E.V.I.E.: 13 Slayers, 13 Missions

by Lexi C. Foss

  The Rogue Captain (Book 6)

  The Determined Hero (Book 7)

  2 Lovers Series:

  Text 2 Lovers (Book 1)

  Hate 2 Lovers (Book 2)

  Thieves 2 Lovers (Book 3)

  Pretty Little Dolls Series:

  Pretty Stolen Dolls (Book 1)

  Pretty Lost Dolls (Book 2)

  Pretty New Doll (Book 3)

  Pretty Broken Dolls (Book 4)

  The V Games Series:

  Vlad (Book 1)

  Ven (Book 2)

  Vas (Book 3)

  Four Fathers Books:

  Pearson

  Four Sons Books:

  Camden

  Elite Seven Books:

  Gluttony

  Greed

  Royal Bastards MC:

  Koyn

  Truths and Lies Duet:

  Hidden Truths

  Stolen Lies

  Books Only Sold on K’s Website and Eden Books:

  The Wild

  The Free

  Hale

  Bad Bad Bad

  This is War, Baby

  Like Dragonflies

  The Breaking the Rules Series:

  Broken (Book 1)

  Wrong (Book 2)

  Scarred (Book 3)

  Mistake (Book 4)

  Crushed (Book 5 – a novella)

  The Vegas Aces Series:

  Rock Country (Book 1)

  Rock Heart (Book 2)

  Rock Bottom (Book 3)

  The Becoming Her Series:

  Becoming Lady Thomas (Book 1)

  Becoming Countess Dumont (Book 2)

  Becoming Mrs. Benedict (Book 3)

  Alpha & Omega Duet:

  Alpha & Omega (Book 1)

  Omega & Love (Book 2)

  Elizabeth Gray Books:

  Blue Hill Blood

  Cognati

  Blue Bloods

  By Kimbra Swain

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  About the Author

  1

  The Good News

  SAMARIE

  Gretchen Taylor had been in my workout classes for a week before she decided she wanted to join my dance instruction classes, too. She wanted to “add some fun” to her exercise routine. I admired her for the drive she’d shown. When I first consulted with her about starting in my studio, we agreed that she was nearly seventy pounds overweight, but she attacked her daily routine like a skinny girl.

  Her high cheek bones and glittering blue eyes gave her facial structure a unique look. She honestly could have been a plus-sized model. However, despite two weeks of hard work, she hadn’t lost a pound.

  I didn’t know what else I could do to help her. She swore that she wasn’t bingeing at home, but something was counteracting the extreme cardio that she had put her body through.

  I liked Gretchen, but she was in my last class each afternoon, and she liked to talk.

  “I just don’t know what else I can do. I mean, a girl can only eat so much kale,” she said with a giggle.

  “I don’t particularly like kale myself,” I replied as I picked up the dirty towels from around the studio that my students refused to put in the bin. My cleaning crew would arrive in about an hour, and I liked to be out of the building when they arrived. “I say, let’s keep up the work. I’m sure it will pay off. You are doing great.”

  She sighed. I didn’t have any magic answers for her. I mean, I could suggest one thing I knew, but I doubted that she wanted to go that route.

  “Oh, my, I’m keeping you again. I’m so sorry, Sam,” she said.

  “No problem. I’ll see you next week,” I said. It was my last class of the week. The Saturday and Sunday classes were run by a cousin of mine. Both of us had learned the traditional dances of the Egyptian people as we were growing up.

  My father was the Egyptian ambassador to England. He came to London in 1993. He met my mother here, and in a whirlwind romance, they were quickly married. I was born in late 1994. Then, my father stayed on the road between Egypt and London. Eventually, my mother got tired of the girlfriends here, and the mistresses in Egypt, and she packed her bags and me. We moved to New York City when I was sixteen.

  Last year, my mother got sick. The doctors took forever to find out what was wrong. And while my parents had been separated for a very long time, my father attended to her side during her last days. I supposed guilt drove him to do it, but my mother scolded me for disliking him. She also insisted that I move back to England with him after her death.

  Father had an expensive flat in Kensington that he never used, so after mother’s death, I moved back to England, where I was quietly trying to live my life. Occasionally, some paparazzi would have a slow week and follow me from my studio to my favorite take-out places. It was scandalous that the Egyptian Ambassador’s fitness guru daughter liked gelato and pastries.

  Gretchen continued to chatter as I grabbed my purse and keys. I slipped into a light jacket just to cover my sweaty work-out clothes. I also strapped my Tahtib stick, which had its own holster and slung it over my shoulder. Tahtib was a form of stick fighting in Egypt, and I’d learned how to fight, as well as, dance with the stick known as an Assaya. The stick had become very useful combined with a certain set of skills that I picked up in New York City.

  I wasn’t stopping for take-out today. As I locked the door out front, the talkative Miss Taylor spoke her good-byes and sauntered toward the tube station.

  It was only a couple of blocks to my flat, so I usually walked home. I surveyed the area as I always did and began to move at a brisk pace toward my home. Immediately, I knew I was being followed. The holster on my back had quick break Velcro which would allow me to jerk the stick from my back to fight. I probably would have been best if I pulled it the moment, I knew I was being followed, but I had hoped that I’d make it home before whoever was tracking me got the drop on me.

  Turning the last corner before getting to my block, I looked back over my shoulder to see if I could see who was following me, when cold hands latched onto my shoulders and shoved me against the back wall of a café. We were obscured by a bank of shrubs and the darkness of the alley behind the shop.

  “Let me go,” I hissed.

  The familiar smell of spicy sweet cardamom and the delicate scent of roses drifted around me. I hadn’t seen him or felt him in a very long time. He’d moved so quickly that I couldn’t get my hand on my stick.

  “Samarie Bashir, I have missed you,” he said. His voice was deeper than normal which mean that he was hungry. Either for blood or for sex. He wasn’t going to find either with me.

  “What do you want, Jasper?”

  He lowered his head and his hair brushed against my cheek as he placed a delicate kiss on my lower neck at my shoulder blade. In true vampire fashion, he allowed his fangs to rake over the sensitive skin of my neck.

  Goosebumps are involuntary. I couldn’t have stopped them if I had wanted.

  Baron Jasper Eden, heir to the Eden fortune, had been a passing fling since I’d returned to London. He was also a vampire. He’d sought me out, because he knew I’d been trained in New York City to kill his kind. He offered his services, but I told him that there was no branch of my former organization in London, and that I didn’t need his help.

  He was charming and persistent, and maybe I had indulged his curiosities too long. The moment I started wanting him, I pushed him away. I had killed monsters like him. You can keep your enemies close, but don’t screw them. Thankfully, it hadn’t gotten that far with us.

  “I hear that we are going to be working together,” he said, as he placed another kiss behind my ear. When I tried to shove him away, he caught my wrists and held my hands over my head which brought me face to face with his d
aring blue eyes and playful smirk.

  Jasper wasn’t your typical brooding vampire. He wore white pants and a blue and yellow striped polo with a scarf around his neck. His hair was shaggy but styled. He was on the cover of every Pap magazine in London. The playboy Baron was out on the town with another woman on his arm. I never wanted to be that woman.

  “I’m not working with you,” I said.

  “You are so beautiful when you are mad,” he said.

  “Would you just stop. You know you aren’t going to seduce me, so what’s with the whole dominant crap?” I asked, wriggling my hands.

  “Well, I tried to be the good guy. I joked and gave you nice things. I sent you flowers. Maybe you need a bad boy.” He lowered his chin and looked at me seriously.

  I busted out laughing. “Jasper, you are hilarious. The next thing you are going to tell me is that you have a sex dungeon in your basement.”

  “I wouldn’t call it a sex dungeon.”

  “Oh, yeah? What do you call it?” I asked.

  “A playroom.” He lowered his voice again, and it just didn’t fit coming out of his preppy boy face. I laughed so hard that he released my wrists and began to pout.

  “Poor baby,” I said, patting him on the cheek.

  “Did you miss me?”

  “Not really.” I had missed having a friend. Honestly, I didn’t meet many people. I didn’t want to hook-up with any of the people at my studio. They were customers and that seemed a tad too shady for me. I drank coffee and tea at cafes. I loved take-out. Most of all, I loved being at home. It’s hard for a homebody to find another homebody.

  I realized something greasy had transferred from his cheek to my fingers.

  “Sunscreen,” he said.

  “Does it work?”

  “Am I burning?”

  “You are in the shade behind a building in an alleyway,” I scoffed.

  He held his hands out wide and walked out into the sunset, which should have fried his skin. “See, no burns.”

  “Bloody hell, the vamps have sunscreen. I’ll never get a moment to rest now. I’m just glad there aren’t many of you here anymore.”

  “Thanks to E.V.I.E., London has been vamp free for many years. Until lately.”

  “What do you mean until lately?”

  I knew that there were still vampires in the peerage of England, but they kept to their manor houses in the country. They’d found alternatives to feeding on blood. Now, it seemed that they had very powerful sunscreen, too.

  “You haven’t heard the reports of the missing young people from these underground parties and raves?”

  “Jasper, you know I don’t watch the news. It only makes me anxious if I hear something about my father.”

  “You don’t like your father,” he reminded me.

  “I don’t, but he is funding my studio and owns my apartment,” I said.

  He stepped back into the alley. He offered his arm to me. “Allow me to walk you home?”

  “No,” I said, walking past him. He’d gotten me thinking about people disappearing and my father. Two things I didn’t want to hear.

  He followed me. “You can run from me now, but I’ll be seeing you soon. You still have my number, right?”

  “No, my dog ate it,” I called over my shoulder. I heard his footsteps slow until he stopped.

  “You don’t have a dog!”

  I didn’t a have dog, and I still had his phone number. My heart raced as I tried to get away from the alluring creature of the night and see what I could find out about missing people in London. It was like my training had kicked in immediately, and I knew what I needed to do. I also knew it would be a long night.

  2

  The Bad News

  SAMARIE

  While living in New York City, I was taking dance classes and going to an exclusive private high school for the kids of celebrities, politicians, and other public figures when my principal called me to his office. He introduced me to a man he called his friend. James Smith told me about an opportunity to learn martial arts and to perfect my fighting skills. I was already competing in several disciplines, but he promised to further my education. He told me that once I was eighteen, then I could decide if I was interested.

  “Is there money in it?” I asked.

  “Sometimes,” he responded. He narrowed his eyes at me and switched his leaning foot. He wore very expensive shoes and a pin-striped suit, but it didn’t hide the danger in his eyes. In the way he leaned and the way he moved; I knew he could strike in an instant. It was as if his muscles coiled under that pricey fabric, putting pressure on the seams of the jacket and pants. James Smith was a killer, and it intrigued me.

  “I’m interested. My birthday is next week. Classes end this week. I’m ready,” I said.

  “You aren’t ready, but we will make you ready,” he said with a smirk. He leaned sideways to push himself off the bookcase behind him. I saw the butt of his gun under his suit. The campus was strictly a gun-free zone except for our security guards, who weren’t your common rent-a-cops. They were all ex-military. I went to school with some famous and infamous people.

  “How do I contact you?” I asked as he sauntered out of the room.

  “We will contact you,” he said.

  That meeting propelled me into the world of the supernatural. My mother had already been contacted and she’d given permission for them to talk to me. She buzzed about the opportunity to broaden my horizons and learn new things. I wasn’t sure what James Smith had told her, but it wasn’t what he had conveyed to me. She wasn’t sick then. It made me sad to think about how vibrant she was.

  Two days after our graduating convocation, I came home with some friends to find another dangerous stranger in my home. He wore a black suit with a black shirt. His eyes were so dark, that I almost thought they were black, too. My friends dismissed themselves when they saw the man standing in our living room. My mother sat up straight on a sofa, and she looked like she had been crying.

  “Mom, what’s wrong? Is it Dad?” I asked, running to her side.

  She hugged me tightly, as the man looked over his shoulder at us.

  “No, dear. This is Saul Augustus Pennington. He’s looking for you,” she said.

  The dark man reeked of danger, and I stiffened as he took two steps toward me.

  “I see why you were so highly sought-after Miss Bashir. Tell me, in what martial arts have you trained and mastered?”

  “Aikiko, Kendo, Tae Kwon Do, and Tahtib.” I only listed a couple. The truth was my father had enrolled me in every training that he could since I was younger. I knew a little bit of everything. But those four were the ones I’d competed in publicly.

  The man walked over to the fireplace in the room, which wasn’t burning. He looked over the photos on the mantle, stopping to pick up the only photo in the entire house of my parents and me. Mom only kept that one reminder of my father. She said it was a happier time and a good memory.

  “Your father was very adamant about your training. I wonder why?” he mused while studying the photo. “Too bad he isn’t here.”

  “Is there something you want, Mr. Pennington?” I asked.

  He sat the photo down, then turned to face me. He lifted his upper lip in a sneer and two elongated fangs stretched down over his bottom lip. “I want you, Miss Bashir.”

  My mother began to cry, and she buried her face in my shoulder. Two other dark men stepped into the room. One from the dining room, and the other from the hallway. Each one snarled showing me their fangs. I sat in stunned horror. My mind tried to dismiss what it was seeing as something fake. When I finally grasped the idea that it was real, I gently pushed my mother away and stood to my feet and planted them, readying myself for a fight.

  Pennington tilted his head back, releasing a dark laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked, lifting my hands to fight.

  “It seems the recruiters at E.V.I.E. have found a spunky addition to their list of slayers. Get the m
other,” he ordered the other two men. They rushed forward faster than I was prepared. I managed to get kick one in the chest, but the other had already dragged my mother away before I could react.

  “Leave her alone!” my mother screamed.

  The moment I took to look at her, Mr. Pennington had his hand around my throat, squeezing harder than I thought possible. I tried using every method I knew to get away from him, but his grip was too tight.

  “No offense, Miss Bashir, but I’ve found that it’s easier to deal with E.V.I.E. before you become part of their indoctrination. Now that I have you, I think I’ll keep you,” he said with lust in his eyes.

  I jerked, struggled, and kicked, but I couldn’t break free of his grip. The man I’d kicked into the floor stood up and his eyes darted toward the front door. Someone knocked.

  “Help!” I screamed before Pennington squeezed off my air.

  The door crashed open, and James Smith stepped into the room. His eyes narrowed at the man who had begun to crush my windpipe.

  “Let her go, Pennington,” he ordered.

  My mother hit the floor in a heap with a loud thud. My eyes darted to her, and the man holding her had disappeared. My attention was drawn back to Smith who was being jumped by the vampire. With two quick movements, Smith had the man thrown over his shoulder and a short wooden stake buried in the man’s chest. His body burst into a cloud of dust with an unceremonious poof.

  Pennington growled. “Don’t move, Smith, or she dies.”

  “You are going to kill her anyway,” Smith said with no remorse. The other man moved slowly toward Smith who held another stake in his hand. “This can end two ways. You let her go and run. Or I kill you and your minion.”