Hunted Blood: A Love Triangle Vampire Romance (Beautiful Innocence Book 2)

Chapter 22 – Lorianna

I groan and smack my forehead into the open pages of the library book laid out on the table in front of me. I keep coming back to this little room where the librarian lets me read the stored books on witchcraft, but in two weeks of searching, none of the books I find bring me any closer to answers about what happened after the Witch Queen Daciana died.

The librarian had no idea what I was talking about when I asked her about that part of history. I showed her the chapter of the book that had the ripped page, and she’d scoured the preceding lines of text with incredible interest, just the way I had. Then, noting her enthusiasm, I asked if she could help me find another source that would have the same information, possibly with the most important part intact. So far, even our combined efforts have resulted in no leads.

Maybe it’s time I ask Marionne and Samira what they think. Or maybe I should have asked Alex when I had the chance.

Could Luke know? He’s a hunter.

But it’s a hunter’s job to kill vampires, not know everything about vampire history.

I’d hate for him to ask me why I care so much because, inevitably, the conversation will turn back to Alex. Alex with his easygoing smile and soft hands and—No.

I won’t let him keep consuming my mind whenever Luke isn’t here to distract me. Alex and I are over, that’s done—we never were together or had a chance. My relationship with Luke is great. Better than great. One could say hot, steamy, and perfect.

Yet I still fidget whenever he mentions Alex or what happened in the graveyard. Because, honestly, I have no idea. Everything Alex told me says he can’t be as old as Aurelius, but according to Luke, turning into mist, moving so fast you can’t track him? Those are just some of the powers associated with Ancient vampires.

I cross my arms and let my chin sink between them, propping my neck up while I think. Before, this obsession started as a way to prove that Alex isn’t as wicked as he thinks he is. Since I haven’t heard a word from him since that night, I don’t know what to believe anymore. I have no choice but to take him at his word at this point—I won’t see him again until I give up Luke and the possibility of working with vampire hunters completely, at least according to him.

With everything I know, I won’t be able to protect myself from Aurelius for long. I have to keep searching for a way to defeat him. If Alex won’t do it for me, I have no choice but to rely on myself and no one else.

But I still wish he was here, even if it was just as a friend, like he used to be.

I wish Alex had been at the small memorial my aunts held for my dad a few days ago, where we burned candles in Dad’s honor and shared stories about him. I’d insisted we held the ceremony at dusk because of the slightest possibility that Alex might come. Somehow, even though he never did arrive, it still felt like he was with us in spirit when the stars watched over us from above. Despite everything he said to me, I know Alex would have wanted to say goodbye to his friend, too.

Yawning, I reach into my bag to take out my water bottle, but it snags on a string at the bottom. Reaching to the bottom, I take the small cloth bag the bottle is stuck on out at the same time. I frown, rolling the bag in my hand while I take a sip of water.

This is the bag Alex gave me the last time I saw him. Carefully, I pull the drawstring and then shake out the pieces of my mother’s necklace onto the pages of the book in front of me. From my pocket, I fish out a plastic baggie I took from my aunts to carry the pieces I took with me when I left home, and I dump those with the others.

Humming, I sort through the pieces, trying to shift them back into their proper places. They don’t quite fit right, so I change my angle, and then two rubies touch each other.

They flash with fiery light. Red flares around the jewels, and liquid gold streams around the necklace pieces. It’s as if the necklace is a living being that knows exactly how it should look; they begin to put themselves back together like pieces of a puzzle missing their companions. My heart beats faster as I study the intricate detail of the ruby flowers reforged by magic. The necklace glows faintly in the dim light of my room, emitting a soft hum from its centerpiece—two large rubies that are the hearts of two flowers, but glowing like this, they’re also like two eyes staring right into me.

Something clicks in my mind. These stones are not ordinary jewels; these stones carry power beyond comprehension. Every ounce of doubt and uncertainty slips away from me like fog when morning comes.

I take the necklace in my hands. In the same instant as that realization, I know in the depths of my heart that this is what I was missing all along. The necklace put together and my magic strengthening every day, I can finally look back into my memories of the day Mom died.

With trembling hands, I drape the necklace around my neck and let it droop into the hollow of my throat. Each of the rubies sends a thrill of energy through my veins in waves, pounding at my soul and awakening something inside. I concentrate on the necklace, its aura radiating around me like a shield from all harm and harms of the outside world. I feel stronger than before, capable of anything, and I welcome the necklace’s strength in me.

Closing my eyes, I focus on the power of the magical stones as they guide me into the past, opening my memories like a doorway I was waiting to find. Ancient magic, previously dormant, thrums through the necklace and into me like rivers of starlight cascading through me and banishing shadows obscuring my memories of the car crash.

When the comforting light embraces me, I sink into it, relying on it to keep me from falling too deep into my mind.

Smudged color swarms around me, and I blink until I’m brought into a hazy view from the back seat of a vehicle. Everything around me has a dreamlike quality, a lot like the bright innocence that I looked at the world with when I was a child.

That’s what I am in this dream: a child in the back seat of the car, my legs swinging along to the beat of a Britney Spears song.

In the front of the car, my mom’s long, strawberry-blonde curls fall around her shoulders and bounce when she glances over her shoulder to look at me. “Are you excited, honey?”

“Ponies!” I wave two stuffed horses in the air proudly.

“That’s right. When we get to the horse farm, you can pick any pony you’d like.”

“Will they have one that looks just like Ginger?” I hold the black horse up closer to Mom.

“They might. Is that the kind of pony you want?”

“Mhm, if I get a pony, she has to be like Ginger since she’s going to win the race.”

Mom chuckles and adjusts the volume of the radio. “What race is that?”

“Every race! I’m going to be the bestest racehorse-er ever!”

“Oh, sweetheart, I don’t know about winning races, but you can learn how when you’re older if you really want. Let’s start with learning to ride first. What do you say?”

“If I have to,” I mutter.

Mom glances back at me again, a knot of concern on her brow. “What was that, honey? I couldn’t—”

Metal smashes into metal, and there’s the sound of crunching. Then I’m thrown back against the seat, screaming. My lungs burn, and everything turns blurry and dark. Gravity shifts and torments me in the blackness, locking me in the sensation of falling and falling, but I don’t know where I will land.

Then I hit something hard, and everything goes still.

“It’s okay, Miss Lorianna,” a soft, safe voice murmurs. “You’re safe now. I’ll protect you. I—I promise I’ll protect you from him.”

Warm hands cradle my cold, shaking body, but I can’t see anything. Not until the blackness swirls again, suctioning me out of that memory. With a gasp, I feel the necklace’s magic working on me again, a gentle, comforting presence that wraps around me in a safety blanket.

The next instant, that blanket is ripped away, and I’m thrown back into darkness.

Screaming, I try to connect with my body again, to feel the weight of myself in the chair, but those sensations are whisked away until there is nothing left but the dark.

Air feels trapped in my lungs, and I turn around and around, trying to breathe, trying to find a way out. There’s nothing, no one, and I can’t feel or touch anything.

“Hello?” I shout into the void. “Can anyone hear me? Hello? Am I dreaming?”

I turn around again. Two evil, red eyes peer at me through the veil of black.

“And the cat turned around, claw striking to hit the quiet, terrified mouse,” a voice whispers from the blackness.

My heart thuds faster, and fear coils around my stomach. I swallow hard, steeling myself. “I’m not terrified at all,” I say with an air of bravery. My voice shakes a little, but it still sounds steady and strong in the darkness. “You’re just a man hiding in the dark, creeping in a young woman’s head instead of minding your own business. If anyone should be afraid, it’s you.”

A sinister laugh echoes in the darkness before the red eyes move closer to me. A flash of gold light reverberates through the dark near the hidden man, and five streaks of light cut down toward me like a cat’s claws.

Tendrils of darkness wrap around my feet, tripping me. Cursing, I fall to my knees, trying to free myself but unable to move as the claws of sinister light slash toward me. I grit my teeth, raising my hand toward the incoming attack in defiance.

Red magic flares at my throat, and the rubies send a whirl of magic around me. The gold light crashes against the shield, and both dissipate at once, leaving a halo of light around me to illuminate the darkness. In the void of space that I thought was nothingness, my feet find purchase on smooth black glassy floor.

“The mouse foiled the cat. She was no mouse, but a witch,” the voice murmurs, drifting closer, “a witch who stole the collar the cat wished to hang around his noble throat. Who are you, little witch?”

My hand flies to my mother’s necklace, my fingers clutching it to me. There’s something oddly familiar about his voice, and my mind races, trying to figure out where I’ve heard him before.

“I could ask you the same question.”

The red eyes narrow, and a wisp of golden light whirl through the dark, collecting into a singular orb just below the eyes. Collectively, the three glows move closer to me, and a black shape steps into the ring left over by the magical attack. Shadows cling to the form of an unnaturally tall man, his red eyes sunken into dark hollows in his face. Without the blackness to obscure him, they lose the red glow, his eyes becoming dark, beady dots on either side of his long, hooked nose.

In his hand rests the golden light, shimmering around the yellow gem attached to a ring on his finger. My eyes are drawn to it, and the rubies glow with pulsing light that tries to pull me closer.

But I don’t move. I wasn’t afraid before, but I am now.

“I am Aurelius Antonius, the Second Vampire, Lord of All Living and Dead, and you will KNEEL before me.”

The ferocity of his voice rings through the space, shuddering toward me with such force that he disturbs the air, sending threads of my hair tumbling in waves behind me. I stand my ground, but my head is spinning, working through my memories to try and remember where I’ve seen him before.

I let the rubies on the necklace dangle into my palm. An electric jolt burns through my fingers. “No,” I whisper. Then again, louder, stronger, “No, Aurelius, I will never bow to you.”

“Then you will meet death.”

His body dissolves into millions of motes of black light that swarm through the space around me, slapping against my skin and gnawing at my bones. I swat them away, and flashes of magic manifest around me as the necklace’s power activates to protect me.

But with every strike, its power wanes.

The first mote of blackness bites into my wrist, and I scream as I’m ripped out of the darkness and thrown back toward the fluorescent lights of the study room. Panting, I’m covered in a cold sweat.

I wince at the burning heat coming from the necklace around my throat. Prying its heat from my skin, I hear Aurelius’ voice in my head one last time.

“I’m coming for you, Lorianna Monroe. Count your hours, your seconds, for when I find you, you will never see the sun again.”