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Authors: Angeline Kace
Descended by Blood
Descended by Blood
A Vampire Born Trilogy, Book 1
Angeline Kace
Descended by Blood
A Vampire Born Trilogy, Book 1
Angeline Kace
Brooke Keller’s a high school junior who never spent much time living in one place. She’s finally in a town long enough to almost snag the boy of her dreams, until her life is threatened by a fanged man in his attempt to kidnap her. Brooke begins a dangerous journey to find out who is after her and how to stop them. Thrown into a world with powerful and prejudiced vampires, Brooke must tap into the side of herself that she never knew existed, at the risk of losing her life in order to save it.
Descended by Blood
By Angeline Kace
Cover design by Robin Ludwig Design
Kindle Edition: August 2011
Copyright © 2011 Angeline Kace
All Rights Reserved. No Part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information please visit
www.angelinekace.com
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Kindle Edition Licence Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is available in print at most online retailers.
DEDICATION
For Brandon,
It was never a question if soul mates were real,
It was if I would find him.
Table of Contents
22 - Your Body Will Require Blood
24 - I Don’t Give Second Chances
Predator vs. Predator
My sneakers crunched against dead leaves, smashing twigs and gravel into the moist soil. Rain pelted these hills earlier today and whiffs of moss, decaying trees, and other earthly aromas filled my nose.
My best friend, Kaitlynn, would be meeting me here soon for a hike through one of the Blue Ridge Parkway’s vibrant trails. The beginnings of fall had started appearing around Buena Vista, Virginia, and my favorite feature about this little settlement lay in the transformation of its trees. The colors splashed the canvas of this town with more brilliance than I had ever witnessed anywhere else. And I’d witnessed many places.
I’d lived in seven different states since the first grade. My mom always thought a better job was around the corner—“I promise this place will be better, Brooke, trust me”—but I often felt she was restless. She finally gave in to my Uncle Garwin’s requests that we move closer to him, the only remaining family we had left. I’m glad she did because she’s been able to stay here, in tiny Buena Vista, for two years, earning me the luxury of beholding another season of plant life dying gracefully.
My Mazda chirped when I triggered the alarm. I pulled my long, dark hair up into a tight ponytail, and heard the grind and chomping of tires against the rocks leading up to the trail. Kaitlynn swung her yellow Jeep into the parking spot right next to mine.
“Ready to get our Steve Irwin on?” Kaitlynn asked, bouncing over to me.
I laughed. “We’re not wrestling any crocodiles. We’re only strolling through the forest to look at the pretty leaves.”
“Let’s call it the jungle. It sounds cooler if we act like we’re about to do something incredibly dangerous. Crikey!” she yelled in a bad Australian accent.
It had become our Sunday routine to come up here for a hike before the chilled air grew too biting. Buena Vista had started to get bitter in the mornings and evenings, and the fog began rolling in before the sun rose. Even the rainstorms had been materializing more frequently, hence the moisture left beaded on the tops of leaves today.
I steered Kaitlynn onto my favorite trailhead. I preferred this trail to those closer to town as fewer hikers bothered to venture this far. Plants weren’t trampled, and you could still spot squirrels and the occasional deer close by.
“So, guess what?” I asked Kaitlynn, holding in my excitement. It tingled along my arms, and I thought it would seep out through my pores. “We’re going out.”
“Oh, no way? You finally asked him?” Kaitlynn stared at me in surprise.
“Well, not exactly. Jaren messaged me on Facebook last night and asked me. But the point is, we’re going out on Tuesday!”
I’d crushed on Jaren since my mom and I moved here. Even after two years, my breath still caught in my throat whenever our eyes met.
Jaren and his ex-girlfriend had broken up over the summer, and Kaitlynn kept prodding me to ask him out before someone else took him off the market again. I feared the rejection, and asking him out for real seemed like such a huge step beyond my flirting with him in class.
“So, you have to tell me how he asked you out.” Kaitlynn relished the details.
“Well, he started chatting with me, and I told him how I was excited to see the meteor shower on Tuesday. He asked me about it, and then hinted at which lucky guy was taking me up to watch it.”
“Nuh-uh?” Kaitlynn laughed. “He’s such a brown-noser. But it’s cute because he said it to you. Continue,” she said, waving her hand.
We rounded a hill, following the trail through a field of trees. “I know! I laughed, too, when he asked ‘which lucky guy’ was taking me. But when I told him I didn’t have anyone that I was going with…,” I gave her a pointed look. She’d gone with me on the past two, so I gave her a pass on this one. I knew she appreciated the reprieve from
sitting out in the cold watching rocks fly incredibly far away at who knows what speeds across the sky
. “He asked me if he could take me.”
“See! I told you he wanted you.”
My cheeks heated. “I wouldn’t go that far. Maybe he wants to see how big of a fool I can make of myself.”
A twig snapped, and I jerked my head to the right. I caught the glint from the eyes of a mountain lion creeping toward us, his ears pulled back, teeth bared.
I froze, hoping we weren’t the prey he stalked.
Kaitlynn shrieked. She grabbed my arm and tried pulling me with her as she ran back to the cars.
The lion rose from his crouch and started charging down the mountain straight for us.
We didn’t have enough time for both of us to make it out of there alive, and the lion sped up at the site of Kaitlynn running away.
I planted my feet. Something clicked inside of me; heat coursed through my veins. My vision intensified, and I could distinguish the areas of down between the lion’s coarse fur as his muscles flexed and stretched.
I’d heard before that you shouldn’t look a wild animal directly in its eyes, but my instinct screamed for me to not turn my back on my attacker. I listened to my gut and looked the mountain lion square into his charging eyes.
The lion and I connected on an intellectual level: predator versus predator. Only I knew, and I deemed the lion knew, as well, that I outranked him as the more fearsome predator. How I recognized this, or how I knew the lion realized this, I couldn’t fathom. I had never been hunting before, so this instinct didn’t come from a belief that man ruled supreme on the food chain. And this moment felt different somehow. It wasn’t man versus beast; it was beast versus beast.
“Stop!” I commanded.
The lion skidded to a halt four feet in front of me, his back fixed in its pre-lunge arch. He stared into my eyes, his ears perked back, fangs exposed in a snarl and hackles raised, but he didn’t move a centimeter closer.
I towered over him. My pulse pounded at the sides of my neck; my shoulders rose and fell with my deep breaths. My gaze pierced him, welding his toes and the pads of his feet into the ground. Somehow, I had been able to force my command over him, and when I told him to stop, I never considered that he would deny my order.
The nerves along my scalp tingled with the sensation that the lion hungered to attack me, but he
couldn’t
. The only thing holding him back from pouncing me was my decree that he shouldn’t. My beast had prevailed as the most dominant between us.
Panic filled my lungs at the realization that something stirred within me and it caused me to look at myself as a beast. I yearned for the retreat that Kaitlynn had made. I yelled, “Leave!” before the lion could translate my hesitance and continue his attack.
He hissed, spun around, and ran up the side of the hill, tail flogging behind him. I studied his movements, hoping that he wouldn’t change his mind and come back.
Kaitlynn rushed up behind me. “Brooke, let’s go!” she pleaded, voice shaking.
I stood there, to make absolutely sure. We had some distance to run before we’d get back to our vehicles, and I wasn’t going to take any chances on being stuck in that lion’s jaws.
The creature was almost out of the small clearing and about to enter into the thick forest when a man stepped out from between two spruce trees. Like a housecat, the lion rubbed his fawn pelt against the man’s leg and purred. My hypersensitive hearing digested the happy rumble cascading down the hill. Over the purring, I heard the trill of crickets and further out, the crunch of leaves underneath small feet. How was that possible?
The man loomed, barely outside the shadows, in a dark trench coat, smiling. His malignant stare reached my eyes, and his smirk grew by spades.
Kaitlynn yanked on my sleeve. “Brooke, please,” she begged, “can we get out of here? Now?”
I remained, eyes locked on this man who I was sure had sent that mountain lion to attack us. The way he pulled the corner of his lip up in a sneer suggested that he found pleasure in the way things ended with the lion. And it wasn’t because we were safe; it had to do with something else about the situation. But I couldn’t figure out what it was.
“Come on!” Kaitlynn released me. “It’s gone. I’m leaving.” Her sneakers thumped along the trail away from me, jerking me out of my trance. I watched her go, and then looked back to the man and the lion just as they turned into the shadow of the treeline. His long jacket snapped with his movement as they disappeared from view.
I trembled, recalling the leer on his face. Nothing about this situation made sense. My blood began to cool, and I spun around to follow after Kaitlynn.
“Kaitlynn! Wait.” I reached her quickly.
“Let’s just get out of here,” she said, refusing to slow down.
“That guy sent the mountain lion after us.”
“What guy?” Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“You didn’t see that guy at the top of the hill? Standing by the trees? The lion stroked up against his leg like a domesticated cat.”
“I didn’t see any guy. As soon as that mountain lion showed up, I was out of there,” Kaitlynn said, picking up speed. “It could explain why there was a mountain lion in Virginia, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“We don’t have mountain lions in Virginia. It must have been his pet or something. Maybe he called it back, and that’s why it ran off.”
“No,” I said, puzzled, “it was a wild mountain lion. It was definitely feral, and he sent it after us. But why?”