Discovery: Altera Realm Trilogy by Jennifer Collins

but she knew they wouldn't go home with her. And she just had to. What if something happened to her parents? It would be all her fault. Could she deal with that? It was in the middle of the night when she finally pulled into the driveway. She glanced around nervously as she got out of the car. There was nothing. Just an overwhelming silence. She slowly walked to the door and stopped. It was slightly open and looked odd, as if it had been forced into that position. She took a deep, jagged breath and pushed it open. Once she entered the living room, the smell hit her first. It was overly copper, as if she had been sucking on a penny. It was a new smell to her, but she had heard it described many times in horror novels. Tears already stung her eyes as she flicked on a light. Deep down she knew what she was about to see, but it all still seemed so otherworldly. There were her parents, sitting on the couch, dressed in the same clothes she hadleft them in—only they looked different; paler, stiffer, and covered in blood. She didn't realize she was screaming until a firm hand covered her mouth.
    "Shhhh. We don't want them hearing you now, do we?" a sweet, velvety male voice whispered in her ear.
    Syney began to gag as her legs turned to mush. The hand moved as she fell to the floor and vomited. She sobbed, focusing on her own hands so as to not look over at the dead bodies of the only real parents she ever had known. Her throat burned, and the smell of copper singed the inside of her nose. This wasn't happening. This couldn't happen.
    A small pressure on the small of her back reminded Syney that she wasn't alone. Someone had spoken a moment ago and was touching her back. She scrambled toward the stairs, away from whoever was behind her. She turned and took in a male form in the darkened house. He seemed...wrong to her; she couldn't quite understand the feeling.
    The man put up his hands, his palms facing her. "Relax. I'm not here to hurt you." He paused. "The alive reward is much larger than the dead one."
    Fear swelled in Syney's stomach, and she almost began to gag again. This man was here to take her away. To whom? She looked over to her parents' dead bodies for a moment. A glance was all she could handle.
    The man had followed her gaze. "No. I didn't kill them. A Vampire did. Your parents had a price on their heads as well—not as high as yours, though."
    Syney felt tears wetting her face. This was it. This was her end—right here with her parents by the hands of this man.
    The man studied her with his golden eyes—eyes that seemed to almost glow in the darkened room. Suddenly he cocked his head to the side and looked off into the distance, as if hearing something only he could hear. He looked back to Syney and grabbed her arm. "Come." He pulled her to her feet and up the stairs, treating her as a child would a ragdoll. Once in her parents' room, he tossed her onto the bed and glared out the balcony window.
    Syney's stomach knotted, not only from her fear and anguish but also from being jarred around. She took some deep breaths to steady herself and looked back at her strange companion. Now that he was standing in the moonlight, she got a proper look at him. He was of average height and build. She guessed that Hunter would dwarf this man. His skin was pale and had almost a shimmer to it. His brown hair was cut short and kept messy. He didn't necessarily scream
killer
, but as she had found out already, looks could be deceiving. And then his words hit her.
    "Did you say 'Vampire'?" she choked out.
    He looked back at her and squinted a little. "Yes."
    She stared at him, waiting for some elaboration but realized quickly that she wasn't going to get one. "I don't...I mean...a Vampire?" She rememberedsomething in Hunter's little speech about Vampires, but she still couldn't wrap her mind around it. Dracula, alive and well. She looked back at the man. She got the same strange feeling looking at him now. Something about him wasn't