Defiance (Heart Lines Series Book 5) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Heart Lines Series Reading Order

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Love Notes

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Heart Lines Series Reading Order

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Love Notes

  About the Author

  Defiance

  Heart Lines Series #5

  ©2017 Heather Hildenbrand

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written consent of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the authors’ imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the authors.

  Cover by Wit & Whimsy Cover Design

  Heart Lines Series Reading Order:

  Remembrance

  Inheritance

  Esperance

  Imbalance

  Defiance

  Emergence

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  Chapter One

  Sam

  The air bit and chafed until my skin was numb. My muscles ached until they screamed—louder than the shrieks echoing in my own mind from the heart-wrenching scene we’d just fled. Beside me, Alex panted heavily, his back bent and shoulders hunched as he leaned on me. A layer of sticky blood coated Alex’s entire left side—and my right—thanks to the bullet still lodged there. We’d already been walking for hours. My knees threatened to buckle with every step now. Sweat poured from both our foreheads with the effort of our journey. Him, wounded. Me, bearing the bulk of his weight.

  Both of us were broken.

  We were together at least. Alive—and free. That was something, I told myself.

  It was late, though I had no idea what time it was. Hours ago now, we’d dumped our phones in the woods behind RJ’s house and then limped off in the opposite direction. After that, I did as Alex instructed me, blurring and then covering our tracks by placing broken leaves and limbs that led off onto false trails.

  Soon, the sounds of our pursuers had faded. Now, we were so far from where I’d last heard any other human or signs of life, I’d stopped worrying about being caught and worried more about collapsing. Alex was weak.

  “We need to stop,” I said to him, my voice hoarse but loud in the otherwise quiet forest. “You’ve lost so much blood.”

  “If I stop, I won’t start again.” The raw pain in Alex’s voice made my chest ache.

  Without breaking stride, I called my magic up, wincing at the pain in my chest from all the emotions roiling through me. I braced myself for the familiar surge of crude energy that normally came on command, but there was none.

  I tried again.

  This time, there was a sudden start from somewhere deep in my chest—and then a stop, just as sudden. I lurched forward and almost brought Alex with me before he caught himself in time on a tree trunk. I bent over at the waist and heaved, my surprise morphing into humiliation as I spilled the contents of my stomach on to the dead leaves and dirt at our feet.

  “Sam.” Alex reached for me, half-leaning on the tree. He brushed the hair back from my face, holding it out of the way until I stopped vomiting and straightened.

  When I looked back at him, I couldn’t bring myself to care about the tears streaming down my face or the bleak look I probably gave him. “I can’t—”

  I broke off in rebellion of the words.

  “Can’t what?” he asked.

  “I can’t use my magic,” I forced myself to say.

  “Is that what made you sick?” he asked, his forehead creasing even more deeply than before. “Trying to heal me?” He was in pain, bleeding, and limping—and yet, his main concern was still for me.

  I nodded.

  His gaze heated and darkened and I knew he was only frustrated with our situation, not angry with me, but I still shrank back with guilt. More tears fell and my stomach rolled.

  “Sam, I don’t need you to heal me. I’ll be fine.”

  “You promise?” I asked even though we both knew he couldn’t promise. Not really. He was shot and bleeding and we were alone in the woods on the run. There was a good chance we weren’t going to make it out of here alive.

  “I swear it,” he said, the fire in his eyes adding to the granite in his words. And even though I knew he couldn’t know for sure, I believed him.

  I had to.

  We didn’t have another choice.

 
; I swallowed hard, willing my stomach to settle, and doubled back to slip his arm over my shoulder again. “Let’s keep moving,” I said.

  He didn’t answer as we started walking again.

  While we walked, I let my mind wander, but too soon it was back to displaying the horrific images of what we’d left behind. Indra dead at my feet. CHAS showing up too late to help us. Alex shot. RJ as the shooter.

  RJ. My friend. Ea’s vessel

  Inside me, Hina stirred—a whirlwind of fury and betrayal that rivaled my own. RJ had been my protector. He’d been there for me when Alex wasn’t. He’d been the only one I could talk to for weeks after Alex had left. And in Guam—

  He’d been my friend. I’d trusted him with my life. With my secrets. With everything. And he’d betrayed me.

  My stomach churned and more tears bled down my cheeks until I could barely see the forest in front of us. I kept walking. The light grew dimmer as the sun set and shadows tracked across the ground, cast by large trees and by us—hopefully the only things moving nearby.

  I heard no one and continued on auto-pilot as Alex sometimes called out directions as we wound our way along. Slowly. So slowly. And RJ could be anywhere—

  Once again, the panic and heartbreak rose to an ache that threatened to buckle my knees. And once again, the magic inside me rose up as an answer to it. I ground my teeth against it and shoved it back before I lost it and started throwing up again. This magic was different. It wasn’t healing. It wasn’t even … me.

  I reached to brush my hair back and noticed my hand shook.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Alex said at last and I knew he’d seen my panicked movements. My fear.

  I tried to answer but the words clogged my throat. I couldn’t agree with him, not when I had no idea what to do next even if he weren’t shot. RJ had turned my world upside down just when I had needed him most. For the first time since I’d woken to this hidden world of supernatural creatures, I was truly terrified of the monsters it contained.

  We kept walking.

  An hour later, the sun had set, washing everything around us in shadows that blended into complete darkness. Alex slowed his movements. His decisions about which way to go came more carefully now. He was tracking someone. He wouldn’t say who. I didn’t push it. There were too many other things to think about. Like whether we were being followed or whether CHAS knew where we were going and planned to just meet us there with weapons aimed.

  And RJ. Everything strayed back to him. The pain I felt over his betrayal was both physical and emotional. And even in the midst of our desperate attempt to escape, I couldn’t shut it off.

  My heart was broken.

  Possibly my magic too. Inside, Hina’s presence was like a brewing thunderstorm. I wasn’t sure if or when it would arrive. And I hoped we were somewhere safe by the time it did.

  “This way,” Alex said.

  We headed east until I caught sight of street lamps through breaks in the trees. We’d reached civilization again. But he didn’t stop, only sent us on a path parallel to it all.

  Through the miles-long trek we made to get through the woods running along the outskirts of town, I wept. Silently sometimes, sniffling others. Alex said nothing. Every so often, he’d stop and wipe the tears from my face with his blood-stained fingers. I’d let him, though neither of us uttered a word about what had happened. Not RJ’s betrayal or Alex’s still-bleeding gunshot wound. Not CHAS showing up at the end, intent on taking Alex back into custody. I hadn’t even given voice to my worry over Brittany and Breck and what CHAS would do with them now.

  My own brother. We’d left him up on that roof and just taken off.

  But I couldn’t regret it. I’d barely been able to think back there in the middle of the chaos and the exhaustion wearing me down over healing Indra. And when Alex had gone down, I’d almost lost it. I couldn’t lose him. And nothing else mattered now more than saving Alex’s life.

  Finally, when night had thickened to nothing more than a dark curtain around us spotted with far-off lights from town, we emerged from the trees. I was surprised to find us at the dead end of a narrow, unmarked road. Paved but unlined, it extended straight ahead of us before it disappeared into the darkness. The street was unlit here, but farther down, orange lamps glowed overhead, illuminating an eighteen-wheeler parked at the curb. No other cars or people were in sight. Directly in front of us loomed a squat warehouse unadorned by any company signs.

  Under Alex’s murmured directions, we headed straight for it.

  Somewhere farther out, an owl called, and it set my teeth on edge. Not the sound itself, but the answering silence. The loudness of my own footsteps against the damp blacktop. Thank the goddess it hadn’t rained on us, but it was still wet from an earlier downpour, and I stepped carefully, terrified that I’d lose my footing and we’d both go down.

  I scanned the road and the shadows beyond for movement as we crossed. Alex did the same, though I wasn’t sure whether he was even capable of noticing anything anymore. His breathing was shallow and his left leg was dragging against the asphalt with every step. The blood soaking his skin and clothes was dried and caked against his skin. I wasn’t sure how or why a shoulder wound had affected his leg, but I knew it couldn’t be good. If we didn’t stop the bleeding soon…

  I shoved the thought away and went back to watching the shadows. There were no trees here, but a dumpster and a storage container obscured my view, blotting out the bit of light from the street lamps farther down. My chest tightened as we neared the sidewalk and Alex directed us to a side door.

  “What is this place?” I asked, breaking the silence that had lasted nearly as long as our journey.

  “I have a friend here,” he said, but he sounded uncertain.

  I reached for his wrist and grabbed it before he could raise his arm to knock. “What kind of friend?” I asked, my hand shaking from nerves rather than sickness now. “Someone from CHAS?”

  He shook his head. “The man I told you about. The one that read my past.”

  “Jin,” I said, remembering the name.

  Alex nodded.

  “Will he help us?” I whispered.

  He winced, and I didn’t know if it was from the pain of standing here or uncertainty at my question. “Jin is against all forms of violence,” he said simply.

  I frowned because anyone who opened that door would take one look at us and know we’d been in a violent situation recently. But there wasn’t anywhere else to go. And we were out of time to get there anyway. Alex was pale, his eyes glassy. I could see the pain reflected in his expression; there was no question about what choice to make.

  I took a deep breath, raised my knuckles to the door, and knocked.

  It echoed in the silence so loud that I cringed as we waited.

  A moment passed. No footsteps or noise sounded from the other side, and I started to wonder if we’d come to the wrong place. Or maybe Jin had decided we looked too violent for his tastes and left us alone on his doorstep. My eyes burned with more tears at that. If we didn’t get help soon, Alex would—

  The door flew open and a large, dark-skinned man stood before us.

  If Alex wouldn’t have fallen over for it, I would have taken a step back at the sight of him. He wasn’t scary-looking, but he was intimidating in sheer size and ability to entirely fill a wide doorway. His chest was bare of any clothing but almost completely covered in tattoos and beaded necklaces. His pants reminded me of something from the dojo Breck had studied at as a kid, black and loose-fitting. He studied us somberly for a moment, his dark eyes sweeping both of us in a quick, curious glance. By the time his eyes had returned to Alex’s face, they were wide and concerned.

  “Who is this?” he asked.

  “This is Sam,” Alex said quietly.

  Jin studied me and I found myself glancing away underneath the weight of his stare.

  “Jin, it’s asking a lot of you, I know—” Alex began in a hoarse voice.

 
But Jin cut him off. “Come in,” he said simply but with enough conviction that no other words or arguments from us even followed.

  “Thank you,” I told him, my muscles already screaming at me now that I knew we’d found a resting place.

  “This way,” he said and before I could move a step into the dim hallway he’d gestured toward, Alex’s weight against me disappeared. I stumbled at the sudden imbalance and only barely caught myself with a hand against the cool, damp wall.

  When I looked up, Jin held Alex in his arms like it was nothing. Alex, grunting and protesting, lifted his head to glare at Jin. But Jin shushed him and shook his head. “There is no disgrace here. Sometimes you carry. Sometimes you let others carry you. Come.”

  Jin led the way and Alex fell back again, his head lolling and I almost panicked, wondering if he’d passed out. I couldn’t see well around Jin to spot whether Alex’s eyes were open. I bit my lip, praying we’d arrived in time to take care of Alex’s wound without permanent damage. Or that Jin could or would even help us.

  Even as I made my way down the hall, I could feel my own energy flagging. When was the last time we’d eaten or had anything to drink? This morning? And what time was it now? If we’d made a mistake in coming here, there was no more time left to double back and go anywhere else. We were out of time and short on allies. All I could do was hope and pray Jin knew how to heal a body as well as he knew how to read one. Alex’s life depended on it. Maybe mine did too.

  Chapter Two

  Alex

  It was the stupidest thing to worry about under the circumstances, but I couldn’t help wondering what would happen to my truck now. I hoped Edie would take care of it or maybe Breck if he wasn’t in custody, but there was no telling the damage done after that showdown earlier today. If there was damage to her body, someone would pay ... Just as soon as I recovered from this damned bullet wound.

  Dammit, this thing hurt.

  I watched with heavy lids as Jin mixed various herbs in a wooden bowl. He’d already added numerous unidentifiable ingredients, mashing the mixture with what looked like a wooden mallet. It was, I assumed, his own homemade version of a mortar and pestle. It also smelled like some weird combination of burnt opium and dog shit. The moment he finished and brought the bowl toward me, I almost regretted not letting Sam try again to heal me herself. But one look at her and I rejected the idea all over again.