Deadly Encounters (Raina Kirkland Book 4) Read online

  DEADLY

  ENCOUNTERS

  A RAINA KIRKLAND NOVEL

  Book 4

  By Diana Graves

  Copyright © 2014 Diana Graves

  All rights reserved.

  Kindle Edition

  ~~*~~

  License Statement

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Disclaimer

  This book is a work of pure fiction. Characters, places and incidents are creations of the author’s imagination, and any similarity to people, living or dead, businesses, events or places is purely coincidental.

  Acknowledges

  You. You’re Awesome!

  ~~*~~

  Other Works

  Fatal Retribution

  Mortal Sentry

  Grave Omen

  Toxic (Coming Soon)

  Table of Contents

  A RAINA KIRKLAND NOVEL

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE- BEFORE SHE CAME

  WAKING UP DEAD

  BURNING THROUGH AND THROUGH

  HOME SWEET HOME

  MY LOVES

  IN AN AWKWARD PLACE

  MY KIDS!

  HE’S CHANGED

  THE DEMON OF MY DREAMS

  WHERE THERE ARE BOOKS THERE IS HOPE

  LEARNING TO HATE

  WHY HE LOVES ME

  NICK VS ALISTAIR

  PARTS UNSEEN

  VAMPIRE DATING

  FINALLY!

  BEING A MOM

  RECKLESS

  BUYING TIME

  DREAMING OF GOODBYE

  DONE WITH HIM

  MASTERS OF DARKNESS

  INSIDE HER HEAD

  TAKING CONTROL

  KEEPING ON

  A DIRTY JOB

  VAMPIRE BY DESIGN

  SAVING KATIE

  STAYING SAFE

  AN AGING DEMON

  GOOD MORNING

  A NEW LIFE

  VIDEO CALL

  NARROWS BRIDGE

  SEATTLE’S LOST

  A CURE

  TACOMA’S LOST

  DOWN DOWN DOWN

  ADIA’S CHAMBER

  OUR LAST HOPE

  APOLLO

  A NEW NORMAL

  Connect with the author online:

  PROLOGUE- BEFORE SHE CAME

  NICK WAS A rambunctious toddler, with too much energy and a soaring imagination. Stories of his mischievous antics were told and retold at family gatherings, always followed by hearty laughs and then sad, knowing sighs. He was adored, what with his great big brown eyes and untamable red hair. Unlike his studious, quiet, older brother, Tristan, Nick was a wild child, bare foot and loud. That was until his baby sister was born. He was calm with awe around her. She was his double in almost every way. They had the same crazy red hair, the same big brown eyes, and the same spunk. He looked at little Raina with such wonderment and love. She was the smallest person he’d even seen and he instantly felt the need to protect her. He guarded her well from anyone or anything that could harm her or make her cry. He even gave his own mother a stern word or two for being late for Raina’s feedings or diaper changes.

  “Bad Mommy,” he would say with a furrowed brow and deep grimace.

  At night Nick would get out of bed and watch baby Raina sleep. Peering in on her through the bars of her crib, he’d reach his tiny hand in and stroke her back ever so gently. In fact he was doing just that the night Raina died.

  A monstrous beast came to Raina’s window as Nick caressed her back. The great bat-like creature blocked the moon from lighting the room and Nick looked up, startled to see it leering in with hungry eyes! Nick cried out. He grabbed at his baby sister, but she was too heavy for him to lift, and even if he could, he was too short to pick her up and out of the crib. She was trapped!

  The monster broke the window and Nick and Raina screamed. Nick ran out into the hall as the monster advanced on Raina. He cried for his mommy and daddy. But Daddy was gone on a fishing trip with Tristan. Even though Tristan, being an elf and all, refused to fish. Mommy was home, though! He banged his little body against her bedroom door, scratched at it and eventually she did open the door. Young, tall and elegant, Anna picked up her screaming child.

  “What’s wrong?!”

  “Ray-ray!” Nick yelled over and over again. Anna walked with Nick in her arms down the hall to Raina’s nursery, but there was no monster.

  “She’s fine,” Anna said as she walked to the crib, but she could not deny the feeling of dread building in her gut. For each step she took closer to the crib the less sure she was of that statement. Together Nick and Anna looked down on the baby. Raina’s eyes were closed, lips parted, body very still. Anna adjusted her hold on her son to get a free hand. Shaking and scared she lowered that hand to her baby’s mouth, but she felt no breath.

  “No,” Anna said. She could feel panic taking hold, but she managed to set Nick down gently, before grabbing at her baby. At the feel of her lifeless limbs something in Anna broke. “RAINA!” she screamed.

  “Ray-a okay?” Nick asked.

  Anna grabbed Raina up into her arms, wiggling her limbs, patting her face, trying to wake her up. She held her close in her arms. “Come on baby, get up, wake up, wake up!” Being a witch, her mind raced through what magic she knew, but there was no spell that could bring her baby back from the dead…and not be a rotting thing.

  Anna held her baby tight to her, bouncing her gently to the sounds of Nick’s cries. Confused and scared, Nick never left his mommy. He held onto her legs. He wanted to hold Raina too, but he knew Mommy wouldn’t let him.

  Anna set her down in the crib. She knelt down to her son and did something she told herself she would never do again. She prayed. Out loud, Anna begged the world, the universe, any creature in all of creation who could bring back her daughter. She made bargain after bargain, promised anything and everything to whoever, whatever. Until her voice was spent and her eyes could cry no more, she bartered her life away for her daughter’s, but no one answered…

  With the sun rising through the window and reality setting in, Anna gave up. She made a list in her head of what she needed to do. She had to keep her mind busy, or she’d break down again and she couldn’t do that. She had no more tears, no more strength for it.

  “I need to call the police and then Daniel.” She imagined telling her husband that their baby had died. What words could she use? What reason could she give him? She looked up at the broken window, but nothing in Raina’s room was disturbed in the slightest. “How did this happen?” Anna asked. She looked down at her son. “How did this happen!?”

  Nick pointed weakly at the broken window. “Monster,” he said.

  “Monster?” she said softly. As Anna stared out the window the sun rose and shined into the room, making it too bright for her mood. But something was off. The light was growing brighter and brighter still, until Anna couldn’t look at the light any longer. She and Nick both looked away and hid their eyes from the light coming in.

  “Mommy!” Nick called out. He climbed into her lap and wrapped his arms around her neck.

  There was a sound that could not be identified, a smell they could not recognize, a presence too hot, too bright to stand. Anna shielded her son from the heat as they tried to run out of the room.

  “STOP!” call
ed a voice too loud to bear. Anna and Nick fell to the ground, holding their ears in pain, but they did stop. With their backs to the presence, they winced when it spoke next, though its words were softer. “You beckoned me? You spoke of a deal?”

  Anna slowly turned toward the creature. The creature had taken a human’s form. It was a woman with long dark hair and red eyes. She was well over seven feet tall, muscular and nude. Though the look and sound of her was pleasant, her very presence was a strange alien thing, adorned in unspeakable power that Anna feared like nothing else! She couldn’t even speak, but she didn’t have to. The alien knew her and Anna knew that she knew her. She could feel the thing searching her mind, penetrating every private memory, every dark corner. It knew Anna better than Anna and it knew what Anna would give for Raina’s life, what any mother would give for the life of her child.

  The woman shaped creature stepped up to the crib and picked up the small body. Raina looked even smaller in its hands.

  “I am Melpomene, a muse god. It is within my power to bring Raina back. She is not long dead. Give me your son...”

  Anna looked down at Nick for only a second before letting go of his tiny hand. Nick trembled at her side, too scared to move.

  “Don’t fear me,” the creature said, as though that was such an easy request for a small child to grant. “If you want your baby sister back, come here Nicholas.” Slowly Nick approached Melpomene. “Take this appendage—this hand” He did and her flesh was hot in his. “You love her most in this world. Call to her.”

  “Ray?” asked Nick quietly.

  “Yes, call her name.”

  “Ray-a! Ray-a! Ray-Ray!” he called to the baby in the god’s hand. “Wake up, Ray-Ray!”

  “Good, she hears you. Now give her a kiss.”

  Nick didn’t question it. Anna did, but she kept her thoughts to herself. The god bent down to the toddler and held the baby out to him.

  “If you kiss her, you will give her a part of yourself. Do you understand? She will have a part of you inside her and you will feel bound to her. You will be her most loyal friend and protector.” Nick nodded, though he didn’t truly understand then the gravity of his actions. He leaned in and kissed his sister on her forehead. A bite of static electricity hit his lips and he jumped back a little, putting his hands over his mouth.

  The god smiled. “And now that Raina’s with us again, I must repair her. I too will give her a kiss, though through my kiss much more will be transferred. My kiss will give her a piece of me as well, but it will also restart her heart and heal her body.”

  Still Anna could not bring herself to talk, but she didn’t have to. Melpomene knew her mind, she saw the question on Anna’s lips. She wanted to know what the details of their bargain were.

  “Our bargain is simple, Annabella Selena Kirkland. Raina is ours, our daughter. I am destined for exile. Raina will be an extension of me left behind; she will be my Earthly progeny.”

  The god stood tall and brought the baby’s body in close. Anna looked on in utter terror as the god kissed her baby’s tiny lips, but her heart leaped as Raina began to move! At first just a little, but soon her arms and legs were kicking in full strength, her cries were loud. Her wild red locks changed to sleek dark auburn hair. Her eyes turned a deep red color and what natural magic she might have wielded was all but gone, replaced with something a tad more alien.

  Nick stretched his arms up, begging to hold his sister. The god bent down and handed her to him and he held onto her tight.

  “Keep her safe, Nicholas. She needs you.”

  Nick was too young to really understand what the god was talking about, but those two sentences would stay with him. They would play over and over again in his subconscious, shaping his life.

  WAKING UP DEAD

  “HELLO?” I CALLED out as loud as I could, which wasn’t all that loud. In fact, it was a downright whisper. I gave myself a mental slap. Let’s try that again, and this time with more earnest efforts. “Hello?” I called out. For goddess’ sake, how many times did a girl have to die to get some attention around here?

  I heard footsteps coming closer, but I couldn’t turn my head to see who it was. I was lying in the dark, hurt, unable to move, hardly able to speak at all. I didn’t like being so vulnerable, so you could imagine the wash of relief I felt when an old friend peered down at me. Kamaria’s hair was white with age and up in curlers. Her floral summer dress was soaked with sweat and blood; my blood, her sweat. She looked older than last I saw her; a few more wrinkles, thinner skin, nothing more.

  “Raina, you’re safe. You’re in my dining room in the back of the cafe. How do you feel?” she asked.

  How did I feel? My entire body was in stitches. Every inch of it was sewn in place, bloated and stinking of rot.

  “I hurt,” I mumbled between swollen, stitched lips. I could taste the bitter-sweetness of my wounds. Running my tongue over the roof of my mouth, I could feel the stitches holding me together. Bits of flesh hung here and there. I tried not to think too hard about it. I knew if I let myself dwell on it that I’d break down. I didn’t want to break down. I wanted to know what the hell was going on!

  “You’re healing. I can see it,” she said. Her words were kind but her eyes looked anxious. I could only imagine what my face must look like; puffy, half rotten, stretched and sewn. Goddess!

  My muscles felt stiff, the ones I could feel anyway. They felt ridged. “Where did my brother go?” I asked quietly, because my vocal cords and lungs were still healing. I needed to see Nicholas. He had to have some answers. He brought me to the café. He put me back together again, like humpty-fucking-dumpty. It was his face I first woke to, his smell, his words. I swallowed. Damn, it hurt! “I’m thirsty. Where’d Nick go?”

  “Nil is bringing you some food,” she said.

  “Why did he bring me here?”

  “He needed a safe place to—,” She let out a heavy sigh, “Goddess, I didn’t think it would work, just sewing you up like he did, but by the gods, Raina, you’re back!”

  “Ta-da,” I said. Even in my revolting, delicate state, I couldn’t keep my sarcasm to my damn self.

  “Yes,” Kamaria said thoughtfully. “Very impressive, dearie.”

  I was healing as fast as any vampire, but still. In many places only thin thread was keeping me together. I felt like Frankenstein’s monster. When I tried to sit up the thread ripped through my flesh and I cried out. “Damn!”

  Kamaria helped me lay back down carefully. “Take it easy.”

  “Shit,” I breathed past the pain. “Is my daughter okay? Where is Isobel?”

  “She’s fine,” she said. “Both of your children are just fine.”

  I nodded, taking in shallow breaths. “I want to see them,” I said.

  I heard a heavy door open and a few moments later Nick came up and looked down at me. His wild red hair and big, almost black eyes stood out drastically against his vampire gray skin. Hurriedly, he took off his heavy coat to reveal a red shirt that clung to his skinny frame.

  “Raina,” he said with awe in his voice.

  “Hi, Nicholas.”

  He stared at me for a moment before shaking his head. “I didn’t know what you’d want to eat,” Nick said. “As a vampire, I was sure you’d want blood, but then again you’re a demigod also, so you may crave ambrosia.”

  “The food of the gods?” I asked.

  He set down a velvet bag and pulled out two large jars. The first had dark red blood filled to the rim, while the other was filled with a glossy, pink-ish substance. “Yes, but we don’t know which nourishment your body needs. Whatever part of you that was human is dead. So, do you now have the internal workings of a vampire or a god?”

  I was giving the jar of pink shit some seriously apprehensive looks. I wasn’t too keen toward anything god-like in that moment. I certainly didn’t need another reminder of the bit of god I had inside me.

  Nick sighed and looked at Kamaria before looking back down at me. “
You don’t feel much like eating, do you? I don’t blame you.”

  “How did I get here? I mean, how did you get my body?” I asked.

  “I took it from the men who killed you,” he said. “After I killed them.”

  “Why are we here, at Kamaria’s Café?”

  Nick looked at the older woman warmly. “Kamaria is the only person in my life who never let me down. When Mom and Dad shunned me, she took me in, she saw to my wellbeing.”

  “Your family attracts drama like flies to shit,” Kamaria said and Nick smirked, because it was true, too damn true.

  “Maybe we’re cursed,” Nick shrugged. He was joking, though his words made me think for a moment, but damn if I knew who my parents or grandparents could have pissed off so badly.

  “How was death for you?” Nick asked.

  “I went to Hell.”

  He gasped. “No! You’re the best person I know.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. As a bounty hunter, I killed people for a living, bad people, but people all the same. “Hell wasn’t such a bad place. It was wonderful actually. It was very green. Even the sky was a deep aqua green,” I said remembering the lush beauty in perfect detail, the sounds of the forest and the feel of the dewy grass on my naked body. I also met the goddess who made me a demigod while there, Melpomene. She spoke to me, but damn if I could remember what she said. I just remembered the look of her, a pale giant with dark hair and red eyes.

  Kamaria put up her hand. “You may not feel like eating, dearie, but you must heal, and for that you need food. Try the ambrosia first.” She unscrewed the jar of odd looking pink goop.

  “Ambrosia grows wild on the foothills of Mount Olympus in Greece. It’s the only place in the world that it does grow,” Nick explained. “And only one company harvests it for the gods, and they don’t sell it to mere mortals. It was not easy getting my hands on this much of it. You don’t want to know what I had to do to get it,” he said with a distant look in his eyes.

  Kamaria handed Nick a spoon and soon a bit of pink-ish stuff was held before my mouth on a metal utensil. I sniffed it and frowned. It smelt like a horrid mix of lemon grass, strawberries and roses. The very smell of it repulsed me. “There is no way I’m putting that stuff in my mouth.” Nick grimaced and moved to force feed me. “Do you want me to puke on you?”