Kindred (Book 1 The Kindred Series) (2 page)

   Glancing longingly back at the bright red machine,
Cassie
heaved a sigh of regret, shoved her change back into her pocket and turned away. She would just have to drink from the water fountain during baseball practice, instead of having
the
nice
,
cold, wonderful can of
Coke
that she
really
wanted
.
She scrunched her nose slightly, already
dreading the
tast
e
of
the metallic
water
fountain.

   Grabbing her mitt from the store windowsill, she turned back to the main thoroughfare. S
he
didn’t make it one step before she
was brought
to an abrupt
halt
by a tall, thin man
,
with a pair of glasses perched at
the end of his hawkish nose. His
light
gra
y eyes r
a
n quickly over
her
as he studied her intently
.
Cassie
’s hand tightened on her glove as she took a small, instinctive step back. She was not some five year-old who would wander away with a stranger, but she didn
’
t know what the odd man’s intentions were.

  
G
lanc
ing
briefly over her shoulder
she was relieved
to find Mr. Lester still watching intently, his eyes slightly narrowed as he
observed
the man. Though he liked to squeeze as much money as possible
out of the kids, he wouldn
’
t allow anything bad to happen to her. She turned slowly back to the
strange
man.
H
is eyes were still fixed upon her,
but
she saw no ill will
in his steady
gaze. Instead, there
was
an odd sense of relief
in his eyes
.

   A slender
girl stepped beside him, her hand slipp
ed
into his a
s she
squeez
ed
it
gently.
Cassie
’s tension eased at the sight of the
black haired girl
who was so
trusting of the strange man. The girl studied
Cassie
from
exotically slanted
eyes
;
they were
as dark and shiny as a gleaming onyx. Those eyes pierce
d
Cassie
, pinning her to the spot
as they seemed to see
straight into Cassie’s
soul
.

  
Slightly u
nnerved by the girl
’
s
intense gaze
and scrutiny
,
Cassie
turned her attention back to the man. Though he seemed to be in his late thirties, maybe forties, old enough to be the girl’s father, they looked nothing alike. His hair was a light brown, going gray at the temples
. H
is eyes
were
far from dark in color
, and unlike the girls smooth
olive complexion,
he was
very fair.

   “Are you Cassandra
Fairmont?” he inquired, the faint hint of an English accent in his tone.

  
Cassie
frowned at him, not understanding how this man knew who she was, let alone her full name. Her grip tightened on her glove, her stance shift
ed
slightly as she prepared to bolt into the
Five and Dime
at a moment’s notice. “Do I know
you?” She was proud
of the fact
that her voice didn
’
t waver.

  
“No, but I may have known your parents.”

  
Cassie
’s heart leapt into her throat, her arm dropp
ed
limply
t
o her side
.
H
er fingers eas
ed
their tight grip on her glove to the point that she
nearly dropped it. Other than her grandmother, and Chris’s mother,
Cassie
knew
no one
t
hat
had
ever
met
her parents
.
Though Cassie often asked
questions about her parents
,
h
er grandmother rarely spoke of them
.
O
nce in awhile
,
she would
shar
e
stories of
Cassie
’s mo
ther
when she was a little girl, and her father
,
as
her grandmother
had
also
known him as a
child.

  
However,
Chris’s mother never spoke of them
;
s
he
hat
ed
any mention of
Cassie’s parents
,
or
Chris’s father. She used
the mere mention of them
as an excuse to retreat deeper into her drunken stupor, or to hit the bars in search of a
new
conquest
. It was a fact that
had
once
bother
ed
Chris, but
lately
he
had taken to
ignor
ing
his mother as easily as she ignored him.

   Now, this strange man was standing before
her
telling her that he may have known her parents, and quite possibly
,
Chris’s father. It was a lifeline, a level
of hope that she
had
never experienced before.
T
his man
, this
stranger
,
could be
their
one
chance to get to know their parents
better
.

   “My parents?” she managed to choke out.

   The man’s eyes were gentle as he nodded slowly. “Yes, if they were
Derek
and
Jessie
Fairmont?”

   The man blurred as
Cassie’s
eyes filled with water. She rarely heard their names spoken, rarely had the chance to acknowledge that they had ever
even
lived. It was as if everything
about them
had ceased to exist when they
were
killed in the car accident
.
N
ot just their bodies, but their memories,
history, their entire
lives
had been
buried
forever
.

  
Now
,
they were being openly acknowledged, openly conversed about, and it was by a total stranger. Cassie
glanced at the slender girl, surprised by the wealth of caring and understanding
that filled
her warm onyx eyes. Swallowing heavily, Cassie rapidly blinked back
her
tears, trying hard not to completely fall apart in front of the strange pair.

   Taking a deep breath to steady her pounding heart
,
and raw nerves, she turned slowly back to the man. “Yes,” she said softly. “Those were my parents.”

   Relief filled
him
;
his shoulders slump
ed
as he broke into a brilliant grin. The girl squeezed his hand harder, doing an odd little jump step
as she beamed
happily
. “I told you,” she said
excitedly.

   The man shook his head at her, but there was no censure in the gesture as he continued to smile brightly. He thrust his hand o
ut to Cassie. “My name is
Luther
Long;
I
’
ve been looking for you for a very long time Cassandra.”

   Cassie stared silently at his extended hand
as
confusion swirl
ed
through her
.
Though she sensed no ill will
from
them, they still scared her a little. But then again, the strange man did seem to know her parents, and best of all
,
he seemed to actually want to speak about them. The
temptation was more than she could
withstand
.

   Thrusting her hand
out, she grasped hold of Luther
’s warm, well calloused one. His grin widened as he shook her hand briskly.

 
I
n that moment, when he found her,
when their hands joined,
her life was irrevocably changed.
The course of her destiny forever altered.
O
ver the years
that followed
,
Cassie
often
wondered if she
would have
run screaming
from him,
and
the changes
that
he would bring to her life
.

  
Though
,
she
eventually
ca
me to
realize
that
there was no outrunning destiny. It was very much like the Reaper in that way
,
as there was no escape. And like The Reaper
,
destiny
could be
c
ruel, unfair, and indiscriminate. Though these were
thin
gs that Cassie
later
learned
,
she
was
still
i
ll
prepared for her life to be forever changed, her innocence
to be
shattered that day.

 
Nor was
she prepared for
the day when
he
walked into her life
four years later
,
forever altering it, and her
, once again
.

CHAPTER 1

   Cassie ducked low,
spinning as she
thr
e
w a swift roundhouse
kick
.
Her foot connected solidly with
the twisted creature
, catching it
b
eneath its chin
and
knocking it
back a good five feet. T
he
startled
grunt
of surprise and pain it issued
was music to her ears. The
man
/monster got caught up on a headstone
and
flipp
ed
over
top of it;
it
sprawl
ed
out
on
its
back in the thick grass
, its legs momentarily caught up over top of the headstone
. Cassie
sprang
gracefully
to her feet, slipping the stake easily from he
r
belt
loop. The
creature’s
eyes widened upon her,
he had expected an easy kill. Its eyes turned
a fierce red
as his face twisted into an animalistic snarl
of fury
.

   The
rage
that blasted from him
pounded against her but
did not slow Cassie
down
. She
had
grown accustomed to
the
hatred
over the few past years
.
However,
she didn’t know if she would ever
become
accustomed
to
the bloodlust that poured from
the monsters
in nearly suffocating waves.
It
was
daunting to know that something wanted to rip out her throat
and
drain the blood
,
and life,
from her.