Dead Water

Dead Water

(Kiera Hudson Series Two)

Book Six

BY

Tim
O’Rourke

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 by Tim O’Rourke

This book
is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents
are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used
fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance
to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organisations
is entirely coincidental.

T
his ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment
only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.
If you would like to share this book with another person, please
purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading
this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your
use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for
respecting the hard work of this author.

Story Editor (Hacker)

Lynda
O’Rourke

Book cover designed by:

Carles
Barrios

Copyright: Carles Barrios 2012

Copyedited by:

Carolyn
M. Pinard

www.thesupernaturalbookeditor.com

This book is dedicated to

Gayle Morell

Thanks
to:

Michelle
at novelsontherun.blogspot.com

Shana at
bookvacations.wordpress.com

Braine
& Cimmaron at Talkingsupe.com

Nikki
Archer at vampsandstuff.com

Bella at
paranormal book club

Suemcg-delirium.blogspot.com

Caroline
Barker at Areadersreviewblog.wordpress.com

Who all
took the time to review my books – Thank you!

You can
contact Tim O’Rourke at

www.kierahudson.com

Or by email at
[email protected]

More books by Tim O’Rourke

Kiera Hudson Series

Vampire
Shift (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 1

Vampire
Wake (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 2

Vampire
Hunt (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 3

Vampire
Breed (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 4

Wolf
House (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 4.5

Vampire
Hollows (Kiera Hudson Series 1) Book 5

Dead
Flesh (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 1

Dead
Night (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 1.5

Dead
Angels (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 2

Dead
Statues (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 3

Dead Seth
(Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 4

Dead Wolf
(Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 5

Dead
Water (Kiera Hudson Series 2) Book 6

Black Hill Farm (Books 1 & 2)

Black
Hill Farm (Book 1)

Black
Hill Farm: Andy’s Diary (Book 2)

Sydney Hart Novels

Witch (A
Sydney Hart Novel) Book 1

Yellow (A
Sydney Hart Novel) Book 2

The Doorways Trilogy

Doorways
(Doorways Trilogy Book 1)

The
League of Doorways (Doorways Trilogy Book 2)

Moon Trilogy

Moonlight
(Moon Trilogy) Book 1

Samantha Carter – Vampire Seeker Series

Vampire
Seeker (Samantha Carter Series) Book 1

You can
contact Tim O’Rourke at

www.kierahudson.com
or by
email at
[email protected]

Dead Water

Chapter One

Kiera

Potter
had wanted to talk, but I had nothing to say. Well, that wasn’t
entirely true – I had plenty I wanted to say to him. First, I
wanted to get my thoughts straight. I needed to know each word that
was going to trip off the end of my tongue; like placing one foot
in front of the other. I didn’t want Potter to jump in – make his
excuses – before I’d had the chance to say what I wanted
to.

As I
stood in the vacant bedroom, peering through the dirty window and
down the hill, Potter paced the wooden floorboards behind me. I
glanced to my right and spied the pool of black blood my father had
left behind on the floor. In the colourless morning sun, I could
see the blood had dried into the shape of a butterfly. It looked
like one of those pictures kids did in year-one at school, where
they folded over the sheet of paper, squashing the thick globules
of paint and spreading it flat to make some abstract pattern. I
looked back out of the window. Murphy was making his way back up
the hill. He trudged through the snow, which covered his police
trousers almost to the knee. I watched silently as he came towards
the cottage, and his hands looked red as if covered in blood. I
looked harder and could see that they weren’t covered in blood, but
instead were red-raw with cold where he had dug his brother’s – my
father’s – grave. Murphy’s silver hair flopped over his brow and
sparkled in the morning light. He looked tired. His face was drawn,
thick, deep lines cut across it. The wrinkles gave the appearance
that his face had cracked – turned to stone. I looked down and
could see a mass of tiny cracks covering the backs of my hands.
Potter must have caught me looking at them, as he came up beside me
and took my hands in his.

I looked
into his face. The bruises around his eyes, mouth, and jawline had
started to fade. They now looked like yellow and green shadows. His
nose looked bent out of shape, but then again, it had always looked
broken; it’s what gave his face that rugged, thuggish look. Holding
my hands in his, he stared at me with his jet-black
eyes.

“
Talk to me, Kiera,” he whispered.

“
I have nothing to say to you,” I said, easing my hands free of
his and looking back out of the window.

“
You can’t ignore me forever,” Potter said.

“
I’m not ignoring you,” I said, watching Murphy reach the
police van which was parked outside. With his raw-looking hands, he
clawed the snow from the windshield. “I’m angry with you. You lied
to me...”

“
I know you’re angry with me,” Potter said, “But you still need
me.”

“
Need you?” I gasped, wheeling around on him. “I don’t need you
for anything.”

Potter
glanced down at my hands, then back at me. “Your flesh is starting
to turn to stone again. You can feed on me if you want,” he said,
loosening the collar of his dark coat and exposing his
neck.

“
I’d rather feed on a skinwalker,” I snapped, pushing past
him.

“
It might come to that if you’re not prepared to feed off me,”
Potter said. “We’re right out of the red stuff –
Lot-13.”

I shot a
look at him, my innards starting to ache again. Slowly, I crossed
the room, coming to rest inches from Potter. He looked at me,
tilting his head back. I could see the thick veins running like
wires beneath his pale skin. I wanted what flowed within them. I
wanted Potter. I was in love with him, despite what he had done,
and I hated myself for feeling like that. Taking a step closer, so
our bodies brushed against each other’s, I reached out with my
right hand and placed it gently on the nape of his neck. His skin
felt ice-cold. Potter closed his eyes as my lips brushed against
his neck. I placed my left hand into his coat pocket and reached
for what I knew he had hidden there. I curled my fingers around one
of the glass bottles.

“
You lie,” I whispered in his ear, then pulled away.

Snapping
his eyes open, Potter looked down at the glass tube of Lot-13 I
held in my hand. “How did you know they were there?” he
asked.

“
The bulge in your coat pocket,” I said, taking no satisfaction
from discovering that he had lied to me again. “I would’ve had to
be blind not to have
seen
that.”

“
It could have been anything,” he said, with a sideways smile,
knowing that he had been caught out again.

“
I heard them clinking in your pocket,” I explained.

“
So you have super-duper hearing, as well as sight now?” Potter
smirked. “Is that a wolf thing?”

“
You bastard,” I breathed, rolling my free hand into a fist and
smashing it into the bridge of his nose. Potter’s head rocked
backwards as a fine spray of what looked like white dust seeped
from between my clenched fingers.

Potter
shook his head from side to side and looked at me. He said
nothing.

“
So you hate me now, is that it?” I snapped at him. “You hate
me because you know I’m part Lycanthrope? We all know how much you
hate the wolves.”

“
I don’t hate you,” Potter said, his eyes fixed on mine. “I
love you, Kiera.”

“
You have a funny way of showing it,” I said, unscrewing the
cap on the glass tube. My fingers trembled as it came free in my
hand. “You’ve lied to me.”

“
I didn’t mean to,” Potter said, his voice calm, just above a
whisper.

I threw
my head back and let the red stuff wash over my tongue. Its taste
was bitter, a poor substitute for the real thing, but it would do.
At once, those hunger pangs in my stomach eased. As I re-screwed
the cap, I glanced at my hands and watched those tiny cracks fade
again. For how long, I didn’t know. I placed the empty tube into my
pocket, and wiped the last of the Lot-13 from my lips with my
fingers. I then licked them clean, not wanting to waste one
drop.

“
Better?” Potter asked.

“
Not that you care,” I snapped at him. The hunger inside of me
had quickly been replaced with anger for Potter.

“
I cared enough to come after you...” he started.

“
Yeah, so you keep saying,” I sneered. “You took your time, but
now I know why. You were too busy getting it on with that teacher –
the wolf.”

“
I thought she was you, Kiera,” Potter started to explain. “She
did that mind-fuck thing on me. She messed with my
brains.”

“
That must have taken all of two seconds,” I barked at
him.

Ignoring
my remark, Potter continued. “She was trying to frame me...Jack
Seth was trying to set me up. His plan was for you to hate me...so
you would choose him over me.”

“
I’m not going to choose anyone,” I said coldly. “The only side
I’m on is my own from now on.”

“
And that’s just what he wanted,” Potter said, coming across
the empty room towards me. The floorboards creaked beneath his
boots. “He wants to drive a wedge between us.”

“
You drove the wedge between us!” I hissed at him. “You lied to
me about Murphy coming back. You lied about knowing my father was
alive in this world...”

“
I did it to protect you...” Potter cut in.

“
And what about Sophie? Huh?” I said, folding my arms across my
chest. “Sneaking off to see her was protecting me too?”

“
In a way,” Potter said thoughtfully. “She was the only person
I could think of in this
pushed
world who might know what the fuck was going
on.”

“
And where is she now?” I shot at him. “Keeping a bed nice and
warm for you somewhere?”

“
She’s dead!” Potter snapped back, losing that calmness he had
fought so long to hold on to. “Nothing happened between
us.”

“
You expect me to believe that?” I said, remembering how the
Elders had shown me a statue of Potter and Sophie together. “You’re
in love with her. You end up with her – not with me!” I screamed at
him.

“
What are you talking about?” Potter shouted, looking lost and
bewildered.

“
It doesn’t matter,” I breathed, turning away. How did I
explain what I had seen, when I didn’t truly understand it
myself?

I heard
the floorboards creak again as Potter came and stood behind me. He
didn’t dare come too close – leaving a foot or two between us.
“Nothing happened between me and Sophie because I love you, Kiera,”
he said, his voice sounding softer again. “You’ve got to believe
me.”