Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2) by A D Koboah

dancing in his
sea-green eyes. He looked different somehow. His skin seemed to
have a luminosity to it and his long blond hair hung like cascading
waves of gold.
    “ Good evening.” His tone
was amiable.
    It did not seem as if he had raised
his voice, but the sound boomed around me and almost drowned out
all else I could hear. His voice also appeared to have changed in
depth and timbre, making it easier to discern the cutting edge of
anger running through it.
    “ I...I am not dead?” I got
to my feet.
    Although I felt relatively well and
there were no traces of the wounds they inflicted the night before,
there was an ache in my bones and my throat burned. The earth they
had buried me in had been cleaned off my body.
    “ Yes...and no.” Emory
smiled when I peered at him in confusion. “I apologise about the
coffin. You see, we had to kill you to begin the process, and Auria
likes the whole thing to be as dramatic as possible. You are a
vampire now. You’re as strong and fast as we are. And you’ll live
forever.”
    “ But why would
you—?”
    He shrugged, that anger dominating his
tone when he spoke again. “Because it’s what she
wanted.”
    “ The...Fosters. Did they
know you would do this?”
    “ Of course they did. They
do whatever Auria tells them to do in exchange for the wealth you
saw.”
    “ My ears. All...all the
noise. It hurts, and the light—”
    “ You can control
it.”
    He hopped off the coffin and came to
stand before me. Aware of the fact that I was still naked, and his
gaze was lingering on my nakedness, I brought the clothes up to
cover myself and stepped back when he reached his hands toward my
face.
    “ Relax. Let me show you.”
He grasped my head and peered into my eyes. “You can control what
you see and hear just by thinking about it. Focus on my voice and
the rest will fade into the background. You will still be aware of
it, but you can turn it up or down depending on what you want to
hear.”
    He was right. The din receded, as did
the light, until it looked as it had before, although everything
was still heightened.
    “ Thank you.” I stepped
away from him, sure he had not needed to touch me in order to
demonstrate.
    “ No, I did not,” he said
with a chuckle as he moved past me. “Get dressed.” He paused to let
his gaze linger on my bare chest. “And meet us outside.”
    He moved to stairs in the corner of
the chamber and was soon out of sight.
    I stood there clutching the clothes he
had given me, which were as ostentatious as his were.
    I was alive.
    Then that meant...Julia!
    I dressed quickly and darted up the
stairs leading to a hidden trap door that took me out of the
underground chamber to the back of the chapel. I raced out of the
chapel, not realising I was moving much faster than a man could
move.
    I stepped out of the chapel to a night
like no other. The moon hung like a white god that showered the
clearing with silver light amidst the glittering stars gathered
around it. Even before I reached the trees, my heart and hopes came
crashing back down from the heights I had allowed them to ascend.
The scent that drifted to me from the edge of the clearing told me
all I needed to know. But I could not stop myself from going to her
anyway.
    Her head lay at an odd angle and her
body was already beginning to bloat. I was surprised some wild
animal had not scavenged her remains. But with my heightened
senses, I was aware now that the immediate area was relatively
silent and the wildlife gave it a wide berth.
    Tears filled my eyes as I stared at
Julia, and my hands trembled. “She is still dead,” I
whispered.
    “ Of course she is dead. We
killed her, remember?”
    I ignored Emory and moved closer to
Julia, more because he was standing a little too close to me for
comfort.
    “ Don’t be so sad,
handsome. Auria and Onyx will be here any second now with a present
for you.”
    I could hear them now. They must have
materialised at the edge of the woods, and they were not