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  AWAKEN THE DARKNESS

  Copyright © 2018 by Dianne Duvall

  Published by Dianne Duvall, 2018

  www.DianneDuvall.com

  Editor: Anne Victory

  Cover Art by: Syneca Featherstone

  E-book ISBN: 978-0-9864171-6-0

  Print ISBN: 978-0-9864171-7-7

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, printed or electronic, without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for showing the author your support by only purchasing authorized editions of this book and by complying with federal copyright laws and not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Awaken the Darkness

  Return to the "utterly addictive" (RT Book Reviews), “fast-paced and humorous” (Publishers Weekly) world of New York Times bestselling author Dianne Duvall's Immortal Guardians.

  He awakens encapsulated in dirt with no knowledge of how he came to be there. Riddled with injuries, he can remember neither his past nor who he is. Nor can he remember what he is. But surely no mortal man could survive being buried deep beneath the earth. All he knows with certainty is that the soothing voice and presence of the woman moving around above enables him to endure the agony of his wounds. And he will do whatever it takes to be with her.

  When Susan first sees the old two-story house for sale, such warmth and longing fill her that—against all reason—she makes an offer. It will take years of hard work and money she frankly doesn’t have to fix up the place. So she can’t explain why she bought it. She also can’t explain what compels her to spend hours one night, digging in the basement until she unearths a man. A man who still lives and breathes despite having been buried alive. A man whose intense brown eyes glow amber with pain, declaring him far more than ordinary. Susan knows she should keep her distance. He has no memory and possesses gifts that would make most fear him. But as the two work together to unravel the mystery of his past, she finds herself drawn in by his teasing nature and tender touch. So much so that she loses her heart to him even as they find themselves hunted by unknown enemies who are ruthless in their quest to capture them.

  "Fans of terrific paranormal romance have hit the jackpot with Duvall and her electrifying series."

  —RT Book Reviews

  "Full of fascinating characters, a unique and wonderfully imaginative premise, and scorching hot relationships."

  —The Romance Reviews

  “Fans of paranormal romance who haven’t discovered this series yet are really missing out on something extraordinary.”

  —Long and Short Reviews

  “Paranormal romance fans who enjoy series like J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood will definitely want to invest time in the Immortal Guardians series.”

  —All Things Urban Fantasy

  Titles by Dianne Duvall

  The Gifted Ones

  A SORCERESS OF HIS OWN

  RENDEZVOUS WITH YESTERDAY

  Immortal Guardians

  DARKNESS DAWNS

  NIGHT REIGNS

  PHANTOM SHADOWS

  IN STILL DARKNESS

  DARKNESS RISES

  NIGHT UNBOUND

  PHANTOM EMBRACE

  SHADOWS STRIKE

  Anthologies

  PREDATORY

  (includes In Still Darkness)

  ON THE HUNT

  (includes Phantom Embrace)

  An Immortal Guardians Novel

  NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  Dianne Duvall

  www.DianneDuvall.com

  Dianne Duvall Books Group

  © 2018 Dianne Duvall

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Author’s Note for Immortal Guardians Fans

  Dear Reader,

  The initial events in the Prologue will seem familiar to those of you who have read all the books and novellas in the Immortal Guardians series. I considered beginning the story with Chapter One and letting you discover who the hero was when the heroine did. But that would’ve required a lengthy tale of how he had come to be there near the end of the story. I much preferred showing you instead. So if your inclination is to skip the Prologue, I highly recommend that you do not. It will show you exactly what so many of you have been speculating about: what happened to Stanislav.

  I would also like to thank all of you who have asked me for Stan’s story and who have fervently hoped his role in my Immortal Guardians family has not come to an end. I’ve wanted to tell his tale ever since I wrote Night Unbound but had to wait for the right time. When I released Blade of Darkness, Stanislav leapt forward and informed me that the time had come.

  Like Richart’s and Yuri’s stories, Stanislav’s began as a novella. But since I’ve gone indie, I didn’t have to adhere to a strict word count this time and was able to give it full rein. I hope you will enjoy reading or listening to his tale as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  Thank you always for your support. If you’d like to chat with me and other readers who enjoy this series and/or The Gifted Ones series, I invite you to join my new Dianne Duvall Books Group on Facebook. We’ve been having so much fun in it. I hope I’ll see you there.

  —Dianne Duvall

  Table of Contents

  Titles by Dianne Duvall

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Epilogue

  Thank you

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Books by Dianne Duvall

  Prologue

  “Hoooooooly shit!” Ethan exclaimed.

  Stanislav glanced at Ethan, an American immortal who was around three hundred years younger than his own four hundred and thirty-seven years. Ethan’s eyes were wide as he took in the men and machines in front of them.

  A new vampire army had arisen. One more skilled and armed with the only sedative known to affect immortals and vampires. An army aided by an immortal betrayer they had yet to identify. But the Immortal Guardians had finally located the new vampire army’s base and discovered—much to their astonishment—that the betrayer had given the vampiric virus and the sedative to a huge mercenary group that had already begun infecting their own men.

  No wonder the damned vampires he and his brethren had been encountering recently were so skilled in battle. An army of men with superspeed, superstrength, perfect night vision, and accelerated healing abilities that left them nearly unstoppable on the battlefield would bring the mercenary group billions of dollars. And all evidence suggested this group didn’t care who hired their vampire army. They would make it available to the highest bidder worldwide.

  Vampire mercenaries. Stanislav shook his head. After hunting and slaying psychotic vampires every night for centuries, anything new—particularly if it offered a challenge—he usually embraced with eagerness, happy to escape the same-old, same-old. But this would irrevocably change the world in dangerous ways. It had to be stopped. They had to be stopped.

  Stanislav followed Ethan’s gaze.

  And it sure as hell looked as
though he and his brethren would stop them today.

  Chris Reordon, head of the East Coast division of the human network that aided Immortal Guardians, had chosen the rendezvous point for immortals, their Seconds, and the humans he commanded: a dense forest several miles distant from the mercenary compound, well beyond the sight of the compound’s surveillance equipment and far from any isolated country homes that might produce curiosity seekers. It also bore a heavy enough canopy to protect the immortal warriors from the sunlight that gleamed above them.

  Since half the mercenaries they would be fighting were vampire, the immortals had decided to attack in force that afternoon. Vampires couldn’t withstand any sun exposure at all. Immortals could. Youngsters like Ethan, not so much. At full strength, Ethan could probably only withstand a few minutes of direct afternoon sunlight before his skin would begin to pinken with a burn, then blister and worse. But the older the immortal was, the more daylight he or she could tolerate. Yuri, a hundred years older than Stanislav, could tolerate half an hour. Stanislav could withstand fifteen minutes or so. More if the sky bore a few clouds. David, who had seen thousands of years, could stand in the sun for hours. And Seth, the eldest amongst them and leader of the Immortal Guardians…

  As far as Stanislav knew, Seth could stand in the sun all day without suffering any ill effects.

  How they all envied him.

  “What?” Chris asked belatedly as he spread a large map on the hood of one of many Humvees outfitted with a variety of mean-looking weapons.

  “You think you have enough men?” Ethan asked, motioning to the multitude of rough-hewn Network special-ops soldiers garbed in camouflage.

  “This is just half of them,” Chris responded absently. “The other half are already in place, observing the compound’s perimeter.”

  Stanislav shared a concerned look with Yuri. If even one Network soldier’s presence had been detected, the mercenaries would know they were coming.

  “None have been discovered,” Seth said as though Stanislav had spoken the thought aloud. “I monitored their approach myself.”

  “What the hell is that?” Sheldon—Richart’s Second—asked as he pointed at something atop the Humvee.

  Stanislav was a bit curious about that himself.

  Chris followed his gaze. “A TOW missile.”

  Yuri caught Stanislav’s eye and raised his brows with a smile, his expression saying Cool!

  Stanislav grinned. It was cool. Neither of them had seen such up close before, since immortals tended to use blades to hunt and slay vampires.

  “And that?” The French immortal Lisette pointed to a weapon atop another Humvee.

  “Flamethrower,” Chris answered.

  Bastien, the British black sheep of the Immortal Guardians family, stared up at it. “What’s its range?”

  “It can light up vampires two hundred and fifty feet away,” Chris said. “But since it’ll also light up immortals, we plan to use them primarily on the gate and on the grounds away from the main structures.”

  The other military vehicles all boasted high-caliber automatic weapons. Stanislav would have thought it overkill if the compound they intended to destroy didn’t encompass four thousand acres.

  “Now,” Chris said, pointing to an area on the map, “these are the training fields that will be active. Live ammo is used on the target ranges, so you’ll face a lot of firepower there. The gates will be heavily guarded. Patrols walk the fence. There will be a changing of the guard in half an hour, so the soldiers on duty now will be tired and likely not as vigilant. Surveillance cameras are mounted on the fences here, here, and here, near the main structures and training fields. But they’re sparse on the rest of the grounds. These red circles indicate where you’ll find them.

  “Once more, you’ll find an assload of vampires in this building. The human mercenaries who work the night shift will be sleeping here in the building next to it. This over here is the armory. Anyone you let go in there will come out packing major weaponry. There’s only the one door, and a hell of a lot of them are going to want to use it, so I suggest you park a couple of immortals in front of it.”

  “I’ll do it,” Yuri volunteered.

  “Me, too,” Stanislav swiftly added.

  Seth nodded his approval.

  The eagerness with which Yuri approached this battle filled Stanislav with unease. Yuri was like a brother to him. When vampires had transformed Stanislav against his will four centuries ago, Seth had plunked him down on Yuri’s doorstep and assigned Yuri the task of training and mentoring him. The two Russian immortals had been best friends ever since. As close as brothers by blood. Hell, even closer than Stanislav had been to his own brothers while they had lived. Stanislav and Yuri bore such similar personalities. The same quiet temperament. The same likes and dislikes and sense of humor.

  Seth had always stationed the two together in the same cities over the centuries. So they’d hunted together nightly. Enjoyed quiet hours reading together before dawn. And had kept at bay the loneliness this life could breed.

  But lately things had changed. Yuri had changed… in ways that alarmed Stanislav. Yuri had begun taking unnecessary risks. He was an exceptional swordsman and, in the past, had escaped most hunts relatively unscathed. Usually if either of them was injured, it was Stanislav. In recent weeks, however, his friend had racked up one wound after another on a nightly basis. Not superficial wounds. Not paltry scratches that healed or faded to scars before the two of them even made it home. But gashes so deep Stanislav saw bone when he inspected them. A throat nearly slit. Fractured limbs. Broken ribs that punctured lungs. Stab wounds deep enough to damage internal organs.

  It scared the hell out of Stanislav, because he knew the only way Yuri would incur such injuries was if he let the vampires wound him.

  “Try not to blow up the building, guys,” Chris implored. “We could use the stuff that’s in there.”

  Stanislav faked a long-suffering sigh. “You’re forever spoiling our fun, Reordon.”

  Yuri laughed and clapped him on the back as several of the other immortals chuckled.

  But Stanislav’s worry remained. When he had confronted Yuri about the multitude of wounds that had led him to fear his friend had grown weary of this existence, Yuri had stunned him by admitting he had fallen in love with a woman who couldn’t safely be transformed.

  A woman who must not be a gifted one.

  Gifted ones like himself and his fellow immortals were men and women who had been born with advanced DNA that lent them special gifts. Yuri could see spirits. Stanislav could read others’ emotions and manipulate those emotions if he so desired. Lisette and her brother Étienne were telepathic. Roland could heal with his hands. David could do all of the above and shape-shift, too. Seth could do the same and teleport. The older the immortal, the more gifts he or she bore. And the DNA that lent them those gifts also protected them from the more corrosive aspects of the vampiric virus that infected them, transforming them into immortals.

  Humans were not so lucky. Ordinary humans infected with the virus suffered progressive brain damage that drove them insane and compelled them to prey upon innocents. Ordinary humans turned vampire.

  Which meant the woman Yuri loved could not spend the rest of eternity with him. If he transformed her, she would turn vampire and have to be destroyed in just a few short years.

  Was the knowledge that Yuri would either have to watch the woman he loved die from old age or lose her to bitterness when she inevitably aged and he remained youthful simply too much for him to bear? Yuri had denied he had a death wish when asked directly. But the sparkle of excitement Stanislav saw in his friend’s eyes now, the eagerness with which Yuri anticipated this battle, unnerved him.

  He would have to keep a close eye on him.

  With Seth’s aid and approval, Chris assigned each immortal an area of the compound to tackle. “Seconds,” Chris ordered, “park your asses behind the nearest bulletproof structure and guard your imm
ortals. Shoot anyone with a tranquilizer gun.”

  Stanislav glanced at Alexei in time to see him nod.

  Alexei met his gaze. Narrowing his eyes with exaggerated intensity, the Second pointed the index and middle fingers of his right hand at his own eyes, then swung them around and jabbed them toward Stanislav in an aggressive I’ll be watching you gesture.

  Stanislav grinned, amusement taking the edge off his anxiety. Alexei had served as his Second, or human guard, for almost three decades now and had never let him down. Not once. Stanislav would keep an eye on him, too. Alexei was tough. Brave as hell. But he was mortal. Stanislav didn’t want to lose him to a stray bullet.

  “If your immortal is tranqed,” Chris instructed the Seconds, “use your walkie to call it in and cover them until we can get them out of harm’s way.”

  “Should that happen,” Richart said, “I can teleport the immortal to David’s place.”

  “Good. The rest of the injured, mortal and immortal, should be taken to Network headquarters. Our emergency medical team is standing by.” Chris raked them all with a glance. “Any questions?”

  Silence.

  He nodded. “Seth, let me know when you and the other immortals are in place, ready to strike, and I’ll make the call.” He turned to his men. “Helmets on.”

  The Network soldiers all donned helmets with chinstraps.

  Seth eyed the immortals and arched a brow. “Well?”

  Every movement broadcasting either reluctance or belligerence, the immortals around Stanislav dutifully donned a head covering that resembled a ski mask and shielded everything but their eyes. Even their mouths were covered except for small breathing holes. Like Stanislav, they had already squeezed their bodies into specially designed rubbery suits that resembled a diving suit and would protect them from the sunlight that would soon bathe them.