Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Other Books By Felicia Starr
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Books By Felicia Starr
2
Felicia Starr
Betrayed: Breaking the Darkness Book 2
Copyright © 2013 by Felicia Starr
Copyright © 2014 by Felicia Starr
Copyright © 2015 by Felicia Starr
Editing by:
Elizabeth A. Lance from Crushing Hearts Black Butterfly
Double V Editing and Proofreading
Cover design by Bookfabulous Designs
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Published by Rockti Publishing
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Other Books by Felicia Starr
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Breaking the Darkness Series
(New Adult Paranormal Romantic Suspense)
Taken
Marked 1.5
Betrayed
Sacred Hearts Coven
(Steamy Contemporary Romance with a touch of magic.)
Dark and Stormy
Light and Sweet
Jack and Ginger
Hawk Creek Novel
(Psychological Romance Suspense/Thriller)
The Beauty in Deception
DEDICATION
This book is dedicate to my my Sangha.
Chapter One
MY LUNGS WERE DEPLETED OF air. Even in my astral form I could feel the tightness in my chest from a lack of oxygen. With my mouth agape, shock stifled my central nervous system from performing its vital duties.
Graven no longer stood by my side. He stood across the room from where I hovered, but I was still in his field of vision. He could have seen me, that is if his eyes were not glued to the front door, as were mine. Not a single person in the room moved or made a peep in anticipation of the door opening.
Two of the militant looking security guards opened the oversized double doors. A male figure stood at least as tall as Graven in the shadows of the entryway. He wore a black hooded sweatshirt under a dark grey blazer. He was dressed in designer jeans and some funky charcoal lace up boots. He had a young and hip style. The hood shadowed his face just enough that from the angle of where I stood I could not make out his profile.
The man who had held me captive underground in a mountain cell and kept tabs on me my entire life, was still without an identity. My need to see him for myself was outweighed by the presence of his companion; it was not he who now had my attention.
My gaze locked in on the female to his left. My eyes felt deceived at what they saw. I thought for sure there was some kind of magic or trickery at hand. After all that time, her face had hardly changed. Her hair was longer than I remembered it being the last occasion I saw her. The years had stolen away the color turning it more white than blond. The long white coat she wore caused her to look very angelic, like a ball of light.
Her face lacked an emotional connection to the moment as they entered the room. The man hidden by the shadows of a hood stood by her side, I assumed he was The Taker. He grabbed her by the arm and shuffled her in aggressively towards the two security guards without saying a word.
A large face of a watch glistened on his wrist as he waved them away. The white gold or platinum shone out against his dark clothes. The militant looking security guards took her by both arms and escorted her down a long hallway.
I struggled for a breath and whispered out, "Mom?" She looked right at me; right through me. Too bad she couldn't see or hear me. As they dragged her away she showed no signs of a struggle and she never turned to look back; at me, or The Taker.
If I could have willed my body to join with my astral body, I would have. It pained me to be so close to her and not be able to reach out to her and touch her. I wanted to run as fast as I could and bury myself in her arms. For so long I have yearned to smell the sweet jasmine that tickled at my nose from her hair when she would lean in to kiss me goodnight.
The Taker walked up to Graven and gave him a pat on the shoulder as he shook his hand. In a continued motion, he continued on over to Ziona and kissed her on the cheek. He put his hand on her lower back to guide her back into the parlor. I felt disgusted at their casual interaction while they locked away innocent people to do ungodly things to them.
After they began to walk away, Graven looked over at me and gave me a big-eyed look. His eyes rolled over to the Taker and Ziona as he followed them out of the foyer.
I hoped that he would not take too long to get his astral butt back to me so I could tell him whom they just carted away. I had to tell someone what just happened and he was the only one I could tell.
I couldn't waste time standing there; I knew that Graven could find me so I took the opportunity to get back to my body. I needed to catch my breath and figure out how I was going to get my mother and escape that dreaded place.
I zipped back to the top of the mound of earth that had hid me away for the past few weeks. Come to think of it, I still didn't have any idea how long I was held there. Not that it really mattered at that point; I knew I didn't have a home to go back to. That was a problem I wasn't too concerned with, all I wanted to do was get away.
I took a minute to just breathe. I looked up at the sky and filled my mind with every visible star that shone in the sky that night. I have always loved stargazing, but this was different. I felt like I had to lock every last twinkle away in my memory after wondering if I would ever get to see them again.
More than appreciating the outside world I needed to assess my situation and hope that Graven would be able to find a way to get outside and sneak me off the compound. If not I still needed to get my ass in gear and start to head as far away from there as I could.
Part of me wanted to run back into the house and demand to see my mother. Where had she been? Had The Taker had her all this time? If so, why hadn't he hurt her all those years? I don't know if that was an assumption I should have made just because she looked un
harmed, but she was alive.
Did he bring her there to try and force me to give into the darkness and share my truest self with him and his minions? I was just starting to learn what some of my abilities might be. I couldn't risk my safety again, if I went back in there then neither one of us would stand a chance at our freedom. I needed to get to a safe place and learn as much as I could about my past, the past that Gram kept hidden from me.
Maybe she did know who my father was. Did she know about my mother, was she gifted with abilities? Was she human? I had so many questions. I also needed to get back to Patience and Phaela to hear or read more about these prophecies that I seemed to be at the center of.
I tried to look out into the distance in an attempt to discern how far we were from the rest of civilization. In the dark of the night it would be easy to see the light from a nearby house or the glistening lights of a city.
No matter what direction I turned there was nothing but vast darkness and the twinkle of the stars above. If I tried to hoof it, I had no idea what direction to even head toward. I also needed to take into consideration the potential dangers like wild coyotes, snakes, scorpions and such that I would have to face out there in the desert. If that was a risk I needed to take I would take it. It was no easy feat escaping their underground penitentiary, but there I stood ready to take the next step. My best choice was to wait for Graven. I could see the front of the main house from where I stood and there was no activity that I could detect. I needed to see what was going on in the house and maybe make my way down to sneak into Graven's truck. I could see Graven's Cherokee and it was at least parked off to the side of the house out of reach from the porch light.
With a giant deep breath I looked around to make sure I was still alone and focused on Graven. I allowed just enough of my consciousness to travel through the colorful mist until I found myself approaching the parlor. I eased my way into the room, cautious of my surroundings. I knew that Ziona could not see me astral projecting, but could The Taker?
Graven was pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace. I can only assume that he knew I was there, but he did not yet acknowledge my presence. The only other person in the room was Ziona.
I had spent the past few weeks dreading every encounter with her. She beat me, threatened me, and deprived me of food. Even though she tried to make it seem like she was doing me a favor by throwing a half eaten apple or a candy bar at me from time to time.
She knew what would happen when she introduced Anton Leviath into my dark prison. I survived his brutal attack; an attack that was probably only a mild introduction into what he would have done to me had Graven not struck him down.
He left his mark across my back, even though it would be hard to ever forget what he did to me, he made sure I would always have a constant reminder.
Ziona tried to manipulate me into thinking that she could help me. She wanted me to give in and join her and The Taker. She offered to train me and of course she would be so kind as to take me shopping for a new pair of shoes she would approve of. As if I really needed a pair of Jimmy Choo's.
"Look, I don't know what you are doing with the females that you bring here. Quite frankly I have told you and The Taker that I am not interested, but what is going on with him bringing the white one here?" Graven stopped and turned to Ziona demanding an answer with his eyes.
"He has a special prisoner here now. I know you think that I know everything that is going on or involves him, but I don't. The white one has something to do with turning one of the female prisoners."
"Turning her into what?" Graven snapped.
"Turning her toward the darkness for one. He thinks that she is 'The One.' You know how you have been helping him locate special females with the gifts? Well none possess them all. He said he knows it is her."
"Ziona, what would make him think that this one is any different than all the others? I'm not completely sure what you mean by them all, but no one possesses all of anything."
Ziona walked over to the bar and grabbed her snifter. She looked into the glass gazing down at the aged golden brown liquor. She swirled it around several times before she responded.
"I have no idea. She does not even seem to have anything unique about her. In the time that she has been here I have not seen her use any abilities or powers. I have never seen him so intent on forcing the issue with someone. He is convinced that she is something special.
"The most annoying part is he doesn't want me to hurt her. Little does he know, I sent Anton in to deal with her. He went easy on her, much easier than I have seen him with others in the past."
I could feel the surge of anger emanating off of Graven at the sound of Anton's name. He wasn't facing Ziona, which was probably for the best. His eyes were full of rage. I saw his hands clench into fists before he released them and shook them out.
"I told him the Taker did not want her hurt, but you know he could hardly help himself. Maybe it is a good thing he has been taken out of the equation. I am not sure that he would have been able to stay away from her and I can't let The Taker know what I allowed. Not like I am concerned about handling her with kid gloves. I had hoped that if she had any abilities they would come to the surface with her need to protect herself. I just want to prove that she is nobody, not something he needs."
"Careful, Zee, you are starting to sound a little jealous. Besides, maybe your approach was the wrong one." I don't know how she didn't notice that he had begun to breathe heavily through his nose.
"Oh, you have a better idea?" she snapped at him.
"Yeah, let her go. Maybe she can't come into herself under all the stress of being a tortured prisoner. When was the last time you even fed this girl?"
Ziona rolled her eyes and took a swig of her drink and just shook her head.
On a positive note, they didn't appear to know that I had escaped; yet. Otherwise that would have come into play with their conversation.
I was getting a much better hang of using both my physical and astral body at the same time. I was able to see the coast was still clear outside. It was time to attempt to work my way down to Graven's truck.
"Sure, Graven, I will just go down and get her and let her walk out the front door. I am sure she will really want to cooperate with us and not tell anyone about what we did to her here. And then what? How do I provide The Taker with what he seeks from her?"
Graven was about to respond when the door burst open. One of the militant looking men rushed into the room.
"The prisoner from room X is gone." He was panting. While he was trying to catch his breath, Ziona whipped around faster than I have ever seen another person move.
She grabbed the intruder by the throat in the same way she did to me. Her red fingernails were lodged into the side of his neck. Without any effort she lifted him off the ground. His feet dangled almost a foot above the tile floor.
"Excuse me? What do you mean she is gone? You have a pretty simple fucking job here!" Zion's voice had a dominant authority to it.
The man was gasping for air, although his feet were struggling to reach the ground he knew better than to fight back against her.
"Yes, ma'am," he grunted out.
She released him a sufficient amount for his feet to hit the floor, but kept enough of a grip on his throat that he was not going anywhere.
"She got out of the room and managed her way through the tunnels."
"Where is your idiot partner? I hope you did not lose any of our other guests. We have guests not prisoners."
"You are right, ma'am, my apologies. Please forgive my discrepancy. If you would grant me the ability, I can call him for a status update." His eyes were frantically looking at his hip.
"What are you waiting for?" she barked in his face.
He was fumbling to get his COM device from his pocket. Clearly out of annoyance she released her grip on him.
"Graven, can you please tell me why we have to work with these moronic humans?"
He just sh
rugged at her.
I eased into the room so that Graven would be able to sense me if he was not already aware of my presence. He did not waste a second looking straight into my eyes. Ziona was too focused on the security guards to notice his slight off behavior.
"Hey!" His voice, almost tickling at my neck.
He startled me. I was so locked in on his human gaze that I didn't realize he was right beside me. "Oh, hi."
"You are okay I presume?"
"Yes, Graven. I'm peachy. Just about at your truck. Can you get out of there?"
Just as he was about to respond, the second security guy hustled into the room.
"Buck, what the hell are you doing in here? We need to get – out - there." The first security guy asked hesitantly.
"He came in here to make me aware of your incompetence." Ziona looked annoyingly between the two of them. "Where is she now? And do not even think about telling me you don't know. It will be your last."
"She has made her way out of the tunnels and has stowed away in the hooked up vintage Cherokee outside."
"So go get her, Butch!" Ziona spoke to him like he was a child.
Graven stepped up in front of the door. He raised his hand to prevent anyone from exiting.
"No! This is perfect. Let her be." Graven literally put his foot down.
Ziona shot an extra evil eye in his direction.
"How dare you interfere with my responsibilities? You have no place to tell my workers what to do." Her words sliced though the air.
"Hear me out, Ziona. This goes back to our discussion just before this knucklehead barged in here. What good will it do if you bring her back in here? Let her go. Let her think it is safe to go back out there and find herself." Graven waved his hand in explanation.
Ziona walked closer to the door. She looked down at her razor sharp reds and polished them on her black dress.
Betrayed: Breaking the Darkness Series Book Two Page 1
