Blood Warrior (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles #4) Read online

  ~~~***~~~

  The Arcadia Falls Chronicles

  Blood Warrior

  ~~~***~~~

  BY

  JENNIFER MALONE WRIGHT

  Copyright 2014 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

  www.jenniferwrightauthor.com

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First and foremost I thank my husband. Trying to raise five children, even together, isn’t easy, but we manage to do it together and support each other in our work. But, when it comes to writing, he is not only supporting my work, but my dream.

  I also want to thank my good friends who take part in the creation of these books. Rose, Tracy and Shawn, Kym, and Willow, thank you for always being there for me to run ideas by or simply to support me.

  A huge thank you goes out to my street team, I love you Double Trouble team members, especially our hard working team leaders Cheree and Jeni, without whom I would never know what was going on with the team.

  And finally, I would like to thank my cover designer Paragraphic Designs and my editor Ink Slasher Editing.

  OTHER BOOKS BY JENNIFER MALONE WRIGHT

  Keeper vs. Reaper (Graveyard Guardians #1)

  Savior (A Higher Collective Novel)

  Once Upon a Zombie Apocalypse – Jade (Always free)

  Once Upon a Zombie Apocalypse: Episode 2

  The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter Part 1 (Always free)

  The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter: Part 2

  The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter Part 3

  The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter: Part 4

  The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter: Part 5

  The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter: Part 6

  The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter: The Complete Collection

  (All six parts a total of 72,000 words)

  The Arcadia Falls Chronicles is The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter story continued

  Love & War (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles 1)

  Taking Talon (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles 2)

  Vampire Apocalypse (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles 3)

  CONTENTS

  Arcadia Falls #4 Blood Warrior

  Excerpt from Savior (A Higher Collective Novel)

  Other Books by Jennifer Malone Wright

  About the Author

  ~~~***~~~

  The Arcadia Falls Chronicles

  Blood Warrior

  ~~~***~~~

  I was on autopilot now.

  Open the door, get out, fight, kill … survive.

  I stepped out of the car and a blast of hot, muggy, Louisiana air hit me, causing a sheen of sweat to instantly appear on my skin. The breeze didn’t do anything to help matters, it only made things worse by catching my hair and making it flutter around into my eyes.

  My guns were both drawn as I moved out from behind the car door to face the men who awaited us at the bridge. They had blocked the entrance into New Orleans with their trucks and stood in front of the vehicles with their assault rifles aimed at us.

  The men were in military uniforms, right down to the Kevlar and flack vests. Dark sunglasses covered their eyes, but the dragon tattoos on their right cheeks stood out, prominently displaying their loyalty to the Vampire Council. I counted eight men in uniforms. There were six of us, but that didn’t mean anything when we were up against assault rifles. It looked like Alice was going to have to do a lot of the heavy lifting for us to get out of this one.

  “Set your weapons down and put your hands in the air!” The loudspeaker guy repeated.

  I knew better than to look at my comrades, a good Hunter always kept her attention on the target. We had known this was coming long before we arrived, so we were somewhat prepared.

  I felt more than saw the shimmering bubble of Alice’s shield silently slip around me. I knew without looking that the shield was large enough to cover the whole group.

  Drew and Luke stood to my left and Gavin was directly behind me. Alice, Oscar, Zander and Christina were to our right, having pulled Zander’s truck up on that side of the Escalade. It had been decided ahead of time that none of us were going to part with our weapons. We couldn’t chance losing our only guns since there was no way for us to get any more at the moment.

  “Now!” the loudspeaker guy demanded.

  None of us complied with his repeated order, so the next order was to his soldiers. “Fire!”

  The noise was unbelievable, I’d never in my life heard anything like it except for in the movies. The soldiers pulled the triggers on their weapons and I wanted to cower, but I forced myself to stay put and not to move. I knew everyone else was doing the exact same thing. We had to trust Alice’s shield.

  Milliseconds later the rounds silently lodged themselves into the invisible barrier, then dropped down, ending their assault with the pinging sound of metal against pavement.

  I stood behind our protective shield, watching the bullets stop mere inches from me and then fall to the ground. Holy crapola, of all the crazy stuff I’d seen and done in my short lifetime, that was the scariest.

  “What the hell!” one of the soldiers shouted, obviously confused as to why we were all still standing.

  Again, we’d anticipated their moves. We knew that there would be a stall when they realized that their guns couldn’t harm us. Gavin took that as a cue and stretched out his arms, palms facing upward. He closed his eyes and tilted his face to the sky.

  Mistaking Gavin’s pose as a gesture of surrender, the soldiers resumed their shooting. These guys were making it blatantly clear that they didn’t want prisoners, they wanted death.

  What Gavin was doing, however, was far from surrender. The gently moving waters of the river suddenly began to quake and shift, rising into waves as Gavin’s power took hold.

  The soldiers were too intent on us, their targets, to look around them and see what was happening. So they didn’t see the giant waves growing high into air on each side of the bridge.

  They continued to shoot at us despite their confusion. “Keep firing,” the loudspeaker guy ordered. The other soldiers glanced at each other, but followed direction.

  The shield held, withstanding the force of all the gunfire. I watched the waters rise up into the air and hoped to God that it would continue to hold. I glanced over at Alice and found her standing calmly with her eyes closed, blocking out the world around her so that her concentration wouldn’t be disrupted. If her concentration fell, so would the shield.

  The waters around the bridge had finally reached about thirty feet high when Gavin lifted his arms straight up, reaching to the heavens. The huge waves of water suspended there, waiting for Gavin to tell them what to do. Then, grunting like he had been holding all the weight of the water, Gavin swung his arms downward, his whole body lowering into a kneeling position as he did so.

  The water crashed down onto the bridge like a tsunami. The soldiers in front of us didn’t suspect a thing as the river water fell onto them with its full weight of thousands of pounds.

  A cry of triumph resounded from our small group, myself included. I raised my guns into the air and yelled right along with them as we watched the soldiers disappear into the murky water.

  Nothing so
magical had ever happened to me as watching all that water hit the shield. It was like being inside of a fish tank. The entire world vanished, aside from what we could see in the bubble. Thank goodness, Alice had included the vehicles within the protection of the shield.

  We waited for the area to clear, watching the water slide down the outside of the barrier. The time it took was probably less than one minute in real time, but it felt like freaking forever to me.

  Gavin had returned to his normal stance, but was gently moving his hands and forcing the water over the bridge to clear the way.

  When the majority of the water was gone, I visually searched every inch of space I could see, hoping that the wave had taken most of the soldiers with it. But, the first sign of life that I saw was an angry soldier trudging toward us. He had no weapon, most likely having lost it when the wave hit.

  “Drop the shield,” I ordered.

  I heard a sigh of relief as Alice let the shimmering bubble fall, exposing us to the soldier and any others who happened to be out there. For me, there was always a decision when it came to weapons. I had my fire, which was a constant inner force begging to be let out. So, as this man steamrolled toward me, I felt the urge to roast his ass. Instead, I pushed back the fire and raised one of my guns. He was in full military gear with the flack vest and Kevlar helmet, so I aimed for the neck.

  Again, the remorse of killing a human being and not a vampire sat heavy in my stomach. I didn’t like this at all, not one little bit. But, like before, this guy was going to kill us if I didn’t do something. Kill … or be killed. That was the bottom line.

  “Don’t hesitate, Chloe.” Drew’s words drifted into my ears like whispers on the breeze.

  Bang

  Of course, I hit him with the first shot. He stalled and then jerked sideways, his hand going to his neck. Blood spewed out from the gunshot wound where I’d hit him. I charged forward, through the inches of water still on the bridge, knowing I had to finish the job. Even worse than shooting a human being, was seeing one suffer from a wound which I’d inflicted.

  The soldier had fallen to his knees and his hand was pressed against his neck as if he was trying to keep the blood inside. He appeared to be in so much pain that he didn’t even seem to notice that I was approaching.

  As soon as I was within distance I kicked him in the shoulder. He cried out and toppled over onto the wet pavement, causing water to splash up all around him.

  Don’t think, Chloe, just do it.

  I was on him before he had time to put up any sort of fight. I ripped at the straps of his vest, flipped it up and fired before I could give myself any time to think about what I was doing.

  I stood and backed away from the solider. My eyes closed and the bridge seemed to sway under my feet. Suddenly, the snacks I’d had in the car churned within my stomach. “Oh, no,” I whispered, right before the first heave hit me.

  I turned to the side and bent over just as the trail mix and jerky made a reappearance. “Dammit.” I clutched my stomach and moaned. I was the worst survivor ever. Getting sick every time I had to kill an enemy just wasn’t going to work in this new world.

  I felt a hand come to rest on my shoulder. “You all right?” Drew asked softly.

  I nodded and coughed a little, wishing I had some water to swish the nastiness out of my mouth. “Yeah,” I spat on the ground and then wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Unladylike I know, but I wasn’t known for being very ladylike in the first place.

  “We have to go,” Drew told me. “We have to get over the bridge before more soldiers come.”

  I straightened and then turned to look at him. Our eyes locked and all I could see in those green irises was pity reflecting back at me. I didn’t need his damn pity. The last thing I wanted was anyone feeling sorry for me. “Yeah,” I agreed, “let’s move.” With that, I trudged ahead, leaving him to wonder what in the hell was wrong with me.

  The bridge still had at least a good inch of water covering the pavement so I sloshed through it, making my way over to the others. They stood in a half circle, surrounding the military vehicles.

  All the soldiers had been washed away with the water, but the vehicles were too heavy for even that amount of water to move.

  “I’m gonna have to drive it to get it out of the way.” Zander climbed up onto the truck, opened the door and hopped into the driver seat.

  While he fired up the engine, the others and I headed back to our vehicles. I climbed into the back seat of the escalade and buried my face in my hands. I wanted to cry, I wanted to let the tears fall until there were no more left. But, there just wasn’t time for a breakdown like that.

  The front passenger door opened and Luke peeked his head in. “Chloe, are you all right?”

  I sniffed and pushed some stray hair back over my ear. “I wish everyone would stop asking me that.” I let out a sigh and then whispered, “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  He nodded. “You did good honey.”

  Yeah right. “That doesn’t make it easier,” I snapped at him.

  “Well, it had to be done. You chose you … and us, over the enemy and that is what you should always do.”

  This time I nodded. “I know. I just wish we didn’t have to shoot people.”

  “I wish the same thing, believe me. This is a first for us too, we have never had to kill humans before the Vampire Apocalypse either. Just remember that.”

  Luke settled into the front seat and we watched Zander park the military vehicle, jump out and then hurry back to the driver side of his own truck.

  Drew got in to drive the Escalade, casting a quick glance in my direction, probably to make sure I wasn’t still getting sick. Gavin opened the opposite door of the back seat and slid inside, while Alice and Oscar rode with Zander like they had on the way over.

  Drew took the lead and maneuvered the Escalade between the military vehicles. While we sped over the bridge, into New Orleans, I considered what my grandfather had said. He was right, everyone else was new at this too. That almost made the feeling even worse. I was the only one who was handling it so poorly and puking every time I had to take out an enemy.

  Freaking wonderful.

  “You got the maps?” Drew asked, taking his eyes off the road long enough to look over at Luke.

  “Yes, they’re right here.” Luke leaned forward and opened the glove box to get out the maps we had picked up along the way. We had realized that none of us knew our way around New Orleans at all and we would need a map in order to find the address Anthony had given us.

  Luke unfolded one of the maps, smoothing it out onto his lap. “Let me see the address again.” He reached back, holding his hand out in expectation.

  I dug down into my pocket and sifted around until I found the piece of paper the address was written on. I’d folded it up really tiny and shoved it into my jeans so it wouldn’t get lost. “Here.” I extracted the paper and set it into his waiting palm.

  By then we were leaving the bridge behind us and heading into a section where all the roads merged and turned different ways. I stared at the crazy twisting knot of pavement and wondered how in the heck anyone ever found their way around in this city.

  Luke read Drew the directions and they seemed to have the whole driver/navigator thing going on, so I leaned back into soft leather of the seat and closed my eyes.

  After a minute I could feel Gavin staring at me. I didn’t have to open my eyes to feel the burn of his gaze. I knew that he wanted to comfort me and assure me that everything was going to be all right, but that he wouldn’t do it with Drew around.

  He needed to rest too, using our gifts took a lot out of us and he had to be as exhausted as I was.

  I opened my eyes and discovered that we were in the Garden District. I knew that we were because the houses weren’t houses, most of them were big, beautiful mansions. Even though I really wanted to close my eyes and rest, I couldn’t take my eyes off the amazing historical homes.

  The architecture o
f New Orleans was a lot different than the area where we lived. I’d seen homes that tried to emulate the style, but after getting to see the real thing, I could definitely tell the difference.

  “Turn here,” Luke directed Drew, “then take the second left after that.

  Drew nodded. “Got it.”

  The Escalade rolled down the quiet streets which seemed undisturbed by the destruction of the Vampire Apocalypse. These streets remained clean and beautiful. The yards even appeared as if they had been groomed recently. I felt my head shaking in disbelief. It was so strange to see such a place after witnessing what had happened in our city.

  “Up there,” Luke pointed, “I think that’s the address.”

  I leaned forward between the seats, trying to get a better look. The house was on a corner, surrounded by an expanse of lawn that had turned brown from lack of water. The lawn itself was surrounded by a tall iron fence which separated the entire lot from the other homes. In the center of this corner lot, sat a white mansion, complete with the large pillars the south is known for..

  Drew pulled the Escalade up in front of the closed gate and Zander’s truck, which was considerably louder than the Escalade, came to a stop directly behind us. Everyone opened their doors and stepped out into the street.

  I glanced over at Drew and he shrugged. We were faced with a locked gate and two vehicles that we were not about to leave out on the street. “Maybe one of us should hop the fence,” I suggested.

  Zander stepped up beside me. “That might be the only option we have.”

  “Who’s gonna do it?” Gavin asked.

  “I will.” Of course it was Drew who volunteered.

  “I’ll go with you,” I told him. “The buddy system, remember.”

  He answered with a slight nod and then stepped forward to inspect the fence and look for the best spot to climb over. While he was doing that I turned to the rest of the group. “You guys keep a lookout, it’s pretty dangerous out here on the street. Even though it seems to be quiet, that is actually the part that scares me.”