Love & War Book 1 in the Arcadia Falls Chronicles (4 page)

I took it out of its little baggie and
devoured it in mere seconds. Drew had barely had time to chew his
first bite. When I looked up at him, I saw that distinct look of
shock.

“Don’t judge,” I told him, “I’m hungry. What
else you got in there.”

He reached into his bag again, and this time
he pulled out a red apple and handed it to me, as well as another
bottle of water.

“Thanks.” I leaned over and gave him a kiss
on the cheek and then took a huge bite of my apple.

We ate in silence until Drew finished his
sandwich. “So you want to try the rocks today?”

I scanned the boulders in question and doubt
filtered through me. I shook my head. “Honestly, I probably
would
try if those boulders weren’t covered in ice and snow.
It’s too dangerous.”

I heard him sigh a little. “All right, I get
that.”

I knew what he was thinking. I was a fast
healer. My bullet wound had healed completely in just a few short
days, so any injury I might sustain doing this should be no
problem. I’d heal up fast if I broke a bone or two, but I knew he
would never say that to me. He cared about my safety, but that
didn’t mean he wasn’t hard core when it came to the training part
of him.

“Drew?”

“Hmmm?”

“I think that we should take out the Talon
Building.”

“We’ve talked about that already, Chloe. It
can’t be done.”

“Yes, it can!” I insisted. “If we take that
place out, we take out half the vampire resources for the city. We
have to.”

“But the board…”

I cut him off. “I don’t give a crap what the
board has to say about it.”

“I know, but how would that one be
explained? We can’t just take out a building in the middle of the
city. Innocent people could get hurt, even killed.”

“If we bomb it, it could be passed off as
some kind of attack. Bombings happen all the time. For all anyone
knows, it could be some disgruntled employee.”

He appeared to contemplate my idea, finally,
but I still didn’t have him.

“And the possibility of innocent people
getting hurt is slim if we do it at like two or three in the
morning. Not many who aren’t vampires are out at that time of
night.”

“True.” He slid off the rock. “Do you want
to head home?”

“Yes! I’m freezing.” All that sweat and
rolling in the snow made my clothes sopping wet, so the cold was
even worse than it would have normally been. I followed his lead
and slid off the rock, too.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were cold?” He
grabbed both my hands and pulled me forward so that he could wrap
his arms around me.

“Because I didn’t want to look like a
pansy,” I mumbled into his chest.

“I don’t think you’re a pansy at all.” He
pulled back and grinned.

“Stop lying.” I tried to pull away, but he
tightened his grip around me. “Let me go!” I laughed, trying to
wiggle out of his embrace.

He laughed, too. “No way.”

I struggled a bit more, but decided to
change my tactic. I fell still and then stared up into his awesome
green eyes. Our gazes locked, and he leaned down, as I was rising
onto my tip toes. When our lips met, I felt my whole body warm all
the way down to my toes. It was like that every time we kissed. It
was perfect.

But as soon as I felt his grip loosen, I
pushed him back and ran. “Sucker!” I called out over my shoulder as
I bounded through the bushes and back onto the trail. I didn’t stop
to see if he was behind me. I knew he was because I could hear his
footsteps crunching over the snow when he caught up with me.

I sped over the trails at a dangerously fast
pace, but then slowed when I remembered Drew did not have super
healing powers like I did. If he broke a bone, or worse, he would
not be fine in the next couple of days.

“Nice try,” he said when he caught up with
me.

I batted my eyelashes at him dramatically.
“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yeah right.” He approached me and pulled me
forward by the sleeves of my sweat shirt. “Now give me my kiss so
we can get moving.”

I wanted to make some smarty-pants remark to
taunt him some more, but I couldn’t. He took my chin, tilted my
head up so I could look into his eyes, and brought his lips to
mine.

Kissing Drew was one of those things that I
could do all day long. It was like everything disappeared. All the
bad stuff, the war with vampires, all the training, all the loss,
it was gone for those brief moments.

It was the strangest thing. My body reacted
to Drew’s touch and kiss like he was fanning the fire that burned
inside me. I still had to focus my energy when the heat got too
intense. The last thing I wanted to do was set him on fire.

“Let’s get back,” I whispered against his
cheek.

He pulled out of my embrace and turned his
head away so I wasn’t able to look him in the eye.

“Yeah, let’s go,” his voice was different,
sort of low and growly.

“Come on.” I started off down the trail,
letting him follow me down.

~~~***~~~

Back at the house, after showering and
putting on some fresh and dry clothes, I gathered my notebooks and
research materials into my backpack. I needed to go to the library
and continue research about witches. Finding out whatever we could
about Alice’s heritage or anything on how she could harness the
magic within her was paramount. If we were going to go to war, it
would be a huge asset to our side if she had some sort of power to
add to our arsenal.

After I had everything packed, I hurried
down the stairs and found Alice in the kitchen baking some sort of
goodie for us. That was one thing I totally liked about Alice being
around, there was always some kind of fresh bread or pastry for us
to munch on.

“Hey, Alice.”

“Hey.” She reached over and pulled two pot
holders off the counter, opened the oven and extracted
yummy-looking muffins.

“Those look so good!”

Alice grinned. “It’s the least I can do,
since Luke won’t let me cook the meals.”

I laughed, remembering the bickering that
had taken place between Alice and Luke for dominion over the
kitchen. She set the muffins on a cooling rack and wiped her hands
on her apron. “Where are you going?” she asked.

I reached over and snatched one of the
steaming hot muffins to take with me. “I’m going to the
library.”

“You want me to come with?”

“You should.” I tossed the muffin from hand
to hand because it was still so hot. “I’m looking up witch stuff
today. We need to find out more. We know next to nothing about this
stuff.”

Alice nodded. “Okay, give me a minute.” She
took off her apron, made sure the oven was off and hurried out of
the kitchen.

I wandered into the living room, tossing my
muffin from hand to hand.

Our living room was small, but it was cozy,
and that’s what really mattered. It always felt homey and lived-in.
The muffin finally cooled enough for me to take a test bite. While
I chewed, I noticed someone had left the newspaper spread all over
the coffee table. I took another big bite and sat down to scan.

The newspapers were all from different days,
and some of the reports had been circled with a red marker. Each
circled article was a report of an animal attack where the victim
had been saved by a dark-haired man.

All the victims were women, and each woman
claimed she remembered nothing about her rescuer, except the dark
hair, and only minimal information about the attack itself. One
woman stated she had been walking home from work. She couldn’t
remember seeing an attacker, just felt an animal bite into her
neck, and the next thing she knew, she was waking up to see the
dark-haired man telling her everything would be all right, while he
dialed for the ambulance on her phone and handed it to her. Then he
was gone.

Another report was a young woman trying to
unlock her car at her home to leave to attend a night class for her
college courses. The bites on her were reported to cover her neck,
arms, and thighs. Medical personnel reported that most of her bites
probably occurred while she fought off the animal. This woman’s
memory was also vague. She remembered being attacked from behind
and seeing a dark-haired man rushing toward her and the animal. She
admitted to closing her eyes at that point, thinking she was
probably going to die. She felt the animal being ripped away and
thrown. Only then did she open her eyes. The man, who wouldn't look
at her, snatched up her purse and took out the phone. He dialed 911
quickly, reported a severe animal attack and left the scene with
the woman lying on her blood-covered driveway.

“Interesting, huh?” Drew stood in the
doorway.

He surprised me so much I almost dropped my
muffin.

“Who is this guy?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But the attacks are vampires,
so he’s fighting them and saving innocent people.” He shrugged. “We
can’t decide if we want to let him be, or if we should try to find
out who he is.”

I stood, excited.” “We have to find out! He
could help with our plans.”

Drew shifted and leaned against the door
frame. “We don’t actually have any plans, yet, in case you
forgot.”

“Plans for what?” Alice hurried into the
room.

“World domination.” I ate the last bite of
my muffin and crumpled the wrapper, and then I wandered into the
kitchen to throw it away.

I could hear Drew explaining the whole thing
to her. I took my time in the kitchen, got a glass of orange juice,
drank it, rinsed the glass and set it in the sink. I finally heard
Alice’s quiet voice reply, “I think we should find out who he is,
too. Whether we have plans to attack or not, we
should
know
who he is.”

I wandered back into the room. “Does he even
know about the hunters? That is another thing to consider.”

I picked up my backpack and slipped it on my
back.

Drew narrowed his eyebrows. “That’s a good
point. Most importantly is that he's drawing attention to himself
and exposing us without even knowing it. Where are you going?”

“Library. You ready, Alice?”

Drew spread his hands out “What? I’m not
invited?”

I went to him and gave him a quick peck on
the lips. “Oh, don’t pout. Of course you’re invited.”

Alice laughed out loud. I turned away and
opened the front door.

~~~***~~~

“Nothing!” Alice closed yet another book and
shoved it toward the stack of books sitting in the center of the
large table we had taken over.

I couldn’t help but let out a long sigh. “We
are never going to figure this out.”

Alice frowned. “Maybe we should just face
it, you guys. It’s a possibility that I’m never going to find
magic.” She shrugged. “Maybe Sostrate was wrong.”

Drew and I shared a concerned look at the
same time Oscar showed up with his motorcycle helmet in hand.

“She isn’t wrong,” he declared, setting his
helmet on the table.

“We don’t know that.” Alice looked up at
him. “We can’t find anything about how to do this sort of thing in
any of these books.” She motioned to the stack on the table. “I
don’t even know any of my family, and none of us know any witches.
We can’t ask the board members, because they already think we are
all crazy.”

Oscar stepped behind her and rubbed her
shoulders. “Let’s not stress out too much right now. You’re doing
so great with your sword training; you have that to concentrate
on.”

He stopped rubbing her shoulders and sat in
the chair beside her.

My mind hadn’t exactly been on the
conversation while I listened to them talk. I had been thinking,
and I didn't know why I hadn’t thought of it before.

“Alice,” I leaned forward, “I have powers,
and I’m not a witch, but all these books go back to witchcraft
being part of nature and elemental. They all talk about dealing
with the person’s energy, the individual witch in question, like,
her inner energy.

I saw Drew’s mouth open a little bit as
understanding set in.

I continued, “I pretty much taught myself
how to control the fire. I still am, but I could probably help you
figure out how to help you focus your energy.”

Drew pointed at his book. “And we have
enough in here about candles, crystals and junk to know what we'll
need for help.”

Oscar traced his finger over the back of
Alice’s hand. “She’s right. This might work.”

With a shrug, Alice nodded. “Well, it’s
worth a shot, I guess.”

Even though she agreed, I could hear the
skepticism in her voice.

“Good!” I shut my book, too. “I’ll help you
work on that tomorrow.” Quickly, I shot an ‘I’m sorry’ look at Drew
before going on. “Since we are all here, I think we need to talk
about what we are going to do about the vampires.”

No one said anything in response, which was
kind of embarrassing.

“Chloe wants to take the Talon
Building.”

“What?” Alice gasped. “No! There isn’t a
way.”

I leaned forward to whisper since we were in
a library. “Alice, we were warned. Sostrate told us they were
coming for us. We
cannot
sit around and wait for them to
attack our families, our homes. We just can’t.”

“But…” Alice tried to respond, but Drew cut
her off.

“She’s right about not wanting to risk our
families because someone told us not to do something, but I’m still
on the fence about the Talon Building. There are too many of them
and too few of us.”

Oh, he could be so frustrating. I threw my
hands up. “I’m not suggesting that we go in there and fight them
all hand-to-hand. I think we should bomb it.”

“Well, well, isn’t this a nice.”

Each of us swiveled our heads in surprise
when Christina appeared from within the bookshelves.

I rolled my eyes. “Great.”

“What’s the matter, Chloe, not happy to see
me?”