Dark Awakening (6 page)

“My God, you look like death warmed over. Please tell me you at least had an attractive reason for losing so much sleep.”

Lily jerked her head up, momentarily startled. While her imagination had gone wandering, the lecture hall had completely emptied.

And she hadn’t even noticed.

This has got to stop
, she told herself, but managed a smile for the woman making her way down the aisle toward her. Bailey Harper looked a lot like a pixie who had recently tangled with a werewolf, which meant she’d come straight over from work. Bay’s wavy blond hair was desperately trying to escape the ponytail she’d wrestled it into, and the ancient jeans and T-shirt she wore were absolutely covered in a rainbow of dog hair. Lily’s eyes dropped to Bay’s sneakers, which looked as though they’d been recently chewed. Probably with her feet still in them, if Lily knew anything about Bay’s clientele.

“Does every dog you bathe maul you?” Lily asked, frowning as she realized that there were indeed fresh chew marks on Bay’s Nikes.

Bay narrowed her eyes as she came to a stop beside her. “Pretty much. And since you’re avoiding my question, I guess I can assume there isn’t an answer I’m going to like. Damn it, Lily, would you please get your ass to a sleep clinic before you just drop dead of exhaustion?”

Lily sighed and huffed an errant lock of hair out of her face. She had learned early on in their friendship that it was an exercise in futility to argue with Bay. The woman was
very short, deceptively cute, and a human steamroller when she thought she was right about something, which was almost always. The only thing that kept Lily from wanting to clock her sometimes was that Bay’s heart was permanently affixed in the right place.

“I’m fine, Bay. It’s been a while since I hooked up with Prince Insomnia, so I guess he was due for a visit. He hasn’t changed—all tease, no action,” Lily said, deciding to go for humor in her latest attempt at defusing this ongoing argument.

“Ha.” Her friend’s look was bland at best. “Lily, I’m aware that I’m no fashionista, but those dark circles under your eyes aren’t doing it for you. Or me, for that matter. I worry. You’ve seemed a little out of it since Friday night. Are you sure you were okay when you left the ghost hunt? Did something freak you out and you’re just not telling me?”

Lily covered her discomfort with an amused snort. Bay was a lot closer to the truth than she liked, and she wasn’t interested in talking about it yet, if ever.

“You mean besides having to listen to that couple getting it on in the closet? No. I still think they say that place is haunted just as a gimmick to add local color or something. Speaking of local color, how’s the cute techno-geek?”

Bay pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. “Another detour. We are not done talking about this, Lily Quinn. But since I have you to thank for it, cute techno-geek—otherwise known as Alex—is good. At least, I think he is. We couldn’t manage to hook up this weekend, but I’m heading to dinner with him in”—Bay glanced at her watch, and her eyes widened in horror—“Jesus, an hour.” She looked down at her dog-hair-covered clothes, then
back up at Lily with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “First date is way too soon for him to discover the real me, don’t you think?”

“The real you is fabulous. I just hope he isn’t allergic to animal hair,” Lily replied. She leaned against the heavy metal desk that sat off to the side of the podium. Exhaustion, hovering like a phantom over her all weekend, seemed to be coming in for a landing. She’d been honest with Bay about one thing: It had been quite a while since her so-called insomnia had acted up. What Bay didn’t know, and what Lily had no intention of sharing, was that her bouts of sleeplessness were entirely self-inflicted and born out of self-defense. Even this bone-deep weariness was better than falling into the nightmare about the woman in the temple, over and over and over… the nightmare she had spoken about only once and never would again.

In any case, the end result was the same. She’d managed less than five hours of sleep the entire weekend, and that was usually about the point at which her body and brain came to a consensus that it was finally time to hit the sack. But Bay, true to form, didn’t seem inclined to just let this go.

Her friend’s brows drew together, creating a stubborn little furrow between them that Lily was all too familiar with.

“Are you sure you’re all right, Lily? I’m serious. You’re way too pale.”

Lily smiled with genuine affection. “You worry too much, Bay.”

“Someone has to. I’ll never understand how you managed so long without—” She stopped, snapping her mouth shut before the words came out.

But Lily knew exactly what they would have been.
Without a family. Without anyone who cared enough to take care of you.
Even unspoken, they stung. She had wanted a lot of things in her life that she hadn’t gotten, but pity had never been one of them.

“I can take care of myself. I’d think that would be more than apparent by now,” Lily said, her voice clipped. She didn’t want to fight with Bay, didn’t want to drive her off with a bunch of defensive BS either. But she wasn’t in the mood to have a discussion about her family or lack thereof. Not now. Preferably not ever. She looked away, beginning to gather up her things with stiff little movements.

Bay’s hand on her shoulder, the touch gentle and apologetic, made her pause. Still, she kept her gaze averted. She didn’t want her friend to see the unshed tears that suddenly filled her eyes.
God, I must be exhausted
, Lily thought. It wasn’t like her to let a simple mention of her crappy parental situation get to her.

But then, it was always when she was most tired that she had also felt the most alone.

“I’m sorry, Lily. I know you can take care of yourself. But it doesn’t make me a bad person for wishing you hadn’t had to for so long, does it?”

Lily sighed, her shoulders sagging. “No. I just hate being thought of as the poor little orphan no one wanted. It’s pathetic.”

“No. What’s pathetic is adopting a kid and then dropping her the second Plastic Bimbo’s baby factory starts working. What’s pathetic is caring more about your image than your child.”

Lily heard the icy fury in Bay’s voice, and loved her for it. But it was time to end this conversation. She didn’t
want to expend any more energy thinking about the family that had cast her out—or the reason why they did it.

She blinked away the aggravating moisture in her eyes, straightened, and turned to look at her friend. “They don’t matter, Bay. They haven’t for a long time. But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate your burning need to kick their asses on my behalf. I’m just really tired, which means that Prince Insomnia has finally left the building. I’ll be fine with some sleep.”

Bay let her hand drop and stepped back, but that stubborn furrow in her brow remained. “You’re sure?” Her big blue eyes were soft with concern. “We’re good?”

“We’re good. Promise. You go have fun, okay? Call me tomorrow with the gory details.”

Bay lifted her eyebrows. “How gory? Like, sexy-time gory?”

Lily wrinkled her nose. “No, like if he lives with his mom and collects action figures gory.”

They laughed together.

“You got it,” Bay said, then threw her arms around Lily in one of the impromptu hugs it had taken her a while to get used to but were as natural to Bay as breathing. She envied her friend that, her comfort with physical affection. It had been in such short supply for most of Lily’s life that it still startled her more than anything.

Except, of course, when given by a man who seemed to have been made entirely from moonlight and shadow.

“Be careful on your way home, then. I’d offer to drive you, but I know how far that would get me.”

“You’re finally learning.” Lily gave Bay a quick squeeze and then drew back, frustrated that Tynan had reappeared in her thoughts so quickly. All she needed was sleep, she
decided. Lots and lots of sleep. She could take care of herself perfectly well, just as she’d told Bay. And there was nothing
wrong
with her.

“I’ll bring burgers by the shop tomorrow so you can tell me all,” Lily said, forcing a cheerful note into her voice.

“Sounds good,” Bay said with a nod. “I’ll probably need the moral support. Moses comes in tomorrow.”

Lily shuddered in sympathy. Bay owned a successful dog-grooming business, and a lot of that success had come because she loved pretty much anything with fur, even if it was ornery. She even loved Moses, the excitable Saint Bernard that, though friendly, seemed to have some kind of canine ADD. And he was a serious drooler.

“Burgers from Frank’s it is, then,” Lily said. “I’m sure we’ll be able to find some tiny spot to eat that isn’t covered with slime.”

“Your lips to God’s ears,” Bay said. “And speaking of covered in slime, I guess I’ll go get beautiful for the cute techno-geek. Wish me luck!”

Lily did, and watched Bay bounce back up the aisle and out the door. As the door clicked shut, Lily’s smile faded. She turned to slowly finish gathering her things, feeling her fatigue weighing on her as though sandbags had been tied to all of her limbs. She wasn’t even going to stop by her office. She was just going to get in her car, drive home with the window open so she was sure to stay alert, and then collapse into bed.

After that, well, she could only hope that her sleep was full of pleasant dreams, or at least unmemorable ones. Or even just dark oblivion. All of those options were far better than watching the woman with the red hair be slaughtered again, her blood turning her green silk dress black
while her baby screamed somewhere in the darkness beyond and all the world went up in flames.

Better than waking up with her strange tattoo burning with white-hot pain.

It tingled even as she thought it, and Lily shuddered, pushing the visions from her mind and focusing on the tasks at hand. She slid the papers into her messenger bag, along with the notes she’d used for the day’s lecture, then shrugged into the soft leather jacket that had been one of her splurges for the fall. The bag slung over one shoulder, her travel mug collected, she was off. A couple of her students waved at her as she exited Digby Hall and headed down the path that led to one of the smaller parking lots tucked behind the lecture halls.

She breathed in the crisp autumn air, surprised at how dark it was getting this early in the day. The sun was gone, and what light was left had turned the sky a deep bloodred that was rapidly fading in the west. Her steps were quick, the sound of her low boot heels clicking against the pavement in the quiet being punctuated only occasionally by the sounds of distant chatter. Lily watched a student hop into her car and drive off, the only other person in sight. Unease unfurled, quickly and unexpectedly, in her stomach. What was she trying to do, become a poster girl for how to get bad things to happen to you?

“I’m not the stupid girl who always dies first in horror movies,” she told herself. “My boobs aren’t big enough.”

The thought made her smile a little, but Lily still sped up as she caught sight of her car, now surrounded by empty parking spaces. She was just pulling her keys from her pocket when she felt the hair on the back of her neck begin to rise. Her steps quickened. Instinctively, she knew she
was no longer alone—and she was being very carefully watched. Every movement. Every rapid beat of her heart.

Lily swallowed hard, drew in a shallow breath. Without even looking, she knew who it was. Her encounter with Tynan MacGillivray might have sent her into a tailspin, might have left her in a fog that hadn’t completely lifted, but she would never forget how his very presence had made her feel, as though she were nothing but a tiny, insignificant planet being pulled inexorably into the orbit of a powerful, and potentially deadly, star.

Over the last couple of days, she’d almost managed to convince herself that she was making too much of the strangeness of their meeting. But now, confronted again with the way every cell in her body tingled at his nearness, her normally iron will already softening and threatening to desert her, she knew her initial instincts had been right.

There was something very wrong about him. Something dangerous. And yet she found herself turning to where she knew he was, wanting desperately to see his face again.

He stood at the edge of the deserted parking lot, just outside the bright glow of the lights that illuminated the few cars, looking as though he’d been conjured out of her darkest longings and made flesh. There was little shadow to be had anywhere near the lights’ fluorescent glow, and yet it seemed he’d managed to find some to stand in. Or, Lily thought as she drank him in, maybe men like Tynan simply created their own shadow. That was crazy—but no crazier than the rest of this.

“Lily. You and I need to talk.”

His voice was just as she remembered, deep and slightly ragged. And at its sound, it took every ounce of
her willpower to stay still. Every word he said seemed to translate to the same thing when it hit her ears:
come to me
. But this time, there was a difference. She’d had time to think about what he might be, what he might do to her before vanishing again into thin air. Things that would be worse than any nightmare.

Mentally, she dug in her heels, envisioning her feet encased in cement right where she stood. Whatever he was trying to get her to do, it wasn’t going to happen, no matter how good he looked just standing there in his own little pool of darkness like some modern-day version of Dracula. She felt light-headed, almost a little drunk, and Lily dug in harder, pushed back.