Descendant, p.1
Descendant, page 1
A NineStar Press Publication
www.ninestarpress.com
Descendant
ISBN: 978-1-64890-559-9
© 2022 L.E. Royal
Cover Art © 2022 Jaycee DeLorenzo
Published in October 2022 by NineStar Press, New Mexico, USA.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact NineStar Press at Contact@ninestarpress.com.
Also available in Print, ISBN: 978-1-64890-560-5
CONTENT WARNING:
This book contains sexually explicit content, which may only be suitable for mature readers. Depictions of kidnapping/abduction, physical violence against women, slut shaming, clothes shaming, threats of attempted rape, and forced mating.
Descendant
The Bluff, Book One
L.E. Royal
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Acknowledgements
About the Author
For Scarlett Pearce and Mihaly Davis. Always.
Chapter One
“SO, YOU’RE LIKE, a lesbian or something?”
The lights flashed. Violet turned from the bar, knowing who she’d find. The gray-eyed boy who’d been popping up all night stood beside her stool, one hand in his pocket, his friends not far behind.
“Listen, dipshit”—she smiled at him—“I’m just not interested. You can keep buying my drinks though, if you want.”
He was objectively attractive but forgettable, and he loved himself entirely too much. She snatched her drink off the bar—three fingers of whiskey on the rocks in a cool crystal tumbler that shone against her black nails in the club’s colored lights—and disappeared back into the crowd.
Hands touched her; fingers pressed the smooth leather of her jacket, grazed the rough black denim of her jeans and the smooth skin of her stomach, which was bare below her crop top. Violet gave herself over to it. The night had turned pleasantly soft at the edges three drinks ago, and it didn’t matter that the blonde she’d gone home with a few weeks earlier was pressed against her front, dark eyed and interested again. Violet smiled at her and moved with the music, shedding the weight of the week and reality as she went.
She lived in the haze. Everyone and nobody recognized the mayor’s eldest daughter. She was a regular in places like this, dressed too dark, too revealing, as her bad attitude clung to her like a stain.
“Hey—” Voices tried to interrupt. She brushed them off with a smirk or a middle finger, dancing just to feel eyes on her and to try to feel nothing at all.
When her momentum finally broke, she peeled a red-headed woman’s hands off her, eyed her appreciatively, and decided the redhead was a serious contender for this evening’s aftershow party, before she made a beeline for the exit.
Goose bumps pricked her skin in the cold November air that smelled like pine needles and failure. Frankston, New Hampshire, might as well be Nowhere, and for now, she was stuck here, thanks to Magnus.
It took two tries to light her cigarette, and when she did, Violet leaned back against the cool brick wall and watched the plume of smoke rise from her lips, toward the stars. It was a waxing moon, bright white-silver in a sooty, cloudless sky.
She jumped when something warm touched her collarbone and snapped her gaze down, and Violet was surprised to see gray eyes again, harder out here than they’d been under the lights. Danger, something far off said, and inside, she laughed.
“Woah, Craig. Warn a girl before you creep up all sneaky.” She smiled her best condescending smile.
“My name. Is not Craig,” he gritted out.
Violet shrugged and held out her cigarette for him to take a drag. The back of his knuckles connected with her fingers, fast, then the little white stick was rolling along the floor, and she was flexing her aching hand.
Danger, something insisted in the single breath of pause that followed. Mentally, she shrugged.
“Listen, psychopath,” she hissed, stepping forward into him and ignoring the prickle of foreboding as she realized they were alone, the music thrumming on inside without them. “I get it. You have a small dick, and your smaller feelings are hurt because I’m not fucking interested.” She reached forward to hold his chin, smiling up at him. “You’re not my type, Billy, I’m sorry. But we can be friends. You’re crazy and honestly, I can relate.”
It wasn’t unusual, the spite, condescension, and confidence that lived in her voice. Oil-black and slick like ink, it was armor. When his fist moved too quick to follow and slammed into the side of her head, it didn’t save her.
HER FACE WAS stuck to something when Violet blinked again. Leather, she realized. The purr of an engine, the smell of the air freshener Lila had made for her and hung from the rearview… Her car.
“—hottie, man, but come on, you’re really going to do this?”
“Why not? There’s no one interesting in the Bluff anyway. At least this bitch will be fun.”
Panic. Liquor slowed it, but it was there. Staying still, eyes closed, slumped in what she assumed was the backseat of her own car, Violet took quick stock. She was absolutely fucked. Wasted, dizzy, and in a moving vehicle with psycho Sam and his two goons. The slightest press against the seat told her that her phone was no longer in her jeans pocket, and neither were her car keys—obviously.
Worst case scenarios were still forming behind her eyes when they came to a stop. Adrenaline spilled through her anew. The thought that she’d have maybe a moment to catch them off guard before they knew she was awake struck.
“We leaving the car here?”
“Yeah, we’ll come back.”
“Shit, man, it’s a sweet ride. I almost want to hide it a few—”
Conversation cut off, and Violet forced herself to ignore the dread curling around her. Where she’d been liquor-warm and untouchable in the club, now she was forced sober and cold, struck with fear and the need to get home.
The car door opened, and strong hands gripped her. He’d hauled her halfway out when she opened her eyes and smashed the heel of her hand into his nose. The impact hurt, but his grip loosened, and she twisted free. Trees stretched up to the dark sky all around, too dark to see much more. Violet barely took a stride to run when she was caught again; a strong hand around her bicep and then one in her hair hauled her head back.
“Let me go.” She didn’t quite manage to make it a request. It was one of the friends who held her, and he only blinked and shoved her back against the car.
“You crazy bitch.” Graham… Tony… Tom… whoever rushed forward, specks of spittle sprayed her face, and Violet closed her eyes for a blow that never came. When she opened them, he was looming close, one hand squeezing tight around her neck, just enough to be uncomfortable.
“Have a long look, bitch,” he sneered.
Her breath caught when she noticed pale-gold rings in his irises she was sure hadn’t been there before. Danger prickled down her spine. Contacts, she assured herself.
“Oh, that’s right,” he said and pressed closer. “We’re gonna have so much fun once we get back to town, and I make you my bitch.”
Her logical mind noted that they weren’t planning to murder her in the woods, but her heart was still pounding; she was still breathless and full to the brim with the knowledge that this was fucking bad.
“Or you could just let me go,” Violet forced out against the pressure on her neck.
“Why would I do that when this time tomorrow you’ll be back at my place, my own little whore? We’re gonna have fun, and we’ll see how interested in me you are after I breed you and let all my buddies on you too.”
Violet had kicked him before he drew another breath, boot landing expertly between his legs. She only had a second to grimace at her temper, then, for the second time that night, a fist hit her face.
Time blurred down to breaths. She pushed against the hands holding her and doubled over when he struck her again. Violet clawed at the fingers that tugged at her clothes and bit and yowled her fear and her rage. Some distant part of her wondered if she ought to scream? What filled the air between pauses for breath was more of a roar.
A rock beside her elbow caught her attention, and it was thoughtless to scrabble to get a grip on it, then smash it into the nearest face. Almost instantly, a boot landed firmly in the middle of her chest to push her back down and settled atop her throat. She breathed, heaving cold air into her burning lungs, and looked up into three pairs of matching yellow-ringed eyes.
“Come on, man, you know the rules. You’ve got to claim her first.”
The boot pressed harder.
“Jason, seriously.”
“He’s right, bro. Let’s just take her back and save this for t omorrow night, all right?”
The friends were starting to sound nervous, Violet noted, though the majority of her mind was consumed with the struggle, concerned with surviving this. Breathe in, breathe out. The trickle of blood she could feel in her hairline, and the wound that was warm and wet on the side of her shin.
The forest around them was quiet. Her grip on the boot at her throat tightened, a shot of dread and regret spilling through her. If they killed her out here, she’d never see Lila again.
“You boys lost?”
Pinned to the forest floor, she couldn’t look around, but the voice was deeper, older, rang with authority, and for the first time in her life, Violet was glad to bump into what she hoped was a cop.
The clearing was frozen for a long moment. Her heart hammered and she struggled for every breath against the pressure on her throat.
“Help,” she wheezed out, rushing on, “they grabbed me from a club, I just want to—”
A blunt impact to her ribs stole the rest of her breath and doubled her over in pain, although blessedly, the boot was gone, and she could breathe. She was sober, she realized, breathing through the throbbing ache down the right side of her chest, cold and dehydrated, tired and hurting. Get the fuck up, she sneered silently at herself before the first wet of tears could prick her eyes. Lila needed her, and there was no way she was dying in some godforsaken woods in the middle of nowhere.
Violet staggered to her feet, blinking in the dim moonlight that filtered down through the canopy of bare tree branches and thick evergreens. Four shapes stood a few feet away, the boys and someone larger. He was a head taller than any of them, and twice as wide, and suddenly, she wasn’t so sure he was a cop, after all.
She didn’t stay to ponder it. Still fighting for her breath, she limped fast toward her car, torn between speed and trying to be quiet.
“Hey,” a voice said, right as her fingers touched the cold, metal door handle.
Then quiet went out of the window. It was a scrabble to yank open the door and throw herself down inside. Her foot was already on the gas pedal while her hands clawed desperately at the ignition, the cup holder, and the seat beside her, because all she needed was the key, just the fucking key, and she could leave all this behind.
“Hey, now,” that voice said again, and she refused to look up, still desperately searching the seat, the ignition, the cup holder, and the dash, over and over again, Her brain stuck in the same loop as if it might change the outcome.
Strong hands took hold of her arms, but they weren’t rough like the boys had been all night.
“They’ve got the keys, come on.”
No keys. No keys. No escape. It ricocheted inside her, and crushed down on top of the hurt, the cold, the fear, and all the adrenaline that had been singing in her blood promising she could escape.
Violet hated that her eyes were wet when she looked at him. Some older guy who looked like he belonged on the fucking screen with Captain America and the Hulk, huge and dark haired with fine shadow on his cut-glass jaw. He was the epitome of conventional handsomeness. Barf.
“You have to help me,” she told him, feeling something break inside her. She’d beg if that’s what it took to leave, to live.
His eyes flicked from her back to the direction of the boys.
“You’ll be all right, come on,” he said, then he was tugging her up and out of her car. Violet clutched the steering wheel and screamed, kicked, and shoved at him. The blows bounced off him like rain. She was shaking by the time he’d wrestled her out of the car. She struggled once on her feet but mostly held up by his arm around her waist.
“Let me go,” she hissed at him, shoving uselessly while she took in Jason and his friends, who were waiting sheepishly back where the man had found them. Her limbs felt too soft, heavy with exhaustion.
He didn’t say anything. Instead, he dragged her back to them. It didn’t matter that she dug in her heels; they just left tracks in the dirt and kept moving still.
“I’ll help you get her back,” was all he said.
The smile Jason gave her chilled Violet to the bone, and she couldn’t find it within herself to return it and bluff and bluster and promise herself this would be fine. Her stomach was hollow, and she was shivering, being dragged along like a limp rag doll by this behemoth and trying not to let what Jason had said terrify her.
“My own little whore…after I breed you and let all my buddies on you too.”
“Help me.” She breathed it out, panic hot and urgent in her chest. “There’s no way they’re getting away with this. My dad’s the fucking mayor. Half of Frankston’s already looking for me. Help me, and I’ll make sure they know you weren’t involved.”
He just kept walking, eyes on the group of boys who walked ahead.
“Whatever you want: money, a medal, or whatever. But you’ve got to help me. I don’t know these guys.”
Violet struggled to turn enough to look up at him while he was still towing her along, searching his face for a sign of understanding, compassion, anything. He only appeared resigned. Their eyes met for a long moment, and it made the panic in her chest flip. He looked away, and she sagged, then rallied, and sucked in a big breath to scream.
“Don’t.” His hand was calloused over her mouth, his voice low and rough in her ear. “No one out here who can help.”
Her racing heart demanded she try, but finally, self-preservation told her to nod, lest he beat her like they had or turn on her. For now, he seemed her best shot at escape.
They trudged on in the quiet.
“Surprised you want a mate, Jason,” he said, and the rumble of his voice shocked Violet. “Been making good money at Mack’s? Doctor’s gonna need to see her. She’ll need clothes, shoes, and probably need a car eventually. Full moon next week, you’ll have a kid by winter solstice.”
It made no sense. He sounded jovial. She watched Jason look between his friends and her, suddenly gray-faced and sheepish.
“Probably sell that bike of yours and cover half of it,” the man continued, and Jason looked flat-out ill.
“Well, actually, I—I thought I wanted her, but she’s crazy.” The cruel smile peeked through again, and Violet’s stomach dropped. “I think I’m just going to pass on her at the ceremony.”
The man only hmmed in response.
Around them, the trees were thinning. She noticed the sand under their feet turning compacted and into a well-worn path. Then, they were heading for lights, lots of lights. A town, she realized, relief washing over her. A town with people, sane people who would help get her the hell out of there.
They stepped up onto a road, an honest-to-god road with a sidewalk and white lines, and she scanned desperately for signs of life. The sun was just beginning to light the horizon gold, and surely someone would be around.
“Help!” The word ripped out of her at the first sign of movement, raw, loud, and desperate.
She didn’t get to draw a second breath before the man’s hand was back over her mouth. Violet thrashed and struggled, but the figure who had looked up for a moment, a woman she thought, got into the car she’d been walking to like nothing was wrong.
His hand stayed loosely over her mouth after that, and Violet struggled to breathe through just her nose against his skin that smelled like pine and wood shavings, while her heart raced.
When they turned off the street and stepped inside a building, ornate in red brick with marble planters, the hope Violet thought she should feel was dwindling. Something about the town was wrong—the woman who’d simply driven away and how casually they dragged her through the streets without attracting attention had her convinced of it.
The lobby reminded her of an expensive hotel chain her father favored—high ceilings and marble floors with furniture made in lavish walnut. They made their way to the desk where a clerk sat, dressed in standard office attire. Violet flashed her eyes desperately when the woman looked up.
“Good morning, what can I help you with today?” she asked.
“I need a uh—” Jason scratched the back of his head.
“Claiming ceremony,” the man who held her informed the clerk gruffly.
“Absolutely,” the woman replied with a customer service smile. “For yourself, Mr. Davis?”
