Fallen Angel, Alexandra Rader [best book clubs txt] 📗

I was minding my own business when the sending entered my mind. I don’t know how or even who sent it. It was the strongest sending I had ever received and it left me kind of winded. I was so startled that I didn’t understand the persistent feeling in my gut at first. In a few moments I understood that my sister, Taylor was being held captive by David, my fiancé, and was being tortured.

I got up immediately from my dining room table in France and raced to the familiar underground tunnels dug for a vampires sanctuary. I was there in less than five hours. Then I was running through them trying to find the right one until, there, finally, I caught a familiar scent and knew I was on the right path now. My heart beat accelerated as did my pulse. It was like ecstasy, running for a vampire like me. That was when I first heard it, and it tore me out of my reverie.

A scream echoed in my ears as I ran. Taylor was in trouble and she needed my help. My feet pounded loudly in the eerie, damp tunnel. It was pitch black, but I could see every detail perfectly. I remembered these tunnels, for I had been changed in their darkness three years ago by my best friend, Dasan. He had brutally died saving my life.

The scream echoed again, but it was still far off. Are they torturing her for information?

I thought. This made me race down the winding tunnel faster and faster, and faster yet until I was almost flying. My blonde hair whipping past my face to stream out behind me, looking like a cape. My cold as steel blue eyes darted around dangerously. Now is the time I wish I passed my shape shifting test,

I thought glumly.

Once again, the scream echoed. It was so loud this time it sounded as if my sister were right next to me. I turned sharply to the right and stopped. Two guards stood on either side of the barred door. I said, “Be gone with you!” and they evaporated. I waltzed into the room on lithe feet, head held high.

My sister, Taylor, was cowering on the ground a few yards from David. Her mud brown eyes were glowing with fear and her long, light brown hair hung limply down her back. Her face silently begged me for help and it tore my heart open to see her like this. My anger flashed at David. How could he do this to my sister? My own flesh and blood? Who did he think he was?

I thought furiously.

David looked frightened as well as I sauntered toward him. His dark brown eyes darted from side to side in terror as if he were afraid I would tear him limb by limb for going behind my back. And as if that thought hadn’t already entered my mind,

I thought joyfully. But the pride of a werewolf was in him and he stood his ground. At least for now. His blackish-blue hair was standing on end and I smiled in my head at that, for it proved he really was genuinely afraid of me and what I might do to him.

“Misty!” Taylor shrieked, trying to struggle to her feet.

“Misty, my love!” David exclaimed, jumping to his shaking legs and bowing his head respectfully. “What are you doing here? I thought you were in Romania watching your family.”

“And I thought you promised not to mess with Taylor,” I retorted. “We had a deal, David! You broke my sisters’ leg! You… I can’t believe you’d… Why did you do it? Why David? You said you loved me and that you would never hurt me. Was that a lie just like your broken promise?”

“No, no, my love!” he said, using my injured voice to wrongly assure himself that I was hurt by his betrayal and not pissed off. “ I would never do anything to hurt you and I do love you. With all my heart I love you, my queen. I only did what I did because I thought she was holding something back and that SHE would hurt you,” he said with a sneer in Taylor’s direction. She returned it with a fiery glare of her own, which I respected and cheered for silently in my head. “I would NEVER hurt you, darling.”

“Misty would you stop confronting him and help me?” Taylor asked with a very shaky voice that worried me deeply.

“Would someone PLEASE shut her up?” David roared to no one in particular.

“No. Don’t you dare touch her,” I warned the guard with a tone of steel, who was approaching Taylor with a cloth.

I then walked, beginning to get shaky on my own two legs in fear that she was in critical condition, over and knelt beside Taylor.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt bad?” I asked her, worry thickly coating my voice.

“Am I okay?” Taylor repeated and laughed. “I’m more than alright! I’m just fine! Ha ha ha! I’ve just been kidnapped by your oh-so-loving fiancé, locked down here, and had my leg broken! Oh, yeah! I’m just fine!” With that Taylor passed out cold and slumped to the chilly floor.

“What have you done to her?” I asked, very softly.

“Misty, darling. Taylor will be just fine. I’m sorry, love. I never meant to hurt you. I thought I was helping you… us,” David said.

“You thought that by hurting my sister you would help us?” I asked quietly, but with a bone chilling tone.

“Misty… Misty… Misty, please understand…” David pleaded helplessly as he watched the silent silver tears roll down my cheeks. His heart ached with the fact that it was he who had made me cry, and I knew it. But I still made no move to comfort him as he was yet to make a move to comfort me. We stood there like that, with tears rolling silently down my cheeks, him looking at me with the most wounded expression, and Taylor lying very, very still at my feet.

It felt like an eternity before I finally moved to kneel by Taylor once more. I picked up her broken body as gently as I could, but she still let out a gentle moan of pain. She didn’t regain consciousness, though. As carefully as I could manage, I swept passed David and beckoned to a guard to come and help me. Immediately the guard was in front of me, a slight wind the only way of knowing that he hadn’t been there all along. He bowed low to the ground and awaited my command.

“Lead the way to my chambers, please. And while you’re at it, go ahead and send Nathan to my chambers with a feast in tow. I think my sister would enjoy a nice meal after everything she has endured, don’t you? I mean, after she has regained consciousness, of course.”

“Yes, of course,” he agreed. Then he stilled for a moment with a look of the deepest concentration and I knew Nathan would be waiting in my chambers with the feast when we arrived.

The morning was beautiful. The sun poured through in shafts of light. Every color imaginable tickled my face as I awoke. I stretched and yawned and thought about the day before. A dark shadow passed over me at the memory. I tried desperately to think of something else, but nothing came to mind. I rolled over onto my side and saw Taylor’s chest raise slowly up and down with her steady breathing. She had finally come to last night and ate everything that was offered to her, as if in ‘determination to eat every last crumb of food in the world’ she had joked.

I must go find David and …

I thought for a moment. …and do what? Jump down his throat again? I bet he feels so terrible now that he knows that Taylor was in no means whatsoever doing anything to hurt me.

I thought, with a sickening happiness. Good. He should feel terrible. He was in the wrong and by thinking he was ‘helping me… us’ he hurt me beyond anything. So he SHOULD feel terrible.

Quiet as a cat, I jumped out of bed and padded softly to the door. Taylor awoke with a start. I walked quickly back over to her.

“How do you feel?” I asked her anxiously.

“Tired… and achy,” she grumbled. “And hungry.”

“Well, I’m sure Nathan will feed you again and then you can get some more rest. Will you be okay by yourself for a while? I have… some errands… to run this morning. Can you manage?” I asked.

“You mean finding David, not running errands, right? Yes, I can manage. Go find the mongrel and tell him… tell him… Oh, I don’t know… Tell him I’ll forgive him for your sake. But Misty, I’m only forgiving him for you. You know this, right?”

“Yes. Yes I know this,” I answered quietly. A sound like a wounded animal suddenly escaped my throat and I crumpled by Taylor’s side.

“Oh, when will you ever stop being so stubborn?” I wailed. “You could have everything you wanted if only you would let me change you. You would be able to see so clearly. Have the most wonderful hearing. No disease could ever penetrate your flawless, perfect body. You would be irresistible to every one. Men and woman alike. You could run with the wind, and be as silent or as loud as you want. You would be free from every pain imaginable-”

“Then why do you feel pain?” Taylor interrupted me.

“I don’t know,” I answered quietly. “It’s not normal for our kind, I’ll admit. But it’s not normal pain, either. It’s very rare to be like me, to have any kind of pain. My pain… it’s not physical pain… It’s more like… emotional… or… or… That’s not right… Emotional doesn’t really explain it at all…I don’t know how to explain it. I mean it is physical, but then again it’s not. The same way goes for trying to explain it as emotional. To be honest, I really don’t know how to explain it. It‘s like it‘s emotional and physical, but then again, it‘s neither. I just don’t know, Taylor,” I answered truthfully.

“I know how much this means to you, Misty. But I’m not sure I’m up to it like you are. You were always the one rushing into things so fast. YOU were the one always up to an adventure. Not me. This is your kind of life, Misty. Not mine. I’m more of the subtle kind. I just want to settle down in