Revelation (League of Vampires Book 5) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Revelation

  Cari

  Gage

  Philippa

  Anissa

  Allonic

  Felicity

  Jonah

  Sara

  Stark

  Excerpt

  Salvation

  Afterword

  Revelation

  League of Vampires

  Rye Brewer

  Contents

  Revelation

  1. Cari

  2. Gage

  3. Cari

  4. Gage

  5. Philippa

  6. Cari

  7. Gage

  8. Cari

  9. Gage

  10. Cari

  11. Anissa

  12. Gage

  13. Cari

  14. Anissa

  15. Allonic

  16. Felicity

  17. Anissa

  18. Jonah

  19. Sara

  20. Stark

  21. Sara

  22. Gage

  23. Gage

  24. Gage

  25. Anissa

  26. Anissa

  27. Anissa

  28. Sara

  29. Sara

  30. Anissa

  31. Anissa

  32. Allonic

  33. Sara

  34. Anissa

  35. Anissa

  36. Felicity

  37. Allonic

  38. Anissa

  39. Jonah

  40. Jonah

  41. Sara

  42. Anissa

  Excerpt

  Salvation

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Afterword

  Revelation

  Temptation is hard to resist as truths are revealed, new foes are found, old foes are resurrected.

  Finding new alliances in Duskwood, leaving behind secrets untold in Sorrowswatch.

  Elementals and witches join the battles that are fought amongst the League’s immortals.

  Cover by Mirella Santana with Mirish: Deviant Art

  1

  Cari

  “This could all be so much easier for you, Carissa. All you have to do is tell me what I need to know.”

  Dietrich’s voice was almost soothing, even though there was venom in it.

  I didn’t know how many hours I had been there, strapped to a gurney at my wrists and ankles, covered in the sort of sticky sensor pads that people wore in hospitals. They were all over my body—including my breasts and between my legs.

  “I told you,” I gasped as soon as I had enough breath to whisper, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  A millisecond passed before excruciating pain tore through my body again. My every muscle seized up.

  Dietrich’s hand rested on the controls for the sensors, and he didn’t like my answers.

  Current flowed through them to whichever area he chose to hurt—not that it mattered which one, since the current flowed through my body either way and made my teeth grind together.

  After what felt like forever, the current stopped, and I flopped back down onto the hospital bed. Even though I tried to hold in the whimpers, I couldn’t help it.

  This was hell. That had to be it.

  I had died, and I was in hell. Why had I gone to hell? I thought I was a good person. I had always tried to be. I was kind and thoughtful, and I never hurt anybody on purpose. Why was I being tortured, then? What was the point of being good if it all ended in a stark, bright, cold room full of medical instruments and machines that made me wish I had never been born?

  “This can all be over,” he reminded me in a singsong voice.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, but not before tears slid out and down my face.

  “I don’t know! Don’t you think I would tell you if I knew what you were asking me?” I opened my eyes and turned my head to look at him—my neck hurt from tensing up so many times, every time he turned on the current.

  He almost looked amused. What kind of sick monster was he?

  “You’re a spy,” he sneered.

  “I’m not!” I gasped. Where was he getting that idea? Nothing made sense. “You have the wrong person!”

  “No, no. I have the right person. I saw you with him, remember.”

  “Who?”

  “You know who. That vampire.” His face contorted like he’d just smelled something terrible.

  “What vampire? This doesn’t make any sense!” I sobbed. “I don’t know any vampires! I never have! Please, please, believe me!”

  He only laughed.

  That laugh was the scariest thing I had heard all night. It came right before another sharp jolt of current that made me arch my back and scream in agony—he chose my breasts to focus the current on, and it burned my skin. I could’ve sworn I could hear it sizzle, even over my agonized shrieks and pleas for him to stop, just stop, make it stop.

  It did stop, but not for good.

  I wasn’t stupid. I wept openly as he stepped away from the controls for a second.

  He went outside and closed the door behind him.

  I could breathe for a second.

  Where am I?

  I barely remembered being in the car on the way to… this place… the… warehouse? That was it, or what it looked like from the outside—big, boxy, broken windows near the top, no light visible from the outside.

  It sure didn’t look that way from the inside. I could’ve sworn I was in a hospital—or a lab of some type. Tiled walls and floors, There were two other beds in the room, but mine was the only one in use. Were the other ones ever used? I hoped not.

  I looked up.

  There was a skylight up there. It was closed, but I could see through it. The sky was still dark. It was still night, or early morning. I couldn’t have been there for too long, but it felt like days. When was dawn? When would it end?

  Would the sun rise before I was dead?

  My restraints were tight, made of a strong leather.

  I was still in my dress from the club. Why did I ever go? I should’ve known I wouldn’t find Gage.

  Nobody knew where I was and they never would. I would disappear without a trace. I was one of those girls. So this was the sort of thing that happened to women when they up and disappeared. They ended up in a warehouse hospital or wherever I was and were never seen again.

  The door opened, and my heart raced all over again.

  I couldn’t seem to stop shaking, no matter how I tried.

  Dietrich looked as cool and calm as ever. How could he torture me without batting an eye or breaking a sweat? He couldn’t have a soul.

  “So. Are you willing to tell me the truth about your association with the vampires?”

  “Please,” I whispered. I could barely form words anymore.

  “Please, what?” he cooed as he walked over to me.

  “Please, stop hurting me. I don’t know anything. Please. It’s a mistake.”

  “I’ll decide whether this is a mistake,” he murmured with an almost loving smile as he rested his hand on my ankle.

  2

  Gage

  What was he doing to her in there?

  I slammed my fists against the cage bars, hoping I could maybe do—something. Anything. Crack them, break through them. But even though the warehouse looked run-down and falling apart from the outside, that wasn’t the case inside.

  They must have gutted and refurbed the entire place. And the walls were almost soundproofed and the cage they had locked me in was solid stee
l.

  I roared every time I heard her scream. What were they doing to her? I strained my ears against whatever they had set up to muffle the noise—vampires had supernaturally good hearing, after all. They probably weren’t used to having vampires as prisoners. Or they weren’t used to prisoners who could scream the way Cari was.

  “No! No! I don’t know any! Please!”

  I leaned my forehead against the bars and squeezed my eyes shut tight. I wanted to block it out, but I couldn’t. I wanted to help her, but I couldn’t. I hadn’t ever felt so useless in my life.

  “Tell me about the vampires,” he demanded.

  I snarled when I heard his voice.

  Dietrich.

  He had already told me about himself before locking my cage in a small, closed-off little room that could’ve been a closet.

  He was slick and thought he was smarter than everybody around him. He was sure Cari was a spy and I was there to rescue her. Well, one out of two wasn’t wrong.

  “I don’t know any! Why don’t you understand?” Another scream—the overhead fluorescent light flickered.

  He was electrocuting her.

  I kicked and punched the cage wall, screaming almost as loud as she did.

  Silence.

  Then, “Tell me about Gage Bourke.”

  “Wh—what about him?”

  “You know him, then? You just said you don’t know any vampires.”

  More silence.

  “Vampire? I barely know him! I only met him that night, in front of the club—and I never saw him again after that! I swear! I swear…” She broke off into gut-wrenching sobs.

  “I almost want to believe you,” he murmured.

  “I mean it! I mean it, please. I don’t know him. Stop hurting me, please.” Her voice was weak, like a wounded bird.

  The room went silent.

  Somehow, that was more ominous than the screaming.

  I looked up. The lights glowed steadily. No current. I could still hear her breathing, her hitching, gasping sobs for air.

  Then, a tear.

  Clothing. Her dress.

  “No!” I screamed, pounding on the bars again. “Don’t you touch her! Don’t you touch her, you bastard!”

  I focused my hearing and heard him grunting rhythmically, heard the sound of her rasping breaths in time with his grunts.

  Her weak “No… no… no…” reverberated in my mind.

  I fell back against the bars and held my head in my hands. It was all my fault. I should’ve gone to her when I had the chance and told her not to go into the club. I should’ve dragged her kicking and screaming from there if I had to.

  If any of the shifters had caught up to me, it would’ve been better than listening what I’d heard tonight.

  The door opened.

  I jumped to my feet when I saw him standing there, in the doorway. I made a move toward him, but he held up one hand. “Any further and she’s dead this very minute,” he said.

  I froze.

  “Why are you doing this?” I snarled, fangs bared.

  “Put those things away,” he sneered, looking me up and down. “You’re no match for me. I’m not afraid of your pointy teeth. Besides, it’s not like you’ll ever get out of that cage. And I know you’ve been trying.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I repeated.

  “Because we know she’s a spy for your kind, getting information on our club and who we are.”

  “That’s not true. She’s been telling you the truth all this time.”

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like I haven’t—ahem—enjoyed getting to know her.” The corners of his mouth curled up in a smile. “Besides, she’ll be dead soon.”

  The words hit me like lead weights.

  I barely had time to react or even think by the time he stepped out into the hall and the door swung shut behind him.

  3

  Cari

  I wasn’t sure what was real and what was a dream anymore. I had to be hallucinating. Maybe somebody up there finally took pity on me and let me zone out during the worst of it.

  I opened my eyes and looked up at the ceiling. I felt… sore. Bruised. I realized that part wasn’t a dream, the way he had climbed on my body and…

  I whimpered and shifted my weight back and forth on the table, wishing I could close my legs or cover myself up. He had torn my dress.

  I couldn’t take much more. I knew that. I wished it would just end. I didn’t want to live anymore, if life was nothing but pain and humiliation and horror.

  I wished he would kill me. That was what he wanted to do—I could tell. He wanted me dead. I was a fly he could pull the wings off of. Something to watch squirm and suffer before drawing one last breath…

  I felt myself blacking out and welcomed it. I longed for the comfort of oblivion. It didn’t hurt when I was unconscious.

  Visions of vampires kept flashing through my mind.

  Gage? A vampire…?

  I woke up when the door opened, and the sight of not just Dietrich, but two others made me try to crawl further up the bed out of sheer instinct.

  The restraints on my ankles bit into my skin but I still strained against them. The looks on their faces told me what they wanted.

  They were almost drooling, breathing heavy through their noses like animals. They smelled their prey. I choked out a sob and something like a plea for mercy. Mercy, please. Just kill me already.

  “Didn’t I tell you she was tasty looking?” Dietrich asked.

  “I can see why they wanted her,” one of the other two said.

  I struggled to keep my eyes open long enough to look at him.

  He was dressed just like Dietrich, and I thought I remembered him from the club. The other one, too. They danced with the girls.

  “Please… just end this…” I whispered. I could barely lift my head from the bed. I could barely get a sound out of my scratched, bleeding throat. I could taste my own blood in there. I had screamed myself hoarse and then some.

  They smiled in unison. “We will,” Dietrich whispered.

  And that was when the real nightmare began.

  The three of them sort of… melted. Their features changed.

  I have to be dreaming this. I’m unconscious. I’m not really here. I’m far away. Maybe I died. This can’t be real. They’re not… changing.

  But they were.

  Dietrich went down on all fours and his clothes shredded to reveal thick, black fur covering his body. His face elongated, his ears moved up to the top of his head, his teeth lengthened and when he snapped his jaws, he growled like a… wolf.

  A wolf. He wasn’t human, he was a wolf.

  And the others. One turned into a tiger. The other was a dog—no, a coyote. A wolf, a tiger and a coyote where three men had just been standing.

  Impossible.

  I had lost blood, I was unconscious, I was dead, I was anywhere but in that hospital or lab or whatever the hell it was. I wasn’t in real life anymore. Things like this didn’t happen in real life. People didn’t turn into animals.

  They advanced on me and I screamed a long, silent scream—it was all I could do. The wolf jumped up on the bed.

  Oh, no!

  I squirmed and thrashed until I tore at the muscles in both of my shoulders but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t escape.

  He slashed at me with long, sharp claws, dragging them across my stomach.

  Bright, red blood bloomed on my white skin.

  The others tore at my thighs, my arms, my chest. I screamed silently, on and on, thrashing and rolling my head from side to side. Trying to fight them off, trying to end the pain.

  Soon I didn’t have the strength anymore. Soon, it didn’t matter anymore. I closed my eyes as they growled and roared and slashed at me.

  I drifted in and out of consciousness, lost in a red-hot haze of agony.

  I heard Dietrich’s voice. “Bring in the vampire. Use the cage. Open the skylight.”

  Everything
went black.

  4

  Gage

  Two of Dietrich’s thugs wheeled my cage to Cari’s room.

  I didn’t ask why. It seemed pretty obvious. They wanted me to watch her die.

  And she was dying. It was obvious.

  The cold, clinical white lights in the cold, clinical white room only showed off her chalky, pale skin. Against that, her blood shone like rubies.

  The smell filled my nostrils, overcame my senses. It was everywhere. She had bled so much. They had torn her apart. She didn’t have much longer.

  Moonlight flowed into the room from the open skylight, just over where the shifters left my cage. I was only a few feet from her.

  I looked up and realized I would be dead soon, too. The sun would rise in a few hours and climb high into the sky, right over where I was standing. I couldn’t escape it—no matter where I moved in the cage, moonlight touched my skin. I was completely exposed.

  I glanced at Cari again. Her chest rose and fell slowly as she took shallow breaths. Her eyes were closed. There were burns all over her, too. I couldn’t imagine the pain she must’ve gone through when she screamed. She would be out of pain soon.