The Recruit: Book One
Read The Recruit: Book One Online
Authors: Elizabeth Kelly
THE RECRUIT
(Book One)
By Elizabeth Kelly
Copyright 2013 Elizabeth Kelly
This book is the copyrighted property of
the author, and may not be reproduced, scanned or distributed for commercial or
non-commercial purposes. Quotes used in reviews are the exception. No
alteration of content is allowed.
Your support and respect for the property
of this author is appreciated.
This book is a work of fiction and any
resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely
coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and
used fictitiously.
Adult Reading Material
Cover art by: LFD Designs for Authors
Chapter 1
“Sara, this really isn’t a good idea.”
Hannah stared nervously at the darkening sky.
Sara rolled her eyes. “God, Hannah. You’re
just like dad – always worrying. It’s perfectly fine.”
“How well do you know these guys? I mean,
you just met them last night.” Hannah chewed worriedly at her bottom lip.
As Sara turned off the highway and down a
gravel road, she shook her head. “They’re perfectly nice, Hannah. You have to
give people a chance sometimes. Live life on the edge, take a risk!” She
winked at her.
Hannah laughed. Her baby sister was the
exact opposite of her in nearly every way. Where Hannah was tall and dark
haired with wide hips and full breasts, Sara was small and blonde and
impossibly slender. At one point in her late teens Hannah had attempted to
become like Sara by crash dieting and following an impossibly difficult
exercise routine. She lost ten pounds before, weak with hunger and in agony
from a torn hamstring, giving up. She learned to accept that her thighs would
always touch a little, that she would always have a soft, round belly and that
she would always jiggle just a bit when she walked.
It wasn’t just physical differences
though. Sara was the life of the party. Her laughter and outgoing personality
had people flocking to her while Hannah, quiet and reserved, tended to blend in
and more times than not become lost in the crowd.
“Listen,” Sara glanced at her, “these guys
are really nice and I think Justin could be the one.”
Hannah snorted. “You meet
‘
the one’ every weekend, Sara. Although you normally don’t agree to
party with guys you barely know, out in the middle of nowhere.”
“It’s not in the middle of nowhere. We’re
only five miles from the city. Plus, there’s going to be a bunch of people at
this party. It’s called a bush party, Hannah. If you hadn’t spent most of
your younger years with your nose in a book, you’d know what a bush party was.”
Hannah sighed and stared out the window.
Sara was right – she did prefer reading to partying. She wasn’t a complete
hermit; she’d had a pretty serious boyfriend in high school and they had slept
together on the night they graduated. They were both virgins and although it
had been pleasant enough, there had been plenty of awkward fumbling and
groping.
They had tried to do the long distance
thing when Hannah had left for college but that had lasted less than a month.
One Friday night, in a moment of weakness, she had agreed to go to a frat party
with her roommate. There, she had met Toby and they had started dating a week
later. He was a nice boy, much like her high school boyfriend, and while he
was more confident in bed than Mark had been she still wasn’t sure what all the
fuss was about.
There had been one night, feeling relaxed and
tipsy after a few glasses of wine, where the usual warmth and tingling she felt
during sex had started to become something more. There was a slow, spreading
ache radiating from her core. As Toby grunted and thrust above her, she had
closed her eyes and concentrated, digging her hands into the sheets and bucking
her hips against Toby’s. The ache had grown with little spirals of pleasure
circling in her belly and she had panted and moaned, feeling like she was
standing on the edge of a crevice. Before she could take that last step, the
step that would bring the release she was searching for, Toby had given one
final thrust, gasping her name as he came violently. He had rolled off of her,
snaking an arm around her waist and falling asleep almost immediately. She had
laid there, body quivering with frustration and a need she didn’t fully
understand, until finally she had drifted off into her own restless sleep.
She had dumped Toby after a few months of
listening to his off-handed remarks about her weight, and his not-so-subtle
suggestions that she should eat less and exercise more. She had stayed single
for the remainder of her college years and now, her first summer back, Sara
seemed hell-bent on making up for her lack of a social life.
They could see a few cars parked on the
side of the road and Sara pulled in behind them, shifting the car into park and
shutting the engine off. The wind was cool. It had been an unusually damp
summer and although it was only late August, it already felt like autumn. As
they moved deeper into the woods, the flickering light of a campfire could be
seen just ahead of them.
Sara smiled at Hannah and moved eagerly
towards it. Hannah cursed when she stumbled over an exposed root in the
darkness and fell forward, scraping her bare knee.
Sara helped her up. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” Hannah grumbled. Her knee was
aching and she was pretty sure that was blood dripping down it but it was
impossible to tell in the dark.
Limping, muttering softly to herself,
Hannah followed Sara until they were both standing in a small clearing. A
large fire crackled in the middle of it, shooting small sparks of light into
the darkness above it.
Hannah glanced around as Sara walked over
to Justin and slipped her arm around his waist. There were a couple of other
girls as well as Justin’s friend Nathan, who she had met last night, and two
other men she didn’t know.
Nathan waved at her and picked his way
across the clearing. He threw a friendly arm around her shoulder and smiled
down at her. “Hey, Hannah. It’s good to see you again.”
“Hi Nathan.” She gave him a guarded smile
and nonchalantly shrugged her way free of his arm. She had never cared much
for having people in her personal space, especially people she barely knew, and
she ignored his disappointed look and sat down on a log to examine her knee.
“Are there more people coming?” She
asked. She hissed slightly as she ran her fingers over the large scrape on her
knee. She had been right – it was blood dripping down her knee.
When Nathan didn’t answer, she glanced up
at him. He was staring at her knee, his eyes glowing in the light from the
fire.
“You’re bleeding.” He said.
“Yeah, I fell down.” Hannah replied. “I
don’t suppose you have any band-aids?”
Justin and Sara had drawn closer, and Hannah
frowned when a look she didn’t understand passed between Justin and Nathan.
Nathan knelt at her feet and stared at her
knee. He reached out with a slightly shaking hand and ran his finger through
the thin trail of blood that was dripping down her leg. He stuck his finger in
his mouth and sucked the blood from it.
“Eww, Nathan! That’s disgusting.” She
cried out.
He looked up at her and her breath stopped
in her throat. His eyes were glowing green in the light from the campfire and
he smiled at her, revealing his very long, very sharp incisors.
“No, it’s delicious.” He growled. Hannah
had one fleeting glance of Sara, her face pale and frightened, before Justin
pulled her against him and sunk his teeth into her neck.
Hannah screamed and leaped to her feet but
Nathan pounced on her, knocking her to the ground and pinning her down with his
large body. She was vaguely aware of the screams of Sara and the other girls
as Nathan nuzzled into her neck.
“Relax, baby. This’ll only hurt a
little.” He whispered and she shrieked again as his teeth punctured her
throat.
She struggled and kicked but she was no
match for his strength and her struggles turned into helpless whimpers as he
suckled at her neck.
She was growing weaker. The light from the
campfire seemed to be dimming but as she faded towards the blackness, the
crushing weight of Nathan was suddenly gone and she heard his growl of rage
turn into a gurgling scream. She squinted as someone leaned over her and rough
fingers prodded at her throat.
A deep voice said, “This one’s still
alive.”
There was a sharp stinging pain against her
face. “Wake up, girl. Girl!”
Another slap and she forced her eyelids
open. A pair of startling blue eyes were staring into hers, and using the last
of her strength she raised her hand and clawed weakly at the face above hers.
“Sara.” She whispered. The man grunted
and there was the sensation of being lifted before she was placed over one
broad shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
She whispered Sara’s name once more before
the darkness consumed her.
“Good morning.”
Hannah stared blearily at the woman leaning
over the bed.
“Are you thirsty? Here, let’s get you
sitting up.” The woman gave Hannah a friendly smile before helping her into a
sitting position. She tucked the pillows behind her back, and brushed her hair
away from her face.
“How do you feel?” She held a glass of
water to Hannah’s lips and urged her to drink it in small sips.
Hannah swallowed the water, easing her
parched throat, and said hoarsely, “Tired.”
The woman nodded. “Yes, you’ll be tired
for a while. You lost a lot of blood. Honestly, I’m surprised you even
survived. My name is Barb, by the way. And you’re Hannah right? Hannah
Torrington?”
“Yes. How do you know that?”
Barb smiled. “I checked in your purse.”
“What hospital am I in?” Hannah looked
around with a deadened sort of curiosity. It didn’t look like a hospital room,
with its walls covered in badly-fading wallpaper and its rough wooden floor.
“Well,” Barb hesitated, “it’s not exactly a
hospital.” The door opened and two men stepped into the room.
Hannah shrank back as they approached the
bed, but Barb patted her hand. “Don’t be frightened.”
They stood at the end of the bed and stared
silently at her for a moment. The smaller of the two looked to be in his late
fifties. He was short and lean with warm brown eyes. His bald head gleamed in
the late afternoon light, and he reached up and ran his hand over his skull
before smiling at her.
“Hello, Hannah. My name is Richard and
this is Will.”
Hannah glanced at Will. He was tall with
thick dark hair, broad shoulders and piercing blue eyes. He wasn’t
conventionally handsome Hannah supposed. His nose was just a little too large
and the angle of his jaw a bit too severe, but as he stared at her she felt a
little shiver run down her back. She gave him a weak smile and he nodded
curtly at her.
Richard leaned forward, placing his hands
on the footboard. “How much do you remember, Hannah?”
She frowned. “There was a man, his name
was Nathan, and he attacked me. He – he bit me.” She touched her neck. There
was a thin white bandage on her throat but when she tried to peel it off, Barb
pulled her hands away gently.
“I don’t remember much else. Sara knew
them –“
She stopped, her eyes widening, and stared
at Richard. “Sara.” She whispered. “Where’s Sara?”