The Warlock's Kiss Read online

  The Warlock’s Kiss

  Tiffany Roberts

  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

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Also by Tiffany Roberts

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2019 by Tiffany Freund and Robert Freund Jr.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form by any means, including scanning, photocopying, uploading, and distribution of this book via any other electronic means without the permission of the author and is illegal, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact the publishers at the address below.

  Tiffany Roberts

  [email protected]

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Illustration © 2019 by Naomi Lucas

  Proofread by Aquila Editing

  Created with Vellum

  The Sundering toppled civilization, killed millions, and filled the world with walking corpses and supernatural monsters. It took nearly everything from Adalynn—her dreams, her home, her parents, and her chance of beating her terminal cancer—but it didn’t take her little brother, Danny. She’s come to terms with her inescapable fate, and she’ll do everything she can to ensure her brother has a chance of survival in this new, unforgiving world.

  When Danny and Adalynn discover a rundown mansion in the middle of nowhere, it seems like the perfect place for him to stay, but the mansion’s owner—a tall, mysterious, intense man who exudes a strangely thrilling energy—complicates matters. Though Adalynn doesn’t want to leave another person devastated when she’s gone, Merrick has other plans for her—and he makes it clear he will keep her, no matter what price he must pay to make it so.

  To you—you know who you are, and I love you. <3

  Special thanks to Naomi Lucas for our beautiful cover, and to all of you, our readers.

  Chapter One

  Six Months after the Sundering

  Adalynn released a shaky breath and pressed her lips together. The revenant in the road ahead spun toward her car, its limbs swinging limply with the sudden movement. The creature’s glowing white eyes met Adalynn’s gaze, and the revenant stiffened, opening its mouth wide to release an inhuman cry. Even though Adalynn couldn’t hear the sound with the windows rolled up, she’d heard its like so many times over the last several months that she could feel it in her bones.

  She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “We’re safe.”

  “I know, Addy,” said her brother, Danny, from the passenger seat. “It’s just one, anyway.”

  But even a lone revenant was dangerous.

  The revenant charged toward the car with no regard for its own wellbeing, moving in an unnatural, jerky gait that looked like it should’ve dislocated the creature’s joints. The bits of flesh visible through its tattered, stained, and weather-faded clothing looked like it had been charred by weeks of exposure to the sun.

  Even after six months of dealing with these things, Adalynn still sometimes had trouble not seeing them as human. When they were as damaged as this one, it was a little easier, but she’d been there in the beginning, when they’d first started getting up. She’d seen some of the worst of it.

  Every one of these revenants had been a person once. But when the Sundering had split the moon in half, and the Earth had trembled like it was going to break apart, something had changed. Something had torn apart the laws of life and death as surely as the moon had been shattered. Distinguishing what was real and what wasn’t had become significantly more difficult in the time since.

  The old rules didn’t seem to apply anymore.

  She glanced down at the fuel gauge and clenched her jaw. The indicator was sitting on empty, and the little gas pump symbol was lit up red beneath it. They were running on fumes. They’d stopped at four gas stations—four!—and every one had been dry. She’d siphoned what she could out of some of the abandoned vehicles they’d passed, but the drops of gasoline her efforts had produced weren’t worth the danger she’d placed herself and Danny in to obtain them. Either everyone else had driven until their tanks were empty or someone had already beat her to scavenging the fuel.

  Adalynn had known this was inevitable the moment they’d lucked out and found this car—she’d known they would inevitably be forced to return to traveling on foot. Until then, she would use the vehicle to get them as far from danger as possible.

  Looking back up at the revenant, Adalynn slammed her foot down on the accelerator. The car hesitated a moment before lurching forward, its engine roaring like a wild beast answering the call of the challenger charging toward it.

  In her peripheral vision, she saw Danny throw his hand up and clutch the handle at the top of the door frame.

  “Addy, what are you doing?”

  Her entire body tensed. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel until her knuckles ached. “We can’t let it follow us. You know those things will chase a car for miles if nothing else distracts them.”

  Adalynn stared into the undead creature’s supernatural eyes just before impact. The revenant didn’t deviate from its head-on charge. The car struck it with a loud thunk, and the creature vanished beneath it. The whole vehicle jolted and bounced as it plowed over the body.

  Keeping the accelerator depressed, Adalynn glanced in the rearview mirror. The revenant was laid out on the pavement, but it was still moving—it rolled onto its stomach and turned toward the car, using its one remaining arm to crawl after the vehicle, its legs dragging uselessly behind it. The eerie light in its eyes had not diminished—and remained fixated on Adalynn.

  How long before that’s me? How long before I’m chasing Danny like that?

  She didn’t ease off the gas pedal until the creature was well out of sight and far, far behind them.

  “That…was messed up,” Danny said. “It’s not like in video games at all.”

  Adalynn opened her mouth to tell him this wasn’t a game, but she snapped it shut again before speaking. He’d known that already; the comment was just his way of coping with yet another horror in a world that had become hell for the living. He should never have had to face this reality. No one should’ve had to face it.

  “Not like the games at all,” she said instead.

  Her racing heart only gradually eased, but her pulse remained as a dull, throbbing ache in her head. She drew in slow, deep breaths, trying to force herself to calm, trying to delay the impending episode.

  Please just let us get a little farther. Let us find somewhere safe.

  According to the dim clock on the dashboard, it had only been seven minutes since the collision with the revenant when the car started sputtering. Adalynn glanced down at the fuel gauge again. She hadn’t thought it possible, but it indicated the car was less than empty.

  She lifted her gaze to scan the dense woods on either side of the road. They’d been traveling these country backroads for days, mostly at a snail’s pace, tryin
g to find a place to serve as their sanctuary—a place as far away from the revenant-clogged cities as possible.

  Even small cities were too dangerous after the Sundering; more people meant more walking corpses, meant more everything—the kinds of monsters that were only supposed to exist in movies and books. The revenants seemed the most mundane of what Adalynn and Danny had seen so far. Werewolves, ghostly entities, and creatures she could only describe as gargoyles had been amongst the dreadful beings she’d seen with her own eyes, and that wasn’t even counting the surreally beautiful man who’d given off his own golden light and seemed to have some sort of magic at his command. They’d heard rumors of much more than that the few times they’d spoken with other survivors after breaking away from their original group.

  All those things were very, very real now, and all of it was terrifying, but the most frightening part was that Danny would eventually have to deal with all of it alone.

  Not going to think about that right now. Focus, Adalynn.

  Though the surrounding woods were beautiful, they made it difficult to spot connecting roads and turn-offs until you were already driving past them. Adalynn would’ve preferred to park the car back on some logging road or backwoods trail—out of sight of the main road—but that wasn’t feasible when the engine finally cut out. It wasn’t worth the time and energy to try to push the car off the road.

  There are abandoned cars all over. What’s one more? If someone else finds it, they’ll check for supplies and gas and move on when they don’t find anything.

  She guided the drifting car onto the narrow dirt shoulder. Rocks and gravel crunched beneath the tires. She winced; it was one thing to make some noise while they were driving and could outrun most threats, but it was quite another when they were about to go on foot.

  Once the car was stopped and in park, Adalynn pulled the keys from the ignition and instinctively moved to slip them into her pocket. She stopped herself and glanced down at the keys in her hand. She didn’t need them anymore. Even if they found more gas—which was unlikely at this point—it would be more practical to find a new vehicle rather than backtrack to this one.

  She released a heavy breath and dropped the keys into the cup holder. “Well, we knew it’d come to this eventually.”

  Danny unbuckled his seatbelt and twisted around to reach into the back seat with both arms.

  “We’ll be fine,” he said with that know-it-all-nothing-can-hurt-me attitude that was characteristic of many young teenagers who thought themselves wiser than the adults in their lives. He wrestled their bugout bags to the front.

  Adalynn couldn’t help but smile as Danny passed over her bag, which was heavy with food, water, and essential supplies. He could nail that snotty teenager tone when he wanted to, but she knew that wasn’t her brother. He flopped back down on his seat, settling his bag over his lap.

  “Thanks,” she said, shifting her head to scan the woods outside the passenger-side window.

  The forest was dense enough to provide some cover as they walked. So long as they kept the main road in sight, they wouldn’t get lost—and they would eventually end up finding a building they could shelter in while Adalynn figured out their next step.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t have much time for planning. She didn’t have much time for anything.

  They needed to find someplace safe today, someplace secure—preferably before dark—and, sometime in the next week or two, a place for Danny to thrive.

  Adalynn checked the mirrors to make sure there was nothing following on the road. She turned her attention to Danny just as he unsheathed one of the biggest knives Adalynn had ever seen.

  Her eyes widened. “Danny! Where the hell did you get that?”

  He grinned and turned his wrist back and forth, inspecting the blade. “Pretty cool, huh? I found it in one of the trucks at our last gas stop.”

  Adalynn held out her hand. “Give it to me.”

  “What?” he asked, eyebrows falling low as he yanked back the knife. “No way.”

  “Daniel Adam Jefferies, you hand that knife over to me right now. You’re way too young to be handling that.”

  “Addy, are you serious? Look around us! I need it to help protect you.”

  “I should be the one protecting you.”

  Daniel rolled his eyes. “I’m not a little kid anymore, Addy. What if we hadn’t seen that revenant back there? What if he’d snuck up on us? What would we have used to fight him off, your pocketknife? We should’ve gotten a gun by now!” He frowned and looked away. “We both know you’re sick. Real sick. And I…I need to learn to take care of us, in case, you know…something happens.”

  Tears stung Adalynn’s eyes. Twelve years separated her and her brother, and even though he was thirteen now, she’d always see him as that chubby little baby who’d smiled up at her as though she’d hung the moon, as the toddler who’d clutched her hand when he was scared, as the little boy who’d followed her into the deep end of the pool because he wanted to be as brave as his big sister. But he was growing up right before her eyes, and she couldn’t ignore that.

  He was right. She was treating him like a little kid, and it would only hurt him in the long run. She’d known for months what kind of world they were living in, even if she couldn’t understand why it was like this. It was a world that chewed up the weak and spat them out as walking corpses. A world where everyone, even children, needed to know how to protect themselves. He needed to learn those skills, but how could she teach him things she didn’t know?

  The deeper truth of the situation enhanced the sting of her thoughts—even if she’d possessed those skills, she didn’t have the time to pass them on to Danny.

  Adalynn lowered her hand and sighed. “Okay, you can keep it. But just be careful! If you get cut—”

  “I know, I know,” he interrupted, shoulders sagging. He’d heard it a thousand times already, but he continued with surprising patience. “If I get a cut it can get infected, and our supply of antibiotics is limited.”

  A soft smile touched her lips. “Good. At least we know you’re capable of retaining information other than the names and teams of soccer players or how to emote over someone you just killed in a video game.”

  “Uh, it’s called tea bagging, and it’s an art.”

  Adalynn laughed and shook her head. “You’re so gross.”

  “You’re just a prude.”

  Her jaw dropped. “A prude? I am not a prude. And where the hell did you learn that word?”

  A slow grin stretched across his lips. “From one of your romance books.” He puckered his lips and made kissing noises. “Oh, he’s so handsome, so strong, so virile. And his co—”

  “Okay, that’s enough! New rule: you’re not allowed to read. At all. Ever again.”

  “I learned about women in that book too, like—”

  “We are not having this discussion. Didn’t Mom and Dad talk to you about sex?”

  Danny snorted. “Mom was even more prudish than you and told Dad to do it. I let him stammer on about it for a while and pretended that I hadn’t already learned it all from the internet and other kids at school.”

  Adalynn twisted in her seat to look through the back window. “Where’s that revenant? I think I changed my mind. I want it to catch me.”

  “But the sex in your romance book was pretty hot. Just sayin’.”

  “If you don’t get your much-too-young-to-talk-about-this-stuff ass out of the car right now, I’m taking that knife from you and I will not be held responsible for what I do with it.”

  “Okay, okay.” Danny laughed and opened the door. He stepped out of the car, pack in hand, and muttered, “Prude.”

  Adalynn couldn’t hold back a chuckle as she exited the vehicle. “I am not! I’m the one that had the book to begin with. I just don’t need to hear my little brother talking about it.”

  “I could talk about killing revenants instead,” he said, thrusting the knife forward as though fighting an invis
ible opponent.

  “Daniel,” she warned, glaring at him as she quietly closed the car door.

  He froze, staring at her with eyes wide, and lowered the knife. “You sound just like Mom when you say my name like that.”

  There wasn’t any humor in his voice now; they’d healed enough to laugh and joke, to remember their parents with happiness and humor, but losing them still hurt. Adalynn knew that as much as it pained her, it was worse for Danny—and he put a lot of effort into hiding that pain.

  She sighed softly. Slipping her arms through her bag’s straps, she rounded the car and stopped beside Danny to give him a hug. “Let’s go. We still have time before dark, but I’d rather not get stuck out here.” She pulled away. “We’ll walk in the woods to hide but stay close to the road so we don’t get lost.”

  “’Kay.” He sheathed the knife and clipped it to his belt before swinging on his pack. He shuffled away from the road and up the small embankment into the forest.

  Adalynn checked the road one last time before following him past the tree line.

  They kept close to one another as they walked, striking a balance between speed and quiet that Adalynn was satisfied with. Too slow and they risked being stuck out here at night, when the scariest things in this new world seemed to be most active. Too quick and they risked making enough noise to alert others—both the living and the dead—of their presence.

  Out here, in the middle of nowhere, the chances of encountering anyone were slim—which was why Adalynn had been leading them away from most towns and cities. Of course, the lone revenant on the road was proof that low population wasn’t synonymous with no population, but it was still better than a ravenous pack of dozens.