Braving Darkness: The Complete Series (Paranormal Scifi Romance) Read online

  “Where are we going?”

  “We can hide out in my room.”

  They ducked into one of the rooms in the bunkhouse, and Clark closed the door behind them. Muffled screams and the grunts of the dying filtered through the glass in the window.

  Cassie sank into a cot identical to her own. Clark stood against the door, panting and looking around the room nervously.

  “Is this safe?”

  “Safer than out there.”

  Cassie gripped her dagger and tried to reassure herself that Clark knew what was happening here in the compound. Maybe hiding out was safer than staying in the middle of the battle in the cafeteria, but the farther she was from Rafe, the more vulnerable she felt.

  Clark slid down the door and sat on the floor, staring up at Cassie. She tried to relax. Her heart beat so fast that she felt it in the tips of her fingers as she gripped her dagger.

  “So, what’s your deal?” she asked Clark, her voice wavering.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You weren’t in the bunker with Rafe and the rest of his crew. What did you do all that time?”

  “I survived. I’m a werewolf like the rest. I hunted. I found a cabin up in the mountains that had a wood burning stove and everything I needed to survive. Until the zombies came anyway.”

  “Wasn’t it hard to be alone?”

  “Kind of. I passed the time reading. I’d been learning to engineer solar panels. I helped Rafe build the ones here.”

  “You’re smart.”

  “I was about to go to Harvard when the war hit.”

  “Wait, you’re like what, 18?”

  “I’m twenty-one. I finished high school at sixteen. It isn’t that young. There have been much younger kids who went to college.”

  “I didn’t even know if I wanted to go to college before the war. I was much more interested in drawing fairies and reading fantasy novels. College sounded like it would be a drag. But the education in the dome was intense. I never would have been that kind of student if I’d had a choice.”

  “You didn’t have a choice?”

  “I thought I had choices when I was there, but I realize I didn’t. I guess it took mind control to get me to study,” she said, letting out a nervous giggle.

  Clark gave her a sideways look, not finding her joke funny in the least. Panic gripped her, and she jumped from the bed.

  “We need to get out of here!” She ran to the door, but Clark was sitting in the way.

  “What? Why?”

  “Just move!”

  A rock crashed through the window, and green glowing hands grabbed at the jagged window frame. Clark stumbled to his feet but couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. The zombies poured through the window.

  Three zombies moved toward her, their eyes dead and their faces blank of all expression. A low moan rumbled from their throats. She slashed her dagger at them as Clark finally flung open the door and ran down the hall.

  Cassie backed away, slashing as she went. The threat of her dagger didn’t seem to deter the cannibal mutants at all. One grabbed at the dagger as she swung it wildly in front of her. She sliced his hand, and green blood dripped from her weapon. An ugly finger flopped to the floor.

  She screamed with disgust, turning to follow Clark down the hallway. As she twisted out the door, another zombie grabbed her arm, pulling her back into the room. It yanked her hard, causing her to fall unceremoniously on her ass. The dagger flew from her hand and slid across the room and out the door into the hallway.

  The three zombies stood over her, each pulling a limb toward its salivating mouth. She struggled with all her strength. She was not a weak woman, but the strength of the zombies seemed superhuman, their grip like iron.

  The one whose finger she’d lobbed off dipped its broken-toothed mouth toward her neck, dripping slimy spittle on her skin. It burned. She screamed, fearing the coming bite would hurt far worse.

  Its face grew nearer until she could smell the rancid stink of its breath and feel it puff against her hair. It was less than six inches away when its eyes bugged out. Its face slowly slid sideways, its head relieved from its neck. She screamed again as the blood spurted around her, falling like stinging acid on her skin.

  Above her, moving like a dream warrior, in fluid, beautiful movements, Rafe slashed at the other zombies. The one who held her leg toppled backward from a forceful kick to the chest. Rafe’s sword swung down like a lightning strike. The zombie’s head bumped on the floor.

  The other oblivious creature gashed its teeth at her arm before pulling her hard toward its face. Cassie screamed and tried to pull away. Rafe’s sword slashed again, as quick as the wind. The creature didn’t even have a chance to close his mouth.

  Rafe reached down to help her stand. She panted, looking around for other threats. Whimpering, she took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. Her face stung from the acidic blood. She wiped it with her shirt then looked at Rafe. His chest heaved slowly from the increased effort.

  Cassie fell into his arms without thinking. It had been so long since she’d had someone’s arms around her, she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been hugged. His arms slowly encircled her shaking body. She could hear his heart beating hard inside his chest.

  “Are you hurt,” he whispered in her ear. “Did they hurt you?”

  “Just the blood. It stings.”

  “Let me look at you.” He gently pushed her back and held her by the shoulders, inspecting her face and arms. “Let’s get you to the bathroom to wash that off.”

  “Are they gone?”

  “That was the last of them. For now.”

  Rafe led Cassie down the hall to the women’s bathroom and told her to go inside. Cassie stumbled through the bathroom door, still shaking. Her face and arms stung in multiple places.

  The blood had left red welts like bee stings on her pale skin. She turned on the water and cupped her hands under the faucet. She splashed water on her face and then rubbed the bar of soap between her hands. She washed her face and arms, scrubbing until the stinging died down.

  She grabbed a clean towel from the rack near the bathroom to dry herself. The pain subsided, but the red welts remained, if slightly less prominent. She left the bathroom and followed the sound of voices into the cafeteria.

  Neil directed the pack cleaning up the room while Rafe watched them, his arms crossed over his hard chest. Cassie shuffled toward him, wanting to fall back into his embrace. It had felt so good. She approached him, eyes wide with need. She drew close enough to touch him, reaching out with one tentative hand. Just as she was about to grasp his arm, he turned and walked away.

  Her heart sank, and she gazed at the floor. Rafe shouted at the pack from across the room. They hefted a piece of particleboard to cover the broken window. Rafe grabbed a hammer and a handful of nails and began nailing the board into the wall.

  Outside, a sharp wail broke through the sound of hammering. Everyone stopped, even Rafe. Cassie turned to look out the front door of the cafeteria. Selina stumbled through, covered in red blood, her face a mask of terror.

  Chapter 11

  “He’s dead!” Selina wailed. “They ate him!”

  Bethany ran to Selina and enfolded her into her arms, trying to calm her down. Bethany pulled her to a table to sit down. Neil took up the hammering, and Rafe approached Selina. He sat at the table opposite her.

  “What happened?” he said.

  Selina was so overcome with emotion she could barely breathe. Tears streamed down her bloodstained cheeks. She gulped air, trying to speak.

  “They, they ate him.”

  “Selina. Look at me. Tell me what happened.”

  “We were out in the forest to… be together. We fell asleep there. Then, in the night, they dragged him away. He fought, but there were too many of them. They knocked him out before he could shift. I followed in wolf form. I attacked, trying not to bite them. But they tore his limbs off before I could get to him. He screa
med until they ripped off his head. They came after me, but I was too quick. I ran home.”

  Cassie stood at the back of the cafeteria. The brutal horror in Selina’s voice shattered the last of Cassie’s fantasies that this was a safe world. She covered her mouth to hold back the cries of fear and frustration.

  Rafe stood, patted Selina on the back, and said something Cassie couldn’t hear. Bethany helped Selina out of the cafeteria. Cassie stood at the end of the room watching, powerless to do anything to help. Going to the bedroom to be with a traumatized girl werewolf was the last thing she wanted to do.

  She wanted to run away from all of this death and horror. She wanted her old life back, before the dome, before the war. It was as if she’d spent the last five years sleepwalking, underwater. She hadn’t quite been there. Now, the reality of life outside the dome was catching up with her fast.

  After the window was repaired, everyone shuffled off to rest until the sun came up. Rafe was the last to leave the cafeteria, overseeing the final repairs. He finally left the building, marching across the yard to the building that housed his bedroom and the terminal room.

  Cassie trotted after him, wordlessly, following him through the front door of the building. It was only after the door closed that he turned to look at her.

  “Yes?”

  “I… just… I don’t want to go back to my room. Selina is a mess, and she’s better friends with Bethany anyway so… I didn’t want to be alone.”

  He stroked her hair, and his hand slid down her cheek to cup her chin. His touch filled her with a deep need for contact, and she flung herself into his arms with such force he backed up an inch or two. His arms slowly embraced her, and he rested his cheek on her head.

  The warmth of his body felt so good, so right, she breathed a sigh of relief. She could feel his hot breath on her hair and the thump of his heartbeat under her ear. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she murmured into his chest. His strong hand caressed her hair and back as he held her.

  “They did something to you in the dome, didn’t they?”

  “Brainwashing. It’s wearing off now. Everything is rushing in on me. I don’t know if I can handle it. All these feelings. They’re coming too fast.”

  She shuddered, and a tear fell down her cheek and rolled over his bare arm. A sob quaked through her body, and he held her tighter.

  “Come, you may lay with me till morning.”

  He led her into his room where he pulled back the blanket and kicked off his boots. She followed suit and climbed under the blankets fully clothed. She scooted across the bed and turned on her side so that her back was pressed against his chest. His arm enfolded her, and she held it between her hands.

  He breathed into her back, and she sighed in relief. Feeling safe at last, fatigue hit her like a hammer, and her eyes fluttered closed.

  Broken dreams came quick into her addled brain. The creatures from the spacecraft licked the naked flesh of her girlfriends from the dome. Professor Weston held Lindsey down while the aliens bit into her neck.

  The scene drifted to a picture of her mother before the war, holding a basket of fresh strawberries. Her smiling face changed. She looked down on Cassie in stern warning.

  “Cassie, Cassie. Listen. Listen to your inner voice.” The vision went black, and Cassie’s eyes moved painfully fast below her eyelids. She gasped and sat up in bed, Rafe’s strong arm still over her body. She could feel him hard against her hip. Heat radiated out from the spot where his hardness touched her. It made her face burn and her heart leap. She wanted to touch him, to kiss him, to feel him comfort her.

  Light filtered through the window, and she could hear bird songs from outside. Rafe sat beside her and gave her a rare smile, cupping her cheek in his hand.

  There was a knock at the door, and Rafe swung his legs over the bed.

  “Coming,” he said in a short tone. He pulled on his boots and headed for the door. He left without a word to Cassie, slipping out so she would not be seen.

  She stayed in the bed for several moments, feeling like an idiot. He obviously didn’t want anyone to know she’d slept there. Was there something wrong with her that he couldn’t be seen with her? Her heart hurt, and she scowled.

  She slipped out of bed, put on her boots, and left the room. She could hear voices coming from the room next door. Cassie stopped by the door and listened.

  “They are getting bolder,” said Neil. “We haven’t had an attack like this in two years. It’s like something has shaken up the hive.”

  “That’s what it seems like. But we can’t move the pack based on one attack. The fallout shelter has a fraction of the resources we have here. We’d be leaving behind everything we’ve worked for. I can’t do that to them yet. Not without understanding what is going on.”

  “I agree,” said Neil. “Selina told me they took Toby back to a cave, right off the highway, ten miles north of here. They haven’t tried to bother us in years. Yet they attack us after getting a kill in the same night? It just doesn’t make sense. Those things know to keep away from the pack. They don’t have the fighting skill to take us. They might be brain dead, but they know a losing battle when they see one. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Well, like you said, something has shaken the hive. I saw another ship two days before Cassie got here when I was patrolling the woods. I saw it up on the ridge. Maybe the two events are unrelated. Maybe not.”

  “Have you gotten any useful information from the human?”

  “It seems probable that Pyramid Corp, the guys who run the domes, are in league with the aliens. They are running some kind of breeding program.”

  “Do you trust her?”

  “For the most part, yes. Still, there are too many unanswered questions. We need to keep an eye on her.”

  Cassie backed away from the door, crestfallen and disappointed that Rafe still didn’t trust her. What did she have to do to earn his trust? She took a deep breath and turned to walk away.

  As she approached the front door of the building, she heard Rafe call her name. She flipped around, eyeing Rafe and Neil as they stood in the hallway in front of her.

  “Can I help you, Cassandra?” Rafe asked.

  Her face stung from the embarrassment and anger rushing through her blood. She narrowed her eyes, not wanting to let on what she’d heard. If he didn’t trust her, he definitely wouldn’t want her to hear his private meeting with his second in command.

  Neil tilted his head to the side, suspicion in his eyes. She had to say something fast to gloss this over. She didn’t want to make it worse. With her growing feelings for Rafe and the fact that she had nowhere else to go, she didn’t want to ruffle any fur.

  “Breakfast is done,” she said, shrugging. She turned around and trotted out the door without waiting for them to respond. Her face burned, and a hot tear clung to the corner of her eye. Her emotions were bubbling over and soon would be too difficult to control.

  With each passing day, the mind control used on her inside the dome subsided just a bit more. With each passing day, it felt more and more as though the war had just happened, as if she’d just lost her parents and her entire world.

  She ran through the cafeteria, past the kitchen, and down the hall into the bunkhouse. She passed Selina and Bethany walking toward the cafeteria. Selina’s face was red and puffy from sorrow. Cassie couldn’t stop to console her. She felt too guilty for her own problems when Selina had just witnessed such horror.

  Everyone had lived through the war, and all of them had been permanently changed, mutated into creatures from nightmares and myths. What right did Cassie have to feel so tormented by her own experience? She’d been spared the radiation. She’d received what probably equated to a graduate degree in multiple subjects. No one in this new world, except the others inside, had fared so well.

  She ran to her room and shut herself inside, sinking into her cot to cry alone. Cassie pressed the pill
ow over her head so no one could hear her moans. She wished there was some way she could go back to the dome, some way that the illusion they’d created had been real. She missed her friends. She missed the easy comfort of always feeling everything was okay.

  Except it wasn’t okay. It was anything but okay. The alien vampires, whatever they were, wanted to breed with human girls. Something had to be done. They had to free the other children still inside. Her sobbing soon quieted, and she came up with a new plan.

  Chapter 12

  “Cassie, you’re too rigid. Loosen up. Stand on the balls of your feet, relax.”

  Neil inspected her form and was not pleased. She’d taken to her training with new purpose, but that didn’t mean it was any more natural for her. Cassie was built like a swimsuit model not an athlete, and her personality tended more toward introspection than physical skill. She frowned; disappointed that she still didn’t get it.

  Even Clark was better at fighting than she was. He had the added advantage of being a werewolf and being supernaturally adept at physical activity, but still, he was Clark.

  Clark whacked at her with a wooden sword. They were the only two practicing with fake weapons. She brought the wooden blade up to deflect his blow but the strength of his swing pushed her backward. Neil made a frustrated grunt from across the yard.

  Selina had even recovered from her sorrow with a renewed fierceness. As one of the hunters, she was also a natural swordswoman. Cassie glanced over her shoulder to see Bethany and Selina, their steel blades engaging with quick, focused movements. Her distraction gave Clark the opening he needed to whirl around and kick her in the stomach, sending her flailing onto her ass.

  She fell hard, grunted, and then threw her practice sword. Clark’s hand was there a moment later, offering to help her up. She glared at him and brought herself to her feet. Cassie was not a big Clark fan since he ran off and left her in a room full of zombies. She wiped her pants off and felt the sore sting in her behind and stomach.

  “I’m just not cut out for this,” she said, marching toward the bunkhouse.