When demons show up there will be hell to pay…
At nineteen Morgan has already faced more loss than she can handle and has more experience living on the street than she wants. Unable to do anything other than keep on the move in order to hide from the demons that hunt her, she guards her heart and emotions carefully. But when the demons start talking to her and calling her by a name from another life, things spiral beyond her control.
Lucian, an ancient dark angel who has seen his fair share of lives, is happy being a free agent until his life is turned upside down when he’s assigned to Morgan. She’s unlike any channel he’s ever met and determined to do everything on her own. To make matters worse, she pulls at him in a way that can only mean one thing and it’s something he would like to avoid at all costs.
As the danger mounts and a demon prepares to open a gateway to the underworld, Morgan must find a way to overcome her past in order stop him.Offered what her heart desperately wants, and holding a key that will close the gate but open another, Morgan must find the strength to make the right choice.
Book two in the Standalone Bound Novels
BOUND BY LEGEND
Copyright © 2016 A.D. Trosper
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Published by
Silver Spirit Publishing
Library of Congress Control Number:
2016902934
ISBN-13: 978-0615986753
ISBN-10: 0615986757
Also By A.D. Trosper
Dragon's Call
Embers at Galdrilene
Book One
Tears of War
Book Two
Ashes and Spirits
Book Three
Tales From Galdrilene
A New Beginning
The Bound Series
Bound By Time
Book One
Children’s Books
The Legend of Christmas Magic
Multi-Author Collections
In Creeps The Night
Featuring "The Loop"
A Winter's Romance
Featuring "Mid-Winter Celebration"
Thank you to my husband and kids, for your continual support of my writing endeavors.
To my mother, for reading the first draft and offering suggestions.
To Chelsea, for all of your knowledge of the Cherokee and of the Kalona and for so willingly sharing it with me.
To Georgia, for all of your help when I was researching that area of Colorado and for beta reading.
Also a huge thank you my other beta readers.
Thank you also to Karmin Dahl, for all of your edits and for proofreading.
And last, but never least, thank you to the team at Blue Harvest Creative for taking my manuscript and turning it into a stunning book.
One last thank you goes out to all of my readers. You guys make writing so much fun.
Come to me, little black fox. Unbind me, set me free.
Stand at my side. One way or another, your heart is mine.
~ The Kalona ~
A DESTINATION DIDN’T matter, as long as Morgan stayed on the move. She trudged through the snow and slushy puddles aimlessly as she wandered the path of the park. If it was the path. With the ground covered in a foot of white, there was no way to be sure.
She glanced at the sky. Ugh. Hopefully, this would be the last of the snow. It was April for heaven’s sake. Of course, in Denver, that meant little. Pulling her ragged coat tighter around her neck, she hunched her shoulders against the cold. The icy flakes still made their way through the narrow gap between her double layered stocking caps and the collar of the hoodless coat.
There were others like her in the park, those with no destination. Those who could do little other than wait out the cold snap and hope they didn’t freeze to death during it. Morgan avoided them. Some were nice, others though…they couldn’t be trusted and it could be difficult to tell which was which until it was too late. It wasn’t such a problem this time, not with Lucy to warn her.
Morgan’s gaze swept what she could see of the park through the big, heavy flakes. At least she couldn’t sense any demons. More and more of them seemed to be infesting the city. Enough that she’d had to abandon everything immediately after Arabrim’s death. Not that it mattered. This wasn’t the first time Morgan had lived on these streets.
An odd looking lump, covered with snow on a bench caught her attention. Too small to be a person unless it was a child, which was possible. Despite what people wanted to think, there were indeed a few children out here. “What do you think it is, Lucy?”
Beside her, the Rottweiler wagged her stubby tail. The dog didn’t seem disturbed or interested in the bench. Morgan approached cautiously.
The lump didn’t move. Please, Higher Powers, don’t let it be another frozen person. She reached slowly for the lump and gave it a shove. It gave beneath her hand, coating her thin knit glove in snow. Well, at least it wasn’t a person. It was something soft and squishy. She picked it up and shook it.
A coat! A warm one, by the looks of it. Someone must have shed it this morning when the weather had warmed enough to not need one and then forgotten it when they left. It even had a hood attached. Unable to believe her luck, Morgan shook it vigorously to dislodge the accumulated snow. Lucy backed away, closing her eyes against the flying wetness. With a laugh, Morgan brushed the collected flakes off the dog’s face. Slipping the thin straps of the worn backpack with a tightly rolled sleeping bag tied to it off her shoulder, Morgan dropped it next to her feet and gave the coat another shake.
Lucy turned her head, her ears up and a low growl in her throat. Morgan froze, listening for what had alerted the dog. A large man flew over the back of the bench and slammed into Morgan, knocking her to the ground. A burly face, wild with whatever mental condition kept him on the street, hovered above her. Dark shadows swirled through his blue, bloodshot eyes. Damn, it would be nice if her radar picked up demon-possessed better. His hand cracked across her face as he tried to wrench the coat away with the other.
Oh hell no. That coat was hers! Fueled by rage, she spit the metallic taste of blood from her mouth, rolled to her feet, and kicked. Her boot caught him in the stomach, knocking the air out of him as she yanked the coat from his grasp. She threw her fist forward, smashing his nose. Blood spattered in crimson patterns across the snow. Lucy snarled and barked warnings at the stranger.
The grizzled man grabbed for the coat again. Morgan lunged forward and jammed her elbow into his mouth, feeling his front teeth give under the impact. With a howl of pain, he backed off and glared at her. Morgan stood her ground. There wasn’t a demon in the Underworld that could make her give up her claim on the coat and she sure as hell wasn’t backing down to this demon-possessed man.
He jumped at her, trying to use his greater size and weight against her. Morgan spun away from him, nearly losing her footing in the snow. He took advantage of her momentary loss of balance and the side of her face exploded in pain from the solid blow, followed almost immediately by a backhand across her eye. Her stocking hats flew off from the force. It only added gasoline to the fire burning in her blood.
Morgan recovered quickly and spun, bringing her foot up. His nose crunched to the side. Screaming, he gra
bbed for the now misshapen feature and staggered. She wasted no time—he obviously didn’t plan to give up on his own—her foot came up between his legs, dropping him to his knees. His hands flew to the region and he bent at the waist. Morgan kicked his exposed face, knocking him on his back in the snow. Ignoring his groans, she stomped on his head a couple of times for good measure.
The lower-level demon separated itself from the incapacitated man, its shadowy figure sliding across the snow. Morgan drew on her power and raised a circle around it. Religious symbols flashed on the ground under the demon until it settled on the Khanda of Sikh. The demon screamed as she spoke the words to banish it back to the Underworld where it belonged.
She left the man lying there bleeding, grabbed the coat, shook it off again, and put it on, thankful it was large enough to go over her other one. Then she shook the snow from her stocking hats and pulled them back over her messy, dark brown hair. Having a hood to cover the hats and protect the back of her neck was lovely. After grabbing the backpack she’d dropped before the attack and pulling the straps over one shoulder, Morgan knelt and rubbed the dog’s face, kissing her on the nose. “You’re a good girl, sweet Lucy. Yes, you are.”
Lucy wagged her stubby tail and whined, licking Morgan’s face. Giving her a final pat, Morgan straightened, glanced one more time at the man groaning in the snow, then walked away.
Blood pooled in her mouth, she spit it out and gingerly touched each of her teeth with her tongue. Yep, a couple of them were a little loose. The cold air stung the injuries on her face and made her eyes water. She would sport some fantastic bruises. It didn’t matter, there was no one who would care and she would heal within a week anyway.
Digging a long cigarette butt from her jean pocket, she lit it and took a quick drag. Morgan glanced down at Lucy padding beside her, glad she’d bought an insulated dog-blanket with the last of her money when she’d found Lucy shortly after hitting the streets. She was beyond thankful for the dog’s presence. It made this life a lot less lonely. “We should find something to eat.”
The dog wagged her tail in response as they left the park. There was a fast food restaurant a few blocks away; they were always throwing away perfectly good food. Hopefully, she could get to it before anyone else did.
She knew the cleaning schedule of all the local eating establishments and knew when it was safe to dumpster dive and when it wasn’t, which ones padlocked their dumpsters and which didn’t. Morgan slipped unnoticed in the heavy snowfall around the cement block wall that surrounded the garbage cans. Lucy, knowing the routine, went and sat in the corner furthest from the opening in the wall.
Vaulting over the edge of the first garbage can, Morgan landed lightly in the snow-covered mess. She wasn’t the first one to get there.
Jake jerked and looked up. His tense stance showed he hadn’t yet decided whether to attack. Morgan waited. After a long moment, he relaxed. “Hey, Morgs.”
“Heya, Jake,” she said, smiling in relief.
Jake was a good guy. In his mid-thirties and a vet of the Afghanistan war who suffered from severe PTSD, he’d been on the street for almost seven years. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one. Many guys like Jake had been abandoned after they came back, especially if they didn’t have any family. A foster home lifer, Jake had signed up for the Army at eighteen, two years before the twin towers in the hopes of something better. It hadn’t come.
“Got you a new coat I see, and some new battle scars,” Jake said.
Morgan started sifting through the garbage. “Found it on a bench. Some guy thought he could take it from me. I proved him wrong.”
She couldn’t tell him about the demon who had possessed the man.
Jake chuckled and went back to his own search. “Pickings are pretty good, the bad weather made the lunch hour slow. A lot of stuff sat under the warmer too long and was tossed.”
“Good, maybe I can find enough for Lucy and me both this time. Couldn’t this morning, so I’m starving.”
“Here,” he tossed a squished looking chicken sandwich at her, “this is for Lucy. I would say it’s for you except I know you always give her the best of your finds.”
“Of course.” She glanced at Jake’s dark, scraggly, shoulder-length hair and the fresh bruises on his face. “You have a new coat, too. Where’s your hat? And why are you even here? Didn’t your disability check come in yesterday?”
“A group of rat bastards took everything I had, even my coat. I managed to get another coat from the church.”
Morgan nodded. The church five blocks away was known as a place where the freezing could find something to help keep them warm. She’d made use of their soup kitchen a few times. “I’m surprised you lost anything.”
“It was five against one, they jumped me from behind. I sent them running, but not before a sixth one had rifled through my duffle and found my money.”
“Damn.” What was wrong with people? Morgan shook her head and ripped open another plastic garbage bag.
Only half-empty cups, soda soaked fries, and wrappers in that one. She tore open another and looked through the mess, pleased to find several cheeseburgers more or less intact. That would get her through a few days. “What are you going to do? A month is a long time to go with no money at all, trust me.”
“This won’t be the first time, Morgs. Don’t worry about me.”
After stuffing the burgers in the big pockets of her new coat, she started to reach for more then paused and pulled her hood back. She removed one of her two stocking caps and tossed it at Jake. “There, cover your ugly head before you freeze to death.”
“I’m not taking your hat, Morgan.”
“Well, you better, otherwise it will lay in here until the next person comes to take it. Besides, I still have one and I have a hood now. I’ll survive.” Morgan sent him a glare to let him know she meant it then went back to her task. After adding a half-eaten sandwich to the pocket of her inside coat, she stood. “I have enough for a couple of days here.”
He nodded and kept looking. “See you ‘round, Morgan.”
“See ya, Jake.”
“You planning on spending the night at the tower?”
Morgan shrugged and braced her hands on the edge of the container. “Maybe.”
She hated sleeping around other people, especially broken people. They were easy targets for demons. It wasn’t that they were bad. In fact, most would be surprised at the number of good people among the homeless that were just down on their luck and doing their best to survive as they struggled to bring the threads of their lives back together again while living among the forgotten and invisible.
The tower was a different place, though. The outcasts of the outcasts gathered there. Again, not bad people, just more broken than the rest. Like old Patsy, who was as much a friend to Morgan as she could be.
And then there was Jake. He was like an older brother and her best friend, well as much as someone could be a friend when she kept the biggest part of herself hidden from them. Jake would think she was crazy if she told him she had magical powers and not only could see demons, but could banish them back to the Underworld.
That wasn’t what made her uneasy about sleeping near him. She’d tried that once before. His PTSD could be violent and unpredictable and often assaulted him in his sleep, especially if he hadn’t had enough whiskey to smother the dreams. He’d gotten into trouble more than once because of it.
“Maybe I’ll see you then,” he said without looking at her. She knew he felt bad about the last time.
She flashed him a smile, her swollen lips pulling painfully.
“If nothing else, I will meet you at the park when the weather clears,” she said then vaulted over the side and landed in the deep snow.
There were a lot of options for the homeless in Denver. And there were those, like her, who preferred to stay away from them as much as possible. Everyone had their own reasons, ranging from not wanting to be found to schizophrenic paranoia. Morgan
didn’t want to be found.
AFTER LEAVING THE trashcans behind, Morgan walked several blocks with Lucy beside her until they came to a house that had been standing empty for a couple of months. A sign advertising a foreclosure auction perched in the front yard. There were several like that in this mixed neighborhood that moved abruptly from houses to businesses and back again. Glancing around at the silent day, Morgan didn’t see anyone. In all likelihood, no one would see her through the heavy snowfall.
Moving cautiously around to the back of the house, she peered into the windows. It was empty, as she’d expected. Glancing around, she couldn’t even see the neighboring houses through the snow.
Pulling a screwdriver from the inside pocket of her undercoat, she undid the screws holding the hinges on the padlocked grate over the basement window. She slid into the hole then called Lucy closer. Grabbing the dog, she pulled her over the edge and lowered her into the window well. Using the screwdriver, she busted the window and kicked the shards of glass sticking up from the frame out of her way. “Come on girl; let’s get out of the weather for a bit.”
Lucy jumped from the window well into the room and together they prowled the house to make sure they were alone, in case someone else had broken in from another direction. Only run down, empty rooms greeted them. Although the air was icy, there was no breeze in the house and no snow falling all over them.
Morgan dropped the backpack and sat in the middle of the empty living room. She unwrapped the half-frozen chicken sandwich and gave it to Lucy before pulling a cheeseburger in similar shape from one of her pockets. Maybe they could ride out the bad weather here. She’d spent more nights at the tower during the coldest part of winter than she cared to and really didn’t want to do so again.
Bound by Legend: A Bound Novel Page 1
