by Lelana Croft
Outlaw Magic
Lelana Croft
Lelana Croft
Copyright © 2018 by Lelana Croft
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design by Melody Simmons
Created with Vellum
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
About the Author
Introduction
Thank you so much for choosing my book! I hope you love it. I had a lot of reservations about putting this out and quite frankly, almost didn’t because I’ve decided to quit writing.
However, this book was already written and edited, so I figured I might as well release it to the world and hope it makes someone happy by being as entertaining as I possibly could.
If you find you love the book, please do leave a review. If you hate it, please contact me directly and let me know what you think would be an improvement. I appreciate all comments. With love, Lelana. [email protected]
Chapter 1
I knew I was in trouble before I started. The High Council would not like this, but I didn’t have any other options.
“You ready?” Hugo asked me.
I nodded. “Ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s finish this.”
We ducked behind the tall hedges and waited as the box van pulled up. I’d already slipped on the tattered dress that made me look like I was part of the group.
Waiting until they were all unloaded and walking towards the warehouse, Hugo quietly and effortlessly took the last guard and snapped his neck, dragging him into the bushes and replacing him before anyone noticed. He looked perfect in the guard uniform and I invariably had a thing for men in uniform, even though most of the time they were on the brink of taking me to jail.
I held my breath as I ran up and joined the piece of rope to the girl in front of me, making the “shhh” motion when she looked back towards me with a furrowed brow. She nodded and continued walking, not letting on what I was doing. All the girls were tied up at the waist with a long rope and being led by one of the guards.
There had to be at least fifteen girls in front of me, all of them under the age of twenty. I was the only blond one in the group and hoped I didn’t stick out like a sore thumb as they shuffled us into the dark warehouse and into a small room.
“Get a move on!” Hugo yelled as he pushed me into the room and slammed the door, trying to make it look authentic. I snapped my head around and gave him a glare, fighting back my urge to tell him off. I knew this was all an act to get inside, but he didn’t have to be a jerk.
The girls huddled together, some of them crying, others just looking around trying to see where they were in the dingy room. It smelled of urine, and I imagined many girls being held here for days and not having a choice but to use a corner of the room. There was one window way up high that no one could reach. It let in only a sliver of light from the streetlight a block away.
After our eyes adjusted, I began to look around. Most of the girls looked like they were from Asia or South America. I couldn’t tell in this light, but they were all so young.
Anger began to well up inside me and I knew I had to keep my emotions in check.
“English? Anyone speak English?” I whispered.
One girl timidly raised her hand.
“I’m Scarlett. What is your name? Where are you from?”
The scared girl looked around as if someone was listening to her.
“Kim. I’m from North Korea.”
Great. She escapes a totalitarian system, only to be captured here and sold off as a prostitute or something.
“Hi, Kim. How old are you?”
“Fourteen.”
I sighed as I looked around and realized most of these girls were probably about the same age.
“Can you ask them if they are also from North Korea?”
She nodded her head and spoke in her native language. Most of the girls nodded their heads.
“Yes, all from North Korea,” Kim said.
“How did you get here?” I asked, hoping I could learn a bit more about how they’d managed to come from the other side of the world, only to be stuck in this little room with me.
“Sold by parents. Parents told we would go to college in USA and have good life. Parents very poor. Need money. We go because we help family.” Kim began to cry.
I reached over and put my hand on her shoulder to try to comfort her. I closed my eyes and concentrated. The vision of her past began to show in my mind and I saw the whole thing in a flash.
Of course. Some rich bastard goes over and manages to get in good with the North Koreans, working out some kind of deal with the government. He lies to the parents, promising that he will take care of their daughters and give them a good life, so they can send money back to them in a few years. It sounds like a perfect setup and the N. Korean government is allowing them to leave, so they feel they are being blessed.
My stomach knotted. I wanted to rid the world of the dictatorship, but I couldn’t go up that high, at least not at my current level. Being only half angel made it more difficult. If I was a full angel, I’d have more powers, more options. But I had to do what I could with what I had.
“It’s gonna be okay, Kim. Don’t worry. Just be patient. Tell them,” I instructed her.
She repeated what I had said in Korean to the rest of the girls and they all nodded and looked at me with hopeful eyes. How easily I’d put myself in charge of these girls already, not knowing if my plan was going to work.
I could hear the guards coming back to the door and pushed myself back against the wall, keeping my head down and looking through the strands of blond hair that hung across my face.
The loud clank of the door being opened echoed through the room, and the hinges made a heavy squeal as the door opened and one of the guards yelled out.
“Get up!” he said as he swung a long baton in an upward motion.
Slowly, we all stood up against the walls of the room.
“Let’s go!” he yelled and used the baton to poke at us, forcing us to exit the room.
Another guard grabbed the rope of the first girl and began to pull her along while the train of girls followed. I waited and watched them exit, as I was the last on the rope.
“Well, what do we have here?” the guard said, as he stopped the line.
Crap, was I busted already? I glanced over at Hugo and readied myself.
The guard reached up and fingered my hair. “It’s not often we get a blond gook.”
I reacted by reaching up and knocking away his hand. He didn’t take kindly to that.
He reached up and pinched my chin in his hand hard, squeezing my face and for
cing me to look at him.
“Fucking bitch! You just wait until…” his sentence cut off by a strong voice with an even stronger power.
“Marty, let go of the merchandise,” the voice said calmly as the guard released my face.
I breathed a sigh of relief, since Hugo and I weren’t quite ready to take these guys out yet. We needed to find out who the actual leader was, and if it was who we suspected.
I slowly looked over to where the powerful voice was coming from. It was exactly who I’d thought was behind this; Ben Nichols.
He was a handsome, middle-aged billionaire who’d bought his way into the political arena. He was currently a Senator from the State of Missouri and was eyeing the Presidency.
Not if I could help it. I’d been investigating this guy for the last six months and when I’d learned he was trafficking girls, I knew I had to stop him.
I had begged The Council for help, but their rules forbade me to interfere. But I couldn’t just do nothing and wait for some miraculous intervention. So I’d decided to go at it alone. I had begun to investigate him. What I hadn’t expected was for him to be a supernatural. I couldn’t tell from here what kind. I had to be touching him to sense that, unless he showed his powers. But I could feel his power, and it was strong.
The rope around my waist was pulled, and I was back to following the line of girls. We were all taken into another room which was much cleaner and sterile. The smell of rubbing alcohol filled the room and the mint-green tiled walls reflected the flickering of the overhead fluorescent light. We were all lined up along the wall. There was a large stainless-steel table in the middle of the room and a rolling tray laden with medical instruments. This wasn’t good.
“Hello, ladies. I know you probably don’t understand a word I’m saying, but that’s fine. You’ll understand what’s happening shortly,” Ben said as he strolled by each one of the girls in his shiny Armani suit. Too bad he was so evil, because his looks alone could’ve gotten him anywhere. Of course, he knew that.
A man in a white lab coat walked into the room, along with two guards. They untied the first girl from the train and pulled her over to the stainless-steel table, forcing her face down while bending over.
“Make sure they’re all still virgins. I’m not paying for them if they aren’t,” Ben said and he leaned up against the door jamb with folded arms, an expression of satisfaction on his face.
My blood boiled as I watched in horror. The man in the lab coat sat down on a rolling stool and rolled over to the now crying girl. He lifted up her dress and pushed down her panties. She began to cry and kick her legs, trying to keep the man off of her.
I looked out the doorway past Ben to make sure Hugo was around. I saw him standing right behind Ben. He gave me a short nod.
“STOP!” I yelled, startling everyone.
The men all froze briefly and I lunged forward, grabbing one of the scalpels and flinging it perfectly to land in the doctor’s eye. He began screaming as his blood began pouring over his face and falling to the ground. I ran toward one of the guards, but was caught by the other one. Crap.
They both pinned me down over the table. I looked and Hugo was still watching from behind Ben. What was he doing? Why was he waiting to take Ben out? He was right behind him for gosh sakes. I glared at him and he raised his hand, as if to tell me it was okay.
“I knew I had an extra girl. I only ordered fifteen but yet, here you are. Take her over to the interrogation room!” Ben said as the two guards took me over toward the next room.
I quickly counted how many guards were there as they forced me over to the next room. It looked like five total. Hugo opened the door and grabbed my arm away from one of the other guards.
“I got this,” he said as he pretended to drag me inside, holding me tight and waiting for further instructions.
Ben walked into the room with a glare on his face, the veins in his neck pulsing.
“Tie her hands up on the rack. I want to take my time with this one,” he instructed Hugo.
I pretend to resist to keep up the act as Hugo forced me over to the low hanging beam that had a rope hanging off it. He pretended to tie my hands up over my head, giving me the rope to hold so it wouldn’t come loose. Thank goodness they hadn’t taken my wrist cuffs off. That was the only weapon I had at the moment.
I got what Hugo was doing now. He knew that if I was alone with Ben, then I could easily take him out.
“Leave us!” Ben commanded and Hugo stepped outside, giving me a wink and a nod as he did.
The door closed behind Hugo and I steadied myself.
“You won’t get away with this,” I said calmly.
He looked over at me and laughed.
“You don’t seem to have any say in the matter. What I want to know is, who are you and why are you here?”
I bit my tongue and didn’t say a word. He walked over to me and used the tip of his finger to touch my cheek. As soon as his finger landed on my skin, I knew exactly what he was. Vampire.
His finger trailed along my cheek and down my neck, stopping at the artery in my neck and he inhaled deeply, closing his eyes. When he opened his eyes, they had turned red and I could see that he had transitioned to vampire.
“You will answer me,” he commanded. He was trying to glamour me. Fortunately, it wouldn’t work on half-breeds like me. My angel blood wouldn’t allow it. And if a vampire ever tried to drain me of my blood, they would die immediately and painfully.
The downside was that if I did let them bite me, it would also drain me of my powers, and I needed them to get out of here. So, I had no choice but to try to kill Ben another way. The original plan had been to have Hugo do it. It was forbidden for angels to kill. But I was half human.
I pretended to become glamoured as he came closer.
“Now…” he said calmly, leaning into my personal space and sniffing me, “who are you?”
Gunshots rang from outside the room and Ben turned quickly to head towards the door.
I lifted up my legs and grabbed him, pulling him towards me as I released both of the solid silver blades from my wrist cuffs and shoved them through his back and into his heart.
The scream he released shook the entire building and he began to shrink into a pile of ash. The only thing left was the ring he’d been wearing as it tinked to the floor and rolled over into the corner.
I ran over and grabbed the ring, shoving it into my pocket as I opened the door, just in time to see Hugo shift into wolf form.
The guards had pulled out their guns and began to fire at Hugo. I summoned all the power I could and shot it over to him, hoping it would heal him from any wounds. But there were just too many of them for the two of us.
I ran over to one of the guards and kicked him in the groin, sending him to the ground. He dropped his shotgun and I picked it up, as Hugo leapt onto another guard, tearing out his throat with a single bite from his huge jaws. The other three guards began shooting at Hugo and he ran to avoid the bullets. Hugo bounded off the wall and body-slammed all three at the same time, sending them forcefully into the wall and knocking out their breath.
They shook it off and had begun to stand when I pointed the shotgun at them.
“Don’t move!” I yelled as I took aim. I didn’t want to kill anyone else. There had been enough bloodshed already, and these guys had been under the spell of Ben. So when I’d killed Ben the spell had broken, and they’d woken up in the middle of a gunfight. They didn’t even know how they’d gotten there, only that a giant wolf was attacking them.
Hugo stood huffing, keeping his eyes were on the men.
“Drop the weapons!” I yelled, hoping they would realize that one of them would die if they continued.
They all dropped their guns and just stood there as Hugo leaned closer to them, backing them to the wall.
I went and picked up their guns before cuffing them all to each other, and then to a pipe that was near the wall.
“That should ho
ld ‘em until the authorities get here,” I said and I looked back to see Hugo laying on the floor, bleeding heavily.
I ran over to Hugo and put my hands on him, summoning the last bit of healing power that I could. But there were just too many bullets. He’d been hit more than I’d thought.
Hugo shifted back into human form, his lean body covered in blood.
“Did we get them all? Did you stop him?” Hugo asked breathlessly.
I nodded, tears pricking my eyes.
“Yes, Ben is dead. He won’t be hurting any more girls,” I said, trying to hold back the sob that was lodged in my throat.
Hugo reached up and touched my cheek before his hand slumped into my lap, his soul passing me as it left his body.
I gently laid his head on the floor and stood up, looking at the carnage. It’d been a bloodbath.
My attention was diverted when I heard the large door to the warehouse open and in walked three figures.
Great.
It was my father. He and two other members of The High Council were here.
And I was in deep shit.
Chapter 2
At least the room I was being held was comfortable. I had to give it to The High Council. When they held you for questioning, they didn’t hold back on the perks. There was a cozy couch that you could easily fall asleep on, plenty of snacks, and drinks. But the walls were padded and covered in fluotine.
Fluotine is a form of fluoride that’s deadly to humans, but not to supernaturals. However, it blocks all supernatural powers, so it’s perfect to coat the walls or anything else you want. That way, you can’t be harmed by magic or any other powers. These walls were covered with it and the door was made out of it. Nothing would get in or out, no matter how hard you tried.