Broken Dreams (Broken Promises Book 1) Read online

  CHAPTER SIX

  H eather was about to compliment Roken. What he lacked in balls, he made up for in girth and stamina, but before she uttered a word, he'd toppled sideways off his chair. She jumped back, her heart leaping into her mouth. Seeing him breathe as he lay sprawled on the floor filled her with immense relief. He isn’t dead! Heather thought, relaxing a little bit. Why did I think he was dead? she wondered. What a strange thought. He’s just hungover. He was also beginning to wake up. Heather reached a hand down towards him, to steady him, but as she did, another hand also reached for him.

  She looked up to find Seb, who knelt by Roken’s side and pulled him up. “What happened?” he demanded, his question filling her with dread. How could she answer truthfully? “Idiot,” Seb hissed, shaking Roken’s shoulders, and Heather could only assume Seb’s comment was aimed at Roken and not her. He heaved Roken back into his chair and propped him up.

  “I’m ok,” Roken muttered, but he didn’t look ok. For starters he was shaking uncontrollably.

  “Tell me where to get a blanket,” Heather ordered. She wanted to help him as much as she wanted to be out of the room if he was sick.

  “In the study, on one of the chairs.” Seb waved her off, only concerned about Roken and fetching a bowl in case he was sick.

  Heather rushed into the hallway. There were six doors in the hall, and she hadn’t been through any of them. The closest was a dining room, and the thick coating of dust on every surface revealed this was a room not used by the four residents. The next door was a bathroom, which at least appeared to get an occasional clean. Across from the front door she found the door that lead to the lounge. Although it was tatty and unloved, it did have the feeling that it was, at least, lived in. She found the study through the next door, grabbed a blanket off a chair that was certainly an antique by now, and then returned to the kitchen.

  Roken sat in his chair while Seb made him another coffee, and Heather wrapped the blanket around the shifter’s shoulders. “Are you ok?” She really wanted to know what he remembered right before he fainted, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask. There was a connection between Roken and Seb that wasn’t apparent between the other two, so Heather sat awkwardly in the chair, feeling like a spare part. She wanted to help but had no idea how to. Seb just sat and force-fed Roken countless mugs of coffee like it was some kind of miracle cure to his shakes.

  Arlo walked shirtless into the kitchen, glanced at Heather and turned to walk out. She was certain he would have left to put more clothing on if he hadn’t walked into Oscar. “Don’t go on my account,” Heather called. “I can go if I make you uncomfortable.”

  “No, you’re ok.” Arlo smiled at her reassuringly. He avoided the shafts of direct light obviously suffering as much as Roken. Maybe it was best sticking to their hangover cure rather than hers.

  “Let me make you coffee,” Heather offered. Judging by the rate Roken was drinking the stuff, these guys obviously held it in high esteem.

  “With three sugars, please,” Arlo answered gratefully, falling into his chair. “What’s up with him?”

  “Don’t know,” Seb shrugged with his gruff reply. “Found him passed out on the floor.”

  “I feel like crap this morning too,” Arlo nodded, though Heather wasn’t sure what he was agreeing to.

  “Did we drink something different last night?” Oscar frowned. “I don’t feel this crap very often.”

  “We’ll avoid that bar for a while, maybe stay home for a couple of weeks.” Seb’s suggestion was made in a way that implied it was not a matter for debate. Heather pressed against the work top. She didn’t want her future to become one of Seb’s suggestions, but for now, they were all she had. Without them, she had nothing.

  As the three men debated why they felt so lousy, Heather watched them closely. Arlo’s bare chest gave her palpitations alone. Oscar’s top was tight enough to show the dips and bulges of a toned chest, while his location gave her a good view of his jeans clinging tightly to his ass. Seb was the only man in the room she had yet to experience, and his face told a sad story. He seemed older than the others, but Heather had nothing against more experienced men. As she looked at Roken, she noticed the most youthful looking male was looking back at her. He rolled his eyes and smiled, sharing her point of view with a look. The discussion was getting them nowhere. There was no way of narrowing down if bad beer was the cause.

  Heather took four mugs of coffee to the table as Arlo asked, “So what are we all going to do for two weeks if clubbing is off limits?” Then he grabbed his sweetened coffee, giving Heather a wink.

  “Well, you could think about doing this place up a bit,” Heather suggested. She was picturing them hot and sweaty from a hard day’s work, but hard looks turned upon her. Right, that didn't go over well. She’d gotten the message that these guys were super suspicious. It wouldn’t be long before they asked her to leave. “I’ll just get dressed and then get out of your way,” Heather said, moving to leave the room.

  “You’re not going anywhere.” Seb’s order sent a chill down her spine. That voice couldn’t be disobeyed. “You can’t leave until you know where you’re going or have some idea of who you are.”

  “I can stay?” Relief made her knees go weak, and for a moment she thought they might give out on her. Oscar caught her, enveloping her in his strong arms and pulling her face into his chest as her facade crumbled, and she sobbed into his shirt. She felt so safe in his arms and in their house. This was more than she could have hoped for and probably more than she deserved. These men were her saviours, and she would never be able to repay them.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “T here’s a lot of stuff in the living room,” Arlo sighed. It made sense to start decorating with the room they used the most. While they did spend a lot of time in the kitchen, they weren't kitchen fitters, so the easiest room would be the living room. It was large but cluttered, and it needed a damn good clean-out. Arlo hoped most of the stuff that came out of there, wouldn’t go back in. Sentiment kept them clinging to eras of their lives that were long past and best forgotten. They needed more than a lick of paint themselves, they needed the past chipped away allowing a bright new future a chance to shine.

  “We start with the library,” Seb’s voice may have been soft, but his decision was final. They had all accepted him as their alpha, or whatever the vampire equivalent was. It suited Arlo’s pack needs just fine. It also meant they accepted his leadership without question. But the library? It was unused. Arlo hadn’t been in that room in years, he wasn’t sure if any of them had. Why start with a room that was unused, unloved and unneeded?

  “Gonna need dust masks in there then,” Oscar muttered.

  “Ro, you know most of the books in there?” Seb questioned.

  “I’ve read a few,” Roken responded, shrugging. By a few, he meant he’d read almost every one of them. Roken was more lost than any of them, because he’d had nothing in the first place. It may have been a long time ago, but a solid upbringing had grounded the others, given them memories to cling to. Roken didn’t have that, or at least, nothing he could tell the others about anyway.

  “We can store them in the basement until the room is done,” Seb decided. He was like that. He didn’t ask them, he told them, and they obeyed. Having Heather around was going to change things, alter the group dynamics, and Arlo was quite looking forward to it.

  The reason they all followed Seb was he was always right. He’d never led them astray before, and he wouldn’t now. Obviously, he had a reason for starting in the library, and it probably involved Roken reading every book they owned, hoping to discover exactly what Heather was.

  Seb may always guide them well, but it didn’t mean they were all happy with the idea of decorating, and Oscar stifled his groan as best he could. He had no objection to letting Heather stay. Quite the opposite, actually, he was all for it. But thanks to Roken’s fall, clubbing was off limits, and now Heather wanted them to decorate the house. He
could forgive Heather for not considering his solar sensitivity, but Seb and Arlo seemed to have completely forgotten that Vampires didn’t like sunlight. Not that it bothered Arlo. Or Seb anymore.

  “Oscar, can you stay with Roken while we head to the store?” Seb questioned. “We’ll take Heather. See if she recognises anything.” Oscar nodded, but it pained him to watch Heather go with them. “You can start boxing up the library while we’re gone, we’ll get some wood to fix the shelves. Store them in the dungeon.” Oscar nodded wearily. That and the thought of spending the morning with books didn’t help his head any.

  As Oscar watched Arlo and Seb guide Heather out of the room, Roken headed for the library, and by the time Oscar reached the library on the second floor, Roken had partially closed the blinds, dimming the light in the room. Although Oscar appreciated it, he wondered if it was more to ease Roken’s head than to protect his friend.

  “Why the hell are we starting in here?” Oscar huffed. The cloud of dust highlighted just how little they used the room.

  “Because we need to work out what Heather is,” Roken muttered, flipping through a book titled ‘Demigods and Demons’.

  “You think she is a demon?” Oscar frowned.

  “She has to be something,” he said, turning the page. “So, she has no memory, she knows how to use her mouth, and she knows about vampires and shifter demons.”

  “How’d you know what she did to Arlo?” Oscar questioned. Roken had a good sense of smell, but surely not that good.

  “I was talking about me, but I’m aware you shared her last night.”

  “You too?” Oscar frowned. That woman had an appetite he would be happy to fill, but Roken's words made sense. Heather clearly wasn’t completely human. She not only believed in vampires and shifters but felt completely at home around them.

  “OK, what about this? Love goddess. Reborn with no memory, these women fulfil the wildest dreams of men.”

  “Let me see,” Oscar demanded, snatching the book from Roken. He had never heard anything so stupid. The heading on the page did say love goddess, but the write up was very brief. “It says apparently! So they’re not really real.”

  “Ask a human if they think a vampire is real?” Roken challenged.

  Oscar nodded. It was one for the maybe pile.

  Roken pulled half a dozen books from the shelf and took them to the window seat, so he could make the most of the daylight without making the room any brighter. He perched on the window seat and tucked one leg up underneath him. The next book was thick and heavy, full of ancient information that the world didn’t appreciate anymore, and it had that old book smell. Roken loved the smell of old books, but there was nothing useful in its dated words, so he let it drop into the box. Once the box of rejected books was filled, Oscar lifted it and headed out of the room.

  Roken lifted the next book. The leather binding was stiff, and he felt it crack a little under his fingers even as he opened the tome. There was an inscription just inside the cover, beautifully handwritten in beautiful old copperplate writing:

  To my darling Sebastian,

  Happy Birthday.

  With all my unending love.

  Forever yours, Dharla

  He snapped the book closed. He couldn’t read that. It was a first edition copy of the book, given with love and kept to this day with that same love. He placed it gently in the maybe pile, since he hadn’t ruled out its contents containing anything useful.

  “Anything?” Oscar inquired, returning to the room ready for the next box of books.

  “I can give you a list of things she isn’t,” Roken sighed. “She is human. Fully or partially, I don’t know, but there is something human about her.”

  “Yes, mainly human, but with something odd, something… extra.” Oscar shrugged the thought away, lifting the next box.

  “So, we can rule out demons, and she isn’t a vampire or a werewolf.”

  “You’ll work it out,” Oscar encouraged.

  Roken sighed as the vampire left him again, then walked over to the next shelf and pulled the first book down.

  Goblins. Nope.

  Rock trolls. No.

  Demon possession. Maybe.

  Demigods. Could be.

  ‘Venice in the Modern Age’. Well, it wasn’t quite modern anymore. It had been written in 1563. Roken dropped it into the no box. He was making progress in the library, but not with Heather. His failing left him with a very unsatisfied feeling that had him torn between determination and just packing the whole thing in.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A hardware store wasn’t somewhere Seb ever thought he would be, yet here he stood in the wallpaper aisle, watching Heather run her hand across the various sample rolls.

  “Just pick something,” Seb moaned. It was for the sodding library, and no one went in there. Anything would do. The English language had changed so much in the years since most of their books had been written, Arlo and Oscar couldn’t read half of them anyway. Mind you, since the time period when Arlo and Oscar had grown up, technology had progressed so much that people didn’t even need books anymore. Instead they had these small machines that could store every book in existence inside them.

  “How about we just get this wallpaper here for the library,” Arlo suggested, holding up the roll of paper in his hand, “and then choose something pretty for the living room for us to do next.”

  Seb rolled his eyes. They were only supposed to be buying stuff for the library, but if they bought for the living room now, he didn’t have to come back again later. Either way, he could tell it still wouldn’t make her pick the wallpaper any faster. As far as he was concerned, he still liked the first one he’d seen. Plain red. Nice blood red. But Heather had been horrified by a blood red room, even if it would be covered by books.

  Why were they trusting the judgement of a woman who didn’t know what they liked? She hadn’t spent enough time in the room to know how the sun hit it, the angles and nooks, or how the space even worked. Maybe she’s into that Feng Shui shit, Seb wondered. Not that she would know. She doesn’t know anything about herself. Ha! She doesn’t even know what she likes!

  “This one for the living room,” Heather said, finally settling on a peach coloured paper, it had a simple pattern through it, like the colour had been mixed, but it was bright and airy. Seb was almost disappointed by how much he liked it.

  Seb thought Dharla would have chosen that paper if she had been there. Oh, how Dharla would have loved this new world, so different from the world she knew. But the past was the past, and Dharla wasn’t part of this new world.

  “We need wallpaper paste and a brush and table.” Arlo was leaning on the trolley as he read a small leaflet about wallpapering.

  “So, how do we pay for this?” Heather questioned, loading armfuls of wallpaper into the trolley. “I assume you guys don’t work?”

  “We’ve got money covered,” Seb said, smiling.

  “Do you breathe on them and then walk out and they forget you were there?” she asked with a childlike innocence in her eyes. It reminded him of his daughter the day of her Blooding. She had asked if she could turn into a vampire bat. It had broken her heart when the answer was no, but she soon got over it after her Blooding.

  “No.” His laugh was difficult, and it didn’t hide the pain or guilt that washed over him. “Credit card.” Seb pulled the card from his pocket to show her. Plain old boring everyday credit card. She put her hand on his and gave him a knowing smile. She didn’t know, of course, but she knew he hurt, and it helped. With her genuine kindness and that warm smile, his past pain was already slipping away.

  “Paint,” she announced. “We'll paint the library. A nice colour. Not red.” Seb raised his eyebrows at her but she walked off into the paint aisle, leaving him gaping like a goldfish. He wasn't used to people telling him what to do. Even Dharla bowed before him. This new feminist society had given him a woman who would stand as his equal, and he loved her for it.

 
Heather sighed, wishing it was her getting a makeover instead of the house. She felt odd wearing men’s clothes, and skinny as he was, Roken’s jeans just wouldn’t stay up. She smiled at Seb, leaving Arlo to push the loaded trolley. Seb was the one with the credit card. As she took his arm, he didn’t resist, but she felt him pull back a little. She couldn’t rush him, but she couldn’t make do with hand-me-downs either. She tugged on the jeans again and Seb glanced down at her.

  “We’ll stop on the way back and pick up some clothes for you,” he muttered.

  “Thank you,” she said, beaming at him. She wanted to come across as mature and sophisticated but felt like she had failed. She felt like she was more the annoying teenager than the lady she hoped he would see.

  Who am I kidding? Heather chastised herself. I’m probably just a ten-a-penny hooker! She’d certainly shown her true colours enough with the other three. “I don’t mean to be such a pain,” she sighed. “I just wish I knew who I was. Something about me. Anything!”

  “It will come back to you soon enough.” Seb took her hand and gave it a squeeze. She knew what he meant. When her memory returned, she would want to go back, return to whatever life she left behind. She would want to leave them, and this brief little slice of paradise would be over. No life could be better than this, a future with four hot guys where she would love them all equally. She would love them each differently. She would heal them.

  Any life would be better than this. A life where she could be a normal person, grow old and die with Mr. Right. Have children. A name. A home. A memory. She withdrew her hands from Seb’s arm, her frustration with her inner dialogue making her want to lash out.

  “Not here. We don't want to draw too much attention until we know who’s after you,” Seb warned her, reclaiming her hand in his. “We’ll help you through anything that comes up, but don’t fret about the unknown when you can do nothing about it.” His reassuring words and the return of his strong grip soothed her. She took a deep breath to clear her mind and nodded, ready to continue.