“You’re the only mortal who can do it.”
“There isn’t enough of my blood to go around.”
“I’m working on it.”
I stared at him. Even after everything we’d been through, real and fake blended together seamlessly with him, confusing any of my attempts to tell the difference.
His head snapped to the left. “Someone’s coming. We’ll have to work out the details later.”
“You said no one was—”
“There’s no time to argue. Ally with the forest community. I’ll keep in touch.” He swiped the card. The gate clicked open.
He dug in his pocket. “One more thing to keep your hope and your faith alive. Consider it a promise from me that I won’t let you down. I’ll give it to you if you swear not to die out there.”
“What is it?”
“Hurry.” Cara craned her head around, searching for approaching guards.
I scanned the bridge too. All was quiet. So far.
Alex held up a snowflake-shaped hair clip with a missing prong.
Everything else melted away. Cara’s panting disappeared. The chill of the night air became blunted. A burning agony embedded itself deep in my throat. “Sammie.”
“I stole this from you after I got you out of the torture chamber.”
“Why?”
“Samantha told me she’d lost it, and I was going to return it to her—at the time.”
My knees threatened to buckle. I went to snatch the hair comb from his fingers, but he whipped his hand back.
“I told you the truth. That you could not see her and I could not help her because I no longer had free access to her.”
“You lied to me!” I yelled.
“Shh!” Cara hissed. “Someone will hear.”
I shook my head, hands balled into fists. “I don’t care. Let them come.”
“Abarron will kill you.”
“Suck marrow.” I brandished my stake.
In a blur, Alex twisted my wrist and wrenched my arm behind my back. I cried out as shocks of hot pain streaked up my nerves. “Listen carefully. She knows you’re okay. You know she’s okay. Be content that she wanted you to have this as a promise you’ll be reunited some day.”
Here I was, at the brink of freedom, pinned by a Vie who stole my sister, my life, and my world.
“She’s alive,” I said.
“Yes,” Alex replied.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“You don’t.”
Cara stared at me, her forehead wrinkled and mouth thinned in a stricken expression. “Trust him, Justin.”
“I can’t.”
Alex whispered in my ear. “You need to survive, and the only way to do that is to leave the city. I will keep my word. Will you?”
I lifted my gaze to the stars above. I had to trust a Vie. Could I?
“Justin.” His grip tightened.
“All right. I’ll promise you something. I promise to live. I promise to return to New City and make you bring me to Sammie. I promise to kill you if you don’t.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He released me and tucked Sammie’s clip in my palm.
I pressed it and the stake to my chest and turned to the gate, sucking in a deep breath before the final plunge.
A firm hand pressed into my back and shoved me outside.
I spun in time to catch Cara, who stumbled toward me, eyes wide and mouth open in surprise.
The gate locked.
We were free.
I’d like to give a huge thanks to Vicki Leigh who acquired my little scifi dystopian duology for Curiosity Quills. With her help and a fabulous team of editors, cover artists, and designers, new life has been breathed into what was once the Endure series. Justin and Alex have long been my favorite characters so I am forever grateful they have this second chance to greet the world.
Thanks also to my current editor, Michael Cristiano. I’m super stoked I made you laugh out loud and that I was able to surprise you with a few plot twists. #winning
Lisa Gus, Clare Dugmore, and Andrew Buckley and the rest of the CQ team—you guys are amazing! Couldn’t ask for a better group of folks to work with. Thank you.
As always, thanks to my Momma, who has one hundred percent all the time forever and ever amen been behind me no matter what I do. Your encouragement has taken me to the proverbial moon and back, and sometimes further.
Finally, to Ronald, who has never given up on Endure, even when I had. * hugs *
Laura Diamond is a board-certified psychiatrist currently specializing in emergency psychiatry. She is also an author of all things young adult—both contemporary and paranormal. An avid fan of sci-fi, fantasy, and anything magical, she thrives on quirk, her lucid dreams, and coffee. When she’s not working or writing, she can be found sniffing books or drinking a latte at the bookstore, or at home pondering renovations to her 225 year old fixer upper, all while obeying the whims of her feline overlords, of course.
Now that you have completed this book, we hope you will leave a review so that other readers may benefit from your perspective. Authors like Laura Diamond live and die by your reviews, after all!
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Chiaroscuro, by Matthew S. Cox
(http://bit.ly/261SBRS)
A demonic possession brings Father Antonio Molinari, a Vatican investigator, to France, where two local clergy lead him to a captured vampire child who seems more a little girl and not the fiend he expects.
Curiosity draws him close; compassion proves fatal, and he awakes as one of the undead he once hunted. In the dark away from God’s sight, he struggles to keep his faith, searching for meaning in the divine plan and a way to save the soul of an innocent child—before the darkness claims his.
The Vampires’ Last Lover, by Aiden James with Patrick Burdine
(http://bit.ly/1nwHJE6)
Txema Ybarra should be enjoying college life and her entrance into adulthood. And for a moment she does… until the vampires show up. Txema is one of only a handful of females who bear an unusual ‘twin teardrop’ birthmark on her neck. Caught in the middle of this war after all the other bearers of the birthmark are murdered, Txema must race to save her blood, as well as her very life, to ensure the survival of Les Amantes de Vampire. Otherwise, Txema will be the last one…the vampires’ last lover.
Moon Bayou, by J.R. Rain & Rod Kierkegaard, Jr.
(http://bit.ly/1FBDfZb)
J. R. Rain’s popular vampire for hire private detective, Samantha Moon, is on a case in New Orleans. While solving her present day mystery, she is catapulted backwards in time by a voodoo ceremony to pre-civil war New Orleans during the days of Marie Laveau and must somehow find her way back to the present—and the loved ones she’s left behind.
The Curse Merchant, by J.P. Sloan
(http://bit.ly/1pRNMH7)
Baltimore socialite Dorian Lake makes his living crafting hexes and charms, manipulating karma for those the system has failed. His business has been poached lately by corrupt soul monger Neil Osterhaus, who wouldn’t be such a problem were it not for Carmen, Dorian’s captivating ex-lover. She has sold her soul to Osterhaus, and needs Dorian’s help to find a new soul to take her place. Hoping to win back her affections, Dorian must navigate Baltimore’s occult underworld and decide how low he is willing to stoop in order to save Carmen from eternal damnation.
Appetizer:
Book Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Quote
Main Course:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Dessert:
Closing
About the Author
Copyright & Publisher
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