Successors
Authors: Felicia Jedlicka
Copyright © 2013 by Felicia Jedlicka
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Felicia Jedlicka
Book design by Felicia Jedlicka
Editing by
Silver Jay Media
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 permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Felicia Jedlicka
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THE
WARDEN
Successors
Felicia Jedlicka
Successors
Rivals
Lovers and Liars
Bad Blood
Tenants and Tyrants
The Ring Bearer
Gods and Monsters
Beasts and Burdens
Magic and Mayhem
…More to Come…
Corn, Cows, and the Apocalypse
Cow Tipping After the Apocalypse
Corn Husking After the Apocalypse
Table of Contents
Sneak Peek: Corn, Cows, and the Apocalypse
Cori caught sight of the woman responsible for her captivity. She had been fantasizing about killing her for two weeks, and not just bullets or poison. She had descended into the dark depths of pliers and sharp pointy things.
She wasn't normally so vicious, in fact she had a high regard for life, but being the victim of an underground slave trade operation had weakened her respect for life, and bolstered her tolerance for moral flexibility.
Yvette stared back at her from the bar, lazily slapping her riding crop against her leather clad hip. Cori had felt that particular device more than once across her face—among other places. Not that she had learned her lesson. She never was very good at following orders.
She was a “does not work well with others” type of gal. Not that she was mean or anything. Taking out of consideration her current flirtations with homicide, she was actually a rather nice person. She just preferred to work alone.
The harder Cori glared at the blonde dominatrix, the higher her mouth curved. The sick sadistic bitch had been trying to break her so she would be servile and compliant for her sale at the auction. Beaten, drugged, and raped—certainly, but Cori had not been broken. If anything the torture had focused her.
She looked over the line of women ahead of her. They were young and old alike. Scared and weeping as they were taken into the center of the bar's dance floor to exhibit their bodies for the mad, hungry bidding.
She couldn't blame them for their pitiable condition. At a different time in her life, she might have been in the same state of shocked stupor, but her heart was already raw. Being kidnapped into slavery was certainly traumatizing and worthy of a steady supply of therapy for the remainder of her life, but at the moment, it was just another card in the crap hand that had laughably been called her life.
Yvette's lackeys returned to the line and grabbed her by the arms. They pulled her forward, drawing her out onto the dance floor. They stopped on their marks and stepped back to give everyone a good view of her. Rather than shy away from the probing eyes of the surrounding men, she gave the entire room a hard glower, being sure to let each and everyone of them know that she hated their existence.
The minions stepped forward again to take her on a tour around the room, allowing the buyers to inspect her closer. No one had noticed that the cable tie around her wrists was a little too loose. Nor had they suspected that she had hidden a pencil in her bra. They also didn't know that she was trained in defensive combat.
Cori ripped her hands out of the cable tie and threw her palm up into the nose of the man on her right. She expected more of a fight, but he dropped like a rock.
Before the other one could contain her, she dove down and punched his crotch—a much needed addition to her future therapy. As he crumpled into a pathetic heap of bruised balls, two more men arrived. She punched them each in the throats and kicked them in the face and knee successively.
A hand wrapped around her from behind, lifting her from her path of carnage. She grabbed the pencil shiv and thrust it toward her attacker. She stuck his face and he released her. She followed his retreat and stabbed his neck. She shoved him to the ground and continued to impale him yellow #2 style.
Several seconds into her adrenaline spike, Cori became aware of the bloody mess she had made of his neck. She backed away from the frothing wound, feeling her stomach turn sour. Fortunately, she hadn't eaten enough to warrant vomiting or she might have lost claim to her badass status.
She stood, clenching her trusty pencil with a bloody fist. She looked around for another asshole to fend off, but she was as much entertainment now as a threat. The men stared back at her in subdued shock. No one was going to bid on her now.
"I'll take her." A man said.
Except him.
Cori frowned and looked at the large man standing at the edge of the dance floor. Even after everything he had just witnessed, the idiot wanted to buy her. What did she have to do to prove that she was not a wise investment?
She summoned her courage, narrowed her eyes, and charged at the behemoth in front of her. He was big enough to crack her skull like an egg, but she was already in the fry pan. Might as well grease it up a bit.
She felt a sharp pain in her shoulder and she feared the worst, but she hadn't heard a gunshot. She slowed to inspect her the cause of her anguish. No blood. She reached over her shoulder for the hot knifing pain. She gritted her teeth and groaned as she pulled the feather ended cylinder free. She stared down at the pink tufted dart in her hand.
Cori scanned the room for the source of the ammunition and found Yvette leering back at her, a hand held dart gun gripped in her hand. She perked her brow and bowed slightly. The entire scene had no doubt played out to her satisfaction. Another slash under her win column.
Cori seethed and took her first step toward becoming her murderer. The menacing approach failed as her legs gave out and she dropped to the ground. She cursed her damnable luck as the blackness overcame her and swore that if it was the last thing she ever did, she would kill that bitch.
Cori felt the cold ground slap against her back. She heard the laughter that followed. Through blurred vision she could just make out the man leaning over her. She threw her lashed fists upward to fend off the would-be rapist and caught his cheek. He yelped and drew away. She jumped to her feet and attempted to kick him, but he dodged the blow. Unbalanced by the lingering effects of the drugs, she fell down again.
"Stop! I'm not one of them!" the man complained.
Cori blinked her eyes and took in the young man before her, holding his reddening cheek. His loose sack clothing, bare feet, and terrified anger matched her own. His blue eyes were red from the same repetitive bouts of tears that she had been enduring. His dirty blonde hair was more dirty than blonde. Puce bruises marred his arms, nearly identical in shape to her own.
Cori stood and looked around the moonlit alley for guards, but it was only her and the boy. "What's happening?"
"I don't know, they just dumped us out here." His voice rang with a familiar English accent.
"What are we supposed to do now?" she asked.
"We get out of here." A voice spoke from behind her. Cori whipped around and noticed the outline of a man standing in of the shadows.
"Says who, dirtbag?" Cori shifted into a defensive stance. She was hardly as tough as she was pretending to be, but so far her luck was buffering her bullshit.
The man stepped forward, his silver-tipped cane tapping the cobblestone beside him. The shadows hiding him melted away, revealing his girth. Cori recognized him from the auction, her undeterred buyer. He wasn’t NBA tall, but he was NFL wide. He had a thick neck and biceps the size of watermelons. He carried a good amount of weight in his midsection, but he wasn’t the type of man you could call fat. He wasn’t the type of man you could call anything, other than “sir.”
Cori's bravado shrank away as he closed the distance between them. He stopped in front of her and stared her down. "Says me," he answered. Just like the deep rumble she expected to hear from a semi-truck, his voice matched his physique.
She shifted back a step, and tensed her jaw. "And who the hell are you?"
"Danato Calibria." He glanced behind her. "What's your name boy?"
"Ethan Xavier Pierce," he answered with unwarranted pride.
Danato's brow dipped slightly and he looked down at her again. "And you?"
Cori spat in his face. His hand lifted and she flinched. He wiped the moisture from his cheek and shook his head. "We don't have time for this. We need to get out of this village."
"Where are you taking us?" Ethan asked.
"Someplace with ample food and warm beds," Danato answered.
Cori snorted. "Yeah, I bet they keep the beds real warm for us."
Danato’s stern gaze slid back to her, forming into a frown. His narrow, sleep-deprived eyes looked her over with a mixture of sympathies she didn't understand.
She had guessed his age to be early to mid-forties. His graying five o’clock shadow and brown hair were deceiving. She suspected that he might be an errand boy for a wealthy benefactor. By the looks of his slouchy clothes and frowzy hair, he certainly wasn’t rich.
Despite the sympathy hiding in his eyes she could tell he was committed to his duty to deliver her—as any good lackey would. Still, she didn’t intend to give up. Perhaps her luck would hold out against this brute.
"We need to hurry." Danato took a firm grasp of her wrist. He directed the comment to Ethan, but he gave her a menacing look before tugging her along behind him.
They left the confines of the alley and reached a main road. Despite Danato's cane and noticeable limp, he managed to maintain a faster pace than Ethan, who was lagging behind them. Cori struggled to keep up too, but once she reached the end of her tether, Danato simply yanked her back up to speed again.
To add misery to the already maddeningly cold barefoot journey, it started to snow. The tiny flakes turned to thick puffy blobs that blotted out the color all around them. Danato paused momentarily to observe the sky, then looked back at Ethan. “Keep up, we don’t have much time.”
“Not much time for what?” Ethan asked, putting a jump in his step which kept his feet off the road for a millisecond longer.
“Not much time to escape the city before it moves,” Danato answered.
“Moves?” Ethan scrunched up his nose and glanced at her. “It will move? How do you mean?” He looked around for something that might substantiate this allegation.
“It just does. I don’t want to move with it, so let’s go.” He waved for Ethan to keep going.
Cori, unconcerned with Danato’s schedule, took what would likely be her last opportunity to escape captivity. She kicked him in the back of his bad leg and wrenched her wrist out of his grip. She turned around and ran past Ethan. "Run, you idiot!"
He frowned at her, not even attempting to follow her lead. As she bolted down the road, she could see the alley they had just come from. Two men stood at the entrance, smoking cigarettes, and laughing. One of them stepped out into the street. He said something in a foreign language and waved his hands towards his thrusting hips.
She slowed her sprint and looked back at Danato, who was fast approaching her. She scanned the buildings around her, but the businesses were closed up for the night. The people long since asleep, oblivious or indifferent to the commerce that took place after dark.
She could run in circles for hours and still only have two options. Them or him.
Danato slowed to a stop several feet away and stared at her. "I shouldn't have taken you. I just thought I could help you." He nodded back to the men behind her. "I thought I was the lesser of two evils, but that isn't my judgment to make." He stepped forward and grabbed her wrists again. He raised them up and snapped the plastic binding with ease. "I didn't put you in this situation, but I am taking advantage of it. I need the boy." Cori looked to Ethan who was in a state of frenzied shivers. "I don't need you."
Danato turned around and walked away. Cori frowned and stared after him. "Wait. What?"
Cori glanced back at the men who were taking a deeper interest in the events unfolding before them. "What am I supposed to do?" She stalked after him, distancing herself from the danger behind her.
"Go. Run. Hide.” Danato motioned for Ethan to start moving as he rejoined him.
"You're just going to leave me here now?" Cori could hear the irony in her words. She wanted nothing more than to get away from this man, but she also felt abandoned.
"This town will shift into Norway or Sweden next, I don’t remember the order. You'll be able to get back home from there."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"It doesn't need to."
“Why did you buy me, if you were only going to throw me back to the wolves?”
Danato stopped and turned around. His face held the same mixture of worry and remorse she had seen on him earlier. “Where I am going, you can’t return from. I already have the burden of enslaving one person. There is no reason to add a second.”
Cori looked back at the men by the alley. They were still waiting to see what the outcome of this event would be. Yvette would no doubt be delighted to have a second chance at disciplining her.
She didn’t know which was worse: being taken captive again, or purposely leading herself into an unknown form of slavery. The fact that this man was willing to let her go was the only thing supporting her hope that he wasn’t a monster. Hopefully his boss was equally amiable.
“If I come with you, will I be safe.”
A tremor moved through the village, rattling windows and causing dogs to bark. Cori felt the hair on her head lift. She touched it, trying to discern the reason for the sudden case of static electricity.
Danato's jaw clenched as he observed the ground around them. “There's nothing safe about where I would be taking you. If you come with me, then your previous life of normalcy will cease to exist. The slavery I'm offering isn't perverse, but you will be a prisoner just the same.”