THE VAMPIRE HUNTER’S DAUGHTER
THE COMPLETE COLLECTION
PARTS I-VI
BY
Jennifer Malone Wright
Copyright 2012 Jennifer Malone Wright
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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ACKNOWEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my good friend Rose for helping with every step during the process of bringing this story into the world. I would also like to thank my editors at Accentuate Author Services for their excellent skills and help. Visit Accentuate Author Services at www.AccentuateServices.com. Michy and Lynn, you are the bomb!
A big thank you goes to Paragraphic Designs for my wonderful cover art for each story. Visit Paragraphic Designs at Paragraphicdesigns.blogspot.com
I also want to give a shout out to all my fellow authors I have met and networked with. All for one and one for all!
And thank you to the fans, without you this series would not exist. You all kept me writing more and more with each installment.
Finally, thank you to my husband, for his continued support and encouragement of my writing. Thank you, Honey. I love you.
THE VAMPIRE HUNTER’S DAUGHTER
PART I
THE BEGINNING
“Chloe!” the voice called out sharply. At that exact moment, the earth shook violently beneath my feet.
“Chloe, wake up!”
The ground swayed and gravity took hold, forcing me to sidestep back and forth. I threw my hands out for balance and tried to catch my footing, but I ended up falling onto my hands and knees. The quaking world was suddenly bathed in harsh sunlight. It had washed over me quickly, blinding me. I threw my arm up to shield my eyes from the glare.
“Chloe Kallistrate, get your ass up now!”
My eyes snapped open. All the lights in my room were on and my mother stood over me. She held my blankets in her arms. I realized she had impatiently whipped them off me. I lay there in only my boy-short underwear and my favorite sleep shirt: a torn and faded but still ultra-comfy Harley Davidson tee-shirt. Sometimes when she said our last name really fast like that, she developed an accent. It was a strange name, pronounced Kal-lih-strah-dee.
The light explained the sunlight in my dream, and Mom must have been shaking me, which would have been the earthquakes. I groaned defiantly and glanced at the clock on my nightstand. The glowing red numbers told me that it was two forty-seven in the morning.
“Mom!” I grabbed my comforter out of her arms and rolled over, taking it with me. “It’s the middle of the night.”
Only then did the heavy fog of sleep lift and I realized exactly that: It was the middle of the night and my mother was in my room desperately trying to get me out of bed. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
I threw my blanket off and jumped out of bed, causing my mother to jump back in surprise.
“What is it? What’s happening?” I demanded.
“You have to hide!” she whispered.
She was still in her pale blue-satin pajamas with the matching robe, and her eyes were wide with fear. Her dark brown hair, which was the same color as mine, hung loose and flowing down her back. She grabbed my arm and dragged me to my closet.
“Quick, get in there.” She looked around the room. “There is nowhere else to go. Now, hide!”
“Mom, stop it! What are you doing?”
Her fingernails dug into my arm. She opened the door and literally threw me inside the closet. She bent down, took my chin in her hand so that our dark eyes would meet.
“I love you,” she told me, and then abruptly slammed the door shut, submerging me into total darkness.
Even though my fourteen-year-old mentality wanted to fight back and open the door, I did as I was told and sat on top of all my shoes that littered the floor of my closet.
Thundering footsteps pounded on the stairs outside my room. I could tell my mom was still in the room because I hadn’t heard the door open and shut. My bedroom door burst open, and my mother immediately yelled, “Get out of here! Now!”
I could just see her pointing her index finger at the door, like when she would tell me to go clean my room or something.
A man’s voice, low and smooth, answered back. “Really, Felicia, you honestly think we are just going to turn around and leave?”
He tsk’d at her like she was merely a child who had gotten caught with her hand in the cookie jar. This man knew her. He called her by name and spoke to her with familiarity. I was desperate to see what was going on.
“Trevor can’t have her!” my mother screamed at him.
The sarcasm was clear when the man laughed and said, “Well, you should know as well as I do that what Trevor wants Trevor will get.” He paused and then casually added, “He also wants you dead.”
I covered my mouth and stifled the urge to cry out.
What the hell is going on?
He continued to speak when my mother said nothing in return. “You messed up, Felicia. He would have let you live if you had just left and gone on with your life away from us. Instead, you chose to steal what was his. Trevor wants his child back.”
What? My mom stole a child?
That just couldn’t be the truth.
My mother finally answered him, but she did so in a voice that was surprisingly fearless and brave. “Eli, you know he would have never been able to raise her. She is as much mine as she is his. I did not steal her; I saved her.”
Her?
The smooth voice continued as if her words had meant nothing. “Nevertheless, we must carry out our orders. I would tell you I’m sorry, Felicia, but I’m not. I never liked you, and I’m ecstatic I am the one who gets to kill one of the most renowned hunters to walk the Earth.”
Fear grasped me like a cold hand around my throat. I would not just hide in my closet and let him try to kill my mother. I threw open the door and flew out of the closet to face her attackers.
“No!”
I think I may have actually scared them a little, because every person in the room jumped. After the initial shock, my mother’s eyes widened in disappointment and that man—Eli—his lips curled up into a smile.
I could put a face with the voice. He was about six feet tall with dark brown hair and cutting green eyes. The weird part was that he looked like he was about eighteen years old. The thought briefly passed through my head that I could take him. That thought was immediately crossed off the list when I got a good look behind him. There were about five other guys and one woman standing just outside my door.
I bit my lip and wished I had stayed in the closet.
“There she is!” Eli declared. “James!”
Suddenly, James was behind me and grasping both my arms hard enough to restrain me. Really, it didn’t take much, because his hands were like iron vices. My mother lunged forward with her arms extended out toward me.
“No!” she shouted. “You cannot have her!”
The dark-haired man thrust his arm forward and sent her flying across the room with one hit. I struggled against James’s grip.
“Let me go! Mom! Mom, are you okay?” I repeated
over and over again.
I was scared to death, but I wasn’t going to let them hurt my mom. I watched my mom slowly get up and brush her long dark hair away from her eyes. When I saw her eyes, I felt a rush of power. My mother looked vicious. I had never before seen such determination in her. She took two slow steps forward while Eli appeared to wait for her, and then she rushed him.
“Mom, no!” I called out.
But she didn’t hear me, or she ignored me. She was on him, pounding away with tight clean punches. He simply grabbed her by the back of her pajamas and yanked her off. He threw her to the ground mercilessly, and that’s when I saw my mother do something amazing: She was on her back staring up at him, and then she hopped to her feet without using her arms. Lightning fast, her hand struck out and grabbed my desk chair. She smashed it over his head.
He threw his leg forward and sideways, knocking her feet out from under her so that she fell to the floor.
“Now this is more like the Felicia we used to know, the one with fight!”
In an instant she was up and snagged one of the busted chair legs off the floor on her way. With a quick spin for distraction and then a lunge, my mom did something I never would have imagined: She staked the man.
He laughed at her.
I was so freaked out by the whole situation I couldn’t say a word. Shock ate through my body, making my fingers and toes tingle like they were asleep. My head throbbed, and it looked like a fog was rolling into my room.
Yes, he had laughed at her, and then he pulled the stake out. “Felicia, you should know enough to know that you have to get under our ribs. This little piece of wood could never penetrate our bones.”
He grabbed her by the hair, and she screamed in pain. He twisted her around until her back was against his chest and the stake was poised above her heart.
“Chloe, look at me!” she demanded. “No matter what happens, you always remember that I did everything for you. I did what I had to do to give you a good life.” She paused and twisted her neck to look up at the scary, dark-haired man with the smooth voice, and she nodded. Then, with a final look back at me, she whispered her last words, “I love you, Chloe.”
He shoved the chair leg into her heart and snapped her neck at the same time. Instantly, her body fell lifeless in his arms. Blood seeped out of the wound and bloomed like a flower around the chair leg protruding from her heart, staining the pale blue silk almost black. In the distance, I heard myself scream. James kept his grip on my arms while my legs kicked at his. I even tried to bash the back of my head into his face, but he was too tall for it to be effective. I ended up thumping it into his hard chest.
Eli turned to me with my mother still in his arms.
“Shut up!” he snapped and carelessly threw my mother’s body onto the floor.
I did stop screaming, but only because I wanted to tell that bastard off. I felt so scared and helpless, but for some reason, I knew I was going to live through this. My voice cracked from all the screaming, so I’m sure I didn’t sound serious at all, but I told him anyway, “If it is the last thing I ever do, I will kill you for what you just did. I swear to god.”
He casually wiped my mother’s blood from his hands with one of the towels I had left on my desk from when I had showered before bed. “It’s not nice to swear, Chloe. Now let’s take you to your father.”
I swung my leg up and kicked out at him. “I’m not going anywhere with you! And I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. My father died before I was born.”
Eli sighed. “Of course he did. Let’s go, James.”
He waved his hand, and those who had stood by doing absolutely nothing while my mother was murdered in front of me made way for him to pass. James dragged me along behind him, and they followed.
Even though I was sure I was going to live—only because Eli said Trevor wanted me—I certainly wasn’t expecting a rescue. I was trying to figure out a way to escape when we reached the landing at the bottom of the stairs. The front door burst open, and people filed in.
Eli’s goons rushed forward and more fighting began. Everyone was fighting everywhere and smashing up everything in our house. I could do nothing but watch and scream. I couldn’t even struggle any more because I was exhausted from trying to get away from James. I couldn’t fight any more, so I just let myself hang there in James’s grip.
The people who had burst through the door looked like average people, from what I could see, but the weapons they carried were extraordinary. I saw one of the rescuers drive what looked like a steel arrow into the belly of one of the men and upward under his ribs to meet the heart. One of the women rescuers had a whip. With one smooth flick, the tail of the whip found the neck of the woman on Eli’s side and wound around it. When the rescuer yanked it back, it sliced the other woman's head off.
“Ahhh,” I wailed and turned my head. The rescuers were winning. I felt newfound hope, just when I had wanted to give in. It suddenly occurred to me what exactly we were dealing with here: stakes to the heart, cut off heads, slayers… it all added up. I didn’t want to admit it. The fog continued to build in my head, and my arms were fully asleep from James’s grip. I couldn’t move them at all.
After what seemed like an eternity of blood and battle, Eli and James were the only bad guys left.
The rescuers all stood together before us.
“Give us the girl,” one of them said. He stepped forward. He was tall and extremely muscular. His hair was a dark blond, but it was his flashing green eyes that drew my attention. I just couldn’t seem to tear my gaze from his eyes.
“Get out of my way,” Eli told them in his smooth voice, which always sounded calm. “You know I could take all of you by myself if I wanted to.”
“Well,” the blond-haired guy spread his hands out, “it looks like that’s what you’re going to have to do.” He cocked his head to the side. “I’m ready.”
Eli flew forward. Yes, he literally lifted himself off the ground and flew at the group of rescuers. The fighting was a blur of bodies, blood and the occasional cry of pain. I watched while the blond guy took one of those arrows and stuck it into Eli’s eye for distraction, while another rescuer slammed his long shining blade into Eli’s heart.
James and I cried out at the same time. Mine was a cry of triumph, while his sounded painful. He threw me to the ground and rushed to Eli's side, catching his body as it fell roughly to the ground.
I watched from my place on the floor. The fight James put up was nothing compared to what Eli had given them. He didn’t last long.
I lay there on the floor with my arms and legs dead. My vision blurred and my eyelids felt heavy. The blond guy stuck his face in front of mine.
“Come on, Chloe. We need to get you out of here and take you somewhere safe,” he said. He lifted me into his arms and carried me into my new life.
When I woke, all I could think about was water. My mouth felt like sandpaper, and my tongue was so dry I could barely move it. I didn’t try to sit up right away. I wanted to take in as much of my surroundings as I could before I let anyone know I was awake.
Yeah, I remembered everything. I didn’t think it was all a dream. I knew I was not in my own bed, and the room I was in was not mine. I turned my head slowly to the right and saw, with great joy, a large glass of water sitting on the nightstand beside a couple of pills. I also saw, with not as much joy, an old man sitting in a chair beside the nightstand. He appeared to be snoozing while he waited for me to wake.
Trying to be as quiet as I possibly could, I slowly sat up. My arms protested. When I looked down I could clearly see dark purple bruises in the shape of fingers where James had had his hands clamped down on me.
“Ugh,” I muttered and reached out for the water, clamping my teeth together to keep from crying out.
When I finally got that glass of water to my lips and was able to drink, it felt like what I imagined water would taste like in heaven. I guzzled it down so fast that I felt a little
sloshy in my stomach by the time I set the glass back on the table. I left the pills alone. Exhausted from the simple act of getting a glass of water and drinking it, I fell back onto the pillows and shut my eyes again. I passed out within minutes.
I woke again later and the whole place was dark, so I assumed it was the middle of the night. The glass of water had been refilled, and the old man was still beside my bed. This time he was awake and had seen me open my eyes.
“Hello,” I greeted him. “Could you hand me that glass of water?”
I grimaced and pulled myself into a sitting position.
“Sure.” He handed me the water with a steady hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Chloe.”
By this time, I figured I could be okay with weird.
“What do you mean by 'finally'?” I asked him.
He cracked a grin, and his blue eyes lit up a little, even in the dark. “Why, child, I’m your grandfather.”
I choked on my water, even spit a little bit out on him, “You’re my… grandfather? Uh... I… okay.”
He took my water glass and set it on the nightstand. He took my hand and held it, patting the top.
“Chloe, it is time to explain your heritage to you. You are old enough now to understand these things.” He smiled at me. “So are you ready to hear it?”
I shrugged. I really didn’t have a choice. I really just wanted to lay in bed and be sad that I would never see my mother again. But his explanation was something I hoped would explain all that had happened last night. Maybe it would explain why they had killed my mother. I wanted to find out who I had to kill to avenge her.
“Sure,” I said.
“Chloe, much of what I am about to tell you will be hard to believe, but it may also fill in some of the blanks that you have wondered about at particular times in your life. Have patience and listen.
“Those people who killed your mother, I’m sure you noticed something different about them, like their strength and the way they died. If you guessed they aren’t normal, you would have guessed correctly.”
The Vampire Hunter's Daughter The Complete Collection Page 1