Chapter One

The scene in front of my eyes horrified me, and yet, I couldn’t help the feeling of elation spreading through my body. Quinten knelt down beside the still woman, and his mouth was stained red with her blood. That thought should have repulsed me and, in a small way, it did. But, I couldn’t help but be happy that he wasn’t gone from my life forever.

Our eyes were locked on one another, and I all could do was say his name, over and over again. I was convinced that he’d disappear any second, and I’d wake up alone in bed, sobbing for the man I knew to be dead.

He looked unsure of anything, as if he didn’t recognize me. How was that even possible? Quinten was my soul mate; my heart had shattered into a thousand pieces when he died. After Ray had taken me home, I felt lost, and nothing had made me feel better.

Had Quinten not felt any of the pain I had?

Quinten wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, looked down, and licked it clean of blood. I repressed a shudder of disgust. Without even a second glance at the woman he’d probably just killed, Quinten stood, and started walking toward me.

“Quinten?”

He cocked his head to the side. I was right, he didn’t recognize me. He stopped in his tracks, unsure of what to do.

“Quinten, it’s me, Alanna.”

There was absolutely no recognition on his face, and I bit my lip to keep from bursting into tears. I’d endured the death of my soul mate, only to have my hope renewed, and now it had been ripped away from me again.

Were Quinten and I not meant to be together after all? Was fate trying to destroy any chance I had of actual happiness?

I took a step forward, an idea forming in my mind. Werewolves bonded by kissing; maybe that would help him understand who I was, and who we were to each other. All I had to do was get close enough to him, and press my lips to his.

Did I want to kiss him though? Quinten was obviously a vampire now; I’d interrupted his feeding on a helpless woman. What kind of man was he now?

I didn’t have time to make a decision.

Something slammed into me, knocking me to the ground. Fingers scrabbled for my throat, trying to claw me or choke the life from me, I wasn’t sure which. I reached for the hands, trying to keep them from my eyes.

I was so focused on Quinten I hadn’t even seen the other vampire in the clearing. How stupid could I have been after everything we’d gone through?

The vampire leaned down, grabbed my wrist, and bit down into the tender flesh there. I bit back a scream of pain, and brought my knee up into his stomach. He grunted in pain, but didn’t release my wrist from his mouth.

The pressure around my throat increased, and I struggled to draw in a breath.

Suddenly, a hand appeared in my field of vision. It wrapped itself around the vampire’s throat, and hauled him off of me. I choked, and rubbed my sore throat. Sitting up, I saw Quinten throw the vampire across the clearing.

He crouched down protectively in front of me. “She’s mine,” he hissed warningly.

The other vampire charged, intent on finishing me off. Quinten met him head on, and the two collided with a sound like thunder. He swiped at Quinten, who ducked, and slammed his hand into the vampire’s face. Blood spurted from his nose, and he glared in silent hatred at the two of us.

“What is she to you?”

Quinten paused. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “But I know she’s important.”

The other vampire sneered. “What possible importance could this mutt have to you?”

Quinten growled deep in his chest and, for the first time in my life, I was scared of my best friend. He wasn’t the sweet, charming, caring boy that I’d fallen in love with. He was a predator, a hunter, and he had absolutely no idea just how wonderful he used to be.

What was I supposed to do?

Quinten glanced back at me, and the other vampire darted forward with a feral snarl. He caught Quinten by surprise, and the two fell back, with the other vampire on top and at an advantage. This other vampire was obviously older and more experienced than Quinten, who had only been turned for a few days.

He needed help.

I jumped to my feet, and dove at the other vampire. I landed on his back, wrapped my arm around his throat, and hauled him off of Quinten. He turned on me, and slugged me across the face, knocking me back against the ground.

He took a knife from his pocket, and I wondered for a moment why a vampire would need a weapon other than their strength. When he turned and lunged at Quinten, I realized what he was doing.

He was trying to stake Quinten through the heart!

I was on my feet in an instant, and charging after him. In that moment I realized that, monster or not, Quinten was the love of my life, and I would die before I let him get hurt again.

I reached him too late though. The vampire was already in front of Quinten, and was stabbing at every available inch of his body. Quinten dodged the first three thrusts, and stepped the wrong direction, right into the fourth.

The knife buried itself in his chest, missing his heart by less than an inch. Vampires were strong, fast, and amazing healers, but they weren’t invincible.

“No!” I screamed, ramming my shoulder into the other vampire. I’d just lost Quinten and then gotten him back, I wouldn’t lose him a second time.

The vampire snarled at me, and he swiped at my throat with his nails, forcing me to back away from him. The knife was still embedded in Quinten’s chest, and it was useless to the vampire now.

Quinten was slumped on the ground, and I could see his face was quickly draining of color, and a large dark red wet spot had started to spread across his chest. If I didn’t act fast he’d be dead soon. Could I survive losing him again?

The vampire rushed forward and slammed into me, flinging me across the clearing. I landed on a branch, which snapped, and I winced. At least it hadn’t been my arm or back that was broken.

I reached behind me and grabbed the branch. It was an inch thick, and the end had broken off in a point.

Perfect.

I got to my feet shakily, and ran back to help Quinten. The vampire had his hand twisted in Quinten’s hair, and his head was yanked back. His throat was exposed, and the bloody knife was in his hands. He must have ripped it from Quinten’s chest.

I threw my entire weight into the tackle, sending us down into the dirt. Quinten landed on his back, and I couldn’t help but notice the ground beside him was stained with blood. His blood.

The vampire struggled beneath me, but I raised the stick, and slammed it down into his chest. There was a wet hissing noise as his heart popped, and blood spurted everywhere. His face, hands, and throat began to shrivel like a prune, and his skin took on a grayish hue. It took almost a full minute for him to die, and when I was sure he was finished, I kicked him away from me.

I turned my attention to Quinten, who was lying unmoving on his back. For a second, I was terrified that he was dead again, but I quickly dismissed that thought. I would have felt him die again. It would have broken me beyond repair.

I knelt down beside him, and thrust my still bleeding wrist against his mouth. “Drink from me, please,” I begged.

He didn’t respond at first but, when I tried to pull my wrist away to try something else, he latched onto it with his fangs, and he began to drink. The feeling of having my blood drawn by Quinten was without a doubt the most pleasurable sensation I’d ever felt, and could ever hope to feel.

With Eli, it had been disgusting, painful, terrifying, and brutal.

This was amazing, sensual, pleasurable, and beautiful.

I felt myself curl into Quinten’s side, and my hand fisted in his hair, pulled him as close as possible. A moan escaped my lips, and the feeling was just so good that I couldn’t even feel embarrassed about it. This moment was just so perfect.

It took me a few seconds to realize just how much blood he was taking from me.

His cheeks were red, and he wasn’t in pain anymore. The knife wound had healed over, and everything else he was taking now was extra. I was losing a dangerous amount of blood.

“Quinten, stop.”

He sucked harder, trying to get as much of my blood as possible. I tried to use my free hand to unlock his jaws from around my wrist, but it was like moving a statue. He was fastened tight, and the only thing that could get him to stop was his conscience.

Did he even have one now?

My eyes began to feel heavy, and my breathing was fast, shallow, and labored. My brain was becoming fuzzy, and I finally realized that this was the closest I’d ever been to death before, and that was saying something.

The ironic part was the man that I loved and would have died for was the one killing me.

Strangely, I couldn’t have asked for a better death. If I had to go, I wanted to be with Quinten when it happened.

Would he mourn me when he realized what it was that he’d done?

“No!”

Someone ran into the clearing, screaming with horror. Her voice was familiar yet alien to me but, for some reason, it made me feel better about everything that was happening.

“Quinten, stop!” She ordered, striding into the clearing.

He reacted to her voice. It seemed to break him out of the trance my blood had put him under, and he was startled when he saw me, lying half dead on the floor of the clearing.

He let go of my wrist. “Alanna?”

So, he finally remembered me.

“Alanna!” His voice was frantic now, and he was leaning over me anxiously. “Look at me please, god, I’m so sorry.”

The woman was nearer now, and I could practically feel her anxiousness. “I told you. You have to know when to stop!” The woman nearly shrieked. “Give her some of you blood,” she ordered.

Using his fangs, he bit into his wrist, and pressed it to my mouth. “I don’t know how much of my own I can spare,” he said regretfully. “Give her some of yours.”

I wrapped my mouth around Quinten’s blood, and it was the most amazing thing I’d ever tasted. Werewolves didn’t particularly enjoy drinking blood, but this was different than if I’d fed from some animal. Quinten was my soul mate, my reason for living, and I could tell that he remembered that now.

I drank from his wrist for almost a full minute, until I noticed he was swaying gently. I’d given him my blood so he could heal, not so he could drain himself for me.

I pulled away and he frowned. “Alanna, keep drinking, I’ll be fine.”

“She’s had enough. She needs rest, and when she wakes up later she’ll be hungry. There’s nothing you can do now except wait.”

I finally recognized the woman’s voice, and I realized that it wasn’t just filled with concern. It was filled with love.

“Mom?” I asked, as my eyes closed tiredly.

*****

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was Quinten’s face staring worriedly at me. He smiled thankfully, “Thank god, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

I groaned, and sat up. My entire body ached, and my brain pounded in my head. “Like crap. But that’s nothing new. I’ve had a rough time lately.”

He chuckled weakly. “You can sure say that again.”

I smiled. “You remember me now?”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah, I do. Alanna, I’m sorry for what happened. I never should have taken so–”

I threw my arms around him and pressed my mouth against his, cutting off whatever he’d been about to say. He wrapped his arms tightly around my waist and pulled me as close as possible. His lips moved against mine in perfect sync, and I felt our bond explode, growing even stronger than it had been before.

Someone cleared their throat, and I pulled away. I looked over at the woman standing off to our side, and I narrowed my eyes at her. She looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties, but I knew she was older than that. She was slightly taller than me, with a heart-shaped face, waist-length auburn hair, and dark blue eyes.

My eyes.

It couldn’t be, though. They found her in pieces. Ray identified her remains. “It’s not possible. You’re dead.”

Carmen Moore stared at me. “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.”

“Do not call me baby!” I shouted.

“Alanna–” Quinten began.

I cut him off. “Don’t. There’s nothing she can say that will make what she did ok. I’ve spent the last ten years of my life thinking that she was dead, and yet, here she is, alive and well.”

“Alanna, let me explain.”

“You can’t.”

“Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you, but I–”

“Didn’t care that you were breaking the hearts of three people that loved and needed you?”

She sighed. “Alanna, I can never apologize for the last few years. I wouldn’t even know how. But I’m here now, and I’m asking you to let me in.”

“You don’t understand how much you hurt us, do you? You were always weak, willing to run away, and when you couldn’t make it, you came crawling back, begging for forgiveness. You swore to dad that it would never happen again, but it always did. To be honest, I always expected you’d run away with another man, not fake your death.”

She grimaced, and turned her head away from me, too ashamed to even look at me.

And it finally dawned on me.

“You did run away with another man, didn’t you? He was a vampire, and you ran away together, leaving us to believe that you were dead!” I screamed at her. “You bitch!”

“Alanna!” Quinten said, placing his hand on my arm. “She’s your mother, don’t call her that.”

I shook him off. “I’ll call her whatever I want,” I hissed, before turning back to her. “You let me blame myself for years for a death that wasn’t my fault. Did you know that? Did you know that I used to wake up crying in the middle of the night, begging you to forgive me?”

Her eyes were watering, and I couldn’t help but notice with disgust that her tears were red tinged. “Alanna, you’re right. I was a weak person, and I didn’t stop to think what my choices would do to you.”

“You broke dad’s heart. He was never the same after your death. Neither was Ilene. Do you even know what happened to her?”

She shook her head. “No, what happened to her? Is she alright?”

“Oh, she’s perfectly fine. She’s mated to Roger Mason, a grown ass werewolf that tried to kill me, and together, they had Quinten and I kidnapped and sent off to the Arena Wars. But, you wouldn’t know that, because you haven’t been in my life for almost a decade.”

“But I do know,” she whispered tearfully. “I was there the day Ray and your cousin Jax rescued you. Sweetheart, I’m the one that turned Quinten.”

“What?” I asked, confused. She was there? And she did nothing to save us before all hell had broken loose?

“I got there shortly after Ray did. I saw you kiss Quinten, and when I saw your reaction to being taken from him, I knew that you must have bonded with him. When I got to him, I thought I was too late to do any good, but I knew I couldn’t give up. I got his heart to beat again. It was so faint I almost missed it. I bit him, and took him away so he could turn in peace.”

“And what? You would have just dropped him off on our doorstep a while later with a note pinned to his jacket? Would you have left us with no explanation? Or were you planning on just keeping him with you, so that you could watch me suffer for the rest of eternity like dad?”

She frowned. “No, of course not. I was going to take him to you, and ask for your forgiveness. It usually takes a while for someone’s memories to come back after they’ve been turned, and I was waiting for that to happen before I revealed him to you. But then I caught your scent in the woods, and I panicked. I didn’t want you to see me like this before I was ready to explain.”

I glared at her. “You can’t explain. You abandoned your family, just so you could have your pretend happily ever after with some pig you thought was worth leaving your family for. And choosing the day I asked you to go and get me medicine for my cold, what were you thinking? Did you not realize that I might blame myself?”

“Alanna–”

“I have a question,” I interrupted. “You’re dad’s soul mate. How could you possibly think that there was someone out there that could love you more than he did? You two were born for each other, what made you go searching for someone else?”

She seemed to think about her answer for a minute before speaking. “Honestly, I don’t know. To this day, I still can’t believe that I left. Your father was such a good man, but he wasn’t the man that I married anymore.”

I snorted.

“Sweetheart, when your father and I first started dating, he would bring me flowers all the time, for no reason at all. He wrote me poetry, and he sang to me, and there was so much romance in our relationship. But, that changed after we had you. Ray became so serious and protective.”

“So you felt smothered by dad? Or was it me? Did you blame me for the lack of romance in your relationship? Because you know, you should have expected to give up some things when you became a parent. But I’d like to think that having a child enriched your life, even if it did cut away from your romance time.”

She looked hurt. “Alanna, I never stopped loving you.”

“Well, after all these years, I’ve finally stopped loving you,” I said, wiping my cheeks. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going home.” I looked at Quinten. “Come on. Ray’s gonna be so happy to see you.”

“Alanna, I can’t leave.”

I stopped. “What? Don’t you want to come back with me?”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me close. “Of course I do. You’re the most important person in my life, but your mother happens to be my maker. Someone has to teach me about being a vampire, and it’s her. I either need to stay with her, or she needs to come with us.”

“Quinten–”

“Alanna, I have almost no control over myself right now. The only reason I didn’t drain every last drop of blood from your body was because Carmen told me to stop. I have to obey my maker; she’s the only one that can make me safe enough to be around.”

I sighed. “I can’t leave you, not again. These last few days without you have been the worst in my life. I considered never getting out of bed again. I wanted to quit, give up on life.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t have enough time to seriously think about it before I felt our bond come back, or maybe I couldn’t hurt Ray like that, but what I do know is that no matter where you go, I’ll be there with you.”

He smiled. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said, nuzzling my neck. “Alanna, you’re so beautiful.”

It took me a minute to realize what he’d said. “You’re not blind anymore.”

He shook his head. “No. I can see again. When I began turning, at first all I could feel was pain, but after that, I felt my body beginning to change. I felt the damage that had been done to my eyes being repaired. I couldn’t wait to wake up and see how beautiful you are, but when I woke up, I couldn’t remember anything about who I was.”

“You didn’t remember me.”

“I didn’t, but when I saw you step into this clearing, I knew you were important to me. I just didn’t know how much you meant.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face in his shoulder. “You have no idea how painful it was, thinking I’d lost you forever. Ray kept trying to tell me that the pain goes away after a while, but I didn’t believe him. It didn’t seem possible that it could ever stop hurting.”

He put his hand under my chin and tilted my face up to his. “Alanna, I promise you right now, I will always find a way back to you. If it takes a thousand years or a thousand lifetimes, you and I will always be together in the end.”

I looked down so he wouldn’t see me cry. “I…I love you, Quinten.”

He nodded, and kissed the side of my neck. “I’m glad you finally know it, because I love you, too. More than anything.”

I was crying, and so was he. We just stood there for a minute, holding each other, swaying gently back and forth.

Everything was coming back together. Quinten was alive. I’d found him again and, even if he was different, we were back together. My heart had been repaired.

I’d only lived four days without Quinten, and I was positive that I could never do it again.