Birthright (Residue Series #2)

Text copyright ©2012 by Laury Falter

All rights reserved. Except as permitted by the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author or the publisher.

First Edition: July 2012

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Falter, Laury, 1972-

Birthright: a novel / by Laury Falter – 1
st
ed.

ISBN-13: 978-0-9855110-1-2

This book is dedicated to everyone with a dream.

I
truly
hope you get the opportunity to fulfill yours, too.

CONTENTS

1   BODIES

2   THELEO ALESIUS

3   RELICUUM

4   FIRST INTERACTION

5   CLEANSING

6   CURSE

7   ACCEPTANCE

8   BIRTHRIGHT

9   FIRST LESSON

10  CHANNELING

11  SAVIOR

12  HISTORY

13  COVEN

14  CITY OF THE DEAD

15  SARTORIUS

16  DEFIANCE

17 
VOODOO

18  SLAUGHTERHOUSE

19  ENCOUNTER

20  ROPE

21  DEFECTION

The two men remained motionless, as if attempting to go unnoticed. Dressed in black suits and concealed beneath the thick, sprawling bows of mature cypress trees, they easily could have been. It was only the faint reflection of a stone embedded in their rings
,
glinting against the dull moonlight
,
which
gave them away.

I stopped immediately, drawing the attention of everyone around me. That was the very problem in fact.
Everyone was here.
The Weatherfords and the Caldwells,
whose family feud is notorious
, were standing peacefully side by side,
facing
two men who would do everything in their power to keep us apart.

In those brief seconds
,
after I caught sight of them
, everyone else
traced my line of sight to what had caused
the
sharp, reactive gasp
now drawing
my shoulders tense.

Someone shouted “Vires” with panic in their voice
,
and the bodies surrounding me rapidly shifted in all directions.

Jameson was the first to make it to my side, stepping slightly ahead of me and selflessly becoming my human shield. The rest of the Caldwells and
the
Weatherfords collectively united, merging, positioning around us,
prepared
for the inevitable fight to come. I looked for a way to the front, refusing to standby helplessly, but the wall of bodies
surrounding
us was thick. There was no way to move through them
,
unless I wanted to disturb their intense
focus
toward the scene unfolding.

Only my mother seemed to react slowly, circling around to the front and stopping halfway between the Vires and the rest of us.

“Isabella,” the taller one
stiffly
addressed her
.

“
Frederick
,” she replied, almost casually, nodding her head in his direction. To the other man, she stated, “Anastas.” He was squat with arms that curved out around his portly waist, making him appear imposing without saying a word.

The tension in the air was almost palpable now.

An owl hooted in the distance, somewhere beyond the rotting cypress trees
,
across the quiet, stale water of the bayou’s edge where we stood, jarring a few of those around me.

“I wasn’t told of your arrival,” my mother acknowledged
,
conversationally. Since that simply wasn’t a trait of hers, I knew she was trying to side step a conflict.

“They saw no need for it,” said
Frederick
, hinting at the fact that those in charge had sent them.

“I see…and what is the purpose of your visit?” The way she asked this made her sound as if she had a higher level of authority over these two, maybe not within the same group, but
she was
definitely more senior.

“Surveillance of the province.”
Frederick
replied, hesitant
ly
.

No one dared to make a movement yet. The Vires
’
stances remained taut
and timid
, as if they’d caught someone with more power than them making a grave mistake.

Then Anastas confirmed this by adding sternly, “It looks like that mission has now changed.”

Jameson’s immediate reaction was to step di
rectly between me and the Vires, but
I
slid to the side, opening up my view of the situation again.

“Not so,” my mother
glibly
replied
.
“You’ve completed your surveillance here
,
and
now you can
move on.”

Frederick
shook his head slowly. “It doesn’t work that way, Isabella. You know that.”

My mother’s jaw tightened in response.

“
As believed, the
Caldwells and
the
Weatherfords have united
.
The ministry will want to know it.”
Drilling the message in
,
Frederick
finished with, “This won’t go unreported.”

James
on’s hand fell back and found my
wrist. While his touch was comforting
and
secure, his words
made me uneasy
,
as they ran through my head,
“Stay beside me.”

“Please,”
my mother firmly stated.
“Let us leave and we can avoid any bloodshed.”

Again
,
Frederick
shook his head, this time more resolutely.
His
hand slipped around the lapel of his suit jacket, opening it, exposing a cache of metal weapons. His free hand came around one of them and
,
a second later
,
the edge of the bayou erupted
into
a battlefield.

Shouts of incantations filled the once quiet night air. Bodies flashed around me, moving at blurred speeds. The tree closest to us uprooted and, despite it being the height of a two-story building, Anastas flung it
towards
us as if it were a paper airplane. It landed short, skidding along the ground, leaving a three foot-wide divot in its wake.

Frederick
was now in the air, his legs bent beneath him, looking like he had just sprung off the ground. Oscar and Burke were under his feet, clawing for him and only catching air,
which validated
my guess.
Yelling down at them,
Frederick
cast
his voice
so powerful
ly
it caused them to
crumple
to their knees.

Forgetting Jameson’s request to stay with him, I ran
to
them, skidding to a stop as another tree soared overhead
and crashed
into one of the vehicles behind us
,
raining shattered glass all around. Ignoring it, I placed one hand on each of their shoulders, grasping them as they writhed in pain. Over the roar, I had to shout
“Incantatio s
ana
”
several times before their bodies responded
,
and they sat up.

Turning
,
I found Jameson leading the charge on Anastas.

Frederick
, however,
was harder to get to. He was hovering near the tree tops.

Someone flew by me
then
,
heading
directly for him.
She
was a smudge
against the tree-lined backdrop;
her frizzy, bright red hair
confirming it was
Aunt Lizzy. She moved with the speed of a jetliner, not bothering to slow down on her approach. From another angle, someone with extremely long legs made the same motion toward
Frederick
. This one I recognized instantly as
my mother. Jameson’s mother followed
,
and the three of them carried
Frederick
over the trees and out of view.

The rest were on Anastas now
,
as he too tumbled across the shallow water and into the darkness.

I swept my legs out from under me and shot off in that direction
,
only to be stopped by Estelle.

She emerged from the gloom
bloodied and shaking.

I healed her and went farther in.

Next
,
I saw Spencer and Nolan. Their gashes were deep
,
spilling blood like a running hose. I healed them too.

Everyone
returned, coming out of the dark as a whole, exhausted
and
scuffed with moss and dirt,
their clothes hanging in shreds.
Jameson was the last to appear, panting heavily
. Half
his face cloaked by
the blood streaming from a wound hidden above his hairline.

My heart wrenched so tightly I thought it might have stopped all together.
When
it
finally
started beating again
,
it raced fiercely,
emphatically
pumping a mixture of emotions through me. Desperation, anger, dread…

That stream turned into a rushing current, pounding in my ears
and
vibrating my skin until it
consumed me.

Just
as Jameson reached me
, embracing
my trembling shoulders, the energy exploded,
sending
a blast
radiating
across Jameson and out to our family members
who were
struggling through the muck toward dry land.

As Jameson
brought his
lips close
r
to my ear, he took in a deep breath, filling his lungs to a depth that made it seem as if he’d been suffocating for years.

I knew he’d felt it too
when we pulled back and I saw
the pain
had been erased
from his face.

“You did it, sweetheart,” he
softly
whispered
.

After a sweeping gaze at everyone else
,
I understood what he’d meant. They’d all been healed.

My relief was short lived
, however,
as my mother spun around to face us.

In her typical, bleak, bitterly-honest way, she delivered a warning
, quickly erasing
any feelings of
abatement.