From the Ashes (Force of Nature #1)

  Contents

  Cover

  From The Ashes

  Copyright

  More by ALN

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE

  Part One:

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  Part Two:

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  Part Three:

  23

  EPILOGUE

  Next in the series...

  What to read now...

  Acknowledgments

  Connect with ALN

  From The Ashes

  By

  Amber Lynn Natusch

  From The Ashes Version 1.0

  Copyright © 2016 Amber Lynn Natusch

  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 publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9970765-2-3

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, businesses, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Amber Lynn Natusch

  Cover Design by Regina Wamba, at Mae I Design

  Editing by Kristen Bronner

  www.amberlynnnatusch.com

  More by Amber Lynn Natusch

  The Caged Series

  CAGED

  HAUNTED

  FRAMED

  SCARRED

  FRACTURED

  TARNISHED

  STRAYED

  CONCEALED

  BETRAYED

  The UNBORN Series

  UNBORN

  UNSEEN

  Contemporary Romance

  UNDERTOW

  More Including Release Dates:

  amberlynnnatusch.com

  facebook.com/amberlynnnatusch

  Sign up for my Newsletter

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  To my husband,

  Thanks for tolerating all of my fictional boyfriends

  PROLOGUE

  There are moments in life when you see things with perfect clarity—moments when you choose to define who and what you are. And then there are those that define things for you. Lying on the floor, bleeding to death, I realized that fate had interceded on my behalf. It was all very simple, really: stay and be the weakling I had always been told I was. Stay and let my life slowly drain from me, never bothering to fight—a natural born victim. Or, in a rare act of defiance and courage, I could force myself to get up and leave. Force myself to quiet the voices in my head telling me it would all be better tomorrow. But I was no fool.

  If I stayed, tomorrow would never come.

  Tick tock, Piper. Tick tock.

  It was then that I could hear the fighting in the distance. The voices. The others had returned home and come to my aid. I could hear the ruckus around me as they tried to restrain him. Now was my moment. This was my chance. With a surge of adrenaline, I pushed myself off the blood-soaked floor and staggered on barely functioning legs toward the doorway that led to the hall. I needed to get to my room. I needed provisions.

  I would not be returning to the mansion again. Ever.

  His angered roar chased me down the corridor, spurring me on. I did not know how long the others could subdue him. My failing body was sluggish and uncoordinated from blood loss and a concussion, but I managed to get to my bedroom with considerable speed—my will to live was stronger than I'd thought. I threw open the heavy wooden door and made my way inside. I took only seconds to throw what I could find into a duffel bag: clothes, shoes, a jacket. Then I grabbed my purse and fled.

  I tripped just as I rounded the top of the staircase and rolled down the first few steps before I managed to stop myself and slide down the rest in a more controlled fashion. I was almost to the security door. Almost to safety.

  “Piper!” he screamed after me. I shuddered instinctively. Hazarding a glance over my shoulder as I tried to punch in the code to unlock the front entrance, I found him looming at the top of the staircase. Four enforcers were trying hard to hold him back, but they were losing. Even against their combined power, he pushed forward after me.

  There would be no stopping him.

  My hands shook and my vision blurred from the blood dripping into my eyes, both interfering with my ability to type in the code. With his heavy footfalls echoing through the grand foyer, I tried repeatedly to press the proper buttons to no avail. My attempt to live was proving futile; he was closing in.

  With only seconds to spare, I managed to unlock the main security door. I could hear his straining breaths approaching as I threw it open, turning to slam it closed behind me. Once I was through, I was free, if only for a moment. The sun would soon be rising. Once that happened, he couldn't follow, and he knew it. He'd have to wait for nightfall to come after me.

  And by then I'd be long gone.

  I leaned back against the solid metal door, my breath coming in ragged gasps. I needed to get outside, out of the tiny room that separated the vampires from the impending light. Outside, I could heal. Once healed, I could leave.

  With ever-weakening steps, I schlepped my way to my final obstacle: the front door. Swinging it open with ease, I fell to the concrete and crawled away from the mansion. By that point, I could barely lift myself off the ground. But I needed nature—the elements—if I had any chance at repairing what had been damaged. And so I pressed on until I felt the familiar touch of newly cut grass beneath me. Face down, I collapsed to the lawn, my mind fading as I did.

  “Help me,” I whispered to the Earth as darkness overtook me.

  And help me, it did.

  Part One:

  BEFORE

  1

  It was all very unceremonious when the king of the vampires took me in. I knew he had his reasons at the time—vampires never do anything without a reason—but I happily accepted. I was homeless. I was naïve. And I was tired of watching my back.

  My sob story isn't especially original; I was orphaned when I was about two and fell into the hands of the foster care system, where I stayed. The Department of Child and Family Services never could quite figure out why a perfectly healthy white toddler couldn't get adopted, but that seemed to be the case, leaving me with few options. They also had no idea where I'd spent those first two years or who had cared for me. I was no help. I was far too young to remember.

  To make up for whatever shortcomings had landed me in the system, I worked my ass off in school, doing all that I could to succeed both academically and socially. Though I excelled scholastically, I failed miserably at fitting in. I wasn't like them, and it was as if they could sense that somehow.

  I was forever an outsider.

  Until I wasn't.

  When it came to light that I was something more than human, and that there was an entire community—an entire world—out there that was too, I cried joyous tears. But that happiness soured quickly. The more supernaturals I encountered, the more I realized that, even in their world, I still lived on the fringe. I’d find no acceptance with them, though I didn’t know why. None of them showed any interest in me—unless you called being the target
of their loathing interest. And they all had plenty of that. The witches all but officially shunned me. The fey wouldn't deign to have anything to do with me. The rest brought a mix of superiority and indifference to our encounters—except for the warlocks. Our relationship proved far more complicated than the others. And far more deadly.

  For that reason alone, I accepted the vampire king's offer of protection.

  Before that, I had been on my own for eight years after aging out of the system. I learned how to survive as a magical being in a mundane world, but not easily. I worked when odd jobs came my way, though it proved hard to find solid employment without a permanent address. Basically, I scraped by however I could. Sometimes it wasn't pretty.

  What I found most frustrating was that I knew I had powers—being acknowledged by the other supernatural races at all told me as much—but I had no idea the depths of them or how to call upon them. In short, I knew little to nothing at all, and I wasn't sure anyone else did either. If they had, they might have thought twice about turning their backs on me.

  That fact made me question early on the motives of the king.

  * * *

  “Hey Piper,” Jase called from the kitchen. I walked in to find him pilfering another twelve-pack from the fridge.

  “You know it's only ten in the morning, right?”

  “Ah, but you forget, my young Jedi. Your morning is my night. This is merely a nightcap before I pass out for the evening.”

  I rolled my dark-blue eyes, irritated that he once again had a point. Jase loved to be right, a fact that was blatantly displayed in the grin he wore.

  Living in the mansion was a strange life to adapt to in the beginning. Located in lower Manhattan, the property spanned multiple city blocks, cleverly shrouded by magic. While humans saw the standard multi-story buildings that predominated in New York City, what really existed was a lush, expansive estate surrounded by woods. Every time I crossed through the perimeter, the pull of that magic was impossible to deny. Then there was my perception of time, which was turned on its ass; day was night and night was day. My sense of self was somewhat lost as well, surrounded only by the strongest of the strong, the toughest of the tough—the most gifted. The enforcers were all total badasses in their own right, and that was a lot to live up to. At some point early on, I stopped trying.

  Most of them had been welcoming to some degree, but they all seemed somewhat suspicious of me. All but two. The brothers of the crew—Jase and Dean—were massive and intimidating. Both were known for their incredible speed and ability to “ghost” from one place to another, which made them special and therefore highly prized by the king. The rest couldn't do what they could. From what I'd heard, it was a pretty impressive party trick.

  Jase and Dean took me under their collective wing and showed me the way of things in the vampire world. Under their tutelage, it didn't take too long for me to get the hang of things. As much as a non-vampire ever could.

  Their lives weren't all that complicated, really. They drank (booze, not just blood), they partied (hard), they scammed on women (supernaturals and humans alike), and, when necessary, they brought a little punishment down on deserving parties (euphemism of the century). They, and the other enforcers, were a policing body for the vampires and, for a price, the other breeds of otherworldlies that inhabited the Earth. In plain English, they were a force to be reckoned with.

  They, these party-loving bringers of pain, were my family.

  “You'll catch on eventually, kid. Promise.”

  “It's been months...almost a year. I don't think it's looking too good for me.”

  His smile widened.

  “Well, look on the bright side. If you're not a quick study, at least you're really hot.”

  My eyes did another loop of their sockets.

  “And out of your league,” I retorted, pushing past him to grab some food—the only food—out of the refrigerator. Vampires didn't need to eat solids, so I had become the queen of takeout, a crown that I wore with pride.

  The truth was, I wasn't out of Jase's league at all. Dean's either. They were out of mine.

  I was petite, thin—weak. My pale skin was harshly contrasted by my straight black hair, making me look more dead than the vampires I lived with, an accomplishment in and of itself. The boys, however, were practically carbon copies of one another. Tall. Thick. Strong. And painfully good-looking. Their short, dark hair framed their angular features perfectly, and their brown, almost black eyes looked at you like they were staring into your soul. Women, human and otherwise, were putty in their hands. I seemed to be one of the only beings that could withstand the power of their good looks. I think they found me amusing solely because of that fact. Amused or not, I wasn't messing up our relationship by sleeping with either of them. I'd seen others in the house do that.

  It always ended badly.

  “We're going out tonight,” he continued, not acknowledging my dig.

  “Wait...isn't it night now?”

  “Yes, technically. I meant YOUR night. So you'd better go nap or whatever it is you need to do to stay out with the big dogs. We're going out hard...”

  “Don't you always?”

  “Yes, but tonight we're going out harder than usual.”

  “What's the occasion?” I asked, popping out of the fridge with a leftover Chinese food container in hand. An arm snaked around my shoulder from behind me, startling me for a second until I turned to find Dean smiling down at me, just as his brother was.

  “Merc is back in town.”

  “Merc?”

  “Mercenary, a.k.a Merc. It's our pet name for him.”

  “Sounds charming.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “So where's he back from?” I asked. It seemed an innocent enough question. But judging by the quick devolution of their expressions, I guessed I'd hit a nerve.

  “That's a bit of a touchy subject,” Jase started, always the more diplomatic of the two boys.

  “And don't you dare fucking ask him about it,” Dean chimed in. “He'll go postal. You do NOT want Merc to go postal, understand?”

  “Yeah. I got it. Don't poke around at the new guy's past. No problem.”

  “It shouldn't really be an issue anyway,” Jase added. “He's not much of a talker.”

  “More of the strong silent type?” I deadpanned.

  “Something like that.”

  The two males exchanged looks before heading toward the swinging door leading out of the kitchen.

  “So where are we going exactly? I need to know what I'm wearing.”

  “You know where we're going...”

  “Didn't we practically get kicked out of there last time?” I groused.

  “Yep. But that's all been smoothed over now,” Jase said with a grin.

  “We'll find you later,” Dean added, following his brother out of the room.

  They disappeared, leaving me to my takeout and contemplations. Did I want to partake in their night of debauchery, which would end as it always did: with them finding a light snack (should read “human to feast on”) and me waiting for them to finish up? And then there was the mysterious return of Merc. Was I going to be stuck entertaining him while the boys did their thing? From what they’d told me, he sounded like the perfect companion to ensure a horrible night. I didn't need another moody vampire in my life, or one with a short fuse for that matter. I was all set with hair-trigger vamps. I lived in a house full of them.

  One way or another, I needed to duck out of Jase's planned festivities.

  * * *

  Another difficult part of living with vampires was trying to evade them. It was virtually impossible once the sun went down. And unfortunately for me, that was when they (and fun-loving humans) went out. My plan to avoid going clubbing with them was dead in the water. Jase and Dean tracked me down without even trying.

  “Did you really think hiding in the pantry was going to get you out of this?” Jase asked, clearly entertained by my antics.
>
  “Hoped would have been the word I'd have chosen, but yes. I did.”

  “Aw, don't you love us anymore, P?” Dean asked, draping his arm over my shoulders as we walked out to the parking lot.

  “I do. I just don't love your harebrained antics when you're drunk off your ass,” I retorted. “And so help me, if you two leave me alone with this Merc character, I will never forgive you. Understand?”

  “Yeah, that will never happen,” Jase replied, all joviality gone from his tone. “Merc is fine if we're around, but you are not to go anywhere near him if we aren't. Got it?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Very serious...ly.”

  “Does he live at the mansion?” I asked.

  “He does now.”

  “Then what the hell am I supposed to do if I'm walking down the hall and he just happens to be there? Clearly I can't just avoid him indefinitely…”

  “You can and you will,” Jase countered. “Turn around slowly and go the other way. That's what you do.”

  “Holy shit!” I exclaimed. “You guys aren't kidding? You really want me to avoid him!”

  “That is what Jase said,” Dean pointed out unhelpfully.

  “Who is this guy exactly? Some fucking vampire serial killer?” Silence. “You two are so comforting.”

  “Realistic would have been the word I'd have chosen,” Jase corrected, throwing my words back at me. “But I mean it, Piper. Merc is volatile at best, and it doesn't take much to set him off.”

  “Is that why he's been gone?”

  Again, Jase and Dean exchanged looks before answering.

  “Sort of.”

  “Fine. I won't poke the bear with a short stick and I'll retreat if I see him coming. Happy?”

  “Yep.”

  “So where is he, anyway? If he's coming to the club with us, why isn't he out here?”