurant they’d just left when a man,
speeding to evade the police, mowed them down in the crosswalk.
Tessa had no other family. Her step-father’s family had never taken
to her. So when she graduated from high school a year after her
mother’s death, she struck out on her own.

Tessa peeked out of her hiding place under
the blankets to look at what it meant to be on your own at that
age. Her studio was dingy and falling apart. The stove was about
ten feet from her bed and the oven had no handle. The ceiling had
huge water marks from her neighbor’s constantly overflowing toilet.
Her wall-less bathroom consisted of a toilet and a shower. She’d
thumb-tacked curtains to the ceiling to give herself the illusion
of having a bit of privacy when she needed it. Not that anyone ever
came to visit her. She just didn’t like looking at the toilet while
she ate her meals.

After spending entirely too much time
bemoaning her sad existence, she finally dragged herself out of bed
and into the shower. As hard as she tried to forget it, the dream
kept creeping back into her mind. Tessa couldn’t believe it was
anything other than a dream. If she entertained the idea that is
was more than a dream she would also have to accept the existence
of things like vampires. The beautiful, dark man from her dream had
not been a man at all. He was a creature from nightmares and horror
movies. He was death walk, not a man she should be thinking about
while she soaped herself up in the shower. She needed to clear her
head and get on with her day.

Tessa had to get groceries and go to the
Laundromat before she could prepare for her date with Sebastian.
She had been told it was a big no-no for him to date his employees.
Jessica, another waitress at the Bella Notte, had been trying to
get him alone since the day she interviewed for the position.
Sebastian was the owner of the restaurant and he didn’t come around
often due to his other business ventures, but when he did it was
all about business. God knew the gorgeous Italian, with his flowing
shoulder length hair, perpetually tan skin and midnight eyes, was
not lacking in the relationship department. Why would he need to
date a waitress he employed? That’s why it was a shock when
Sebastian asked her for a date. Tessa had gone out with Sebastian
many times and they always had a good time. They had even messed
around a few times. He was hot and he knew how to please a woman.
That was what Tessa was going to focus on today. Not mysterious,
sexy, dream men with fangs who threatened to come and get her. A
chill raced down her spine at the memory of his soft lips against
the pulse in her neck.

* * *

Ten days had gone by and Tessa was haunted
night after night by the dream. Every night when she crawled onto
her paper thin sofa bed, she was filled with a mixture of longing
and dread. She didn’t want to be confronted by her fear of the
unknown things that go bump in the night. It annoyed her that she
yearned to feel the press of his lips and hear him tell her in that
voice full of need that he would love her forever. She always woke
from the dream with a jolt, but every morning a bit of the fear
faded until finally she was left with only the need to know if he
would really come for her. Would he hold her in his strong arms and
make her want to understand exactly who and what he was?

The dream had worked its way into her every
waking thought. She was distracted and tired after long nights of
sleeplessness. She had finally drifted off the previous night only
to be awakened by a fear that was equal to the lust she had begun
to feel for her dark stranger. Now she was exhausted and
cranky.