Darkened Days Read online

  Darkened

  Days

  By C.L. Quinn

  Published July 2013

  Blak Kat Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  I used to carry the weight of the world, but now all I want to do is spread my wings and fly. I don’t know why I was so afraid…all the time.

  Song lyric

  Chantal Kreviazuk

  Prologue…

  Standing on the balcony of her hotel room in Saint-Cyprien overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, Starla groaned. Sunlight sparkled on the endless blue water and she should have been overjoyed at the beauty and warmth here in the foothills of the Pyrénées mountains. Instead, she was disappointed and a little embarrassed.

  Just yesterday she’d left her lifelong home in Wilkes-Barre, a tiny frozen town just above the Arctic Circle in Alaska, to follow the possibility of an exciting new life. The lovely and exotic Eillia, a stranger in town, took a job as chef at the only restaurant, the Blue Star, six months ago. There was something special about the quiet woman who cooked while Starla served their diners. Starla felt it from the first moment they met because, while she would admit she wasn’t the smartest woman in the world, she was very intuitive. And now Eillia had gone home to France suddenly without a chance for Starla to say a proper goodbye.

  Missing Eillia, and terrified of being trapped in this frozen land for the rest of her life, Starla had holed up in her little apartment for several weeks. On a leap of faith, she’d hopped on a plane and followed her friend to France.

  With a combination of excitement and fear, she’d walked up to the door of the elaborate seaside villa where she’d discovered Eillia was living and touched the door chime.

  But Eillia wasn’t home. The enormous man who answered the door with a serious expression had sent an even larger man with a humorous grin to tell her that Eillia was out of the country and they had no idea when she would return.

  As she turned away, upset at herself for taking such a stupid risk, she headed back to the little coastal city where she’d taken a room to wait for Eillia to call her when she got back. Or pack to return to the ice-hole where she’d grown up to marry a man who smelled like oil or fish and have four brats by the time she was thirty-five. Oh, god.

  What made her think she could ever get out of that frozen wasteland and find a place for herself out here in the world? In front of the mirror in her hotel bathroom she stared at her image. What did she have to offer the world? What made her think that the lovely Eillia would want anything to do with her now that she’d left the small northern Alaska town and gone back to what was obviously a fascinating life?

  After feeling sorry for herself all day, Starla realized she hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning. So she left the hotel to get dinner and stepped out into the little two lane road to cross to a café across the street. And that was all she remembered.

  Jacob had been sent by Eillia to see if there was anything he could do for her human friend who had been hit by a car and now lay comatose in a hospital with a dire prognosis. She wasn’t expected to live.

  The beautiful first blood vampire had been specific. Eillia asked him to use his vampire blood to heal her if that would save her. Or change her only if it wouldn’t. Whatever was necessary to save the sweet young woman Eillia loved from her yearlong stay in Alaska. She was so sorry she couldn’t be there herself.

  His assessment was quick. While the girl was gravely injured, he was sure the healing power of his vampire blood would be all that was necessary to make her well enough to recover on her own.

  Leaving a compulsion with her nurses to stay out of the room, he slit his arm to feed her just enough blood to help her without triggering conversion. Her eyes opened just a moment after she gagged down the first precious drops.

  Jacob smiled at her, told her he was her doctor, and watched her lovely milk chocolate eyes stare, confused, into his own.

  “Just go back to sleep,” he told her, and then leaned closer and whispered, “You’re going to be fine.”

  Her eyes flickered, locked on his for a moment, and then closed.

  She was so still. The wild mass of rich brown hair was gone, shaved, her head wrapped in bandages. He remembered his first reaction to her at the villa. Innocence, purity, beauty. What a shame. Lucky she knew a first blood vampire, even if she didn’t know it.

  Certain she would heal normally now, he went to the hospital cafeteria for a quick meal. Vampires consumed large amounts of calories to fire their extremely quick metabolisms, and he had missed his tonight in the rush to get here to help Eillia’s little friend. After he finished the mediocre food, he went back to the girl’s room to check on her, make sure she would indeed survive, and to give her a compulsion to forget his visit and the blood exchange. He would stick around for twenty-four hours to control any blood tests, and then return home.

  But she was gone. No trace. The nurse he compelled to tell him where she was, had gone blank. When he checked her with a deeper compulsion, he found she had been compelled by another vampire to forget she had seen the girl leave.

  What the fuck? What was another vampire doing with the little human from America? Why had she been taken?

  Worse, Jacob couldn’t track her. With his blood in her, if she was anywhere within a reasonable distance, he would feel her and be able to find her. But there was no sense of her.

  A vampire had taken Eillia’s friend. Whatever it was, whoever it was, it couldn’t be good. He called back to the villa to advise them.

  “We’ve got a problem,” he said.

  CHAPTER ONE

  She woke confused, hurting. No, hurting wasn’t right. In horrible pain, doubled over. What the hell? Trying to think about where she was and what happened, she drew a blank. Her hands clutched at her gut, the pain coming in sharp waves now, relentless. Like explosions inside her. Her stomach felt like it was on fire and then the fire began to spread and the explosions moved up, into her chest, into her throat, then her head. She didn’t have enough hands to grab all the places that hurt so badly and try to soothe them.

  There was no way to soothe this kind of pain. She could feel her body going into convulsions. Her mind tried to shut down, the pain was so intense. But there was nothing to be done. She rolled up and hoped to wait out the pain, or die, whichever came first. Right now, the second choice seemed better. A distant incessant sound assaulted her ears…horrible screaming. And then she realized the screams ripped from her own throat. She felt a hand on her neck. Someone pushed her head back and her mouth open. Oh, god, what a horrible taste! Like blood, only worse, and it kept coming. No matter how much she gagged, it didn’t stop.

  Starla lost consciousness again.

  The blood was nasty. He held her so tightly she couldn’t move her head. And kept it tilted back so the slick stuff slipped down her throat easily. She was alert enough now to realize what was happening. All resistance met failure.

  He’d forced her to ingest blood, often, and a lot of it.

  “You sick bastard!” she called out. Her eyes opened long enough to see the sharp face of someone above her, but she couldn’t make out who it was. He was grinning and looking away from her, that’s all she could tell. He said something she couldn’t understand, but it wasn’t to her. Vaguely aware someone else was nearby, she tried to turn her head to ask for help. But the pain seized her again and her eyes slammed shut.

  Lying flat on a concrete floor, she breathed deeply, almost panting, even though the pain had stopped again. For now. Her skin and internal organs still felt like they had hit temperatures hot enough to melt bone.

  It was a basement. A large one, like in an office or apartment building. Dark, with dim light near where she lay. There were no windows. The pain had lessened enough,
she decided to try to sit up. Slowly, like a sloth on downers, she brought herself up and gently dropped back against the wall. The screeching in her head had lowered to an incessant background noise, so she could think again. A little. Where was she? As she tried to look around, she realized her eyes seemed as if they squeaked in the sockets, they felt so dry and alien. What could do that? She couldn’t remember what happened to her before she got here. Nothing except a face.

  The face of the man she had seen recently, locked in her memory. Handsome. Strong. Serious. Then smiling kindly as he held her. She could remember every detail of his features.

  Was it his face that she’d seen above her forcing blood down her throat? That face had been a blur. He would come again to feed her the blood, always accompanied by others. Distinctive, coppery, vile. Starla could not understand what was wrong with these sickos that they got off on this aberrant behavior. She lifted her hands for the tenth time to stare unfocused at the heavy chains on her wrists. Escape was out of the question. Worst of all, she had started to look forward to the feedings. How could she crave blood? It was disgusting. Wasn’t it?

  A scraping sound drew her head to the left, toward what she thought was a stairwell. Sounds of footsteps let her know several people were coming.

  As she raised her head carefully in the direction of laughter, she searched through the shadowy darkness toward the back of the room. The low illumination allowed her to see people moving around, some laughing, others talking so low she couldn’t understand what they were saying.

  “Who’s there? Why do you have me chained down here?” Starla said as loud as she could, and knew it wasn’t very loud at all.

  A wave of pain hit her again, but she pushed through it and shakily stood up. Her legs felt like rubber on fire, but they held.

  “I said, who the hell are you?” she screamed. “What did you do to me?” Better volume that time, she thought, thankfully.

  A figure wandered forward, out of the grayness where she could see his features. A young man, handsome, almost pretty, built well, hair in bright blonde spikes. A very attractive girl with dark blond dreadlocks hung just behind him, her hand wrapped tightly around his. He looked amused. She looked hostile. He pushed her back and answered Starla’s question.

  “We made you better. Like us. You’ll see. Once you’re through changing, the world will be a different place.”

  He had a heavy French accent. French? How…she put her hands up to her head. Where was she? A memory filtered back through the murkiness of her mind. She’d gone to France. To find Eillia. Yeah. Oh, god, yeah. She was in another country far from home, locked in a basement with strangers, in excruciating pain.

  And something was wrong with her. Her body felt weird. Somehow she knew he was the one giving her the blood. Her pulse quickened and she found herself leaning toward him. An intense need assaulted her. His blood. She wanted it. Now. And in that same instant, she had sized up his sexuality and her body craved him, needed to pull him inside her.

  Her eyes moved to the dreadlocked girl who claimed him. Dreadlock’s eyes were dark as hell and challenged Starla, as if she knew how she was feeling toward her man. It was apparent…she wouldn’t let Starla anywhere near him. Starla stared her down. A growl rose from her own throat, shocking Starla. A growl? Where the hell did that come from? What was happening to her?

  Starla doubled over as another wave of burning pain seized her body, but it subsided completely a moment later.

  “What is wrong with me? How can I hurt this much one moment and then nothing the next?”

  Spike-hair stepped toward her, but stopped as Dreadlocks held him back.

  “I’d better hand you off to someone else now. Marina is too jealous. Henri, please come and tell our new friend what is happening to her.”

  Spike-hair pulled forward although restrained by the girl Starla figured was called Marina. He touched Starla’s cheek.

  “You will be okay and you will love who you are now. I knew you would be magnificent when we rescued you from that hospital. Good thing I saw that old vampire go in your room or I would never have known you were there. I followed him in to see what he was up to. You looked dreadful then, shaved and dying. But now, your hair is already full again. The vampire genome, it is a miracle. That’s why we rescue the young. And I want an army. Well, I will see you after you are unchained. Henri, indoctrinate.”

  Then he turned away, assisted by an aggressive pull by Marina Dreadlocks. They disappeared back into the darkness.

  Another man came out of the shadows with hair as

  dark as Starla’s. His accent was much lighter so she understood him easily.

  “Hello, Starla,” he said

  Her head shot up.

  “How do you know my name?”

  “It was on your chart in the hospital. Although you don’t need to keep it. Most of us have chosen new names. Etienne, he’s the one who changed you, the blonde guy you just spoke with, he insists on calling me by my human name because he knows it pisses me off. He is an ass, but he is our leader, so I just keep my mouth shut. I don’t want to start a fight over something so stupid. And I call him by his human name, too, when he isn’t in earshot. You will want to call him Malice. The woman who thinks she owns him, she calls herself Marina. Don’t piss her off.”

  He came closer and sat on an upturned bucket near her.

  Starla was still processing something he said that made no sense to her. “Human” names, he’d said. What the hell did that mean?

  Henri studied her.

  “You look good. You are over halfway through your conversion.”

  Pulling toward him against the chains, she looked at him painfully.

  “Conversion?”

  “To your new body. You are becoming what we are. You are becoming a vampire.”

  She couldn’t have heard him right. Shaking her head, she looked back into eyes so dark they seemed black, and then collapsed as another wave of pain drove her back to the floor. It was ten minutes or more before the pain subsided enough for her to look back up at him. He’d remained there with her. That was kind of him, she thought. Her eyes wandered over to him and found the same response she’d had with the other man. He had wide shoulders and a full chest. As her eyes travelled down his body, she assessed his thick arms and strong thighs, shown well in very tight jeans.

  Crawling back up, she squatted in front of him, and ran her tongue around her mouth. She wanted to feel him under her. Her breasts felt extraordinarily heavy and her crotch twitched. When her eyes landed on his lips, her hand slipped down to the v where her legs began. She wanted those lips there.

  What the hell was happening to her? This was not her! She had always been cautious, sexually, waiting at least a month before she let herself give in to her desire when she met a guy she really liked. Like her mother always told her to do. Never, never, so sexually stimulated she couldn’t stop herself. But now she felt very different.

  She crawled up to Henri and lowered her mouth to nip at a button on his shirt. She lifted hooded eyes to his.

  He smiled and stepped back. “Ah, calm down little one. The vampire gene is very sex driven. You are in over-drive. And I would like nothing more. But I know better. Not yet, ma petite chatte. We have learned the hard way. Guillaume nearly had his cock bitten off by a new child of the dark while she was converting. Sorry, but you will have to wait until you are completely changed. It will not be too long.”

  Starla pushed back and threw her hands against the wall, breathing hard. Since when did a young man turn down sex? Ever? Fuck this!

  She turned back and lifted her breasts up with her hands, the chains rattling against her legs.

  Her head spun. She did not act this way. She never used harsh terms like that. What had gotten into her?

  Pulling her shirt back together, she fell back against the wall. Henri was still just beyond her reach.

  “I’m sorry. Really. I’m not a slut.”

  “Hey, I don
’t have any problem with that. Sorry, what I mean is that you’re going to be much more horny now, so you might as well get used to it. It’s the best part, anyway. Of being a vampire, I mean.”

  Vampire? He was nuts. One of those Buffy fans who thought it would be cool to drink blood. She looked around the room, searching for someone to help her. Or some way out. She still heard noise toward the back of the room, so she knew they weren’t alone. Unfortunately, she assumed that anyone else in there with them were probably fruit loops who also thought they were vampires. So no one was going to help her. The pain struck again, this time much worse. She thought she heard Henri say something, but the pain overrode everything else and she passed out.

  Time passed, she didn’t know how much. But the pain had returned full force, and she came in and out of consciousness until she finally woke up pain free one night.

  She got up, shaky, but feeling stronger than she had in days. Maybe ever. Her clothes were in tatters, the few pieces that were still intact enough to be on her body. The rest were shredded in bundles on the floor. And even though Henri had brought her other garments, she’d ignored them. She didn’t know why. Except that the heat had been so horrific, she couldn’t tolerate even the touch of fabric against her skin. She’d learned quickly, though, that the heat had nothing to do with her clothes and everything to do with exploding cells inside her own body.

  Henri had explained. Not that she believed anything he told her so earnestly. All that mattered was trying to rip out the heat or die trying. At that point, three young men chained her to a pole in the center of the room. Which she’d damaged almost immediately. It had surprised her that she was capable of cracking the tall column that formed the support for the ceiling.

  But the pain was gone now. Just a peculiar weakness and a sense that everything had changed.