Dark Awakening

Book 1: Dark Dynasties

by Kendra Leigh Castle

Genres: Paranormal Romance

Synopsis

Acclaimed for her richly imagined paranormal romances, Kendra Leigh Castle begins her Dark Dynasties series with this sizzling tale. Shapeshifting vampire Tynan MacGillivray has been ordered to find a human seer who can give his clan the upper hand in a devastating war. So he tracks down Lily Quinn, and together they discover a new world of danger, sensuality, and powers that cannot be controlled.
“Castle’s world-building is superb.”—RT Book Reviews

Release date: July 1, 2011

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 368

Sample

THE BALLROOM WAS bathed in the soft glow of candlelight, and tiny flames danced, reflected in the eyes of those gathered for the ceremony.
The young woman, the Chosen, stepped uncertainly into their midst, her bare feet noiseless on the dark and gleaming wood floor.
Her eyes widened as she took in the sight of the lithe and elegant figures, pale-skinned and beautiful, who had come to witness
this event, the most momentous of her life.


The last of her natural life.

Though she had caught glimpses of others like her lover before, she had never seen so many in one place. It was amazing, overwhelming…
and just a little frightening.


Rosalyn. Her name echoed in a whisper all around her, though not a single mouth moved. Soon she would know their thoughts as well
as they knew hers. These were to be her people, those who shared the ancient bloodline of a goddess, a pharaoh. They were
the Ptolemy, and they were to be revered.


As instructed, she had come to this beautiful manor in the middle of nowhere, clad in nothing but a thin silk robe of purest
white. Soon, Rosalyn knew, that would be gone. She would enter her new life as she had come into the first, bare-skinned and
pure. Her eyes darted anxiously around the room, searching for her beloved. The one who had made all this possible, the one
who loved her enough to want her by his side for all time. However, all she saw were unfamiliar faces, cold in their beauty,
eyes glowing preternaturally in the semidarkness. Some watched her with interest, others with naked hunger. Not all were unkind,
she consoled herself as she fought back a shiver.


But none belonged to her Jeremy.

Rosalyn shuddered in a shallow breath and moved forward, determined not to let her fear of the unknown get the better of her.
Jeremy had gone through all the proper channels, and she had been questioned by an emissary of Arsinöe herself, gaining the
all-important blessing of the queen and securing her permission to join the sacred House of Ptolemy.


She had spent the past week making her arrangements and, though her family didn’t yet understand, saying her good-byes. Being
born into this new life meant cutting ties with the old one, and she’d shed more than a few tears over it. But the loss was
well worth the gain. No longer would she be just one of a vampire’s stable of human lovers, kept (though kept well) for the
willing and frequent gift of her blood.


Now she would be Jeremy’s mate eternal. For the first time, they would feast upon each other. And when the ceremony was over,
and her skin was branded with the mark that would forever bind her to the ancient dynasty that had been blessed by Sekhmet, Rosalyn knew she would walk into her new life with no regrets, hand in hand with her love. She would
be Rosalyn of the Ptolemy.


But… where was Jeremy?

The small crowd of perhaps thirty witnesses cleared to form a wide circle around her, leaving her standing alone, exposed
in their midst. They were unnervingly silent, as was the way of their kind, but Rosalyn had been admonished not to speak until
spoken to. So she waited as silently as they did, keeping her shoulders back, her chin high. She had been declared worthy.
She clung to that and hoped her looks reflected it. She had brushed her long, straight hair so that it gleamed like spun gold
as it fell past her shoulders, and she’d left her delicate features unpainted, the way Jeremy preferred. After tonight, Rosalyn
thought, her eyes flickering over several of the dazzlingly beautiful women in attendance, she’d never need cosmetics again
anyway.

Vampiric beauty was incomparable, and eternal.

A soft murmur ran through the crowd then, and suddenly he was there, stepping into the circle with her. Tall, sandy-haired,
boyishly handsome Jeremy. He stepped forward to take her hands in his, and Rosalyn shivered, as she always did, at the first
touch of that cool skin on hers. But the warmth in his eyes, glowing deep blue with a light all their own, more than compensated.
He leaned in close, and she could smell the faint musk of his skin.


“Ready?” he asked softly, his warm breath fanning her ear.

She nodded. “Always.”

He smiled, and the light caught the sharp points of his incisors, gleaming white between deep red lips. He looked away for a moment, and between one blink and the next, they were joined by a third person in the circle, a tall, imposing
man who stood ramrod straight in a severe black suit. His expression was solemn, and when he spoke, his voice rippled through
the air with a power that signified great age, though he appeared no older than forty.


This was the master of the ceremony, one of Arsinöe’s trusted emissaries sent to oversee and verify the ancient ritual.

His first question was directed at Jeremy. “By what name are you called, supplicant?”

Jeremy’s response was immediate, and full of pride. “I am Jeremy Rothburn of the Ptolemy.”

“And what do you ask of us on this full moon’s night?”

“I ask to bring this woman, Rosalyn DeVore, into the sacred House of Ptolemy, to bind her to us with the dark gift and to
share with her life eternal.”


The emissary’s pale eyes shifted to her. “And you, Rosalyn DeVore? What do you request of the House of Ptolemy?”

For one heart-stopping instant, she feared that she’d forgotten the words. But then they were there for her, rolling easily
from her tongue. “I ask to join this house, to share in the glorious lineage of Sekhmet, the lioness, the warrior goddess;
of Arsinöe, the eternal pharaoh; and of all fortunate enough to drink the blood of the greatest of the vampire dynasties.
I ask to give of my blood, my life, to Jeremy Rothburn of the Ptolemy, and for his blood, his life, to be shared in return.”


Jeremy squeezed her hands reassuringly as the master of ceremonies gave a solemn nod, acknowledging her request. Then he looked
to the assembly. His voice rose, a powerful and compelling clarion call.


“All you gathered, keepers of the dark flame, honored bearers of the blood of the goddess, you have heard the petition. What
say you?”


The resounding “Aye!” had Rosalyn’s heart soaring. This was it. She’d been accepted. There was only one thing left… though
the final barrier was the most frightening of all. Because she would see death before they were through, if only to turn away
from it forever.


The emissary actually managed a ghost of a smile when he turned his attention back to Jeremy.

“Make her yours. Make her ours.”

He stepped back then, fading away into the crowd until it was once again only the two of them in the circle. Rosalyn looked
at her lover, feeling the importance of the moment, knowing she was drawing her final breaths as a mortal being.


Jeremy undid her robe with a flick of his wrist, leaving it to slide from her shoulders and pool at her feet. Then she was
naked before him, before all of them, terribly, wonderfully exposed. His heart was in his eyes when he stepped forward, and
Rosalyn quickly forgot about the crowd. There were only the two of them there, really. And all their eternity yet before them.


His cool hands slid over her skin, brushing against nipples that had hardened in the chill air. Fear and excitement pooled
in her belly, along with an unexpected flood of desire. Then he was pushing her hair back over her shoulders, bearing the
pulse beating rapidly at the base of her throat. His eyes began to change, turning feral and blindingly bright. His teeth
shone like daggers as he bared them.


He had drunk from her before. She didn’t fear his teeth or the pain that so quickly gave way to pleasure. But this time, he must take her to the edge of death. And he would bring her back by letting her drink from him for the very first
time.


Rosalyn gasped as his teeth pierced her flesh, and she heard an answering sigh rise up all around them. Then she could see,
hear, feel nothing but Jeremy, and the sensation of drowning in a rush of pleasure until all reality narrowed to a single
bright point that glowed ever farther in the distance. Lethargy stole through her limbs, and still he drank, pulling her life
out of her, taking it into himself. When she crumpled to the floor, he came with her, gathering her close in his arms while
he continued to feed.


Her heartbeat slowed… slowed. From the pool of near blackness in which she wallowed, Rosalyn waited for the press of Jeremy’s
wrist against her lips. For the taste of his blood, so long yearned for, so that the ritual would be complete.


Instead, she began to hear the distant sounds of screaming.

At first it was only one voice, a startled shriek cut brutally short. Then another began, and another, picking up the cry
until the cavernous room reverberated with the sounds of terror and pain. Rosalyn struggled to open her eyes as Jeremy’s teeth
tore from her throat, as he lifted his head to stare at whatever horror show her initiation had become. Above the screaming,
she heard the sounds of running, of fists beating against doors that had been sealed shut.


And beneath all that was a wet, rending sound that could be only the tearing of flesh—a sickening splatter, then a rush of
air as something, someone, was cast brutally aside for the next. And the next.


The thud of lifeless bodies grew closer.


“Where is it? I can’t see it!” shrieked a terrified female voice. A window shattered.


Jeremy looked down at her, cradled in his lap, and if Rosalyn had had the strength, she would have cried out. For in his eyes
she no longer saw the bright promise of eternal life.


Now there was only death.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, an instant before his head was separated from his body with such force that it hurtled away from
her, across the room. Gore spattered her naked flesh, crimson on white. Then she did scream, a weak, keening sound that was
dredged up from the depths of her fading soul. But she couldn’t run; she could barely move. The darkness was rushing up to
meet her, and it seemed that for her, there would be no return from it after all.


Around her, amidst the fading screams, was the smell of burning.

And the last sound Rosalyn heard was the malicious gurgle of laughter.

Tipton, Massachusetts

Eight months later

TYNAN MACGILLIVRAY crouched in the shadows of the little garden, listening to the mortals rattling loudly around inside the stuffy old mansion.
He tried to concentrate on the scents and sounds of the humans, hoping to pick up any subtle change in the air that might
indicate a Seer was among these so-called ghost hunters, but so far all he’d gotten was a headache.


This small-town gimmick was a long shot, and he knew it. But he’d been everywhere in the past eight months, from New York
City Goth clubs to Los Angeles coven meetings. Anywhere there might be a whisper of ability beyond the norm. In all that time,
he had found not the faintest whiff of a Seer or even a hint of anything paranormal at all. Just a bunch of humans playing
dress-up, trying to be different.


He wondered how they would feel if they walked into an actual vampire club. Most of them would probably be too foolish to
even be frightened for the few seconds their life would last in one of those places. But they might note that there wasn’t
nearly as much black leather and bondage wear in undead society as they seemed to think.


Ty got to his feet, all four of them, and arched his back, stiff from keeping so still in the bushes all night. His cat form
was the gift of his bloodline, though it was of dubious help in places like this. The house he was staking out sat just off
the town square, and there were only a few scrubby barberry bushes for cover. His fur was black, yes, and blended into shadow,
but dog-sized cats didn’t exactly inspire the warm cuddlies in passersby.


Hell. It’s no good. Ty gave a frustrated growl as he accepted the fact that this trip was just another bust. He’d been reduced to combing psychic
fairs and visiting what were supposedly America’s most haunted places, hoping something would draw out the sort of human he
so desperately needed to find. But soon, very soon, Ty knew he would have to return to Arsinöe with the news that the Seers
had, in all likelihood, simply died out. For the first time in three hundred years of service, he would have to admit failure.


And the Mulo, the gypsy curse that was slowly killing those he was charged with protecting, would continue its dark work until
there was no one left who bore the mark of the Ptolemaic dynasty, the oldest and most powerful bloodline in all of vampire
society, begun when Arsinöe’s life was spared by a goddess’s dark kiss. No other house could claim such a beginning, or such
a ruler. But if things continued, the other dynasties, eternally jealous of the Ptolemy’s power, lineage, and reach, wouldn’t even have a carcass to feed upon.


The invisible terror had attacked twice more, both times at sacred initiations of the Ptolemy, both times leaving only one
vampire alive enough to relate what had happened. Or in the case of the first atrocity, one nearly-turned human woman. Rosalyn,
he remembered with a curl of distaste in the pit of his gut. They had brought her back to the compound, bloody and broken,
taking what information they could before finally letting her die a very human death. He doubted she had known how lucky she
was.


Ty, used to fading into shadow and listening, knew that all in the inner circle of Arsinöe’s court agreed: it was only a matter
of time before the violence escalated even further, and the queen herself was targeted.


Without their fierce Egyptian queen, the House of Ptolemy would fall. Maybe not right away, but there were none fit to take
Arsinöe’s place, unless Sekhmet appeared once more to bestow her grace on one of them. If the goddess even still existed.
More likely there would be a bloody power struggle that left but a pale shadow of what had been, and that petty infighting
would take care of whoever the Mulo had left behind, if any. And the Cait Sith such as himself, those who had been deemed
fit to serve only by virtue of their Fae-tainted blood, would be left to the dubious mercy of the remaining dynasties that
ruled the world of night.


He could no more let that happen than he could walk in the sun.

Ty pushed aside his dark thoughts for the moment and debated heading back to his hotel room for the night, maybe swinging by a local bar on the way to get a quick nip from one of the drunk and willing. Suddenly a back door swung
open and a woman stepped out into the crisp night air.


At first he stayed to watch because he was merely curious. Then the moonlight caught the deep auburn of her hair, and Ty stared,
transfixed, as she turned fully toward him. Utterly unaware of the eyes upon her, she tipped her head back, bathing herself
in starlight, the soft smile on her lips revealing a woman who appreciated the pleasure of an autumn night well met.


He heard her sigh, saw the warm exhalation drift lazily upward in a cloud of mist. For him, caught in some strange spell,
it all seemed to occur in slow motion, the mist of her breath hanging suspended for long moments above her mouth, as though
she’d gifted a shimmering bit of her soul to the night. The long, pale column of her throat was bared above the collar of
her coat, the tiny pulse beating at the base of it amplified a thousand times, until he could hear the singular pulse and
pound that were her life, until it was everything in his universe. Her scent, a light, exotic vanilla, drifted to him on the
chill breeze, and all thought of drinking from some nameless, faceless stranger vanished from his mind.


Ty wanted her. And though a certain amount of restriction was woven tightly into the fabric of his life, he would not deny himself this.
Already he was consumed by the thought of what her blood might taste like. Would it be as sweet as she smelled? Or would it
be darker than she appeared to be, ripe with berry and currant? Every human had a singular taste—this he had learned—and it
spoke volumes about them, more than they would ever know.


She lingered only a moment longer, and her heart-shaped face, delicately featured with a pair of large, expressive eyes he
was now determined to see close up, imprinted itself on him in a way he had never before experienced. Ty’s mind was too hazed
to question it now, this odd reaction to her, but he knew he would be able to ponder nothing else later.


Later. Once he had tasted her.

When she turned away, when the burnished waves of her hair spilling over the collar of her dark coat were all he could see,
Ty found he could at least move again, and he did so with the ruthless efficiency of a practiced hunter. Like a predator that
has latched on to the scent of its prey, his eyes never left her, even as he rose up, his feline form shifting and elongating
until he stood on two feet among the straggling bushes.


He breathed deeply, drinking in that singular scent with anticipatory relish.

Then Ty turned up the collar of his coat and began the hunt.

Lily rounded the corner of the house with a sigh of relief.

Probably she should feel guilty about bailing on the annual Bonner Mansion ghost hunt. Bailing before anything interesting
happened anyway—so far, all she’d seen was a bunch of overly serious amateur ghost hunters who thought every insect was a
wayward spirit. Oh, and that couple who had set up camp in a closet with the door shut, she remembered with a smirk. Whatever
sort of experience they were after, she was pretty sure it wasn’t supernatural.


Why she’d even let Bay con her into this was a mystery; their weekly date to watch Ghost Hunters didn’t translate into any desire on her part to actually go running around inside a dark, musty, supposedly haunted house. Thank God the hottie from the Bonner County Paranormal
Society had shown up when he had. Lily wasn’t sure which had made her best friend’s eyes light up more: the tight jeans or
the thermal-imaging camera. Either way, she wasn’t even positive the group had heard her when she’d claimed a brewing headache
as an excuse to leave them there, but Bay’s grin told her she’d be thanked for going at some point in the near future.


She lifted her wrist to glance at her watch, squinting at it in the darkness, and noted that it was about quarter to twelve.

“So much for another Friday night,” she muttered. Still, it didn’t have to be a total waste. Maybe she’d get crazy, stay up
late with some popcorn and a Gerard Butler movie.


Wild times at Lily Quinn’s house. But better, always better, than running the risk of sleep. She didn’t need a silly ghost
tour to scare her. Nothing could be scarier than the things she saw when she closed her eyes.


Lily crunched through dead leaves, then stopped, frowning at the unfamiliar view of bare trees and, a little farther off,
the wrought-iron fence that bordered the property’s grounds. Despite the reasonably close proximity to the town square, the
Bonner Mansion sat back a ways from the road, and the historical society had managed to hang on to a portion of the original
property, so there were still grounds to the place. But there was, as a nod to modernity, a parking lot.


And it was, Lily realized, on the other side of the house. She tipped her head back, closed her eyes, and groaned.


Her impeccable sense of misdirection had struck again.

After a moment spent silently cursing, Lily shoved her hands deeper into her pockets and set off on what she hoped was the
correct course this time. Directional impairment was one of her defining features, right along with her inexplicable aversion
to suitable men. If she could only find a well-educated, Shakespeare-quoting bad boy who still had a thing for sexy tattoos
and maybe a mild leather fetish, she might at least have a shot at avoiding her probable future as a crazy old cat lady.


A long shot, maybe. But a shot.

At least it was a beautiful night, Lily thought, inhaling deeply. The smell of an October night was one of her favorites,
especially in this part of New England. It was rife with the earthy, rich smell of decaying leaves, of wood smoke from someone’s
chimney, and shot through with a cleansing bite of cold.


Lily looked around as she walked, taking her time. In the faint glow from the streetlights along the road, this place really
did have a haunted look about it, but not scary. More like someplace where you’d find a dark romance, full of shadows and
sensual mystery.


She huffed out a breath, amused at herself. She taught English lit because she had always liked the fantasy of what could
be, instead of the often unpleasant reality of how things were. Speaking of which, it looked like a little Phantom of the Opera might be in order for her Friday night movie. Even if the ending absolutely refused to go the way she wanted, she thought
with a faint smile, no matter how many times she’d willed Christine to heal the dark and wounded Phantom instead of wasting
her time on boring old Raoul.


It would have made for one hell of a love scene—

There was a sudden, strange tingling sensation at the back of her neck. Lily felt the hairs there rising as a rush of adrenaline
chilled her blood. Someone was behind her. She knew it without seeing, felt eyes on her that hadn’t been there a moment before.


But when she whirled around, stumbling a little in her haste to confront whoever was behind her, she saw nothing. Only the
empty expanse of lawn, dotted with the skeletal shapes of slumbering trees, an empty bench, and beside her, the dark shape
of the house. Nothing.


Nowhere even to hide.

Lily felt her heart kick into a quicker rhythm, and her breath became shallower as her eyes darted around, looking for a shape,
a shadow, anything that would explain her sudden, overwhelming certainty that she wasn’t alone.


Stupid, she told herself. You’re walking through a horror movie setup, and it’s just got your imagination running, is all.

Lily knew that was more than likely it, but she still wanted to reach her car and get out of here. Soothed a little by the
thought that there were a whole bunch of people inside the house who would hear her scream if anything did happen, she turned
to continue making her way out front, casting a lingering look over one shoulder.


Though the moon rode high in the night sky, nearly full, and the air was still rich with the very scents she’d just been enjoying,
all her pleasure had vanished in favor of the insistent instinct that had kept humans walking the Earth for as long as they
had: flight.


“Hey, are you all right?”

She gave a small scream before she could stop herself, jumping at the sudden appearance of another person in front of her when there’d been no sign of another soul only seconds before.


He raised his hands in front of him, eyebrows lifting in an expression that plainly said he was as startled as she was. “Whoa,
hey, don’t do that! I’m not a ghost or anything. You can start breathing again.” One eyebrow arched higher, plaintive. “Please?”


It was the faintly amused concern he put into that last word that finally got her to draw in a single, shuddering breath.
But she still shot a quick look around, gauging distance in case she had to run.


“Look, I’m sorry,” the man said, drawing Lily’s full attention back to him. “I needed to get out of there for a few. Too many
people, not enough ghosts, you know?”


“I… yeah,” Lily said, still trying to figure out how she should deal with this. Had he been inside too? She wasn’t sure….
There’d been a cluster of people, and not everyone had shown up at the same time. It was certainly possible. But when she
looked more closely at him, she was sure she would have remembered if they’d crossed paths.


“Let’s start over,” he said.

This time she picked up on the lilting Scottish accent in a voice that was soft and deep but with a slightly rough edge.

He extended a hand to her. “I’m Tynan. MacGillivray.”

Yeah, it didn’t get any more Scottish than that. Lily hesitated for a split second, but her deeply ingrained sense of politeness
refused to let her keep her hand in her pocket. Tentatively, she slid her hand into his and watched as his long, slim fingers
closed around it.


“I’m Lily. Lily Quinn,” she said, surprised by the sensation of cool, silken skin against her own. But at the point of contact, warmth quickly bloomed, matching the heat that began to course through her system as she finally noticed that Tynan
MacGillivray was incredibly good-looking.


Not handsome, she thought. That was the wrong word for what he was, though some people might have used it anyway. He was more…
compelling. She let herself take in the sharp-featured, angular face with a long blade of a nose and dark, slashing brows.
His mouth held the only hint of softness, with an invitingly full lower lip that caught her attention far more than it should
have, under the circumstances. His skin was so fair as to make him pale, though for some reason it only enhanced his strange
appeal, and was set off further by the slightly shaggy, overlong crop of deep brown hair that he’d pushed away from his face.


It was his eyes, though, that Lily couldn’t seem to avoid. Light gray, with a silvery cast from the moonlight, they watched
her steadily, unblinking. She wanted to believe he meant her no harm. But there was an intensity in the way he looked at her
that kept her off balance. I should get moving, get out of here, Lily thought, feeling like a deer that has picked up the scent of a predator.


But she was caught by those eyes, unable to look away. She shuddered in a soft breath as he stepped in closer, never letting
go of her hand.


No, she thought, her eyes locked with his, her legs refusing to move. But then, right on the heels of that: Yes.

“Lily,” he said, his voice little more than a sensual growl. “Now, that’s a pretty name. Fitting.”

No one had ever said her name quite like that before, savoring it, as though they were tasting it. Desire, unexpected, u. . .