The World Without End [Box Set]

by Nazarea Andrews

  She shakes her head. “No. When the Thrasher died, she left orders that this place be set aside for Finn O’Malley. It doesn’t matter that he left the United States voluntarily and that he might never come back. It’s his. It won’t be disturbed.”

  I slide a glance at her. It’s the first time in almost two weeks that I’ve been alone with Holly. Everything is happening, so quickly it’s hard to process all of it. And she has been at the center, implacable in her efforts to match the Blood Priestess.

  “Why am I here?” I ask.

  “Because you’re his mother. And because you are more like him than either of you would admit.” She says.

  I sit on the bed and look at her. Meet the tired, determined gaze. “What do you want, Holly?”

  “Your help. I can control the Order. Within a month or so, the priestess will no longer be a threat. I can even control the government to some degree—Omar taught me very well how to play people and manipulate what I want. But I want your help. You kept the Holdout going despite all odds.”

  “I didn’t do that alone. I’m a pariah. You know that.”

  “But you don’t think like the rest of us. We look at the world from the view of the Havens. We don’t know how to look past the walls. You do. I’ll take a pariah, if it means looking at the world in a way that will keep us all alive.”

  I stare at her for a long moment. “I’m not hiding anything, Holly. There is no end to this. The infected are part of the world we will always have. Don’t do this expecting that I’m going to pull a surprise out in a few months.”

  She smiles, a tiny thing. “You don’t need to. Be yourself. The woman who broke the world because she loved too deeply, and the woman who shaped the child who would grow into Finn O’Malley. I don’t care about a cure. I want that woman at my side. Everything is changing. Again. And I need you.”

  She shifts, straightening. “I’m leaving for the Stronghold in three days. I want you to come with me.”

  Trent is standing at the door when I emerge. The Nebraskan plain stretches out into nothing, and I see a few infected shambling along, screams echoing into the distance as they are lost in the trees.

  This is our world. Broken. Deadly. And hopeful.

  I have lived through the end of the world, lost a child and raised my son in a world of the dead. I’ve shouldered the suffocating responsibility of being the mad scientist who created the drug that dammed us all.

  I’m tired. I’m so fucking tired.

  And despite all of that. I sigh. “It’s not over yet, brother,” I murmur and Trent shifts at my side. Waits for me to say something. He’s been my guard long enough to know that I often talk to the ghosts that haunt me.

  I miss them. That is the real truth, my price of the apocalypse. It’s not the guilt. It’s that I am still here, fighting every day, too damn stubborn to quit. When all I have ever wanted was my husband and my brother and my boys. I laugh, and even to me, it sounds bitter.

  When the sun has set, and the stars begin to glitter overhead, I finally shake myself and smile at Trent. “Come on. We have a lot to do before we leave for the Stronghold.”

  He doesn’t say anything, just follows me down the little stairs, away from the house that belongs to my son. Finn made his choice—he left, and I pray that he finds somewhere safe to be happy with Nurrin.

  But there is still this world, this West that he fought so hard for. “I hope that Priestess knows who she just invited into her Stronghold,” I murmur, and behind me, I can hear Trent laughing, and my dead laugh with him.

  Scion Legacy—Book 1.

  Chapter 1

  No one wakes up and thinks, This is the day my life will change.

  We wake up and think, I forgot to set the coffee. Five more minutes. I think I’m gonna bomb that test in Stats. Did Elise give my dress back? Five more fucking minutes.

  “Farley!”

  I curse under my breath. Elise is yelling for me and that means I used up my five minutes ten minutes ago.

  “I’m awake,” I say and she sticks her head around the screen that partitions my corner of her loft from the rest of the open space. Elise would be just as happy having me sprawled across her messy loft, but I like personal space and privacy.

  Even if that space is miniscule and that privacy is pseudo.

  The TV is on in the corner as I emerge from my bed, and I frown. “Turn it up.”

  Elise makes an aggravated noise as she reaches for the remote. She’s painting her nails, the fumes making my nose wrinkle as I pour the coffee—thank God, I did set it last night.

  A classically good looking man in his mid-forties is addressing a crowd of reporters, all of them hanging on his every word.

  “The atrocities won’t stand. We need to remember that we were dying when the Houses stepped forward with the antidote to the Brakken virus and restored order. The fealty given to their lines and Scions are not only appropriate, it is their right.”

  I glance at Elise, scanning her tablet as the blood red polish dries. “What happened?”

  “HR0 bombed a coven.”

  My blood runs cold and I swallow hard to keep from rubbing away the goosebumps running down my arm.

  The human rights movements terrify me. Not because I disagree with them. I don't. I agree too much. It's terrifying because the Houses don't tolerate any dissent. Some will accept the rumblings of the movement, as long as it stays only that.

  But no House will tolerate humans attacking the covens. And--"Where did it happen?"

  Elise glances up at me, her pale eyes haunted. "Seattle."

  Fuck.

  The west coast belongs to House Klinge. And they are savage. Blood will spill tonight, and wash Seattle's streets red. I wonder how many will die to appease the fury of the House before the patriarch brings his princes to heel.

  Hundreds.

  "Go," Elise says abruptly. "You can't fix everything and the HRO knew the risks. We all do."

  I nod, and grab my coffee, heading into the shower as the Kennedy scion drones on.

  We all know the risk of crossing one of the Houses. But some are desperate enough that they no longer care.

  The sun is shining, something that is comforting as I step out of the brownstone and jog down the steps. The subway isn't far, but it's enough that the sunlight protects me--and that's done very carefully.

  Most people think any sunlight will protect them. It's why apartments became so outdated. They're wrong. But no one believes the memories of a terrified little girl, so I've learned to keep that particular nightmare to myself.

  I keep a lot to myself. More than Elise realizes.

  The office is quiet when I step in—most of the reporting staff is on assignment, and some will be scrambling to get a soundbite from the Houses.

  Not that they will—some might get the idle blood chatter, but no Scion would bother themselves with our tiny e-zine. We’re not important enough for the big boys to even notice.

  Which is fine. I flick my hair out of my eyes and grab my messages from my unpaid intern and close myself into my office without a word.

  There’s a few messages from my brother, and one from my editor. Two without a number to respond to. I frown. Most of the time, people email me. Anyone who works with knows I loathe the phone. Even Parks knows—he’s just too much of an ass to care.

  My inbox dings and I shove the messages aside as I focus on the stories waiting for me.

  Chapter 2.

  “Farley?”

  I blink, and stare at my intern. She’s a tiny little thing, and it occurs to me—not for the first time—that I have no business putting her in an office like this. We aren’t doing the smart thing—we don’t toe the House line.

  We’re too little for them to care, but I’m well aware that it’s not exactly safe.

  “What is it?”

  “You have a lunch appointment, ma’am.”

  I frown. “Since when?”

  “Hendin set it up.”

&nb
sp; I breath a curse. Kevin Hendin might be the best damn editor I’ve ever met, but he’s still a fucking pain in the ass. I swallow that thought down and save the draft I’m working on, rising and shrugging into my suit coat. “Where?”

  “Silver and Ivy.”

  I go still. Who the hell are we meeting that can afford S&I? It’s one of the finest restaurants in the city, completely human, and expensive as fuck.

  Winston took me there when I graduated from NYU. Of course, it was for a tiny glass of wine and a shared dessert—neither of us could afford more than that—but it was a sweet gesture that meant a lot, especially coming from my ridiculously practical brother.

  “Ma’am?”

  I blink out of my thoughts to focus on my intern, and snatch up my laptop and phone. Shove both with my wallet into my messenger bag and snag my glasses and notebook before I dart out.

  It’s ridiculous to use a notebook, these days. Everyone has gone digital—what was a gathering wave before Brakken—became a way of life in the aftermath. The Houses controlled everything after, and pushed tech hard. Some people believed it was out of kindness.

  It wasn’t.

  But I’ve never been blinded by the pretty veneer of the Houses or their Scions.

  Silver and Ivy is one of the last places in New York that can still maintain their human only clientele. Because they cater to the wealthy, and even in the aftermath of the plague and all the change that the Houses inflicted on us, the wealthy maintains a level of untouchability. They are protected by that comfort of security that money can buy.

  Even the wealthiest in our country could be bought by one of the Houses, but I think it amuses them to let the one percent cling to the illusion that they are still different from the rest of us.

  I step into S&I and belatedly realize that I don’t know who I’m meeting. I mutter a soft curse and the eyebrow of the host twitches in response.

  No, I suppose he isn’t used to young reporters with a gutter mouth spilling into his lunch hour. I grin, and run a hand through my hair. I’m about to fuck up his whole day.

  I amble up to where he wait and he gives me a frosty stare.

  “I’m meeting someone,” I say.

  His gaze sweeps over me and his lips curls just a little, all annoyed disdain that pisses me off.

  “And you are?”

  “Farley Hart #Destanos.”

  His eyes go wide and he pales, so much so I take a step back. Something is very fucking wrong about all of this, and Winston always told me to listen to my gut. I take another step, and a hand clamps down on my arm, rooting me to the spot.

  It’s icy and burning and so fucking unmoveable. I know, even before I let my gaze crawl up.

  Shiny boots, a pristine black suit that cost more than my degree, a startlingly white shirt with a skinny black tie. Wide shoulders, thin waist, and a hand that’s fucking huge, latched onto me.

  A ring glints on his finger and I focus on that, on the strange sigil worked into the metal.

  It’s not gold, and it sure as hell isn’t silver. It’s almost dull. Iron?

  “Oh fuck,” I mutter.

  A vampire is holding me, keeping me from bolting. And if that weren’t bad enough—it’s a fucking Blood Prince.

  Chapter 3

  “Get your fucking hands off me,” I hiss, and I’m not terribly surprised to hear the tremble in my voice.

  A Blood Prince is nothing any sane person wants to fuck with.

  “When I’m sure you won’t bolt into the daylight, we will renegotiate your personal space.” He rumbles, and I snarl. Even to my ears it sounds like a kitten batting at a lion, but he doesn’t laugh. Merely redirects his cool stare past me to the pale manager. “The room?”

  “You just lost your human only rating,” I spit as the vamp pulls me along in the manger’s wake. The vamp laughs slightly, but doesn’t say anything as the manager leads us down a narrow, empty hallway. He unlocks a door and stands silent as the vampire pulls me through.

  The Blood Prince releases me as the door closes and I hear the click of the lock as I spring at it, only to slam into the impenetrable wall of another vampire. I stare at him, shocked.

  Its been almost fifteen years since Brakken ended and I’ve lived most without a single encounter with a vampire. It’s been a good fucking run.

  But I’m facing two right now, and I’m locked into a room with them.

  “I thought the House Armstad supported consensual feeding.” I say.

  The Blood Prince laughs, and I turn to him. I don’t know or care who the nameless guard is—the prince is who I need to worry about.

  When the Houses first shed their shadows, it was to stop the plague. Mutual assured destruction forced their hand—too many dead humans would hurt their own numbers and they were really fucking good at self-preservation.

  The virus was a particularly nasty and virulent strain of the Black Plague. We were dying by the thousands, when the houses stepped in.

  And for a few months, while the disease receded and we took a breath, we were all grateful. We had our world and our lives back.

  But we didn’t know the cost then.

  It was like opening Pandora’s box. Once the truth was out, it was out. The vampires were real and they were tired of taking a backseat. The patriarchs and their princes kept the lower vamps in line, for the most part, but even they were tired of the shadows.

  Staring at the Prince in front of me, I wonder if we wouldn’t have been better off to let the entire world rot, than to be beholden to these leeches.

  “Sit down, Farley,” he says, softly.

  I don’t move and he smiles, a tight, closed lipped thing.

  Not a display of dominance. What the fuck? A vampire—a Blood Prince—is bothering to show manners. To me.

  That, more than anything else, moves my feet, and I shuffle toward the table, dropping gracelessly into the chair across from him. The guard—a silent vampire with dark hair and darker eyes—stands by the door.

  “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Farley.”

  “Who are you?” I ask, my voice hoarse. “And what the hell do you want with me? House Law says you need consent to feed, and Armstad follows that law.”

  He nods, “Good girl. You know your laws and houses. I’m impressed.”

  I lean back. “I didn’t do it to impress you, dumbass,” I snap. “I did it to stay alive and it’s kept me far away from your kind.”

  Something sparks in his eyes, and he lifts his wine glass.

  Ignores my insult and words completely as he takes a sip of the thick red—dear god, I hope that’s wine. My stomach pitches unpleasantly.

  “There are two things for you to realize, Farley. First—I don’t give a fuck why you know your laws. I’m simply glad you do—it will make my job so much easier.”

  I swallow hard, and say, “And the second?”

  He smiles at me, and this time, his fangs are on full display, long and sharp, and tinted just slightly red from the wine. All the humor has drained from his gaze as he says, “I’m not of House Armstad. And I don’t give a fuck about consent laws.”

  Coming December 2015

  Nazarea Andrews is an avid reader and tends to write the stories she wants to read. She loves chocolate and coffee almost as much as she loves books, but not quite as much as she loves her kids. She lives in south Georgia with her husband, daughters, and overgrown dog.

  You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Booktropolous.

  Read More from Nazarea:

  The World Without a Future | The Horde Without End

  The Future Without Hope | The Ruin of the World

  Edge of the Falls | Chasing the Wind

  This Love | Beautiful Broken | Sweet Ruin

  Girl Lost | Forever Found

  Before & After

  Gentle Chains | Violent Freedom

  The Blood Scion (Dec 2015)

  Personal Apocalypse (2016)

  Illicit Desire (wri
ting as Taylor Michaels)