“Whaboutyou?” I
slurred, my eyelids drooping despite my effort to stay awake.
“I'll stand guard.
Someone has to. We don't know when Sedgrave might attack again.”
Too true, I thought as
I drifted off to sleep.
It wasn’t really an
end. More like a very gory beginning.
Josh leaned over my shoulder, watching my progress as I
typed the last few lines of my newest book. I had a feeling my publisher would
be blown away with the sudden transformation in my writing. It wasn't a work of
fiction like my past efforts; it was my real-life story. Granted, I wouldn't be
telling anyone that. They'd lock me up in a padded room and swallow the key. I
couldn't blame them for that response. Even I had trouble believing the sudden
change my life had endured.
Endured was the right word. My first week as a vampire had
been full of clinging tree faeries, slobbering werewolves, frozen houses, and
vampire-sacrifices. I'd survived it, but just barely. I now spent my days and
nights cooped up in my studio apartment, trying to reassemble my life. It
wasn't going well.
I had a lot of ground to cover. Granted, I had been nearly
tortured to death—a difficult feat considering how hearty we vampires are. I'd
been whipped, skewered, and burned, but the worst of it wasn't what had
happened to my body. The ritual, which we thought required my life, had taken
my memories—my very essence. So I guess in some ways it had taken my life, it
just did it in a way none of us expected. I had regained a lot of my history,
but not all.
“This is fabulous,” whispered Josh from his position just
above my right shoulder. Though he spoke softly enough, it startled me, pulling
me from my own thoughts.
“Thanks,” I murmured.
“Hardly,” sighed my cat from his position on the desk, next
to my antiquated computer.
Tereus was a gray Scottish Fold. Though I'd named him
Muffler when I first got him, he had asked me to call him Tereus after I
discovered he could talk. It turned out my cat was really a very old and
powerful fae, trapped in a cat's body after he impregnated a friend's sister.
“You want a fabulous book read Les Miserables.”
“Don't listen to him,” urged Josh. “Hugo rambles.”
Josh was the one member of Mikhail's seethe that I thought
of as a friend. The others I put up with out of self-preservation. I had no
chance of survival if I wasn't part of a seethe. They provided support and
safety during rough times, which already proved to be a necessity in my life. I
just didn't like it. I'd been a lone wolf—forgive the phrasing—for such a long
time, I wasn't sure if I could conform to a group again.
“C’mon. You should start getting ready for tonight,” said
Josh, still keeping his voice soft; he knew how easily I was startled.
He gently placed his hands on my shoulders and guided me
away from the computer. Josh had spent many hours, days even, helping me
recover. He'd even gotten me wireless internet so that he could work from my
apartment. Though Josh had been a jazz pianist when he was human, he was
presently trying his hand at trading stocks online. So far, he was barely
paying his own bills.
Granted, he had fifty years of savings he could tap into if
necessary.
I forced my shoulders to relax under his hands. I felt a
little better after getting the story down on paper, but not well enough to
face this night. It was my Joining—a short ceremony to finalize my initiation
into the seethe, followed by “one hell of a party,” or at least that's how Josh
had described it. Whoever had been put in charge of my Joining had decided to make
it a masquerade. Josh was very excited, while I was considering ways to run
away. This would be my first time out of my apartment since the attempted
sacrifice; attempted, as I didn't technically die.
Nevertheless, a powerful warlock had been freed.
I watched Josh move to my closet and pull out the dress
someone had purchased for me. I took it and silently went to my bathroom to put
it on. Josh stayed, knowing I'd need help with the laces. I slipped into it,
the girlish part of me reveling in the stiff fabric that draped from my hips in
heaps of emerald loveliness. The bust was tight and strapless. I held it on as
I came out of the bathroom and allowed Josh to lace up the back, which left my
pale skin half revealed to the small of my back. Just as he finished, a small,
half transparent puppy burst through my closed door.
It bounced around the room, ignoring Tereus as the cat
jumped on to the bed and hissed at it. It came up to where Josh and I stood and
tried to bite the lower folds of my dress. We both turned away and ignored it.
The ghost dog had been haunting Josh ever since we dug up its twisted mistress,
who had chosen to be buried with her dog.
“You look beautiful. I got something to go with it. Now this
is just to borrow for the night. So don't lose it,” he added before opening a
felt box.
I felt just like Julia Roberts as I stared at the
overwhelming display of silver, diamonds, and emeralds lying on the cushion.
I smiled reflexively. “It's gorgeous! Josh, where did you
get it?”
“I know a guy.”
I smiled again, the movement feeling unnatural, and turned
around so he could help me into the ornate necklace. Josh—or a sick display of
diamonds—was the only person who could make me smile.
“Now let’s get your hair and makeup done before your date arrives.”
I tensed at the thought. I couldn't help it. Nik had
insisted on escorting me to my Joining. He claimed he had the right,
considering how much work he put into keeping me alive. Never mind that he'd
wanted to kill me himself when I was first turned, or the fact that Josh had
asked me first.
I’d a long list of enemies at the time, and Nikolai
considered me a threat to the seethe's safety. He wasn't wrong, but Mikhail had
chosen to protect me, mostly just to piss off Richard, the Lacey seethe's primus.
Evidently, when you're a couple hundred years old, that's enough motivation to
risk countless lives. I didn't get it.
“It'll be okay,” Josh said as he pushed me toward the
bathroom.
My curling iron was already plugged in and hot. I sat on the
toilet lid while he curled my hair. The ghost dog ran into the bathroom, lost
control on the linoleum, and skidded through the edge of my tub. I couldn’t
tell if it had any control when it interacted with the world around it or not,
but occasionally it couldn’t go through a wall or chair leg. Today, evidently,
it was the floor that it connected with.
“Where'd you learn to curl a girl's hair?” I asked,
immensely grateful that he could.
“I studied a few years of college theater. I know my way
around a bobby-pin.”
I laughed. It felt good. I hadn't spent much of the autumn
laughing. In fact, this might have been the first time. It wasn't that I was
depressed. Rather, I couldn't remember what was funny and what wasn't.
Josh wanted me to allow Jordan and Chloe to visit—my only
two friends from my human days. The problem was, I knew if I saw them I
wouldn't be able to carry on a normal conversation, not to mention I would
probably kill them. Josh had made the annoyingly accurate point that if I
didn't start getting out, I'd never recover the rest of my memories, or gain
any control over my blood lust.
Even so, there was another problem, and one I refused to
mention to Josh. To see Jordan and Chloe, I would have to see Nik. They were
now both Nikolai's sheep: Jordan because he'd stumbled upon us after I'd been
horribly wounded, and Nik had to control him; Chloe because Jordan wanted her
to be in on the secret. They now spent half their time with Nikolai in his
mansion.
It would take a lot more than my love for Jordan and Chloe
to get me into Nik's mansion again. I
absolutely loathed Nik. It wasn't just his wanting to kill me when I first came
to the seethe. In fact, I was mostly over that. After all, he had saved my life
many times since that initial introduction.
It was something else entirely.
I knew that he had, at one time during his long life,
sacrificed one of my ancestors in an attempt to raise Sedgrave, the maniacal
though charismatic, warlock who could create daywalkers. And that was just a
parlor trick; Sedgrave’s real skill was manipulating politics—a much more
subtle and terrifying gift.
Still, Nik had tried to bring him back to life, and had
never mentioned it to any of us when we were actively trying to prevent that
from happening. I hadn't told anyone that I had seen him in one of my freaky
ritual visions. In fact, no one even knew I had been transported back through
all the other attempts at raising Sedgrave.
I couldn't figure out how to bring the subject up. In lieu
of coming up with a plan, I had chosen to avoid him—until tonight. I couldn't
get out of it. The party was for me, and I couldn't tell him he couldn't escort
me. He'd saved my life after all; he'd earned the right. Besides, if I refused
him, he'd want to know why, and I wasn't ready for that conversation.
“You doing okay?” Josh asked as he finished tucking the
delicate curls of red hair into a beautiful design.
“I guess. Don't really want to do this.”
“I know. But you need to. You need to start going out, being
around people.”
“People?” I asked.
“You know what I mean.”
“Josh... I can't even remember what my mother looked like...
or if I liked chocolate chip cookies when I was human. I'm not sure I even know
who I am anymore... and you want me to go out and... mingle?”
Josh grabbed my knee and spun me around on the toilet lid
until I faced him.
“Then spend time with those who do know you,” he urged.
“We'll remind you.”
“Who, other than you, knows me in the seethe?”
“Nik.”
I waved my hand, dismissing the idea. Josh took me by the
shoulders and gave me a gentle shake.
“What is this thing with you and Nik?”
“It's nothing,” I answered quietly.
“That's a load of bullshit. Whatever it is, you need to talk
to him. Get it out in the open. He can't figure out why you've avoided him for
the past two months.”
I stood up, pushing Josh out of the bathroom so that I could
put my own makeup on. I wasn't sure why I needed makeup when I would be adding
a mask, but Josh seemed to think it was necessary. I was halfway through the
process when Josh opened my front door.
“Fine, be stubborn. I'm out. Nik will be here soon. See ya
there.”
To Continue reading Sucked Away, Book 2 of the Series that Just Plain Sucks visit amazon.
To read the final book in the series, watch for Well, That Sucked, coming out Fall of 2015.
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