Bound by Revenge (Guardian Series) (35 page)

Erika, thank you for reading and rereading this story, for all your suggestions and your never-ending faith in me.

To all my family and friends who believed in and encouraged me throughout this process. I truly appreciate it.

If you enjoyed Bound by Revenge

watch for Destined by Loss

coming soon.

Enjoy an Excerpt from

Destined by Loss

Chapter One

A black titanium arrow whirred past Abby, grazing her arm and pulling the skin back to expose a trickle of blood.

She growled low in her throat and glanced down at the wound before turning her attention to the vast space to try to locate the leanthan that caused it.

This battle, like all the others recently, was taking place in a public venue. It was getting harder and harder to keep the humans ignorant of the supernatural world around them. Lucky for the guardians, they had Vance. Whenever the guardians would walk into a battle, Vance and Sam would take a minute to round up all the humans and escort them out to safety before Vance would quickly rummage through their minds to implant a reasonable explanation and then let them find their own ways home. Vance had always been reluctant to use that particular gift but the others had finally convinced him that the unknown long term risks to the humans were worth it if he could prevent the humans from going to the media about the supernatural world that was hidden in their own backyards.

The guardians worked tirelessly to save humanity. This small group was made up of the few guardians left on earth. They were an immortal race that protected humanity from the dangers that other immortals posed. And right now, those dangers took two forms. Rogue demons that had forsaken their duty to work with angels to protect the delicate balance on earth and leanthans, an immortal species that mutated thanks to interbreeding between demons and humans. The leanthans were normally a peaceful group but, under the influence of certain demons, could become deadly.

Finally, Abby found what she was looking for. A small framed leanthan, standing against the far wall in the balcony of the Olde Ruthers Playhouse.

“Get the girl with the crossbow!” Abby yelled up to her brother Alex, who was fighting with a young male leanthan at the top of the balcony stairs. As if he was just engaged in combat with the leanthan for fun, he tossed the young man over the battered wooden railing and focused on his new target.

The playhouse had been around for more than two hundred years and it had only seen a few upgrades during that time. The wooden benches that lined the downstairs atrium and the balcony had long burgundy cushions covering the original surface. But even these were fifty years old, threadbare and tearing around the edges, and the coloring was fading on the more desirable seats.

Despite its degrading quality, the playhouse remained popular among the humans of Ruthers. It was the home of the Ruthers’ Acting Troupe and a summertime acting camp for kids of various ages. Most weekends you could find a handful of local actors putting on a show for a hundred or so loyal fans. The rest of the week, the playhouse was the solitary home of the actors practicing their craft.

These actors were the leanthans apparent targets today. Lucky for them the guardians had Tom.

Tom, Abby and Alex’s younger brother, just joined the guardians three months ago, after their father’s tragic death at the hands of the leanthan’s demon leader, Morgan. He took his father’s death especially hard since Bradley had died trying to rescue him from the demon. Now Tom used all his resources to keep an eye on the leanthans and demons in town, in a desperate attempt to save anyone else from the pain he felt every day.

What resources could an eighteen year old boy have? The kind that the guardians couldn’t duplicate with any type of immortal gift. He had friends.

Tom knew just about every teenager in town. He was the wealthy, attractive son of a prominent business man in town. These were the very seeds of popularity. And, for some reason, every kid in Ruthers’ would watch for suspicious behavior in their neighborhood and report it to Tom, usually via texts or Facebook. They never asked why he wanted to know about such things, they didn’t care. They were just eager to play into his little game and take the opportunity to put themselves in Tom’s good graces for the moment.

It was one of these “teen tips”, as Alex mockingly referred to them, which brought the guardians to the playhouse.

There were ten leanthans in the building that Abby could see. A few others ran as soon as the guardians showed up. Only two humans were injured before they arrived, just skin abrasions that were probably caused by trying to escape from the much stronger leanthans.

But there were no humans here now and the leanthans that remained were heavily armed and ready to fight.

And Abby had her eye on two female leanthans that were rummaging through the office off the hallway next to the stage.

Abby crept across the floor, flinching when the aged floorboard underneath her betrayed her location and brought the two females to attention.

There were papers scattered all over the floor in the small cube, discarded for their lack of utility.

“Can’t find what you need?” Abby asked, in a tone that came off as incredibly sincere.

The shortest woman had light blonde hair, almost white. She looked sweet and childlike, appearing around the age of a 16 year old human. She squinted her eyes tight and examined Abby, in a clear attempt to size her up. “Nope. I guess it’s not here.” She chirped finally relaxing as she decided that Abby had to be on their side.

The second leanthan, a thin female, standing about six foot one, with black hair trimmed tightly to her neck, kicked the first on the back of the foot.

“Hey. Why’d you do that, Janie?” The young girl whined.

“You freakin’ idiot.” Janie clenched her teeth so hard her face was in danger of shattering like dropped crystal. “You’re gonna get up both killed cuz you can’t keep your damn mouth shut.”

“I didn’t do anything, Janie. I’m gonna tell mom that you kicked me for no reason and you’re gonna be in a lot of trouble.” The girl crossed her arms over her chest and raised her chin in defiance.

“Great, good luck with that. It’s gonna be a little hard to ground me when we’re both dead.” Janie glared at her sister.

“Enough!” Abby screamed loud enough to clamp the mouths of the bickering siblings. “What the hell are you looking for?”

“Nothing important, I don’t think. Morgan said we needed to find an address book. There’s supposed to be something in there she wants. If I were her I’d just go online. Everything’s online nowadays.” She rattled on, seemingly ignorant of the bloodshed in the next room, like only a teenager could.

“And who exactly are you?” Abby prodded, tapping one foot on the ground while holding her right hand on her hip.

“Oh, yeah, excuse my manners. I’m Maryann and this is my sister Janie.” Maryann motioned to her sister. “Who are you?”

“Well, let me see how to put this. I’m here to prevent you and your friends from hurting any humans.” Abby stepped one foot out and braced herself for the girls to realize they were facing an enemy.

Instead, Maryann burst out into a loud and high-pitched laughter that seemed to denote insanity as opposed to enjoyment.

“Why would we hurt anyone? We just needed to pick something up for Morgan. She’s really nice; she pays us really well whenever we bring her something from her list.” Maryann pulled out a small pink notebook from her back pocket and flipped it open to show a long list with a few items at the top crossed off.

Janie grabbed the notebook from her sister’s grip and shoved it in her back pocket. “Maryann, you need to shut it. She’s not our friend. We have to get out.”

“Don’t be such a worrywart. She’s just talkin’ to us, right, you’re not gonna hurt us?”

Maryann’s eyes clouded with the storm of panic that suddenly reached past her childish trust to expose the true danger before her.

“Stupid girls.” Abby shut the door behind her to keep any others from seeing their conversation. “You’re obviously not warriors. So what does any of this have to do with you?”

“We’re not stupid.” Janie spoke up and stepped in front of her sister to face Abby. “We’re doing what we need to in order to survive. You think I don’t know that Morgan’s up to something? But as long as she can pay me enough to keep shelter over my family’s heads and food in their stomach’s, we’ll find what she asks.”

Abby actually respected the sentiment. There’s nothing she wouldn’t do to take care of her family. But still, these girls were a part of something they couldn’t possibly understand. And the first time they disappointed Morgan, they’d be dead too.

“Give me the list.” Abby brought her palm up firmly in front of Janie and waited. And when Janie took too long to oblige, Abby used her other hand to pull out a foot long steel blade and she held it down by her side. She had no intention of actually hurting these girls, but they needed to know she meant business.

“Just give it to her Janie.” Maryann fell to the floor crying at Janie’s feet.

“Fine, get up, drama queen. You must feel really at home here, huh?” Janie rolled her eyes at her sister and pulled the notebook from her pocket and slapped it in Abby’s still-outstretched hand.

Maryann popped back to her feet with no sign of tears left on her smiling face.

Abby opened the book to the first page. It read more like a grocery list or a to-do list than a want list for a murderous demon. The address book the girls were looking for today was midway through the page. The first three items on the page were crossed off. A business card from someone Abby’d never heard of, a branch from a very specific birch tree, and some clothes from an address on Fifth Street.

After the address book, the rest of the list was still yet to be obtained, presumably by the strange set of girls in front of her. Some items were as simple as basic household herbs to the more obscure like weaponry that would have to be created rather than found.

“Did you even bother asking what she wants with this stuff?” Abby huffed. She felt like she was talking to toddlers instead of the women in front of her who had to be at least in their mid-twenties since leanthans aged slower until they reached what appeared to be the human age of somewhere between twenty five and thirty five. Then they’d stop aging entirely.