Warrior's Hope

by Rebecca Zanetti

Genres: Paranormal Romance; Shifters; Vampires

Synopsis

This thrilling novel in the New York Times bestselling author’s popular Dark Protectors series takes readers on a wild ride as the only female vampire ever born brings a love triangle to its explosive conclusion—deciding the fate of battling factions as the forces of good and evil gather for the ultimate showdown.
As the only female vampire ever born, and the heir to two powerful immortal families, Hope Kayrs-Kyllwood has always felt the weight of fate and destiny. Now her heart is torn between two men and two different futures. It’s a choice between duty and love, peace and war, with the fate of everyone she loves hanging in the balance.
As the leader of the Kurjan nation, Drake has always known that mating Hope is the best path to avoiding war. He’s counting on her to know the same. … Paxton has been Hope’s best friend and protector since they were children. He would kill and die for her without a second thought. In fact, he’s always known that would be his path …
With deadly factions at her heels, Hope must decide whom to trust and where her loyalty lies—before the choice is taken away from her …

Release date: October 3, 2023

Publisher: Lyrical Press

Print pages: 309

Reader says this book is...: action-packed (1) emotionally riveting (1) entertaining story (1) happily ever after (1) strong chemistry (1) strong heroine (1) suspenseful (1) tragic (1)

Sample

Chapter One

The Christmas tree lit the entire main room of the lodge with sparkling green and red lights, adding to the sense of whimsy created by the magical songs humming through the entertainment system.

Hope Kayrs-Kyllwood entered from the kitchen area, holding two heavy mugs and offering one to the woman looking at the tree. “Here you go. This will warm you up,” she said, handing over the hot buttered rum.

“Thank you.” Lisa Maloney accepted the mug. She still wore the ripped jeans and dirty green sweater she’d had on when she was rescued, but the soldiers who’d saved her had been called to another possible kidnapping, so Hope had instantly volunteered to help ease the woman into her new reality. She’d been through an ordeal, and spending some time in the cheerful lodge with a warm beverage should help.

“I don’t even know how to thank your people.” Lisa took a sip of the drink. Instantly, color washed across her face. “Oh, this is good.”

Hope sampled the concoction. “It’s my uncle Garrett’s recipe. There’s a lot of rum in it, but you’re not driving anywhere tonight, so that’s okay.”

Lisa turned to face Hope. “I’m sorry to be quiet. It’s just finding out about immortals has been a shock to my system. Here I thought I was so experienced and knowledgeable about the world.” The twenty-four-year-old teacher from Des Moines shivered. “Those creepy monsters had me. They were kidnapping me, and your people came out of nowhere to stop them.”

Hope couldn’t imagine the terror. “Yeah, the Kurjans have been kidnapping enhanced females all across the globe, and we’re trying to stop them whenever we can.” She watched the human closely. Her eyes were clear but her legs fidgety. She wouldn’t be able to sit and relax quite yet. Standing was fine.

Lisa’s hair was a bright red and her eyes a startling green. There was no doubt she had some Irish heritage, but according to Hope’s dossier, her family had lived in the States for a couple of centuries.

“I can’t believe that vampires actually exist.” Lisa’s eyes were still wide.

Hope kept her tone soothing and factual. “I have demon and vampire lineage as well as some witch and shifter, I think.”

“Wow,” Lisa said. “To think you live among us and I had no idea. How many vampires are there?”

“I’m not at liberty to divulge that, but I can say that I’m the only female with vampire blood in her ever born.”

Lisa blinked. “One of the soldiers mentioned that when he asked me to stay here while they went back out to the helicopter. Talk about pressure on you, huh?”

Hope had never known another reality. “I don’t feel pressure.”

“I’m sure you must,” Lisa said. “You’re the only one of your kind. Is it a genetic thing?”

Hope savored the delicious cocktail. “Yes. Vampires usually only give birth to males.”

“What’s an enhanced female?” Lisa looked back at the tree.

Ah. Hope had wondered when the questions would come. Lisa had accepted the reality faster than most. “Somebody with extra abilities. We don’t know if you’re cousins to the witches or are your own species like vampires or demons.” Hope’s gaze caught on the many handmade ornaments hung on the massively tall tree.

“This is adorable.” Lisa pulled at a pine cone that had been dipped in silver.

“My brother made that last week.” Hope admired the ornament. “He turned two not too long ago, and the kid’s really gifted.”

Lisa gingerly set it back in place. “Two? You have a two-year-old brother? How old are you?”

“I’m twenty-four. Same age as you,” Hope said. “It’s common for immortal siblings

to be born many years apart.”

Lisa leaned closer to study a crystal globe ornament. “I don’t know if I can go back to teaching high school history and just pretend I don’t know all of this.”

“You have some time to figure it out. We need to keep you off the Kurjan radar for now.” At this very moment, experts in the computer center were working on an exit plan for the woman’s current life that would appease anybody who knew her—just in case she needed to hide for a while.

Lisa shuddered. “Kurjans. That’s how I pictured vampires. Pale skin, black hair, creepy purple eyes. I mean those dudes were terrifying.”

Hope agreed completely. “A lot of them are, I admit. It used to be that they couldn’t go out in the sun, but they’ve figured out a way to protect themselves, and now they can survive daylight for several hours at a time.”

“How did they find me?” Lisa asked.

It was a fair question. “Enhanced females set off vibrations, and Kurjan technology has advanced to the point that they can detect them. I can’t tell you what they wanted with you because I don’t know. We’re trying to figure that out.” Her people had battled the Kurjans before, and she was trying to avoid another war.

Lisa grasped a hand-whittled guitar ornament. “This is cute. Who did this?”

Fond memories swept through Hope. “My friend Paxton.” Her best friend actually. “He wanted to be a rock star when we were young.”

Lisa peeked under her lashes. “Sounds like he means a lot to you.”

“He does,” Hope said, her chest aching. “I miss him.”

“Is he one of the soldiers out there fighting for kidnapped women?”

“Oh no.” Hope couldn’t imagine Pax with a gun. “Paxton is a scientist. His uncle studies the migration patterns of insects and is very fond of butterflies. He took Pax under his wing when we were teenagers, and now Paxton gets to travel all over the world, which is good for him.”

Lisa nudged her with a shoulder. “But not so good for you?”

Hope looked at the tiny guitar. “I miss him,” she admitted. “My life feels more settled when he’s here, but my team just became mission ready yesterday, so we’re out on our own soon. There are a lot of enhanced females who need to be rescued, and that’s my primary objective.”

She felt his absence daily. It had been nearly a year since they were in the same place at the same time, but they spoke often via teleconferencing or by texting nearly every week. His anecdotes about following his uncle around chasing butterflies were often hilarious. Sometimes Hope wished she could be with him, but she had a job to do, and she was good at it.

Lisa reached for another ornament. This one was a framed picture of Hope, Paxton,

and their best friend, Libby, when they’d been in elementary school.

“Is this him?” Lisa tapped on his smiling face.

“Yeah,” Hope said.

Lisa winked. “I bet he turned out cute.”

“He really did.” Heat filtered up from Hope’s neck to her cheeks.

“So he’s the one, huh?” Lisa cocked her head.

The question was like a dash of cold water. “My path lies another way.” She absently rubbed the marking on her neck that declared her one of the three prophets of her people.

Lisa followed her motion. “That’s a heck of a tattoo you’ve got there.”

“Thank you.” The marking wound from her shoulders up both sides of her neck to beneath her ears. The intricate blue design seemed to dance on her skin. She’d worn the brand since before she was born, and she felt the weight of it often.

“Tell me about this Paxton,” Lisa said.

“That’s about all there is,” Hope murmured. “He’s a scientist, he’s a free spirit, and he’s just a great guy. He’s sweet.”

Lisa rehung the ornament. “He sounds wonderful, and if he turned out as cute as he looks here, I’d say you’re missing out if you don’t go for it.”

Time to change the subject. “What about you?”

Lisa rescued a Santa ornament from tipping over. “My boyfriend and I broke up a year ago. I was thinking about maybe trying a dating app, but I don’t know. Now that I know I’m being hunted by super scary, creepy, vampire-esque monsters, I may just lie low for a while.”

Hope smoothed out the tree skirt with one foot. “That’s not a bad idea. We’ll keep you safe, whatever you decide. We can give you a new ID, or you can stay here in Realm territory until we figure things out. I promise we’re not going to abandon you now that we’ve rescued you.”

“I appreciate that,” Lisa said.

An owl hooted loudly from outside the heavy doors leading to the deck and down to the lake, and Hope moved to open the door. “Hey, Wingman,” she called out.

Lisa popped up at her side. “You have an owl for a wingman?”

“It’s his name.” Hope chuckled. “He somehow adopted me a while back. He’s just a friend, or a pet, or maybe neither.”

Lisa’s eyes widened. “Are you like a witch? You know from those old fairy tales where they have a familiar?”

Hope mulled the question over. “I don’t think so. He just appeared one day and hangs

around a lot. He does show up at odd times, though.” While she did have some witch heritage, she wasn’t able to form plasma out of thin air, so her main identity as an immortal probably wasn’t as a witch. Unfortunately, she hadn’t discovered any talents, so she couldn’t figure out what kind of immortal she should identify with. It was quite frustrating.

The bird was beautiful, with thick white feathers and a dark marking around his beak. He was also a good size but flew gracefully when he wanted. “He disappears fairly often,” Hope said. “Because he is a predator.” Like most people in her world, actually. Her phone buzzed, and she looked down and instantly pressed a button, nerves flaring to life in her abdomen. “Paxton, hi.”

His face came into view on screen. Silvery-blue eyes, thick black hair, rugged features with a nice shadow covering his jaw. He looked like a tough-guy wildlife biologist on safari.

Next to her, Lisa sucked in air. “Whoa,” she whispered. “Seriously hot.”

Hope smiled. “I was just talking to Wingman.”

“That bird’s weird,” Paxton said. Behind him was a beautiful sunlit beach with aqua-colored water that looked too inviting to resist.

She wished she could vacation with him and get out of the snow. “Where are you?”

“I’m in Saint Thomas,” he said, leaning back a little bit. “We’re in the Caribbean studying the migration patterns of the Gulf fritillary. We’re trying to figure out how the little beauty initially arrived here.”

Hope assumed he was talking about a butterfly. “Fun.”

“Yeah, they’re part of the ‘brush-footed’ or Nymphalidae butterfly family, referring to the short hairs on the front of its legs.” His eyes shone as he warmed to the subject. “They like passionflowers, so they’re also known as the passion butterfly.”

Hope gave Lisa a look. “That’s fascinating, Pax.” He combined adorable geekiness and rugged sexiness in a way that warmed her heart as well as other parts of her anatomy.

He grinned. “Sorry. I got carried away. But I’m calling you for a reason. Guess what?”

“What?” Hope held her breath.

“We’re coming home for Christmas.”

Elation whipped through her. “Oh, I’m so glad.” She had found him the perfect cutting-edge microscope set and had wanted to give it to him in person. She had also bought brand-new editions of Realm Sudoku, which for some reason he seemed to love, although he never sat still long enough to play. “When will you be home?”

“I think the day before Christmas, but I’ll let you know for sure.” He looked over his shoulder. “Oh, my uncle is calling me. I have to go. I miss you.”

“I miss you too. I’ll see you soon.” She clicked off.

“You look way too happy for him to be just a friend.” Lisa returned her attention to her mug of rum.

Hope let herself bask in the moment for two seconds and then shoved the dream away. “The male has grown up nicely.”

“I would say so,” Lisa burst out. “Did you see that chest? He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Did

you notice? Because I sure as heck noticed. That was one heck of a chest.”

Hope chuckled. “Yes, Paxton ended up very muscled and good-looking somehow, even though he chases butterflies around the globe.” She was grateful that he wasn’t part of her world of strategy and war. After his upbringing, he deserved peace. “But we’re friends, and we’ll always be just friends.” She knew fate had other plans for her. But the words rang hollow just the same.

Lisa fanned herself. “If you say so, although I think you’re crazy, girlfriend.”

Hope thought about explaining just as her cousin Collin strode into the room.

“We’re on go,” he said, securing his duffel bag over his shoulder. “Two women, definitely enhanced. Our first solo mission. The team is heading to the helicopter to take us to the coast. We’ll catch a plane there.”

Hope put her cup on the table near the tree, her heart beating faster. “Where are we going?”

“Paris.” Collin glanced at his watch. “We’re wheels up in twenty minutes.”

Hope thought through mission parameters. “I have a go bag and will meet you at the hangar.”

“You’ve got it,” Collin said. “Liam is acquiring weapons, and I’ll assist him. See you there.” He strode out of the room.

Lisa blew out air. “Wow. What is it with these immortal males? I mean, dangerously sexy.”

Hope blinked. “I guess.” He was her cousin, so she’d never really looked at him that way. “Lisa, you’re safe here, and you can stay as long as you want.”

“Thank you.” Lisa leaned in for an impulsive hug. “You’re going out there to save two more women like me?”

“That’s the plan.” Hope slid her phone into the back pocket of her cargo pants as anticipation trilled through her veins. Finally, she and her team would have a chance to work on their own and make a difference. She would not fail those women. No matter what.

 

Chapter Two

Hope reshuffled her dossier on the table in the Gulfstream jet and looked at her team. They were about seven hours into the nine-hour flight, and several had napped on the way.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ve reviewed locations, and I have a plan to take both women.” She looked at her team of four. “This is our first solo mission, and we’re going to do it completely by the book. First, I want to talk about any new enhancements you may or may not have. Libby, how’s the shifting going?”

“Perfect,” Libby said. Liberty was a feline shifter, a cougar to be exact. And she’d been able to shift since she was sixteen, so she’d mastered the skill. It was difficult to understand how humans failed to see the animal lurking inside her. Her blondish-brown hair showed a myriad of colors, and her eyes were a catlike bourbon brown.

“All right. Just remember that if you’re ordered to shift, make sure the team’s out of the way. The sonic boom you emit can be uncomfortable.” Hope barely shifted her gaze to her cousin Derrick, who was Libby’s partner.

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, let’s not forget that again, Libs. As for my skills, I’m fully prepared with fireballs, and I have been working on forming ice out of air, but I’m not quite there yet.” As a vampire-witch hybrid, his skills came from his mother, Brenna, who was a witch. Witches created and threw plasma balls by transforming air to fire using quantum physics Hope just wasn’t interested in. Even though he was mainly a witch, he looked just like his vampire father, Jase, and he had his dad’s copper-colored eyes and muscled physique. Regardless of lineage or looks, immortals normally only inherited the powers of one parent.

Hope nodded. “That’s good, though. Fireballs come in handy—we just have to be careful if we’re in the tunnels again.” She studied the twins, who sat at the far end. They were the spitting image of their father, Conn, and both had full vampire attributes, to the consternation of their mother, Moira, who was a powerful witch. The seventh sister of a seventh sister, Moira was a unicorn in the witch world. She kept trying to talk Conn into having more children so she could get a witch or two in there, and Conn was fully on board, but it could take eons for immortals to procreate. “What about you two?”

Liam shook his head. “I’m at full vampire strength, but I haven’t gained any additional skills as of yet. I feel like I should be able to halt people in their tracks the way Uncle Talen does, but it hasn’t happened yet.”

“That’s okay,” Hope said, calculating how best to use his abilities in Paris. “You’re young. You probably won’t get that powerful until you’re in your fifties. What about you, Collin?”

He shrugged. “Just vampire strength and speed. I’ve been trying to control the weather a little bit like Uncle Jase, but nothing so far.”

It’d be fascinating to see what skills they picked up through the years. She didn’t have any extra strength or speed yet, but she was still hoping, although it wasn’t looking good. So far, she was the only vampire in the world who caught colds and became ill, but she wasn’t going to worry about that now.

“You’ll get your abilities,” Liam said quietly, reassuringly.

She kept her face placid. Liam was usually more about business and fighting than soothing anybody’s fears. It was nice of him.

The twins looked exactly like their father, with thick dark hair and electric-green eyes. Hard-cut muscle showed on their bodies.

Part of Hope’s job as a strategic leader was to help them fit in to a human neighborhood if necessary. It was difficult with their looks sometimes, but she had chosen clothing that should help.

“All right, Collin,” she said. “You studied the dossiers on the enhanced females we’ve been assigned. What do you have?”

Collin leaned his head back against the luxurious leather chair. “Two sisters—Natalie and

 Annette Toussaint, twenty-two and twenty-five years old respectively. Natalie works as an art curator at a small private country club, while Annette is a pilot for the government. We discovered their enhancements the other day after hacking into yet another of the Kurjan devices placed all around the world. However, I think the Kurjans are starting to use satellites in their hunts by tracking the vibrations of enhanced females. If that happens, we’re in real trouble.”

Hope appreciated the detailed information. “Derrick, is there any chatter from the Kurjans today?”

“No,” Derrick said. “Nothing yet. We don’t know if they’ve caught wind of the enhanced females, but considering we hacked into their technology, I’d be shocked if the Kurjans weren’t headed the same way we are.”

“We just have to be faster,” Hope said, her adrenaline flowing freely. This was their first solo mission, and they couldn’t fail. “Okay. I’m going to set up in the building on Boulevard Saint-Germain.”

They’d trained all over the world during the last five years—sometimes with other teams on real missions, sometimes on practice missions—and Hope knew exactly where she wanted to be.

“I’m going to send two teams out. Derrick and Libby, you’re on Natalie. Liam and Collin, you’re on Annette. When we arrive, they should both be at work, so I’ll finish studying the schematics of their workplaces, and we’ll come up with a plan.” She didn’t like kidnapping anybody, but sometimes there wasn’t time to cajole potential victims into taking shelter at a safe house.

Her phone dinged, and she lifted it absently to her ear. “Kayrs-Kyllwood.”

“Hi, it’s Božena Jílek.”

Hope went still, and her head jerked up. “Hi, I wasn’t expecting your call yet.”

“He’s coming today,” the woman said quietly, dropping into her native language of German. “I just received a message from him with a purchase order. An impressive order.”

Hope sat back and dropped her pen. “Today? Are you sure?”

“Yes. He’ll be here at 2:00 p.m. I don’t think I can do this, Ms. Kayrs-Kyllwood.”

Hope rapidly recalculated the trip. “You don’t have a choice. You owe me, and you know it.” She’d saved the woman’s life a couple of years ago, and she was fully prepared to call in the debt.

Božena sighed. “I understand. He placed a large order, like I said.”

“You can give him the products, but you have to throw the tracking dust on him as he leaves.”

“He’ll know it was me.”

Hope would have the bastard in custody at that point. “That’s irrelevant. I’ll take him in, and you’ll be safe. You won’t have anything to worry about.” Her heart hammered against her rib cage. She couldn’t believe this.

“All right, but I’m leaving town the second he exits my doorway.” 

“That’s a good idea. Thank you,” Hope said. “After this, we’re even.” She clicked off, her eyes widening on her team.

Collin straightened. “What?”

“I found him—our hacker. He’s going to be in Nuremberg in just a few hours.” Hope couldn’t believe it. Finally. She’d been chasing this guy for two years.

“Are you sure it’s the hacker?” Libby leaned forward. “I was starting to think he didn’t really exist—except he’s taken a bunch of our money.”

“Oh, he exists,” Hope said. “Finally. We’re going to nail him.”

Liam didn’t twitch, and his lids were still at half-mast. “What about the sisters in Paris?”

Hope knocked her fist against her head. “You’re right.” She wanted to save those women, but this male had been causing havoc, and she knew, she just knew, he was a Kurjan soldier or spy. If they could get him into Realm territory and question him, what might they discover? The guy might be the key to taking down the entire Kurjan nation, or at least forcing them to the negotiation table.

“All right.” She quickly shot off several texts issuing orders. “There’s a Realm team in London. I’m sending it to get the sisters. We’re going after this guy.”

Libby shared a look with Derrick. “Are you sure this isn’t personal?”

Of course it was personal. Hope clicked through a map of Nuremberg. “He’s stolen our money, taken out some of our resources, and even hacked into personal Realm business. I knew when we took out his computer control room in Scottsdale, he’d need to restock and resupply.” In fact, she’d been counting on it.

“When did you contact Božena?” Collin asked.

“The second we confiscated all of his equipment,” Hope admitted. Božena was one of the foremost dark computer retailers in the world. A woman who owed Hope a favor. She’d known when she had destroyed his Scottsdale headquarters that he’d have no choice but to turn to the woman, but Hope hadn’t realized it’d be this quickly. He must have more funds available than she had thought.

Collin secured a knife in his vest. “Enhanced females have always been our priority.”

Hope glanced at her cousin. “I agree, but the London team can get them. We finally have a chance to get this guy, Collin.” It was personal, and it had been since he’d hacked into Uncle Dage’s schedule a few months ago. “He’s ours now.” Since he was most likely a Kurjan, she’d then be in a position to negotiate with the Kurjan leader for his release. It was time to find peace for everyone. “We can’t fail. Everything is on the line.”

The plane started to descend, and she secured her seat belt. She’d barely gathered her belongings when they landed in Nuremberg and rolled to a stop. As always, Liam was the first out of the plane door, scouting with his weapon, making sure they were safe before leading everyone

to the waiting vehicles.

Dark SUVs drove them past the imposing brick castle that dominated the Nuremberg skyline and to the Realm control room, which looked like one of the many two-story townhouses in the area. Hope sent her team off and locked herself in to prepare.

Finally, she was going to catch the hacker. They’d been playing a game for years, and she was ready to win it.

Holding her breath, she engaged the computer system and zeroed in on the tracking dust. There he was. For a second, she just stared. He was one little blue dot on her screen. “He’s headed into the tunnels outside the computer store in the old city.” Which was actually camouflaged as a soap-and-sundries shop. “You know your entry points,” she advised the red blips on the screen. Her teammates were already in the tunnels that had been built beneath the old city centuries ago.

Her team was the best.

Adrenaline raced through Hope’s veins. She typed rapidly on her keyboard and scanned the three monitors in front of her before tapping on her ear communicator. “He’s moving west, fast.” She couldn’t believe they might actually catch this guy.

“On it,” Liam said.

She brought up a map of the entire area. “Affirmative. Derrick, I need you and Libs to come in from the south. He’s going through those tunnels underground, the ones we mapped out last year that are about thirty clicks from that tea store we visited during training.”

“Copy that,” Derrick said. “And you went into the tea store. I don’t do tea.”

She could hear the barely veiled excitement in his tone. “Libs? Status?”

“Moving fast. Feel Kurjans in the air. Hate abandoning the original objective and hope the second team can get there soon,” Libby said tersely. “Going dark now.”

Hope frowned. She’d had to switch objectives because this bastard was within reach. For two years, she’d hunted him using every ounce of strategy and technology she could find and had come close several times, but never like this.

The microphone crackled. “You need to report this to headquarters,” Collin said, ever the hall monitor. He and his twin, Liam, might look alike, but their approaches couldn’t be more different.

“I know,” Hope muttered. She quickly fired off a couple of texts to Realm headquarters in Idaho. Not that anybody could get to Nuremberg to help or stop them right now. “Everyone go dark as you move.” The Kurjans had excellent equipment, and if any  were in the area, they might be

 able to hack the comms.

Glancing out the window, she could see the castle in the distance, could hear the sounds of revelry from the Christmas market below, where shoppers were enjoying glasses of glühwein as they browsed the stalls. Was this fate? That she had been on her way to Europe when she’d received the call? Although she had chosen not to believe in fate. Well, much.

An argument in German caught her attention, and she leaned toward the open window. It was early in the afternoon for the alcohol to be affecting tourists already. She listened as two brothers argued about a Christmas present for their mother. ...