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  SAVAGE

  Copyright 2014 Brandy Toler

  www.bntoler.com

  All Rights Reserved

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the authors, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  Also available in paperback format

  Cover Design: Cover to Cover Designs

  Front Cover Photo: Aleshyn_Andrei

  Back Cover Photo: paulmarinis

  Editing: Raelene Green of word·play by 77peaches, a division of 77peaches enterprises, LLC www.77peaches.com

  Interior Design: Integrity Formatting

  The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, to factual events or to businesses is coincidental and unintentional.

  “You must have vision higher than yourself.

  Divine powers are always at work to help you achieve your visions.”

  ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

  To the dreamers.

  Never give up.

  Never.

  If you have not read the first two books in this series; Healer and Hybrid, it is strongly recommended you do so before starting Savage.

  To those of you who have read Healer and Hybrid, please note this book includes a detailed prologue. My goal is to provide you with a thorough refresher. There are a lot of details in this series. I hope I have summarized them to your liking. Thank you for reading.

  dedication

  prologue

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  fourteen

  fifteen

  sixteen

  seventeen

  eighteen

  nineteen

  twenty

  twenty-one

  twenty-two

  twenty-three

  twenty-four

  twenty-five

  twenty-six

  twenty-seven

  twenty-eight

  twenty-nine

  thirty

  thirty-one

  thirty-two

  thirty-three

  thirty-four

  thirty-five

  thirty-six

  thirty-seven

  thirty-eight

  thirty-nine

  forty

  epilogue

  dear reader

  glossary

  acknowledgements

  about the author

  sample: Wrecking Ball by B. N. Toler

  sneak peek: The Hunted One by Meg Collet

  “Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.”

  ~ Socrates

  My name is Aldo Lawson.

  I was born a healer. I have the power to transfer energy from one human to another in order to heal them, whether it is of a simple wound, sickness, or occasionally, death. I’m also able to absorb information from those I touch, but I don’t know what the information is until I dream. We moved a lot while I was growing up, and I never understood why. It wasn’t until my senior year my Aunt Lucy agreed to let us remain in one place until we graduated. Life was blissfully simple—or so it seemed to be. That all changed when I met Thomas Watson.

  He arrived out of nowhere, forcing Lucy to tell me and my twin brothers—Whit and Hudson—and me all the sordid details about of our family’s secret past, and how we came to be after my mother’s horrific death. My aunt revealed vampires do exist, and they crave healer blood because it energizes them. What scared me most was finding out they could turn healers into blood healers. Both lusted after healer blood and usually lived in a nest together.

  Even though Thomas was older and I didn’t know much about him, I instantly fell for him. He’s sexy and oozed charm from every pore. I didn’t stand a chance. He also possessed a distinctive gift—he’s a dream walker. He has the ability to invade other’s subconscious without them knowing when he links their mind with his. Though my attraction to Thomas was great, we eventually became the best of friends. That is until the night we made love in my subconscious.

  The following day, Thomas vanished and Lucy was killed. Fearing vampires were responsible for both Thomas’s disappearance and Lucy’s death, my brothers and I bolted out of town . . . or so I thought. With the anxiety of losing both Thomas and Lucy, I fell into a yearlong coma, where I met Rhett. He’s a blood healer and at first, I thought he’d kidnapped me and taken me to the farm he and his sister shared in order to turn me into a blood healer, but I soon found out he wasn’t out to hurt me, and I fell in love with him.

  While I was unconscious, Rhett and his sister, Sarah, began walking my dreams, looking for a way to awaken me. Thomas was there, as well, but no one could find him. Unbeknownst to me, Sarah knew my mother and aunt from long ago, and even tried to warn Lucy that my brothers and I had been discovered by a nest of vampires and blood healers, but she was too late. Sarah had been working covertly inside the nest where my mother was, but she had plans to escape. After my mother delivered and was murdered, she took my brothers and me with her and found our aunt.

  After Lucy was killed, Sarah came back for all of us. She and Rhett took care of me, and I am eternally grateful to them both, but after finding out my brothers and I were a product of the nest responsible for my mother’s death, I knew I had to find the ones responsible and make them pay.

  Before I awoke from my dream state, I fell hard for Rhett, and made love to him in my subconscious as well. As horrible as it was, I knew once I was awake I would have to leave him and find the nest that killed my mother. I also wanted answers from Thomas about why he deserted me, but that would have to wait. The only thing on my mind was revenge. Rhett and Sarah had a feeling that I was going to flee, so I paced myself until the time was right and then I escaped.

  Before Lucy passed, she gave me a necklace with a rectangular locket and told me, “There are answers here.” I had no idea what she was implying, nor would I understand until much later. The locket was engraved with the name of a bank. After I locked Rhett out of my subconscious, I left him, Sarah, and my brothers in the middle of the night and set out to discover what it was Lucy wanted me to know.

  Lucy had left me money and the number to a pager belonging to a man named Daniel O’Sullivan. I paged him and waited . . . and waited. Then I met the most infuriating, yet beautiful, man I had ever seen. He stopped a man from assaulting me in an alley. I was badly injured, and he fed me his blood, which inevitably began my transition. That’s right—my transition.

  Lucy wanted me to meet Daniel because she knew he was the leader of all hybrids. Hybrids are a powerful mix of human, vampire, and healer, and are created in the womb after their mother is bitten by a blood healer or vampire. Once they drink blood for the first time, they become a hybrid. The hybrid trait lies dormant until the healer drinks blood for the first time. Apparently, my mother was bitten just seconds before my birth, and it was enough to make me hybrid. After I drank Daniel’s blood in the alley, I became a hybrid, too.

  Hybrids are more powerful than vampires and blood healers. One of our best weapons is we still have a heartbeat making it difficult for vampires and blood healers to tell us apart from regular humans.

  Daniel took me under his wing and took me to Myrtle Beach, where he and other hybrids were living and began training me. I hated him, but wanted to attack him, and get lost in him all at the same time. He was powerful and sexy, but so damn frustrating. He constant
ly insulted me and told me I was naive anytime I made mistakes, but his eyes were always on me, and I liked it.

  Our relationship was futile, to say the least. I didn’t trust him with my secrets—hell, I didn’t trust anyone with my secrets. Keeping my secrets became even more difficult when I met Daniel’s oldest friend and fellow hybrid, Bridge. The asshole tried to spell me to have sex with him the first night we met, and ever since then, we’ve been hatefully toying with each other. Bridge has a gift; he can see truth in lies. If you lie to him, he automatically sees the truth. I discovered his gift in my dreams, when I processed the information I absorbed from him.

  While in training, I slowly discovered unique things about Daniel as well. The hybrid leader is telekinetic and can freeze things with his mind, but it doesn’t work on me for some reason. Of course, he has no control over his gift, it only happens when his emotions are high. Daniel can also absorb energy from any life form—plants, animals, anything living—something I had never seen before. He is the mecca of all power.

  He seemed to want me, and despite my better judgment, I wanted him, too. I couldn’t fight the attraction, but when I made a move on him, he shut me down. That burned. As a female hybrid, I possess a pheromone that attracts men; it’s supposed to aid in finding blood. So when he shut me down, it hurt. Badly. Little did I know, I would not have time to fester in the sting of Daniel’s rejection.

  The very same night I made a move on Daniel, Thomas Watson unexpectedly walked back into my life and I left with him. Thomas had been working undercover in a strip club with a man named George Carter, who I discovered knew my aunt—they had been engaged once upon a time. George, or Carter, as most called him, owned the club where a local nest of vampires and blood healers were frequent guests. The nest was ruled by a vicious vampire named Andre. Joining Carter’s staff, my goal was to entice Andre, make him want me, and when the time was right, I would destroy him.

  But it wasn’t that easy. I thought Daniel and the other hybrids were gone from my life, but I soon discovered Daniel was working undercover, infiltrating the nest, and pretending to be Andre’s friend and comrade.

  Daniel didn’t want me involved and made it very clear how foolish he thought I was. He was angry with me for leaving, yet every time I saw him, that same sexual heat blossomed between us. It was almost suffocating.

  Things started getting complicated as Andre’s fascination with me grew, and my strength weakened. To add to an already difficult situation, months after I walked out on him and my family, a hurt and angry Rhett showed up at the club. I loved Rhett. So much. But I discovered he had known I was a hybrid and tried to hide it from me. As much as I loved him, I could not forgive him for that. Things ended between us on a very sad and grim note, but despite it all, I couldn’t bear to hurt him. I had Eileen spell him to make him forget his heartache.

  Things between Daniel and I finally came to a head and our desire for each other exploded. I gave him my virginity. Nothing has ever compared to the carnality of being with one as raw and passionate as Daniel. He swore to protect me and tied himself to me.

  Along with the other hybrids, we made a plan to destroy Andre and his nest, and with careful planning and a bit of luck, it worked. We’d accomplished something seemingly impossible—we killed the vampire piece of shit. But just as the two of us took a celebratory breath, my world was shattered. Bridge kidnapped me, and now I sit in the depths of hell, waiting for Daniel to save me.

  But time continues to pass, and I’m starting to believe he might never come . . .

  She’s been gone for thirty-two days.

  Thirty-two days of searching for her.

  Thirty-two days of losing my fucking mind.

  Not one lead. Not one single lead. I may not know where Bridge might have taken her, but I will find him. And when I do, I will kill that motherfucker slowly and painfully. It will be everything nightmares are made of. Happy thoughts are non-existent for me these days, but the thought of his pain alone¸ makes me smile.

  Bridge has been my friend for a long time and to say I was blindsided by his deceit would be the understatement of the century. I’m not sure what his endgame is, but he obviously wanted my attention. Well—he has it. There’s no length I won’t go to get her back.

  Which leads to where I’m standing right this damn minute; in a tiny ass bedroom staring at Thomas Watson.

  Thirty-two days of watching this fuck-nut meditate.

  Thirty-two long days of watching him come back with nothing. I figured with his gift to link his subconscious to another’s he’d be able to get to her, but so far . . . nada.

  Apparently, when he’s attempting to dream walk, you cannot interrupt him. So I sit and stare, waiting for him to tell me something—anything. For a man like me, it is pure torture. I’m a creature built to take action, to move. When something is wrong, I fix it, but I can’t now, and that just pisses me off. I have no idea where Bridge might have taken her. If Thomas can link to her, maybe he can find out. With a heavy sigh, his body relaxes and he turns to me. Disappointment leaks from each of his features. He wants to find her as badly as I do, which I appreciate, but I fucking hate it, too. I know he’s still in love with her. It’s written all over his pretty-boy face and in the sullen look of his exhausted eyes. She is mine and he’d do well to remember that.

  “They’re still drugging her,” he mumbles with annoyance. I’m sure his efforts are wearing on him. He attempts to connect to her every day, for hours on end. “Her subconscious is still nothing but darkness and fog.”

  Spinning around, I punch the wall, crushing the drywall as I let out a growl. The only thing keeping me from completely losing my shit is the knowledge she’s still alive. Thomas says if she were dead, there would be nothing . . . not even a dark abyss of fog he could connect to. My chest heaves with long pained breaths as I stare at the destruction I just inflicted on the wall in front of me. I want to tear down every wall and dismantle this house, but it wouldn’t ease the anger and helplessness I feel. I let her down. I told her I’d protect her, and then my best friend—my oldest friend—took her right from under my nose.

  I failed her.

  What’s worse is she hated him. She told me he’d spelled her the first night they met in Myrtle Beach. The bastard had been unaware she was a new hybrid when he tried to get in her pants. I told her he wouldn’t do that, it wasn’t our way. I believed he tried to have sex with her, after all, she was half naked when I found them in the men’s room—but I didn’t believe he’d spelled her. In my mind, she got lost in blood lust, and things got out of hand. I told her he just wanted to feed from her, as we hybrids need to do; we feed on humans and sometimes we have to spell them to do so. I also told her if he was attracted to her, he couldn’t help it—which is true. Female hybrids are a beacon of allure; sirens singing silent, seductive melodies most men could not resist. It is their greatest weapon, yet their greatest danger. I’d believed Bridge was unaware of what she was at the time; that he just fell victim to her charm. Of course, my reasoning didn’t change her mind about him. She was new and unaccustomed to our ways or the world’s ways for that matter. I believed it was a misunderstanding. Now, I see. There was another side to him. She was right. I’m an asshole.

  Without a word, I leave Thomas in his room and stride into the kitchen. Jerking open the fridge, I grab a beer and chug it. Alcohol doesn’t sate the anxiety, but I drink anyway in hopes it might. Staring numbly at the fridge, my last conversation with her resonates in my mind.

  “Hurry back,” she’d whispered before kissing me softly.

  As I’d stared down at her naked form, glowing in the post-coital bliss of our lovemaking, my chest tightened. I’m over two thousand years old. I’m by no means a fucking romantic, either, but what I felt for her in that moment was almost crippling. The need for her completely overtook me on every level. Her safety meant as much to me as the beat of my heart, and in that moment I felt incredibly blessed, yet cursed; her safety and h
appiness had become my purpose. To most, loving someone to that magnitude would be considered a gift, and it is, I don’t regret falling for her, but for someone like me, it’s dangerous on so many levels. I knew that, even then, but what could I do about it? It had happened, and there was no going back. This tiny, stubborn woman with the courage of a lion and the sense of a child had waltzed into my life, and I fell for her. I welcomed the feeling, embraced it with open arms, and pledged to love and protect her.

  I’d told her, “Nothing will ever keep me from you.” And I meant it. Nothing would or ever will keep me away from her. I will find her. Somehow . . . I will.

  She’d smiled and said, “I know.”

  Wherever she is, I hope she still believes, deep inside, I will find her and bring her home.

  “Still nothing?” Eileen asks, jerking me from my memories, an expression of guarded hope on her face as she stares at me.

  “No,” I grumble and lean on the sink facing the window, staring out, unable to bear the disappointment in her gaze. I’ve spoken to every contact I have inside every vampire nest in the United States, but none of them know anything, or aren’t sharing if they do. It doesn’t help that I’m now known as a vampire enemy. Word travels fast, and the take down of Andre’s nest has labeled me a traitor and put a target on my back. I could care less about myself, but her. I have to get her back.

  Maybe involving Thomas was a bad idea, but he was my best shot. I had to fight that stupid twat Sarah to get him here. She gave me a bunch of shit about finding her long lost brother and needing Thomas’s help with the refugees of the nest. I won in the end, but it wasn’t much of a fight. She threw her attitude at me, and I put her in her place.

  “Daniel,” Eileen pauses a moment, “maybe . . . maybe we should involve Rhett.” She voices the suggestion timidly, knowing the mention of his name will likely upset me.

  It does.

  Spinning to face her, I just manage to keep calm and say, “He tried to hide her from what she is, keep her away from it.”