DUST AND SHADOW
Book two
Follow the blood
In DUST AND SHADOW, Gailene develops her empire in America and learns the way of being a vampire. She sets her destiny as her empire grows in Washington, D.C. pushing herself into the realm of political power. Her love interests are an excursion into body and mind until she meets the man from her vision, Jeremiah. Her ascension through the 1800s is tangled with her quest to destroy her creator, Fenton, watch over her human daughter, and being pulled into the American Civil War. She now understands the complications and the result of keeping to her vows.
Zondra learns how to be a vampire as her personality changes from her new reality and her grandmother’s vision-memory. She now deals with the desires she has for Jeremiah and whether they’re hers or Gailene’s. With a coming battle with Fenton finally taking place, she has to use her new skills to keep herself and her new family alive. Other vampire houses are not happy with Zondra’s burgeoning abilities that are both vampire and human.
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 25, 2024
* * * * *
Dust and Shadow
“Pulvis et umbra sumus. (We are but dust and shadow.)”
― Horace, The Odes of Horace 65 BC – 8 BC
CHAPTER ONE
Georgetown, Washington, D.C.—present
My life as Zondra was now joined with another, my great-grandmother back seven generations, Gailene. I’m now learning nearly everything there is to know about this ambitious woman who, without her consent, was brought into the vampire world. Sort of like me. Well, she made some tragic mistakes that many people make when love and sex take over the mind and create a different world than the one we plan. In her case, it led to a dire situation where emotions were amplified to the nth degree by her spurned lover, who couldn’t live without her… for all eternity.
Now, in my 21st century, I’m becoming what she became… a vampire. I say this although my new vampire family believes I’m not a vampire because I don’t suck blood and can live in daylight. I don’t have every ability a vampire has, but I do have most, or even more, than any other vampire. And, like my grandmother, I didn’t choose it. I was never bitten but was saved from death by my overseer, Jeremiah. He, and the others, say I’m special and they have me, this twenty-two-year-old college co-ed slash sometimes metal sculptor, to be the leader of a two-hundred-year-old vampire family. Six months ago, I knew nothing about any of this, sort of. I did know there were things, rather, strange people who came into my life that others couldn’t see or hear, but I could.
My new, strange life is a lot like a dream, which is literally how I’m learning about my grandmother’s life. For some reason, I go off into these dreams about her life that are so real that it’s as if I’m actually living them. From these dreams—the others in the family say they’re memories—I experienced that these vampires I know as family in this century, came from the seventeen hundreds and even before.
Grandmother Gailene, by force of will, had gone against the vampire way and, to my horror, helped by deadly subterfuge, had started her own family that I had to deal with two hundred years later. Not only that, but I have to deal with the change in my body and mind. I’ve my own will and don’t want another soul to live their past life through me. I’m a stubborn bitch when people push against me. Before this bizarre stuff came down on me, I pretty much kept to myself. Now, I have this extended family who never dies. Talk about fucked up!
I moved from my basement apartment to a two-hundred-year-old multi-mansion that took up a whole block in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. Me, moving into a house full of vampires wasn’t the only thing that came along with this vampire legacy. Unknown to my new family members, I was learning things they didn’t know about, even though they lived through them. I had to figure out how to tell them or keep it to myself… forever.
*****
I awoke with a start, the scent of the twins and the London fog still in the air. My heart thumped heavily at what I’d done—what Gailene had just done. How could I ever look Taryn in the face again, knowing this? My Zondra brain can’t take this horrid calamity! Fresh tears stung my eyes. How could she destroy a whole family? She wasn’t a super planner, that’s for sure. No one in our family knew about this. They couldn’t, could they? My little universe was spinning. I stared through the blur at the unfamiliar ceiling… I’m not in my own bed!
Hesitantly, I turned to see Justin’s sleeping face, so peaceful, so human. So totally a stranger a few hours ago. What a massive switcheroo from ancient London to here, 21st Century Georgetown, in a modern apartment with panoramic windows that blasted daylight into every nook and cranny. Seriously, I wasn’t sure who’d seduced whom, but I found myself smiling at the memory. This time my memory. Slipping out of bed, I went to the door, intending to grab my clothes downstairs and make a silent getaway.
I glanced back at this man, close to my age, in one direction or the other, who, because of my growing centuries of memories, seemed like a boy. That curious, longing warmth spread through me again, and I lingered in the doorway. Justin moved beneath the sheets, and his form caused my breath to pick up.
“Oh, what the hell.”
For my amusement, I swished a sexy saunter back to the bed and pulled the sheet from him, gradually exposing his sinuous body. I crawled over him, delicately dragging my naked self along his body. His eyes remained closed as a smile curled his lips and a moan escaped when my mouth found a luscious stopping point.
When I finally made it downstairs to my clothes, it was only nine in the morning, but Justin was well late for work. Since I had to walk through his row house naked, I made him accompany me likewise. Unsuccessfully, he tried to warn me off such an excursion since he had roommates.
I squinted at him. “Didn’t seem to bother you last night when we were doing it right here in the front hallway.”
“That’s because your scent intoxicated me.” A little boy grin that’d be with him his entire life. “I lay the blame on you.”
“If I remember correctly, I was perfectly content holding company with my Long Island Iced Tea… teas.”
“Well, that’s the thing. It compelled me to save you from yourself.”
“Are you normally compelled to do lifesaving activities, or was this a special occasion?”
“Usually I record other people’s activities, so it was nice to be involved for a change.”
“Ya lost me,” I said, but I wasn’t really lost. Sounded better than saying, gosh, tell me about your job as a statistician in the State Department or assistant lobbyist on Capitol Hill.
“I’m an independent filmmaker working on a documentary.”
“Oh.” Surprised! “On what?” I added, so as not to look so busted.
“Children of the night,” he said straight-faced.
Froze, locking him with a stare. “What the fuck do you mean?” I shot back, startling him.
“Whoa, girl. The doc’s on nightlife here in D.C. Those that party all night, yet manage to go to work all day.” He peered at me through his lashes. “Something I’m obviously not able to accomplish.”
Embarrassed, I forced my ire back into its not-so-secure cubbyhole. Something about embarrassment makes one aware of many other things happening around them: I was having this conversation in his front hallway bare-ass naked. Mortified and turned on. Snatching up my clothes, I shimmied into them as fast as I “humanly” should.
Tried a verbal ruse as I got dressed. “So, I was a guinea pig in your expose´, is that it?”
Slipping an arm around my waist, he pulled me to him and kissed me on the mouth, speaking between pressed lips. “You don’t believe a word of that, do you?” he stated. When his hand found my breast, I squeaked out a barely audible, “No.”
I pushed him away, stepping back a few more feet to make sure the break was real. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to have another frantic toss in the hay, but who was prompting this glorious sex, Gailene or me? Also, I wasn’t too keen that I used sex as some sort of pacifying agent to lessen the effects of what was happening to me. I’m someone in control, and I want to stay that way. Even if it meant ripping myself away from this incredibly sexy man to go back home for another day of vampire education and tricks.
“Gotta go.” I pulled out my mobile. “Give me your number and I’ll call you sometime.”
“Sometime?”
“That’s my offer. Yea or nay.” I immediately regretted having said those aspects of that statement because it was unnecessarily rude and I’m not sure which part of me was saying it. “Look, just give me your number… Please.”
I punched it in, slapped him on his bare ass, and slipped out the door. As I stood on the doorstep adjusting my mind to the world I’d have to go back to, I sensed I was alone. My protectors were gone! But two unknown vampires were near, really near. In near panic, I scanned the street. Sweat coated me, but I saw nothing. My phone was in my hand, hitting speed-dial for Taryn… Calverton answered.
I yelled in a high-pitched whisper, “Taryn and Bodie are gone, there’s—”
“Relax, miss. That would be Alexa and Alberto covering you today. We refer to them as the Double A’s.” While I was catching my breath, he continued. “You can’t expect the twins to be up night and day now, can you?”
