The Forlorn Read online

  Other Titles

  By

  Calle J. Brookes

  Paranormal

  Dardanos, Co.

  The Blood King

  Awakening the Demon’s Queen

  The Healer’s Heart

  Once Wolf Bitten

  Live or Die

  The Seer’s Strength

  The Warrior’s Woman

  The Wolf’s Redemption

  A Warrior’s Quest

  The Wolf God & His Mate

  Out of the Darkness

  A Warrior Blind (Dardanos)

  Dardanos, Co: The Adrastos

  The Outcast

  The Forlorn

  Romantic Suspense

  Watching

  Wanting

  Second Chances

  Hunting

  Running

  Redeeming

  Revealing

  Coming Soon

  Stalking (PAVAD)

  The Witch (Dardanos, Co.)

  Calle J. Brookes is first and foremost a fiction writer. She enjoys crafting paranormal romance and romantic suspense. She reads almost every genre except horror. She spends most of her time juggling family life and writing, while reminding herself that she can’t spend all of her time in the worlds found within books. Calle J. loves to be contacted by her readers via email and at www.CalleJBrookes.com.

  To my daughter, always.

  The Forlorn

  Calle J. Brookes

  Springs Valley, Indiana

  The Lost River Literary name and imprint are the sole properties of independent publishers Calle J. Brookes and B.G. Lashbrooks. They cannot be reproduced or used in any manner; nor can any of their publications or designs be used without expressed written permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, or locations, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Copyright © 2014 Calle J. Brookes

  Cover by B.G. Lashbrooks

  All rights reserved.

  The Forlorn

  A

  DARDANOS, CO: THE ADRASTOS NOVEL

  Book Two

  Chapter One

  She’d been raised human.

  In Relaklonos human didn’t exist. Mara Garnier knew she had no real identity in this new demon world, and neither did her younger brothers.

  She wasn’t about to let Skylar and Shiloh go through the same sense of rootlessness. Her brothers were just about to become teenagers; their identities were still being shaped and molded. They didn’t deserve the treatment they were getting at the hands of some of the other children relocated to this strange place.

  They got better treatment out of the demons than they did the Dardaptoans or Lupoiux. They were neither, though. She thought they were supposed to be Lupoiux and she was supposed to be Dardaptoan—that was what she had heard before, that the males took after the father’s Kind in mixed Kind matches, while the females took after the mother’s.

  But it was so hard to tell. They had been treated like humans for their entire lives, how were they supposed to change that now?

  Mara spent most of her days wondering around the demon city of Thrun, studying the architecture, the carvings on the strange rock walls. The tapestries and the old library—which had been trashed months ago by a race of demons known as Racshas, was in such disrepair that the ruling couple of the city had banned the relocated Dardaptoans from entering.

  She hadn’t meant to disobey; she wasn’t sure what kind of jail system the city had, nor was she anxious to find out. But she had been pulled inside. She walked by the old library every afternoon, dragging buckets of water from the central well located five blocks away from the small building Mara’s family had been given to make their new lives in. In her own world, that she now knew was called Gaia by the other Kinds, she had running water, high-speed internet, cars, and a future.

  In Thrun she had a crudely plumbed toilet and a cistern that had to be refilled twice a day. And the boys had been forced into attending a block school where they were routinely bullied by a gang of boys who called themselves the Full Bloods. Twelve year olds; filled with hatred and prejudice because her brothers were half werewolves.

  Mara didn’t know how to help them. This world was not a hospitable place to the Garnier family at all. And her mother could not do everything; could not make the world they found around them now perfect.

  She just needed an hour to escape from it all. That’s what Mara told herself as she climbed the stone steps carved into the back of the building. Thrun was built on the side of a hill between two geological fault lines. It was more precarious than anyone wanted to think about—especially Mara. They’d had a couple of earthquakes since the great relocation, but Thrun was built for those very shifts.

  Unless there was a dark sorcerer involved. Mara had heard the rumors—sometime in the last year a dark sorcerer had set some sort of spell against the city, and there had been some quake damage when that spell had been fought.

  Damage, and it wasn’t even the real sorcerer they faced.

  Mara would not think of what was to come. But she knew the truth—the reason the vampire and werewolf peoples, of whatever names they called themselves it didn’t matter to her, didn’t change what they were—had been forced into this place was because a horrific war was coming.

  And as a humanities student with a major in world histories, Mara understood exactly what that would mean.

  War meant a loss of hope. If an epic war was coming, and it came soon, what sort of danger would Thrun face?

  It had already been attacked once. Mara would never forget how she had felt when her mother had run in from outside, yelling for the twins. She had shoved one of the boys into Mara’s arms and grabbed the other. She’d pushed them all toward the cellar. The only ‘safe’ place in the four room stone hut that they shared. The entire city had shaken around them from the battle; Mara would never forget the fear of that night, as the warriors fought the attacking demons.

  Mara would give everything she possessed—which now wasn’t much—to leave this horrible world, and return to the only one she’d ever truly known. She’d give anything.

  But she couldn’t.

  Life went on. The attack—now known as the Battle of Thrun—was still fresh in everyone’s mind. They were erecting a statue near the great well of some fallen warriors to symbolize what was lost.

  Warriors. Far more than fighting monsters had been lost that day.

  So had Mara’s hope.

  She’d changed that day, and she knew it. Her heart had gotten darker, her dreams of returning to her real world had melted. She’d decided in that moment to learn all she could of the new city, the new world, so that she could better protect the family she loved. Old habits drew her to her first love, her first source of information. Books. It would always be books for her.

  She didn’t know what it was she was looking for exactly. But she needed to know something about this place. Something to make it seem like less of a prison and more like a home. There had to be something she could do to help her family adapt.

  The boys and her mother needed that. Mara needed that.

  She needed things to change, somehow.

  Chapter Two

  Rion watched the girl from his suite window, intrigued by her though the distance separating them made distinguishing her features impossible. He was on the top floor of the Thrun Ruling Hall, where he lived near several of his siblings. He often watched the city out his window.

  He was an Adrastos and his sight was exceptional, compared with
other Dardaptoans. That it had been several miles between his room and the abandoned library mattered little.

  Something about her drew his attention. He’d seen her, the sun shining on her long dark hair and her human world clothes and he’d felt the first stirring of interest.

  Rion was compelled to see what it was about her that had drawn him so.

  For the first time in over four hundred years he actually felt something almost like anticipation.

  Why?

  She wasn’t an exceptional beauty, from what he could see. That might not be true—he was anxious to find out up close and personal. Her hair had been either black or dark brown and it had hung halfway down her back in waves. He couldn’t figure out her age, but that wasn’t unusual. Dardaptoan females rarely looked over the age of thirty. And were always beautiful and alluring.

  It was part of the way they were created. As blood drinkers they needed ways to lure their prey to them without much notice.

  And that need had evolved over the last four thousand years, with the wolf god’s curses.

  Rion walked through the city of Thrun, trying to appear unhurried. He wanted to run, though he knew that was ridiculous.

  He was Adrastos, after all. The best family of warriors the Dardaptoan people had ever known. With the turquoise hasha scarf tied around his waist in an intricate knot so that the ends did not present a danger during a battle, with the white vestis and pardus he wore to denote that he was of the ruling family of his House—with the sword of an ancestor Amdreas strapped to his waist—they knew who and what he was.

  Adrastos. Fighter. Warrior. Dhar of the Adrastos House—one of the Adrastos Houses. His father’s sons had scattered to the far reaches of the Gaian globe after they’d aged enough. None could stay in range of their sire for too long.

  Rion despised his parents for the way they’d treated their offspring—especially their two daughters.

  He’d personally taken his band of followers to Australia over two hundred years ago. They’d grown from a number of five hundred to almost five thousand. And Rion led them all.

  Still. But there were starting to be questions of whether the Australian Adrastos should join up with the European, or the Coloradoan, or the Canadian, or any of the other Houses led by his brothers.

  There were eighteen of them total. And two females. Two extraordinary females.

  He did not know the elder well—she was about ninety years younger than he was, and had been dropped off on his older brother Aodhan when she had been but sixteen. Four hundred years ago.

  Much like Nora, the youngest sister, had been dropped off on Rion sixteen years ago.

  The sister he had raised from the age of fourteen was now just short of her thirtieth year.

  She’d recently dyed her hair purple and turquoise, and pierced her nose. Or attempted to—piercings wouldn’t stay on non-scarring Dardaptoans.

  He’d gotten a secret laugh out of that. Arenora was as stubborn as any other Adrastos he’d met. Nora hadn’t been happy with their forced relocation five months ago.

  And he’d understood it—his sister had been computer obsessed and had been damned good at hacking in and out of human databases. And Dardaptoan ones.

  Computers didn’t exist in this world. Though Nora was certainly trying…

  Rion pushed aside the natural worry that only a brother could feel. Nora would adjust, and eventually stop demanding to return to the Gaian world.

  Dardaptoans—especially Adrastos—learned early on how to adapt. It was their way. He just hurt for her, seeing the pain and confusion in her eyes that the rapid changes had brought.

  Nora had been coddled and pampered—mostly by him—for the last sixteen years. He’d had no way to predict they’d come to this strange world.

  She’d brought three totes full of computer parts and accessories, and he knew she was trying to figure out some way to make them work here. In a world with no electricity to power them.

  He could barely turn a computer on, and wasn’t really interested in learning how.

  He far preferred books.

  That was one of the reasons his eyes had first been drawn toward what had been Thrun’s most magnificent building—other than the ruling estate and the town hall.

  The library was easily six stories tall, when most of the building surrounding it were no more than two. The doors were blocked—mostly—by two large stone slabs that had broken off during a long-ago earthquake.

  He’d first seen the girl sitting on the library steps, her very pose broken and dejected.

  The defeat on her face had hurt him.

  He chalked it up to being similar to Nora’s.

  And he wanted to help.

  And then she’d mustered enough courage to slip behind the first stone slab. Rion had known immediately that she would need him. That had driven him from his room and to the street. He was a male warrior, it was his duty to protect, especially a female.

  Premonition of trouble filled him; Rion picked up his pace.

  Chapter Three

  Mara forced herself to breathe.

  Was anyone watching? Had anyone seen her? She’d been visiting the library steps for days, and while she’d yet to go inside before today, she had also not seen anyone else around the building.

  People tended to avoid the old place. The broken doors were frightening, the gargoyles carved into the columns supporting the roof were even more so.

  Combined with the decree to not enter—the decree that was written in both Dardaptoan—which she was beginning to recognize—and English and posted to the stone, and it was no wonder.

  But some force she could not identify was pushing her to enter.

  Telling her that the answers she sought were just waiting inside.

  For her.

  Mara stepped behind the first stone.

  The first thing she saw was a big cavern with half the ceiling missing. Vines had grown in the holes in the stone.

  There weren’t many books, and the ones she saw were completely destroyed. Torn, molded, ripped, and dirtied.

  But at least there were books, and the kind she recognized. She’d been afraid all books had been destroyed. The Racshas demons, from what she had learned of them since the relocation, weren’t the most educated or scholarly of demons.

  Demons. She shivered just thinking of them. She’d actually had a few run ins with demon warriors since the relocation.

  Incubi, to be exact.

  They’d wanted her to go with them somewhere. But Mara hadn’t been raised to be stupid—she’d known what Incubi wanted. And she wasn’t about to let some demons feed from her sexually.

  That was the last complication she needed right now. No matter how alluring the offers might have been.

  She took a few moments to study the carvings on the walls. They didn’t look like Racshas demons—they were probably of the demon kind that had actually built Thrun before the Racshas demons had conquered and invaded the city.

  Mara understood how cities changed over time. Human history—which wasn’t hers as she’d always thought—was full of similar happenings. She was drawn to one particular relief that dominated the rear wall.

  It was of a woman, almost human in appearance. The ears were higher on the head, and pointed. The eyes were big and tilted. Exotic. They were half naked, and were dancing around something. Not an altar, but some type of religious figure.

  She ran her fingers over one of the women’s faces. She was smaller than the others in the relief, but Mara did not think she was a child. It was to her that Mara kept returning.

  Just small. Probably around the same size as Mara, at almost five-five.

  Not small by human standards. But almost unheard of for full grown Dardaptoan women.

  What kind of demons were the women? What had happened to them? And what legend was the relief depicting?

  Real curiosity burned in her for the first time in months. She’d always been fascinated by ancient mythologies.


  The city of Thrun was well developed, she supposed. The homes were made out of a mud similar to adobe, though mostly white with black stone flecks throughout. The colors of black and white were repeated within the city multiple times. There were plants growing plentifully, almost everywhere she looked.

  Half the relief itself was covered in a vine similar to Gaian morning glories. She pulled some of it aside to see the full scene.

  Someone had mentioned that the plants with the turquoise fruits growing on them were edible, and safe, for all Kinds to eat. Mara hadn’t been so sure, at first. But she’d found that they tasted like a cross between an orange and a blueberry, with the texture of a pear.

  At least they had some food that she could deal with in this strange world. She still hadn’t gotten over the fact that her mother had been lacing Mara’s food with blood for her entire life.

  Why had her mother kept her Dardaptoan heritage a secret?

  Part of Mara’s confusion stemmed from the fact that the one person she’d thought she could trust had been lying to her from the beginning. And her mother refused to tell her why.

  Raejel dodged the issue whenever Mara would ask.

  Why did it matter what her mother’s reasoning was? It still ended up with them in the same place.

  This place.

  Mara touched the statue woman’s eyes again; they were inlaid with what appeared to be a purple stone of some sort. Or with what had been a purple stone. Most of it was chipped away.

  She looked closer, thankful that there was natural light filtering in from some of the holes in the roof.

  Several rather large, rather unstable holes in the roof. Some unease at what she was doing filled her.

  Maybe she should get out of there? Before something bad happened? There was probably a reason people were supposed to stay out of there…she should have just ignored the draw of this place, and stayed away.