Hunted (Scarlet Dawson Book 1)

by Nicola Chadwick

  I look at Bastian and he releases her at the same time as me, she sinks to the floor and starts to sob, rocking back and forth. I move over to the door and wait for Bastian to secure her cell before letting us out.

  Once outside he says. “Was there any need to provoke her into attacking you?” He was angry at me again.

  “I’m going to ignore that. Was she acting? Have I really got it right?” I ask him

  Cain answers for him. “It sounded pretty convincing to me.” Roan nods his agreement too.

  Bastian stands there thoughtful then says “If you have got it right perhaps we can use that to get the other Fae to tell us why they set you up.”

  “It could work.” I said. “But you do the talking, he’s not afraid of me so there’s no way he’s going to talk to me.”

  We walk into his cell, Roan closing us in. Bryn was unfazed by his incarceration and looked pretty much like he was king of the cells, lounging on the bench. The way he laid was like he was propped up by pillows and instead of iron bars he was surrounded by silk sheets and concubines.

  This time I leant against the door and Bastian went into the cell. Except he takes the role of bad cop way too far, he nearly rips the cell door of its hinges and grabs Bryn so that he is held suspended by the throat inches off the floor. I couldn’t help it I stood there gaping, I really didn’t need reminders of how easily Bastian could crush me.

  I was already worried that it was somehow all my fault that his sister lay dying and the sooner he realised that, I would go from friend to foe and that’s not something I wanted. An enemy to The Pack was as good as dead.

  Bryn’s cool facade was quickly erased. Bastian began speaking to him in a low rumbling growl. “Your sister spilled, we know everything. Did you know she loved Brae more than you and that was why she told us what you’d been up to? You’re no longer useful to us. I killed your brother quite quickly and he was obviously a better warrior.” Bastian threw him into the bars then moved over to pick him back up and throw him into the wall.

  I move further into the cell unsure what to do, at the end of the day I couldn’t care less if Bastian killed him, then again I want to know why they wanted me when all the other people they’ve taken have been at random.

  “STOP!” I shout at Bastian as he swings to punch Bryn.

  Bastian stops mid swing, just in time to hear Bryn say. “If you kill me you’ll never find out what they wanted with her.” That just about tips Bastian over the edge and he swings his fist the rest of the way down and knocks Bryn out cold.

  “Great, now were going to get nothing out of him for a while.” I scream at Bastian and try to storm out, failing miserably when confronted with a locked cell door. I then have to wait until Bastian unlocks it and lets me out.

  Before he opens the door he says. “I don’t know why you expected anything else he isn’t going to tell you anything useful.” He opens the door, motioning me through.

  Roan stops Bastian as we walk through, informing him of a phone call. Bastian disappears and I decide to stay looking in again on Bryn, hoping that watching his unconscious form would provide me with inspiration.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Cain opens the door letting in a guy. “This is Jared, he’s come to transport the Fae back to Faerie.”

  I look up and I’m struck dumb by what I see. It couldn’t be. I just stare he has dark hair and deep blue eyes that were identical to mine. His features were mine but masculine, not identical just very similar.

  Cain just stands there as well staring. I shift to my human form, the one that was almost identical to the man that stands in front of me. When he sees me shift he shifts into a Fae form, his hair long, shoulder length and the same shade of red as mine, his eyes a haunting ice grey stare into my own as I also shift to match his current form.

  Just like with Humans and most other species Fae relatives shared similar features with their off spring and siblings, but almost all Fae families share their colouring. Eye, hair and skin colour very rarely differed. If your mother had white hair and your brother had white hair, then undoubtedly you would also have white hair.

  Obviously some Fae shared colouring with non family, but as their features weren’t alike you knew they where not related. Sometimes though your siblings could share your features but not your colouring and vice a versa, but that was rare with immediate family.

  This guy was definitely related to me in some way. Not knowing a single member of my family or even if I had any I was unsure. I was so excited and scared all at once. I could be looking at my father, uncle, brother or cousin. His looks were too close to mine for him to be a distant relative or even not related.

  I shift back to my Nymph form, but he doesn’t change. He was obviously Part Fae and part Human, just like The Guild had told me my Father would be.

  I reached out to touch his face just to make sure he was real and not an illusion. He catches my hand and holds it firm in his.

  “Are you my father?” I ask, my voice coming out small and shaken.

  “I doubt that, I only have thirty years. Not quite old enough to have a full grown daughter.” His voice had an Irish lilt to it. “I think though we need to talk afore I take the Royalty into custody.”

  Cain still gapes as we walk out together. We head out and walk aimlessly in silence. What do I say? Had I finally found a relative? I didn’t dare to hope after searching for so long.

  He stops me. “I think I know how to explain this.” He takes a deep breath as if he had also been waiting for this moment all his life. “I believe you are my sister. You’re younger than me right?” I nod, unable to form the words. “I’ve been searching for you for a long time, although I thought you would be a boy not a girl. No offence I always wanted a brother and used to dream when I was young that I’d find you and be able to have a little brother to play games with.”

  “How do you know that I existed but I never knew you did?” I ask moving over to the edge of the creek.

  “I’ll start from the beginning. My mother was Fae and when she mated with my Father she was shunned, it was different back then and Da was half Human like me a Hybrid. They moved to Ireland and lived there, they were happy then Ma got pregnant with me, I never met her, but from the pictures I saw she was gorgeous. She died in child birth. Me and Da where happy, he loved me and I him. I had friends and went to school with the Humans and a few others of mixed origins.

  Da started acting strange, then one night he came home and told me he met a lovely English Wood Nymph and she was going to give me a brother or sister. I was so excited that I forgot about how strange he had been. The day he was going to bring her home he came back without her. He looked drunk. I didn’t see much of him after that. He came in and out and then I was taken in by a neighbour, my Da never came home.

  It was later when I was a teen that I discovered my Da’s secret he’d turned Vampyre. He’d been one since shortly after my birth. I forgave him for leaving me and for leaving you and your Ma. The temptation would have been too much for him, he loved us too much to kill us in a fit of blood lust, and by the time he disappeared the blood lust had taken him over the edge. He was no longer My Da.

  I looked for you and your Ma then, by that time you’d gone and no one knew where.”

  “The woman, what was her name?” I asked looking out over the water.

  “Ivy, her name was Ivy.” My mothers name was Ivy, I cried then. I’d finally found my family. I always thought it was my father that killed my mother. I could still be right but now I knew I had family.

  He puts his arms around me and holds me while I cry, his hands stroking my hair his voice comforting me with calming words. I’d always wanted somebody like this that was mine no matter what. That if I wanted to I could go months without seeing but knew they’d be there at holidays or in times of need.

  I looked up from his shoulder into his eyes that mimicked mine so well. We had both got our looks from our father.

  I never h
eard Bastian’s approach, when I looked away from Jared I saw him, he was flanked by Roan and Steve. Yet again he looked pissed off, one second he was stood watching our interlude the next he had grabbed Jared and hauled him away from me before I could protest his over reaction, knocking me on my backside.

  “You will never touch her again if you want to live.” Bastian threatens backed up by grunts from the two Guardians, they really where barbaric.

  I leap up and calmly say. “Let Jared go or I will make your life a living hell. Understand?”

  He looks at me his eyes blazing fire, he looks pained. “You choose him over me, you barley know him. You’re mine, I will not share you.”

  “You don’t know me either and you also need to make up your mind whether you actually want me or not, you keep changing your mind .You really need to get over this obsession you have that everyone wants to take me away from you, you do a fine job of that yourself, carrying on the way you do letting your alpha attitude get in the way of logic. Look at him.”

  He keeps staring at me as if he can’t quite understand that I was actually speaking. I was lucky that he was interested in me, no one else would get away with speaking to the Lycan King like that. “Look at him. Now!” I demand, Steve and Roan flinch, obviously they weren’t used to someone giving their King orders.

  He turns his attention back to Jared who shifts at the same time as me so we were both human one minute then Fae the next. Jared looks at me while Bastian gapes.

  “I never knew my family, I was raised in an orphanage, it’s all I ever knew. I’ve searched my whole life to find my family so I could at least fit in somewhere.” I explain.

  Jared looks backwards and forwards between us both then says. “Sis you never told me you were married and to such a lovely fellow.”

  I laugh then. It felt so natural. He had similar sense of humour to me. Bastian lets go of him and glares at me. “You are impossible. You could have warned me, I might have killed him.”

  Jared mutters something earning another glare. “You may be her brother but I can still make your life hell. So stop it!”

  “I didn’t know until he arrived here to transport the prisoners that I even had any family alive.” The shock of this easily out weighed anything that had ever happened to me in my entire life. I wasn’t likely to get over the fact that I had a brother anytime soon.

  I turn back to Jared. “Can you stay a little longer? I could do with your input if you’re up on current affairs in Faerie.” Could I trust him? Was this real, it felt real but you never know with the Fae.

  Jared looks to Bastian. “You can stay. You turn out to be playing Scarlet for a fool then I will peel your skin away from you body and if you survive that I will gradually take away your flesh until there is nothing but bone left.”

  I shake my head at this, he spoke so matter of factly, it was a wonder he had ever made friends. I wouldn’t tell him to back off this time though, he had been right about Bryn and Bronwyn. I wonder... “Quick question... Did you not like Bryn and Bronwyn because they were Fae or because a part of you sensed they were related to Brae and you had already killed him because of what he did to your sister? You didn’t like him from the start either.”

  Roan looks at me and says. “Hey where’s all the fire and brimstone. This is the part where you shout at Bastian for threatening your long lost Bro, then storm off in a fit of rage. I’m confused what did I miss.” He looks between me and Bastian, we both ignore him.

  “I think you might be on to something there. I generally don’t like the Fae, but a part from that they had my hackles rising the minute they entered my territory.” I gave him a long withering look over the Fae thing, then looked at Jared to gauge his reaction. Bastian notices and says to me. “If he wants to keep seeing you he’ll do well not to piss me off by telling me who I can and can’t like.”

  I roll my eyes. “Let’s go back to your meeting room and brainstorm.” I say then walk off leaving them all stood around.

  I hear Jared say to Steve. “They always like this?”

  “You should see them when they really go at it, and they’ve only known each other a few weeks.”

  “And they’re married?”

  “Long story Mate and one best told over an ice cold beer and away from the newlyweds.”

  Men are bigger gossips than women.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  The meeting room wasn’t quite big enough to fit everybody in so we all sat on the sofas in the lounge area, all The Guardians but Cain were there. Cain was still babysitting the guests currently residing in the cells. In addition to The Guardians and Bastian, our group now compromised of Jared and Aylesbury who had just come back with Dante from a night spent in the Port Vale Holding Centre. Both Jared and Aylesbury were bought up to date on the case. Aylesbury was a little put out when I told him that Jared was my brother but after introductions he seemed back to his usual self.

  Bastian started things off. “So far we know that Bryn and Bronwyn lured Scarlet to the Lazarus caves under false pretences. It may have something to do with their brother Brae who is the same person who tricked Raven into drinking poisoned blood. We also know that things aren’t what they seem in Faerie, that the news reports that go out aren’t the same ones that went out in Faerie. Why is The Guild covering things up? If all this is connected then what else is The Guild covering up?”

  Jared said. “Things have been tense in Faerie for a while if it’s not Demons battling with the Fae then it’s the Fae at war with each other. The only common denominator is the Seelie; they are the ones that start the battles with both Demons and the Unseelie. Your prisoners are from the Seelie Court. A small but maybe minor link to Scarlet would be that she is Unseelie and therefore a target? But that’s a little too far fetched for even me to believe.”

  “No offence Sis but you aren’t high enough up either the Royal chain or the social chain on either side of the Vale to be a target for some high impact war game. So why are you a target?”

  “What do you mean are? Do you think they still want her for whatever nefarious reason?” Quinn asks. She’s sat opposite Jared and was absolutely riveted by him, I’d originally thought there was a spark between her and Dante, I must have been mistaken because she was hanging on every word like he was the steak and she was the diane sauce.

  “Of course she is still in danger. Whatever the plan was has backfired, they could either write her off, which I doubt or they’ll make a less subtle attempt to get her now.”

  “Finally someone that thinks like me, I knew I was going to like you.” Bastian says to Jared, he looks at me and grins like he had just got the winning hand in a poker game.

  I jump to my feet. “If you’re thinking about using this as an opportunity to keep me out of trouble, you can think again.” I fume at them both. It definitely looked like Bastian had an ally where I was concerned.

  Jared rolls his eyes. “Can you not think of anything that could link you to the either the Seelie or Demons that would make them want you this much?”

  “I’ve not really got any friends and other than any arrests. I might have made I can’t think of anyone that would have a vested interest in killing me. Look lets ignore the ‘me’ angle for now, I think we’re looking at it all wrong. What we need to know is why The Guild is changing Faerie news. If we know why they are doing that it might help us figure out what The Lazarus are doing here and why The Seelie Royal Court are helping them.”

  “Do you think we could be so blatant as to ask Delaney what he knows about information being withheld from us, or do you think he might have known all along?” Aylesbury asks me. “Oh and I take offence to the no friends comment, I’ve tried to be your friend for years, you’re the one that keeps everyone at a distance.”

  Wow, home truths can hurt, but he’s right I have kept him at a distance, maybe a few other people too. I look away from him, he sounds like he really did care and was genuine. Had I really been pushing people away?

/>   “We’re not going to Delaney with this, even if he doesn’t know anything we can’t risk him getting a hint of what we’ve uncovered so far. He knows something is going on with The Lazarus but we don’t know what he knows, and that includes my long lost brother, I know I shouldn’t ask you this but can you just pretend that our investigation is drying up quick and we are getting nowhere, just make out I’m still here because The Demons are still watching my apartment and we’ll have to come up with some bull about why we’ve arrested the Fae.”

  “See I told you they were still interested in you, they wouldn’t be waiting around for you to show up otherwise.” Jared looks smug, I narrow my eyes at him, non-verbally telling him I was in doubt of our forthcoming relationship. He smiles at me. Bastian also looks smug, I just ignore him.

  Suddenly all The Lycan’s head’s come up in unison hearing something the rest of us couldn’t. “What?” I ask.

  “It’s Cain somethings happening in the cells.” Quinn says. They were all up and out so fast I had trouble keeping up as they raced out of the building and around the back to the cells.

  Aylesbury and I were the last ones to race into the end cell where Bryn was being kept. As I squeezed through the door to stand at the side of Jared I see what Bryn is doing. He was screaming and throwing himself from one side of his cell to the other, he looked like he was going crazy.

  Jared turns to me and says. “It’s the Iron bars they would send any full blooded Fae wappy.”

  “Wappy?”

  “Yeah, English for demented or crazy, like I said wappy.”

  Bryn stops then, I don’t know whether he’d tired himself out or if our talking had interrupted his wappy session. He stands in the middle of the cell, blood running in rivulets from his forehead and gashes on his arms. He watches me intently.