Divine Savior (19 page)

“
Shade’s been hurt badly. There was blood all over the area where she was when she last spoke to me. I think she was shot from a medium distance of about fifty feet or less. She wasn’t aware of anything until it was too late and she felt the pain, until we felt the pain that is.” Colin glanced over at Elizabeth and nodded to her. “She was taken away and to the south for about twenty yards, carried, though I’m not sure how. Maybe by the she-wolf. From there she was put into a vehicle, probably a van, I’m guessing. I can’t tell where they went from there, but we have a good idea who was involved. The human is Brent’s mother, the little boy from the hospital, and a she-wolf may be the local pack’s alpha bitch, Lynne Wolff.” Colin relayed all the information they had, and some information they has speculated about.

“
I want to help.”

The entire room turned at the voice. Colin, in stunned amazement, stared at the very beautiful woman who had just powered into the room.

“
I have to help,” the woman said. “I want to be a part of her return. I believe the young woman is my daughter. Please, let me be a part of this.”

~
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN~

“
Fiona, I didn’t expect you for another couple of days, but thank goodness you’re here. So much has happened since we last spoke. Everyone, I’d like you to meet my good friend, Fiona, Mistress of the Glen. She is a very powerful Fae.” Eliza stepped forward to introduce her to everyone in the room.

Fae were a very unique group of beings. As mistress, Fiona was responsible for the magical creatures of the woods and forests. The Fae of the Glen used their magic to keep the flowers of the forest floor watered in the deep of summer. The smaller and younger ones kissed the buds to open them to their beauty in the morning and early spring.

Most Fae were females, but there were a few males. Their magic was usually limited to the specific job they were assigned. Some even took care of specific flower groups or plant life. But in the case of the royal family, as it seemed Shade might be a part of if what Fiona said was true, the magic was varied and very strong, and it governed the entire people.

“
Shade may be Fae? Well, that explains a lot of things, doesn’t it? But I don’t understand. You only
think
she’s your daughter. How is that possible that you wouldn’t know for sure?” Sara asked as she took the woman’s cape.

Sara had known that Shade’s magic had a different feel to it than her family’s, including her cousin Mel. Melody, the Mistress of Magic, had told her once that there were as many different branches and levels of her magic as there were people in the world. Each species had their own royalty in charge and laws to rule their realm within the different subgroups. But over it all was Mel, governing and making sure that no one group abused what the Earth lent them to use.

White magic, that was used by all royal houses, was a reusable and renewable resource. When used in a positive way and for the goodness of Mother Earth, the magic would return to the barer tenfold. When it was used poorly, as in black magic, it took away from the barer one hundred times.

Black magic only pulled from the Earth, draining it and leaving a shadow of darkness behind, a taint in the soil. It would show as a black spot in the soil, and nothing would ever grow there. The land would be sucked dry of anything living.

That was why people who used black magic were forever stealing from others, their own being used up quickly, draining them. Usually, the user would be drained as well, leaving a shell of the person, eating away their mind first and then their body. And the longer they used this magic, the weaker they became, draining all their energy from them as well as those around them.

“
Yes, I can understand your confusion. I myself was as well. When the mistress told me about the magic being used, I focused on it. I found the signature as mine, of me.” Fiona shifted now, looking uncomfortable about the rest of her story she had to tell.

“
About twenty years ago, my family and I were attacked on our way back from a court function. It’s something we all must attend once a century and my daughter, Faun, had wanted to attend with us. Quinn, my husband, was killed instantly, and up until three days ago, I thought my daughter had been killed as well. But not in the attack that took her father from me. We were under attack and I feared for her life. The driver, Peter, had taken Faun away at my command, leaving me to fight with the rabbles, as I’m an immortal as well as a magical being.”

“
I don’t understand. You say he took her away? Where was he supposed to take her? I would have thought he would have stayed with you, to protect you.”

“
I thought she would have been much safer as far away as possible. I thought that there had been enough bloodshed in this horrific battle. He returned later to help me finish them off and then to collect my beloved’s body. He had hidden her in an old building in the human world, hoping she would be safe there amongst the humans until we could return for her, he’d told me.” Tears fell down her cheeks. “She was six, and hadn’t been hurt much during the attack on our caravan, just a small cut on her forehead. At least that is what I had been led to believe at the time. As it turned out, Peter was a part of the group who wanted to take over the realm and to destroy all that I was by killing my family. He hoped that I would be made to stand down once it was proven that I couldn’t even protect my own family when they needed me most.”

Colin looked over at Sara. That sounded very much like the plan that Mel’s supposed mate had had for her. To drive her to the Fade then take over the running of the Kingdom of Molavonta and to use it for his own personal playground.

Fiona continued. “You see, he had tossed her into that building against the farthest wall, hoping he had killed her. He confessed it all later. He was found out by an investigation that was launched by my good friend Elizabeth. I thought that he had killed her as well. It was months later when we went back to the building and searched where he’d taken her. There was so much blood that stained the area where he’d tossed her hard against the wall that I knew she had to be dead. I could sense it was hers and could not believe that she could have survived under such conditions.”

“
But she did.” Colin said the words before he thought about how they would make Fiona feel.

“
Yes. Yes, she did, despite all odds that she wouldn’t. He told us how she had hit the wall…he was so happy that he could finally confess all to me, that he was...he was laughing the entire time. He was so...so giddy that I’d been made to suffer so much by his hand.” Fiona was crying softly as she related the story. To endure so much and to be able to continue on spoke a great deal for the woman, and for her daughter. Shade, it seemed, had the same determination and drive her mother did.

“
Why did you believe he’d killed her in the first place? As a Fae, wouldn’t she be a true immortal as you are? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound so accusatory, and it...I just don’t understand. Shade is so powerful. Wouldn’t you have felt her power before now?” Colin asked Fiona. He was getting a better picture of the woman he loved. She was such a survivor, a six-year-old little girl with no memory, magic abilities, and no one to ask why. It was no wonder that she had no trust in people. He planned to rectify that as soon as he got her back. He would figure out a way to make her trust him if it killed him. Or she killed him, he thought with a grin.

“
Quinn, my husband, wasn’t Fae, but was mortal, a human. Faun is half human, and because she was taken from me before she had time to develop her skills, we couldn’t tell what our relationship would give her or whether or not she would have any magical abilities at all. She has several sisters and their abilities are as varied as they are. Some are powerful, others are not,” Fiona explained. Her tears had dried, but she was still very emotional, Colin could see.

“
Shade, she calls herself Shade Doe. I don’t know why she called herself either name, however it’s sort of ironic if you think about the similarities. I wonder if her memory is as blocked as she thinks it is. It would seem logical that she has some very faint memories that surface now and then that have helped her to survive all these years on her own. I want to find out. Oh, and she has magical abilities. And she’s strong too,” Colin said as he rubbed the area on his chest were a chunk of wood had gone into him when she had thrown him against a wall. “And she has one hell of a temper when pushed too far.”

“
She would have gotten that from her father. He was the most stubborn, pig headed...he would argue for hours even knowing that he was wrong just to get a rise out of me.” Colin could tell that whatever memory was she was thinking about, Fiona thought of it as a fond one.

“
I believe she may have a bit of your stubbornness too, my lady. Just a little, wouldn’t you say?” Colin smiled when Fiona started to argue. Shade and her mother had the same “don’t screw with me” face, it seemed.

“
We need to go to the pack house and establish what the alpha’s involvement is in all of this, if any at all. I have contacted a few of the wolves that I know from my time there as their pilot,” Sara was saying as she closed her cell phone. “They said that last week there was a big blow up with the alpha family, but didn’t know what. Charles Wolff, the patriarch of the family, has been called home from his retirement, along with his wife, to be there for moral support. Again, no one is saying what has happened other than the alpha’s house is off limits to everyone for the duration except for the family. That is until tomorrow night. There is a huge dinner with some of the top wolves. Bradley and Charlie are supposed to be in attendance.”

Once upon a time, Sara had been a pilot for the pack; Charlie had been the Alpha then. She had flown pack members where ever they had needed to go and had also worked part time for the larger airports. She did not fly for anyone anymore, but she did keep up with the few friends she had made then, apparently.

“
It must be serious for them to call Charlie back and out of retirement. If you hear anything else, please let us know. Good job. Thank you, love.” Aaron believed in giving credit where credit was due and always had. Whether it was because one brought good information to the table, or one messed up, it didn’t matter. That was one of the things Colin had always admired about Aaron.

Of course, unlike his predecessor, Carl Sanchez, he didn’t flay the person alive, nor did he stake them out in the sun for an undetermined amount of time depending on the whim of the master. Sanchez did not have a scale to mete out his punishment. He usually let his mood, or the moods of those around him, make the decisions. This was the main reason, among others, that Aaron had challenged him in a fight that ultimately resulted in him becoming the new master of this realm.

They worked out a plan, and as much as Aaron hated to involve his pregnant mate, they needed her to make it work. Aaron commanded fifty of his warrior vampires to his house at sunset that evening and for them to come ready for battle. He didn’t give them any information about what the command involved as he did not want the information to get to the pack. He had asked them not to feed first because he knew that hungry vampires made much more vicious warriors, and he wanted a forceful front when converging on a pack as large as the Brotherhood, he’d told Colin.

Aaron offered to put Colin into a deep slumber so that he would be fit for the evening’s festivities, as they had dubbed them. Colin declined the offer with a grateful “thanks though.” He feared that he would miss Shade trying to contact him if he was too deep into his sleep.

Colin went to his lair, deep in the sublevels of Aaron’s home, to wait until he could leave to search for his love, and to try to contact her mentally again. He lay on their bed and inhaled the scent of her still on the sheets.

Duncan had offered to clean the room earlier, but Colin didn’t want anything disturbed. He needed this small connection to her or he would go insane, even if it was just her smell and the memories that they had created there, what they had started. He reached to touch her through their special connection and found nothing but emptiness.

Colin had had Duncan call the realtor about a couple of houses in the area that Aaron had acquired when he fought and killed the previous master. Colin knew that, as his friend, Aaron would give him whatever he wanted, but Colin wanted this to be from him, bought just for her. He had to live on the hope that she would be returning to him, or he just wouldn’t be able to go on.

If anyone had asked him even two months ago, he would have laughed in their faces. To even suggest a man like him would be so focused on a woman to give up everything for her would have been laughable to him.

Exhaustion finally claimed him into a troubled sleep.

~~~

Shade regained consciousness; her was body aching and weak. She clamped harder onto her mental capabilities, holding off contacting anyone until she knew where she was and what had happened. And the why, which was the biggest mystery.

Shade thought back and tried to remember what she had been doing. She had been on her way to the pack house to see Brent and to thank the alpha for his help. She had been talking with Colin, aggravated at him again, but not unhappy about it. In fact, if she really thought about the argument she had been having with him, she was enjoying the back and forth yelling, his overbearing attitude, and his macho-ism. She smiled to herself, thinking here she was kidnapped, shot and hurt, and thinking about “the wall,” as she had dubbed him from the very beginning. Something was seriously wrong with her.