BloodMarked (The Fraktioneers Book 1) Read online

  BloodMarked

  ★

  Lu J Whitley

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Lu J Whitley

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Illustration Copyright © 2015 by Laura Gordon

  Dedication

  To my husband for letting me be me. To my mom for always thinking my writing is good, even when it isn’t. To Carrie for being a tireless book pimp and for always catching my typos. To Liz for never reading my books, but always loving them anyway. To Ashley for being my most loyal reader. And to the rest of you I’ve forgotten - you know who you are – thank you for giving me the best career ever.

  Contents

  ★Chapter 1

  ★Chapter 2

  ★Chapter 3

  ★Chapter 4

  ★Chapter 5

  ★Chapter 6

  ★Chapter 7

  ★Chapter 8

  ★Chapter 9

  ★Chapter 10

  ★Chapter 11

  ★Chapter 12

  ★Chapter 13

  ★Chapter 14

  ★Chapter 15

  ★Chapter 16

  ★Epilogue

  ★Chapter 1

  The pain. The blood. Those awful, glowing red eyes.

  Greta’s screams drowned out the buzzing of the alarm clock on the cluttered nightstand beside her bed. Just a dream, she told herself, it’s just a dream.

  She ran through some quick deep breathing exercises, like her shrink, Dr. Bradshaw, had told her to. Probably the only useful thing the woman had ever said. Breathe in through the nose. Out through the mouth. In. Out. She ran her palms down her face. Christ, the nightmares were getting out of control.

  When she finally felt the last of the shudders leaving her body, she groaned and slid her legs over the side of the bed, slapping her Mystery Machine clock on her way to the bathroom. “Shut up already.” She was starting to develop an irrational resentment toward Shaggy and Scooby for their goofy smiles at 7:15 AM.

  She was tired. Exhausted right down to her bones. The nightmare had been chasing her down every night for weeks now, and nothing she’d tried seemed to get rid of it. The shrink said she should try “asking it what it wants.” Right. She could imagine standing there in her five-year-old body saying, 'What do you want, Mr. Nightmare? Please don’t eat me.'

  She blew out a frustrated sigh and decided showers were overrated. She had rugby practice after class today anyway. No point cleaning up when she was just going to leave the pitch covered in blood, sweat, and other girls’ tears. She chuckled to herself and tousled a hand through her short spiky hair, finger-combing out the tangles left by the night's tossing and turning. Luckily, it didn’t need to be washed often, the ink black strands tending to look better the messier they were. Which was a plus when you were a lazy ass college student.

  Leaving the bathroom, she picked up a pair of jeans from the top of her laundry heap and gave them a casual sniff. One more day won’t hurt. She slipped on the only pair of clean panties left in her drawer – hello laundry day grannies – pulled on the jeans, a sports bra, and a loose sweatshirt. She gave herself a cursory glance in the full-length mirror her mother had installed at the top of the stairs. Ugh. She looked like shit, but who was she trying to impress anyway? She huffed a breath up toward her bangs, sending them fluttering in all directions. As if anyone in this town was worth impressing.

  She slipped on her favorite black Chucks at the bottom of the stairs. “Bye, Mama,” she called over her shoulder as she grabbed her school bag off the coat rack and reached for the doorknob.

  “Greta,” her mother chided, “Get in here and eat your breakfast.” Greta groaned but headed toward the kitchen anyway. Hannah Brandt was not a woman who would be denied.

  Yeah, she still lived with her mother. Big deal. At twenty-three, she was practically still a chick in the nest – according to her mother anyway. Plus, rent was too damn expensive for what she made slinging pizza and beer down at Moe’s, the town’s only restaurant. So instead of moving off like everyone else, she’d taken the dreaded ‘townie’ route. Opting for the local college over a hot-shot out of state university. Not that she hadn’t applied. She had. And she’d been accepted to all but one. But honestly, how many people does Oxford accept each year? Like two?

  The problem was, Greta’s father had died when she was only five, leaving Hannah to raise a rambunctious tomboy all on her own. So she couldn’t seem to leave her mom alone like that. Not yet anyway.

  For now, she was studying hard, or hard enough to keep her 4.0 GPA. Which wasn’t really that difficult when you got down to the nuts and bolts of it. And the rugby team kept her busy. Too busy to think too long and hard about her personal life... Or complete lack thereof.

  When she entered the kitchen, her mother was whirling around the room like a Tasmanian devil with its foot caught in a bear trap. Humming. Greta let out an over-dramatic sigh as she plopped down on one of the stools pushed up against the breakfast bar. Humming was never a good sign. “Who is he?”

  “Who is who?” Mama didn’t take her eyes off her task for a second. She played the innocent act well, sometimes to the point of flipping back into her native German and pretending she didn’t know English.

  “The guy you’re trying to set me up with,” she grumbled as she pulled a few grapes out of the fruit bowl on the counter and popped them into her mouth.

  Her mother never stopped moving as she talked, mixing up a huge bowl of pancake batter and spooning it onto a hot griddle. “There’s no ‘guy.’” Hannah Brandt was a lot of things. A great liar wasn't one of them. A great matchmaker? Well, that was pretty damn low on the list.

  “Mm Hmm.”

  Her mother looked affronted at her tone, making Greta feel a little bit sheepish. “I just wanted to tell you that Florence is coming to dinner tonight.” She laid a sumptuous stack of pancakes down on the counter in front of Greta. Jesus. No wonder she could barely fit her jeans anymore. “Stephen is coming home for…”

  “Oh God, Mama,” she groaned melodramatically. “Steve!”

  “Now, Greta, Stephen is a nice boy. You could do a lot worse.”

  “Yes, Mama, I could catch Ebola and bleed out through my eyeballs.” Her mother had to be losing her mind. It was the only explanation. Steve ‘The Stevenator’ Ramsay had not only made her life a living hell in high school, but she was pretty sure he’d slept his way through more than half of town and was probably a carrier for everything but Ebola. “Mama,” she sighed, pushing back her stool and grabbing her bag as she made a bee-line for the door. “I’ve gotta go. I’m gonna be late.”

  Her mother’s voice followed her out of the house, “I’ll see you for dinn…”

  She all but ran for the bus stop before her mother could get it in her mind to come after her and make her go through with the asinine set up. Crisp leaves crunched under her feet as she made her way across Pine Court and through the alleyway that led to Main Street.

  Exactly when had her life gotten so sad? So bad her mother thought she would find Steve Ramsay an attractive option. It wasn’t like she was a lonely spinster or a crazy cat lady. Yet. Though she probably could have been the latter if her mother hadn’t been so adamantly opposed to pets.

  She’d had b
oyfriends over the years. Not many, but a few. And sure the last one had been a couple of years ago. But she didn’t have time right now to devote to someone else. Right. Well, maybe she’d have the time if she ever found someone she actually wanted to spend time on. Until then, she was fine by herself.

  Coming to a stop to wait for the bus, she took a moment to clear her mind like she usually did every morning to help prepare herself for the day. To keep calm. Her therapist called it a “preemptive strike against anxiety,” but she’d been doing the morning ritual long before she’d ever met Dr. Bradshaw. Taking a few deep breaths, she turned her face up to the sky to soak in a rare ray of sunshine on this chilly autumn morning. Then, she let out a deep breath and blocked out the world around her. The sounds of the cars passing by on Main Street. The chatter of the bubbly college coeds that lived in the residence hall behind her. She retreated into the blinding blank place inside her head.

  The White Castle, her father had called it, having never been exposed to American fast food. He’d taught her to use that clear space when she was only five. But he’d died soon after, and she’d never had the chance to ask him why he’d thought it was so important. She’d always wondered. Guessed. But never came up with a concrete answer. It was a strange lesson for someone so young. One of the few she remembered, and now cherished, because they were all she had left of him.

  As Greta opened herself up to that welcoming blankness, she got the strangest feeling she was being watched. A prickling unease made her skin crawl. What was it? She’d always felt safe once she’d entered that white space. Like nothing could harm her there. Nothing could...

  A harsh poke to her shoulder garnered a sputtered “Eek” of shock, as she floundered out of her trance like a sailor thrown overboard in a storm. The blankness held her under, not wanting to let go.

  “Earth to Brandt,” a voice called into her head, poking her in the shoulder again, harder this time. “Greta, you in there?”

  Greta’s eyes finally opened. Focused. “What?”

  Jennifer Collum peered down her thin nose at her. “Geez. Where were you, spaz?”

  Greta had to crane her neck up a little to look her friend in the face. “Nowhere.”

  Jen rolled her emerald eyes and plucked at a stray piece of chestnut hair that had gotten stuck to her lip gloss. “Well, you were in Nowhere long enough to miss the bus, nerd.”

  “Shit.” Greta glanced down the street. Sure enough, the tail end of the 7:30 bus was just turning out of sight. “Shit.” She looked back at Jen, who had her arms wrapped around her ribs like she had to prop up her gigantic breasts or they’d fall off. Hell, maybe she did. “Why are you still here then?”

  “Eh.” Jen raised a slim hand to inspect her cuticles, which were always immaculate even though she clawed opponents’ eyes out on the rugby pitch on a regular basis, Greta included. “I figured if you were gonna be late, we might as well both be late.” She shrugged. “Seems like a more valid excuse that way.”

  “Careful, Collum,” Greta chuckled, “People might start calling you nice or something.”

  Jen made a face that not even a mother could love. “Nice?” She pounded her manicured hands together, the muscles in her arms popping out in harsh relief under her perpetually tanned skin. “I’ll kick their fuckin’ asses.”

  Jen was born from money. Not that anyone could tell from the frumpy sweats that draped her 5'11” frame or the ratty backpack that was slung carelessly over her shoulder. Even though, all together, they'd happened to cost four-hundred bucks. On sale. (Greta knew. She'd been there and had almost passed out when Jen had shelled out for them.) But if anyone looked deeper. At the confident alignment of her spine. The way she carried her chestnut maned head, like she didn't give a damn what anyone thought. It was hard to miss.

  The Collums owned half the college. Probably half the town. But Jen didn’t rely on her last name to get by. Most of the time, she tried desperately to hide it, never giving up a chance to roll around in the dirt with the natives. Greta couldn't help but respect that. They’d met in Junior High and formed a fast friendship based on their mutual love of action movies and all things not girly. In high school, they’d planned to move to Europe or Florida, or any of those places that had seemed so exotic to Greta. But in the end, Greta had stayed put, and Jen had chosen to stay put with her, giving up a full-ride scholarship to Cornell in the process.

  “Gonna start walking, Brandt?” Jen said, giving her a swat on the ass. “We don’t got all day.”

  Greta got moving. Slowly trudging up the steep hill that separated them from the science building. “Your mama teach you to talk pretty like that?”

  Jen laughed. “Maybe your mama did.”

  Greta laughed back and forth with Jen as they walked, trading insults and stories that both of them already knew. But she couldn’t escape the tingling sense of worry that settled over her skin again. Making her hair stand on end. What the hell?

  ★ ★ ★

  Jaromir Ragnarsson felt utterly useless. Sitting in the dark hotel room - curtains closed - waiting for the sun to go down.

  He knew she was out there right now. Those motherfuckers were probably right on top of her, and there wasn’t one damn thing he could do about it. He swiped his long, claw-tipped fingers through the air, sending a dusty lamp catapulting into the far wall. He took in a few cleansing breaths, the air whistling past his lowered fangs. He knew if he’d turned his head and glanced in the speckled mirror, his eyes would be an incandescent red. Dammit, he cursed inwardly, still struggling for control. He had to stay calm. All he needed was to blow his top and get reported to the tiny town’s law enforcement. Even if ‘law enforcement’ consisted of one inept sheriff and a few deputies who only kept their jobs so they’d get a warning when their friends’ meth labs were getting raided over the weekend.

  The thought of her out there, without protection, it was enough to make his blood boil. And it was all his fault.

  For eighteen years now, the Brandt women had been his responsibility. He was always keeping a watchful eye out, moving them to a new location whenever the danger circled a little bit too close. But he’d gotten soft in the last few years. The mother-daughter duo had been living in the same backwoods, one horse town for almost a decade now. And nothing. Not a whiff of those skin snatching bastards.

  Until last night.

  He’d come to town on the late night Amtrak run to deliver a message to Hannah Brandt. Though he hadn’t seen much of the woman in recent years, he’d kept in touch, making sure every few weeks that nothing out of the ordinary had popped up. And it hadn’t. Normally, he would’ve kept to his big city hideout, telling himself it was to draw attention away from the women under his protection. But to be honest… well… that was a truth he didn’t want to examine too closely. At any rate, this was one of those messages he felt needed to be delivered in person. So he’d boarded the train as soon as the sun was safely below the horizon and set off into the country, regretting it every second of the way. The entire train ride had been torture. Aside from the fact he wasn’t great in crowds, and riding a train full of crazed football fans heading down to the big homecoming game made him want to shoot himself in the face, he couldn’t stop his brain from racing circles around one single, solitary thought – Greta Brandt.

  He’d last seen the girl three years ago. Three years, four months, and eight days ago, to be precise. Had he been wearing a watch at the time, he probably could have narrowed it down further. She’d been leaving her house just as he’d arrived for a meeting with the older Ms. Brandt, on her way to a late night swimming party at the lake on the outskirts of town. He’d told himself to stay out of sight, keeping to the shadows in the corner of the living room. But as she’d flown down the stairs on her way out the door, he’d caught sight of her, wearing nothing but a black bikini and a pair of flip flops. A sweatshirt tied loosely around her waist. And he’d been floored.

  He wasn’t sure how he’d missed her growing
into the woman he’d seen before him. It wasn’t like him to be so oblivious. Gone was the awkward teenage gangliness. The braces. The terrible shag haircut. In their place was a full-grown fantasy. Full lips. Sooty lashes that framed her almond-shaped eyes. Her dark hair was cut pixie short, baring the long expanse of her throat. And the body. It was a map of womanly curves he wouldn’t mind taking a few days to travel down. All silky smooth skin that had glowed like a pearl in the moonlight rushing in through the open front door.

  Luckily, she hadn’t seen him. And he needed to make sure she never would. He didn’t know exactly what he might do if she ever turned her brilliant violet eyes in his direction. Those eyes the undeniable reason she was under his protection in the first place. So he couldn’t be thinking about her like… like… however it was he was thinking. And as he’d stepped off the train the previous night, his head had been so wrapped up in the thoughts he shouldn’t be thinking, he’d barely registered the world around him. His sophisticated sense of smell had almost missed the telltale stench of rot on the wind- a surefire sign the Takers were in town for a visit.

  Uttering a string of imaginative curses, he’d grabbed his bag and stalked off into the night, knowing he only had a few hours to find the bastards before the coming dawn would force him to go to ground. And for those hours, he’d followed their scent. Weaving his way across town and back. Somehow, the skin changers had eluded him. He didn’t know if they were getting smarter, or if he was so far off his game at this point, he wasn’t even on the playing field anymore.

  All he knew for sure was, as the first lights of dawn had touched the horizon, he was still no closer to tracking them down, and he’d had no choice but to seek shelter. So when he’d stumbled upon a seedy motel on the outskirts of town, he’d booked himself a room for the day. This kind of reputable establishment rarely ever asked questions when you had cash, and he’d used that to his advantage more than once. He’d slunk into the darkened room just as the first slivers of sunlight began to burn his back through his shirt. Swearing a blue streak, both at the pain and at his inability to track the creatures that were after the Brandt women, he’d shut the door and punched up the number for Hannah Brandt’s cell phone on his own device. He didn’t want to risk calling the house, not sure he’d be able to fake a wrong number or hang up if he’d heard Greta’s husky, sleep-filled voice on the other end of the line. Gods, he was pathetic.