Table of Contents
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
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Hotbloods
Bella Forrest
Contents
Also by Bella Forrest
Problems reading?
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
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Read more by Bella Forrest
Also by Bella Forrest
HOTBLOODS
Hotbloods (Book 1)
THE GIRL WHO DARED TO THINK
The Girl Who Dared to Think (Book 1)
The Girl Who Dared to Stand (Book 2)
The Girl Who Dared to Descend (Book 3)
The Girl Who Dared to Rise (Book 4)
THE GENDER GAME
(Completed series)
The Gender Game (Book 1)
The Gender Secret (Book 2)
The Gender Lie (Book 3)
The Gender War (Book 4)
The Gender Fall (Book 5)
The Gender Plan (Book 6)
The Gender End (Book 7)
A SHADE OF VAMPIRE SERIES
Series 1: Derek & Sofia’s story
A Shade of Vampire (Book 1)
A Shade of Blood (Book 2)
A Castle of Sand (Book 3)
A Shadow of Light (Book 4)
A Blaze of Sun (Book 5)
A Gate of Night (Book 6)
A Break of Day (Book 7)
Series 2: Rose & Caleb’s story
A Shade of Novak (Book 8)
A Bond of Blood (Book 9)
A Spell of Time (Book 10)
A Chase of Prey (Book 11)
A Shade of Doubt (Book 12)
A Turn of Tides (Book 13)
A Dawn of Strength (Book 14)
A Fall of Secrets (Book 15)
An End of Night (Book 16)
Series 3: The Shade continues with a new hero…
A Wind of Change (Book 17)
A Trail of Echoes (Book 18)
A Soldier of Shadows (Book 19)
A Hero of Realms (Book 20)
A Vial of Life (Book 21)
A Fork of Paths (Book 22)
A Flight of Souls (Book 23)
A Bridge of Stars (Book 24)
Series 4: A Clan of Novaks
A Clan of Novaks (Book 25)
A World of New (Book 26)
A Web of Lies (Book 27)
A Touch of Truth (Book 28)
An Hour of Need (Book 29)
A Game of Risk (Book 30)
A Twist of Fates (Book 31)
A Day of Glory (Book 32)
Series 5: A Dawn of Guardians
A Dawn of Guardians (Book 33)
A Sword of Chance (Book 34)
A Race of Trials (Book 35)
A King of Shadow (Book 36)
An Empire of Stones (Book 37)
A Power of Old (Book 38)
A Rip of Realms (Book 39)
A Throne of Fire (Book 40)
A Tide of War (Book 41)
Series 6: A Gift of Three
A Gift of Three (Book 42)
A House of Mysteries (Book 43)
A Tangle of Hearts (Book 44)
A Meet of Tribes (Book 45)
A Ride of Peril (Book 46)
A Passage of Threats (Book 47)
A Tip of Balance (Book 48)
A Shield of Glass (Book 49)
A Clash of Storms (Book 50)
Series 7: A Call of Vampires
A Call of Vampires (Book 51)
A Valley of Darkness (Book 52)
A Hunt of Fiends (Book 53)
A SHADE OF DRAGON TRILOGY
A Shade of Dragon 1
A Shade of Dragon 2
A Shade of Dragon 3
A SHADE OF KIEV TRILOGY
A Shade of Kiev 1
A Shade of Kiev 2
A Shade of Kiev 3
THE SECRET OF SPELLSHADOW MANOR
(Completed series)
The Secret of Spellshadow Manor (Book 1)
The Breaker (Book 2)
The Chain (Book 3)
The Keep (Book 4)
The Test (Book 5)
The Spell (Book 6)
BEAUTIFUL MONSTER DUOLOGY
Beautiful Monster 1
Beautiful Monster 2
DETECTIVE ERIN BOND (Adult thriller/mystery)
Lights, Camera, GONE
Write, Edit, KILL
For an updated list of Bella’s books, please visit her website: www.bellaforrest.net
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Copyright © 2017 by Bella Forrest
All rights reserved.
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.
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Chapter One
“Remind me which genius suggested we put this off till midday?” My friend Angie’s muffled voice drifted through the stalks of corn to my right.
“I believe the same one who didn’t pack enough water,” my second companion, Lauren—also obscured by giant shafts of corn—replied, from five feet to my left. Her naturally dry tone sounded more sarcastic than usual, probably because, thanks to Angie, we’d run out of water half an hour ago.
I smirked, taking a few seconds’ pause from picking corn to wipe sweat from my forehead with the back of my wrist. Despite wearing a shirt and shorts made of cotton so light it was almost see-through and a wide straw sombrero, and religiously sticking to the shade of the corn stalks, this Texan sun was killing me. Still, I loved this kind of work, using my hands— it was cathartic—so I wasn’t going to complain.
“Also the same one who suggested we spend our vacation on this delightful farm,” Lauren added with a grunt. I pictured her tall, lanky form hunched over as she tackled a far too unripe cob, while her narrow, purple, librarian-style glasses glided slowly but surely down her nose. She was not so much a fan of manual work.
“Oh,
come on, Lauree.” I couldn’t resist teasing her, despite my resolution to save my voice for after we’d returned to the farmhouse and I’d downed a liter of water. “We know you love it here.”
“‘Course she does,” Angie proclaimed, and I could hear her broad grin through her voice. “What’s not to love?”
“Guess you have a point.” Amid her heavy breathing, Lauren managed to force a note of thoughtfulness into her voice. “I mean, aside from the fact that we’re off the grid, with no electricity or phone signal for literally miles—who wouldn’t appreciate a welcome package of a heap of moldy towels, a sprinkle of roach droppings on their pillowcase, or… a snake in their toilet pot?”
Angie and I burst out laughing. From the tremor in Lauren’s voice, I could tell she still hadn’t gotten over last night’s surprise. Trust Lauren to get dibs on the snake.
“After I had sat down, I might add.”
“It was a grass snake,” Angie retorted, “and a pretty cute one at that.”
“Cute my ass,” Lauren grumbled.
A span of amused silence fell between us as we returned to filling our sacks. This was the second of three assignments we had to complete today; the first had been running bed linens through a manual laundry machine, draining them through a ringer, and then hanging them up to dry outside, and the third would be picking fresh herbs from the greenhouse. Mr. and Mrs. Churnley, friends of Angie’s grandparents and the owners and sole full-time residents of Elmcreek Farm, were to assign us three such jobs every day, in return for free board and lodging.
We had arrived only yesterday evening, having flown from New York to Austin, but I was already feeling a sense of calm about the place. Being without electricity, internet, or a working phone was a culture shock we were all still getting used to, but the lack of external distractions was exactly why we had chosen to come here.
This summer was the last chance Angie, Lauren, and I would have to spend quality time together for possibly a very long time, because after the vacation ended, we’d all be heading off in vastly different directions—Angie even to a different country. I was enrolled to begin a mechanical engineering course in Michigan, and Lauren was to study pre-law at Stanford, while Angie would be jetting off to Paris for an apprenticeship at a prestigious sports-fashion brand (thus combining her two biggest passions). If things worked out for Angie there, we’d see very little of her indeed.
She and I had known each other since kindergarten, while Lauren had known us since first grade, so we decided we needed to do something special, and completely different, this summer—something we’d never forget.
I also had a more personal reason for wanting to be in the middle of nowhere this particular vacation… unreachable. Before I left for Michigan, I knew my birth parents were going to try to get in touch—something I dreaded from the very core of me. My adoptive parents, Jean and Roger, could only hold them off for so long now that I’d turned eighteen, and the court legislation no longer had the same hold that it did during my earlier teen years. After I became an official adult three weeks ago, my birth parents had gotten the idea that they wanted to know me. I might have been more amenable to that if they hadn’t spent the first decade of my life neglecting me to the point of abuse. Alcohol had always taken precedence over me in their lives, and I didn’t see any reason that would change. Their addiction would’ve gotten me killed if I hadn’t run away at nine, and I swore then that I was never, ever going back…
I let out a breath, forcing my consciousness back to the bright, beautiful world around me, allowing it to separate the past from the present.
Yes. Elmcreek was the perfect escape for all of us this summer.
“Oh man, my hat just blew off.” Angie broke the quiet. “And—augh—I can’t reach it. Could one of you guys help me?”
“I volunteer Riley,” announced Lauren.
Exhaling, I stowed the cob I held in my hand in my sack. “Yeah, okay, shortie. Coming.”
I waded through the field, batting away flies and pushing aside leaves until I reached her. The five-foot-five girl with curly blonde hair was standing on her tiptoes, the hem of her short blue dress hiked high up her legs as she stretched for a floppy pink sun hat that was ridiculously out of her reach. She turned around to face me, her hazel eyes meeting mine. She had a smile on her round, impish face, and her light blonde eyebrows, so fair in the daylight they were almost invisible, rose in expectation.
I eyed the hat again and tried to reach for it myself first, given that I was a fair bit taller than her, but I couldn’t, so we ended up coordinating a balancing act with her on my shoulders, knocking my own hat to the ground in the process.
“Wo-hoah, it’s like a whole other world up here,” Angie gasped as her head rose above the jungle of corn.
“Just be quick,” I muttered from between her chunky thighs. “Your butt is breaking my shoulders.”
“It’s all muscle and you know it,” she retorted, before stretching out.
Then she stilled.
“What’s taking so long?” I asked, squinting in the glaring sunlight.
“Hey, I thought the Churnleys didn’t have neighbors on that side of the woods.”
“What?”
“Looks like there are people over there, sunbathing on logs.” She pointed northward, toward the direction of the woods that bordered the Churnleys’ portion of land. I realized she had grabbed the hat already, and was now just staring straight ahead.
“Okay—I’m glad you’re having a nice time up there, but if you’re finished I’m gonna—”
Angie’s knees suddenly clenched around my head. “Wait, Riley. They’re dudes… Four of them. They look like lumberjacks or something. Here, you can see too.” She dove a hand into the side pocket of her dress and slipped out her phone. “That’s what a zoom lens is for… Still got a bit of battery left.” A sharp click sounded as Angie’s phone camera went off.
“Okay, geddown now,” I growled, tugging at her ankle.
She acquiesced, sliding down me with a self-satisfied look on her face. She squinted down at her phone to check out the photo she’d just taken, but it was far too bright to see the screen properly.
“Well, now we all have an extra incentive to hurry up and get back to the house.” She winked at me, before donning her hat and continuing to pick corn.
Smirking, I rolled my eyes and picked up my hat, then moved to return to my spot in the field, when Lauren suddenly materialized out of the bushes in front of me. Her faded blue dungarees looked decidedly grubbier than when we had started, and her coffee-colored ponytail was a tangled mess, but her brown eyes sparkled with mild interest. Adjusting her spectacles primly, she flashed us a sardonic smile.
“Did I hear someone say ‘lumberjacks’?”
Water was more than enough of an incentive for me to finish the job quickly. After my little break, I worked at twice the speed and managed to pick enough corn to fill all three of our sacks within the next fifteen minutes. Then, lugging each sack over our shoulders, we traipsed back to the wooden two-story house that stood at the edge of the cornfields.
We mounted the steps to the porch, passing the Churnleys’ three lazy golden retrievers, who barely raised an eyelid as we reached the door. It had been left on the latch, and Angie pushed it open with a creak. We stepped directly into the kitchen/dining area, where we were met with the pungent smell of Mrs. Churnley’s cooking, and the short, podgy lady herself standing in front of a stove, her bouncy gray hair cooped up in a brown bonnet, while her bald husband sat at the dining table dutifully peeling potatoes.
Their eyes shot to us as we strode in and planted our sacks down on the wooden floorboards.
“Where should we leave these, ma’am?” Angie asked, panting.
“Oh, good girls!” Mrs. Churnley left the frying pan she had been monitoring and bustled over to examine our finds. “You got some real beauties here! I’ll have Mr. Churnley skin some for lunch.”
Mr. Churnley, who
was of a similar height and build to his wife, waddled over to join her in examining the corn with his monobrow furrowed, while Lauren, Angie, and I hurried to the sink. We each grabbed a metal cup from the drainer and quickly served ourselves water from a large pitcher. Once we’d swallowed two cups in a row, Angie remarked to the couple, “Seems like you might have new neighbors, by the way.”
Mrs. Churnley turned, her rheumy eyes widening as she made her way back to the frying pan. “Hmm?”
“Yeah,” Angie replied, “we—or I—saw four guys lounging around in the field next door. They were shirtless, so I assumed they were sunbathing…” She set her cup down and dove her hand back into her pocket to retrieve her phone. But as she navigated to her photo app and touched the screen to zoom in, she frowned. “Huh. That’s real weird.” Her eyes narrowed to slits as she squinted at the screen.
“What?” Lauren and I asked.
“I can’t, uh, make them out in the photo,” she replied, still looking befuddled. “There’s just logs. Odd. I could have sworn I saw dudes there too.”
Lauren’s lips twitched in a wry smile as she took the phone from Angie. “Yup,” she confirmed. “Logs.”
I peered over Lauren’s shoulder to take a look at the photo for myself. A cluster of four logs lay near the edge of a flat field, right near the woods’ border… Definitely no shirtless lumberjacks.
Mrs. Churnley chortled, nudging Angie in the arm with her elbow. “Seems we all react to the heat differently, eh? The only ‘shirtless dude’ I’ve seen around here in the last twenty years, other than Mr. Churnley, is Mr. Doherty, our neighbor on the southern side of the fence, and I wouldn’t say he’s anything to get excited about—unless curly white chest hairs are your thing.” To our alarm, she threw us a salacious wink.
“Now, Nora,” her husband spoke up in a gruff voice, “don’t get the ladies too excited.”