Sacrifice Read online

  His fingers stop tracing as he reaches where the vine creeps under my bra, his heated gaze firmly fixed on my lace-covered flesh. He shifts his index finger into a claw and scrapes it down each side of my bra, cutting through the material as if it was butter. I should be afraid, but I’m not, I already know he’s powerful and scary.

  “That was a perfectly good bra,” I exclaim.

  Bastian’s eyes glaze over as he takes in the sight of my naked breasts. “I’ll buy you a new one,” he growls.

  His clawed finger skims down my body to my panties, but just before he can shred them, his head whips up, and his black eyes move over to watch the window.

  “Stay there,” he demands in a harsh whisper as his body leaves mine.

  I prop myself up on one arm and shiver at the lack of body heat. I watch him move over to the window, it looks out onto the alley that holds the entrance to my apartment building.

  “What is it?” I ask, ignoring his order to stay as I move over to look through the glass.

  “I’m not sure, I can smell blood, and there’s something down there.” He strides over to the bedroom door. “I’m going to take a look. Don’t you dare follow me, it could be a trap.”

  I let him go, because I can hardly follow him while I’m semi-naked and suddenly cold. I quickly throw on the discarded clothes, then peek through the window. I can see a huge body-shaped lump in the alleyway. I squint and recognize the floppy brown hair.

  I run out of the apartment, practically flying downstairs. My heart hammering in my chest, the adrenaline pounding through my veins at what I think I see.

  I hope I’m wrong.

  Please be wrong.

  I reach the outside door to see Bastian crouched over the body. His eyes meet mine, and I know I’m right when he doesn’t protest as I move over to him.

  I fall to my knees at the side of Aylesbury’s unmoving body.

  “Aylesbury!” I shout as my hands skim over his prone form, checking for visible wounds.

  His chest is barely rising and falling. I tear open his jacket to see blood staining his shirt in so many places. I’m vaguely aware of Bastian pulling out his phone and calling for a medic. I pull up Aylesbury’s shirt and gasp, his torso is riddled with stab wounds. The blood pooling around the wounds is so dark its almost black with hints of silver. I know dark blood isn’t good.

  Bastian drops his phone and holds his hands over the biggest wounds. It doesn’t stop the blood from leaking out. Aylesbury’s breath stutters as I press my fingers to his neck. His pulse is barely a beat against my fingertips.

  I reach up and hold his face in my hands. “James!” I shout. “James, don’t you dare die on me. I can’t live without you. I love you! You can’t leave me!” The tears the adrenaline has been holding back start to fall.

  I can’t live without him, he is my life, my family. It isn’t meant to be like this. He is meant to carry on harassing me forever with his brotherly stalking. He is supposed to annoy me forever.

  “James, hold on! Don’t leave me yet,” I whimper as his breath stutters again.

  I meet Bastian’s grim gaze and know, even though Aylesbury’s a Lycan, his wounds are too severe. I move to cradle his head in my lap, pushing the hair from his face as I listen to the sirens getting closer.

  Chapter Three

  When the medics arrive, Bastian has to forcefully remove me from Aylesbury. I’d huddled in close to his side like I did as a child, whispering nonsensical words in hopes of comforting myself.

  Bastian moves around me, doing the things I can’t think about as I stare numbly, watching the two medics prep and load Aylesbury into the back of the van. As the ambulance shoots off and the sirens start to fade, Bastian pulls me into his truck and drives in the direction of the hospital. The streets pass in a blur of lights. I can’t think or feel, but I remember a poem from a book Aylesbury used to read to me and it repeats over and over in my mind.

  I am sadness.

  I am grief.

  My heart aches.

  I bleed from a wound no one can see.

  I feel the knife of pain slice through my soul.

  I am no longer me without you.

  I am broken.

  I am numb.

  I laugh and smile but don’t feel.

  I see without looking.

  Without you here I am gone.

  He loved that poem, he said it’s what his life would be like without me in it, and I oddly found it comforting when he’d read it to me. Now I knew what he meant.

  Once we reach the hospital, Bastian maneuvers me out of the truck and I follow him through the hospital, listening to him bark questions at staff to find where they are treating Aylesbury.

  Once he has me seated in a waiting area, he goes to find a doctor who can tell us what is happening. It doesn’t take long before he rounds the corner and I jump back to my feet.

  “They’re operating now, he’s suffered substantial blood loss, multiple stab wounds, and they think he’s been injected with silver nitrate.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask, my voice hoarse from crying.

  “It stops a Lycan from healing. The silver bullet myth might not be true, but if you inject enough silver nitrate into our bodies, then we can’t heal, making severe wounds fatal.”

  “I should have gone with him,” I say, looking off towards the doors Bastian had just come through.

  “Don’t start that. You can’t blame yourself for something like this, you don’t even know what he was doing,” he says, gripping my arms.

  I lift my head to look at Bastian and can see he doesn’t understand. I thought I’d lost Bastian once for the briefest of time, and it hurt because I didn’t understand what I was feeling for him, but this was worse. Aylesbury is my family, he is all I’ve ever had or known, and I just kept pushing him away. I hope he knows I didn’t mean any of it, I was just protecting myself.

  Bastian scoops me up into his arms and settles with me across his lap on one of the waiting room chairs. I curl into his chest, wondering when he’d put a shirt on, and wait.

  When Quinn arrives with Dante I pretend to be asleep, so I don’t have to answer their questions. Although I’m pretty sure they know I am awake. For hours I stay in the same position, as Dante paces and Quinn shuffles about, unable to stay still. My tears dry, and I zone out unable to feel anymore as we wait.

  After what seems like forever, a nurse comes through the doors at the end of the waiting room.

  “Scarlet Dawson?” she queries, looking around at the various people in the room.

  I jump off Bastian’s lap and practically run over to the nurse. “Yes, that’s me.”

  “James has you down as his next of kin, it says here you’re his sister?” she asks, looking at the clipboard in front of her. Clearly doubting I am his relative when I look so Fae in my Nymph form.

  “Yes, that’s right,” I say without hesitating, even though it had taken this long to admit it to myself.

  “If you’d like to come with me, you can see him for a couple of minutes, but I need to warn you, he’s not stable.”

  Bastian gets up to follow us, but I shake my head telling him to stay, I need to do this alone.

  “Can you tell me anything else?” I ask her as we move down the clinical corridors, each drab wall the same as the last.

  “He was stabbed thirteen times in the front and back, all wounds to his torso. He has extremely high levels of silver nitrate in his system which is stopping us from stabilizing him.” She stops walking and turns to look at me, her hand resting lightly against my arm. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but with that amount of silver nitrate in his blood it’s highly unlikely he’ll live through this. You need to prepare yourself for the worst.”

  “How long do we have?” I ask, my voice almost breaking.

  “He’ll not last out the week in his current state.” She rubs my arm and continues to walk. Stopping in front of a door, she motions me through and shuts the door
behind me, offering me some privacy.

  He is laid on a bed hooked up to more machines than I can count, various blips and bleeps sound at intervals, indicating things I have no clue about. I move over to the bed and sit in the chair at his side.

  “James, I’m so sorry,” I manage to get out before the tears start falling again.

  Once I manage to calm myself, I look up and notice a pile of bloody clothing in a bag on the other side of the room. I know it’s his, I can tell by the battered leather jacket. I decide to rummage through his pockets, in hopes of finding a clue as to what he was doing when this was done to him. I reach in to his breast pocket and feel a crumpled piece of paper.

  I open it and stare at the words.

  Scarlet

  You want answers, come to the abandoned canning factory. Come alone or someone else dies.

  R

  I crumple the piece of paper in my hands. Someone has done this to get to me and I have a feeling it is the missing Demon Lord.

  Now, I just have to ditch Bastian, there is no way he’ll let me go alone if he has any idea what I am doing. I wouldn’t put it past him to follow me, either. I stuff the note into my pocket and move back over to Aylesbury. I kiss him on the cheek.

  “I’m going to kill the person that did this to you,” I say, just as the nurse comes into the room to usher me out.

  I move down the corridor realizing the only way out is back through the waiting room. I take a deep breath and hope Lycans can’t smell lies like they can other emotions.

  Bastian walks straight over to me as soon as I walk through the door. He grabs my arms.

  “What did they say?” I notice he doesn’t ask if he’ll be okay.

  “He’s been stabbed numerous times and pumped full of silver nitrate. They don’t think he’ll live out the week.” The only thing holding my tears back now is revenge.

  I glance up at Bastian and see the concern in his eyes.

  “Look, I’m going home. They won’t let anyone else in to see him until later today.”

  “I’ll come with you,” he states, just as predicted. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

  “That’s the exact thing I want right now, to be alone.”

  I pull my arms out of his grasp just as Quinn moves over to us.

  “I’ll drop you off,” she says, steering me towards the exit.

  I look over my shoulder and can see the hurt in Bastian’s gaze as he follows me with his eyes.

  Quinn takes me to her car and we both get in, she looks at me expectantly quite a few times. I feel guilty for ignoring her as we’ve become good friends, but I can’t deal with any more questions right now. I just need to get to that factory and find out what the hell is going on.

  Chapter Four

  I watch Quinn drive out of sight before I climb into my new truck and head for the industrial district. Luckily, from my research of the three abandoned factories, I know exactly which building houses the canning factory, and where it is located.

  It feels like it is taking forever to get there, but it was merely minutes. I pull through the rotting wooden gates and drive around to the side of the old brick building. I leave the truck tucked in to a corrugated metal overhang, hopefully obscuring it from the view of the road.

  I automatically reach under my seat for my sword and realize she is still in my apartment. Thankfully, when Adam made her for me he imbued her with a Fae spell, so if I called her name she would appear in my hand. This ensured I’d never lose another sword. I had made a habit out of it while working for The Guild.

  I get out of the truck before calling her name. I’m still not sure what would happen if I called for her in an enclosed space. Knowing my luck, I’d be impaled.

  “Neria.”

  Within seconds, the warm leather binding of her handle is settled in my hand.

  I take a deep breath and walk through the door on the side of the building, sword out, catching the rising sun as I enter the gloomy dark building. The building is pretty much as you’d expect, partially stripped machines dotted around a big open space. Huge metal staircases line the outer edge that lead up to various enclosed rooms. I begin weaving around the machinery, sword out in front of me.

  When I walk around the biggest machine in the center I hear a clink directly behind me. I whirl around to face the person I least expect to see. Roan. I press the point of my sword to his throat. He remains casually leaning against the machine as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Which was just like the Roan I had first met, Mr Funny. Of course, that had all changed when Bastian started the bonding ritual with me, Roan became darker, and started to challenge his Alpha and king.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I grate out. While the note had been signed ‘R’ I still doubted it was Roan, there was no way he’d go for Aylesbury like that. Surely?

  “I see you still haven’t finished bonding with Bastian,” he drawls.

  I push the point of the sword in until I draw a small amount of blood. “None of your business. Why are you here, Roan? If you had anything to do with what happened to Aylesbury, you die.”

  He carries on smiling at me, then his eyes flick over my shoulder, I notice, and he uses the distraction to grab my sword and spin me around, pressing the sword to my throat. I find myself looking at the Demon Lord that had orchestrated my mother’s murder and my kidnapping. He had also created an army of zombie-like creatures called the Fallen, his plans for world domination had only recently been prevented.

  “Fantastic,” I say sardonically.

  “Scarlet, I have missed you. But don’t worry, dearie, this time I don’t want your blood. I want revenge.” His voice is just as sinister as I remembered.

  He moves into the light now filtering in from the high windows. His hair is a dull brown and brushes the top of his ears in slight waves. His left eye is ravaged by a scar that bisects his face from his forehead all the way to his ear. The tissue surrounding it is jagged and puckered. When he’d been my torturer I’d called him Scar Face.

  “You can release her now, Roan. I can guarantee she won’t hurt us in anyway.”

  Roan releases me but keeps a hold of my sword. I cannot believe he is working with Scar Face now.

  “What did you do to Aylesbury?” I ask.

  “You can call that a demonstration of what will happen to everyone you love if you don’t come with me,” he says, his voice menacing as I take a step towards him, my hands curling into fists at my side.

  “You won’t hurt me,” he continues. “If you do I have a list of names. I will start working my way through them until you have nothing left. Now, we can do this the easy way. Submit to me now, and your friends will live long lives, or, I start killing them one by one, until you have only one choice and that’s to come with me. Either option has the same outcome.”

  I stare at him in shock, not quite sure what he wants me for.

  “That’s not going to happen,” I say to him.

  “I can assure you it is. You will never be able to protect them all, and you will never know when I’m going to strike. Resisting me is pointless, if you deny me, I’ll make your life hell.”

  “What do you even want with me?”

  He moves closer to me, brushing a strand of hair from my face. I shiver at the creepy contact.

  “You need to come with me first.”

  “You do know if I come with you, Bastian will not stop looking for me.”

  “Well then, it’s a good job I have planned for that eventuality, my dear,” he says with a sly smile.

  Scar Face blindfolds me and pushes me into Roan. Roan takes my upper arm and propels me forward, using his firm grip to steer me along. After stumbling forward, he eventually shoves me into a vehicle. Someone climbs in beside me and cuffs my wrists, attaching them to something in front of me.

  As I lean forward in my seat, hands push me back and secure me with a seat belt. I’m now fully immobile and unable to see. The engine roars to life and I feel the vehicle je
rk forward. We make a number of turns, but after the first few lefts and rights I can no longer tell where we are in the city.

  As we move, I start to feel sick from being unable to see where we are going. Then the fatigue starts to take effect. At this point, I’ve been awake somewhere over twenty-four hours. I find myself starting to drift to sleep, but then I jerk awake, not wanting to miss anything.

  We eventually come to a stop, and I’m unclipped from the vehicle and manhandled down some steps. I hear two doors open and close then I’m shoved into a seat. The cuffs are roughly removed, then my head snaps back as the blindfold is ripped away. The light is blinding at first, but as my eyes adjust, I find myself face-to-face with Scar Face again.

  He’s kneeling in front of me, his hands braced on the chair arms.

  “Kidnapping me again won’t work, you know,” I point out quite evenly to say I’m seething inside.

  “You’re mistaken, Scarlet, this isn’t a kidnapping, it’s quite the opposite in fact. You’re going to help me. But to do that, I need your undivided attention, and that means making sure those Lycans don’t follow you.”

  He gets up and moves to sit on the bed behind him, and I get my first real look at the room I’m in. There are no windows, and only one door which is to my left. The room is small and holds a double bed and the chair I’m sat on. The walls and floor are concrete, and I can clearly see there is nothing else in the room.

  I throw a skeptical look at Scar Face.

  “Then, explain to me exactly how you are going to achieve this, because you have no chance of me helping you right now,” I grind out.

  “Actually, you’re going to do everything I tell you. We started by making sure Aylesbury wouldn’t interfere, and we have now secured our second advantage which will guarantee you will follow our orders.”

  He draws out his phone from his back pocket and presses play on a video. At first, the screen is dark, then the camera zooms out and shows a figure bound and gagged. The camera pans around and I see they have Jared, his face is bloody, and his clothes disheveled, so he obviously put up a good fight. His eyes are shut, but I can see the rise and fall of his chest, so I know he’s still alive.