Love & War Book 1 in the Arcadia Falls Chronicles

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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

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BY

Jennifer Malone Wright

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Prologue—Chloe's Diary

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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.
A
ctually, 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 grandfather 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.

~~~***~~~

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.