Queens and Monsters: A Vampire Shifter Romance (The Blood Falls Book 1)

The night passed by in flashes. Pain. Light. Cold water all around me. The whispers returned but now they said all kinds of different things I couldn’t understand. At one point I thought I was floating and at another I was drinking and drinking and drinking the sweetest water I had ever tasted.

And then finally sleep. Real sleep.

I had no idea how long I was out, but when my eyes blinked open it was light out. Even though it was my sparse little bedroom with the gauzy white curtains and light wood walls, everything seemed different.

“You’re awake.”

I screamed, pulling the blankets up to my chin as if they would somehow protect me from an intruder. Get it together Rhysa. “Gigi! What the hell are you doing in my bedroom?” I liked her but this was…well it was freaky. At best.

She sat in a chair by my bedroom door, one leg over the other, her hands calmly folded in her lap. She wore the same clothes as the night before. Not a hair out of place.

“What do you remember about last night?” she asked.

I glanced under the sheets. I had on a t-shirt and underwear that I didn’t remember putting on. I thought back, before the darkness, before the shower and the pain, to Dray being shot outside my bookshop. “We were having cake and then Dray was shot. I couldn’t find you so I came home and passed out.” That seemed like a safe version of events. “Is he okay?” Oh god, what if he died? She didn’t seem panicked.

“He’ll be fine,” she waved off my question. “I came to check on you and found you passed out, naked, in a cold shower.”

Damn. Wait. “How do you know where I live?”

She waved at me again, dismissing my questions as trivial. “It wasn’t hard to figure out. You didn’t answer the door for a long time, but it was unlocked and I came in to find you about to drown yourself.”

I always locked the door. Always. But then again, I was in incredible pain…pain that I now realized was gone. I stretched my neck and arms. “Thank you for helping me out.”

She leaned forward, her straight blonde hair falling forward, her eyes narrowed and serious. “Who are you really?”

Now I was genuinely freaking out. Everything was normal—boring, but normal—until a week ago. From the moment this woman stepped into my bookshop everything was strange and wrong. And now this? “I’m Rhysa Smith, as you well know, and unless you have a reason to be here, I’m asking you to leave.”

She didn’t move. “I do have a reason to be here. You need me, you just don’t know it yet.”

What the hell? I pushed back the covers and grabbed a pair of sweats, shoving my feet through. “I’m calling the police.” This was way beyond weird—and I knew weird. Knew if you didn’t cut it off as soon as you recognized it, it would quickly spiral out of control, usually hurting everyone in its path.

“Rhysa,” she sighed, “whoever you think you are, you’re not.”

This pretty blonde woman was not in her right mind. How had I missed the signs? “That makes absolutely no sense.” I started searching for my phone. Where the hell did it wind up? I texted Gloria, came home, didn’t lock the door, and…fuck, I had no clue.

Gigi stood up, blocking the doorway. My fight or flight instinct kicked in and instead of searching for my phone I began to look for a weapon. “When you saw Dray…what happened to you? Can you explain it? You froze. You appeared to be in a great deal of pain. And then…”

I curled my fingers around the small baseball bat I stored behind my nightstand and paused, remembering the weird shockwave lightning thing I felt when I saw Dray bleeding. Something niggled in the back of my mind. Something told me I needed to listen. “And then?”

She chewed on her bottom lip. “You would likely have died in that shower if I hadn’t found you. And not because of the water.”

I was so lost. So confused. It felt like I should understand, that I should know what she was talking about, but I simply didn’t. “Okay then, why would I have died?” I kept my hand on the bat.

“When humans change only some of them survive. But I don’t think that’s what you are…regardless, without blood you would have starved.”

Humans? Why did she say that like she wasn’t human? Gigi was very clearly not in her right mind. “Blood?” That was…what was even happening?

But as I stood there, the memories of floating and drinking hit me even harder. I licked my lower lip and remembered the sweet taste of blood.

Oh my god.

“Who are you?” Gigi tried again, stepping closer.

Terror seized me. My well-honed fight or flight instincts kicking into overdrive. “Who the hell are you?” I pulled out the bat and pointed it at her. If she was going to keep asking me questions I couldn’t answer, then I was going to start asking some of my own. I didn’t understand anything she was saying, but it was clear she wasn’t simply some nerdy genetics guru who lived in a lab and flitted around in ball gowns.

She stood a little straighter, brushed back her hair, completely unfazed by my weapon. “I guess that’s fair. I know you’re probably thinking I’m delusional and that my being here means I’m having a mental break. But everything you think you know is wrong. Very wrong. I think I know who you really are. Who your parents are.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“What I’m about to say is going to sound very strange, okay? But it’s the truth.” She smoothed her hands over her clothing and took a deep breath, letting it out before answering. “My name is Georgiahana Wren of the House of Wren. I’m sixty-six years old and I am not human. We call ourselves Samhain but you would probably call me a psychic, or a shifter, or maybe even a witch, but mostly you’d probably call me a vampire…just like you.”

Just like me.

No. I shook my head a lot, but even as I denied everything she said as some sort of fever dream, I knew she was right. I felt it in my bones. In my soul.

She stepped closer. “What you experienced last night is what we call Awakening. It only happens when a samhain is dormant. This is very rare. You’ve basically lived your whole life as a human, and probably would have continued to do so if Dray hadn’t accidentally awoken you.”

I stumbled backward to the bed and collapsed, the bat falling from my fingers. “How…how did he…awaken me?” My hands started shaking so I shoved them between my thighs.

“The sight of his blood.”

I licked my lips again. “He’s really okay?”

Something moved behind Gigi. No, someone. Someone broad and muscular. “I’m really fine. I promise, Rhysa.” Dray moved to stand beside his sister. Between the sound of his voice and the sight of him before me, my pulse began to race again.

He didn’t even look hurt. “Do samhain have super healing powers?”

He shrugged a little. “We heal faster and I’m particularly good at that.” A look of frustration flashed over his face before he blinked it away. “Who are you?” He said it gently.

I shrugged, feeling so lost and found at once. Like I knew who I was or where I came from even less than I already did, but somehow finally had answers to the questions I never knew to ask. “I don’t know what to tell you guys. My name is Rhysa and I have no family. No history. I’ve got nothing to say because I’ve genuinely got nothing to say.”

They traded a look. Gigi nodded my way. Dray sighed. “Where did the name Rhysa come from?” His eyes lifted to mine.

A shiver raced down my spine. “It was embroidered on the blanket I was left with as a baby.” I went to the closet where I kept it safe. “I’m a cliche. Left at a fire station with a blanket and nothing else.”

The simple quilt was white and lilac. My name was stitched onto the edge in lilac and had flowers on either side. I held it out but they didn’t take it. Instead, they just stared at it.

Gigi looked up at her brother. Dray grimaced.

“Anyone want to share something so I don’t pass out from having my entire world turned upside down?” If my heart beat any faster or harder it might come right out of my chest.

“I think I know who you are,” Gigi said so quietly it was almost a whisper. Then she took the blanket and closed her eyes. As she held my quilt her lips turned down into a frown and a moment later a tear slipped free from each eye. Then she handed it back, looking up at Dray. “It is so. She is who we think she is.”

“Damn it,” he whispered.

“This will be ugly,” she whispered back.

They knew who I was, who my parents were, and instead of telling me they were having a conversation? Seriously? “Who am I?” I yelled as loud as I could.

Gigi blinked at me. Dray smiled a little.

“Well?”

Gigi looked at her feet. “Your mother is named Marhysa Nala. The House of Nala is allied with the House of Wren.”

Marhysa. Rhysa. I was named after my mother. “And your last name is Wren? So our families are friends?”

She nodded slowly. “Yes. It’s complicated but yes, your mother’s family and ours are friends.”

That feeling growing inside me, the one that made me feel like I had a place in the world, began to grow. I got a little caught up in it, forgetting entirely that Gigi and Dray were upset just a moment ago.

“What is it like to be a samhain? What does this mean for me?”

Dray looked at me with big, sad eyes. “I wish I could tell you that your life doesn’t have to change unless you want it to, but that would be a lie. Your life will change or else you won’t survive.”

Gigi rolled her eyes and shook her head at her brother. “He makes it sound dire. It’s not, Rhysa. Just a few changes. The biggest thing you need to understand right now is that in order to survive as a species we adapted into a collective. We literally cannot survive without each other.”

I lived my entire life alone. Dray was right. This would be a major change for me.

“It’s in our blood,” she went on, holding up her wrist. “If we don’t share our blood, we die. Samhains who remove themselves from their house, who try to live alone, they starve and go insane. That’s where humans get their stories of vampires roaming the night sucking blood from animals and human victims. It’s very rare, but it does happen.”

I thought of all the vampire stories I read over the years, of the movie franchises and television shows. “So the stories are real?”

“In a way. They’re based on some reality. Because we’re sensitive to the metaphysical world we see and sense things differently. To humans it seems like magic.”

“So you’re saying you can do magic?” I waved my hands like I was casting a spell. I really wanted to be able to do that. The blood stuff I wasn’t so sure about, but magic? Hell yeah.

She sighed. “Oh boy. It would take days to explain everything but I’ll give you the really short version. Just like humans all have slightly different gifts—one can understand music better than anyone else, while another is great with numbers or words—samhain have different gifts when it comes to the metaphysical world. For me, time is fluid. I can see it before and after me, around you and Dray. So I can see more about you and what is coming up for you, or where you’ve been, than you can see for yourself.”

“Like a psychic,” I said, starting to get this.

“Dray is very sensitive to danger and evil. Which is why I should have been smarter when he warned me I was in danger last night.” She looked up at him with apology written all over her face. “I’m so sorry.”

“Just listen to me from now on. I can’t talk my way out of hospitals all the time.”

The image of him laid out on the street flashed through my mind. “What happened last night? Why were you shot?” Maybe I had a sense for evil, too. Just thinking about it filled me with an overwhelming sense of dread. There had been evil there last night. I was sure of it.

Dray grimaced, his eyes locked on Gigi’s as if they were having a silent conversation. “Are you telepathic too?” Not gonna lie, even though I hated being left out of the conversation, I hoped telepathy was a thing. I always wanted to be like Counselor Troi on Star Trek.

“We’re not telepathic,” Gigi said. “But Dray doesn’t want to tell you what happened and I think it’s important you hear it.” She gave him one last warning glare.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “In some ways we’re not that different from humans. We love, we hate, we crave power. There’s an ongoing war between our house, the House of Wren, and the House of Axl. Last night they took a shot at us.”

I looked between them. “Why didn’t you want to tell me about that?”

“Tell her,” Gigi said through gritted teeth.

Dray let his hand fall to his side and met my gaze with his. Even as I saw the dread in his eyes, I reveled in the electricity that sizzled between us. Until he spoke.

“Your father was Tiynan Axl, the sole heir to the House of Axl.”