Love & War Book 1 in the Arcadia Falls Chronicles

by Jennifer Malone Wright

  “I thought I was just in excellent physical condition.” I stuck my lower lip out, pretending to pout. "Why are we doing it here? Why not just back at the gym? It seems like I should be able to practice jumping anywhere, but you picked way up in the snow and ice-covered mountains.”

  “Think about it, Chloe. Even though everyone knows about your fire power, we don’t want to flaunt your other gifts. They can be quite effective when the element of surprise is added. At the gym, everyone can see you. Who knows who that can get back to?”

  He was right, like he freaking always was. Ugh

  “Okay, so what do you want me to do?”

  “You see those rocks over there?”

  Oh, man. I didn’t have a good feeling about this at all.

  “Uh huh?”

  “You think you can jump them?”

  “Oh, no!” I waved my hands out in front of me. “There is no way I’m jumping those, no way!”

  He had to be crazy if he thought I was going to do that.

  “If we start on the snow, when you feel confident enough, we can move to the rocks.”

  “I don’t think I will ever be confident enough to do that.”

  “Chloe, I feel like you need to be pushed to accomplish things like this.”

  I raised my eyebrows, not really understanding.

  “You see, every time you have ever done anything you thought wouldn’t be possible, it was in a time of need. So, it’s either this, or I can go trap a vampire and let him loose on you. Now that would be motivating!”

  “You wouldn’t do that.” I shoved his shoulder.

  “Oh, yes, I would! Don’t doubt me!”

  “Fine, I’ll do the jumping, but without the rocks for now.”

  The next thing I knew, I was sprinting across the snow in a full-out run, mentally preparing myself to jump from the twig Drew had placed as a starting point to the twig he placed where he wanted me to land. As soon as my foot hit the mark, I pushed off with my feet and did a sort of flying-ballerina jump. My landing was about two feet short of where I was supposed to land, and I felt my leg give a bit, so I fell into a roll.

  “Damn.” I sat up and brushed the snow out of my hair and off my clothes.

  “Again.” Drew motioned his hand upward.

  Man, he had become mean-ole-trainer guy again. I didn’t really like mean-trainer guy. I didn’t say anything. I was strong, and I would get this. I jogged far back from the starting point and sprinted toward it again. This time, when I pushed off, I did another flying-ballerina jump, but before the landing, I brought my feet together, bent at the knee and tucked them up underneath. I still missed the mark, but this time I stuck it and landed on my feet.

  “Better!” Drew called out, nodding at me. I returned the nod with a wide grin and made my way back to the starting point again.

  Over and over we did the drill. It seemed endless. Even when I finally hit the landing mark, he moved it back and made me try to hit that one. I jumped and jumped until I thought my legs were going to fall off.

  After hours of running, jumping and conquering distances I never thought possible, Drew called break time.

  “Come on, let’s sit down over here.” He patted a large rock next to the bank of the river that would accommodate both of us.

  I plopped down onto the rock and lay back a little bit. He reached into his bag and came out with a couple of sandwiches. “Sorry, it’s peanut butter and jelly. Anything else would have gone bad.”

  I sat up and accepted the sandwich he offered. “No worries, I love PB&J.”

  I took it out of its little baggie and devoured it in mere seconds. Drew had barely had time to chew his first bite. When I looked up at him, I saw that distinct look of shock.

  “Don’t judge,” I told him, “I’m hungry. What else you got in there.”

  He reached into his bag again, and this time he pulled out a red apple and handed it to me, as well as another bottle of water.

  “Thanks.” I leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek and then took a huge bite of my apple.

  We ate in silence until Drew finished his sandwich. “So you want to try the rocks today?”

  I scanned the boulders in question and doubt filtered through me. I shook my head. “Honestly, I probably would try if those boulders weren’t covered in ice and snow. It’s too dangerous.”

  I heard him sigh a little. “All right, I get that.”

  I knew what he was thinking. I was a fast healer. My bullet wound had healed completely in just a few short days, so any injury I might sustain doing this should be no problem. I’d heal up fast if I broke a bone or two, but I knew he would never say that to me. He cared about my safety, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t hard core when it came to the training part of him.

  “Drew?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “I think that we should take out the Talon Building.”

  “We’ve talked about that already, Chloe. It can’t be done.”

  “Yes, it can!” I insisted. “If we take that place out, we take out half the vampire resources for the city. We have to.”

  “But the board…”

  I cut him off. “I don’t give a crap what the board has to say about it.”

  “I know, but how would that one be explained? We can’t just take out a building in the middle of the city. Innocent people could get hurt, even killed.”

  “If we bomb it, it could be passed off as some kind of attack. Bombings happen all the time. For all anyone knows, it could be some disgruntled employee.”

  He appeared to contemplate my idea, finally, but I still didn’t have him.

  “And the possibility of innocent people getting hurt is slim if we do it at like two or three in the morning. Not many who aren’t vampires are out at that time of night.”

  “True.” He slid off the rock. “Do you want to head home?”

  “Yes! I’m freezing.” All that sweat and rolling in the snow made my clothes sopping wet, so the cold was even worse than it would have normally been. I followed his lead and slid off the rock, too.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were cold?” He grabbed both my hands and pulled me forward so that he could wrap his arms around me.

  “Because I didn’t want to look like a pansy,” I mumbled into his chest.

  “I don’t think you’re a pansy at all.” He pulled back and grinned.

  “Stop lying.” I tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip around me. “Let me go!” I laughed, trying to wiggle out of his embrace.

  He laughed, too. “No way.”

  I struggled a bit more, but decided to change my tactic. I fell still and then stared up into his awesome green eyes. Our gazes locked, and he leaned down, as I was rising onto my tip toes. When our lips met, I felt my whole body warm all the way down to my toes. It was like that every time we kissed. It was perfect.

  But as soon as I felt his grip loosen, I pushed him back and ran. “Sucker!” I called out over my shoulder as I bounded through the bushes and back onto the trail. I didn’t stop to see if he was behind me. I knew he was because I could hear his footsteps crunching over the snow when he caught up with me.

  I sped over the trails at a dangerously fast pace, but then slowed when I remembered Drew did not have super healing powers like I did. If he broke a bone, or worse, he would not be fine in the next couple of days.

  “Nice try,” he said when he caught up with me.

  I batted my eyelashes at him dramatically. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yeah right.” He approached me and pulled me forward by the sleeves of my sweat shirt. “Now give me my kiss so we can get moving.”

  I wanted to make some smarty-pants remark to taunt him some more, but I couldn’t. He took my chin, tilted my head up so I could look into his eyes, and brought his lips to mine.

  Kissing Drew was one of those things that I could do all day long. It was like everything disappeared. All the bad stuff, the war with vampires, all the tr
aining, all the loss, it was gone for those brief moments.

  It was the strangest thing. My body reacted to Drew’s touch and kiss like he was fanning the fire that burned inside me. I still had to focus my energy when the heat got too intense. The last thing I wanted to do was set him on fire.

  “Let’s get back,” I whispered against his cheek.

  He pulled out of my embrace and turned his head away so I wasn’t able to look him in the eye.

  “Yeah, let’s go,” his voice was different, sort of low and growly.

  “Come on.” I started off down the trail, letting him follow me down.

  ~~~***~~~

  Back at the house, after showering and putting on some fresh and dry clothes, I gathered my notebooks and research materials into my backpack. I needed to go to the library and continue research about witches. Finding out whatever we could about Alice’s heritage or anything on how she could harness the magic within her was paramount. If we were going to go to war, it would be a huge asset to our side if she had some sort of power to add to our arsenal.

  After I had everything packed, I hurried down the stairs and found Alice in the kitchen baking some sort of goodie for us. That was one thing I totally liked about Alice being around, there was always some kind of fresh bread or pastry for us to munch on.

  “Hey, Alice.”

  “Hey.” She reached over and pulled two pot holders off the counter, opened the oven and extracted yummy-looking muffins.

  “Those look so good!”

  Alice grinned. “It’s the least I can do, since Luke won’t let me cook the meals.”

  I laughed, remembering the bickering that had taken place between Alice and Luke for dominion over the kitchen. She set the muffins on a cooling rack and wiped her hands on her apron. “Where are you going?” she asked.

  I reached over and snatched one of the steaming hot muffins to take with me. “I’m going to the library.”

  “You want me to come with?”

  “You should.” I tossed the muffin from hand to hand because it was still so hot. “I’m looking up witch stuff today. We need to find out more. We know next to nothing about this stuff.”

  Alice nodded. “Okay, give me a minute.” She took off her apron, made sure the oven was off and hurried out of the kitchen.

  I wandered into the living room, tossing my muffin from hand to hand.

  Our living room was small, but it was cozy, and that’s what really mattered. It always felt homey and lived-in. The muffin finally cooled enough for me to take a test bite. While I chewed, I noticed someone had left the newspaper spread all over the coffee table. I took another big bite and sat down to scan.

  The newspapers were all from different days, and some of the reports had been circled with a red marker. Each circled article was a report of an animal attack where the victim had been saved by a dark-haired man.

  All the victims were women, and each woman claimed she remembered nothing about her rescuer, except the dark hair, and only minimal information about the attack itself. One woman stated she had been walking home from work. She couldn’t remember seeing an attacker, just felt an animal bite into her neck, and the next thing she knew, she was waking up to see the dark-haired man telling her everything would be all right, while he dialed for the ambulance on her phone and handed it to her. Then he was gone.

  Another report was a young woman trying to unlock her car at her home to leave to attend a night class for her college courses. The bites on her were reported to cover her neck, arms, and thighs. Medical personnel reported that most of her bites probably occurred while she fought off the animal. This woman’s memory was also vague. She remembered being attacked from behind and seeing a dark-haired man rushing toward her and the animal. She admitted to closing her eyes at that point, thinking she was probably going to die. She felt the animal being ripped away and thrown. Only then did she open her eyes. The man, who wouldn't look at her, snatched up her purse and took out the phone. He dialed 911 quickly, reported a severe animal attack and left the scene with the woman lying on her blood-covered driveway.

  “Interesting, huh?” Drew stood in the doorway.

  He surprised me so much I almost dropped my muffin.

  “Who is this guy?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. But the attacks are vampires, so he’s fighting them and saving innocent people.” He shrugged. “We can’t decide if we want to let him be, or if we should try to find out who he is.”

  I stood, excited.” “We have to find out! He could help with our plans.”

  Drew shifted and leaned against the door frame. “We don’t actually have any plans, yet, in case you forgot.”

  “Plans for what?” Alice hurried into the room.

  “World domination.” I ate the last bite of my muffin and crumpled the wrapper, and then I wandered into the kitchen to throw it away.

  I could hear Drew explaining the whole thing to her. I took my time in the kitchen, got a glass of orange juice, drank it, rinsed the glass and set it in the sink. I finally heard Alice’s quiet voice reply, “I think we should find out who he is, too. Whether we have plans to attack or not, we should know who he is.”

  I wandered back into the room. “Does he even know about the hunters? That is another thing to consider.”

  I picked up my backpack and slipped it on my back.

  Drew narrowed his eyebrows. “That’s a good point. Most importantly is that he's drawing attention to himself and exposing us without even knowing it. Where are you going?”

  “Library. You ready, Alice?”

  Drew spread his hands out “What? I’m not invited?”

  I went to him and gave him a quick peck on the lips. “Oh, don’t pout. Of course you’re invited.”

  Alice laughed out loud. I turned away and opened the front door.

  ~~~***~~~

  “Nothing!” Alice closed yet another book and shoved it toward the stack of books sitting in the center of the large table we had taken over.

  I couldn’t help but let out a long sigh. “We are never going to figure this out.”

  Alice frowned. “Maybe we should just face it, you guys. It’s a possibility that I’m never going to find magic.” She shrugged. “Maybe Sostrate was wrong.”

  Drew and I shared a concerned look at the same time Oscar showed up with his motorcycle helmet in hand.

  “She isn’t wrong,” he declared, setting his helmet on the table.

  “We don’t know that.” Alice looked up at him. “We can’t find anything about how to do this sort of thing in any of these books.” She motioned to the stack on the table. “I don’t even know any of my family, and none of us know any witches. We can’t ask the board members, because they already think we are all crazy.”

  Oscar stepped behind her and rubbed her shoulders. “Let’s not stress out too much right now. You’re doing so great with your sword training; you have that to concentrate on.”

  He stopped rubbing her shoulders and sat in the chair beside her.

  My mind hadn’t exactly been on the conversation while I listened to them talk. I had been thinking, and I didn't know why I hadn’t thought of it before.

  “Alice,” I leaned forward, “I have powers, and I’m not a witch, but all these books go back to witchcraft being part of nature and elemental. They all talk about dealing with the person’s energy, the individual witch in question, like, her inner energy.

  I saw Drew’s mouth open a little bit as understanding set in.

  I continued, “I pretty much taught myself how to control the fire. I still am, but I could probably help you figure out how to help you focus your energy.”

  Drew pointed at his book. “And we have enough in here about candles, crystals and junk to know what we'll need for help.”

  Oscar traced his finger over the back of Alice’s hand. “She’s right. This might work.”

  With a shrug, Alice nodded. “Well, it’s worth a shot, I guess.”

  Even though
she agreed, I could hear the skepticism in her voice.

  “Good!” I shut my book, too. “I’ll help you work on that tomorrow.” Quickly, I shot an ‘I’m sorry’ look at Drew before going on. “Since we are all here, I think we need to talk about what we are going to do about the vampires.”

  No one said anything in response, which was kind of embarrassing.

  “Chloe wants to take the Talon Building.”

  “What?” Alice gasped. “No! There isn’t a way.”

  I leaned forward to whisper since we were in a library. “Alice, we were warned. Sostrate told us they were coming for us. We cannot sit around and wait for them to attack our families, our homes. We just can’t.”

  “But…” Alice tried to respond, but Drew cut her off.

  “She’s right about not wanting to risk our families because someone told us not to do something, but I’m still on the fence about the Talon Building. There are too many of them and too few of us.”

  Oh, he could be so frustrating. I threw my hands up. “I’m not suggesting that we go in there and fight them all hand-to-hand. I think we should bomb it.”

  “Well, well, isn’t this a nice.”

  Each of us swiveled our heads in surprise when Christina appeared from within the bookshelves.

  I rolled my eyes. “Great.”

  “What’s the matter, Chloe, not happy to see me?”

  “What are you even doing in a library? Don’t you have other, skankier places to be?”

  She smiled and adjusted her little jean skirt. It was beyond me how she could walk around in skirts and heels during the winter. I would probably kill myself in heels on the snow and ice.

  “I’m here,” she examined a fingernail, “because I saw Oscar's motorcycle outside and decided to stop in and say hello.” She waggled her fingers at Oscar. “So just what are we bombing?”

  Drew shook his head “We aren’t bombing anything.”

  “Oh, Drew, you can be such a party pooper. If you guys are planning something fun, I want in.”

  She pulled out the chair on the other side of Oscar and sat down to him closer than was necessary.

  Was she trying to make Drew jealous now? Or was she trying to show Alice up? Either way, the sluttiness continued. Ugh. At least to Ocsar’s credit he scooted away from her and closer to Alice. Oscar didn’t see it, but Alice smiled when he did.