The Bridge Over Snake Creek Read online

  The Bridge Over Snake Creek

  The Lydent’s Curse

  All rights reserved ©2018

  Cover by: Ravenborn @ https://www.selfpubbookcovers.com/Ravenborn

  Edited by: Bookworm Editing LLC : Melanie Vega

  ISBN: 978-0-9977999-6-5

  This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Book It With Bolvair List

  Credits

  The Table Of Contents

  History of the Lydent Curse

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Epilogue

  Find me Info

  Author Bio

  Sign up for Nikki Bolvair's Mailing List

  Book It With Bolvair List

  The Faith Series

  Love Is Not Lost

  Brokenly Found

  Gaining Ground

  Silent Secerts

  Just Married

  The Lovey Dearest Series

  Delicate Beauty

  Sweet Firecracker

  Honey Babe

  Lovely Dearest (Coming 2018)

  The Lydent Series

  Hidden Light

  The Bridge Over Snake Creek

  Winter Fairies

  Frozen Hearts

  Credits

  I have to give a shout out to my beta team who are awesome! Anna, Chris, and Melaine- the Cliff Of Death has been removed. You won this round.

  To Kate and Deborah, for nit-picking where nit-picking was due, I give you the all clear! We made it!

  To my new PA Missy who has been wonderful on keeping me on track!

  Thank you!

  -Nikki Bolvair

  The Table Of Contents

  Book It With Bolvair List

  The Faith Series

  Credits

  The Table Of Contents

  History of the Lydent Curse

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Epilogue

  Find me Info

  Author Bio

  History of the Lydent Curse

  Back in the histories of lore, there were the Lydents and their council made up of fourteen families that held the purest light of magic. For one generation seven families would sit on the council, and then the next generation the other seven would take their place. If by chance a male first child was not conceived in those family lines, the elder of the family would choose one of the seven families who had left their post to sit in again for another turn. This was law. Why? Because the council wanted the most powerful to be on the seat and a first born always held more magic than a second.

  Only once in our history did the daughter of an elder speak out. The Caldwell family birthed two daughters before their son was born.

  Anna, the oldest, was strong-willed and a powerful Lydent due to being the first born. She had different ideas of how the council should be conducted.

  She fell in love with Lamont Hall. Neither of them were bonded to each other, and both had their own agendas in life, but the two of them in secret took a chance on love.

  When the time came to change council members, there were only six seats filled, and Anna asserted that a female Lydent should be allowed to reside on the council. This produced an uproar, and the council denied her of her foolish desire and forbade her from ever speaking of it again.

  Enraged, she devised a plan against the council and found others in favor of her uprising and the change that she proposed. All of them together murmured against the council rules.

  Becoming a physician, Anna studied and experimented until she concocted an enhancement of supplement herbs to gain even greater power imaginable and brewed it into tea. She shared her newly developed Potentia Elixer with her co-conspirators for afternoon tea. This new Elixer would boost their light- their magic. The Lydent men were none the wiser about the tea or what Anna was planning.

  Anna and her followers needed stronger magic because they planned for war. Lamont, even though desperately in love with her, suspected her treason but at the time looked away. Until he couldn’t any longer and shared what he knew with the council.

  In the dead of night, before the fight even started, Anna Caldwell met her death on her lover's sword. His treacherous act against his love did not come without command. He was a warrior, and the council had ordered her death.

  Feeling betrayed, she used her magic to curse Lamont to everlasting life. Her parting words to her lover as her light dispersed were not ones of love, but of a curse that would bleed throughout the generations.

  With my last breath, my heart shall not perish

  Forever beating in your depths, you will cherish

  Burned deep within your cavernous walls

  When it breaks, Kingdoms will fall

  That is your curse, this your plight

  All the lasses will not inherit their natural born light

  You are my legacy

  And this is my right

  A wrong has been delivered

  On this horrid night

  I curse you and this land forever and a day

  Age will not befall you, my love, for your murderous ways

  Unless willingly sacrificed, for my own shall you bleed

  In death, the selfless act

  Only then you shall you be freed

  The curse is real. Every Lydent knows. After Anna’s death, no Lydent girl was born with magic... until they used Anna’s enhancement supplemental herbs. They believed that Anna’s concoction was the only thing that could break her curse.

  What happened after that, no one had been prepared for. The curse rang true. Lydent
females carried magic, but they became rare.

  And Lamont? Her lover? Where did he go?

  Destined to walk for eternity living a half life. Is he a ghost? Most Lydents wonder, but no. He’s akin to Santa Claus or the Easter bunny, now. A myth of Lydent history walking the line of truth and make-believe. Living in secret, he strives to right his wrongs.

  But who is he now?

  Prologue

  Ann Cain dreamed of her childhood home. A place where prim, neat, and orderly had described her life. It hadn’t been a bad life, but the perfection of it covered up the betrayal, secrets, and lies that swirled around her. However, she’d always had a soft spot for her dads and stayed until she couldn’t any longer. At this moment, nothing mattered except her husband and daughter. She knew her time here on this earth was coming to an end.

  Two years ago the news came. Cancer. Now all she seemed to do was lie in this hospital bed, hooked up to all these wires, and sleep. She knew her dreams and reality were colliding as she moaned things in her sleep. Her secrets falling from her lips when memories from the past filled her dreams.

  She worried about her husband Rex, but she feared for her daughter. She was never supposed to marry outside of her race. It was forbidden and never done. She wouldn’t have done it any other way. It was a quick courtship, and her past, she kept that to herself.

  Now that she was dying, Ann knew Rex wished he knew who her parents were or if she had any siblings. Someone to call that cared about her, someone she would want to see before she was taken from this world. There wasn’t.

  Her mind replayed the doctor’s news from that morning: the cancer had spread to her kidneys and liver. She had days.

  The tightening of fingertips against hers drew her out of unsettled sleep. She opened her eyes to her husband’s worried green gaze as he took in her awful, sickly complexion and sunken eyes. Her thin lips tilted up into a hopeless smile. He was still handsome even though his brown hair was sticking up.

  “You don't have to tell me what I already know,” she wheezed. “Not even the merest drop of magic could fix me.” She could feel her husband’s pain and drew her free hand over her stomach and patted his hand that held her other. “I've accepted my fate.” A fate she didn’t want Hannah to have to go through. Her daughter would already have a hard time with the loss of her.

  Rex tightened his fingers. “Don’t say that. I don’t know what I’d do-”

  Her weary hand lifted to his cheek, her own eyes shining with tears, as she felt what he hadn’t said. He didn’t want to lose her. That there could be no other. “Darling, you have to be strong. For Hannah. There are things I need to tell you. Things that cannot be explained. I’m not the only one who will die.”

  “Shh, don’t talk about things like that.”

  Her lip trembled as tears fell. “I only have so much time, Rex. You need to know. She might get sick.”

  Rex pulled away, discouraged by what she was saying, and her hand fell away from his cheek. “W-what do you mean?”

  The light within her dimmed and she knew time was of the essence. She knew the doctors were wrong. She said a prayer - others might have said a curse - as she twisted on her wedding ring. Her body grew stiff, and her breathing became labored. The machines started to go off, and panic spiked in her blood.

  “Shh,” Rex soothed, coming back to her, brushing away damp tendrils of hair that fell across her face.

  Her eyes grew wide as she gripped his hand, afraid of the mess she might be leaving behind. Hannah could be normal, or destined to be a part of the secret world she had always been a part of. “If she becomes sick, s-she needs to go b-back.”

  Tears stung. The lights around her grew brighter as her body began to fade.

  Nurses came in, but she still held on, determined to collect a promise out of him. Her family would help. It would be better than a life not worth living. They could cure her baby. Her Hannah.

  “Why?” Rex whispered brokenly.

  “Because Hannah is the last in the family line,” she breathed. “Promise me, Rex. Promise me you'll take her back if she gets sick.

  He agreed to her last dying wish and then she let go.

  ***

  Rex bowed over Ann’s body and sobbed until they took her away. He always knew she was the one who held his heart from the very first moment they met and now, she was gone.

  The funeral service had been planned. They buried her in the ground. Life around them went back to normal, but for him and his daughter, it had changed forever.

  Never in a million years did he believe that he would need to act on his promise. That his one and only child would become sick, one disease after another, until the last thing he could do was that last thing his wife had asked.

  He needed to take his daughter to her grandparents. To people he didn't even know, on a strange whim that his late wife could be right. He’d already lost her; he had to save his daughter before he lost her too.

  Chapter One

  A new town. A fresh start. That's what my dad was hoping for as we drove away from my hometown. It took two moving trucks to pack up our stuff and a ton of medical papers to sort out. I remember thinking as I packed whether or not my dad was experiencing a midlife crisis.

  Dad was offered a job in Middle-of-Nothing-Ever-Happens-Here, Idaho. He made the decision to pack up and move without consulting his one and only child who, by the way, would have absolutely said no. And so I was forced to leave Falmouth, Maine behind. Forced to let go of my friends and my life during my last year of high school. Forced to abandon my mom, buried in the graveyard just around the bend in the road from our home, to live in Falls, Idaho.

  I shifted in the passenger seat of our moving truck, toed off my shoes for comfort and scratched at the bottom of my feet. We had already been on the road for two days. The only real breaks we made, outside of truck stops, were at modest motels where we slept in beds stiff as boards and the sheets were scratchy. I'm pretty sure the rash on my feet was from the three-minute shower I took last night.

  As I rubbed my left foot, I listened to the half static, half news reports filtering in from the radio. Dad loved listening to the news. I lifted both my feet until they were up on the dash then reclined my seat, careful of the black pouch that rested on my side.

  Dad gave me a quick glance. “Okay there, honey?”

  I sighed. He was going to ask me that a hundred times on this trip, I knew it. Back home it was easier to hide from him and his concerns when he asked that question. In this cab, though, there wasn’t anywhere to run.

  “Peachy,” I answered, hoping he’d take it and not ask again.

  Mom died when I was twelve. Cancer took her. In that first year without her, I became somewhat of a wild child and one night went too far. Some say I was already too far gone even before she died. That the pain of knowing she wouldn’t be around had consumed me.

  There was a reason. The pain in my chest beat relentlessly. Always there, never letting up. Never letting me be. I missed my mother deeply and now my dad was struggling to hold onto me.

  I bit my lip and stared out the car window, my gaze blurring the scenery that passed us by as I thought back to that life-changing moment. I should have known better. I wasn’t thinking. Alcohol has a limit for a reason. It’s poison after all. My friend knew. She stopped, but me? I didn’t care. And the repercussions of that night still haunted me.

  I tore my gaze from the highway scenery outside and shifted, letting out a soulful sigh as I felt the gentle tug on my hip from my life pack. The doctor told us this black eyed monster had always been there. Lingering beneath the surface as it waited to rear its ugly head. It’s in my blood. My genes. A joke played on me at birth.

  Dad went crazy protective when we found out. Never letting me out, treating me like a child. He’d been driving me insane and every so often still does. He had a right to worry about me. The two of us had already lost Mom, and now I was the one ill.

  My stomach growled.
I looked in my bag of snacks and frowned. There wasn’t a whole lot of choices. Nuts, an apple, and an avocado. I needed to restock.

  I picked up my lavender and citrus infused water and took a sip. Plain water was so annoying, and I loved mixing it up. I replaced the cap and shoved it back in my bag. “When are we stopping again?”

  Dad glanced toward me. “You hungry?”

  I turned down the annoying radio and answered him, “Yeah. I also need to fill up on snacks. Running out of the good stuff.”

  Dad kept his eyes on the road and nodded. “Okay, we’ll stop in the next town.”

  “Tell me again why we’re moving?”

  “You know why.”

  I turned to look out the window. “To spy on Mom’s parents.”

  This was his reason for moving. Mom’s family lived in Idaho. My grandparents didn’t know about me and they didn’t know their daughter had died. It had taken Dad four years after Mom’s death to search for them because he wanted the family medical history to help me. Three months after finding them, he decided to move us across the states to live in their town under the radar. Mom had kept them out of our lives for a reason. Dad wasn’t going to announce us until he knew why. He was leery of Mom’s parents.

  “Not true, Hannah. You know my job is moving us there.”

  “Four months after your investigator finds them?”

  “It’s just a coincidence. And they live in the next town over.”

  I slipped down into the seat and turned my back to him. Coincidence, my ass. He wouldn’t even give me their last name. Someone’s paranoid.

  I pursed my lips, thinking. Dad had a right to be paranoid about me. I was the one giving him a false sense of security. He was in the dark about my extracurricular activities, but sometimes a daughter has to do what a father never wants to hear. I needed to feel alive again, somehow.

  I sighed and pulled out my phone, checking to see if any email messages came in. I had three. Two from the same person, Maleficus. He messaged me constantly. I ignored his messages and moved to the other one, responding as I should.