The Warrior Within (The Warrior Series Book 1) - Brooke Campbell

Lesbian Urban Fantasy Novel With Vampires

The Warrior Within (The Warrior Series Book 1) by Brooke Campbell

Book excerpt

Jo takes my apartment key, and I stand back while she does her check. When she gives me the all clear, I step in and close the door. Jo swoops me up in a kiss, making me giggle. Darcy comes galloping into the room when he hears me and starts rubbing all over both our legs.

He makes it so hard to walk, I finally bend down and pick him up. He has to be in the right mood to be carried. Apparently, this isn’t one of those times. After a couple of steps, cooing to him and scratching, his tail flicks and I don’t drop him fast enough. On his way down, he swipes, catching my chin.

“Ow!” He disappears into the bedroom.

I touch my chin and find tell-tale wetness. “Man, he really got me. I better go clean this up before I make a mess of my shirt.” Cupping my palm over my chin, I glance up at Jo. A few steps away, she is staring at me with the strangest expression. “Jo? Are you okay? Does the sight of blood make you sick or something?” I almost laugh. That would be terribly ironic—the owner of a blood business squeamish over the sight of it. I take a step towards the bathroom, watching her, and the hair on the back of my neck stands up. She hasn’t moved, but there is something menacing—hungry—about her now. And this time, there is no denying it: her eyes are red.

What the heck? “Ah, I’m just…going to the bathroom…to wash this. Okay, Jo? Why don’t you sit down? I’ll…just be a minute.” I’m deliberately soothing, as if I’m talking to a frightened child. But I’m the one that needs soothing because Jo is Freaking. Me. Out.

Suddenly, looking for all the world like she’s gripped by intense pain, Jo squeezes her eyes shut and covers her face with her hands. Groaning, she staggers away from me. I’m drawn to comfort her, but gripped by a primal fear I don’t fully understand.

I rush to the bathroom and lock the door. Looking in the mirror, I survey the damage. It’s a clean cut about two inches long, and a thin trail of blood dribbles down my neck. I wash carefully and, my hands shaking, I apply two butterfly bandages. They close it enough to stop the bleeding, and I wash my hands, watching the water go from red to pink. Blood-red eyes swim in my mind.

I lace my shaky fingers and squeeze them so tightly, the ends go blotchy. I can’t stay in here, but I don’t want to go out there. It’s a while before I finally talk myself down.

I unlock the door and ease it open. Relief fills me when Jo is nowhere in sight. Quietly, I release the breath I was holding. Far from the pink clouds I’d been floating on, darkness looms.

How did we get here?

Hesitantly, I head for the living room, hoping she isn’t there, hoping she didn’t leave. She’s on the couch and I perch stiffly on the opposite corner. Jo watches me, a pained expression on her face. The red haze has been replaced by familiar green, and all the danger I sensed is gone. But it was there. Jo reaches out and I don’t flinch away, though I want to. She gently touches my chin and drops her hand.

“How bad is it?” Her voice sounds raw and it pains me to hear it.

“Not bad.” I wait a beat, wondering if she is going to offer an explanation or if I will have to do it. I really don’t want to. Coward. Do it.

“Jo?” I wait for her to look at me. “What just happened?”

She sits forward, her elbows on her knees. She studies her hands, her shoulders slumped. “I did not want to tell you Libby, not like this. I thought I could ease you into my life. Foolish.”

Oh, goddess. That doesn’t bode well. “No time like the present, as they say. Tell me the truth, Jo.” I keep hoping she will just smile and offer up an easy explanation, take me in her arms, and it will all be better. But that’s not going to happen. That big thing I’ve been wondering about deepens to a canyon between us.

Still staring at her hands, she finally starts talking. “You have wondered how I move so fast. You have seen my eyes glow red. You are a clever woman, Libby. Tell me what I am.”

My mind recoils. I don’t want to even consider what comes to mind. There’s no way I’m going to embarrass myself by saying something so absurd. There’s got to be a simple explanation. “Just tell me already, Jo.”

She looks at me then, her expression challenging. “You look it in the eyes, but you do not want to see. You do not want to believe what your instincts tell you. Say it, Libby.”

I cross my arms defensively. “No. No, don’t put this on me. That’s not fair. This is your big secret to tell. So, tell me already.”

Jo sighs, deeply. She studies me and somehow, I manage not to blink. “How do you want the truth? Do you want to see it for yourself or hear about it first?”

Oh, gods. What the heck? My instincts scream to run, but I have to know. I deserve to know. “Just say it already, Jo. Please.”

“Will you hear me out? Let me stay until I have said my piece?”

I force myself to uncross my arms. I have to do this. “Yes, yes, okay, as long as…as long as I am not in any danger.”

“You are safe with me, chérie, regardless of what it looked like a moment ago or what I am about to tell you.” There is a desperation in her eyes I’ve not seen before. My heart goes out to her, but I keep my hands folded tightly in my lap. As much as I want to stop this admission, I need to hear it.

“I was born in the south of France, the only child of the widowed daughter of a marquis in the year 1852.” I gape at her but she doesn’t stop. “My father is a vampire.”

My brain reels. I couldn’t have heard any of that right. It isn’t possible. 1852? This is some kind of joke. I stand without even realizing it. This isn’t real. There are no such things as vampires. This is the stuff of books and movies, not real life. But unbidden, the facts rise. She moves too fast to track. Her skin is pale and cool. Her strength. The red in her eyes. “But you eat food. I’ve seen it.”

“I’m half-human. I must eat food. I must sleep. But I also must have blood. I crave it.”

I pace, my hands twisting incessantly. I feel her eyes follow me, but I keep mine on the carpet. This is absurd. How am I supposed to believe this? “No. I don’t believe it. Look, if you want to break up with me…if, if you have a wife or something, at least have the decency to be honest with me. This…this is just cruel.”

In a blink, Jo rushes me, but it isn’t the Jo I’ve come to know. Blood red eyes bore into me, glistening white fangs overhang her bottom lip. Her handsome face has morphed into sunken skin and bones sharply jutting. Instinctively, I turn for the door, but I don’t get more than a step away before Jo grabs my arm. When I suck in a breath to scream, she covers my mouth and pulls me against her body.

Her gruff voice scrapes across my skin. “Shhh, Libby. You tremble so. But I will not harm you. Would never. Could never. Just please, do not run from me. My instincts…regardless of what you see, this is still me. If you can promise not to scream or run, I will let you go.”

Still shaking, I manage a rough nod. Jo releases me and I stumble away, needing distance. When nothing happens, I gather my courage. Is she still…? Hugging myself, I turn. Jo sits on the couch once more, looking as controlled and dapper as I’ve ever known her. Gaia help me. I’ve never actually known her.

“You would not have believed me otherwise, but I regret frightening you. If there were any other way to convince you of the truth, I would have welcomed it. Now you know the truth.” Jo looks up at me, her forest-green gaze pleading. “Libby, I will never harm you. You can trust this. Trust me.”

I swallow hard. Oh, how I want to believe her, but I can’t stop shaking or envisioning her terrifying face in my mind. My instincts scream for me to run. To hide. What else has she been lying about? What does she want from me? Other than my blood. I shiver. Oh, goddesses.

But there she sits, looking just like she’s always looked to me. And she’s had plenty of opportunities to hurt me, so why hasn’t she? Can I really believe that Jo feels for me what I feel for her? Can I trust her with my heart? My life? I’d give anything if I could. I start to pace, but then realize I don’t want to turn my back to her. Gaia.

“I might as well know everything. Go on. What can you do that is different than what, well, I can do?”

“As you have seen, I have superhuman speed. All my senses are extremely heightened. I can read thoughts. I am skilled in compulsion. I heal quickly and I never get sick.”

My head starts shaking on its own, and my mind sticks on one thing. “You’ve…you’ve been reading my thoughts?”

“You are a particularly clear broadcaster, Libby. Your thoughts are what first drew me to you. Your humor. Your inherent decency.”

I back away, holding my hands out in front of me. “No, we’re not talking about me right now.” I chew my lip. All the times I thought she read my body language or I must have said something out loud without realizing it. “Do you read my mind all the time? Do you know every thought I have? Are you reading it now?”

She is freakishly calm. “I can block your thoughts. I frequently do so.”

I cover my face with my hands, then drop them. “You made me second-guess myself.” I squeeze my eyes tightly and open them again. Focus. All the hair on my body stands at attention. My fingers are icy. “Compulsion, you said. Have you been using that on me?”

Jo goes rigid, her face and voice void of expression. “Oui, I have used compulsion on you. To get you to drink, to give you sleep.”

“Oh, holy hairballs. Oh, gods. Did you…I mean, when we…was any of that even real? Did you use compulsion on me when we…? What do you want from me?” My voice rises on each word.

Jo leaps to her feet. I flinch, but she doesn’t move closer. “No, Libby, no. Do not torture yourself so. Search your memory, your feelings. You know I did not force you or affect your mind. I know you have recognized what that feels like. Our attraction, your sensuality, what we feel about each other, that is all real. I used compulsion only to help you.”

“Only to help me?” Hysteria bubbles. There was something she said a minute ago. Oh, yeah. “To get me to drink? What did you make me drink? Is this about the tea that tasted bad?”

Jo looks pained, but I don’t know if I can trust what I see. “The reason for my health is the vampire blood. Influenza ravaged my childhood home. Though I stayed at ma mère’s side, I did not get sick. My mother died in my 10th year of life. That was over 120 years ago. Not only have I never been sick, I do not have lasting pain, Libby. Most injuries heal almost instantly. A mere drop of my blood brings you temporary relief. The night we met, at the bar, I put a drop into your soda and compelled you to drink it. Do you remember that?”

I remember Niall being mad at Jo for something. And a strange thirst. Now I know what that was about. “Jo’s my magic Kool Aid,” I told Emma. How perfectly ironic. “Yes, I remember. The pain just melted away.” A bitter taste fills my mouth as I think about all the times I was in pain, then I’d be with Jo and, like a puppet, I drank and miraculously felt better. What a dupe I’ve been. I remember the tugging in my mind. “And you kept doing it.” She nods. “But I never tasted anything. What was different about the pitcher of tea?”

“That was the day after your extreme pain. I have not done this before, Libby. I was apparently overzealous in my desire to take away your pain. I compelled you to drink a glass, to sleep deeply and dreamlessly. I knew how much you needed rest.”

I can’t bear to look at her. Is any of this real? “So thinking you know what’s best for me, you slipped something into my drinks. Then you made me drink them, not of my own free will. You didn’t give me a choice.” My voice shakes with righteous anger. I’d wanted to know everything, but suddenly, I can’t take in any more.

“Libby, that is unfairly oversimplifying things, don’t you think?” Jo’s hands fist at her sides.

“Seriously? Oversimplifying? No. No, you aren’t going to do this. Leave.”

“Chérie.”

“Don’t. Just. Get out!” The first tears slip down my cheeks and I know a torrent isn’t far. Not yet. My head shakes slowly, my eyes seeing nothing. I feel disconnected, fearing that I’ll shatter into pieces I’ll never put back together.

Jo covers the distance between us too fast and I jerk back instinctively. Her hands fist again, but she lets me keep my distance. “Whatever you need, chérie. I will do whatever you want me to do.”

My chest tightens. I can’t let her guilt sway me. I don’t even know if it’s real. How can I trust any of this anymore? I ache for her arms around me, telling me it’s all a misunderstanding. It takes such an effort not to reach out to her, that’s what decides me. “Go. I need you to go. I need time.” I meet her eyes, see my pain reflected there. Maybe.

She nods jerkily. “The danger from my father has not passed. Your protection will continue. I will wait for you to reach out, if that is what you want.” When I manage to nod, she goes on. “Contact me at any hour. You have Louis’s number, too if you need anything. Goodnight, Libby. I will not allow this to be goodbye.”

Before I can protest, she is gone, the door closing silently behind her. On autopilot, I lock it, turn off the light, and drag myself to my bedroom. Though it is too early for bed, I don’t care. I succumb to the relief of sobbing into my pillow.

“This book is a pleasure to read with its effortless dialogue and the intense chemistry between Libby and Jo”

— Amazon Review

“A great balance of action and character growth... Loved it”

— Amazon Review

“Fabulous book... I want more”

— Goodreads Review

Book Details

AUTHOR NAME: Brooke Campbell

BOOK TITLE: The Warrior Within (The Warrior Series Book 1)

GENRE: Fantasy

SUBGENRE: Lesbian Urban Fantasy / Vampire Romance

PAGE COUNT: 338