by K.N. Lee
When she opened her eyes, Zoe and Kristoff stared at her in silence, their eyes wide as they watched her glow intensify to a nearly blinding light.
Once it faded, Willa cracked her neck and stood.
A satisfied smile came to her face as she hovered above the ballroom’s floor.
The vampire king of the west may have captured the queen of the witches once before. But he would now pay the price.
With his soul.
“Let’s go.”
~The End~
About the Author
K.N. Lee is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author who resides in Charlotte, North Carolina. When she is not writing twisted tales, fantasy novels, and dark poetry, she does a great deal of traveling and promotes other authors. Wannabe rockstar, foreign language enthusiast, and anime geek, K.N. Lee also enjoys helping others reach their writing and publishing goals. She is a winner of the Elevate Lifestyle Top 30 Under 30 "Future Leaders of Charlotte" award for her success as a writer, business owner, and for community service.
Angels protect us from the escaped creatures of the Netherworld.
Demons seek to destroy the balance and treaty between vampires and humans.
One half-blood vampire is torn between the two worlds.
http://mybook.to/thechroniclesofkoa
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Also by K.N. Lee
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Full Moon Falling
Favors for the Fallen Book One
Calinda B
Kara Falko has a decision to make—can she pull the trigger and send her fiancé to his death, thus assuring her own existence?
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When Kara Falko takes a bullet in her job as an FBI agent, her soul splits in two. She ends up occupying two bodies—and one of them is dying. She’s faced with too many choices—choose life as a Valkyrie warrior? Cling to life as an FBI agent and be drawn into some horrible hell for being too weak to choose her greatness? Save a stranger, Ace Diamanté, a petty thief, from dying in a hideous ritual on the full moon? Cause her fiancé more heartbreak by allowing him to see who she has become? None of the opportunities before her sound appealing.
She forges ahead with more questions than answers, discovering rules and outcomes she wishes she’d been taught ahead of time. The one thing that’s clear is this: If she doesn’t save Ace Diamanté by the full moon, four nights away, the whole of existence will fall to ruin.
1
A prickly sensation, like the tips of scalpel blades whispering across her skin, captured Agent Kara Falko’s attention. She dragged her attention from her stupid mistake—who in the FBI drops her bullets—and trained her gaze on the looming Copley Heights building, the tallest building in Boston.
Craning her neck, she squinted, trying to make out the top. In the quietude of the night, the moon winked along the thousands of panes lining the walls of the building. She couldn’t see the roof, not actually…but her imagination insisted on running wild. Are those…winged giants? She shook her head. The creepy sensation continued to crawl up her backbone. Someone’s watching me, I know it.
Her fingers shaking, she jammed the recovered bullet into the gun’s magazine. She shoved the magazine into the butt of the Glock. When the gun parts connected, a solid thwack snapped through the air, grounding her.
The bright moon shone on the streets of Boston, giving her soft light with which to see. Plus, she’d been out here on the stakeout for a couple of hours, allowing her eyes plenty of time to adjust to her nighttime surroundings.
“Is that her?” A male voice whispered. He sounded far away and close, all at the same time.
“I’m afraid so,” a woman answered, letting out a long, breathy sigh. Her voice held the similar quality of close and far.
Kara whipped around in a circle. “Who’s there?”
The woman chuckled. “You’re scaring her.”
The male’s voice rumbled from deep in his throat. “Me? I’m nothing but a pussy cat.” He let out a sexy growl.
“Stop it,” the woman said, her voice suddenly sounding like the bedroom would be their next stop—or maybe that’s where they were.
Kara turned this way and that. She glanced up at the Copley Heights building again. Holy crows, please tell me I’m not seeing winged giants waving at me.
Pressing her back into one of the massive columns at the front of Trinity church, she peered through the gloom at Copley Square. No people could be seen at this ungodly hour of four-thirty a.m. No cars sped down St. James Avenue. She squinted in the opposite direction. The same lack of vehicles and empty sidewalks met her gaze. Pivoting her head like an owl, nothing caught her attention in the alley—not that she could see far down its pitch-black maw.
“Are you sure it’s her?” The woman spoke in a voice laced with snark.
“Yes, I’m sure,” the male answered. “She’ll respond to destiny. She’s done it before throughout time, she’ll do it again.”
Kara peered up at the Copley Heights building once more. No giants stood on the roof, waving at her, taunting her, or even flipping her off. You and your imagination.
A flutter of something hooked her attention.
She tensed. Her shoulders fell when she recognized it as a paper wrapper from someone’s takeout lunch.
It swirled, caught in a dust devil. The wrapper came to a stop at a dingy green waste container shoved against the brick wall. Then, a whoosh of wind gusted through the alley, making heebie-jeebies crawl along her skin like mites. For a brief second, overhead shadows obscured the moon, setting off a shiver in her spine. Yet, nothing met her gaze except drifting clouds racing along the night sky like the winged horse Pegasus, providing an eerie backdrop to the Copley Heights building, Boston’s tallest structure.
“Holy crows, are you paranoid, or what, Kara Falko?” She smacked her palm against her forehead.
A chuckle sounded in her earpiece. “Holy crows?”
“Shut up, Konner. I forgot I was wired.”
The phrase had stuck with her since childhood. She’d grown up in a neighborhood near St. Augustine’s cemetery, near Boston’s Massachusetts Bay. The historic boneyard served as her escape from the harshness of life.
She’d always been different. Adopted at birth. Too smart for her own good. Her adopted parents made her feel cherished but she always imagined they’d found her curled inside an iron helmet on a battlefield somewhere. The story they told about whisking her from the arms of her dying mother in a Boston hospital was fiction, meant to make her feel normal. She hadn’t felt normal a day in her life.
At school, she’d always felt like the odd girl out. She preferred to play war games over playing with Barbie dolls. She’d begged her dad to fashion a little wooden sword for her. She took it with her everywhere. She chased the boys with it at school. “You’re going to hell,” she’d yell at the mean boys.
“Yeah, well, you’re going to the principal’s office,” they’d yell back, racing for his office.
She tried to get girls to play with her. “We can be a team and take down the boys,” she’d say.
They giggled and pointed, huddling together as if conjoined. “You’ll make a terrible wife,” they’d say. “Girls aren’t supposed to fight.”
“That’s weak,” she’d yell. “I’ll never be weak.”
Hence, she loved to wander through the quietude of buried bones marked by sculptured stones. No boys would taunt her for her long red hair, or her sword, or her speed in a sprint. No snotty girls would tease her there, calling her “too much of a tomboy”.
The black rooks hanging out in the trees made her laugh as they swooped and twirled through the air. They’d caw at her. She’d caw back. She’d run through the tombstones like sprinting through an obstacle course. The birds chased her. She’d twirl like a ballerina and chase them back.
One day, when her father came to fetch her, he suggested crows might be as holy t
o her as her mother’s gold cross necklace. In that moment, her favorite phrase had been born.
Konner crooned in her ear, yanking her attention back. “Get your pretty ass back to the van.”
A pebble-sized knot formed in her gut. “Me and my standard-issue uniform-covered ass will be back in a flash.”
Konner chuckled, effectively transforming the pebbled knot in her belly into a boulder. Then, his voice assumed a more serious tone. “Get back here. I mean it.”
“Oh, I see how tonight plays out. First, you send me out here to get me out of the way so the real agents can get in position. Now you get to boss me around and get me back because you might actually need me.”
“Kara,” Konner said in a low voice. “It’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like? Is Richter listening?”
“No,” he said, in a pouting sort of voice. “He’s outside the van, looking for you.”
“You guys need to make up your minds on whether to rely on my skills—my real live shaped-in-the-Academy skills—or just keep me around as an eye-candy distraction and send me out to perform busy-work.”
“Come on, Kara. Quit arguing. I only said your ass was pretty to get a rise out of you.”
“Mission accomplished.”
“Get back here. Do your part.”
“Then don’t send me out on frivolous tasks,” she hissed.
“It wasn’t my call.”
She could practically hear his teeth grind.
“Remember the goal of tonight’s sting and get back here—now.”
Her mind flashed on her mission tonight—keeping Agent Jaidon Wright, her boyfriend and the love of her life, safe. At any moment, he could be in danger.
Sweethearts since their FBI training at Quantico, they fell madly in love in their beginning Basic Field Training Course. It had been a case of heart stopping love, making her feel all silly inside. He sent flowers to her apartment. Surprised her with chocolates. Even sang love songs to her. And best of all, he accepted her with all her silly ways.
That came with a price, though. As they grew together, he began to treat her like porcelain, fearful she’d break and leave him. Increasingly, he wanted to protect her and keep her safe. It was kind of sweet…and, kind of smothering. As she kept step with him, education-wise, he’d bristled—he’d hoped she would assume some sort of desk job after graduation.
She’d told him she wanted to be in the field, like him.
When they got assigned to this case together, he’d pitched a fit.
She knew it was love, not ego, making him react. He’d sworn to protect her and cherish her and they weren’t even married—yet.
Finally, he’d sucked it up and stood by her, all through the investigation. Jaidon was a good man. And right now, she burned with the thought of protecting him...keeping him safe. If he somehow got harmed tonight…she swallowed, not wanting to consider that possibility. No way could Jaidon die.
She lunged to her feet, glancing at the sky. Arms outstretched, hopping in a circle like a paranoid boxer, she eyed her surroundings. Shaking her head, she hurried to the lookout van.
“I’m the one who’s supposed to do the watching, not the other way around,” she muttered. “Holy crows.”
Konner let out another laugh. “Holy crows.”
She scowled and took off at a sprint.
When she got to the van, she tried to look nonchalant as she slid open the side door. Stepping inside, the weight of Agent Douglas Richter’s gaze brought her to a halt.
“Agent Richter,” she said, smoothing the front of her uniform.
More like Agent Sphincter.
Konner Levine, her co-agent on tonight’s sting, looked up from the controls of the listening device he monitored. Headphones covered his ears, marking a dark line along his white-blond, military short hair. One of the earpieces was positioned partially behind his ear so he could hear what went on in the van, as well as the third-floor apartment across the street.
As he looked at her, his blue eyes sparkled, like he was about to burst out laughing. He kept his lips pressed together, probably trying to choke back his mirth. He knew what she thought of Agent Richter. And he no doubt found humor in her mess-up in the alley, having no idea what caused it—she knew with every cell in her bloodstream she’d been observed, either by giants with wings on top of the Copley Heights building, or, more likely, one of the goons in tonight’s sting.
“Falko,” Richter said, his face impassive. “We don’t drop our ammo, ever.”
She stiffened. Stop talking to me like I’m a toddler. The muscles in her jaw clamped tight, preventing protest.
Konner let out a snort. He covered it up with a fake cough.
She let her gaze slide toward him, hoping the look she gave him drew blood.
“We don’t fuck up when we’re on a stakeout, ever.”
Kara wanted to slice Agent Sphincter’s head in two with her old wooden sword. He seemed to always make a show of her mistakes, like she was the only one who ever made them. All I did was drop a few bullets. Sweat broke out on her forehead and neck. She glanced again at Konner, hoping for a show of support.
With a quick shake of the head, he turned away. His hand reached out toward the sound controls and he began fiddling with dials.
She resumed her “stare into space” expression, keeping her awareness on the asshole next to her—the one chewing her out for no good reason.
Richter made his fingers walk across the metal make-shift desk flanking the side of the vehicle.
“You’re walking on thin ice, Agent Falko,” he continued.
Then, he pointed his finger at her and pretended to shoot.
She sucked in a breath before grinding her pearly whites. You want to can me. Point taken, asshole.
“You’ve been a screw-up since Quantico. How you made it through the academy is anyone’s guess.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. Try hard work, having to prove myself in a sea of men, put in more hours than the guys, show up to training every day exhausted, and...
“Do you know how many hours have been put into this operation?”
As cramped as she was in the van, she tried her best to assume a stance of attentiveness, along with the blank face her training had taught her. “Over three-thousand, sir.”
“Three-thousand ninety-five, Agent Falko.”
“Yes, sir.” She held her breath in check, staring at nothing.
“Are you aware how much time has been poured into tonight’s mission alone?”
“Five-hundred hours, sir.”
With me clocking in over four hundred of those hours.
Richter slammed his palm on the flat metal. It landed with a sharp, explosive thwack.
Kara flinched.
Even Konner jerked.
“Five-hundred and sixty-three. Get your facts straight,” Richter snarled. His voice lowered a few octaves. “Agent Wright’s put his life on the line with this mission. If anything goes wrong and we lose our grip on this crime syndicate, that’s a fuck up worthy of dismissal. End of your shitty career. Hours of the FBI’s time. This entire case rests on your boyfriend—my best agent—not being outed. Anything, even one dropped bullet, could compromise this entire sting.”
Her mouth assumed the dryness of the Sahara Desert.
“Understood, sir.” Her back and legs began to cramp from her tense, hunched over position.
“Take a seat,” Richter said, as if sensing her unease.
“Thank you, sir,” she said. She settled into the folding metal chair next to Konner, unsure what to do next.
“I can’t wait to nail that bastard, the mayor,” Richter said. His fingers curled into a fist.
Kara and Konner exchanged a glance. They both knew this sting went beyond catching a bunch of crooks involved in a huge narcotics trafficking, computer hacking, and money laundering scheme—it was personal for their boss.
“I’m going to grind his nuts to a pulp,” Richter said
, squeezing his fist so hard, it shook. “That fucker and I grew up together. Even our wives were close. And then he got wooed by some twenty-something, son-of-a-bitch, too-smart-for-his-fucking-britches kid. He’s conspiring with the devil and we’re going to take the devil down.” Agent Richter seemed to be wandering down his own dark rabbit-hole, reliving memories, and times of betrayal. He barked out a cold laugh. “Got to hand it to that kid. He’s a smart one. A Robin Hood by his own admission. A man for the people.” He shook his head. “Only he lets the people get away with moving merchandise, drugs, even human trafficking. And let’s not forget about murder conducted through his website, or the fact he got the mayor—my friend—involved in his evil web.”
His cold gray eyes met Kara’s. Then he looked away, his head shaking back and forth like a wind-vane, no doubt in disbelief at the depravity of Cee-El’s—tonight’s target—crimes.
Kara lifted her eyebrows at Konner.
One of Konner’s shoulders rose and fell, nearly imperceptibly.
Agent Richter’s voice lowered, mimicking the heavy New York accent favored by the guy they knew as Common Language, or Cee-El, as he was referred to around the office. “This is for the people.” He pretended to look at a camera. “And this is for you, ma.” He made a sound in the back of his throat like he was urging a horse forward. “Fucking bastard with his fucking retard name. Like by calling himself Common Language, it makes him the voice of the world.”
He resumed his real voice. “Fuck. The next video I hope to see online is his mugshot, not the shit he posts.”
Cee-El—the twenty-something young man responsible for putting an entire crime cyber-network together—often posted online videos with his face blurred out. He boasted long and loud, celebrating his success and taunting the FBI. He made the same sound and uttered the same phrase at the end of every video.
“If we don’t get that rat bastard caught tonight, heads will roll, Falko, starting with yours.”