Copula Chronicles: The Complete Collection: Origin, Descend, Ascend, Legacy

by Venessa Kimball

  I did believe him but that wasn’t the fucking point. The point is he could’ve come forward. Could’ve been a part of my life before this shit storm hit.

  He glances down at his hands and shakes his head, a painful look filling his face. “I stayed away to protect you. I don’t expect you to understand why I chose to, but it’s the truth.”

  “Oh, I know it’s the truth. The only reason I believe you is because for the last five minutes I have read every emotion—”

  Damn my voice for catching on that word. “Every thought going through your head as you told me about my mother. How you wanted to approach me during field trips as you watched Delilah and me.”

  I notice the sheen in Ezra’s eyes as he listens intently, only giving validity to the sadness I’m feeling for him. “How you watched Roan and me fishing all those times at the lake in Kennesaw Park and wished it was you and me.”

  Ezra looks down with my confessing that thought.

  “I know that selfishly you were tempted so many times to tell me up until this moment, but you kept it to yourself for my protection. Until now.”

  I lunge myself at him, nearly knocking him into the dresser, and wrap my arms around him and bury my head in his chest. My embrace is his undoing as his body quakes under my hold, then takes encircles my clinging body with his strong arms.

  I cry with him as he floods me with every one of his thoughts and omissions of who he was in my life. I can barely get my words out. “You were there with my mother when she died. You tried to save her.”

  His voice is thick with emotion. “I did Jesca. God, I did.”

  I nod into his chest as I feel the full force of his sorrow for not getting to her fast enough.

  “I know you did. You did everything you could.”

  I sit on the bed with Ezra by my side, my face slick from drying tears. He continues to tell me his and my mother’s story. “Anna and I were asked by Sebastian to start preparing a training program. Between the two of us, we’d put together a team of mentors to train future Dobrian guardians. Around this time, Sebastian was commissioning an architect to draft the design of a new facility that would be used for training sessions in Nassau. Within weeks, a crew was hired to begin construction on the facility. Three years later, we completed the set-up of the training program for the facility and were given leave to return to the United States. Our territory was Colorado Springs. But before we left Nassau Sebastian told Anna and me that you, three years old at this point, were showing signs of multiple abilities. Something he rarely saw.”

  Ezra looks down at his folded hands and thinks, “The rest you know. Your mother and your kidnapping.”

  “Who took us?”

  The question is out of my mouth before I’m sure I even want to hear the answer. With it already settled in the room, I need to know.

  Ezra hesitates for a moment, and then relinquishes what he blocked from me in thought. “It was Sam Crest. Dusk was coming too quickly. We were headed to a heavily treed area about a mile away from the cabin to remain undetected until we were given the order to go in. We were about a quarter of a mile away when I heard your echoing yell and crying scream in my head. You’re the reason I came running Jesca. I heard your cries. Felt your fear. Once I got to the cabin, she was fading so quickly. I lay down with her, next to her body and listened to any remaining thoughts that lingered in her beautiful mind. That’s when she sent these words to me.

  “I love you both Ezra. So much. Keep her safe. Keep her protected. She’ll be where it begins.”

  “Where was Sam?”

  “He fled before we got there. I was so worried about you. You wouldn’t stop crying, calling for Anna. ‘Mommy, mommy”. I didn’t know what to do. That night we stayed with Lucius and Victoria Sera, Nate’s parents.”

  Ezra smiles for the first time since our conversation started suddenly. “The moment we walked through the door that night, Nate held your hand and led you to the guest room where he tucked you into his bed. He covered you with blankets and stayed with you all night. He said that he was supposed to protect you. Even then, he was healing you in his own way. Two days later, Sebastian warned me of how you being with me would put you in extreme jeopardy. That’s when I took you to Roan and Delilah. I couldn’t put you at risk. I made your mother a promise that I intended to keep then and I intend to keep for as long as I live Jesca.”

  I smile as I remember the first time I met Ezra. “And then, that one day freshman year. I ran into you on campus. Literally. There you were.”

  He nods and smiles as he looks at me sideways. “Yes, there I was.”

  CHAPTER 27: COME WITH ME

  Jesca

  I turn my iPod up loud enough to drown out the sound of my feet hitting the pavement. After Ezra and my talk, I needed to get out and think. My best thinking is done on my feet running. I waited until both of them had gone to sleep, put up my mental block, and snuck out the back door.

  I exit the gates of The Cloisters and head north. Shadows fall randomly on the sidewalk. The streetlights dance above the overhanging trees and branches. All of a sudden I’m hit with a knee-weakening vibration and I immediately regret being so stubborn about going for a run. Something fast moves behind me. A presence I have felt before. It isn’t fleeing, or even hunting me. It isn’t the heavy malignant force I have feared in the past. No, this one is just watching me, protectively. It’s there, just beyond the lamppost a few feet and in the shadows. I stare hard just as my watcher comes out of the shadows. Xander.

  I shuffle backwards from him as he approaches, bringing him to a halt. “Please just listen, Jesca. Then I’ll leave. I promise.”

  Sensing his sincerity, I shift my body and fold my arms across my chest, giving him the opportunity to state his case. I may trust his thoughts, but I’m watching his every move.

  “Jesca, I’m so very sorry about Corinna. I know you loved her. If I knew what was happening, what Sam was doing, I’d have stopped him. Stopped all of this.”

  He searches the sky as he continues. “That son of a bitch says I’m part of a fellowship. A Sondian. That Dobrians murdered my parents. But God, I know he’s a fucking liar and I can’t believe a word that comes from his mouth.”

  Xander’s breath comes hard as he shakes his head. “I’m leaving Miami. Getting away from Sam. From all of this shit. Come with me.”

  In that moment, after all the shit that’s gone down, I can see why he wants to run. He has no one to turn to. No one but me.

  As quickly as he came out of the shadows, he’s hovering in front of me holding my face in his hands. “Please, come with me.”

  The kiss he rests on my lips is so tender, so gentle, but potent as I lean my hands against his chest. As he pulls back, he brushes his thumb over my lips and whispers breathlessly. “Come with me Jes.”

  I search those deep startling green eyes and shake my head. “I can’t. I have too—”

  Before I can finish speaking, Xander silences me with a kiss, no longer tender but full of passion, and completely intoxicating. All of a sudden, the feel of his shirt wrinkled in my gripping fingers, the touch of his lips, his tongue, seeking something deeper within me, begin to fade and feather into something ethereal. I open my eyes, my arms splayed and palms raised as I stand alone in the middle of the path under the amber glow of a lamppost.

  Xander’s gone.

  CHAPTER 28: VISIONS

  Jesca

  Lying down in my bed, I’m still confused and worried by Xander’s departure. I close my eyes hoping I can settle enough to sleep when the thickening of my throat, constricting, closing off all oxygen has me gasping and jolting up right in my bed.

  ***

  Feeling a presence near, I search the room and pause on the shadowy figure standing in the farthest corner from me. Feeling unafraid, I push the comforter off of my legs, and rise from my bed s
lowly approaching to get a better look. I get two steps into my pursuit and the shadow moves toward me, coming into the glowing light of the moon shining through my window. A man. Gray hair. Grey beard. Grey skin against the moonlight to match the silver and slate toned eyes. A man standing in my room casting such a luminous appearance might normally scare the shit out of a girl, but we have determined that I’m not normal in this mad, mad world.

  “Am I still sleeping?”

  My voice echoes through thickened atmosphere between him and me.

  He responds pleasantly. “Yes. Of sorts. A lucid dream I initiated. I’m Sebastian Onoch.”

  I remember Ezra telling me back at the facility that as I grew as a guardian, Sebastian would begin to visit me in visions. I become concerned about the purpose of his contact.

  “Why the visit?”

  “It’s time for you to see.”

  “See what?”

  Suddenly, he and everything in my room begin to pulse with light, brighter than lightning. Like a super charged strobe light. Then, the flashlights up the entire room, no longer pulsing but growing brighter until I’m blinded to everything except two cosmic waves tumbling toward each other in the night sky. As they collide, a pulse of light ripples within the interesting cosmic masses. Is this the collision that’s coming?

  Even though he’s not visible, Sebastian’s voice guides me. “Yes. Andromeda and the Milky Way.”

  The throbbing light starts again highlighting my room and Sebastian standing before me. Then the slow build up of the singular blinding light as it revealed an orange haze creeping across the sky. A ripple of lightning trailing behind it. I look from the sky and focus on what’s in front of me; Ezra standing across the empty street motioning me to cross. His mouth is moving slowly, but no sound pierces the deafening silence in this vision. The look of panic in his eyes doesn’t leave me optimistic though. All of a sudden, someone grabs my hand and tugs on me to move. It’s Nate. He’s trying to pull me with him across the road to Ezra. I start to cross when something makes me look back. Xander’s standing on the crowded sidewalk Nate is pulling me, leaving Xander behind.

  Suddenly, I’m stuck—immobile. Searching for what’s holding me in place, I look down and see Corinna; her twisted and contorted body lying in the street as she grips my leg and reaches for me to help her. Nate pulls me harder and I try to pull away from him to help Corinna, but when I look back down Corinna is no longer herself. Her once full face is sunken, deformed and sallow, her blue eyes blacker than two onyx stones. I kick my foot to free myself from her grip, pull away from Nate and run down the middle of the road away from all of them. As I run, the flashes of light pulse again, quicker and quicker, producing my room and Sebastian once again. The pulse light slows, and then disappears all together.

  Each event must have significance, but for the life of me, I have no fucking idea what any of it means. “What the hell was that?”

  “A glimpse of what’s to come, Jesca.” Sebastian starts to turn away from me, like he’s leaving.

  “Wait! What’s it mean?”

  As he walks back into the shadow his voice echoes, “You’ll know, Jesca. You’ll sense it in every ounce of your being.”

  I try to follow him into the corner, but by the time I’m in the shadow, I’m touching the intersecting walls.

  Like I’ve surfaced from holding my breath for too long under water, I gasp for air and choke on my saliva at the same time.

  Before I can even think his name, I feel his warm hand on my forehead sending his healing pulse to me. My gasps slow and my choking turns to a body trembling silent cry.

  Feeling my body shake under his touch, Nate crawls into the bed with me pulls me to him. “It’s all right, Jes. I’ve got you.”

  I grip his t-shirt in my hand and hold on needing something real, something tangible after seeing a cryptic vision detailing my future. Our fractured future.

  “I’m afraid Nate. I’m so afraid.”

  Nate rests his lips on my forehead and squeezes me tighter. “I’m afraid too, Jes. I’m afraid too.”

  We hold on to each other knowing that our reality right now is fleeting. And the altered reality, the one we’re seeking and fighting for has no boundaries. One thing is certain. Nothing will ever be the same in our world again.

  Please continue reading for a sneak peek of Book 2 in the Copula Chronicles: Descend

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Having always been passionate about the written word, Venessa Kimball embarked on writing what would become her debut novel, Piercing the Fold: a young adult urban fantasy series in 2010, with a 2012 release with Crushing Hearts Black Butterfly Publishing, it quickly finished out as a four book series. Venessa has also written a compelling teen contemporary series, the Evan series.

  Venessa also writes New Adult and Adult romance under the pen name V. Angelika. When she isn’t writing, she is keeping active with her high school sweetheart and three kids, chauffeuring said children to extracurricular activities, catching a movie with her honey, and staying up way too late reading.

  Connect with her at:

  www.VenessaKimball.com

  http://www.facebook.com/venessakimballauthor

  http://www.twitter.com/venessakimball

  For exclusives and information on new releases,

  CLICK HERE to join Venessa’s newsletter and receive one of her books FREE as a thank you!

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I have said this a million times, and I will say it a million more: It takes a village to produce a novel. The village I have been blessed with has helped bring this novel from imagination to realization. It could not have been accomplished without the energy of so many behind the scenes and I thank you with all my heart. Rebecca Poole, thank you for bringing the covers of the Copula Chronicles to life and formatting the content with all the pretties. Kristina Circelli with Red Road Editing and Dawn Miller for their keen eyes. Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing for believing in this series.

  Dawn Miller, thank you for being an extraordinary friend first and a meticulous critique partner second. Your critiques, opinions, and nudges to push the characters make my stories more compelling than I originally imagined they could ever be.

  To my beta readers, I have always asked you for brutal honesty and you have obliged. Thank you for that!

  To my launch team, Darlings, thank you for embracing and spreading the word about my writing and being my biggest cheerleaders on my writing journey. I am truly blessed to have fans as great as you!

  Austin DD gals, I love you dearly. Thank you for the inspiration and motivation you infuse into the atmosphere every month at our gatherings. I owe you a cheese tray and antipasti tray next time my friends.

  To the bloggers and community of readers that have put energy and time into posting and spreading the word about my writing, you have been the life line for my books as they make their way into sea of novels and novelettes. I have the utmost respect and appreciation for all that you do to spread the word for authors worldwide.

  Much love to all of you,

  ~V

  Other Novels Published by Venessa Kimball

  New Adult/ Adult Urban Fantasy- Sci-Fi series

  The Copula Chronicles

  Origin, Book 1

  Descend, Book 2

  Ascend, Book 3

  Legacy, Book 4

  Copula Chronicles: The Complete Collection Boxed Set Books 1-4

  *previously titled as the Piercing the Fold series.*

  YA/Teen Contemporary Fiction Series

  the Evan series

  Dismantling Evan: Book 1

  Saving Gavin: a Novelette, vol 1

  Resurrecting Gavin: a Novelette, vol 2

  Reviving Evan: a Novella 1.5

  Novels Published by Venessa Kimball


  Writing as V. Angelika

  New Adult Contemporary Romance

  Crossing Stars Duet

  Cross the Stars (Crossing Stars Duet #1)

  Steal the Moon (Crossing Stars Duet #2) - Coming Soon

  ***

  SNEAK PEEK OF DESCEND: A COPULA CHRONICLES NOVEL BOOK 2

  CHAPTER 1: GOOD MORNING

  Jesca

  I am still in bed. I should be in my car, heading to Ms. Olivia’s in an hour to open the store. For someone who recently acquired stealthy speed as a super power, I’m moving like a snail. Since the night we lost Corinna, sleep has not been my friend. Not like it ever has really.

  Ezra told me the nightmares would come back with intensity when we left the facility. He said to tell him when they got bad again, but I haven’t mentioned it to him. Being underground in the facility had its fringe benefits.

  Because of our link to each other, Nate’s the only one who knows how bad they’ve gotten. Ezra says that we are linked, or coupled, because of our abilities. I’m not sure about that, but I know that Nate and I have become inseparable since he joined us in Miami two months ago. Sebastian and Ezra made the call that I needed a partner. While I can physically protect myself with my abilities and don’t need a babysitter to hold my hand, I can’t deny that our abilities together are more powerful. I also can’t deny that Nate’s presence has made me feel less vulnerable to attacks, awake or in my dreams.