Destined to Dream, page 1
© 2021 J. Kearston
All rights reserved
No part of this work may be duplicated, reproduced, or transferred by any means, without the written approval of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual people (living or dead), places, or events is purely coincidental.
*Cover art by Danielle Fine at Design by Definition Covers*
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Destined to Dream | Chapter 1 | Scarlett
Chapter 2 | Malcolm
Chapter 3 | Scarlett
Chapter 4 | Scarlett
Chapter 5 | Scarlett
Chapter 6 | Malcolm
Chapter 7 | Kasen
Chapter 8 | Scarlett
Chapter 9 | Malcolm
Chapter 10 | Kasen
Chapter 11 | Scarlett
Chapter 12 | Kasen
Chapter 13 | Malcolm
Chapter 14 | Scarlett
Chapter 15 | Scarlett
Chapter 16 | Kasen
Chapter 17 | Scarlett
Chapter 18 | Beckett
Chapter 19 | Beckett
Chapter 20 | Malcolm
Chapter 21 | Scarlett
Chapter 22 | Scarlett
Chapter 23 | Beckett
Chapter 24 | Scarlett
Chapter 25 | Scarlett
Chapter 26 | Beckett
Chapter 27 | Scarlett
Epilogue | Five Years Later
Thank you so much for reading!
Destined to Dream
Chapter 1
Scarlett
“Scar!” His protests are literally torn from his throat, blood spraying over my face a moment later.
Face buried in Daniel’s collar, I pull my fangs free of his mangled flesh to latch onto his wound. The warm rush of blood flows over my tongue as he struggles, but the attempts grow more pitiful by the moment until the weak smacks at my shoulders and cheek cease all together. Flicking my tongue over the flecks of blood on his skin one final time, I drop his lifeless corpse at my feet.
Heart beating wildly in my chest, I run my fingers over my cheek, stained red when I pull my hand away. While glassy, unseeing eyes stare up at me, memories tease my consciousness. The faint sounds of his laughter, the mischievous glint in his dark eyes as he tried to coax me into ducking out of work early with him. Never again though. He’s gone, his life destroyed as completely as mine is. But unlike me, he gets to escape while I’m stuck standing here, doomed to repeat the endless cycle.
The tingling in the back of my mind intensifies and I choke on the desperate scream that’ll never escape my throat as more than an inhuman snarl before my feet automatically start dragging me back towards the filthy hovel we’re currently shacked up in.
“Scarlett.”
Only a few more minutes separate me from the disgusting feeling of that creature sinking his teeth into my shoulder, roaming hands keeping me pinned against his body while he drains the stolen blood from my veins and-
“Scarlett. Wake up, love.”
Malcolm’s words finally break through my nightmare and I snap awake, teeth bared in a hiss as my sprinting heart threatens to drown out his voice with every thundering beat. He’s kneeling beside the bed, hands raised in surrender, and frustration shining in his hazel eyes. After the first few times when I reacted without thinking, tearing deep grooves into his chest or biting his arm, he always waits to touch me until I’m fully conscious. His fingers twitch before he curls them into a fist, like it’s taking all of his restraint not to reach out and smooth my tangled blonde hair from my face.
“I’m sorry,” I croak, throat raw enough it’s clear I’ve been screaming for a while.
How long was he stuck listening to me, calling my name?
Still, he didn’t touch me; not after the way I broke down sobbing for hurting him last time. I swear, he couldn’t care less about getting hurt, that I could easily kill him. He just looked so damn defeated when he realized what it was doing to me, making everything worse, that he’s warring with his instincts and keeping his hands to himself.
“Nothing to apologize for, gorgeous, you know that.” As I start to calm down, he releases a soft sigh of relief, rising to sit beside me on the mattress and tenderly tucking my hair behind my ear.
The familiar static crackles across my skin as it always does when he touches me, like an electric caress. Closing my eyes, I lean into his touch, a soft sound of matching contentment escaping my lips.
“Want to talk about it?” he quietly offers, working his fingers through my hair to brush out the knots.
“What’s there to talk about?” I croak, having to clear my throat. “The nightmares are always the same; it’s just a matter of who and where.” Self-loathing colors my tone and I sigh, reining in my irritation so I don’t lash out at him. I’m just so angry at the entire situation and struggling to cope. But I owe Malcolm everything for saving me, so the least I can do is an explanation after waking him up for the second time this week.
“They’re getting clearer,” I whisper. “Usually they’re just a blurry haze; more feelings than anything. Fear, confusion, hunger.” Bringing my knees up to my chest, I wrap my arms around my legs over the blanket. “This one; I knew him. Worked with him. He was a friend instead of some random, nameless person.”
My stomach turns as he simply continues to stare at me without an ounce of judgment or condemnation. It’s the best and worst part of everything that happened. My entire life was ripped away from me, saved from my sire, only to be used as a human battery by some twisted mages with a God complex until Malcolm showed up.
Malcolm; my mate that I never would have crossed paths with otherwise.
To him, it doesn’t matter that I killed hundreds of people before someone slaughtered my sire, breaking his hold on my mind and body. He spends every waking moment trying to find a way to help me come to terms with the fact that one second I was human, walking home from work, and the next, a year had passed, and I woke up in a cage with no idea what happened and barely able to recognize myself. He forgives my sins as if compelled by the bond, and the thought brings on another wave of self-loathing and horrific memories. I know firsthand what being compelled is like, and I’d never wish that on another soul, much less someone as genuinely kind as Malcolm.
Voice low, he soothingly states, “You can’t change the past, love, and clinging to it will only put you through unnecessary torture. It won’t bring anyone back and punishing yourself doesn’t even some cosmic scale. The only person to blame here is the asshole that had you turned. You’re a victim, Scarlett, and you weren’t in control of your actions. Once you start accepting that none of it was your fault, you can start looking forward.”
Pulling his fingers free of my hair, he risks pushing a little farther than usual, cupping my jaw and stroking his thumb over my cheek. “The nightmares might be clearer, but they’re already less frequent than they used to be a few months ago. And the not knowing was eating away at you more than anything, so as awful as it is to remember, try to think of it as a good thing. It might hurt for a while, but at least you’ll know what happened to you during that year so you can start healing from it. Time might not heal all wounds, but it does help dull the pain the memories bring. Let me help you. Please, Scarlett, stop pushing me away.”
Struggling not to burst into tears, my throat bobs as I swallow, trapped in his unyielding gaze. It’s sweet agony being around Malcolm, but recent weeks have started to make things between us lean into the more torturous side of the spectrum. He draws me to him on an instinctive level, and I find myself unconsciously leaning towards him whenever we’re in the same room... and promptly jerking away when I realize I’m doing it.
Because it scares the shit out of me that I’m finally free of the man that manipulated my body, only to have it betraying me yet again.
Add in the sweet scent of his blood that nearly makes me come every time he lets me feed off of him, that threatens my remaining sensibilities? Makes me want to throw caution to the wind and lose myself in him and everything he’s offering? Unlike my sire, I can hurt Malcolm, could kill him. Even if I were able to magically do what he wanted, to simply forgive myself and decide to start moving on, I’d still say that the gods have a fucked up sense of humor for rewarding my suffering with such a backhanded gift as a fated mate.
Swallowing down my tumultuous emotions, I close my eyes and lean into his touch so he knows I’m not ignoring him, just need a few minutes to get my head on straight before I risk speaking.
Wading through the overwhelming onslaught, I try to find what it even is that I want anymore. I’m not mad that I can’t go back to the life I had before I was attacked and turned; it was, quite frankly, miserable. Lonely, dull, and meaningless, just a routine of going through the motions. I’d love it if the nightmares could stop, but Malcolm’s right; I’d rather know what all happened to me during that year because the sort of things I imagine when trying to fill in the gaps makes me want to puke.
I’m my own worst enemy, and I’m succeeding in destroying what’s left of myself. I’m punishing myself like it’s my penance, like if I’m miserable enough it counteracts the awful things that I did, the people that I killed. But it’s not making anything better, or even more manageable. And worse, I’m dragging Malcolm down with me, seeing the way it’s killing him to watch me implode.
I don’t want to be the reason anyone else gets hurt, even if I hate the fact that it might be a self
While I may not be able to simply accept that shit happened and move past it, I’m able to at least accept the fact that this mate thing isn’t going anywhere either. And while it makes perfect sense for the guy that was raised with this sort of lore being a possibility, I was raised human in a sea of supernaturals. Boring, unimpressive, and with no godly intervention to pick out the perfect husband for me, needing to rely on my judgment and a hell of a lot of hope that I didn’t fuck it up before I was too old to fling myself back into the dating pool.
For all of the numbers that humans have in their favor in this broken, mutated world, it’s an incredibly lonely existence.
“Stay?” The word is barely a whisper out of my mouth, but it may as well be a scream, seeming to echo around the otherwise silent bedroom.
You’d think I’d told the guy I discovered the cure for mage-pox with the way his body slumps in physical relief. “You sure?”
Biting my lip, I pause. If I were to have another nightmare, I very easily could maul him as I thrashed around in the bed, could slice his belly open with my claws in a flash before I recognized my surroundings as I came out of it. But that intoxicating electric current is still licking across my skin, his magic attempting to crawl out of his body and into mine, staking a claim by branding me from within. Rather than flinching away from it like I’ve been, afraid of surrendering to the pull and falling into a false sense of security, I take stock of what I’m feeling instead of my body’s physical response.
Malcolm doesn’t feel safe simply because of my desire for absolution, the desperate need of a safe haven as my life falls apart, or lust driving my brain into my vagina. From the moment he freed me from the chair I was strapped to in that basement surrounded by caged shifters and vamps, he’s tried to help me. Endlessly patient through my sobbing breakdowns, my violent knee-jerk reactions to being startled, and biting back his fury as I filled in the gaps where I could. He goes out of his way to ease my conscience and make me feel human again, but... better.
And the feedings. My gods, the feedings.
I might not be willing to completely surrender, but I can’t deny that some sort of truce sounds too enticing to ignore.
“I’m sure.”
Sliding over in the oversized bed to make room for him, we rearrange ourselves until he’s stretched out on his back and my head is on his chest. He wraps an arm around me and hesitantly begins stroking a languid path over my arm, his featherlight touch becoming more sure when I don’t flinch away. All of the compounded stress ebbs from my tense body as I inhale the faint scent of his cologne, my heartbeat falling into sync with his as I close my eyes.
“Go to sleep,” he murmurs, sounding as content as I feel. “If you start to get restless, I’ll wake you up before you sink too far so you don’t need to worry, alright?”
Humming my agreement, I begin to drift off, focusing on his chest rising and falling beneath my cheek, attempting to ground myself to the moment so I don’t freak out again. Everything may have been ripped away from me in a flash of fangs, terror, and so much pain, but if I’m being honest with myself? I wasn’t torn away from anything worthwhile. And while right now things are harder than anything life prepared me to deal with, for the first time, I’m not in it alone.
Chapter 2
Malcolm
Waking up with the world’s most painful hard on isn’t anything new. The sound of my mate’s soft snores as she sleeps on, curled against me without nightmares plaguing her for once, and knowing it might have something to do with me, though? I don’t think I’ve ever felt more at peace.
These last four months have been absolute torture. Hearing her screams, desperately wanting to help her, only to make everything ten times worse the first time she drew blood in her dazed panic. Watching her shrink farther in on herself with every passing day as her anxiety fed her fears of losing control, adding my body to the ones that haunt her dreams. All the while, I struggle with the reins on my magic, the energy wanting to burst out of me with all of the subtlety of a bomb.
Now, the angry snakes of lightning thrashing around in my chest that have become my constant companions slumber as peacefully as the woman pressed into my side. This. This is right, the absolute contentment and peace that so many people chase until their dying breaths; a reason to exist, my reason.
Fated mates are elusive, rare enough that many people are convinced they’re a myth, and finding mine is both a blessing and a curse. I wouldn’t trade Scarlett for the world, but having her right in front of me, discovering she’s a vampire of all things? Everything feels impossibly stacked against us, and while I wish I could keep her tucked away in my penthouse where I can ensure she’s safe, I... want more for her than that. She’s already had so much taken away from her, been a prisoner in both body and mind. She deserves an actual life, and it’s my job to ensure it’s the best one possible, but the rest of the world would happily kill her on sight, destined to repeat the mistakes of our ancestors that got us all in the mess in the first place.
Hundreds of years ago, all of the predatory animals were hunted to extinction. Nature intervened to correct the imbalance as the prey population was left unchecked, ruining ecosystems. Humans, as the highest left on the food chain, started evolving even more. Mages, shifters, and those that were ... wrong.
The vampires are a mindless plague and the only thing every race in even the segregated parts of the country can agree on as a threat big enough to warrant joining forces, no matter how much they hate each other. Or so I used to think before my best friend found his mate, who in turn, found another of her fateds in the form of a still-feral vampire. Evie took everything we thought we knew and blew it out of the water with her research, discovering that vampires were nothing more than killer bees.
Kill the queen, or in this case, possibly the king, and they’d be free. They were simply being sent out as mindless drones to collect blood for their sire, who would feed off of them so he or she wasn’t at risk of being killed, leaving his minions in a constant state of starvation that made them even more feral. Without a sire, though? Vampires aren’t any more dangerous than shifters.
Stroking my hand over her hair, her grip tightens on my shirt, one leg sliding up over my hip to keep me trapped. I simply watch her, transfixed, the two of us breathing freely for the first time in months. There are several things I have to knock out today; meetings, contracts, and generally mind numbing tasks, but the sooner I get them done, the sooner things can be put into motion. There’re hundreds of thousands of cases of vampires slaughtering the masses working against me, but I’ve managed the impossible before.
“Are you going to keep watching me sleep like some weirdo?” she asks without opening her eyes, voice husky with sleep.
Chuckling, I tighten my grip briefly, soaking up these last few peaceful moments while they last. “That depends, are you going to keep pretending to be asleep?”
Humming a contented sound that vibrates into my chest, she starts to push herself upright. Turning to face me, she rubs at her bleary, red-ringed, golden eyes that are as hypnotic as they are a dead giveaway of what she is. If I could mask her scent, I might be able to pass her off as a shifter in public. Their eyes are too vibrant to conceal their nature as well, and I’ve seen several with wild colorings before. In the right lighting, the red rings in Scarlett’s could overtake the gold, making them appear solid enough that she could blend in.
The bedside lamp explodes in a surge at the brief thought of getting one of the men working below to rub himself all over her, to coat her in his scent. She startles before staring down at me with wide eyes as I groan in exasperation, scrubbing a hand over the dark stubble coating my jaw.
“Sorry. Thought I had a solid leash on it,” I apologize with an embarrassed cringe, mentally stuffing my volatile energy into a tight ball.
I’ve always had an enviable amount of control, but being around Scarlett has shot that straight to hell. My employees have spent the last four months whispering behind my back, the respect I fought so hard to earn over the last decade morphing into pitying glances and awkward silences. They all know damn well what magic flares mean in a mage. Either he’s got shit control and a hair-trigger temper, he’s sick, or he found his mate.
