Read Online Taken (Ava Delaney #4) by Claire Farrell - Free Book Online Page B

You have to understand that I don’t have
anything left.”
    “I’m not asking
you for anything. I’ve never asked you for anything, Peter.”
    “I know.” He
leaned his forehead against mine, and I laid my hand on his chest
to feel his heartbeat. He gave a little moan. “I should keep away
from you,” he said, his expression hollow. “But I’m not that good a
person.”
    His words were
a cold sword through my stomach. Out of everything he said, I knew
that last bit would stick.
    The moment
ended. Peter made some excuse to go home alone, but I only felt
relief.
    On the way
home, all I kept thinking about were the numerous ways things could
end badly with Peter. And after I finally fell asleep that night, I
awoke with pain searing my arms.
    I turned on the
light reluctantly and checked out the damage. More brands. Straight
lines ran from my wrists up to my inner elbows, ugly, sore scars
that I would never be able to forget. I didn’t need the reminders;
I couldn’t forget the twins if I wanted. My dreams were full of
them getting hurt and attacked because I didn’t get there in
time.
    That awful
sensation of time running out weighed on me, and I sought comfort
in my home. It was the one place I felt safe, even though nowhere
was safe from the deal I had made with the twins. Nowhere kept me
safe from the brands that would keep coming. The twins didn’t scare
me, but a lot of other beings certainly did, and my home was the
only place I felt even the slightest bit secure.
    I still kept my
windows open, still fearing Dita’s father would return and hurt
them both. I needed to speak to Anka again at some stage and find
out more of whatever information she had on the slave markets.
There were so many lost people in the world, displaced because of
things out of their control. I was starting to see what Mrs. Yaga
meant about lost souls finding their way to her. After all, I was
still a lost soul myself.
     

Chapter
Seven
     
    I spent the
next day in front of a computer screen. First, I had to keep an eye
on my phoenix of a business. It had been dragged through the dirt,
but was beginning to sprout again. Also, I still had to find out
about the Féinics and the rebels, if they even existed.
    But Lucia, the
half-fae twin with somewhat psychic powers, had been certain she
and her brother Lorcan were meant to find the Féinics, and as I
owed her my humanity, and likely my life, I trusted every one of
her visions. The silence surrounding the slave markets was strange,
and even weirder, I could find nothing beyond allusions to the
supposed rebellion. The myth was beginning to sound like wishful
thinking, and that got me pondering. Who would have the most to win
and lose from a full-on rebellion?
    I had been
hearing rumours about conflicts in the rest of Europe: vampires
fighting against their imposed quotas, groups of beings refusing to
toe the line. It seemed unlikely, and distant enough to be someone
else’s problem, but then there was the UK. I had met the leader of
the BVA, and I was sure Winston and the rest of his vampires were
more than willing to start something huge to get whatever it was
they wanted. I knew they wanted power, a higher place in the pack,
but what if they had alliances with bigger, badder beings?
    My head was a
mess of speculation, but the theories were a distraction from what
I was really supposed to be doing that day, like finding witnesses
from the rather substantial amount of murders and kidnappings that
had occurred in a similar fashion to Peter’s family’s tragic
ending.
    I had a list of
incidents, and they all seemed to have gone down in eerily similar
ways. They started with silent break-ins, usually with no outward
sign of disturbance. Adults would either be found with their
throats slit or their necks broken. All of the families had one
child. The body of the child would never be found.
    I chewed the
top of my pen as I prepared to mark out yet another family on the
list. No survivors.