Demon Marked: Book 1 of the Venandi Chronicles ( An Urban Paranormal Romance Series) Read online

  “What are you doing?” he demanded, and I raised my empty hands into the air.

  I opened my mouth to tell him that I was just grabbing my purse like he’d asked, but at that moment, the door to the gas station opened. A man in a suit walked inside. I’d been so distracted by the robbery that I hadn’t even seen his car arrive.

  His attention was on the phone in his hand, so he didn’t see the danger coming until he’d walked right into it. The twitchy gunman swiveled to the right, pointing his gun at the new customer, who looked up from his phone and froze just inside the door. I could see panic in the robber’s eyes, and it reminded me of the way a trapped animal looked, desperate and ready for a fight.

  “Who the hell are you?” Twitchy Guy bellowed, irrationally furious at the interruption. He was obviously just a guy who’d stopped for gas at the wrong place at a very wrong time.

  “Don’t worry about him,” the first robber said, backing away from the counter to my relief. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

  “No way, Carl! We didn’t get enough. I’m not leaving here without their money!” The tension in the room felt like a rubber band that was about to snap. Twitchy Guy stepped closer to the customer, who shrank back until he bumped into the wall beside the door.

  “You can have whatever you want,” the customer said, taking out his wallet. “Just don’t hurt me.”

  Twitchy Guy snatched the wallet out of the man’s hands and opened it.

  “There’s no cash in here,” he snarled, throwing it on the ground at the man’s feet.

  “Let’s go,” Carl urged again.

  “Shut up!” The man was sweating, and my feeling of dread grew. “I’m not leaving with just a couple hundred bucks! There has to be more money here somewhere!”

  “Damn it, Sean, this was supposed to be quick. I don’t want to get popped,” Carl said, boldly moving closer and taking Sean by the arm. He tried to pull his friend out of the gas station, but Sean shoved him away angrily.

  “Fuck you!” he snapped, and turned back to the customer, advancing on him. “Now, I know you have to have money, and you’re going to give me what I want…”

  I seemed to have been forgotten for the moment, and I probably should have just been happy about that, but as Sean moved in on the terrified customer, I felt like I had to do something. It was a reckless impulse, but I felt compelled to help the man.

  “Stop it,” I said. “Just stop.”

  Sean turned, and his wild eyes focused on me. I felt small as I faced him, hating that I once again had a gun pointed in my direction, but I stood steady.

  “What did you just say to me?” he asked in a dangerous voice.

  Then, everything happened so fast. Carl shook his head and went for the door, pulling it open and sprinting outside as fast as he could in his baggy jeans. Sean jerked his head at the sound of the door, calling out what a coward he was, and the customer moved for the first time in several minutes. Apparently, he’d found his courage because he suddenly pushed himself away from the wall, colliding with Sean, who was still focused on his friend’s desertion. Both men let out grunts as they started to tumble backward, and I sucked in a sharp breath as the gas station was filled with the deafening sound of a gun discharging.

  I didn’t have a chance to react. The men were still falling together in a scuffle that couldn’t possibly end well, but I never saw them hit the floor, much less what happened next. Because the second I heard the shot, I felt a blinding pain on the right side of my head. Then, everything went black.

  2

  Georgia

  My throat was dry. That was the first thing that registered even before I came close to full consciousness. It felt like I hadn’t had anything to drink in days, and my mouth was like cotton.

  My thoughts felt sluggish as I tried to wake up. I’d never been so tired in my life, but there was something else going on here, too. Something was wrong. I just couldn’t remember what it was. Everything was jumbled, and I had to fight to find the will to even open my eyes. It would be so much easier to stay asleep…

  But hazy memories started to assault my confused mind. I couldn’t remember the specifics, but the feelings—panic, fear, desperation—shone through everything else. I heard an annoying beeping and unfamiliar voices as those emotions flooded me, making my heart beat faster, but I still couldn’t open my eyes—couldn’t control my body!

  “Her heart rate is skyrocketing.”

  “Is she awake?”

  “She’s working on it, but she’s going into shock.”

  My chest felt tight and I clenched my fists, fighting to gain more control. I needed to open my eyes. If I could just see what was going on…

  There was the sound of glass breaking somewhere close by. “Be careful—you knocked over the vase.”

  “No, I didn’t. I was nowhere near it.”

  “Whatever. Just push the midazolam.”

  It felt like seconds later that I could feel myself fading away, being pulled back down into the black void of unconsciousness. I tried to fight it with everything I had, clinging to the will to just open my eyes. Everything would be fine if I could just…

  Time had passed, but I wasn’t sure how much. I was too disoriented, and my entire body felt heavy. But I had the vague idea that things were getting clearer, that I was stronger now. I couldn’t remember exactly why I thought that, but it didn’t matter. I just wanted to regain control of myself.

  I sucked in a deep breath, confused by the smell of chemicals. Antiseptic, maybe? Was I in a hospital?

  I hadn’t been in a hospital since I was twelve years old, getting my tonsils removed. My foster parents left me there alone, probably to take off on one of their gambling binges in Reno. Ironically, that day in the hospital became one of my best childhood memories. The nurses spoiled me rotten and spoon-fed me ice cream. A handsome surgeon with dimples called me “cutie-pie.” Best of all, I didn’t have to worry about being groped in the middle of the night by an ape who claimed to be some version of a father.

  I ended up staying in that hospital an extra night because my so-called parents had literally forgotten they’d left me there. I decided then that I couldn’t rely on anyone, and I stuck to that conviction. If those people didn’t care enough to take care of me, I wasn’t going to stick around.

  I ran away from that home about a month later.

  Pushing aside that memory, I tried to focus on my body. I felt stiff, like you would after sleeping for a very long time, and I had a headache. My throat was dry, and a hazy memory surfaced at that realization, but it was lost in a cluster of negative feelings and the sound of breaking glass.

  My eyes felt dry, too, and when I was able to pry my eyelids open, the light in the room was an assault, making me flinch. I raised my hand to rub my eyes and felt a tug on my arm. Cracking my eyelids just enough to take a glimpse, I looked down. There was an IV in my arm feeding some kind of clear liquid into me. My immediate instinct was to pull it out, but my mind was starting to work again, and I knew that was a bad idea.

  I spent the next several minutes looking around as my eyes adjusted to the light. It wasn’t even that bright, I realized. The lights in the room had been dimmed. Why were my eyes so sensitive? How long had I been asleep?

  I was right—this was a hospital room. There were round sensors attached to my chest that led to a row of machines beside me that were displaying my heart rate and some other numbers that I didn’t understand. A plastic clamp on my finger emitted a light and connected to a machine that I recognized was monitoring my oxygen.

  I wasn’t sure what the normal ranges were for all these readouts, but there were no alarms going off, so I assumed I was okay. There were two beds in the room, but the other one was empty. I was alone, and for some reason, that made me swell with sadness.

  My nose burned, but I fought back the urge to cry. If I started down that road, I wasn’t sure how long it would be before I could pull myself together again.

/>   Instead, I tried to remember what had landed me here in the first place. I couldn’t even pinpoint what my last memory was. Had I been at school? Or work, maybe?

  Adam’s face flashed in my mind, but I couldn’t remember where we were when I’d seen him. Frustration bled through me and I felt compelled to do something, even if it was just to sit up.

  I braced my hands on either side of my body and pushed against the mattress. My arms shook with the effort, which was a shock, but I was quickly distracted from that by my stomach rolling. When I became upright, I tried to take a deep breath, hoping it would help, but that just made things worse.

  “Shit,” I mumbled, as I realized that I was about to throw up.

  A hand touched my shoulder, and I jolted, looking up at a nurse who was suddenly standing over me with a concerned look on her face. I hadn’t even noticed her entering the room, but the door was now open behind her.

  She held a pink plastic tub in front of my face and her timing couldn’t have been better, because a moment later, I expelled whatever was left in my stomach. My abdominal muscles contracted painfully and I kept my eyes shut tight, not wanting to see the mess.

  It seemed to last forever, but the nurse kept a comforting hand on my back the whole time. It was amazing how much better even that small gesture made me feel. When I was finally finished, I laid back on the mattress, trying to catch my breath. The nurse disappeared into the bathroom without a word and I heard the toilet flush a moment later, followed by running water. When she reappeared, she handed over a wet rag, which I gratefully took and wiped my mouth clean.

  My throat was on fire now, and my eyes trailed to the pitcher of ice water on the small table beside my bed. The nurse followed my gaze and poured some into a plastic cup with a straw. She held it out to me, and I noticed a nametag pinned on her scrubs that read Jen.

  “Don’t drink too much,” she warned, as I eagerly sucked down the cold water. “Your stomach is going to be sensitive from the anesthetic for a while. That’s why you got sick.”

  “Anesthetic?” I repeated, my voice a hoarse croak. Jen pulled away the cup, putting it back on the table so it was still within my reach.

  “We had to put you out a couple of times. That happens occasionally when someone is coming out of a coma. It’s not easy and can be upsetting. The only way to calm you down was to sedate you and hope you would react better when you woke up again.”

  “Did you say...coma?”

  Jen gave me a sympathetic look. “I’m afraid so. Don’t worry—I’ve paged the doctor and he’ll be in shortly to explain everything to you.”

  “What happened?”

  Jen hesitated, but at that moment, a man walked into the room holding a clipboard. He was wearing slacks and a button-up shirt under a long, white doctor’s coat. I would have guessed that he was probably in his early-fifties, with black hair that was greying at the temples and wire-framed glasses.

  “Well, hello, Georgia,” he said, smiling. “I’m Dr. Porter. It’s nice to see you awake.”

  “How long have I been here?” I asked. The word ‘coma’ was freaking me out. Had it been days or years?

  “Three months.”

  So, it was November. It hadn’t been as long as I feared, but I still felt like I had been robbed of the time. I’d missed my twenty-first birthday in September.

  “What happened?” I asked again. I needed to know how I ended up here. Had there been an accident?

  “The gas station where you worked was robbed. I’m afraid you were shot.”

  “What?”

  How could I forget that?

  “Here,” Jen said, taking hold of my wrist and guiding my hand to my forehead. My fingertips ran over a scar above my temple that hadn’t been there before.

  “I was shot...in the head?”

  My throat constricted, and I could literally see my heart rate increase on the monitor beside me.

  “It grazed you, causing a skull fracture. That’s why you’ve been in a coma.”

  “Do I have brain damage?”

  Now, Dr. Porter was the one to hesitate. That couldn’t be good.

  “Honestly, we won’t know for sure until we run some tests. For now, let’s run through a few simple questions. Your full name?”

  “Georgia Marie Patton.”

  “Age?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  He went on, asking me basic questions that anyone would know about their own life. As it went on, I felt a little less nervous about the possibility of brain damage, but I wouldn’t be completely at ease until we completed the tests tomorrow.

  Dr. Porter left after that, but Jen stuck around. She handed me a controller for the bed so that I could sit up incrementally and avoid getting sick again.

  “I have to go check on a few other patients, but I’ll be back to check on you in a little while,” she said, also handing me the television remote. “Can I get you anything else before I leave?”

  “Was my stuff brought here? My phone?”

  “We have your purse in the cabinet. Let me go check.”

  I watched her rummage around in a tall cabinet by the door for a minute, and when she returned, she had my phone in her hand. I took it from her, but it was dead. I sighed—I couldn’t catch a break.

  “I have a phone charger in my locker,” Jen said, and I decided that I liked this woman. She was going out of her way to help me out, and I really needed that right now. Honestly, I’d never needed it more.

  She came back in minutes, and after she left me alone, I waited impatiently for the phone to have enough juice to turn on. It wasn’t until the screen lit up that I even thought about who I could actually call.

  It was a sobering reminder of the reality that I didn’t have many people in my life. No real loved ones. No family at all.

  I opened my contacts, selected Adam’s number, and called him. It rang four times, and I thought it was going to go to voicemail when he finally picked up.

  “G-Georgia?” His soft voice was hard to read.

  “Yeah.” I cleared my throat. My voice still sounded hoarse, but it hurt less to talk now. “It’s me.”

  “Holy shit. When did you wake up?”

  “Now. Well, maybe an hour ago, I don’t know.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Can you come here?” I asked, not sure how to answer his question. I was too emotionally fragile to figure out if I was okay or not. There was a moment of silence that seemed to stretch out too long. My heart hurt as I realized that he might say no.

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  We hung up, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that he didn’t want to see me. I thought he’d be happy to find out that I was awake, maybe thrilled. We hadn’t said we loved each other yet, but we’d been seeing each other for six months before my...accident, and I knew he cared about me just like I cared about him. Or I thought he did.

  I wished that I had a mirror, but it might have been best that I didn’t know what I looked like. I couldn’t be a pretty sight after a coma lasting three long months. And there was no way I could walk to the bathroom when I could barely sit up in bed without vomiting.

  Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to have him come here. But it was too late now. Besides, I didn’t want to be alone. There was a knock on the door, and I used my hands to flatten my unruly hair, gingerly avoiding my new scar.

  “Come in,” I called out.

  Seeing Adam was like taking a breath of fresh air. He was so handsome and familiar. It was a comfort just to see him, to know that not everything had changed while I was lying in this bed.

  “Hey,” I said, feeling a smile stretch across my face for the first time since I woke up.

  “Uh, hi,” he replied, lingering halfway between the door—which he’d left open—and the bed. His hands were in his pockets and his shoulders were tense. This wasn’t the warm reunion I had been expecting, and the feeling of something being wrong intensified.

 
An awkward silence fell between us, and I watched Adam’s eyes roam the room. It could have just been that he was taking in our surroundings, but I suspected that he didn’t want to look directly at me. When he couldn’t avoid it any longer, he had an almost pained expression.

  “How do you feel?” he asked,

  “Confused. I don’t remember what happened. And I’ve lost this chunk of time…” I shook my head. “It’s hard to put it into words.”

  “Yeah, it was definitely unexpected.”

  “What have I missed?” I asked. Something had changed between us while I was out, and I just wanted him to come clean with it.

  “Oh, man. That’s a loaded question.” Adam finally moved further into the room, taking a seat in the chair by the bed. “A lot can happen in three whole months. You missed your birthday. And Halloween. The football team is kicking ass. Oh, and my mom got engaged to her boyfriend.”

  “Wow. All the important stuff, huh?” I said bitterly. I wasn’t sure what I even wanted from him. I wouldn’t have expected him to wait by my bed, especially if they had no idea when I would wake up, but he could at least act like he was happy to see me.

  “Well, what happened to you sucked, of course.” The look on his face was all guilt.

  “Adam, can you just be straight with me? What aren’t you saying?”

  He seemed to deflate as he let out a long sigh. “Damn, this is hard. I never thought about it...”

  “You’re dating someone?” I guessed, and his eyes widened. That was all the answer I needed. He’d been cheating on me while I was in a coma.

  Asshole.

  “How did you know?”

  I let out a humorless chuckle. This sucked.

  “It’s pretty obvious,” I told him. “Do you think I’m blind just because I’ve been in a coma for the last three months? You look guilty as fuck, and you’re acting like you’d rather be anywhere in the world right now than here. It doesn’t take much of a leap to see that we aren’t a couple anymore.”