Protected (Book 1 in the Ariya Adams trilogy) Read online

  Protected

  Book 1 in the Ariya Adams Trilogy

  By: Anna Applegate

  Text Copyright © 2013 by Anna Applegate (Anna Williams)

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author.

  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.

  For my husband who supported me even though he hates vampires.

  For my mom and dad who didn’t even blink when I said I wanted to write a book. Thank you for believing I can do anything.

  For my best friend, Briana, who also hates vampires, but sat down and read the entire book just because I had written it.

  And finally, for you reading this work. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  Table of Contents

  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 1

  I awoke, abruptly, with a start.

  A falling sensation, that now frequented my dreams, jolted my sleeping mind and body into a conscious state of awareness. I can never remember the pieces of those falling dreams before the particular sensation hits. I just jerk awake and remember I was mid-air. It has been happening quite a bit lately and I can’t put my finger on why. I’ve never had any trouble sleeping before, but, for the past month, I have been waking up this way.

  The book I had been reading, before dozing off, slid off my chest and hit the bedroom floor as the strange feeling rocketed me to an upright position. I’d been reading Pride and Prejudice again. I love Jane Austin. There is something about tough romances that always gets me. In my mind, the ones that almost don’t work out, filled with misunderstandings and miscommunications, are the ones that lead to the best endings.

  “Did Mr. Darcy catch you this time, Ariya?” My roommate Caroline stood smirking in the doorway of my room.

  “I’m sure if I had stayed asleep a second longer he would have been right there.” I laughed and bent down to pick up my book from the floor. She rolled her eyes at me.

  Caroline and I have been living together for three years now. We are at the start of our fourth year at Kingsbrook College. Kingsbrook is a small school in Mineral Point, Michigan. The town itself only has about ten thousand people, and college students make up over half the population. Caroline had convinced me to stay behind for a summer course after our sophomore year. It had been eerily quiet in town when the majority of the students had moved out and we were left behind. Kingsbrook is tucked away so well that most people have never even heard of it or realize that it exists.

  I was lucky to have a guidance counselor in high school, Miss Lazaro, who put forth the effort to get to know the students who came to her, so much so, that she could pinpoint a college she thought we’d love. Miss Lazaro knew that I loved our small town and that I would probably not like city life. She understood that I was a true romantic at heart, so she had given me a brochure for Kingsbrook College and suggested I take a look.

  One glance at the classic buildings, the descriptions of small intimate class settings, and the picturesque views the brochure displayed was all it took to get me hooked. I loaded my parents into our car for a campus visit and made my decision almost the minute the town came into view. Now, Kingsbrook is home to me - Go Timberwolves!

  Caroline and I had met our freshman year when we moved into our dorm room. We had been randomly assigned as roommates, but the feeling of unfamiliarity didn’t last long. We bonded immediately and have stayed roommates. She’s my best friend. I grew up an only child. Even though I don’t really know what it is like to have a sibling, I imagine that our relationship is what having a sister is probably like. My goal is to push my daydreamer-like attitude onto her, and she tries to keep me more grounded, like her. They do say opposites attract and we fit that bill perfectly.

  “Well, it’s time to wake up, Ariya. We have things to do,” she piped in.

  “Things to do? We’ve only been back one day!”

  Move-in day wasn’t particularly tough since we had lived in the same apartment for two years. All we had to do was bring some clothes back and forth from home and we were all set. It only took about an hour, so I had picked up my book and dozed off in the process of reading or, as I told Caroline, settling back in.

  Acting as if she didn’t hear my outcry she continued, “I ran out to get some mixers while you were in LaLa Land and bumped into Ashley. She has been back two seconds and already has her next target set. It’s ridiculous.” She rolled her eyes again. She loved doing that. She loved doing anything dramatic come to think of it, and I loved her for it.

  “Anyways, she’s having some people over at her place tonight and said we must come.” She said the last part in her mocking Ashley voice. It sounded like a high-pitched southern belle, reminding me of Scarlett O’Hara. I couldn’t help but smile.

  Not only had Caroline and I gotten along so well our freshman year, but it also turns out the entire floor of the dorm we lived in ended up being friends throughout college. It was our core group and Ashley Saunders was a part of that group. Caroline couldn’t stand her most of the time. She had great reasons. Ashley was someone who was hard to get along with in general. Her main focus in college was finding a husband so she could be a housewife.

  Caroline couldn’t stand that. She was always preaching how women should be independent, have goals for themselves without the input of men, and focus on figuring things out for themselves instead of being told what to do. She acted like quite the feminist, which was funny to me because she also had an extremely protective and motherly side when it came to me. Sometimes it was even to the point of being overprotective.

  To be honest, I think every girl in our unit is a bit envious of Ashley. She has long brown hair that seems to always fall perfectly in loose curls. She is petite and bubbly, and, as she likes to put it, she loves to have fun.

  Caroline, being beautiful herself, was probably the only one who didn’t get jealous of her. Caroline had shorter brown hair that she wore straight for the most part. She was built like me, tall and athletic. She was pale, which I attributed to the fact that she lived in places where the weather was on the colder side eighty percent of the time.

  The weather here in Mineral Point didn’t really allow for year-round sun bathing. Plus, Caroline was always chilled, at least to the touch, so I doubted she’d last long sitting outside in a bathing suit anyway. It was something I constantly teased her about. I couldn't get away with teasing her about being pale though, seeing as I was no tan beauty myself.

  Ultimately, what really made Caroline beautiful was her confidence. She was strong, independent, and poised, a deadly combination when there was something to be done. Having all that assurance meant there was no reason for Caroline to feel threatened by Ashley or all the fun she has with her man following.

  From what Caroline was saying about her run-in with Ashley, this party was an excuse for Ashley’s next conquest to see how
much fun she really was. Ashley tended not to care who came to her shindigs as long as the house was full and it looked like she was the queen bee. Since the rest of us didn’t really care who was perceived in that role, we just showed up and hung out with each other while she put on her show.

  She was probably going to be stuck in that mindset her whole life, and it made me feel sorry for her. It seemed like an awful lot of work to keep up that sort of thought process. Being the center of attention wasn’t at all my thing. Ashley could take that spot for all I cared. Maybe that’s why we all just dealt with her. At least there would be plenty of people to catch up with, now that we were all back at school for our senior year.

  “I’m in – it’s always fun to watch her work her magic.” I grinned at Caroline and put my book back on the overloaded bookshelf in my room.

  We headed into the kitchen to make dinner before getting ready to go out for the evening. We were master chefs when it came to Ramen Noodles. Learning to cook had never come up at home. My mom’s a great cook. Although I’m hardly qualified for more than cooking packaged meals, I can bake, so I’m not completely hopeless in the kitchen. She cooked, I baked, and that was our routine. It worked at home, but in college, when I was on my own and had a roommate who’d ordered out every meal she ever ate, it was a bit more challenging to come up with dinners each night.

  To top it off, Caroline was one of the pickiest eaters known to man. She would order something only to eat a couple bites, and then be done. I had no idea how she did it. I felt like I devoured everything in sight and she was like a bird with her food. Half the time I was left wondering if she had some secret stash of grub hidden around in her room because I’d be hungry all the time if I were to eat as little as she did.

  We lived in a four-person apartment. We had been living with two other girls who were a year older than us. When they’d graduated last semester, we had to decide if we wanted to pick up two random roommates for our senior year or move to a two-person apartment. We’d seriously considered two girls we’d met at a mixer, but Caroline had jumped in and said she’d pick up the extra cost. I argued for quite some time with her on that, but she insisted, stating that she thought it was a good investment and it would give her more space for her clothes. And, when Caroline made up her mind that was usually it. So, now it was just us in the apartment for a whole year.

  While Caroline headed in to boil water for our usual pasta dish, I absentmindedly flicked on the television. The news was the first thing to pop up on the screen. I frowned and turned towards the kitchen.

  “Since when do you watch the news?” I teased.

  “The cable probably got reset back to channel three when I turned it back on after the summer, smart aleck.” She smiled at me.

  I was about to make my way to sit over at the kitchen bar and wait for Caroline to finish up, when a hand-drawn image flashing over the screen caught my eye.

  An eyewitness of the event was able to recount a description of the animal they came across while hiking the Willow Valley Trail, yesterday evening. The hiker and his friend tried to escape, but only one was lucky enough to get away. Christopher Luxon returned back to town safely. The other hiker, Samuel Dorchky, is still missing.

  More information was given about contact phone numbers after that, but it didn’t register as much as the story had.

  I stood blinking, trying to process the information I’d just seen. Willow Valley Trail was only about fifteen miles from town and was a well-traveled walk for people to use before the weather turned too cold. In fact, Caroline and I had hiked there before. The hand-drawn image on the screen showed a ragged, but large looking wolf. At least that’s what the picture looked like. The news just called it an animal. I’d never heard of any sort of animal attacks near school before.

  “Did you see this?” I waved the remote at the T.V. screen and looked at Caroline in the kitchen. She shrugged.

  “Yeah. Weird, right? I’m sure it’s just a random occurrence, though. I mean, seriously, it’s a random story.”

  “Yeah, odd.” Turning my attention back to the bar counter, I flicked the remote to change the channel to something a bit more light-hearted, then set it down to refocus my attention on Caroline.

  “So what are you wearing tonight?” Caroline looked over from the stove expectantly after putting the noodles in the water she had just brought to a boil.

  “Can’t you pick?” She raised her eyebrows at my response. “Come on, just because it’s senior year doesn’t mean I’ve magically developed some sort of fashion sense.”

  It was true. I was most comfortable in a t-shirt and jeans, but Caroline would never let me out of the house for a party dressed like that. She usually grabbed things out of her closet and threw them at me, as she was getting ready.

  I was glad we were the same size. I have straight, long blonde hair, that really doesn’t fall any other way. I am long-legged and in fairly good shape. I have broad shoulders and I am muscular, which made me pretty good at almost any sport I’d tried when I was growing up. I’m not a bulky weight lifter or anything, I just like sports. Running, swimming, tennis, and even soccer. You name it, and I have done it.

  While I haven’t really played any particular sport since high school, I still run to stay in shape. My mom and dad loved having me in sports. They thought it was the best way to learn how to hold your head up, even in defeat, and how to develop skills like teamwork. They were also adamant that once I started something, I was never allowed to quit. Growing up where sports were so all-consuming, it was hard to focus on girly things like a fashion sense. I enjoyed looking pretty and dressing up, I just couldn’t get the whole pick-out-the-clothes-and-make-an-outfit thing down.

  “Ariya Adams! Have you not learned anything from me? I try so hard and nothing. Sometimes it’s like you just don’t care,” she said sarcastically before shooting me a smile. “Please tell me you didn’t spend the entire summer wearing your usual ensemble.”

  I gave her an innocent look and shrugged my shoulders.

  “Unbelievable! At least we were together for half of it. That means you only looked like a wreck fifty percent of the time.” I balled up a napkin and threw it at her while she removed our dinner from the stove and poured it into bowls. “Speaking of this summer…” she trailed off for a second, “I met someone,” she dragged out the last part. My head jerked up and I looked at her in shock.

  “What?” I knew I looked like a psychopath with my eyes wide and mouth hanging open.

  “Yeah, I know, crazy.” She smiled.

  “We talk every day. How in the world did you not mention this already? When? What’s his name? How’d you meet him?” Excitement trickled from me and the questions came out at lightning pace.

  “You’ve been so anti-guy since Derrick that I just thought I’d wait to bring it up until we could gab again in person.”

  That was true. Being at a college that was seventy percent female, the choice of men to date was limited. Most of the ones around were so arrogant they weren’t worth the time. Derrick played intramural hockey, which is a staple for guys at Kingsbrook. Hockey is to Kingsbrook College what football is to the University of Alabama, just without all the media attention, coverage, oh, and championship titles. The boys here tended to think they were on a big stage when they played, which did lead to some entertaining victory shuffles and antics. It was an adjustment for me to focus on hockey, since I came from a football town, but it was actually really fun once I got into it.

  Derrick was the goalie for one of the teams and we had gone out a few times. After the fourth date, he looked at me over our dinner plates and said if I wasn’t going to put out, he was going to stop paying for all my “free” outings. That ended our romance quickly.

  That wasn’t the only thing that had turned me off from dating the boys here for a while. I watched most of my guy friends parade through girls like they were in a competition to see who could sleep with the largest number of people in the shor
test amount of time. I loved my guy friends. They were some of my closest friends, besides Caroline, but sometimes they were just pathetic.

  Caroline silently set the noodles in front of me, still not gushing about her new beau, so I decided to push her a bit more.

  “Hellooooo, details please? Just because I don’t have someone to gab about doesn’t mean I can’t live vicariously through you. Come on! I want to know everything.”

  It didn’t take much for her to open up and I listened intently.

  “His name is Nick. He worked as a bartender across the street from Starbucks at a sushi place.” Caroline’s summer job at Starbucks made her my lifesaver during the school year with her barista skills. “We saw each other almost every day for two weeks, and then he walked in before his shift one day. We just started talking, and then hanging out and, well, you know…” She winked at me.

  “So, when do I get to meet him?” I asked, leaning on the counter eagerly.

  “Actually, I wanted to ask you about that. I want him to come up this weekend. Is that okay? I know it’s our first weekend back, but I would like him to meet everyone, and since things are relaxed with no classes, I figured it was the best time.” I knew he must be pretty serious if Caroline was inviting him up already. It meant she wanted to show him off a bit. Good for her; Caroline deserved it. She’d been single almost as long as I had, and while neither of us needed men in our lives to be happy, it was nice to think she had found someone. Plus, for her to be that attached to a guy was a first, at least that I had seen.

  “What do you mean is that okay? I can’t wait to meet him!” A giggle escaped me as my own reaction infused with her excitement.

  “And there’s something else, too.” She was grinning from ear to ear. My eyebrows shot up expectantly. “He’s thinking about transferring and I wanted him to get a feel for the place once students were back, you know? And meet the people he’d be seeing the most. Since everyone will be together, it just kind of made sense.”