Page 7 of Awakened Light

I turned and whispered to him, “Thorne, you need to go.”

“Come with me,” he whispered back.

Those azure eyes pleaded with me while he stared into my soul. It was all I could do not to reach out and take his hand, launch into his arms, and run off into the world with him. I glanced over my shoulder at my tribe, and with tears stinging behind my eyes, I swallowed over the lump in my throat and stepped backward.

“Goodbye, Thorne.” I continued stepping away from him with small, unsure steps.

“Please, let me come see you again,” he said, starting toward me, but Uradech stepped forward and lifted his spear.

“I can’t. There is a boat just down the beach. Take it and don’t come back. Goodbye, Thorne.”

I spun on my heel, walking back to my tribe, my deliberate strides pushing me away from the one thing in my life I’d wanted for myself... and the one thing I could never do.

To see the world with Thorne.

My tribe stared past me to Thorne with eyes filled with centuries of hatred. He called after me one last time, but I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. One last look into those eyes, and I’d never be able to do what it was expected of me... to stay here and honor my legacy.

When I reached my mother, I took a deep breath and turned around, taking my rightful place at her side. Lifting my chin high, I found the resolve to look at him one last time. Our eyes locked, and I struggled to force down the emotions ripping me apart inside. With a quick nod of his head, he accepted my wishes and bid me goodbye.

Before I could blink, he had gone.

CHAPTER TWO

Thorne

AFTER A LIGHTNING-FAST sprint across the Scottish countryside, I arrived at our estate. I slowed to a stop in front of the towering stone castle and paused for a moment before going inside.

It had been several hundred years since I’d first stood at these doors and opened them. We’d taken the castle from a brutal laird who’d enslaved people to work the lands. Grizella, my brother Lothaire’s wife, had been a slave herself centuries earlier. When she’d heard rumors of a laird abusing young women who lived as tenants on the estate, she investigated, finding a slew of cruelties happening under his care.

Laird Douglas harbored a thirst for suffering... and we happily gave him a taste of what he loved to dole out.

We’d marched right up to the castle door I now stood in front of and knocked, demanding an audience with him. When he’d arrived, Grizella had taken great joy in using our mind influencing to make him sign over his lands, granting independent property ownership and a chunk of his wealth to each slave we forced him to release, and each tenant who’d suffered at his hands. After he finished breaking apart his vast lands and giving every penny he owned to those he’d wronged, he signed over the castle and surrounding estate to us... and became the one slave left to care for it. Running Laird Douglas ragged became one of our favorite pastimes until he’d died from old age a decade later.

This castle became our primary residence for over a century. In the past fifty years, however, we’d visited it less and less, taking up in our other residences around the world instead. But since returning here a few weeks ago, I made a note to visit more and spend time in the Scottish countryside of my youth. I’d learned to hunt and fight on these lands, and each time I set foot on them, it reminded me of the warrior I’d once been... a warrior not unlike the ones who still resided on Catrain’s island.

With a glance over my shoulder toward the island I’d never be able to return to... the woman I’d never be able to return to, I sighed and pushed open the huge wooden doors.

Warm light flooded the expansive old room, and I stopped and listened for voices. As vampires, we heard the world at the same volume as humans, but we could also focus our hearing, searching through the surrounding sounds and amplifying them to heights that allowed us to hear even a pin drop at a great distance.

I used that skill as I searched the house and listened for the familiar voices of my family. Though they weren’t my family by blood, Lothaire, Aiden, Grizella, and Annella were my family by choice... a family I’d had for over six hundred years. I’d even taken their last name of Mackay after we’d turned.

I heard laughter coming from out back, so I walked through the castle and pushed open the back doors. Lanterns swaying in the trees lit my way through the manicured yard to the pool by the gardens.

“On your mark, get set, go!” Annella yelled.

Emilia and Mark shrieked with laughter, and I saw the blur of movement as they raced around the gardens at vamp speed. They skidded to a stop side by side, toppling into a ball of tangled limbs as they collapsed onto the lawn.

It was strange to see Emilia moving with such speed—even though she wasn’t quite as quick as Mark. I’d just gotten used to having him added to our vampire family, and now I would have to get used to seeing Emilia with the powers our immortality granted us. Mark had been my brother Aiden’s assistant for years before we turned him recently at his request. Becoming a vampire had been his dream, and he thrived in his new life with us.

Emilia, on the other hand, hadn’t wanted vampirism. Then a few days ago, when the choice came to become immortal to save her beloved Aiden’s life, she’d taken it. Luckily for both of them, the transformation granted them a different kind of immortality... the original immortality we’d gotten six hundred years ago before the Pict witches cursed us. It didn’t involve drinking blood or hiding from the sun but came with strength, speed, hearing, and all the other vampire perks.

“I kicked yo ass, hot mama!” Mark taunted, waggling his perfectly manicured blonde brows.

“Bullshit!” Emilia argued back.

The sight of them laughing and playfully swatting each other caused my lips to tug upward... something that normally came naturally to me. But as quickly as it started to come, it faltered when a vision of Catrain popped into my head.

Aiden crossed his arms and peered down at them. Though more clean-cut than me, he could have passed as my blood brother with our matching blue eyes and dark hair.