In the Beginning... by Calle J. Brookes Page B

Uncle Jason never found
them? What if her family thought she and the others were all dead?
These men obviously had the means to ensure that she and Josey,
Mal, and Emily were never found. What would they do then?
    That thought kept reverberating through
Mickey’s head. What would she do if help never came? How long would
he be content to keep his promise not to touch her? Or would she
truly develop a case of Stockholm Syndrome?
    What if she just wasn’t strong enough to
resist him after so much time had passed?
    She wiped a tear away as she pulled back the
wine-colored silk that covered his bed.
    What was she going to do?

Chapter Fourteen

    Mickey pulled the blankets over herself, but
knew she wouldn’t be sleeping anytime soon. The book beckoned, and
she grabbed it. Ran her fingers over the gold etched on the
cover.
    She opened it to the first
page of writing, surprised to see it was hand written. A journal.
Was it his? Who else’s would it be in his private office? The first
line immediately caught her attention. It was in English. Just like she’d known
it would be. How old was it?

    My dearest little love,

    How I have longed for you. More so today
than any other...A good friend was lost to me this day when he lost
his own mate. They had been together only six short years. She and
the babe both gone, and my friend chose not to continue his
existence. I cannot blame him. Were it you, I would not wish to
live another day, either...

    Mickey continued reading,
wondering again if it was his. The book went on to chronicle the author’s life,
starting at around what she estimated the mid-1600s. The author was
an intelligent man, she could easily see that. She couldn’t
pinpoint his age, but if what the vampire Theo had told her, the
author could be hundreds of years old. How long did a Dardaptoan
live?
    Mickey paused her reading as she finally
admitted to herself that she was extremely curious about this
species that she’d never even imagined existed. Was it because she
was starting to believe him when he’d said she was now like
him?
    What did that mean for her? How could she go
home to her own life, knowing she’d need to drink blood in order to
live? What if she became like one of the vampires she’d seen in
movies or in the books she’d read? Was there some truth to those
myths? Myth began in fact, in many cases.
    She closed her eyes and
forced herself to take deep breaths, to push the sense of panic
away again. Her hands tightened on the book and she forced herself
to keep reading. Several pages in she found another reference to
the author’s Rajni .

    My dearest little love,

    The Goddess spoke to me
again last night in dreams. Told me to stay strong, that one day I
would find you. Told me that you had yet to be born, and wouldn’t
be until well after the time man steps foot on the moon...but She
has yet to tell me just when that will be. The humans that live
near me are so primitive at times. Their science is only now just
beginning. Travel to the moon is far from now. You are so far from now. How am I to
stay resolute? How can the Goddess ask such of me?

    His longing for the woman he wrote to was so
deeply imbedded into the words. Mickey almost hurt for him.
    What would it be like to know that you had
one person, just one special being on the earth, who was meant for
only you?
    She’d never dated anyone past a first date or
two. Not since she was sixteen and barely beginning to date. Not
since the day Mallory had been attacked. She’d been too afraid to.
Too untrusting. After her sister’s attack, she’d done research into
rape, and how to help her sister heal. The statistics of women
attacked by men they knew had terrified her.
    What she’d read had scared her to the point
that she’d struggled to trust men at all. Instead, she’d focused on
her education. Focused on trying to understand why people did the
things they did to each other. She’d kept that focus primary in her
goals, and once her