Wraith's Awakening (Para-Ops)

"DePaul is amazing! Chosen by Blood is a unique, hot, spellbinding treat for all paranormal romance fans. I can't wait for the next book in the series!" -NYT Bestseller Author Lori Foster

"A gripping tale!...DePaul creates the perfect blend of danger, intrigue, and romance. You won't be able to put this book down!" -NYT Bestseller Brenda Novak

Overview of Wraith's Awakening (A Prequel Novella to the Para-Ops Series):

A naked female wakes up in an alley with no memory of her human life. Her blue-tinged skin, white hair, and hazy eyes exude "walking dead," and several individuals, including a sophisticated vampire named Colt, claim she's a ghost. Meet Wraith and witness her awakening.

More praise:

"If you have not yet started this [Para-Ops] series...you are really missing out." -The Book Reading Gals

"Readers who love Lara Adrian, JR Ward will love this new Para-Ops series-this author is a rising star." -Sue Grimshaw (Romance At Random) on Goodreads

Try Virna's Para-Ops novels if you love True Blood, Supernatural and heart-pounding thrillers!

Read the other books in the Para-Ops Series:

Chosen By Blood (Book 1)

Chosen By Fate (Book 2)

Chosen By Sin (Book 3)

CHAPTER ONE

I know I have a hangover of cosmic proportions when I can't even open my eyes.

Clues two, three, and four? My lips feel dry and cracked, my mouth is filled with a bitter taste that coats my tongue and throat, and my stomach feels both hollow and heavy at the same time.

Finally, and worst of all, I stink-like sweat and manure and rancid milk all rolled into one-the foulest smell imaginable. I wonder if I'm lying in my own puke, an extremely revolting thought.

Enough already.

I need a shower and I absolutely refuse to crawl there in the dark.

My lids strain, pulling at lashes covered with grit and glue until they lift. Through a filmy haze, streams of light break through the blankets that cover me. I shift, grimacing when the lumpy mattress cuts into my breasts, stomach, and thighs.

Bracing my palms against the bed, I push up, only to be yanked back down when my hair gets caught beneath me. I blink several times, both in pain and in an attempt to see better, until my hair, hanging down beside my face, and the backs of my hands come into focus.

With a frown, I think I must be dreaming or viewing the world from someone else's eyes. My hair isn't white nor my skin a milky blue, yet that's what it looks like at the moment. Another person's skin seems to be covering my hands, which I shift several inches to the side until I can push up without catching my hair again. The scratchy weight of my blanket slides down my back as I sit up, revealing two things: I am naked and I am lying outside in a pile of garbage under cardboard, not, I repeat, not a blanket.

What the-?

Okay, so that settles it. I'm not hung over, I'm dreaming. But what an odd dream. I'm reminded of that scene in the first Terminator, when Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Beane teleport to Earth in their birthday suits just minutes apart. They hadn't been sleeping, however.

I push aside the long sheet of cardboard and move a few inches until I am sitting on concrete. Reaching out, I pick up a crinkled hamburger wrapper. The paper is emblazoned with the golden arches. Affixed to the top is a receipt for a McDouble, a McChicken, and a yogurt parfait, all for just over three dollars. Although the print is slightly blurred by grease stains, the purchase was made at a McDonalds in Charleston, South Carolina.

Holy crap! Is that where I am?

I drop the receipt, watching as it is carried away on a light breeze. I'm in an alley that dead ends into a graffiti-sprayed brick wall. On the other side, however, the alley opens up to a sidewalk. Although the alley dips in the center, causing water to collect, I've managed to avoid the dampness. I, along with two teal-green dumpsters, am hugging the dry pavement next to a building and a Park Here sign.

Pulling my knees to my chest, I prop my chin on my folded hands and wait for my neurons to fire and transport me somewhere else. I wonder what a dream transition will look like and idly imagine a Salvador Dali painting-one with melting clocks. But many minutes tick by and the scene before me doesn't change. When my stomach rumbles, feeling decidedly more hollow than heavy now, I tentatively get to my feet.

I groan at how difficult the task is. My joints feel frozen, as if they haven't been used in a very long time. There's a burning on my left shoulder blade that only worsens when I try to touch it. I bend over, hands on my thighs, trying to straighten despite the pain in my low back, when I hear a faint rustling sound coming from the mouth of the alley.

I jerk upright. Terror joins the pain zipping up my spine. Who knows who or what is coming closer. If a person dies in a dream, doesn't she die in real life? Is something resembling the Terminator-3000, sans human flesh, coming after me? Weird dream aside, I have no desire to die in a dingy alley, especially since it doesn't seem to be an appropriate setting for a particularly peaceful death. And peaceful death or not, I have things to do. A life to lead. I have-

That's when it hits me. I have no idea who I am.

I don't know my name, my past, present, or future.

I can't say for sure that my life consists of anything more than sleeping in an alley waiting for death to claim me, although my knowledge about the Terminator tells me I've been to a movie a time or two.

Fear is a living, growing thing inside me. I spend crucial moments engaging in self-mutilating behavior. I pinch myself. I bite my lip. I bang my head against the side of a building hard enough to see stars.

Nothing.

But as I once again hear the sound of something coming closer, I press my lips together and rally. I might not know my name or anything except what has occurred in the last few minutes, but I have no intention of dying, not here and not now.

I duck behind one of the green dumpsters, peering around it until the approaching creature comes into view.

*****

The first person I see after awakening is an elderly woman wearing a red, white, and blue bandana tied around her neck and a matching baseball cap atop her pageboy white hair. Unlike my hair, which from what I can see looks like it's been frying under a heat lamp for the better part of sixty years, her hair is shiny and feathered away from a face that, although weathered by time, is lit with a pleasant smile. She hasn't spotted me yet. Her back is hunched as she pushes a walker, one that is decorated with a cheery sprig of colored tinsel, again red, white, and blue. It is my first clue as to what month it is. Although the morning air is still brisk, I assume she stocked up on post-4th of July regalia for bargain-basement prices.

I take a moment to ponder the irony of my predicament. I've obviously been briefed on the concept of the Super Sale, yet I have no idea who I am, where I am, or why I woke up buck ass naked under a pile of refuse.

Maybe I was in some kind of accident?

Or maybe I was in the hospital for some kind of medical procedure and wandered off?

Or maybe I was the victim of a violent crime. . . .

I quickly shove that thought aside. Still, while part of me ponders what unpleasantries my mind has chosen to block out, I say a prayer of thanks that the first person I see is this old lady and not some sex-deprived prison escapee.

Grabbing the cardboard sheet I had earlier tossed aside, I hold it in front of me and rush forward. I clear my throat and call out. “Umm-Excuse me?”

The old lady pauses and looks over at me. I half expect her eyeballs to pop out and to hear the screech of her walker wheels as she escapes. Instead, she stops walking and smiles wider. “Well, hello. Troubles, dear?”

Well, no shit, Sherlock.

My thoughts are accompanied by an eye roll and I immediately feel guilty. Even more guilty when I realize how natural the flip thought and eye roll came. It's an insight into my personality that bothers me. I take several steps forward, however, encouraged by the woman's continuing smile. “I-uh-need clothes, ma'am,” I manage to choke out in a low voice. “Is there any way-?”

I gasp when my bare foot lands on something sharp. A quick downward glance reveals that I stepped on a pretty sizeable shard of glass, yet somehow I managed to avoid being cut. I glance up again. Although I believe the rest of my question is self- explanatory, the woman simply tilts her head like a curious dog and continues to smile at me.

“Yes?” she prompts.

“Well, I-” A hysterical giggle escapes before I can stifle it. “Is there any way you can get me some clothes, ma'am? I'd really appreciate it.”

She lifts one veined and spotted hand and bats it in a dismissive gesture. “Now why would you want me to do that? If I still had a body like yours, dear, I'd be showing it to whoever would look. Own what you have and be proud of it, that's what my late husband Alfred always used to tell me.”

She starts to push her walker along.

For several seconds, I shift the cardboard and stare down at my body. Okay, so I'm fit. Tall. Big breasted. But amnesia or not, I feel right down to my bones that I'm not an exhibitionist. Pulling the cardboard against me, I lunge forward. “No, don't leave. Please. Can I borrow your sweater? Anything?”

Now the woman looks insulted, as if I'd asked to fuck her late husband in their marriage bed. I sigh. I'm flippant and have a potty mouth. Got it.

Certainly not,” the old woman huffs. “Just who do you think I am?”

Like I would know. I don't even know who I am. “I-”

She's off before I can say more, shaking her head as she departs so I am left with no doubt as to her disapproval. A stagnant breeze rushes beneath the cardboard, which, like a hospital gown, is barely managing to cover the front of me let alone the back. A quick glance outside the alley finds the street empty so I take several determined steps back toward the dumpsters.

Dumpster diving-or in my case, dumpster shifting-ain't pleasant. After stacking several empty crates, I manage to boost myself up so I can shift one piece of garbage off the other. I soon tire of doing this one-handed and give up on all attempts at modesty. I fling my cardboard sheet away. The way I smell, if someone is going to see my naked body and attack me, they deserve what they get. My stomach rolls when I uncover a particularly nasty pocket of something, but then I'm rewarded by the sight of a flannel sleeve. For a second, I think it's the shirt that smells so bad, but when I put it on I realize it smells even worse. Still, it's long and reaches halfway down my thighs and I don't stick around to find a matching pair of pants.

Wherever the hell I am, I need things. Bathroom. Food. Answers. In that order.

The main street is lined with tired-looking shops in disrepair-a drug store, a Laundromat, a bookstore-all closed. I pump my arms and legs until I catch up with the old lady with the walker. As if she smells me coming, she pauses and glances over her shoulder while I'm still several feet away.

“Thanks for the help back there,” I say as I pass her on the left.

“Youth. Always in a hurry,” she murmurs.

I don't bother answering. My bladder feels like I'm about to explode and, filthy clothes or not, I absolutely refuse to squat and pee on the street. I break into a run, or what probably looks more like a haphazard, stumbling jog. I'm about to rethink my stance on squatting when I spot a young man with dark hair, clothes, and eyeliner unlocking a steel gate that secures a small shop.

He spots me a half-second later, eyes widening as I rush up to him.

“Bathroom-” I gasp as I frantically squeeze my thighs together and half-crouch.

He glances past me and behind him, as if trying to confirm I'm really talking to him.

“Please, sir.”

The “sir” must have done it. He sighs, unlocks the gate, shoves it up, and unlocks the door. “Back left,” he says.

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