Darkwilds

Bella Forrest

Description

What secrets are hidden in 'the Leftovers'?Lyra and Dorian managed to end the meld that threatened every plane of existence, but there was a cost. Parts of the world have been changed forever.America is riddled with Leftovers: portions of unsettling wilderness where unknown creatures have been thrust into the Mortal Plane, and whole human cities have vanished. Among the missing are Lyra's own parents.To find them, Lyra, Dorian, and Bryce take on a dangerous mission: investigating the Leftovers, where trees move and nothing is as it seems."The man sitting in front of me is nothing compared to the vampire I lost."In the wake of the disaster, Roxy's finally been promoted to captain in the Occult Bureau's new monster-hunting department. Between jealous subordinates, her two hellraising siblings being put under her command, and protecting civilians from rampaging monsters, she didn't think her new job could get any more stressful.And then she starts hearing voices in her head. Specifically, one voice: Kane, the obnoxiously hot vampire she thought she'd never see again.When Lyra's mission is derailed unexpectedly, the two teams are thrust together again. The Leftovers reveal more of their secrets. Kane's voice might drive Roxy crazy and ruin their chances of survival-or their connection might be able to save them.

Informations

• Publié par: Distributed by eBookpartnership
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798655663336
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2020
All rights reserved.
Hot Pancakes Ltd
www.hotpcakes.com
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
1
LYRA

S aving the world had cost me many things in life, but it was a new day. The cold February air in western Utah nipped at my face as I took in the unnatural, foreboding jungle stretched out before us. What better way to celebrate my wedding than by setting off on a dangerous scouting mission into supernatural territory?
Nicholas Bryce-my Occult Bureau captain turned fellow rebel turned Coalition conspirator, and now my partner in crime for our human-vampire consulting company, Callanish-stood a few feet ahead of me, surveying our mission site. After instructing our pilot to stay with the plane, Bryce had slung the weighty gear bag over his broad shoulders, giving him the look of a soldier ready to face the elements for weeks. I hoped this new mission wouldn’t take that long, but we’d packed accordingly. We’d started our company on Bryce’s suggestion, so that we could continue our supernatural work without being under the Bureau’s thumb.
“Welcome to Black Rock Bureau office,” Bryce said to our small group, tilting his head to indicate the site. He gave us a gruff scowl. “Or what’s left of it.” These days, the silver in Bryce’s red hair was more prominent, especially in his beard. Our journey over the last several months had hit us all in different ways, but right now all I could feel was the exhilarating anticipation in my veins.
I gave Bryce a hum of agreement as I scanned the area. This campus used to have four buildings, but now only two remained. The main section was already overgrown with plants in this strange part of the world that we now called the Leftovers, remnants of the Immortal Plane that had been merged with the Mortal Plane while the planes were being disentangled from the meld. Ruk and the other arbiters had repaired the barriers, but they’d completely vanished after that. I still missed the Gate Maker’s wise, mischievous lavender eyes. But then, I still missed many of the people we’d lost.
Callanish was trying to forge our path in this new, changed world. I was nervous, but excited to be back in the field. I stood with my new husband as we officially undertook our first mission, united in wedded and professional bliss. Dorian stared out at the closest building, which was covered with wily immortal plants that seemed bent on consuming everything in their path.
The immortal trees greeted us with their eerie beauty. Vines seemed to crawl out of their crimson bark and circle up their thick trunks. The vines choked the sad remains of the building in front of us. I could make out the faded sign for the Black Rock office, but the metal in the ground was partially ruined, crumpled by some force of nature or giant creature. I turned a wary eye to the dark green leaves climbing the walls. They moved, waving tendrils around. There was no breeze.
“That’s... new,” Dorian muttered with a note of interest. Everything felt off about the area. The air was thick with a humidity that was heavy to breathe. It reminded me of missions down South. I tried not to focus on the rotten scent in the breeze.
Bryce’s nephew Cam followed our gazes. “The reports stated in their footnotes that all failed rescue teams noted strange flora, inconsistent with any plant life typically seen in this region. They noted the vines moved an average of several feet per day.” He paused for a moment and adjusted his tight collar, his face deadly serious as he relayed facts from our briefing. “They also thought the trees were moving.” There wasn’t an orange-red hair out of place on his head, whereas my ex-captain, Bryce, looked as if he might be an entrant in some kind of lumberjack competition. It was hard to believe the two were related.
I glanced back at the tree in front of me. It looked firmly rooted to the ground, especially with the vines on it. I peered closer to watch the thin strands of vines swell and shrink. It was as if the vines were breathing, like an external lung.
We needed to work our way through these buildings, creepy vines or not. Our first goal was to find a nearby portal site for Dorian and Sike to use. They would travel through in order to connect to the Immortal Plane. After Ruk and the arbiters closed the tear and separated the planes, they left the portals open, in their original state. Now, humans could use portals with the help of vampires. That way, we could easily move back and forth between the Mortal and Immortal Plane. This would help us to case the place without a lot of travel to faraway gates or trips to resupply. Regular Bureau soldiers had been chased away by the strange environment and fearsome creatures, but we could handle it.
Finally, I could focus on my ultimate goal: finding my parents. They’d wanted to be useful to the Bureau before the mess with the meld happened, but the last phone call I’d had with them during the merging of planes had been disconnected by the unstable dark energy. Last I knew, my father had reported the area as swampy and glowing, but now, if there had been any water here, it had dried out and left these bizarre trees in its wake. Maybe that was responsible for the humidity, unusual for this arid part of the Southwest.
I steeled myself with the knowledge that, several hundred yards away in a clearing, our carrier plane and pilot sat locked up with plenty of supplies. Since it was just outside the radius of the Leftovers, Bryce had agreed that it was safe to leave them there for the moment. Thankfully, the weirdness left behind hadn’t expanded beyond its current borders after the meld’s end. As far as we knew, there was nobody in this area but us and any misplaced immortal creatures in these strange parts. I had seen the occasional Mortal Plane squirrel here and there, but they avoided the edge of this place like the plague. It was like they could sense how wrong this area was.
Sike, our last team member, sucked in a breath as he yanked his foot away from something. He was in a spot of lush grass that swept against his pant leg, a bright, unnatural green against the slate gray of our new uniforms.
“Something fast just ran over my foot,” he muttered with a quick grimace. “It wasn’t the vines. I heard squeaking.” I trusted Sike’s vampire senses. He and Dorian both had superior hearing to humans-well, that and just about every other sense. I frowned, straining to pick up the noise, and then it came all at once, with a wave of rustling grass.
A swarm of dark, scurrying blue forms rippled the grass next to Sike. He jerked out of the way with a curse as the creatures, slightly larger than rats with spikes like rogue, mutant hedgehogs, darted past him, every so often bounding several feet into the air, at a height that should’ve been impossible for rodents.
We barely had time to react as the swarm went squeaking off into the forest. I shot a curious look at Dorian. He looked baffled.
“Our woodland pests don’t do that,” he explained. “At least, not near Vanim.” His handsome face turned to study the surrounding area of the Bureau office, his glacial eyes keenly calculating. “They appear to be fleeing something.” Fleeing away from where we need to go, how comforting.
They disappeared into the forest and their fleeing steps echoed bizarrely back to us, almost like we were in a cave instead of near trees.
I took a step forward to join Bryce near the entrance of the largest building, taking care not to let the trailing vines touch my hair. Somewhere, I hoped, my parents were surviving in this area. I had felt their souls when I’d briefly died during the fixing of the meld, and they’d still been living; I had to believe they were still out here.
Dorian’s brows furrowed with concern and stayed that way. He was listening along with Sike, while Cam watched them, seeming to note their every move. When he caught my look, he turned away, going a bit pink. It was Cam’s first official mission with vampires, so he was naturally curious.
Bryce cleared his throat irritably. “Cam. Scanner?” The young man stiffened at Bryce’s tone, which dripped with the unspoken question, why aren’t you already announcing this? It had been a long time since I’d heard that particular gruffness, but I remembered it. Bryce was always hard on newcomers when he was training my old teammates and me for the Bureau. Now, our client was the US government, and Bryce wouldn’t go easy on Cam just because they were family. If anything, I suspected Bryce might be even worse to his nephew.
“I’m getting some signatures that suggest living creatures. They’re certainly organic, but...”-his eyes roved across the black hand-held device that he gripped-”it’s like it can’t lock onto some of the signatures. The Bureau reports claimed that the human technology they brought along was only partially functional.”
Bryce snorted. “Don’t read me back reports I’ve already read. Sike, can you confirm Cam’s assessment?” Sike trotted over, his gangly limbs putting him just a few millimeters under Cam’s tall, still-filling-out frame. He peered over at the screen. Our devices were based on Bureau technology, but they’d been tweaked by Reshi, the Coalition’s genius maker inventor. Although Sike wasn’t very skilled with human machines yet, he had a natural affinity for technology, and Reshi’s supernatural touch on the scanner allowed him to work on the machine easily enough.
“He’s right,” Sike confirmed. His eyes flickered to Dorian. “The physics here don’t make sense.”
“Is it the sound and plants bothering you?” I asked. I reflected on the vegetation, wild and overgrown but viciously beautiful in its own way, that had swallowed up most of the surrounding area. Old Bureau photos had showed a few wea