Love & War Book 1 in the Arcadia Falls Chronicles Read online

  ~~~***~~~

  The Arcadia Falls Chronicles

  Love & War

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  BY

  Jennifer Malone Wright

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2012 Jennifer Malone Wright

  License 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. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Visit the website of Jennifer Malone Wright at

  www.jenniferwrightauthor.com

  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.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue – Chloe’s Diary

  The Arcadia Falls Chronicles: Love & War

  Excerpt from The Arcadia Falls Chronicles book 2: Taking Talon

  Excerpt from Savior (A Higher Collective Novel)

  Other books by Jennifer Malone Wright

  About the Author

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  The Arcadia Falls Chronicles

  Love & War

  ~~~***~~~

  BY

  Jennifer Malone Wright

  ~~~***~~~

  Prologue—Chloe's Diary

  ~~~***~~~

  January 15:

  Sometimes, when the sun goes down, I stare out the window of our house and wonder how much of the city beyond our community is being ravaged by vampires. How many people will die? How many will become newborn vampires?

  I know I am not strong enough to kill them all… but that won’t stop me from trying.

  The next chapter in my life has begun.

  I received this journal as a gift from Oscar for my birthday this year and decided it would be a good place to chronicle the events of my life. Who knows what will happen to the hunters after this is all over? If it ever is all over. I feel like there should be some documentation of how things went down.

  So here you have it: The life of Chloe Kallistrate, in my own words.

  I never thought there was anything special about me. Actually, I still don’t, but apparently, because I'm the distant offspring of angels and demigods, there is something in my DNA that creates what I truly am: a vampire hunter.

  Yeah, a vampire hunter. From angels and demigods. Un-freaking-believable.

  It seems, a long time ago, there was a warrior angel sent to rid the world of vampires. This warrior angel, during his time on earth, found love with a warrior woman. The warrior woman was a killer, too. She was a hunter, the daughter of Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt.

  Yes, I know. Artemis. Like… from mythology.

  It’s true; I'm a distant descendent of Artemis, and more directly, her daughter, Sostrate. I know this because I’ve met Sostrate. She has visited me on more than one occasion. I can’t say I look forward to her visits all that much. The last time she appeared, she told me a war loomed between the hunters and the vampires, that the hunters needed to train even harder.

  Sheesh.

  Oh, it gets better. Not only am I carrying on the bloodlines of angels and demigods, but I just happen to be a dhampir, too!

  What is a dhampir? Oh, that is the best tidbit of all. Remember when I said I was a vampire hunter? Well, that part of me is from my mother’s side. She fell in love with one of those we are supposed to hate the most: a vampire.

  Out of that lovely relationship, I was born.

  My father’s name was Trevor. My mother apparently loved him more than she loved killing vampires, because they had me.

  That is where the story gets really strange. Right, like it wasn't strange enough.

  My mother was born in an exclusive and unique gated community, properly named Arcadia Falls. The community is unlike any other of which I have ever heard. It's a vampire-hunter community. There, vampire hunters are born, and they train to kill, pretty much from the day they learn to walk. Only in Arcadia Falls can one find people strolling down the street with loaded guns and crossbows strapped to their backs.

  This community is a peaceful, mountainous place. It is our safety from the demons on the outside.

  I love Arcadia Falls. I love our house, where I live with my grandfather, my mother's father, who I didn't meet for the first time until after my mother was killed. I love sleeping in my mother’s childhood room, and I love that I am surrounded by others who cannot claim to be normal.

  On the inside of the protective wall that surrounds us is our little town, just like any other town one might come across. We have a grocery store, a video store, even a bakery and coffee shop. Hunters’ homes cover the expanse of forested hills that make up Arcadia Falls, and the hunters rarely need to leave unless they are on missions.

  I know my mother loved this place. She was one of the most renowned hunters among them. Trevor claimed, even after he met his final death, that he loved my mother, but that love did not guarantee he would love me. I only know this story as it passed Trevor’s lips, but I can see how it would be true. He fell in love with my mother, who left the community to live with him. She soon became pregnant with me. Apparently, he was ecstatic over the announcement of my birth. My mother must have been relieved, but she ran from him before I was born, for reasons I didn’t know until I was fifteen.

  Why would a woman leave a man with whom she was having a child? If he was that bad, why not kill him? Who knows? All I know is that she found out his original reason for choosing her as his mate. Love, it seemed, ended up being a bonus in his case.

  He bred me.

  It was his plan from the very beginning, for years and years before he met her. Apparently, I was some kind of main ingredient in his make-the-vampire-become-a-day-walker recipe. Allegedly, if a vampire drinks the blood of a dhampir, who also carries the bloodlines of a vampire hunter, on the day of the dhampir’s sixteenth birthday, the vampire will forever be able to walk in the sunlight. Typically, vampires can't be in sunlight, because it kills them.

  Okay.

  I had no idea, initially. None of us did.

  My mother knew. She found out his plan and ran from him with me in her womb. That wasn’t as simple as it sounded. She hid me away for years and years. I never knew any family, I never had many friends because we moved so much, and I never knew the truth… until that horrible day.

  The day Trevor had her murdered, right in front of me.

  But he wasn't trying to get to her. He was trying to get to me.

  That day is branded into my memory like a hot iron burning into my skin. Trevor’s goons broke in and murdered her. They tried to take me away, but I was rescued by the vampire hunters. My g
randfather sensed the pain his daughter was going through and sent the rescue team. If it weren’t for them, I would have been taken and would have never known who I truly was. I would probably be dead already.

  Drew had led the hunters. I remember him lifting me into his arms and telling me he was taking me someplace safe. They had brought me home, to Arcadia Falls. It was there I found out about my hunter heritage. It was also there I found my true supernatural gifts.

  Yes, I have supernatural gifts, abilities, you might say. My element is fire. I can make flames appear in my hand whenever I want. Although, it wasn’t always as easy as it is now to control. It took me a long time to learn to control the flames. Though I'm much improved at wielding the power of the flame, I am still learning to control the fire within me.

  Moving on with my story, my father attacked the hunters, and I decided I didn’t want to lose anyone else to his vampires. I willingly went with him, ignorant to his true plans. I lived with him for nearly a year, and shortly before my sixteenth birthday, I found out exactly why he had wanted me so badly, why he had killed my mother to obtain me: He had wanted to be a day-walker.

  I tried to run but ended up a prisoner.

  We escaped only because of Alice, the housekeeper who had lived with Trevor for a long time, serving him. But while I was there, she had been my friend. She betrayed her precious Trevor and me out. Drew was a prisoner with me, and when we escaped, we found Oscar, who had been my tutor, and who just happens to be a siren. Oscar had been bitten almost to the point of death. We grabbed him and managed to escape, only to fight a vicious battle in the end.

  In the heat of the battle, we were saved by Gavin—who was once my almost-boyfriend who happened to be Drew’s half-brother. And Christina—Drew’s ex-girlfriend and probably one of the meanest girls I know.

  It was a nasty fight, but we are all alive.

  The question remains: What happens now?

  What it comes down to is this:

  On the day of my sixteenth birthday, Sostrate came to us and told us all to prepare for war. She said we all needed to train hard because we were on the brink of war with the vampires, a big war.

  It was in that moment I realized this—whatever it was—was never going to be over. Just like my angel grandfather was sent down to rid the world of vampires, I vowed to do the same.

  I am Chloe Kallistrate. I am the vampire-killing angel of death.

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  Even though we were on the brink of war with the vampires, I still had to go to school. Not that I minded school when it came to the learning stuff. It was the whole being alone part I had a problem with. I had always been kind of a loner anyway. Now that I had people I cared about, it was strange to be apart from them.

  Especially Drew.

  Drew and I were together pretty much all the time. We lived together and trained together, but to me, it wasn’t enough time. It was the strangest feeling. I couldn’t put my finger on it, because I really didn’t want to be that obsessed teenaged girl. Even a moment apart from him felt like a year.

  School sucked because of the dumb classes I didn’t need that made time drag. I’d never felt that way about school before. I’d always loved to learn anything. With everything that had happened recently—unless it pertained to vampire hunters, vampires, or any sort of supernatural being—I didn’t want anything to do with it.

  In my heart, I knew Drew was the reason I felt that way. I couldn’t help it. No one else I was close to went to school any longer. Drew had long since graduated; Alice was too old for high school; Oscar taught high school, and even Gavin and Christina had graduated while I was a prisoner in my father’s home, leaving me no one.

  The bell rang to signal the end of the day. I quickly gathered my books and hurried to my locker where I threw them in, not bothering with any homework I might have to do. I would get it done in homeroom in the morning.

  Outside, leaning on his old beat-up truck, his blond hair glinting in the sunlight, my boyfriend, Drew, talked to a group of seniors. He glanced up at the entrance to the school and saw me. He smiled and waved me over.

  “Come on, Chloe,” he called.

  I smiled and hurried to the truck and hopped inside.

  Drew said goodbye to his friends and slipped behind the wheel. He leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek, which brought another smile to my face.

  “So,” he asked, “what should we do today?”

  I was smart enough to realize he wasn't talking about something a typical teenaged couple might do, like grabbing a slice of pizza or heading to an arcade or mall. No, he was talking about training. I would have loved to skip out on training and go make out up at the falls, but he never missed our training sessions. I was currently being taught martial arts, because I sucked at hand-to-hand fighting. We would trade off learning martial arts, training with weapons, and learning to control my fire power.

  “I don’t feel like getting my butt kicked. Let’s do weapons,” I muttered. I slid to the center of the bench seat instead of the far side by the door.

  He started the truck, and the old beater sputtered before it finally rumbled to life. I was surprised it didn’t backfire, too. “You’re just saying that because you’re good with weapons. That’s taking the easy way out.”

  “It is not.” I pouted. “I want to learn something new, like the sword. Alice is learning sword fighting, and that looks like it would be fun.”

  “It’s not fun.” Drew frowned. “It’s hard work, and Alice is learning it because she's fairly good at it already. Just like you’re gifted at marksmanship, she is gifted at handling a sword.”

  “But I still want to learn it,” I told him.

  He finally smiled. “If you’re sure you want to learn, then I guess we can work on that.”

  “Yay.”

  “But don’t think this gets you out of learning to fight.”

  I crossed my arms. I knew it. You would think having extra vampire strength and speed would help my fighting skills. Well, not so much.

  While we drove to the gym, I watched the town pass. The New Year had just passed, and the Christmas decorations still dominated the houses, streets, and storefronts. Bright red bows and garlands of pine wrapped around almost every streetlamp, pictures of Santa and his elves were painted onto many windows, but the sparkling silver and gold decorations were always my favorite to look at. I liked shiny things.

  Smoke curled from the chimneys of most of the houses. The whole town smelled of smoke during the winter and fall months, and I loved it. It was a smell that reminded me of home, my home before all the craziness.

  We passed The Java Bean, and I saw a group of people outside, gathered around one of the tables, talking and laughing. I stared, seeing a dark-haired guy with his arm tossed casually over the shoulders of a blonde girl, Sarah, who I vaguely knew. He turned his head and met my gaze. My heart sank.

  It was Gavin, one person I would have never wanted to hurt for anything in the world, but who I had ended up hurting anyway.

  Drew pretended not to see his brother, Gavin, and kept his eyes on the road. The fight with Trevor, my father, on the road had not united Drew and Gavin, just like it hadn't united Christina and me. They were hunters. They fought alongside each other all the time, but that didn’t make them friends, much less make them feel like the brothers they were. Well, half-brothers, at least.

  I had once thought Gavin and I would be together, like… more than friends. We had dated, gone to a dance together, and even shared a first kiss together. It wasn't that I didn't like him. It was just that… well, Drew was different. There was something special about him. As it turned out, I chose to be with Drew, because he was the one who had come for me. He was the one who had risked his life, no matter the cost, to come for me.

  I tore my gaze from Gavin and his piercing, accusing green eyes. I wanted to shrink into the seat and disappear. He had done nothing except like me, and I liked him, too. Unfortunately, when things came down
to it, I didn’t tell him right away that I had chosen Drew. I hadn't wanted to hurt him, but he ended up being hurt in the long run.

  By the looks of him getting cozy with blondie over there, it appeared, at the risk of sounding conceited, that maybe he was getting over me. I was truly glad he was busy with someone else, but I had to admit a tiny part of me had liked the fact he pined over me.

  The moment was gone. We had passed them completely and were nearing the gym. After parking the truck in the small dirt lot on the side of the building, we hopped out and entered the gym. The gym hadn’t started to fill up with the after-work crowd yet.

  “Let’s go warm up.” Drew ran his fingers over my dark hair.

  I waved him off. “You go ahead and start. I need to put my workout clothes on.”

  He shrugged and walked toward the mats where he could stretch. I hurried to the bathroom that had a couple sets of lockers, so it was technically a locker room. I changed into my black yoga pants and purple tank top, and then I pulled my long black hair into a ponytail so it would stay out of my face.

  I left my bag next to the bank of lockers and hurried back into the gym. I scanned the mats, looked for Drew, and spotted him in the corner of the gym beside one of the weapons walls. Alice was with him. She was dressed in workout clothes and wore an armored breastplate over her outfit. She held a long, thin sword with a jeweled hilt.

  Seeing Alice with her sword was strangely akin to how I felt about my gun and my bow: Those weapons had become an extension of me. I was proud to see her learning to fight. There were other things she still needed to learn, however. Lately, we had been discussing how to find out about her heritage. Sostrate had told us Alice was a Child of the Earth, a witch, but she hadn't known this because she didn’t know her family.