Ice Cold Justice

By Scarlette Amour

I've been hiding a terrible secret. One that'll see the end of me if anyone finds out...

Add an annoying old flame threatening to out my new secret...What's a vampire to do?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Midnight Dreary Publishing
• Release date: Feb 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393780809

Scarlette Amour

Scarlette is an Australian Urban Paranormal Author in her thirties, enjoying her imagination that takes her to the greatest heights.  Ice Cold Justice is the first of her stories. 

Book preview

Prologue

Emmy

One year ago

I felt dizzy, my throat dry and yet somehow wet, my eyes were blurry, but I could hear things so clearly...all at once. People laughing, crying, screaming, conversations were going on and I just needed to lay down and get them to stop.

Pushing away from the bright lights, I shielded my eyes as I headed home. I was done with the city, I needed peace and quiet, and that’s what my parent’s home afforded me. Usually, they were at the Hunters Guild, preparing the younger generation of vampire hunters. My father was the head of The Guild, and he kept a tight ship, but he was also fair. He’d wanted me to be a hunter too, but I wasn’t fully committed. I wanted to travel, to see the world. I was only young, damn it.

As I saw my house, I stumbled toward the little white fence and opened the gate. It made a screeching sound as the metal bar of the lock connected again. I cupped my ears, praying the noise would go away. Maybe I had a fever, that would explain why I felt so goddamn hot and yet my skin was clammy.

As I opened the door, I saw my mother in the hall, in her dressing gown and the torch on her cell phone blaring at me. I hissed at the sudden brightness in my eyes and fell back against the door.

Ember-Raine, what happened?

I’ve told her so many times to call me Emmy, but no, she has to call me the obnoxious name she’d thought of the moment I was born. Back when they lived like hippies.

She knelt down beside me, and I suddenly felt an undeniable urge to move closer to her. A funny tingling in my gum as I smelt something coppery and sweet. Was she wearing her cheap jewelry again?

Ember? My father’s voice sounded from somewhere on the stairs. Ember, what happened?

Why were they so concerned with whatever I was going through? Shouldn’t they be calling the doctor? I couldn’t speak, I tried desperately but my throat was closing up. I reached out for them both, and they both looked at me with concern. It was only then that I saw my hands, and the bloody prints I was leaving on their dressing gowns. I looked down and saw blood all down my favorite dress.

No. This dress cost me hundreds of dollars. I’d had to work five weekends in a row to afford this damn thing.

Wait...blood meant pain, right? Why wasn’t I in pain?

Reena, I heard my father say. You see it right?

No...you’re wrong.

She’s one of them.

My mother tried to contain her crying, and I wanted her to stop, but my father was moving about erratically. His head in his hands as he slowly moved to the door under the stairs. My mother put herself in front of me, blocking me from him.

Move, Reena.

No! she screamed. Just as I felt something tick in me and I lunged forward, throwing my face into her neck. The blood-curdling scream that came from her only urged me on and I dug my teeth into her throat, a sticky and sweet taste hit my tongue, and I was in heaven. I felt something sharp hit me in the side, but I continued to drink. This was the best thing I’d ever tasted; it was magnetic, electric, phenomenal. I couldn’t let go.

All too quickly, I was dragged off her, and my father held a gun to my face. Instead of fear, I bounced up, filled with energy I didn’t know I had, and I pulled the gun from his grasp, throwing it away.

He backed up, his anger evident. You’re one of them.

I didn’t know what he meant; all I knew was I needed more of what I had been drinking.  

You’ll be hunted. They’ll never stop until you’re dead.

His words should have hurt me or even scared me, but I was carefree. Somehow the words meant nothing to me and neither did he.

I flew at him and dug my teeth into his neck, sucking up the sweet taste again. It wasn’t long until I found myself being hurtled into darkness.