Newly Undead In Dark River (Dark River Days, #1)

by Grace McGinty

The fact that my initial reaction to a rat was hunger and not disgust was the first sign that something was very, very wrong.

Hunger tore at my belly again, a burning ache so painful I moaned into the darkness like a wounded animal. First, I needed to eat something. Maybe then I'd be able to work out what the hell was going on.

The man was hot. Like, spontaneous combustion, three-alarm, call in the National Guard, hot. He had sandy brown hair and deep green eyes. The uniform hugged his muscular body. He was so attractive it made my teeth hurt. Literally.

“I don't know how I got here,” I whispered. It was all a blank.

“It's confirmed, Walker. Though let's face it, it was obvious to everyone as soon as she walked through the door of the diner. You can smell it just as well as I can.” The Sheriff ran a hand down his face and sighed. “I know, but I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to think someone we know could have done this.” What the hell were they talking about? I sniffed my armpit stealthily. I didn't think I smelled that bad, considering I'd been sleeping in a ditch. My nose twitched. A tangy metallic smell was coming from the cooler. A smell that was so familiar, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was.

“Look, Mika, I know this is going to sound strange, but it's our opinion that last night, you, well uh, you died.” I laughed. Maybe I'd stumbled into one of those reality TV shows. The producer was going to jump out any minute and make me sign a media release and a Non-Disclosure Agreement.

“Because we are vampires. The whole town is populated by vampires.” I stared at them dumbly, expecting something, I wasn’t sure what. For them to turn into bats, or broodingly sparkle in the overhead fluorescent lights. But nothing happened. They just looked like ordinary people. Not overly pale, their eyes weren't glowing red, they didn't have crooked, needle-like teeth. Nothing.

“Please.” It was a half-yell, half-sob, as I dived for the cooler. Walker was around the table in a flash, his arms like iron bands around my body. “Calm down. Alice is going to get you something to eat right now.”

He sounded like my dad teaching me to drive. Thoughts of my parents made me feel homesick.

Walker's shaggy hair slipped over his eyes, and he combed it back with his fingers. The move made his shirt pull taut against his chest, and a completely different kind of hunger overtook me. The need to lean over and rip open his shirt was almost impossible to resist. Walker's eyes met mine, and whatever he saw in them made him look nervous all of a sudden. He stood quickly and took a step away.

When I was little, I was one of those curious kids. I’d needed to know the whys and hows of everything. It wasn't enough that my parents had told me that the sky was blue, I wanted to know why it was blue. When my parents told me that little girls couldn't fly like birds, I'd had to test the theory myself, and broke my wrist jumping off my mother's kitchen counter.

I thought I was going to vomit as I curled into the fetal position on the floor, moaning in pain. Everything was black, and panic overcame me. Had I just done irreparable damage to my eyes? Would I spend eternity blind because I was a foolish idiot who couldn't take anyone at their word?

Walker strode into the bedroom, stopping dead when he saw me in just a towel. He quickly turned his back. “Sorry. I see you found the shower.” He sounded a little flabbergasted, and for some reason, that made me smile.

I walked out into the living room to see Walker relaxing in the armchair, his eyes closed and his head tipped back, exposing the long line of his throat. The slow thump of his heartbeat made my limbs tingle, and my stomach churn.

that was enough to stir a new primal need deep within me. I felt the caged predator that now resided in my blood raise its head and whisper to me. I let out a cry as my fangs slid down and cut my lower lip. Ouch, dammit! Walker's eyes snapped open, and he took a deep breath in. Something wild appeared in his eyes, and he inhaled deeply. Holy crap, he could smell my blood. He stood and walked toward the window, and I could see his back heaving as he took several deep, steadying breaths.

He shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Plus, it usually isn't done unless the two vampires are in some kind of relationship. Taking blood can be an extremely intimate act.” A blush lit his cheeks, and I resisted the urge to laugh. I had the feeling he was giving me the vampire version of the birds and the bees talk.

Both of their eyes swung to look at the guy in the cable knit. I could see his shoulders were tense, and I was guessing that a) he was the Drifter and b) he’d heard every word Lynette and her parrot had said. I stared at his back and wondered if that was the truth. Was he my murderer?

I was glad I could still eat food. The idea of sustaining myself entirely on blood gave me the heebie-jeebies. I'd always loved food, and you could tell by the snug way I fit into my size twelve jeans. My motto had always been why deny yourself dessert, when there was a chance you'd be hit by a bus the following day?

I grinned from ear to ear, and Walker shook his head. “You can still get stomach aches, you know.”

I let out a little moan, and Walker's eyes widened. Whoops. “That's really, really good.”

a deep voice said from over my shoulder. His voice was gravelly, somewhere between a rumble and a growl, and he had a thick Southern accent. I turned and looked into the darkest blue eyes I'd ever seen. They were like the night sky right on dusk. My mouth seemed to unhinge, and a little Type-O float dribbled over my lip. The night blue eyes dropped to my lips, and then back to my eyes. Walker cleared his throat. “Judge. What can I help you with?” Once my eyes got past his, I realized he was the man the townspeople called the Drifter. His shaggy black hair hung in waves to his shoulders and looked as if it had been hacked in a restroom mirror. His chest was broad, and the knit sweater wrapped around his shoulders like a present on Christmas morning. He made me salivate.

I just wanted to set the record straight. I've never seen this girl in my life. Though, I wouldn't mind seein' more of her now.” He smirked at me, his pearly white teeth glistening in the fluorescent lights. The smile made something tingle.

His eyes twinkled with mischief, and I could understand why everyone automatically went to him as the primary suspect in my murder/rebirth. He just oozed bad-boy troublemaker. If only that didn't make me so damn hot.

“Luckily for everyone here, I have a voice of my own. Thanks for the offer, Judge. I'll keep it in mind.”

Judge grinned and touched two fingers to his forehead as he left. It was an old-world gesture, and it made me wonder what age Judge actually was. He didn't look more than twenty-five, but if we stopped aging, he could be centuries old, millennia even. I watched his ass as he left, and if there was ever a finer butt in the world, I had yet to see it. He must have been some kind of laborer when he was turned because his body was that lean musculature you could only get through hard, physical work. I sighed as he melted into the darkness beyond the streetlights.

Or they'll stop in at the diner and Bert will make them something absolutely abhorrent and they'll leave. This isn't an inviting town for the weary traveler.”

During the discussion about my increased libido, Walker had excused himself on Sheriff business, promising to return for me later.

“Also, your sex drive is going to be in hyperdrive for a few months, maybe even years. Sometimes even decades. I suggest you find yourself a bed partner or start a running tab over at the Stop'n'Shop for double A batteries. For vampires, our heightened predatory senses want us to hunt and obliterate our prey. When we deny that urge, we compensate by giving into another animalistic instinct. To mate, and mate a lot. But no humans. Ever. Biting and sex are now intrinsically linked. I don't have to elaborate on how that could go bad.”

Well, that explained why I looked at Walker as if he was a block of chocolate and I was on the Paleo diet. My mind wandered to Judge. Now I knew what he'd been offering, and why Walker was so uptight about it.

It must have been an outsider who dropped you here because they knew we would care for you.” Like an unwanted baby dropped at a fire station. Don't think you can care for your undead offspring? Safely deposit it in the baby vamp drop drain under the sign!

My feet were moving too fast for me to put on the brakes and I plowed straight into the Sheriff, knocking us both down onto the pavement. His arms wrapped around my waist to stop my momentum, and we landed with a thud.

As I realized he was okay, the predator noted our position and the hardness of Walker's body beneath mine, and the hunger overwhelmed me. I dropped my face to his neck and inhaled the scent of his blood. It was like I had taken a back seat to my predator’s baser urges, which just wanted to bite into Walker's neck and hump him into next week.

Blood rushed to my face. If Walker hadn't stopped me, I would have bitten and sexed him up in front of half the town. I scrambled off his body. I had nearly violated the town Sheriff. No one in the crowd looked outraged though—they just looked at me with expressions of sympathy, and some with straight up pity. I wanted to run away. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

I stopped when the soles of my Converses started to melt. The smell of the burned rubber was acrid in my nostrils.

“It's not so bad. If you had to be turned anywhere, this isn’t a bad place to end up. Trust me on this, Sugar. There are places far worse for a baby vamp to be than Dark River.

It would have almost been better if you'd stayed dead, for the town at least.” I stiffened at his words. His tone wasn't threatening, but his words sent a shiver down my spine. I edged away, and he laughed.

“I can hear you out there, Mika. You have no reason to be embarrassed. It happens to everyone.” God, that sounded like my mother consoling me after I wet the bed when I was six.

There was genuine warmth in his tone, and I briefly wondered if he and Angeline were a couple. Jealousy surged within me before I realized how stupid that would be.

Did I honestly think Walker had been sitting around waiting for me to die?

“Do what, Sweetpea?” Angeline, the baking goddess, asked. “Whatever you want. Be your librarian/projectionist, sell you my kidneys, give you my firstborn, whatever you want. Just pay me in cupcakes.”

The town’s generosity was overwhelming. I opened the lid of one of the boxes, and I saw a beautiful quilt in purple and blue. I pulled it out and marveled at it. It was a work of art. It would have cost a fortune to buy in the store.

“Also, you might want to put some thought into what your new name might be. There is power in a name. We have to change them every eighty years or so, but you always remember your first.”

The moral of those stories was to always ask who's at the door, and hope the masked serial killer says, “It’s a masked serial killer.”

Turns out, everyone had wanted to come in and check out some books. Or check out me. I'd been so busy that the day had flown by.

This may have been my birthday, but it was also the funeral of Mika McKellen. I had to mourn the girl I could have been.

Unless you plan on being one of those moody vampires the younger ones are always quackin' on about? Edward someone?”

He was standing close to me, and I breathed in his spicy scent. Almost instantly, my body tightened and my fangs elongated. My body craved, and it wanted Judge more than its next bag of blood.

I looked over my shoulder at Walker, who was laughing at something Angeline was saying. The light hit his face just right, making his hair shine and his eyes sparkle. He looked so pure and earnest. Judge, on the other hand, made my body combust, and I was hungry. His eyes were hooded, and he stepped closer, so I could feel the energy around his body seep into mine.

“Sugar, if you don't stop starin' at me like that, one of two things will happen.

All I could picture was Judge's naked chest pressed against mine, his mouth nibbling at my tender flesh, my teeth piercing the throbbing pulse point in his neck. Judge let out a groan.