Branded (An Otherworlders Series Novel Book 1)

by Lena Moore

  Running his hand over his thick dreadlocks, he deadpanned, “It’s not that simple, and neither is their history. Don’t assume you understand or know the story until you’ve either heard both sides or you’ve lived it.”

  Damn, he was in scolding mode. Aliyah wasn’t sure whether to be aroused or pissed off. She decided on the latter at the moment.

  “Yeah, yeah. I get it. You’ve all lived hundreds of years and have lived so many different lives, blah, blah, blah. Have you finished your history lesson? Because I would like to get back to finding my parents. Isn’t that the reason we’re here in the first place?”

  Draven looked down, shaking his head as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re correct. So let’s do what we came here for and find your parents.”

  Aliyah re-entered the main room and walked straight up to Dolph and apologised, explaining she was on edge since her mother and father had been kidnaped. She acknowledged that the stress of what was going on wasn’t any excuse to talk to him the way she had. Dolph was really good about it all. He told her not to worry about it and that they should focus on figuring out a way to get her parents back.

  The five of them sat around Jadis’s sitting area brainstorming about what action they could take against the demons holding her parents.

  Aliyah knew whoever had her family wanted her alive. Otherwise they would have killed them by now. She hoped they weren’t planning on causing some collateral damage along the way.

  Two fucking hours later, they still had nothing. Aliyah slouched into the couch, wishing the thing would swallow her or some shit; then hopefully all her problems would be gone. She fiddled with the oval sky blue raw Celestine stone that hung around her neck on a silver chain. Her mother had gifted her with it for her eighteenth birthday. Jill explained it was her way of setting her free and off into the world, no longer shackled to her mother so to speak.

  Suddenly, she opened her eyes three sizes bigger than normal. The answers to her unspoken questions formed and realisation set in as heat pulsated between her eyes. Aliyah jumped up from the couch, causing four pairs of intent eyes to stare at her in confusion.

  “What is it, Liah?” Dany asked, sounding worried.

  She paced around the living area feeling their eyes burn holes into her. They were anxious and somehow Aliyah could feel it.

  “I think I know how I can find my parents.”

  “How?” Jadis inquired.

  “I was fiddling with my Celestine stone my mother gave me. She said it was her way of setting me free into the world, but that’s irrelevant. Jill told me that she’s had it since I was a baby, and back then she hadn’t thought of the stone with that kind of symbolism. Anyway, she was waiting for the right time to give it to me. She told me she’d kept it on her everywhere she went because for some reason it felt like an extension of me.”

  “What are you getting at?” Dolph piped up. “It’s a fucking necklace for god sakes.”

  “Shut it, Dolph.” Jadis stood up and walked toward Aliyah. She ran her hand over the rough stone, and smiled, “It’s not just any necklace, is it?”

  “No, I don’t believe it is. What if—and I know this may sound farfetched—but what if my real mother gave it to her? I feel the power within it now. You do too, don’t you Jadis?”

  “I do. I don’t think it’s the Celestine though. I think it’s you channelling your faery and angel magic somehow through your biological mother.”

  “But I don’t even know if she’s alive!”

  “Very true, Aliyah. Anything is possible, though. I know you believe that after everything you’ve seen of late.”

  Aliyah concurred with her statement. She knew something was happening to her, possibly beyond her control, and it was something she would learn about very soon. She felt it.

  Ignoring the sets of eyes watching her, Aliyah battled with some questions inside: what if my biological mother is really alive? Why hasn’t she searched for me? Maybe I wasn’t important enough. Then it dawned on her, perhaps she was protecting her by staying away. Although the thought pained Aliyah, she wanted to believe that’s why her real mother didn’t look for her, and not because she didn’t want her.

  “I think I can use my pendant to track Jill. Dany, you remember what I did to her when we were at your house?”

  “How could I forget,” he jeered.

  Aliyah looked to Draven who’d been uncharacteristically quiet, and said, “You remember the way you and I…” she blushed. “When we entered each other’s minds? Maybe I can attempt to use both abilities Kaltemis gifted me with and find them.”

  Draven stroked his stubble-defined chin and nodded. “I think it’s worth a shot. We have nothing to lose at the moment and no other ideas.”

  “It’s settled then. Everyone leave this room for a few minutes so I can give this space a quick recaning. I feel strongly that the purer the air, the easier Aliyah will be able to exhibit the energy and magic she requires.

  The four of them left the room, with Aliyah feeling the nervous energy thrumming around her. Draven must have sensed her anxiety because he took that exact moment to draw her into his arms and place a kiss to the crown of her head. Aliyah peered up into his amethyst and ruby eyes and saw the concern filter through them.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said more to herself than to him. Her eyes found the ground.

  Draven forced her head back up to meet his penetrating gaze. “Yes you will. And you have all of us here, so lean on us if you need to. You don’t have to do this alone.”

  Aliyah bowed her head, acknowledging his comment. She knew she could count on him and the others, but she didn’t want to pull everyone through the ringer along with her.

  Jadis sauntered into the kitchen, urging them to enter the room again. A mixture of white sage and salt wafted throughout the room. Aliyah relaxed immediately, letting out a breath that she’d been holding.

  Dany, Dolph, and Draven sat off to the corner while Jadis sat across from the coffee table.

  “Breathe, baby, you got this.” Jadis sounded convinced. Aliyah wished she had the same level of confidence.

  Releasing a heavy breath, she closed her eyes, wriggled out of her boots and focused all of her energy on the task at hand. Aliyah inhaled the air around her, clutched the Celestine between her fingers, then she ground her feet into the floor summoning every ounce of vitality she possessed.

  A whooshing sound brought her eyes open. She was surrounded by darkness for a brief moment then images formed around her. The images were all of Aliyah as a baby, then school age and then on her eighteenth birthday. In that space of time she knew she was in her mother’s head.

  “Mum,” she whispered. “Can you hear me?”

  Aliyah shielded her eyes as the luminous light poured in. She took in the surroundings and gasped.

  “Aliyah?” Jill stammered.

  “Ssshh mum, it’s me. I’m in your head. I need you to keep quiet and not alert the others that I’m here. Try and talk to me in your mind instead of out loud.”

  “Liah, baby, is that really you?”

  “Yea, ma, it’s me. Look I don’t know how long I will be able to maintain this. I need you to tell me everything you remember so I know how to find you.”

  “No, stay away, Liah!” her mother cried in her mind. “Once they have you,” she paused, “I’m afraid they’ll kill you,” she replied, her mind speaking in a whisper.

  “This is my fault. The reason you and daddy are in trouble is because of me. Let me look after you, for fucking once, mum.”

  Jill sighed, “Ok. I don’t remember much as we had those cliché hessian bags over our heads. It was almost dark when they brought us here. I don’t think the goons realised but there was a small hole in the bag over my head. I recall seeing a rusted floor, perhaps a bridge or something and then walking through an old decrepit gate. The whole place gave me the heebee jeebies, baby.

  Aliyah stayed quiet taking in the information, but then she had a lig
htbulb moment.

  “Mum, what could you hear? Anything?”

  “OH! I remember hearing water. It sounded like running water actually.”

  “I think it’s the Mississippi River, mum. I believe you’re at an old abandoned docking station in Baton Rouge.

  “It’s dark here, though. It’s almost as if we are underground.”

  Aliyah didn’t appreciate that piece of information, but she didn’t want to alert or scare her mother. The only thing she prayed for was that it wasn’t under some cloaking spell.

  “Where’s daddy?”

  “He’s here, over there.”

  Her mother’s eyes focused on a figure slumped against the exposed metal wall. John had one hand shackled to the floor as he laid on an old tattered mattress. Tears threatened to spill over Aliyah’s cheeks. He’d been beaten, severely. If she wasn’t feeling guilty earlier, she sure as fuck was right now.

  Jill broke her inner turmoil by speaking again.

  “Honey, there is someone else here, as well. I’m not sure who the person is, or why they’re here.”

  “Is that person in the room with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Show me.”

  Jill’s eyes averted and Aliyah squinted, taking in the dark form. It was a woman. She could tell by the figure of the person. Her eyes snapped open and she growled, looking straight through Aliyah’s mother and into her own violet eyes.

  Dark hair, tipped with silver, full lips pulled back into a snarl, eyes the colour of coal rimmed with lime green glinted back at her. She looked scary. She didn’t frighten Aliyah. A metal shackle hung heavy around her neck similar to the one worn by Aliyah’s dad. Yet there was something different; this woman looked familiar. She didn’t have time to ponder because the ancient looking wooden door flew open.

  “Where is she!” the voice boomed. Another was heard talking in the distance.

  Aliyah wasn’t able to visualise any features of the man who walked into view besides his long dark hair that dangled low against his back, and that he was extremely tall. She felt the dark energy pulsating off of him. It reminded her of the night in the Quarter when Draven almost succumbed to the darkness.

  What she was currently seeing wasn’t like it was when she was standing in the room watching Draven masturbate. It was different this time, as if she had procured a space in her mother’s mind and could only see through her eyes.

  “Mum, keep your eyes open and don’t let on that I’m here. I need to try and see the faces of the men.”

  Aliyah harnessed more of her power and focused on the man in the room as another entered and started bickering at him. The man with the long dark hair whisked around and locked eyes with Jill. Aliyah stumbled back, or at least that’s what it felt like when she met those bright red eyes. They were not like Draven’s gorgeous ruby eye. These emanated everything that was evil in the world. The rest of his body remained shadowed, obscured and hard to define.

  “Ah, Jillian, my dear. Are you ready to tell me where Aliyah is?”

  Jill spat into the red-eyed monster’s face, causing him to snarl and backhand her.

  “Next time you do that, I will be doing more to you and your body than leaving you chained up in this dank room!” he bellowed.

  He paused then stalked closer, peering into Jill’s blue eyes. “There’s something different about you. I can sense it.”

  Aliyah detected her mother’s fear and tried to assuage her with her presence. She wasn’t ready to leave just yet. She needed to see exactly who this man, or demon, was. For some reason his features were still murky.

  Suddenly, she felt heavy and appeared to be being pulled from her mother’s mind. She fought against it. Aliyah needed to see his face.

  She ground her teeth, grabbing onto an imaginary wall and screamed Draven’s name in her mind. Immediately his stoic figure formed in her mind.

  “Hold my hands, Snowflake. Take my energy.”

  Aliyah grasped onto Draven’s big hands and sighed, feeling lighter immediately.

  The red-eyed demon was still saying something to her mother, although it was intangible. Aliyah sensed the magic filter from Draven to herself and she took as much as she could.

  The man’s face started to morph, the shadows disappearing from his body. That’s when she noticed the scar that occupied his right cheek. His skin was pulled tight and drew up the side of his lip into what she perceived as a sinister smile. This man reminded Aliyah of the Joker from Batman, but a fuck load scarier.

  He cackled, “Oh there you are, Aliyah. I see you.”

  Aliyah was enveloped in darkness and then she was back in Jadis’s living area, panting hard. “Fuck, he saw me. How the fuck did he see me?”

  “He may not have. Perhaps he sensed you more than saw you,” Jadis replied.

  “No, no, no! He’s evil, Jadis, pure evil. You saw him didn’t you, Shrek?”

  “I caught a glimpse of him. It’s definitely the man from the Quarter. I sensed his darkness.”

  Aliyah narrated all that she had seen. A sense of density settled in the pit of her tummy as she remembered the woman in the room with her parents while she spoke.

  “There was a woman there that I didn’t recognise, however she looked familiar.” Sadness filled her as she directed her eyes at Dolph.

  “Why are you looking at me like that? Wait—what did this woman looked like?” he demanded.

  “She had dark hair with silver tips,” she hesitated. “Eyes the colour of coal, rimmed with lime green.”

  Dolph growled, began shaking, then he roared, “That’s my little sister! I’m going to eviscerate those cunts!”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ~ Draven ~

  It must have been a cold day in hell, Draven thought. He had never seen Dolph, aka Terror, enraged the way he was right now.

  “Why hasn’t she turned?” Draven wondered out loud.

  “Something is suppressing the transition. Magic? Fuck knows. Aliyah, did you notice anything else when you saw Laney?”

  “Laney, that’s a pretty name. Only that she growled and around her neck hung a shackle of some sort.”

  “It might be silver, probably infused with wolfsbane,” Jadis stated.

  “So those myths are true then?”

  “So to speak, Snowflake. The silver probably isn’t having the effect they anticipated because Laney is part vampire. Those demons probably aren’t aware of that.”

  “Whaaat?” Dany piped up out of nowhere.

  “Wolfsbane is poisonous to any werewolf. However, the fact that we are half vampire means the silver can be painful but not deadly, even to vampires,” Dolph affirmed.

  Dany blew out a whistle sound. “This shit is whack. You know that, right?”

  Aliyah burst out laughing, then said, “Your best friend is a vampire, faery, and an angel, you’re sleeping with a powerful witch whom you and a werewolf had a threesome with, and you only now think this shit is whack?” She doubled over, laughing even harder until she was red in the face and tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  Draven canted his head to the side trying not to lose it along with her. She did have a point after all. How was any of what they were experiencing right now legible in the human world. More to the point, who the fuck would even believe them anyway?

  Jadis placed her hand over her mouth muffling the laugh that threatened to erupt. Dolph had a smirk on his face. Dany, on the other hand, did not look impressed with Aliyah’s outburst.

  “Alright, alright, I’m done.” Her mood shifted instantly. “I think I know where they are.”

  “Go on,” Draven urged.

  Draven and the rest of the crew listened intently whilst Aliyah described in detail everything she’d witness through her mother’s eyes.

  The demon sounded like one ominous mother fucker. Knowing he was after Aliyah set his body on fire, and not in a good way. He was ready to annihilate the bastard right now, although Draven knew going in half-cocked was a
suicide mission. Plus, if he died then there would be no one to protect Aliyah. So instead he gnashed his teeth together, digging his nails into his palm until he could smell his own blood.

  Aliyah’s nostrils flared. Stopping mid-sentence she faced him, obviously smelling his blood. He arched an eyebrow at her with a grin on his face, which only earned him the finger. She turned away from him and continued the conversation.

  Aliyah wanted them all to go to the docks, with her being the bait, of course. Draven restrained himself from throwing her over his shoulder, sprinting back to his house and locking her away so he could be the selfish bastard that he was. He ached, wishing he could keep her all to himself. Fuck everyone else. However, he knew that wouldn’t sit well with Aliyah. She would never forgive him if something happened to Jill and John because of his avaricious ways. So Draven opted for grinding his teeth and clenching his fists, all the while as he felt his hot blood pump and hiss through his veins. He desperately tried not to snap into pieces at the thought of someone harming his Snowflake. Reaching behind his waistband he felt the diamond dagger warm against his back. Breathing a sigh of relief, he phased back in and listened to what everyone was saying.

  Jadis suggested cloaking them all, even though she wasn’t convinced it would ward of the demons. These fiends were relentless, harbouring no remorse or empathy, frankly because it wasn’t in their genetic, decaying makeup.

  By the time the sun began to set the plan was in motion. Jadis would remain underground away from prying eyes and Dany would stay behind with her. Draven knew he would be a distraction for the rest of them, and none wanted him to become a casualty or have his blood on their hands.

  Draven and Dolph would stay in the shadows slowly following her into the dock, hoping that no entities were lurking in the darkness along with them. Aliyah eluded strength on the surface. Deep down Draven knew she was shitting herself. She’d never experienced malevolence to this degree in her short life. He wished he could say the same for himself and Dolph, but alas, he couldn’t. Aliyah stood firm, determined to throw herself in harm’s way to save her parents, and nothing could shake her.