Escaping from the Vampire Rogue- Chapter 1
Published: January 13, 2020
A/N: Welcome to the Serial Fam! Every Sunday, I post a new installment of my latest new-adult paranormal romance serial based on the characters of my Vampire Blood Royals Series.
The twist? You get to decide what happens next in the story.
We’re kicking off January with Escaping from the Vampire Rogue. Kayla and Garrick are hot hot hot! I hope you will join us!
If you want to read the blub? Click here. Otherwise, dive right in. I’ll see you on the flip side.
1
KAYLA
This can’t be happening. Not tonight. Please don’t
do this to me. I have a date with Brian. You get that hands? Brian.
Kayla’s heart leaped into her throat as she stared at her palms. No matter how hard she wished them away, tiny purplish spider-like veins weaved along the lines on her palm that converged into an M. For now, it was faint. But it wouldn’t be for long.
And she could not—nay—she refused to let it get any worse.
This was the first time in weeks that Brian had even acknowledged her existence.
And tonight, was their big night. Their first date. Well, kind of. He’d asked
if she was going to the homecoming afterparty and she’d said yes. It was the
same thing. Right? Whatever. Either way, this could not be happening.
She wouldn’t be able to get near Brian if her hands kept
this up. She’d been aching to brush her fingers through his dark curls ever
since the first time she’d seen him walk across the quad. The man was a walking
hair commercial complete with deep grey eyes and a mane that screamed to be pulled
on in the throes of passion. At this rate, she wouldn’t be able to touch anything,
let alone leave the house.
She’d taken her tonic before dinner. Right? She was certain
she had. Just before getting in the shower before her Econ class. She wanted to
be fresh when she sat next to Brian.
The tonic shouldn’t have worn off that fast. She triple
checked the clock to be sure she didn’t miscount the time. It was only 8. The dosage
should have taken her through most of the night. Not for three hours.
Maybe she hadn’t taken a full dose. She’d done it before
when she’d been so busy it slipped her mind. And she was busy these days,
making a point to never be late to Advanced Econ so she could get the best seat.
Next to him of course. Brian always sat in the same place, three rows back from
the professor’s podium. And if she didn’t get there early enough, the seat
beside him would be taken.
Maybe she was in too much of a rush before dinner that
she didn’t take the full thing. Grabbing onto that tiny bit of hope, she raced to
the mirrored dresser at the far end of her room. Nothing was going to keep her
from that party.
She’d been tossing flirty glances at Brian all semester
and he finally, finally noticed she existed a couple of days ago. Months
of flirt gazing was not going to go to waste. She ripped open the top drawer
and raked through every sock, panty, and bralette she owned until her fingers
touched the black velvet box hidden in the very back.
Her hands shook as she reached for the golden oval-shaped lock on the front. Barely a centimeter from it, the lock release and the lid popped open. She bit the inside of her cheek and willed her hands to steady. It was growing stronger. She desperately needed to quell it before it got out of control. Her love life depended on it. With a hopeful glance, she peered inside. A box full of glass tear-shaped vials shifted causing a sort of chime as she sorted through them.
One by one, she pulled each of them out, looking to see
if there were the tiniest drops in at least one of them. All of them were empty.
“No, no, no!”
This couldn’t be happening. They couldn’t be empty. She double-checked. They were.
“Ugh!” She slammed the lid closed and threw it back into
the drawer. Immediately, the heavy dresser shifted backward, screeching against
her wooden floors and the drawers popped open. The mirrors on the front started
to crack. She jumped back like she’d been burned, hoping it would stop.
Thankfully, the dresser settled.
You have to calm down or she’s going to find out.
It was vital that her roommate never found out what she
was. Which is why she didn’t want one in the first place. It was too dangerous
to live with a non-magical. But daddy insisted.
“Kay, is everything alright in there?” Breanne asked from
the living room.
Her head snapped up to her closed bedroom door then back
down to her palms. They were starting to glow.
Come on, don’t do this to me now. She glared at
her hands. She needed to calm down. It would only make it worse if she let her emotions
spiral out of control.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Her voice croaked.
Fortunately enough for her, their creaky floor betrayed Breanne’s movements as she walked down the hall to her room. Or she should say, unfortunately, because she really, really, really didn’t want her to come bursting into the room to investigate.
At this point, her hands had gone off the deep end.
Swirls of purple mist started to circle them. A soft knock sounded at her door.
“Hey, everything okay?” Breanne said from the other side.
When she didn’t say anything, her door started to crack open. Kayla balled her
fist into her clothing and shot into her bathroom and shut the door.
“I’m fine, just in the bathroom,” she panted from the opposite side and strained to hear what her roommate was doing when she entered her room. Her heart hammered inside her chest. Her lungs seized.
The magic in her palms started to heat the door, causing
it to turn from cream to brown around her fingertips. Instantly, she pulled away
before it caught fire. She turned on the faucet and ran her hands under the
cold tap hoping it would douse any budding flames that were threatening to ignite.
“Did you hear that noise?” Breanne asked, her voice
pinched at the question.
“I didn’t hear anything.” She replied in a huff. Much too
quick for someone who was supposed to be innocent.
“Are you ready yet?” Kayla spoke through the door, changing
the subject as she fumbled in her medicine cabinet. Her tonic had to be here
somewhere. Then she pulled her hand back as she glimpsed at all the flammables she
owned. Aerosol cans and flames did not go together. She didn’t want to have
another explosion on her hands. A flash memory surfaced and Kayla vehemently shoved
it away.
There was no reason to go back to that dark place. That
was the past. She didn’t have to keep reliving it. She had a new life now. One that
included not setting her poor roommate on fire if she could help it. She
searched her under cabinets for the tonic with a renewed sense of purpose.
“Yeah, I’m good to go,” Breanne replied.
She wished she could say the same. Meanwhile, she was having
a freaking panic attack.
“What time did you want to go?” Breanne asked. Knowing her,
she was likely checking her Apple watch for the time and readying to set an alarm.
Her roommate was on time for everything.
“In ten minutes?”
“No rush. Take your time,” she said. It only took a few
minutes for her to hear the tell-tale squeak of their old hardwood floors to
know Breanne was back in the living room.
She relaxed. As much as she could with swirls of purple
essence wrapping around her hands. She plopped on the closed toilet seat and
sighed. She needed to figure out a way to make it stop. She had a life to get
back to. A real life. One she’d fought to have for a long time. Except her
hands didn’t change despite her will.
A stream of purple mist shot from her fingertips and collided with the toilet paper roll instead. With a small whoosh, it caught fire.
Shit. She pulled it from the wall but it only made it worse.
The entire roll of Charmin blackened as the flames worsened. One thing magic
didn’t do was keep things from scorching the hell out of her. After a game of
hot potato, she flung it into her shower and rushed to turn on the water. Man,
she was spiraling.
Maybe she should join the roll that had morphed into a goopy
mess at the bottom of her tub. If all else the cool water would soothe her. Keeping
calm was the best way out of this mess and into Brian’s waiting arms. She settled
for placing her hands in the water and she was grateful that she did.
There, sitting on the ledge of her tub next to her lemon-scented soap sat a half-empty vial of clear liquid.
“How did you get in here?” Relief clamored inside of her
as she uncorked the bottle and downed it in one shot. She’d never been so close
to tears of joy in her life. But as the cool liquid splashed down her throat, she
felt them brewing.
After a moment the purple swirls around her hands started
to dissipate.
Yes!
Now, she only had to make sure she didn’t go haywire
tonight. She dried her hands and raced for her phone to text her dealer. A joke
between her and an old friend who brewed her tonic. When she confirmed that she
could bring it, Kayla texted her the address to the afterparty. Now, all she
needed was cash.
That was another thing. Convincing Derrek, her bodyguard,
was going to be a hassle and a half. Yes, she knew he and the staff he hired to
keep her safe would have to do all kinds of mumbo jumbo to make that happen. But
he had to realize it was just a silly precaution. No one was going to know she
was off route. No one was even looking for her in the first place!
He’d only been hired because her father had always had an
overly protective edge ever since he was snatched while on holiday in his youth.
She’d always assumed it was one of his quirks. A harmless oddity. Truthfully,
she didn’t realize not all kids had designated routes and bodyguards until she
started her freshman year of college. Yay, for being a homeschooled kid.
But trying to convince Derrek of that or anything resembling
defying protocol was like talking to a potted plant about the weather. He only
ever did what her father wanted him to do. Whatever daddy didn’t approve of,
neither did Derrek. Her father never approved of her use of tonics to quell her
magic. He said it made her vulnerable.
Well, anything was better than causing the kind of
damage she just did in her bathroom. She’d almost burned their apartment
building to the ground without even meaning to. She was more than sure she was
a danger to herself with it than without it.
After a quick fix of her hair and a change of clothes, Kayla
was ready for Brian. Err, the party. With her magic in check and completely gone,
her normal self-blossomed again. She grinned at her reflection and went into
the living room to fetch Breanne.
A small frown crept up on her lips when she saw her sitting cross-legged on the couch with a pen sticking out of her mouth and hovering over a textbook. Breanne said she was ready. But her dark-haired roommate was far from that. In lazy jeans and a plain top, she looked like she was going to class instead of a party. This would not do.
“Are you really still studying?”
“I just need to review this. I cannot afford to flunk
this or I won’t be able to sit for my nursing exams next year. I just need five
more minutes.”
Who was she trying to fool? Breanne was the smartest
person she knew. If she hadn’t known for a verifiable fact that Breanne was non-magical,
she would have taken her for a mage. No one had that kind of total recall
without magical assistance. Except for Breanne.
Even for a human, she had a mystical way about her. Kayla
assumed it was because she was the only human she’d been around that wasn’t either
instantly entranced or repelled by her. Which was probably why they’d been fast
friends since she moved in spring semester. Breanne was genuine.
“You’ve done enough studying! You need to blow off some
steam. Come on, I have the perfect outfit for you to wear.”
Of course, Breanne groaned, but let her play dress-up anyway. After all that studying, she really did deserve to let her hair down for once. And if Brian had any cool best friends that were half as attractive as he was, her roommate was going to be dressed for the occasion for sure.
Which reminded her, she needed to make a mental note to ask
Brian if he had a cool best friend. Double dates with her roommate were going
to be a must if she was ever going to have a social life outside of fighting
with her bodyguard to go places other than campus.
That was another thing her father insisted on when she
told him she was going to school several hours away from home. He was worried
she wouldn’t be safe in a city so far. As far as she could tell no one knew her
or about what happened back home. She was much safer here than anywhere else.
“Wow.
She inwardly smiled. A little eyeliner and blush accentuated
Breanne’s beauty. It was good to see her roommate finally saw it for herself.
“We look alike,”
Breanne gasped when she looked at her handy work.
“We could pass for
twins, right? Here,” She handed her an unused tube of lipstick. “Finishing
touches.”
A twinge of guilt settled into her gut as Breanne applied the lipstick. She’d always suspected daddy’s glee in choosing Breanne for a roommate had more to do with their similar appearance rather than the fact that they’d hit it off almost immediately. He was protective. But he wouldn’t intentionally put an innocent in harm’s way. She buried that thought, unwilling to think of her dad that way, and turned to face her roommate when she’d finished applying her lipstick. “You do look stunning! Now, it’s time to get our flirt on.”
Kayla slung her arm into Breanne’s and led her out to
the car. As per protocol, Derrek waited until they reached the bottom step
before opening the car doors for them and letting them inside. Her phone
beeped.
That must have been her dealer. A quick glance at her
phone confirmed that she was on her way with more of her tonic. Now, all she
needed to do was to get the cash.
“Derrek,
we have to make a stop,” she said once they backed of the driveway.
“What’s
that?” He called from behind the cream leather of the driver’s seat.
“I
have to go to the ATM. We need cash for the party.”
“I
didn’t realize there was a cover,” Breanne said from beside her.
Kayla
tossed her a brief smile, and cleared her throat, hoping her lie would convince
them both. “Yeah, the sorority house is raising funds for charity or something.”
“How
much?” Derrek asked.
Her
smile faded. “Enough to need to go to the ATM.”
“What’s
the cover?”
Why
was it always a battle of wills with him? She waved him off. “Never mind that, take
me to the bank. There’s one on Broadway, take a right.”
The car didn’t turn. Alright, playing nice was going to win her no points tonight. Time to be a little gruffer. “Did you hear me, Derrek?”
“I
heard you alright.”
“So,
are you going to take me or not?”
Silence
spread between them and Derrek kept the car pointed toward campus. She pushed
herself forward in her seat and waited for him to answer. Thankfully her magic
was completely gone or it would have come raging out of her in a ball of
hellfire aimed at the steering wheel. “Derrek…”
Just
when he turned up a side street a few blocks from their school, they stopped. Several
orange and white striped wooden barricades lined the road, blocking their way.
“See?
If you’d just taken me to the bank, we wouldn’t be stuck on a closed road.”
Triumphant,
she sat back in her seat and crossed one arm over the other. Sure, it may have
been childish, but she gloated. She couldn’t help herself. Derrek deserved it
for not listening to her.
“This
road is not closed. It was checked a few minutes ago.” Derrek grunted, then
pulled a radio from the middle console. “Blue Team, Blue Team, this is Watcher,
copy.”
She
looked at Derrek in the rearview mirror. Alarm creased his brow. In an instant,
her jubilation crumbled to ash at her feet.
Maybe
her father was right. Was there someone after her? After what happened last
year… she’d thought the entire thing had blown over. Had someone found her? Were
they after her?
She was going to ask but stopped when she saw Breanne looking around toward the car. From her look of befuddlement, Kayla could tell she was stunned into silence. It made the guilt claw at her stomach.
Breanne had always soldiered through the many routine checks Derrek happily bestowed on her. Not once did she suspect their routes were checked too. Kayla shuddered at the thought. That would’ve freaked her out more than the routine checks did. Breanne would have run out of there faster than a racehorse at the Kentucky Derby. She couldn’t afford to lose her. Ever since moving, Breanne had become the only true friend she’d ever had.
“Watcher,
this is Blue Team, go.”
“Confirm
the route, over.”
Static
erupted, but no one responded.
“Kayla,
what’s going on?” Breanne asked.
Plucking
at the seatbelt, she pretended not to hear her. What was she going to say? ‘Hey
I know we’ve been roommates for almost a year and I have never told you this,
but my father sent a team of people to watch over us. Yeah, that guy who cuts the
bushes? He’s really another bodyguard like Derrek. The woman who lives across
the hall? Probably sent by my father too. I never did confirm that one though.’
Yeah,
right. That was a pill too large and too dry for anyone to swallow.
“Come
in, Blue Team,” Derrek said again, before setting the radio into his lap. Derrek
checked the side mirrors and out of the windows as if searching for something
off about the neighborhood they were in.
Outside
of what looked to be a power outage, nothing looked out of place. Sure, it looked
vacant, but it was nearly 10 o’clock. She wouldn’t have guessed many people
would be sleeping by now.
“Radio
check, over,” Derrek called into the radio. Nothing but static greeted them.
Derrek’s jaw cracked as he fiddled with several of the buttons to switch
channels. “This is Watcher, come in Red. I need an alternate route. Copy.”
More
silence. He slammed the car into reverse. The tires screeched against the
pavement as the car whipped around. Breanne yelped as she was knocked back into
her seat.
“Derrek,
calm down, you’re being scary,” Kayla’s voice shook. Unconsciously, she
tightened her seat belt to feel the comfort of the strap across her chest. It
made her feel secure. Safe. She should do the same for Breanne just in case she
was scared too. She reached over and tightened hers as well.
“What’s
happening?” Breanne whispered fiercely as she leaned over.
“It’s
probably nothing.” Not once could she meet Breanne’s eyes. She didn’t know what
was going on.
Derrek
switched to another channel.
“This is Watcher. Falcon and Sparrow are en route. Need an evac. Over.”
“Affirmative,”
a voice finally said. “Head toward banker’s row.”
Her
shoulders eased when she heard the voice. Derrek turned up Euclid Avenue toward
banker’s row. The street was named because it practically had a bank on every
corner.
Derrek
pressed the radio against his lips, pressing on the gas. “Confirm yourself, by
protocol, over.”
When
no one answered, Derrek took his foot off the gas. The car slowed. Suddenly, something
hard and fast slammed into them from behind. The tires squealed as they scuttled
across the pavement. Kayla’s body jerked so violently it might have gone
through the windshield if she hadn’t had her seatbelt on. Unfortunately, there
were more dangerous things inside of the car. Like the airbags that decked her
so hard in the head, she blacked out.
She
wasn’t sure how long she was out. But when she came to, they were surrounded by
several armored trucks. The entire street had brightened. Or rather, only they
did. It was as if their trucks created a spotlight around their car. She
glanced into the front seat, only to realize her cheek was crushed into the
pavement beside the car. How did she get there?
“Get
her out of the car!” Someone shouted from behind them.
What?
She was out of the car already. Kayla tried to lift her head. She felt like she
was in a fog. Dizzy and dazed.
“Get
the girl who looks like the picture and don’t get a scratch on her,” a
commanding voice said as its owner exited one of the trucks.
“Boss,
we have life in the front seat. What are our orders?”
Derrek.
She tried to look up to the car, to warn him that someone was coming. It was hard
to track their movements. It felt like her brain was growing too large for her
head.
“Take
care of him, but do not disturb the street.”
Alarm bells set off in her head when a masked man wrapped his gun strap around his body and pulled off his gloves. A string of purple electricity shot from his fingertips. Oh, God.
She
tried to move, but it was impossible. She tried to open her mouth. To warn
Derrek to get out of the way. To fight back.
But her body wouldn’t cooperate. Her mind was active, but her body was limp. It was agonizing watching the man’s magic travel up the car door and weave through the airbags and constrict around Derrek. His body jerked against the front airbag like he was being squeezed by a boa constrictor. They were killing him.
She
tried to scream, but nothing came out. Instead, her head felt like it was going
to explode. There was too much pressure inside of it. Things were going dark.
Was she experiencing some slow form of passing out? The vision at the edge of
her eyes blurred before it went into nothing. She could only hear them now as
she fought to stay awake.
“What
the hell? There’s two of them. You said take the girl who looks like the
picture. That’s both of them.”
“Yeah,
I see that,” said the commanding voice.
“Which
one do we take?” replied someone else.
“Splinters
won’t care,” the one closest to the car said. “Either one should do. They look
close enough. We only need one more. Let me have this one.”
Kayla
tried to open her eyes to see who he was talking about but they didn’t budge. Her
insides quivered at the thought of Breanne getting hurt. Not that she wanted to
throw herself on a live wire, but at least her magic, although dormant, could offer
her some protection. Maybe. She hadn’t exactly tried it while on her tonic. But
she’d rather risk it than have her friend hurt.
“No,”
the first one said. “We need the right one for the auction.”
Auction? What did he mean auction? She tried to jerk her body awake, but it was hard. A
wave of fatigue engulfed her. She needed to stay awake.
“Then
what do we do?”
“We
take them both.”
No. She tried to force herself up, but the darkness came
and pulled her under.
Author’s Note: New Year New Web Serial!!!!! I’m stoked. Want to know what Rogue is about? Click here to read the blurb!
This time around we’re doing things a bit differently. When a new chapter goes live so will the voting. Voting will be open to everyone and will be linked at the bottom of the chapter.
However, folks who join my serial alerts will get one email a week from me when a new chapter goes live and have access to all of the exclusive behind the scenes goodness. This includes alternate scenes, extended scenes, funny stories, character facts and interviews that no one else has access to.
Want to be alerted when a new chapter goes live, make sure you sign up for my Vampire Love Serial Alerts.
A new chapter goes out next Sunday!
Until Next Time,
Sabrina
