The Turning: Bound to Darkness (Prequel) Read online

The Turning: Bound to Darkness

  (Prequel)

  A Novel by

  April M. Reign

  &

  E. Arellano

  The Turning: Bound to Darkness

  Prequel

  April M. Reign

  Copyright 2011 by April M. Reign

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without the permission of the author, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This is the work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of this author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  OTHER BOOKS BY APRIL M. REIGN

  The Turning – Unleashed (Book 1)

  The Mancini Saga: IOU (Book 1)

  The Mancini Saga: Snap Shot (Book 2)

  Beyond Today

  Dividing Destiny

  Enticing the Moon

  BOOKS COMING IN 2012

  Christmas with the Mancinis

  BOOKS COMING IN 2013

  Dhellia Series

  The Turning: Vampire Vengeance (Book 2)

  The Mancini Saga (Book 3)

  Prologue

  Am I dead? Nicholas thought. His mind faded in and out of consciousness. One minute, he could see the chaos around him, and the next minute, everything was dark. Like a strobe of flickering light, the world around him moved in slow motion. Nicholas closed his eyes tightly before he slowly opened them again.

  Briefly, he was able to focus long enough to become aware of his surroundings. What did he notice first? Was it the lights or was it the pain screeching through his body?

  Slowly, it all became clear. Noise, confusion, people yelling orders to each other, and sirens blaring, all surrounded him. But, it was the consistent thudding in his head that sped up and then slowed down. That consistent inner pounding threatened to consume him. He knew it was his heart, but the labored beating sounded odd. It felt wrong. Nicholas tried desperately to remember what had happened to him. He tried to, but the insistent beating of his heart echoed louder than his thoughts.

  He knew he was lying down. His body was shaking violently, but even that felt strange. His arms and legs felt heavily weighted down. He could move his fingers and toes beneath the restraints that confined his limbs, which in turn eased his mind that he was not paralyzed.

  The sounds around him were deafening and the pain was unbearable. His blood-tinted eyes distinguished the bright interior surroundings. As the siren blared, he realized that he was in an ambulance. Suddenly, the pain, the noise, and the horror that had broken open like a busted dam became secondary to what was more important—his wife.

  “VICTORIA!” he tried to scream past the blood and saliva spurting from his mouth. The exposed artery on the side of his torn neck pulsated. He could not breathe, could not talk to the paramedics, could not stop shaking, could not stop bleeding—and he could not stop the pain.

  He was unaware that his badly bruised, beaten, and bleeding wife lay in the ambulance following behind his. While he was fighting for his life, Victoria was fighting for three: hers, and their unborn twins.

  Once the ambulance stopped, Nicholas heard doors open and slam shut. One second, he stared at the ceiling of the ambulance and the next, he looked into the dark, starless sky. As the medics pulled him out of the ambulance, every shift and movement of the gurney gyrated bolts of pain through his body.

  The flashing lights played havoc with his mind. Everything was happening at once, everything was confusing, and everything moved in slow motion—everything except his heartbeat. The medics wheeled Nicholas into a room filled with digital sounds and chaotic chatter. The noises, the pain . . . he felt the room spinning at the speed of light.

  Amid it all, Victoria remained foremost in his mind. He tried to focus his thoughts on her to keep from fading. She was his rock, his stabilizer when he thought he was going to slip out of consciousness.

  His body’s gross, traumatic injuries and loss of blood were winning. Nicholas was losing his fight to survive. He knew his wife’s voice would give him the strength to fight for his life. He tried to yell her name again, but her silence left him hopeless.

  As he mentally fought to stay connected to his wife, Nicholas felt the room start to fade. He shook violently, yet again. The distorted sounds around him faded, and the lights dimmed. Then, as easily, as letting out a sigh, he succumbed to his fatal injuries and closed his eyes. His body released its final breath. The heart-rate monitor made the high-pitched drone of a perpetual flat line. The medical team stopped, and the room became instantly quiet.

  Every medical person in the room looked at the head surgeon. His face may have been hidden behind his surgical mask, but his eyes searched the faces of everyone in the room. Then the head surgeon glanced at the clock and called the time. The medical team felt deflated, even defeated, but how could they have saved him with injuries that were so severe?

  “Clean up, folks,” the head surgeon stated. “We may have lost him, but we have his wife in the next room. She’s eight months pregnant and ready to give birth. Let’s make sure we don’t lose her, too.”

  Three members of the medical team left to assist with the delivery of Victoria Shelly’s twins. A nurse pulled Nicholas’s surgeon aside. “Doctor,” she said under her breath, “I’ve never seen injuries like this. What do you suspect happened?”

  “A wild animal—it had to have been. What else could’ve torn him up like that?” he replied to the nurse. Then he looked directly into her eyes and leaned in toward her as if to tell her something in confidence. “But I’ve never seen anything like that either.”

  The small hospital in Stockwood, Washington was usually quiet. There was the occasional tourist who arrived at the hospital due to a hunting accident, or a parent who was frantic because their child had broken an arm or leg. But, the wounds inflicted on this patient baffled the medical team, even disturbed them.

  The noisy, frantic room where Nicholas took his last breath was efficiently cleaned and rearranged. A nurse covered his lifeless body with a blanket and wheeled him downstairs to the morgue.