Ascension (Sabrina Strong Series Book 1)

Book summary

In a shadowy world of vampires and shapeshifters, Sabrina Strong, a clairvoyant facing financial woes, is thrust into a treacherous journey when she's attacked on her way to a job interview. Saved by a cryptic vampire, she becomes entangled in a murder mystery surrounding Vampire Master Bjorn Tremayne's mate. With trust in question, Sabrina seeks answers, unaware of the enigmatic savior who repeatedly comes to her rescue. Unveil the secrets, suspense, and intrigue in "Ascension."

Excerpt from Ascension (Sabrina Strong Series Book 1)

The full moon poured silvery light down around me as I arrived about eight minutes late for my job interview with a vampire. Mr. Paduraru had kindly agreed to meet me in my little town of Moonlight, instead of giving me confusing directions to some place in the city, that I'd never before driven to by myself. I chose a bar that was easy to direct him to from the tollway. The Saloon resided on the corner of Sunbank and Route 30.

Normally, it would only take me ten minutes to drive from my house to this bar, except that a huge John Deere tractor, hauling just-picked corn, took up the whole damn road, and I had to follow it the one mile from my house to turn onto Sunbank.

This was not your ordinary nine-to-five office job for which I was applying. The ad had read, “Clairvoyant needed. Only serious applicants need apply.” Disbelief had filled me as I read the ad, and I read it five or six times before I dialed the number. It was long distance—a Chicago area code—and I made mistakes before I'd gotten it right.

Yes, I was nervous about the interview. I didn't know he was a vampire until I spoke to him over the phone, of course. How I knew this was second nature. Sometimes all I had to do was walk up to a house I'd never been inside before, and I knew the layout of the place; or, the emotions of the people inside a room would sometimes flood me, and every once in a while, merely by speaking to someone on the phone I would get a “read”.

This was how I knew that Mr. Paduraru was equipped with fangs, and drank blood.

Mostly, though, I only needed to touch something to get a read, sometimes they came as visions. I didn't do that often. Not at all, if I could help it. Being a clairvoyant sometimes sucked, especially on a social level. Early on, I'd had to learn to shield my mind against this ability, or hide in a closet—literally—or go insane. The gloves I always wore were my only other protection. I'm a Touch Clairvoyant, which is very rare.

Climbing down out of my Jeep, I took in the other vehicles in the lot. There were seven cars—well, three were cars; the rest were pickups. Not many people here, but it was Monday.

Black and sharp, my shadow advanced ahead of me on the gravel lot as I walked toward The Saloon. I'd turned twenty-one four weeks ago, and had only been here once. I spotted a sleek, black Jaguar parked near the building. This could not belong to any of the regulars inside. It had to have been Mr. Paduraru's.

Curious, I angled for it and stopped next to it, pulled in a little breath to steady myself, and closed my eyes. Suddenly, my mind sent me a flash of an image: Twin white spires cutting skyward over a Chicago skyline.

Whoa. I had a little bit of a head-spin as I opened my eyes.

As the spinning stopped, a wave of energy hit me, totally and inconceivably savage, and possibly carnivorous. A tangled emotion that, as a human, I couldn't fully appreciate. In fact, I didn't know where it came from.

That's when I saw a low shadow ease from a dense copse of trees, around the far side of the building. When it emerged from shadow into the light recognition threw me; I could hardly believe what I was looking at. Large and gray with four legs, and big yellow eyes staring right at me, the creature growled low and menacing.

Keys still in my hand, I froze and surveyed my surroundings. I was alone. The wolf stood between the tavern and me. Behind me, and about fifty yards beyond my Jeep, the two roads that converged at the corner didn't have a lot of traffic. The closest house was simply too far away.

Without warning, the wolf lunged at me.

I screamed. For one frozen moment, I thought I was dead. All of my twenty-one years flashed before my eyes.

Big, sharp teeth grasped my free arm—the one I held up to protect myself. I batted at the animal with my purse, smacking it pretty hard, and it let go of me. I kicked him, connecting a blow to the rib cage, but this did little to deter him. By the loping, little jump he made to stay clear of my swipe, I sensed this was play to him.

The wolf snatched my purse and ripped it out of my hands, then shook it as though it were a living thing. Tossing it aside, he snarled and lunged at me again, snapping at my left hand—the one that still gripped the keys. Automatically I had made sure that I had a few keys sticking up between my fingers, like a weapon, when his mouth clamped shut around my hand, sharp teeth scraping my fingers and knuckles through my gloves.

My first reaction had been to run like hell, but then, I’d decided to fight for all I was worth.

My hand was now trapped inside the animal's mouth, but he didn't crunch down, but held it there firmly while making a terrible growling deep in his throat, and then pulled, as though he was going to take me somewhere. I planted my feet, and skidded about five feet as he pulled. Fear seized me temporarily, leaving me unable to comprehend why this animal had attacked me, or what it wanted.

Although perhaps a minute had elapsed while dealing with this beast, I wondered if anyone had heard my screams inside. Well, no. For one thing, they were all into the football game on the big screen TV—I could hear their boisterous cheers from inside all the way out here.

The keys rattled around in the huge wolf's mouth as he renewed his grip. Then the creature made a sudden whine, as though he might have bit down on one of the keys wrong, and they had stabbed him, and he let go. My hand came away from the grip the animal had on me, and with the momentum, I fell on my butt. Sharp gravel bit and scraped my backside and legs through my nylons and cotton skirt. Rolling over to my knees, I scrambled to gain my feet, but he knocked me down from behind. In the next moment, the horrible beast was on top of me, big paws on my back, pushing me back down to my knees, sharp gravel knifing into me, making me screech again. He had hold of my dress and I heard it rip.

Why couldn't anyone in the bar hear me screaming?

Something dark lurched from the edge of my periphery, pulling my gaze about ten feet away. Renewed fear reverberated through me.

Another damned wolf.

Screaming, my heart reeled as though it would jump out of my chest. Utter terror gave me strength to push nearly to my feet, but it was no use. The second wolf leaped and tackled the other one with a vicious growl. A yelp of pain resounded through me as my knees and hands took the brunt of the combined weight of two huge beasts. They tumbled off me in a flurry of fur, teeth and claws. A sharp yip from the first wolf told me that its attacker had hurt him. One fled, the other chased; I could hear the garbling growl of the pursuer. Then, there was no more sound.

The hole in my nylons spread up my thigh, and that was so out of context it wasn't funny.

Panting, and simply too relieved to worry about what happened to either wolf (or my nylons), I tossed my long, dark brown hair out of my face and tried to brush myself off.

Searching for my keys, I shuffled toward my Jeep. A sound made my head turn toward the building. A handsome guy with black hair, wearing an un-tucked, button-down green shirt and jeans, dashed down the steps toward me. Here I was tousled, my clothes ripped, wearing holey nylons, and one of the cutest guys I'd seen in a long while was rushing toward me, a sort of pity glowing in his eyes. I was hoping he was an off-duty paramedic. He'd tend to me, surely.

“Nicolas!” he called out loudly, as he darted toward me where I struggled to stand upright. My feet felt as though I had roller blades strapped to them, my legs had turned to rubber hoses and I sagged against the Jag.

“Ms. Strong, are you hurt?” the handsome guy asked as he darted swiftly to me—I thought I'd blacked out for a few seconds. Suddenly one hand was clutching my arm, and the other one went around me, holding me up.

“Who are you? How do you know who I am?” I said numbly, trying not to lean against him too much. He was only a few inches taller than my five foot four stature that was, at this moment, compromised by my slumping. His black hair and dark eyes contrasted harshly against a complexion that looked like pewter in the moonlight.

Oh, damn. Vampire!

“Ms. Strong, are you—” He stopped, and eyed my arm. He looked worriedly up at me. “You're bleeding.” His face went through an alarming metamorphosis of emotions. Concern had vanished, now something like a wicked smile drew his lips back off his teeth, and his fangs slid out. I could see this situation was above and beyond his ability to handle, what with me bleeding and him being a vampire and all.

The glove of my left hand was ripped. My eyes zeroed in on the sticky wetness. Blood. My blood. It glistened darkly in the overhead lights of the lot. Raising my gaze, my heart wrenched as I saw a wolf pad toward us from the shadows. “Look out!” I cried, and braced myself against the younger vampire, who had hold of me and wouldn't let me go even if I could get my legs to move right.

This wolf stopped and made an odd whine as it looked curiously up at us. A wisp of smoke obliterated the wolf, and in a moment, a man emerged from the smoke. He looked to be about thirty, in human years. Wearing a dark brown suit expertly matched with a lighter brown silk shirt and gold-green silk tie, he surged toward us, looking as though he had merely been out for a stroll. He straightened his tie, and then ran his fingers through his slightly tousled, iron black hair, smoothing it away from his heart-shaped face. I questioned my own sanity at that point. Clearly, if I told a policeman that a wolf had just attacked me, and then I saw another wolf change into a man, at that point, he’d take my keys away from me and call a paramedic. Probably this would have been the best scenario, but no policeman was available. Unfortunately.

“Ms. Strong?” This new man's voice charged the air around us—a magnificently smooth-as-whipped-chocolate voice, and I wanted to hear it again.

“Mr. Paduraru?” I presume. Still shaken I had to pull in a breath and simply stare. He had deep-set eyes—the kind that held mystery behind them. Dark brows arched distinctively from a narrow, slightly hooked nose. His unblinking stare was a little haunting. Hypnotic. His pale skin was almost opaque, but I noticed his cheeks had a little blush to them.

He inclined his head. “At your service. What a horrible ordeal! I beg you forgive us for not having come to your rescue much sooner!” he said in an apologetic tone as he neared me. His glittering gaze engaged the other vampire beside me. As though something telepathic happened between them, the younger vampire stepped away from me, lowering his head, as though giving way to a monarch. “Seeing that you were late, we worried. We came out, heard you screaming, and saw that you were in trouble. Do forgive us.”

“And so you turned into a wolf to chase it off?” I wanted to make sure he could easily explain the inexplicable.

“I did.” He smiled knowingly. “You seem to be taking the shock of all this quite well. I mean, you understand what we are—Steve and I?”

I nodded. “Vampires,” I said simply. Yes, I certainly did know that vampires existed. My mother was one, after all.

“We have not come out into the open, and have retained our anonymity down through the centuries for our own security,” he explained. “But we employ many humans to do many tasks. The job I was to interview you for pays handsomely, by the way.”

I nodded, barely able to yank my mind out of the terror-induced few moments of before to the idea of taking a job for vampires in the city.

He moved closer in a liquid way that seemed to defy gravity, and the use of his feet. I think he merely floated over to me. I felt the power from his eyes—a sort of hypnotic bondage. A weakness, or a deep lassitude overwhelmed me, and I sagged. As though anticipating this, he caught me by the arms, his minion caught me from behind, and they held me upright between them.

“One important thing, Ms. Strong. Did the wolf bite you?”

Making a befuddled effort to remain on my feet, I groaned weakly, “yes,” and shakily held up my injured arm. My black glove was tattered and pulled halfway off my hand, and dark blood covered it.

“Hold her still,” Paduraru said, and I heard the scuff of shoes in gravel as Steve pulled me up against himself, his arms around me from behind. If anyone had come along at this point, they would have thought two men were accosting me.

The efforts of the two vampires, however, went on without interruption. Only an occasional shushing of a vehicle going by on Route 30, or stopping at the stop sign at the juncture of the two main roads, let me know that I was still conscious. Barely.

Very gently, and with care, Paduraru peeled off my glove, one finger at a time. “Steve is here merely to assist me tonight.” Well, I had news for Mr. Paduraru. From such close contact with his younger assistant, I was getting that what he really wanted to do was yank me into the bushes and ravage me. The only force that kept him from doing so was Mr. Paduraru's power over him. I was still of the old school of belief that as soon as a vampire comes into physical contact with a human, they became irreversibly locked into the hunter-prey relationship. Had Mr. Paduraru’s thrall not paralyzed me, I'd be screaming at the top of my lungs again, trying to escape this mayhem.

Unveiling my hand, my fingers looked as though dipped in blood. A wound at my wrist was bleeding freely. Suddenly Steve snatched my hand and began licking my fingers as though they were the best buffalo wings he'd ever had.

“Lorelei Bell has created an interesting world with a new type of vampire, not to mention a mixture of magical and supernatural creatures”

— Amazon Review

“Enjoyed this story and look forward to the next in the series”

— Amazon Review

“Interesting storyline and characters that keep the reader hooked. There’s a lot going on that is layered with intrigue and mystery that makes it an enjoyable read”

— Amazon Review