In the Shadows by Lillith Devero (ebook audio reader txt) 📖

irises flickering from the stormy grey to almost a clear white. She radiated with and absurd amount of power. Her arms were almost vibrating with the power that she used to hold him above the ground.
He had only heard legends of the power of the Guides. It was said that their gift was passed down from grandparent to grandchild and that they could actually harness the power of the deceased. Rumor was that there was only one Guide per country which made them extremely rare. So rare that you would be more likely to see a four leaved clover than a Guide. And right before him stood one of the rarest creatures in the world.
He only knew only one thing; he wanted her.
She slammed him against the wall, making some of the bricks shake loose. “What do you want?!” She yelled at him.
Unable to break her grip on him, he kicked her legs out from under her, grabbed her wrists, held them above her head with his right hand, and kept her pinned to the concrete with his vampiric speed, all before she could even gasp.
With his left hand over her mouth he began to speak, “You are lucky that I feel merciful tonight, mortal, so I shall only let you off with a warning. If you ever assault me like that again I will kill everyone you love before your very eyes and leave you alone to rot in the ground.” He stared into her eyes that were full of fright and asked, “Understand?”
Before she could even blink, let alone answer even though his hand was over her mouth, he yanked her head to one side and sank his fangs into her throat.
Her skin made a pleasant popping sound as it was broken, but, immediately as he blood touched his fangs he realized that something was wrong. It was kind of the same sensation as when something too hot or cold touches your teeth, except there was nothing wrong with the temperature of her blood.
Once the blood touched his tongue he realized the problem.
Her blood was tainted.
He jumped away from her immediately, but not before he could swallow a mouthful of her blood.
That explains the darkness in her scent. Was the only thing he could think, because seconds after that thought, he collapsed on the ground in spasms. He would have been screaming but the blood seemed to leave him paralyzed. Soon after, though, his torture was ended as he passed into the dark oblivion.

Abby could hear sirens in the distance as she dabbed at the small punctures on her neck with the handkerchief that she kept on her at all times. She had no idea that her blood would have that effect on a vampire.
All she could really do was stand there and stare at him. He really was very handsome. His hair was almost freakishly similar to hers; the only real difference that she could see from this distance was that it only went a little past the edges of his shoulder blades. While he had been threatening her she had noticed that his eyes had been a chocolate brown with caramel, that she couldn’t tear her eyes away from. She stared in awe at his face; his eyebrows were thick but not in a freakish way, it was just the right thickness for a man, a perfect nose, and his chin looked like it had been carved by the gods. But his magnificent face was still scrunched up in pain even though he was unconscious.
She could hear the sirens gradually getting louder in the distance, and somewhere in her subconscious, she stepped closer to him. But before she could complete that step, Alexandria appeared and stopped her in her tracks.
“What are you doing?!” She was near the point of screaming but her voice still almost felt like the wind with a slight mixture of static in it. She kind of bobbed up and down, as if she were floating in a swimming pool.
“You and I both know that we can’t just leave him here! The police would find out!” She said, feeling an odd protectiveness for this man that had just tried to rip out her throat.
“There are special humans for that kind of thing! Let’s just go.” Alex said trying to pull her with her but failing as her hand only went through Abby’s arm, giving her a chill.
Abby only walked closer to the man, glared at her, and said, “Would you send anyone off to the fate that you suffered?”
Alex backed up away from Abby, floating a few inches off the ground. She looked at her, then at the ground, shrugged, and said, “I hope you’re right.”
Her arms were under the man when Alex said that and she stopped where she was. “What do you mean?” The sirens getting louder quickly.
“That you can trust him and that you won’t just end up like me.” She said, fading off to Enforcers-know-where.
Abby carried the man into the alley with her poltergeist power just as three police cars pulled up to the house across the street. The man was twitching in her arms as she held her breath, hoping that the police would just leave. Her wish came true because, not seeing any dangerous activity they drove away and back to their homes. As she began to run him towards the only place that she thought was safe, she hoped that she was right too.
Chapter 3

"Xavier!" One of his many recruited vampires burst into the room, seemingly out of breath. "We have a serious problem!"
The young man slammed something down on the table.
Because of his ruthless brother they had had to relocate dozens of times, which was bad enough, but he had his two year old child, Andrew and his wife, Jennifer to hide too. For the moment they were hiding out in a cabin in the woods with Gregor's wife Ava. She was an elf and she was able to control most of the plant life in the forest. It was like having their own personal guard dog, made of plants.
He and most of his group of vampires were hiding out in tunnels in Virginia. Far away from Adalstienn castle near the border of Canada. The tunnels were not the most glamorous of hideouts but it worked for them because the tunnels went on for what seemed like forever and they had many dead ends that they used as rooms for all of the vampires. At this point there were beds in about ten of the rooms, but the estate above the entrance belonged to one of his followers, so they had a good source for supplies and they were gradually getting more furniture.
He obviously didn't want his child and his beautiful wife to have to live in these godforsaken tunnels. Gregor had shared his opinion, as had several others in his group. They didn't do it as an offense to the women, it was that some of them wouldn't be able to keep their sanity in these tunnels, and they all knew that they were more than welcome to stay down there with them.
Xavier jerked himself back to the present. That is what is important at the moment. He thought to himself.
"What is it?" Y's army of followers had been growing steadily larger with each passing week.
The man pointed at the newspaper that he had slammed onto the table and ran out of the room.
Xavier walked over to it and picked it up, but he dropped it at almost the exact same moment.
"GREGOR!" He screamed through the dirt tunnels.
He was there quickly but not as quickly as Xavier would have liked, because he was drinking wine again. Alcohol didn't make them get drunk, their metabolism was too quick for that, but it did make them slightly tipsy.
"What? What is it? I was going to take a nap." He yawned, bottle in hand, as he rubbed his eyes.
"You can nap later. This is extremely urgent." Xavier picked the newspaper up as if it was going to bite him and then he threw it at Gregor. "Do you know where this was taken?"
"Uhhhh... Hmmm..." Gregor rubbed his chin in thought, "I don't know... Maybe in... Hmmm... Oh my God!" He gasped, throwing the paper to the floor like Xavier had.
"Yeah." He looked at Gregor in sorrow and Gregor still stood there in shock.
The newspaper headline read, "Vandals Break Into Cemetery" If you read through the article you would read; "...man found dead... wrist ripped open... empty coffin...”
"He's back."

His first thought was that he was back in that terrible coffin under the earth. He almost started having a panic attack until he noticed the differences in his prison.
The floor was made of wood that was slightly moist at the moment, and beginning to rot. The walls around him had a wave-like texture to them and were made of metal. The metal had started rusting and had created holes to the outside world that he could see through as he slowly stood. Through the holes he could see stars.
The inside of the box car was actually a welcome sight. He had ridden in them, before his imprisonment in the cold, unforgiving earth.
He started towards the sliding door to his right but he was stopped by an unforeseeable force.
He felt and looked like a mime as he tried to figure out was stopping him. He stopped and bowed his head.
Opening his eyes he realized that he was standing on a chalk pentagram. The pentagram showed him that the door he had been trying to get at was north of where he was. There were words in what looked like Latin in a circle that all of the points of the pentagram touched. He, lucky enough, was fluent in Latin and after reading through the rough cursive he realized that he was in a Security Spell. Anything could go in, but nothing could ever go out until the spell was released. He assumed that the girl was good friends with a witch, because the odds were very unlikely that she was a Guide and a witch. More than likely the witch would be an adult and that adult was smart enough to starve him out and stake him while weak, for there was no way that they could know how long ago he had fed.
His stomach began to growl at him at the thought of delicious rivers of blood, and he knew for a fact that he could only last for a little less than a day without ending up in a state similar to the one that he had just escaped. He still had to recuperate all of the lost blood from last time, which meant that he had to feed more regularly than he normally would have. He pushed his hunger down with his will and refocused on the problem at hand.
He had been unconscious only several