Forsaken (Vampire Awakenings, Book 10) Read online

  FORSAKEN

  Brenda K. Davies

  Copyright © 2019 Brenda K. Davies

  All rights reserved.

  Distributed by Smashwords

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

  Books written under the penname Brenda K. Davies

  The Alliance Series

  Eternally Bound (Book 1)

  Bound by Vengeance (Book 2)

  Bound by Darkness (Book 3)

  Bound by Passion (Book 4)

  Bound by Torment (Book 5) Coming Spring 2020

  Hell on Earth Series

  Hell on Earth (Book 1)

  Into the Abyss (Book 2)

  Kiss of Death (Book 3)

  The Edge of the Darkness (Book 4) Coming 2020

  The Road to Hell Series

  Good Intentions (Book 1)

  Carved (Book 2)

  The Road (Book 3)

  Into Hell (Book 4)

  The Vampire Awakenings Series

  Awakened (Book 1)

  Destined (Book 2)

  Untamed (Book 3)

  Enraptured (Book 4)

  Undone (Book 5)

  Fractured (Book 6)

  Ravaged (Book 7)

  Consumed (Book 8)

  Unforeseen (Book 9)

  Forsaken (Book 10)

  Relentless (Book 11) Coming 2020

  Historical Romance

  A Stolen Heart

  Books written under the penname Erica Stevens

  The Captive Series

  Captured (Book 1)

  Renegade (Book 2)

  Refugee (Book 3)

  Salvation (Book 4)

  Redemption (Book 5)

  Broken (The Captive Series Prequel)

  Vengeance (Book 6)

  Unbound (Book 7)

  The Coven Series

  Nightmares (Book 1)

  The Maze (Book 2)

  Dream Walker (Book 3)

  The Fire & Ice Series

  Frost Burn (Book 1)

  Arctic Fire (Book 2)

  Scorched Ice (Book 3)

  The Kindred Series

  Kindred (Book 1)

  Ashes (Book 2)

  Kindled (Book 3)

  Inferno (Book 4)

  Phoenix Rising (Book 5)

  The Ravening Series

  Ravenous (Book 1)

  Taken Over (Book 2)

  Reclamation (Book 3)

  The Survivor Chronicles

  Book 1: The Upheaval

  Book 2: The Divide

  Book 3: The Forsaken

  Book 4: The Risen

  CONTENTS

  Other books by the Author

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Epilogue

  Where to Find the Author

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  Julian stepped into the doorway of Aida’s room as she lifted a sweater. Tilting her head, she examined it before folding it and placing it in her suitcase. With her back to him, she didn’t realize he was there, so he took the time to appreciate the slender curve of her back and the black hair falling to her waist in curls.

  The sunlight streaming through the windows emphasized her ivory skin and curvaceous figure. With her heart-shaped face, she was a striking mix of beauty and innocence. Her fine-boned, delicate hands lifted a pair of jeans from the stack on the twin-sized bed and set them neatly in the suitcase.

  She was beautiful, and she was his, she just didn’t know it, and he didn’t know how to tell her. As he watched her pack, he didn’t know if he could ever tell her.

  She was leaving this world of vampires she’d been brutally tossed into and going back to her human world. For the past week, she’d talked endlessly about what college would be like, what she planned to do, and how she couldn’t wait to return to normal.

  He loved seeing her so happy when she’d had such little happiness since her kidnapping and captivity on the island, but he didn’t know how to let her go. He’d just found her. They’d only had a couple of months together, and he craved an eternity with her.

  He couldn’t ask that of her, not when she still bore the scars of what those bastards on the island did to her and not when her nightmares propelled her from bed almost every night. The idea of losing her made him want to tear everyone and everything in his path apart, but the idea of making her unhappy stopped all his destructive impulses.

  She was his, and that meant he would do everything in his power to ensure her happiness, even if it destroyed him.

  Unable to look at her anymore, he stared at the bare walls. There was something so un-teenager about the barren walls, and it had been like this before she started packing. The only personal thing she had in the room was a framed photo of her, Mollie, and their mom standing on a beach. Aida looked about fourteen or fifteen in the picture, Mollie was maybe twenty, and their mother wore a bandanna around her head.

  Their mother died of breast cancer when she was sixteen, and this was their last family photo together. Aida told him it was from the week they took their mom to Cape Cod to walk the beaches, explore the shops, and stuff themselves on seafood. It was the last summer their mother saw.

  When Aida told him this story, she had tears in her eyes as she gazed at the picture, but love made her face glow. He’d draped his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into him in the way she often did.

  He was aware she saw him as more of a friend or brother-like companion. He was happy to be what she needed because, after the island, she needed someone to lean on, and he would be there for her.

  Aida didn’t turn to look at Julian, but she knew he was behind her. She hadn’t heard him approach, but the subtle smell of allspice gave him away. Smiling, she folded another sweater and placed it in the suitcase before glancing over her shoulder.

  Tall and gangly, he leaned against the door as he watched her pack her suitcase for the thousandth time. For the past week, she’d p
acked and unpacked as she examined her selection of clothes and accessories over and over again.

  She was an East Coast girl; outside of movies and Google, she had no idea what living in Arizona would entail, but she couldn’t wait to find out. When Mollie caught her going through her things for the five hundredth time, she reminded her that she could always buy things later, but Aida couldn’t stop herself from going over the contents multiple times a day.

  It was anxiety more than anything. Before the island, she never dealt with anxiety, but it was a constant companion now. She was going back into a world that hadn’t treated her so kindly. Her chances of being kidnapped and hunted for sport by vamps again were pretty slim, but she was returning to the mortal world armed with the knowledge of the immortal one.

  Things would never be the same for her again. She loved the Byrnes and that Mollie and Mike were so happy and in love with each other, but she was scared to resume life in a world where vampires existed, and she couldn’t tell if someone was one or not.

  If one came after her again, they’d have a rude awakening, as she’d spent a fair amount of her summer learning self-defense from Julian. She’d also packed some pepper spray and knew how to use a weapon against a vamp. She would not go down without a fight.

  When Julian shifted and rested his hand against the frame, her eyes were drawn to the muscles in his biceps. Younger than most of his brothers, he wasn’t as thickly muscled as them, but she suspected that would change in a few years.

  She wasn’t sure if he was still growing or not; if he was, he would stop soon, and the rest of his body would catch up to his large hands and too big feet. His thin frame would fill out more, and he would start to look more like a man than a boy. Already, the scruff shadowing his jaw was getting thicker.

  From their time spent walking the woods, fishing, swimming, and drifting on rafts, the sun had bronzed his skin. Mike said Julian used to spend most of his time with his computers, and he still did spend some time with them, but he also enjoyed being outside with her.

  And she needed to be outside. After her captivity, it was difficult to be indoors for long periods. She didn’t know how she would deal with that and her nightmares in Arizona—more things to heap onto her growing anxiety—but she would figure it out because she had to go, even if it meant leaving everyone she cared about behind, including Julian.

  She tried not to think about it; otherwise, she might stay. So she focused on the way the sunlight brought out the lapis blue color of his eyes and the coal blackness of his hair. Boyish in so many ways, sometimes it was easy to forget he was technically a man, but he was eighteen like her.

  However, whereas she was leaving for college in the morning, he would remain with his family, and she was going to miss him so much. They’d spent a lot of time together since her rescue from the island, and he’d become her best friend, which was something she never had before. She didn’t count Mollie; her sister was family, and they would do anything for each other, but she’d never had close friends outside of her family, until Julian.

  She always had plenty of friends, but they were all in the same social circles, the popular girls. Some of them were great people, but some of the others were like sharks searching for the first sign of weakness. And when they saw the first drop of blood, they attacked.

  They pretended to like her, but behind her back, they gossiped about her. She knew that, because whenever one of the other girls in their group turned their back, they talked about her too.

  She wished she could say she wasn’t one of them, but that was a lie. She’d been as eager to hear about the latest downfall, who was doing who, and cheating on who, and fighting with who.

  She’d oohed and ahhed and giggled behind her hand, all while thinking, please don’t let me be next. But she was no longer that silly, stupid teenager who watched her mom die, never really known her father, and had no idea what she was doing with her life.

  Her time being held captive on an island and fed on by vampires changed her. She was never purposely cruel, but she’d been selfish. She could chalk it up to the fact most teens were selfish, but she knew the truth. She’d been afraid to go against the others, to stand out, to be different, because they would turn against her.

  While there were times she missed high school, she didn’t miss the minefield of high school politics or any of the girls she once considered her friends. She hadn’t reached out to any of them since coming to live with the Byrnes. And she wasn’t going to contact them when she left here either.

  Before her time on the island, she was going to attend college in Rhode Island, but plans changed. Some of the people she went to high school with were also going to the same college. Not wanting to run into any of them and have to come up with a reason why she never showed up for graduation or where she and Mollie abruptly moved to, she decided to attend college elsewhere.

  Thanks to Julian’s talent with a computer, her new college was in Arizona, and she was excited to go somewhere else and explore something new. Mollie was not thrilled she was going so far away, but she was happy for her.

  If Aida didn’t leave now, she might never leave, and though she’d never made a decision about her plans for when she grew up, she wanted to experience life and not become a hermit. Her knowledge of the supernatural and what she might encounter out there again petrified her, but she would not let fear rule her.

  “What’s up, J man?” she asked.

  “I came to see what you were doing,” he said.

  “Packing.” She waved a hand at her suitcase and the small pile of clothes beside it. “Want to help?”

  He covered the ten feet of space separating them in three strides. At six foot two, he was nine inches taller than her, and she tipped her head back to look at him. He smiled down at her, but she’d never seen the sadness in his eyes before.

  “Are you still looking forward to leaving?” Julian asked.

  “Yes, and I’m a little scared.” She’d never admit that to anyone else, but he was so easy to talk to, and he understood her.

  “Of what?” he asked.

  “Of… everything,” she admitted on a breath. “I always knew the world was big, but I didn’t realize how big until the island.”

  Julian ignored the burning need tearing through him when he rested his hand over hers. “You don’t have to go.”

  “Yes, I do. If I stay locked away here, I’ll never get the chance to experience all the things I’ve always dreamed about.”

  “You could wait and go in the winter or next year when you’re feeling more confident about it.”

  “If I don’t go now, I never will.”

  He understood, but he’d hoped she would stay a little longer. It might only make it worse for him if she did, but he would give anything for more time with her.

  “I’m being stupid,” she said as she moved her hand away from his and placed the jeans neatly in her suitcase. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “More nightmares?”

  He hated the forlorn look in her eyes, the quiver in her lower lip, and the way her golden-brown eyes darted away from him. Those eyes, more gold than brown, were the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “I didn’t see you go outside.”

  Somehow, he always knew when she woke from her nightmares and fled her house. She’d never been alone on the nights when she roamed the property in search of some way to escape her past. She couldn’t escape, of course, but having Julian by her side made her feel safer.

  “This is my third time repacking since 2:00 a.m. I don’t know what I’m going to do if I have a nightmare at college and I don’t have things to pack or you to walk with.”

  “Study,” he suggested.

  She laughed. “I’m eager to go back to school, but I doubt I’ll do much studying.”

  She liked learning, but studying had never been her strong suit. She was more of a just wing it kind of girl, and as long as
she passed, she didn’t care about her grades. Her GPA didn’t matter if she had a diploma in hand.

  “Who knows, maybe once I’m away from here, the nightmares will stop,” she said.

  “Why do you think that?”

  She gave a small, sad laugh. “It’s impossible to forget being tortured by vampires while surrounded by them.”

  Her words plunged a knife into his chest. “No one here would ever hurt you.”

  “I know, but I also know you’re all vampires. It’s a double-edged sword. I care for all of you, and I love Mollie, but being around vampires is a constant reminder of what happened to me. Maybe being surrounded by humans again will make the nightmares stop. I want a normal human life again.”

  “Aida,” he breathed and couldn’t resist brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. When she looked to him again, the misery in her eyes was like a punch to his gut. “I’m sure it will.”

  He suspected they both knew he lied. She was eager to get on with her life and move forward, and he couldn’t blame her. She was young and beautiful, and there was so much out there for her to see and experience, but no matter how far she went, she would never escape what those assholes did to her.

  “I’m going to miss everyone,” she said. “But I’m looking forward to starting new and being around people who have no idea about vampires.”

  And one of those people might become the husband who gave her the normal life she sought. His jaw clenched as jealousy and anger churned like lava in his belly. He’d considered following her to Arizona, staying in the shadows, and making sure she stayed safe.

  It would make him a full-on stalker if he did, but he’d be okay with that if she were safe. However, he didn’t know how he would react to seeing her with another man. If she fell in love with someone else, he might not be able to keep himself under control, and if he killed someone she loved, it would destroy her. And he could never do that to her.

  No, he had to let her go live her life and her dreams. Vampires had already taken so much from her; he would not steal more. He’d planned to give her time to live her life before broaching the subject of being mates with her.