Carved From Obsidian: | A Dark Paranormal Romance (The Founders Duology Book 1)

Chapter One

Even for five in the afternoon on a Tuesday, the music was loud. The rhythmic thumping of the bass blended seamlessly with the constant chatter of the people who filled the bar.

This wasn’t a usual Tuesday. This was more of a Friday-after-work vibe, and indeed most of the people here wore their corporate clothes. Suits in blacks, greys and blues, now unbuttoned at the waist. White blouses, ruffled and untucked after a day of work. Black dresses and skirts, inching up thighs as the wearers moved onto their third or fourth beer. Shiny, pointed shoes clicking across the tiled floor from table to bar and back again. Tuesday or Friday, it didn’t matter. The offer of half price drinks and free music was enough to draw a crowd in any City Central bar.

Soph sipped her wine, half listening to the conversation at her own table. Her boss, Bradley, sat to her right. His boss sat on his other side and the two of them had their heads close, arguing over something work related, no doubt, even though they’d agreed as a group not to discuss work this afternoon. Across the table, Rosie, their team intern, had gathered several of the designers around her and was orchestrating an elaborate video that would inevitably end up on social media.

Feet swinging idly beneath her, Soph’s attention snagged on a pair in a corner booth. She’d been watching them on and off for a while. A man and a woman meeting for the first time. She’d been in the booth first with a few colleagues and he in the next one over with his own group. Soph had seen the first interaction - him leaning over the top of the booth to ask a question. She’d laughed.

Now, an hour later, both their colleagues had left, and he’d bought her a drink. They sat close, his arm stretched across the back of the booth, her hand idly touching his chest when they laughed together. Soph wondered if they’d hook up and go home together tonight. Would it be a one night thing? A regret when they woke up sober and had to head to work tomorrow? Or would that laughter last beyond the beers? Would they meet again next week and the week after until they were staying over at each other’s places on weekends, until they took a trip down south to meet her family, until they came back to this bar one anniversary and he proposed, until -

“Soph?”

She startled from her daydreaming and glanced across the table at Rosie, who was tapping her watch.

“Didn’t you say you had to leave at five for a family dinner?”

Soph clicked the button on her phone, illuminating the screen. Five-Fifteen.

“Ah shit.” She threw herself off the stool, grabbing her handbag from beneath the table and flying for the door. “See you tomorrow!” She called over her shoulder.

“Bye, Soph!” Her team called back in unison as she pushed through the crowd by the bar and spilled out onto the street.

Five-Fifteen. Fucking Founders. She’d be late for the train. Still, she hoisted the too-big handbag over her shoulder - a gift from her well-meaning but mostly absent mother - and hurried down the street towards the train station. Corporates spilled out of their office buildings, clogging the street, making it difficult to move with any sort of haste.

Cursing under her breath, Soph bumped into shoulders, apologising to those who cast her dirty looks. Her handbag came off her shoulder again and she rifled through it, looking for her phone.

Loose crystals chinked together in the bottom of her bag, uncharged and useless as rocks in their current state. Her hand brushed over something sharp and with a hiss, she pulled out her silver and black athame. Blood welled on her thumb and she stuck it in her mouth as she glared at the little knife. It wasn’t the first time she’d cut herself on the damned thing and she made a mental note to buy a sheath for it next time she went to Rama’s Occult.

The entrance to the train station loomed to her left, and she swung into it, allowing the flow of foot traffic to take her down to the platform… Just in time to see the last carriage of her ride disappear into the tunnel.

“Fucking dammit!” She pivoted and raced back upstairs and out onto the street, rummaging once more in her bag. Finally, she found her phone. She dialled a number and put it to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Luie,” Soph said without preamble, waving apologetically as she knocked a drink out of a woman’s hands. “I missed the train. I’m going to be late.”

“Again?” Her cousin sounded exasperated. “Would it be so hard to leave work five minutes early for once in your life, Soph?”

“Gotta go, I can see my bus.” Soph ended the call before her cousin could say anything else and tried to shove her phone back in her bag as she darted out onto the street. Indeed, her bus was coming.

Her phone slipped from her fingers, cracking onto the pavement and as she bent to grab it, her bag fell from her shoulder, spilling crystals and gum wrappers across the asphalt.

“Founders, dammit!” She crouched to snatch the glittering stones back into her bag when a horn bellowed from her left, deafening, soul stealing. Her heart dropped before she even glanced up to see the truck hurtling towards her, brakes screeching.

“Fuck.”

The word dropped from her lips, and she could do nothing except wait for the impact.

The impact came, but not in the way she expected. One moment she was on the road, the grill of the truck so close she could see the dead bugs stuck to it. The next moment, she hit the pavement. Briefly, so briefly she could have imagined it, a man with dark hair was braced over her, hand cradling her head before it smacked against the hard concrete too, and then he was gone and her vision filled with a sea of legs in slacks and skirts. Blacks, greys, blues.

“Are you okay?” A woman reached out, helping Soph to her feet. “The sidewalk here is unstable. You’ve definitely got to watch your feet!”

“Yes, yes, thank you.” Soph accepted her handbag from a man who kindly scooped it up for her. Wide eyed, she stared back at the street where the truck had just been and was now further up the road. She could almost believe she’d imagined the whole thing, save the couple of crystals still scattered on the road.

She’d been rescued. Someone with impossible speed had intervened with fate and had plucked her from the certain grasp of death. No one had seen, no one could understand the violent shiver that ran up her spine or the sweat beading on her brow or the bile burning up her throat.

Someone supernatural had saved her. And that someone was likely a vampire.