Authors: Harnet Spade
Taken by The Hunger: A Blood Thirst Novel (Book 1) Paranormal Romance/ Erotica/ Urban Fantasy
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Taken By the Hunger
Blood Thirst Series
- Book 1
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A Blood Thirst Series Novel
By: Harnet Spade
The Blood Thirst Series Novels:
Taken By the Hunger
Savage Awakening
eBook Edition
Copyright © 2013 Harnet Spade
All Rights Reserved
All rights reserved. Except for use in brief quotes for the purpose of review in articles. No part of this eBook may be used, or reproduced in any manner whatsoever unless with the sole written permission of the Author, or Author's beneficiaries.
This eBook is intended for the enjoyment of its readers. It is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents 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.
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Introduction
“Eva, I’ll find you. I always do. I will search relentlessly until I find you. If you leave now… pray- I don’t because nothing will save you from me then- no gods, not your father, fear, love, hate… nothing! No army will keep you from me. You will never be done with me because even now I see the hunger you’re trying to suppress. It fills this cave. You’re running scared, but I don’t care. This time you’ll show me what I’ve been looking for, no more regrets with you.”
-Darius Draco’s speech to Emmaley Ladon
Dedication
For Lazaro, my everything, whose love and support have made my dreams into a reality,
And
My beautiful children Ashley & Audrey because their smiles have lightened even my darkest days.
*************
Thanks to my family for their unwavering support, and to my two girls, Ash & Avy, for the wonderful cover.
I
felt numb as a light drizzle started falling gently kissing my bare shoulders while shivers racked my body. There I stood, on an empty gravel road freezing thanks to my favorite CK black sleeveless dress with the lace up back waiting for Kimmy to pay the cab fare and exit the cab. She’s hurrying because no one can know we’ve left the mansion.
Through the car’s window, I stare at Kimmy as she reaches into her purse for her wallet. Then… I notice my reflection, and realize I hardly recognize the person looking back. My light blond hair which usually falls to my waist, in soft curls, is swept into a loose off the side bun. Gone is the usual brightness of my light, summer sky, blue eyes- what Kimmy likes to refer to them as because she’s said the color is beautiful- peaceful.
Now in their place are emotionless blank eyes done in a black, violet smokey eye. I have a small face with a small nose, my eyes and lips drawing most of the attention. I’m 5’5” and weigh 122 pounds. Kimmy makes me workout, so I am fit. She says I have amazing breasts. She also says I need to learn to accept what god has given me and embrace it, use it, and then maybe I'd be playing a whole different ballgame. I smile... just remembering because maybe she’s right. She’s a B cup and I’m a CC. I’d trade for her breasts any day. She’s 5’8” looking so sophisticated when in truth she’s a killing machine. I should know her combat style workouts are a death trap every time. When she’s not kicking my ass she’s the sweetest girl, so sweet always giving me compliments because I think she’s the one who looks amazing.
She is like the sister I don't have and the complete opposite of me. Pin straight black hair with honey hazel eyes and tanned skin- emphasizing the beautiful color of her eyes and hair. Kimmy says the men of the world are lucky I am locked up most of the time because otherwise they’d be a dead species. I know she’s referring to… Darius.
Darius is the reason I am in the mood I’m in, why the reflection in the glass window is so devoid of emotion. I know what awaits me tomorrow morning when I walk into his lab. I’m so close to breaking point… that sterile lab which looks like something out of a Sci-Fi film with all the state of the art technologies, is my rage against the machine. I get strapped in, feeling cold... alone... waiting for him to sedate me. Just thinking about it, about him in there… us so close together while he runs his tests, probes me, searches through my memories- stealing my past.
I have to find a way out.
As Kimmy shuts the door, I mask my feelings, turn, and start walking towards the mansion... it pains me deeply to take these steps, almost like I'm walking to my doom. Kimmy speaks most of the way while I add small bits of conversation here and there. I remind myself to smile making sure it reaches my eyes and even pull her hair lightly when the conversation turns naughty... it always does with her. She has a one track mind when she is out, teaching me to be flirtatious. She is telling me about some really handsome guy she met tonight. Listening to Kimmy, I consider everything around me that could later become useful.
How I detest being wet and cold,
my mind whispers, and I know it has to do with a memory I’ve suppressed.
The night is unbearably cold, but the fog that surrounds us just makes everything worse. I have unnaturally good eyesight in the dark, but even the fog bothers me. It doesn’t help matters that I rushed out of the club leaving behind my black leather jacket. If I wasn’t as cold and miserable as I now felt, I would be beating myself over rushing out and forgetting the jacket. It had sentimental value… a gift from someone who’s been long gone. Concentrating my thoughts on what I need to do, I start scoping my surroundings. When I soon realize there isn’t anything out of the ordinary, and noting the best plan of escape is at the club, my mind returns to the dilemma of the lost jacket.
Kimmy is paid to be my confidant, best friend, and shadow. She is the only body guard assigned to me who actually speaks freely with me. If I was being fair I’d admit I knew she had grown into the part, and she truly cared for me. Noticing I’m cold, she asks about the jacket, and that’s when I tell her I left it back at the club. She immediately promises she will get the jacket back because she and the night club owner are good friends. Probably someone she slept with.
So she calls him up, gets him on the phone, and tells him to save it- she is personally going to pick up my last memento of Jeffery tomorrow.
Jeffery… God, why couldn’t I have you by my side instead of a stupid jacket to remember you by?
So many thoughts invading my mind, while listening to her, I hold back the tears and wait for her to end the call.
Although I project an exterior of calm boredom, she knows something isn’t right, after all… it is in her training to pick up on the little things. I give her no explanations and surprisingly enough she doesn’t hunt for answers. That’s when I realize she must have known about Jeffery because I could see understanding illuminate her face- I too have learned to pick up on the details that give people away.
Now as I walk, I try my hardest to push him out of my mind with the mundane task of concentrating on saving the black five inch silver studded Louboutin heels I received as a Christmas present from Kimmy who’d obsessed over them months before purchasing. As it turns out, she bought two pairs- one for her and my surprise pair.
I feel the heels digging deep into the stones while I suffer in silence about a past I can’t undo, so I repeat tonight’s mantra over and over;
please let this horrid night finally be over,
because I can’t seem to shake the uneasy feeling that’s crawled under my skin along with the cold.
The frigid wind blows against my face when I cut Kimmy off on whatever conversational path she has ventured up, “Hey Kimmy was it really necessary to tell the cab to drop us off this far from home, especially in this weather? I can barely see a foot in front of me and these heels are my favorite. They’re ruined!” As I look up, I realize I can’t make out the moon behind the slate forbidding clouds closing in on us
. God… this night can’t possibly get any worse,
I bitterly think.
“Stop whining Emma,” she responds, “you wanted to go out and have fun for once, trying to enjoy yourself like a regular person does, remember? It’s time to woman up and take these minor unpleasantries as they may come.” I give her a sour look, bite my freezing lips to keep my teeth from chattering, and think to myself easy for second in command of security to say… she of course was used to all the “unpleasantries”.
“Unpleasantries huh, well I’ll be borrowing your pair of heels from now on, and... if you’ll notice unpleasantries is all I seem to be taking, so I think I’m entitled to some complaining.”
She ignores me, something she and most of all Darius do, with great ease, when the subject gets uncomfortable. “You know it’s no easy mission getting you out of the house undiscovered.”
Her night on the contrary has been stellar, and maybe I am a little jealous because she has prepared for this weather by wearing black combat boots with her red slinky dress which I may add barely covers her ass, but manages to cover most of her upper body protecting her against the harsh wind. I on the other hand, suffer with numb toes traveling the overgrown path next to the gravel road that leads up to the mansion in my favorite pair of heels that I am slowly but surely ruining by awkwardly trying to keep my balance, and sourly think,
surely I’d catch my death tonight.
I look at Kimmy as she presses back her black shoulder length hair, picks it up, and ties it into a ponytail. “I can’t hate you more than I do this moment, looking all gorgeous in this weather after meeting an incredibly handsome stranger.” I tell her and she smiles her sad smile knowing that I lied, she knows the medical tests and treatment I receive every two weeks is when I hate most.
And my hate never extended to Kimmy, it was limited to other things; I hated not knowing what was being done to me as I lay sedated for whatever “treatments” were done to me by Darius. I was vulnerable, and there was nothing I hated more than vulnerability. I trusted Darius, but after being taken, and not remembering everything… it made the treatments or any loss of awareness very difficult.
I knew the injections were necessary to keep me alive, but honestly sometimes I just thought I had reached my limit. I was always shadowed by some guard, mostly Kamila a.k.a. Kimmy, and then there was the always present Darius. Darius was Kimmy’s boss, the man in charge of the armed compound I was caged in, and I just couldn’t get used to how good looking he was.
He was 6’ 5” in a perfect package of solid lean muscle; his face was strikingly rugged with piercing storm blue eyes and brows drawn in an expression that said you don’t want to fuck with me because if you do you will only live long enough to regret it in an intrinsic way. His skin was pale with beautifully tight veins working their way up his arms into his long thick neck, contrasting exquisitely against his golden brown hair that if left long would loosely curl. I knew this because this was how he looked in my dreams.
Unfortunately, in reality he had a military buzz cut that only emphasized the lethal stealth in which he so coldheartedly executed everything, everyone. Even me nowadays, I’d made him livid with my decisions throughout the past ten months. He wanted me, wanted us to work, and I pushed us so far apart I don’t think anything ever would bring us back together.
Missing him now more than ever, I remember his features. I pretend he’s right before me, something I like to do a lot now. His eyes are the deep blue of a storming sky. The man is a storm himself. The last time we were together he swept me in and... as always... nearly destroyed the both of us. I needed this distance for my own sanity, but one look at him, and I am lost. If I give in, he would be all I desired and needed, and I couldn’t give someone so much power over me. No matter how painfully beautiful he was, or how great the sex would be. And it would be super nova great. This man knows how to move, how to put all that strength and passion to good use- and did I forget to mention he looked like a Greek warrior statue of ancient times come to life.
He was so good looking, in fact, I usually tended to run in the opposite direction when he was near. I was scared… that… and our past always got in the way. A past that made sure I trampled upon whatever feelings would surface because if I was being honest with myself… I didn’t need him as a constant burn in my heart, or my mind. I was a liability to us both when I was near him.
I saw his every intention, need, and desire as a new means of torturing me in some way, and I sure as hell didn’t have a care if I was being unfair because I blamed him. I blamed us both for so much. I knew I needed to stay as far away from him as our situation allowed.
I just hoped there was… no there had to be more to life than the sheltered torturous life I was imprisoned to and Kimmy was going to get me there.
I was taking my time, planning… this time my desperation wouldn’t be a hazard because devastation had beaten into me the hard lesson of patience. My armor would be my memories because they were returning and they were filling me with weapons and strength I didn’t know I owned.
Darius, if they knew.
Everyone, was so blind to what he was- who he was. He was in control of my destiny. It was he who always made sure my cage was forged tight with metal, baring no weakness. He thought to use Kimmy as leverage to get me submissive, well I found rust in my iron cage and it was Kimmy.
Kimmy had just given me a look that showed just how much she sympathized with me; although, she wouldn’t admit it because according to her I had to prepare for a hard life outside the mansion walls. I thought her reasoning was flawed because we had to always plan an escape for me to see outside those walls. And honestly, it had been too long ago… probably four months since we last went anywhere.
Maybe the stress from being out tonight got to me because I was feeling really run down, or perhaps it was because I was due for those injections tomorrow, and I wouldn’t feel like myself again until I had my dosage. I’d been feeling sluggish all night.
Thinking of the club, I remembered how it felt like torture being there tonight, it really drained me to pretend to be having a good time dancing and talking it up with the attractive men who offered to buy me drinks when all I could think about was plastering a smile on my face and playing the role of someone enjoying themselves, so Kimmy wouldn’t find out the outings she orchestrated with such difficulty were all about searching for cracks in order to escape. In all honesty, all I could look forward to the whole time at the club was getting the damn torturous injections, so I could feel alive again and not like the walking dead.
Noticing my somber look, Kimmy plays her role to perfection and does what she does best… make me forget. “Hey Emma it’s nearly three a.m., damn girly when you say you wanna stay out late and party you really mean it. Do you know that my shift starts in two hours and we still have close to a mile till we reach your house?… And take that sour look off your face Emma a mile of walking hasn’t killed anyone.”
“Well, you’re going to be more unbearable than your usual self on the job,” I said acting as if I was preparing myself for the difficult day ahead.
“You know better than that, I’ve been trained to go without sleep without it affecting my skills,” she says smiling, “and it’s necessary for us to walk the rest of the way with everyone guarding the house. If Mr. Stick Up His Ass finds out we sneaked out I’ll have hell to pay a thousand times over and that’s if I’m lucky enough to keep the skin on my bones; I happen to like skin on my bones so more walking and less complaining,” she says with a devilish twinkle in her eyes as she easily quickens her pace wearing the damn combat boots.