Ever Dark: The Vampire King Awakens by X. Aratare

Author:X. Aratare [Aratare, X.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Raythe Reign Publishing
Published: 2022-11-24T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

Break of Day

In the cold and the dark, Julian swore he heard humming in his head. A sweet humming in a male voice, rather like a lullaby. It wrapped around his mind almost in an embrace. He drew his knees against his chest and tightened his arms around them as he shivered. It was chilly in the lowest level of a parking garage in the abandoned building.

The building boom had come to Raven’s Cross and then busted rather spectacularly leaving several half-finished high rises dotting the downtown. It was to the nearest of these from the hospital that he had fled as the sun began to rise. He’d wanted to go home, but he hadn’t dared, because maybe Balthazar or his Acolytes would be waiting for him there.

You must hide yourself from the light. Find a place that is black and secure. Curl down there and sleep. You will wake again when the night reigns.

He didn’t know if this was Daemon’s voice or his own mind figuring out that sunlight was very bad for him now. A sunbeam had passed across his shoulder blades and even through the material of his shirt he had felt his skin ache.

That’s one myth about vampires proven true. Can’t be out in sunlight. Check.

He’d run down trash strewn stairwells to the lowest level of the structure. Concrete floors, ceilings and walls. Dirt surrounding the whole thing. No light. His heart rate had lowered as the darkness seemed to bathe his still twitching skin. Even though there was no light down in the bowels of this underground parking structure, he could still see as if it were bright daylight. He saw too much actually.

His eyes flickered at the slightest of movements. Often it was just a piece of trash, stirring in the breeze, that had caught his attention. He didn’t understand why or how fast food wrappers seemed to inhabit abandoned places. Other times when a movement caught his attention, it was a rat, whose eyes glowed redly at him, reminding him of bright jewels.

And like Daemon’s eyes. But they are volcanic red. The red of deep fires in the earth.

He’d shook himself when his thoughts had drifted to Daemon once more. His conflicted feelings were an anathema to him. A confounding anathema. He had to handle things on his own. He’d always done so. He didn’t need Daemon to hold his hand!

So he’d found a corner, as far away from the stairs as possible, and hunkered down on a flattened cardboard box. Though the box smelled faintly of liquor, his nose told him that no homeless person had taken to squatting down there, not in a long time anyways. He was alone. He was as safe as he could be right now

Balthazar has people in the hospital. Humans serving him, Julian thought. Who is to say that he doesn’t have people in the police department, too? Who am I kidding? Of course, he does! The cops that talked to me about Mom and Dad likely worked for him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.