Defiance

by Adrienne Monson

  Table of Contents

  Front Matter

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  End Matter

  THE BLOOD INHERITANCE TRILOGY

  BOOK TWO

  a novel

  ADRIENNE MONSON

  Provo, Utah

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2015 by Adrienne Monson

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior return permission of the publisher.

  First Paperback Edition: February 2015

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy or copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  For information on subsidiary rights, please contact the publisher at rights@jollyfishpress.com. For information, please visit our website at www.jollyfishpress.com, or write us at PO Box 1773, Provo, UT 84603-1773.

  Printed in the United States of America

  THIS TITLE IS ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN EBOOK.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015930146

  ISBN 978-1-631630-06-4

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To Adam. I love you more than words can express.

  Chapter 1

  January 9th

  The street was deserted. It was getting late, and anyone who knew this end of town stayed away when it got dark. Walking down the darkling sidewalk, Leisha was the perfect victim. Her head was down, her long hair hiding the sides of her face. Her clothes were loose, but clean. Any predator out was bound to target her.

  That’s how she liked it. It was amusing to know the men who would attack her believed that they were in control. They had no idea.

  A scuffling sound caught her ear, and Leisha knew she was not alone. The person nearby wasn’t any ordinary human predator. This one actually posed a threat to her.

  She didn’t bother to look around. This stalker wouldn’t be seen in the muggy night, not yet. She walked into a vacant parking lot with plenty of space to maneuver in case it came to a fight. Turning to face her pursuer, she reached over her shoulder and pulled a machete from its spine sheath. There was a chance she wouldn’t need it, but she couldn’t take any chances when an immortal was near.

  As the man entered the lot, she caught a hint of dark hair and light skin. She suppressed the flutter of disappointment; it was not Tafari. It had been six months since she’d almost killed him—ironically while trying to save his life. Maybe he was holding that against her.

  This was an immortal named Sean. He stopped a few feet away from her with a sword already held loosely in his right hand.

  “Hello Sean,” Leisha said with pleasant sarcasm. “It’s been a long time. Care to explain why you decided to drop by so suddenly?”

  He sneered. “There was nothin’ sudden ‘bout it. I’ve been trackin’ you down fer months,” he said in his Scottish brogue. “It took a while ta find you, but I finally did. As fer my reason,” he smiled wickedly, “why, that would be good ol’ fashioned revenge.” He pointed his sword at her. “It’s your fault that half of our council was slaughtered, and Tafari just ain’t himself no more. You and that twit of a girl turned my world into a hellish nightmare.” He crouched into a fighting stance. “And now, yer gonna pay!”

  Leisha matched his fighting stance. She was not surprised at being blamed for what the vampires did to the council. She hadn’t been in league with them at that time, but she had certainly made it possible for them to infiltrate the immortals’ lair, even if it had not been her intention.

  She raised her machete. “I don’t want to fight you, Sean. Out of respect for Tafari, I’ll walk away without a backward glance, but you have to promise not to track me down again.”

  Snorting loudly, the immortal took two steps closer. “Nothin’ is gunna stop me from killin’ you this night. I’m gunna cut off yer head and put it on a pike fer all immortals ta see!”

  The scenario was incredibly similar to the last time they’d fought. Leisha had tried to reason with him then, too. She could see in Sean’s eyes that he wouldn’t be swayed. Clamping down her regret, she gave her best haughty attitude. “I can tell you won’t be talked out of this. So instead,” she shrugged, “I’ll simply have to kill you. On the up side, it will be good to drink an immortal’s blood again. I need to feed anyway, and your blood will sustain me for some time.” She winked at him. “You just saved me the trouble of killing a human tonight.”

  Sean growled and raised his sword as he lunged forward. Leisha deftly blocked his blow and pounced, swinging her machete in a powerful counter strike. He jumped away before her blade struck the skin, but a piece of fabric from his shirt drifted to the filthy pavement.

  The immortal saw the tear gaping open above his navel and his sage-green eyes glared at her through the darkness. Once again, he came forward, his sword missed her head and jarred into her raised machete. He aimed blow after blow at her while Leisha held him off.

  The old highlander was aggressive at his blows, but Leisha defended herself deftly, thanks to her honed reflexes. After a few repeats of the same attack and defense, Leisha suddenly went on the attack, dropping into a spinning kick that smashed him to the ground.

  She pounced again, landing on his stomach. She seized his wrist, and twisted it. Sean dropped his sword with a grunt of pain, but lashed out with his other hand, punching her in the jaw. The blow snapped her head to the side, but she stayed astride him.

  It was enough of a distraction to chop at the wrist holding her machete. She held her weapon, however, and smacked him with her free hand.

  Sean snarled, his frustration peaking. Glaring up at her, he spat in her face.

  With a grunt of disgust, Leisha wiped her face on her left shoulder. Quick as snake, Sean twisted his weight, and suddenly he was atop her. His body pinned her down, his lips contorting with fury, his eyes raging like a mad man’s.

  Gaining control, he seized her throat with both hands before she could react. Sean smirked as her windpipe threatened to crush under the pressure.

  Suddenly, Leisha felt a tremor rush through her body. It felt like electrocution, but without the shock of electricity. The sensation vanished as quickly as it had come, and Leisha realized Sean’s grip had loosened a little. His attention seemed to turn inward for an instant. Taking advantage of the moment, she swung her machete as hard as s
he could, sinking it deep into his shoulder.

  Grunting, Sean let go of her throat, and Leisha rolled atop him again. Sean snarled and scratched at her face, leaving deep gouges in her cheek.

  Sucking in her breath to keep from crying out, Leisha swung her machete down into Sean’s neck. Despite the blow, tendons and muscle tissue still connected most of his neck. She hadn’t even cut into his spine. But the wound wasn’t healing. She saw the life drain out of his eyes. Wasting no time, she bent down to drink the sweet nectar of his blood.

  As she moved toward his neck, she remembered drinking Tafari’s blood. It had instilled her with unbelievable power. She remembered what it had felt like having that energy humming through her body. She licked her lips in anticipation.

  She pulled her machete out of his throat and began to gulp down the blood.

  Leisha had already taken two large swallows, when she choked, jerking away and coughing uncontrollably until she vomited on the pavement. The blood tasted like normal human blood, not like an immortal’s. But human blood should not have made her sick!

  The combined scent of vomit and blood caused Leisha’s stomach to convulse. She stood after a few moments of dry heaving. Her hands trembled slightly and she still felt a little queasy. Shocked and confused, she stared down at Sean’s lifeless body. What had he done to his blood to make it undrinkable? Even the smell repulsed her.

  She shook her head and began walking back toward her car, just a few blocks away. Sheathing the machete as she walked, she pondered the disturbing events of the night.

  If Sean had found her, that meant that Samantha’s father, Mason Campbell, could find them as well. This meant they had to move again, and fast. Leisha sighed at the inconvenience, but there was no help for it. She really didn’t want to tell Samantha about this, but they had agreed to keep no secrets from each other. She would keep her word.

  Leisha smiled to herself, despite her roiling stomach. These past months living with the teenager had been nothing if not enlightening. Samantha had been telling Leisha almost too much, just to be certain that she wasn’t keeping anything from the vampire. Leisha understood, of course, that Samantha was trying to make amends; after all, it was her deception that had led to the deaths of half the immortals’ council.

  Leisha had explained time and again that Samantha was too young and could not be held entirely responsible for her actions. After all, Ptah and Annette had used extremely frightening tactics on the poor child to get her to cooperate. But that didn’t appear to ease Samantha’s conscience.

  Leisha spotted her beat up Toyota Camry parked on the side of the street. She had taken the car tonight because she would be in the crime-saturated downtown part of Cincinnati. She didn’t want to deal with a stolen vehicle while she was trying to find a suitable victim. She grimaced, irritated at the reminder her appetite had not been sated. Then Leisha realized… she was not experiencing any hunger pangs.

  Shrugging it off, she decided to worry about that later. At the moment, she wanted to go home and think. She had to figure out how Sean found her and what he meant about Tafari and the other immortals. Was it really that chaotic right now? She wondered if Tafari thought of her as much as she thought of him. Sighing, she scolded herself for being so sentimental.

  Just before she reached her vehicle, a man stepped out of the shadows of the nearest building. Leisha jumped. She hadn’t heard his heart beating—still couldn’t hear his heart beating. In fact, she couldn’t detect any other distant sounds, which she usually ignored as white noise.

  He chuckled. “She looks like some fun, eh?” He spoke in a Spanish accent.

  Feeling a hand on her back, Leisha whipped around to see a tall man in a wife-beater tank. He held strands of her hair between his fingers and raised them to his nose. After a deep sniff, he licked her locks. “I get her first.”

  A new voice called out from the side. “It’s my turn to go first!”

  Leisha counted eight men altogether. Half of them were quite muscular and could hold their own. The others looked like they were probably on the low end of the gang’s hierarchy. The closer they came, the more she could smell a combination of liquor and unwashed body, scents that should have hit her nostrils from a hundred feet away.

  Pushing away the curiosity at her inhibited abilities, Leisha decided to give the men a chance to walk away. And if they didn’t, she certainly wouldn’t want anyone else to have to deal with this gang tonight.

  She pulled her hair away from the tall one. “Gentlemen,” she said calmly. “I’m really not looking for a fight here, so why don’t you look for your ‘fun’ elsewhere?”

  They all snickered and continued to move in. Leisha shrugged. “Fine, but remember, you asked for it.”

  With that, she smashed the heel of her hand into the nose of the guy with the hair fetish. While her blow landed with perfect precision, it lacked her usual strength. The bone and cartilage should have shot into his brain, killing him instantly. Instead, only a little blood spurted over his mouth, and his face twisted in rage.

  After staring in shock for a moment, Leisha shook herself and tried to kick the man at her side. Impossibly, he caught her foot and twisted it, sending jolts of searing, stabbing pain shooting through her ankle.

  An unfamiliar sensation of panic stole her breath. She reached for her machete and pulled it out, only to have it yanked away before she could use it. Hands closed in over her stomach, more snaked over her shoulders, and then even more over her hips and legs, like an endless mass of tentacles creeping over every inch of her body.

  Leisha struggled in earnest now, punching and kicking where she could. Her arms and feet were bound by the live shackles until one of the men pushed her. As she fell to the pavement, a scream of genuine terror wrenched itself from her lungs.

  Chapter 2

  “Math sucks,” grumbled Samantha. She glanced at the clock to see that it was past ten.

  Hearing laughter from the right, she turned to send a good-natured glare at Spencer, one of her classmates. He raised his dark eyebrows at her to say, “What?”

  “You have no compassion.” She grabbed his empty glass and went to the sink to get him more water. He always commented on how clean her house was when he came over. She supposed that, since Spencer had three siblings, it was harder to avoid clutter.

  “Come on, Sandy. It’s really not that hard. You’re just complicating things.”

  Trying not to react to the sound of her new name, Samantha wondered if she’d ever get used to it. She didn’t think of Leisha as Angela, and definitely couldn’t think of herself as a Sandy.

  When she didn’t respond, Spencer ran a hand through his brown hair. “Look, you’ve got most of the answers right. It’s only these last four that have you stumped.”

  She sat back at the oak table and picked up her pencil. Her fingers brushed his in the process, and he turned his brown eyes to her. Samantha felt a spark between them and couldn’t bring herself to look away. Spencer began to lean his head closer, his eyes on her lips. Samantha froze for a second, tremors cascading down her belly, but she turned away before he could kiss her.

  She didn’t look at him as he sighed. “I don’t get you, Sandy. You act like you want me around, but whenever I want to . . . you know . . . take it up a notch, you turn into an ice queen.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Do you want me to leave you alone?” Samantha shook her head and watched him frown before he said, “Why does this have to be platonic?”

  Well, for one thing, you don’t even know my name. “Spencer, I don’t want a boyfriend in high school. It’s as simple as that. You’re a great friend, but that’s all I want right now.”

  A picture of Nik came into her mind, with his vivid hazel eyes and sandy hair. She couldn’t remember him smiling much during her stay with the vampires, but he always had an amused crinkle at the corners of his eyes. Samantha brushed the memory away. Though they emailed back and forth whenever possible, they had not spent any time toge
ther in more than six months. There was no reason for her to think of him whenever Spencer tried to make a move.

  Spencer looked like he was about to argue when the doorbell rang. Happy for an excuse to end the conversation, Samantha sprang into the front room and answered the door. The frigid, wintry air hit her before she could even see who had rung the bell.

  Two policemen stood on the porch, both looking grim. The one on the left spoke. “Are you Sandra Templeton?”

  “Yes,” she answered, eyeing them warily.

  “And your sister is Angela Templeton?”

  She nodded, still unsure what to think.

  “I’m afraid your sister was attacked earlier this evening. She’s been taken to Memorial Hospital.”

  “Oh no!” Samantha gasped. She imagined doctors discovering Leisha’s secret, poking and prodding her while they called the government. That would lead to her father and all kinds of horrible experiments. When she got Leisha out of the compound last time, the vampire’s arms had been crushed by a sledge hammer. They’d done that to see how much pain she could withstand before blacking out.

  “Would you like us to drive you there?” the second officer asked.

  “I have my own car, thanks.” The officer gave her the information to find Leisha at the hospital, and then they left. Samantha turned, only to run into Spencer. His arms came around her and held tight.

  “Don’t worry, Sandy. I’m sure she’ll be ok.”

  Samantha wormed out of his embrace and forced a smile up at him. “I know she is. But I have to go now.” She went to the closet and slipped on her sandals. “Thanks for your help, Spencer. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  His brow furrowed for a moment, and then he seemed to mentally shrug. “Call me if you need me, no matter how late.”

  “Thanks.” She squeezed his hand as they walked out the door of her two-story home, then ran to the driveway and hopped into her old Yugo. Leisha still wouldn’t let her drive any of the nicer cars. The vampire claimed she lacked experience since she’d just gotten her driver’s license a few months ago.