For the Sake of Revenge by D.L. Atha

Published June 30th, 2013

Description:

How far was Tamara willing to go for the sake of revenge? And who would pay the price? She didn’t know as she tipped the bottle of vampire blood up to her lips but she was about to find out.

Stepping off the ferry in Sitka, Alaska was bittersweet for Tamara Semenov. A decade earlier she had abandoned her mother and high school sweetheart, Peter, to marry a man she hardly knew only to find herself in an abusive relationship. Now ten years later, she had escaped with her life but at what cost. Her mother was dead.

Although the police had ruled her mother’s death an accident, Tamara was convinced her estranged husband was to blame and to make matters worse, she knows she is his next target. 

While putting her mother’s affairs in order, Tamara finds the blood of a vampire named Adrik, who as a human was falsely accused of raping a wealthy Russian heiress and excommunicated from the Church. For the sake of revenge, he willing condemned himself to vampirism.

Learning that the blood could tie the living to the undead, Tamara seeks out a connection with the long buried vampire in hopes of striking a deal, his freedom for her revenge. Will he be the edge she needs to out maneuver her estranged husband or will she become entangled in a two century old web of revenge?

EXCERPT

With my heart racing, I unfolded the paper, expecting to see Joel’s neat, even handwriting. Even his penmanship was perfectly controlled, but instead, the note was scrawled in a large friendly script that I immediately recognized even though it had been more than eight years since I’d seen it.

Eight years instead of ten because Peter had written often when I first moved to Seattle. His letters followed me until I finally began returning them to the post office. I didn’t want to send them back, but I was scared for Peter’s safety. If Joel had checked the mail before me, things would have gone poorly for the both of us, and so when we picked up our bags and moved the next time, I didn’t bother filling out a change of address.

The note I held in my hand today smelled of Peter, just as those letters had eight years ago, and then, as now, the scent brought a warm feeling to my insides and a soothing reminder that Peter had loved me once. I hadn’t deserved his love, of course, but he’d loved me nonetheless, and I’d come to the realization over those first two years apart that I’d loved him more than I’d realized. Immaturity kept me from discerning it from the lust and excitement I felt with Joel, but my love for Peter was the feeling that lasted long after the excitement of Joel had worn away.

The only thing I could give Peter back was his safety, and so I’d burned his letters in the kitchen sink, washed them down the drain and resolutely forced him from my mind all those years ago.

I inhaled deeply of the note I held in my hand once more before I read it. ‘Dinner at my place? Seven? Or whenever, I’ll be waiting for you. Hope you enjoyed your hike.’

My heart sunk into my belly at his words. I wanted to go. My soul ached to see him but how could I after what I had done to him? And knowing that Joel was here, somewhere waiting for me made Peter as much a target as myself. In fairness, I had to protect him from my drama. He was a minister now and didn’t need my reputation for disaster and mayhem affecting him or his position in the church. People in Sitka have a long memory and no know had forgotten what I had put Mom or Peter through.

I started towards home, determined to put Peter’s safety before my craving to be with him, but as my driveway approached, I couldn’t force myself to turn in. Surely one dinner wasn’t the end of the world and not going would be an insult, I convinced myself as I drove on into town towards Peter’s house. On the way, I picked up a bottle of Pinot Grigio, a tip from the liquor store owner as I shopped for something suitable to take to his house.

Peter’s driveway was partially obscured in a clump of azaleas, but I’d turned in so many times as a teenager when Mom would give me the truck for the day that I had no problems finding it. His family home was nestled a couple of miles off of the main road in the protective arms of a mountain that rose precipitously from his backyard. His people had lived at this address for years. Not necessarily in the same house, as houses come and go, but this location had been his family’s home base for at least as many generations as my family. No matter where in the world the Solinovs ended up, they always came back here to be born, married, and buried.

The house hadn’t changed much since I’d been gone except that it now blended even more into the landscape. The rock chimney, the focal point of the home both inside and out, was covered with a deep green moss that had once only dotted its surface. Ferns had overtaken the bases of the trees his mother had planted when we were teenagers, and those same trees had spread branches that now cocooned the sidewalk. The wood siding on the house had faded to a steel gray color that matched the slate mountains in the backdrop. In the far left backyard, I could see the remnants of the tree house Peter and I had played in as children.

It was fairly large and sprawling by Sitka standards, but you wouldn’t know it from standing outside where the trees and shrubbery were arranged to conceal its size. But from the inside, hallways branched in nearly every direction leading to the several bedrooms that had housed his brother and four sisters.

Just seeing the house made me a bit nervous. The last time I’d walked through these doors, I’d told Peter I was leaving for Seattle. It was in front of the fireplace that he’d pleaded with me to listen to reason. I had promised I would then later I’d hastily shoved a note telling him good-bye into his mailbox. I felt guilty just standing in the yard. I shouldn’t be here, I told myself, and I turned to go. I didn’t make it more than a few feet before I heard the door open swiftly behind me.

“Hey, you can’t leave. You just got here,” Peter yelled across the expanse of the front yard. I jumped at the sound of his voice, nearly dropping the wine bottle I carried in my hand.

He was leaning around the door, and I could only see him from the neck up. “Wow. You really are jumpy. I thought you were just joking last night when you were hiding in the bushes,” he teased. “How’s your head by the way?”

Taking a steadying breath, I turned back towards him even as I was thinking of some good excuse to get out of the evening. “I just realized I’ve got to…” I started to lie, but I couldn’t think of a good excuse quickly enough. “A bad case of nerves is all,” I finally said as I walked back towards the front door. “And my head is still sore. Thanks for that,” I snipped.

“Well, you’re not letting a case of nerves ruin dinner. Come on in,” he said, stepping back from the doorway so I could pass.

“Oh,” I said as I walked through the front door and realized he was shirtless, his chest shining with sweat. “I can come back. Clearly, I’m early. It’s just that you said ‘any time,’ and so I came straight over, but I can come back later. Or I can come another day. Or we could forget it all together if you want.” I was getting more flustered with every passing moment, and my mouth just wouldn’t stop moving.

“Tam, it’s okay. Relax. It’s my fault. I was working out in the garage and lost track of time. Let me just get a quick shower. There are some glasses set out in the kitchen and some snacks. The salmon could marinate awhile longer anyways so it’s all good.”

I nodded my head, avoiding looking in his direction at all. Instead, I was studying the entryway as if I’d never seen one before in my entire life.

“Do you want me to take that?” Peter asked as I stared fixedly at the chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling.

“Oh, I almost forgot. Yeah, it’s a bottle of Pinot,” I said as I handed it to him. The skin of his thumb brushed my hand, and I couldn’t stop my eyes from moving to his. I’d forgotten how green they were against the honey color of his skin, but I’d never forgotten how I enjoyed looking at them.

“Make yourself at home, Tam. The fire’s going in the living room, and I’ll be back in a few.”

With his back safely to me now, I watched him walk away, admiring the columns of muscles that framed his spine as he strode from the room.

Peter had always been handsome. Tall, at least three inches over six feet, he’d towered over every guy in our high school. In middle school, he’d filled out early, and by the time he was eighteen, every woman in town, no matter their age, had a hard time keeping their eyes off him. His body was hard-muscled from woodworking with his father and the continual climbing his family did in the mountains. His thick hair was a golden brown, and he always had a light five o’clock shadow, the good kind, which was just a shade darker than his actual hair color. Looking at him certainly did not make you think Christian thoughts.

But if his body was beautiful, his heart was divine. He was one of the few men who could pull off humility and kindness without looking weak and walked on. Why had I ever broken up with him? I questioned myself again.

Oh, yeah. Excitement. Escaping the familiar. The usual reasons women throw away good men.

After discarding my shoes and coat, I walked to the living room, anxious to warm my hands in front of the fire. It had always been my favorite room in Peter’s house. In the corner, the native rock chimney dominated the wall. The stones had been carved out and placed meticulously by some past relative of Peter’s, and it truly was a work of art. The walls were hand-hewn logs from the surrounding forests and stained a natural color that was both warm and inviting.

Comfortable leather furniture had replaced the country blue fabric his mom had preferred, and the bookcases were lined with rows of seminary books, woodworking manuals, a few classics and Peter’s all-time favorites—westerns. The air smelled of cedar, leather, and men’s cologne and whispered of days filled with hard work and quiet nights spent reading in front of the fire.

I thumbed through a couple of photo albums that were lying on the coffee table, smiling at the memories the faded pictures brought back. There were several of my family at church functions and a few of Peter and I at school events. Our senior prom pictures were displayed proudly followed by our graduation pictures. The second album was filled with pictures taken after I’d left and looking at them brought tears to my eyes. I wiped them away quickly when I heard Peter’s bedroom door open. Carefully, I placed the albums back where I’d gotten them.

“How was the hike?” Peter asked from behind me. He held two glasses of wine, one of which he slipped into my hand as he lowered himself down onto the stone hearth to sit beside me.

“The cold air was good. Cleared my head a little and I feel better,” I said as I took a drink of wine. I lied, forcing myself to sound happier than I actually felt, but I had no intentions of ruining Peter’s evening with the details of Mom’s case. He knew I suspected foul play, since I’d mentioned it to him the night I called and asked him to check on her, but we hadn’t discussed it since.

“Pinot Grigio is my favorite,” he said. “How’d you know?”

“Yeah, I got a little tip from the owner of the liquor store,” I said sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to tell anyone I was coming over here. He just kind of figured it out. It seems he remembered us. Or me. Probably me mainly.”

“Everyone remembers you,” Peter answered.

I let my breath out in a huff. “That’s what I’m afraid of and I don’t want to ruin your reputation, Father.” I smiled sarcastically but I wasn’t joking.

“It’s okay. I don’t care if anyone knows you’re here. I’m not ashamed. Everyone knows one of the benefits of being Orthodox is not having to be celibate your entire life.” Our eyes met and I felt my cheeks flame.

“So what were you working on when I drove up?” I asked in an attempt to change the subject away from celibacy.

“Let me show you,” he said, standing up and offering his hand. I let him pull me to my feet against my better judgment. His hands were warm, strong and slightly calloused. He didn’t let go of mine immediately but instead led me in the direction of his workshop for a few steps before our hands slipped apart.

His workshop was connected to the house through a series of hallways. His father used to work out there for hours, and he’d taught Peter everything he knew. The smell of fresh cedar drifted through the hallways as we got closer until I would have sworn I was standing on the side of a mountain.

As we walked into the workshop, I gasped in awe. Spread across braces was the partially finished hull of a boat carved from a giant red cedar tree trunk. At least ten feet in length and three feet wide, the canoe would carry five or six people easily when it was completed, which could take years. Hand carving a canoe is no easy feat.

“Peter, oh my gosh, it’s beautiful! How long have you been working on this?” I questioned as I ran my finger carefully down the sides. It was still rough-hewn and splinters would be abundant.

“About a year. I spend some time on it whenever I get a chance, which sometimes is every day and then sometimes I can’t touch it for a week or two.”

“Well, it proves you’re a dedicated man, and why you don’t have the hands of a minister,” I teased.

“I guess we’ll know for sure when I get it done, and it’s not necessary for ministers to have soft hands, by the way, so long as we have soft hearts.”

“You’ve always had a soft heart. That’s what made you such a good friend,” I said.

“As I remember it,” Peter answered, his eyes holding mine, “we were more than friends.”

The room had suddenly gotten much smaller, and the air seemed to have lost some of its oxygen. I became very aware of Peter’s proximity, the outline of his chest and the fullness of his lips.

“I need some water,” I said, breaking our gaze as I turned and walked back to the kitchen. Behind me, I heard him let out a sigh of frustration.

In the kitchen, I grabbed a bottle of water from off the counter and sat down at the bar while Peter put the salmon steaks on to cook.

“So how are your parents? I should have asked earlier,” I said, hoping for a neutral topic as I reached for some bread arranged on a tray on the counter.

“Mom died a couple of years back, heart disease, and Dad retired to the lower forty-eight. He just couldn’t face living here without her. You know, seeing their friends all the time. It was just too much. The land has been in the family for generations of course, so he just turned it over to me when I came back here.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your mom.”

He nodded a thanks as he flipped the salmon over, basting it with a traditional marinade. It smelled delicious, and I was beginning to get an appetite.

“So what’s it like being back here? You miss the big city?” he questioned.

“It’s different. But it’s nice,” I said. “I miss the Fish Market and the music that was a constant in Seattle. And I miss the crowds, which is strange, I know, but Sitka feels kind of lonely now after living there. But it’s good to be back and see the mountains again, and there’s just nothing like the Sitka air. I haven’t smelled anything this clean in a really long time.”

We made small talk awhile longer about the whereabouts of some old classmates and family friends while Peter plated the salmon and fresh grilled vegetables and placed our plates at the massive wooden table in the attached dining room. The table was situated in front of a large picture window. The rain had returned, and the water zigzagged randomly down the window in long streaks. I tried to guess which direction the stream would go, but I missed it every time, and the water would streak in the opposite direction to what I expected. Visibility was low with the mists sweeping in from the sound, and I couldn’t see more than a few feet away from the windows, but rather than closing us in, the fog only added to the privacy that surrounded us tonight.

The evening was perfect. Dinner was delicious. The salmon was cooked to absolute perfection. Of course, it didn’t hurt that he’d caught the fish himself just a few days back. The conversation was pleasant, sticking to easy subjects like Seattle and our old times together. I stopped at one glass of wine, since I had to drive home, but Peter was finishing his third glass by the time we were done eating.

I insisted on helping him clean up despite his protests and forced him to talk about himself for a while. I was anxious to know what he’d been up to for the last ten years.

As I wiped down the table and dried the dishes, Peter described how he’d traveled for a year or two overseas before going to seminary, and in between semesters, he’d done missionary work in the outskirt villages of far northern Alaska. He’d dated a little, had a couple of serious relationships, but in the end, he hadn’t been able to commit, and then he’d returned home and stepped into the role the men in his family had filled for generations in Sitka.

When we were finished and the kitchen was spotless, I insisted I had to get home. It was getting quite late, and I was already dreading returning to my house at this hour. Peter walked me to the entryway, and while I put on my shoes and coat, he went outside and started my truck to take the chill off.

“Thanks for dinner and for starting my truck. Especially for starting my truck,” I said when he came back in the front door. His honey skin was spattered with raindrops and a few had collected on his eyelashes framing the green of his eyes. I couldn’t look anywhere but at his face. He seemed to be having the same problem and for several seconds the only sounds were the hum of the gentle rain and our quiet breathing.

Peter finally broke the silence. “I’m surprised you came, Tam,” he said. “To be honest, I thought I might be sitting here waiting for you all night.”

“Well, if we’re being honest, Peter, I almost didn’t come.”

He sucked in his breath harshly and started to say something before I cut him off. “But you need to know why before you judge me, okay?”

Nodding his head, he took a deep breath as if he were steadying himself for my answer.

“The only reason I considered not coming was for your safety. It’s not that I don’t want to be with you. I do. But I don’t deserve you. Parts of me are broken, Peter and those same parts want something that you wouldn’t understand because you’re too good. And I’m also dangerous because Joel is out there somewhere, Peter. I don’t know where or when he’s going to pop up, but he is out there. I spent a long time with him. Too long, I realize, but if I know one thing about him, it’s that he will not give up. So you see, it was very selfish of me to come here tonight, but I so badly wanted to see you. I just hope I haven’t made a terrible mistake.”

“I can take care of myself, Tam,” he responded quickly. “I’m not afraid of him.”

“You should be,” I said. “But you’re too good to understand how evil someone like him can be. Please don’t under estimate him.”

Pulling my coat on, I reached up and kissed him goodnight on the cheek. “Talk to you soon,” I promised.

I was halfway out the door when he caught my arm in his hand pulling me towards him.

“I can take care of you too, Tam.”

His lips brushed mine in a soft whisper of a kiss before I escaped into the blur of the rain, grateful that he could not distinguish the tears that began to course down my cheeks.  

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About the author:

My name is DL Atha. I'm a wound care and internal medicine physician who craves to write full time. 

I'm originally from Arkansas and live there still with my three kids and wonderful husband.

We live on a farm with too many animals and way too many chores. 

I would say my life is very ordinary until the sun goes down and the kids go to bed. That's when the writer in me comes out and all the crazy stories that I daydream of during the day finally get to make an appearance.

My co- workers at the hospital think I'm insane for writing vampire novels and ask all the time why do I not write medical dramas. I say why would I EVER do that! I'm around it all day and I would much prefer to escape into another world rather than spend more time in the same world where I work.

My first novel was a vampire medical thriller named Blood Reaction. The story centered around a young woman whose home was invaded by a very ruthless vampire. She struck a bargain for her life in exchange for her child’s. Blood Reaction did well and I had so much fun writing it. I plan to serialize it and am working on the sequel currently. It was released in May 2011. 

My newest novel, For the Sake of Revenge, was a two year project and was inspired by an old cemetery in Sitka, Alaska. It's a beautiful place where the mists roll in from the ocean like you see in the movies. Everything is dripping in the greenest moss you will ever see and even the ground seems alive. I felt as if I was in a foreign land because of the Russian heritage of southeast Alaska which is alive and well there. It seemed a perfect place to set a vampire story. I started doing some research on Russian vampire lore and found it so different from what I'm used. Enough so that then I had no choice but to start writing.

Sitka has a tragic side as well, I found, as I dug deeper into the historical documents and it played in well with the story of revenge and betrayal that I had envisioned. A great deal of For the Sake of Revenge is historically accurate. Except the vampires of course! But after you read some of the Russian lore, you'll at least have to pause for thought!

Also by D.L.Atha:

Annalice, a single mother and physician, is ready to immerse herself in the mundane chores of her farm as a diversion from her hectic professional life. But she becomes the victim of a home invasion, the supernatural kind. Vindictive and cruel, Asa, a century old vampire, takes brutal control of her life and home. Forcing her to strike a bargain in exchange for her daughter's life, Annalice must not only accept his presence but also bow to his depravity. Facing threats to her only child, she relies on her skills as a physician to unravel the clues to the vampire's existence attempting to beat him at his own game. Caught in a race against a genetic timeline, Annalice struggles to survive the Blood Reaction.

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