Awakening - Eve Of Eden
Author
L. T. Marshall
Reads
17.2K
Chapters
155
Two sisters. One fate. And a darkness that refuses to stay buried. Eden and Eve Santo were born identical, but they could not be more different. Eden is gentle, compassionate, and gifted with rare healing magic. Eve is powerful, reckless, and consumed by a restless hunger for something more than the sheltered life their pack demands. Raised in the safety of the Santo wolf pack after a brutal war nearly destroyed their kind, the twins were never supposed to face the horrors of the past. But when Eve becomes obsessed with the forbidden mountain where feral vampires once died, an ancient darkness awakens and drags her beyond anyone’s reach. As Eve’s powers spiral out of control, Eden refuses to give up on the sister everyone else fears is already lost. With the help of Kaelin, a dangerous demon-wolf hybrid tied to her by fate, Eden must enter the cursed mountain and confront the terrifying truth about what the twins were truly born to become. Because saving Eve may require destroying the very thing that makes her powerful. A dark paranormal fantasy filled with forbidden magic, ancient bloodlines, feral vampires, fated mates, and the devastating bond between sisters, Awakening: Eve of Eden is an emotional and addictive journey into love, sacrifice, and the dangerous cost of power.
Chapter 1: The Girl in Her Shadow
AGE TWELVE
“Why are you such a crybaby?” Eve drags me to my feet out of the heap of limbs and clothing where I landed when I slipped into this crevice. She tuts, rolls her eyes, and dusts me down with aggression, irritated by my clumsiness, with not an ounce of sibling care.
I sigh again. Whenever I try to keep up with her, I end up falling and making her rescue me. Compared to her, yes, I am always clumsy and slow. It’s not my fault. We may look identical, but that’s where it ends.
“I’m not a crybaby… I hurt myself. It’s okay to be upset. You were running too fast, and I’m not as good as you at doing that. I can only run at normal speed.” I try to defend myself, sniffing back the aching tears and wiping my bloodied wrist on my sodden dress. My newest floral sundress is now a tattered wreck, with a nice little tear across the lace-edged hem.
“Shhhhh, they’re coming. Suck it up and stop sniveling. You know they are going to laugh at you. Don’t embarrass me.” Eve stiffens at the cracks and rustles of our friends approaching and pulls on that cool mask of indifference she is known for.
I stand straight and paste on my bright, happy smile that is more me. Never mind if my tumble is eye-roll worthy to her; I just don’t want my friends to feel bad for me.
“You guys are way too fast for us to keep up. Eve, remember we’re not yet turned; we can only run on regular legs.” Toya, one of the smaller girls, is the first to appear, pushing through the bushes that shield this stupid crevice, the one that caught me off guard. All three are wide-eyed and frazzled, panting, a sheen of sweat on their foreheads.
“Eden isn’t turned yet either, and she was on my heel the whole time. Face it, you guys are just slow. And making excuses!” Eve smirks at them, haughty over their complaints, and dismisses them with a wave.
“Eden is an alpha’s daughter… Speed is a natural, wolf or not. She has always run a lot faster than us.” Simon is next to chirp in, breathing hard and looking cutely awkward as he pushes his floppy hair back from his freckled face. I blush at the sight of him and his compliment.
Simon gives me butterflies whenever he is around, and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because he’s the only boy in the pack who isn’t afraid to be near one of the alpha’s daughters and treats me like everyone else. He’s hardly the best-looking boy our age: tall and skinny, with too many freckles and sandy hair.
I always prefer the darker, more mysterious wolves of the Colombian bloodline, so I have never understood why I get shy around him. Maybe it’s how he acts, mature and haughty at times, as if he’s smarter and wiser than any of us, being the oldest.
“Only losers find excuses for their failures,” Eve snaps, making an L with her fingers against her forehead at Simon. It angers him, though he won’t say so; he hates conflict and knows Eve is stronger anyway. He never argues with her and lets me do it instead.
Eve turns on her heel, flicks her hair his way, and walks off, attitude oozing from every pore, while I roll my eyes behind her.
“Are you okay? Did you fall?” Simon is straight to me, seeing my torn dress and the smears of blood. Toya follows, concerned, and little Maisie finally clambers into view.
“Oh my goodness… I think I might die. My heart cannot take much more of this running.” She wheezes, red-faced. “Eden… your dress!”
“I’m fine. It’s a graze, although it did hurt falling there.” I turn and nod toward the indented forest floor where I landed. A mini valley, only about ten feet wide and four feet deep, which from this angle looks pathetic and shallow. They all lean in and peer, making sympathetic noises regardless, and help me finish brushing off the dirt.
“Why is she always so moody?” Toya finally breaks my little circle of mother hens to nod toward where Eve disappeared. We are supposed to be going together to explore the old mines or caves in the mountain where they said vampires used to dwell. A place forbidden to us, yet here we are.
The war with the vamps ended over a decade ago, before I was born, so it fascinates me. My grandfather is a vampire, and I can’t imagine wolves and vampires fighting that way. To the death…sworn enemies. It’s weird.
I guess I want to see where it happened to believe it. To understand that, once upon a time, the vampires were an actual threat to us. It’s the only way my sister could have convinced my friends to come, with me on board. They would never agree to anything she asked, but I can gently coax them into thinking it’s a good plan.
“You know what she’s like. She thinks she’s better than us, and we are all weak and pathetic because she turned when she was five, and that somehow signals her superior breeding.” Simon grits his teeth.
This is a topic he and my sister have fought over often. It vexes him that my sister looks down on us, even though he’s the son of one of the second subpack of high-ranking. I think it also annoys him, as the only male of our little circle, that she turned first and he still hasn’t, despite being older.
I can’t deny it, because it’s true. Eve has always believed that, as the firstborn twin and the first tribrid of the packs, she is the best: the strongest, the fastest, turned young and gifted from even before then. Her skills are unmatched, and no one is close to being worthy of her. Not even me.
“My mom said she inherited the arrogance of our paternal grandfather.” It slips out thoughtlessly, something I overheard my parents say when I wasn’t meant to, and I slap a hand over my mouth. Not only can my sister hear me, but I’m breaking a cardinal rule, and being mean, which I hate.
“We’re not supposed to talk about him.” Maisie’s hushed tone makes me feel even more stupid for bringing it up. She shushes me with a gentle tap on my arm, her big eyes more doe-like with worry, as though the forest around us might hear and tattletale.
He’s long gone, dead at the hands of the vampires, and he was apparently a terrible person who did awful things to my family and our pack. He went power mad, caring only about what he could become, even betraying his son and locking up my Rema in a coma for many years. Juan Santo—a name and a person who should stay forgotten.
He was part of the reason the war against the vampires was waged, why my mother lost her family, and why our pack lives in two communities miles apart. Aunt Carmen and Uncle Jasper help my Rema and her mate care for the Mountain Pack, while Mom, Dad, Aunt Meadow and the subpack watch over the valley.
Sometimes I see that flicker in Eve, that craving for more, that cold selfishness, and it scares me, as though she carries a splinter of his darkness that was never left in me. In that way we are light and dark, even though we are still only reaching puberty and adulthood.
Eve is so focused on what she can become that she wastes no time on normal things like enjoying life and making friends. I just want to be happy, with a simple life and fun along the way. I have no ambitions.
“Radar is your grandpaw… Let’s forget the dead.” Simon cuts in to smooth over my mistake. Wolves like to bury the painful past by silencing it. “Leave the past where it belongs.”
