Remembered and found, p.1
Remembered and Found, page 1
Remembered and Found
WOLF COVEN SERIES
BOOK TWO
K. J. LAVALLEE
Edited by PAIGE KRAFT
Illustrated by MARY LASKO
Formatted by LAVALLEE FORMATTING
Copyright © 2023 by K. J. Lavallee
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Acknowledgments
I want to give a big thank you to my editor, Paige. You are the best and I really appreciate all you do for me. Thank you for helping make my stories better.
Next, I want to thank my husband for supporting me in my writing journey. I know I’m a handful, but this is my favorite hobby. I love that you support me, even if you don’t read them.
I also want to thank Heather Prunty. She’s an important friend and my biggest fan. I love you, girl, thank you for reading all of my stories and telling me what you do and do not like.
I want to thank my best friends, for listening to me ramble about these stories. I tell you what I’m thinking and planning, only to change it when the characters change their minds. I really appreciate you letting me word vomit about the crap that’s on my mind. Even if you’re lost half the time. It honestly helps me more than you know.
And last, I want to thank you, my readers. Although I can continue to create stories without you, it means more knowing there are people who are enjoying them as much as I do.
Blurb
Time passes slowly in the hands of my captors. I’m tortured and beaten until I’m within an inch of my life, over and over again. Then I’m left to rot in my cell to heal. They don’t let me gain strength. They keep me as weak and drained as they possibly can.
I’ve been seeing ghosts. My imagination is getting the best of me. The demons have taunted me with my family rescuing me before. This has to be another illusion. But their scents and voices are so real. If this turns out to be another trick, I think that will be what finally breaks me.
We search everywhere for Keasia. She’s been missing for several long weeks. Weeks in which she could be facing unimaginable torture. If I can’t save her, then Deon will need to put me down. Because there’s nothing in this world that will keep me from following her to the afterlife. No one wants a feral vampire on their hands. No one. And if she dies, that’s what I’ll become.
War is brewing, and supes are being coerced into siding with the demons. Having the supernatural communities on our side is what will help win this war. But if we can’t convince them to aid us, we fail. And if we fail, the world as we know it will cease to exist.
Orrias has a dark secret.
Keasia wants revenge.
Eliphas wants what he thought he would never have.
Hallie may finally find her witch familiar.
Tristan may be tied to two.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
About the Author
Also by K. J. Lavallee
Chapter
One
KEASIA
A twig snapped behind me. I didn’t see anything. I didn’t hear anything.
I ignored it.
I. Ignored. It.
Why did I ignore it? Why didn’t I think to check the surrounding area more thoroughly? Why? Why? Why?
That’s all I can think of and ask myself as my mind catches up, as my body slowly heals from the abuse it’s taken these past several weeks. Several long weeks of being tortured. My fingernails have been ripped off, hot iron has been plunged into my thighs, my skin was nearly flayed from my body, and so much more.
I’m cold. I’m half naked, and the stone floor I’m lying on is doing nothing to help warm me. I’m pretty sure I’ve vomited in the corner a few times today alone. Or maybe it’s this week. I’m not sure. I can’t keep track after everything they’ve done to me.
One day I was set up on an altar like a sacrificial lamb, only to have them burn me with fire. They started at my feet and worked their way to my head. I passed out from the pain when they got to my waist. I woke up healed enough to feel the blisters, but not enough to be ignorant to the fact that they didn’t stop. They made it to my face. I can still feel the pain of those blisters as if they’re still on my skin. They aren’t. They’ve had a healer in here healing me up again. They’ve healed all of my blistered skin because I was flayed open. Almost every piece of my flesh had gashes. They needed three healers that time. I wish they would have let me suffer. Maybe I would be dead by now. It’s better than this cloud of haze. The endless pit of pain and torture. The darkness waiting for me is just out of my reach.
I never understood how they obtained the healers. Healers are always part of the light. Not the dark. So how did they get not just one, but three healers here? They must have kidnapped them like they did me. Maybe it was all part of their plan to torture me for eons until my body finally gives out even with the aid of healers. I’ll never know because I can’t even think clearly enough to know what’s going on around me half the time.
They’re demanding I answer questions, but I don’t know what they’re asking. I can’t get the haze to clear enough to comprehend anything. Something about a Vepar. I have no idea who the hell that is. The drugs and constant torture have caused my brain to go fuzzy again.
As it is, my foggy brain can barely make out that someone is calling my name.
I roll onto my back with a groan. I’ve been on a cold stone floor for a few days while they let me heal enough to stay alive, but not long enough to regain my strength. The fuckers also put something in me. A small prick of needle into my neck when I arrived took my magic away. My body is healing at a normal human pace. Except when they send the healers in to patch me up enough to, again, keep me alive.
I slowly blink open my eyes to see warm amber orbs watching me with shock, horror, fear, and anger. I know those eyes. “You came for me,” I croak, and reach up my hand to cup his face. I come into contact with slimy skin. My face scrunches in confusion as I pull my hand away to examine it.
The demon’s laugh is infuriating. This is the third time the fuckers got me to think I’ve been rescued by my familiar, family, and now vampire friends. I hiss in outrage. Not much more I can do. I’m too weak to do anything but that.
“You’d think this rat would know by now that no one is coming for it,” someone says from behind the demon crouched before me. I want to protest and tell them that they will find me. But I know they’re right. No one’s coming. I’m going to be stuck here until I die.
As if they can read the defeat on my face, the two demons laugh. “Now it gets it. Filthy witch.”
I close my eyes, ignoring them and wishing death takes me the next time I’m under their ministrations.
One of them yanks me to my feet and drags me to their torture chamber. My feet scrape against the stone floor, littered with debris. One of my feet catches on something and cuts me, as I’m pulled along as if my body is nothing more than a sack of grain. Pain flares through me, but I push the desire to hiss or make a noise at the sudden ache down. I feel my blood coming out of the wound. It’s warm where it pools before falling to the floor.
The demon stops outside the door and opens it, pushing me over the threshold and into the arms of another demon. This one smells like a garbage dump. Bile rises up my throat. It burns a path up my esophagus. There’s nothing in my stomach anymore. Only the acid that dissolves my food. Which is why this burns so much.
The demon ties me to a pole in the middle of the room, my arms tied behind my back and each ankle tied to the rungs at the base. Once the demon is satisfied I can’t get free, it backs away. Someone else steps up to me and starts his torture. A dagger is plunged into my side, tearing open my flesh down to my hip. I hold back my bark of pain, knowing it’s going to get worse. The demon says something to me, but the pain is so intense it’s drowning out the noise around me. All I can focus on is the white-hot pain tearing through my body. Through my arms, my legs, my feet. Then my face. That’s when I finally let out the scream. The demon slices through my face from the corner of my mouth all the way to my earlobe.
Darkness starts to take over my vision. Please, Goddess, let this be the last I suffer. Take me home.
Those are the last words I think before the bliss of nothingness claims me.
Chapter
Two
& nbsp; ELIPHAS
I fling the entire desk across the room. Laptop, papers, and anything else that was atop it all go flying. The paper scatters around the room, raining down like falling snow.
My temper is beyond my control. My fangs are a constant in my appearance right now, too. I couldn’t get them to go back in even if I tried. And I have tried.
Keasia has been missing for three weeks. We’ve searched everywhere. I had my many connections with all of the other races checking, and we have all come up empty.
I rip at my hair and snarl at the knock on my door.
“Yo, E, it’s just me.”
I relax, though only a fraction, at Deon’s voice. “Enter.”
He gently pushes the door open as he peeks in. No one wants to mess with a feral supernatural no matter how long they’ve known them. We’re unpredictable. He examines my destroyed office briefly before speaking.
“So one of the coven members had a vision.” I perk up a bit at that. “Tristan has orders to get home as soon as possible. I figured you’d want to know.”
“What is it to me?” I barely manage to get the words out without a growl.
“Tristan was told they know where Keasia is.”
I speed through the room, picking up the desk so I can get to my bag, and race out the door. “Why the fuck didn’t you lead with that?” I demand as Deon races along with me.
We’ve been staying at my house while we go back and forth between the coven, Keasia’s home, and her parents at the motel near The Diner. The coven still assumes that Gisselle and Blaise are dead or captured. Even though they have no real leader right now, we all agreed it would be best to keep that ruse up. We assume the same demon took Keasia, and we don’t want them to come after Blaise and Giselle if they learn the truth.
Besides, the wolves have been doing a good job of keeping them in line and feeding us intel as we feed it to them. Tristan did tell his parents, Nikki and Edric, that Blaise and Giselle are alive. But only mind to mind; we didn’t want to risk that information with anyone else. They actually took it a lot better than we all thought. They understood that Keasia had a plan in place, and they respect their son’s intuition enough to know that they weren't trying to be malicious by keeping it from them.
With all of us on the same page, it makes getting back and forth and sharing information easier since we don’t have to hide pieces to keep our secret. There’s only one secret I’m keeping. And I know I haven’t been able to hide it fully from the wolves with their ability to smell anything. But they’ve yet to bring it up.
We set up a meeting place; Blaise will open a portal and pick us up from there and drop us back off there. Then we go to them or to the wolves and coven for intel sharing.
This is the first time we have any leads on where Keasia may be. I’ve been impatiently awaiting this day. I swear to the Goddess if she is harmed or dead, those that took her will all die by my hand.
Blaise is in the alley waiting for us. It’s a deserted street with only drug addicts and alcoholics hanging about here. If they see anything supernatural going on, they’ll blame it on the high of whatever they’re on.
“Ready?” Blaise asks as we meet him in the alley.
“I’ve been waiting for this day for three fucking weeks.”
Blaise grimaces. “Me too, son. Me too.” He opens the portal into the alpha’s estate—the living room, to be exact. Everyone else is already there. There’s a witch who I haven’t seen before, and she’s trembling. Her chocolate brown locks and matching eyes make her pale skin look snowy white. They flash up to mine when I walk to the open seat beside Hallie.
“What’s wrong with her?” I whisper to the wolf.
She cringes. “E,” she starts. She’s been around Deon too long; he’s rubbing off on her. “Can you please retract the fangs?”
I shake my head. “I’ve lost control. You know why.”
She nods. “I do, but that’s why I’m telling you to put them away. She’s got news of our friend and your constant appearance of being on the verge of feral isn’t making her feel any better.”
“I’ll try.” I do. I really do. I breathe in deeply, closing my eyes and telling myself to chill the heck out. But it doesn’t work. “Sorry.”
Hallie just shakes her head. Deon takes the last open seat, and Nikki stands up and addresses us.
“Thank you all for coming so quickly. Stacie has news. She’s had a vision.” Nikki holds up a hand to stop the protests that are about to spill from my lips. “Before you say anything, vampire, know this, the only witch who gets visions regularly is Keasia. Stacie has only ever had a handful of them in her life. She wouldn’t know how to make them speak to her. Not like Keasia can.”
I just nod and wait for her to continue. Nikki gestures to the witch who is now in the spotlight.
“She’s dying. Her soul is reaching out to anyone who can receive visions to get help. She’s being kept in some warehouse. The name said T-Tool on the front of the red brick. I’ve searched for this place, and it’s in Massachusetts. I’ve jotted down the address. But it’s being concealed by magic. No tracking spells will work to find her there. The only way to get to her is to go there.” Now the witch looks right at me. “She will die if you do not get to her by midnight.”
I want to ask why me? But I know why. I’m the only one who could save her now. Her familiar may be able to, but she’s linked to me now, even if she doesn’t know it. Everyone else in this damn coven does. She’s my mate. Mine. So it’s my job to rescue her now.
I nod. “She’ll be brought back by then or I'll die with her.”
For the first time since Keasia was taken from us, my teeth retract. I know where she is. I can get to her. I can and will save her. Or I will kill them all and then follow her to the afterlife.
“There’s one more thing.”
I stiffen. I don’t like the sound of that. “She’s been tortured on a daily basis, healed, and then beaten again. She may not be the same person you lost when you find her.”
A feral snarl escapes my lips. “She will be saved and brought back here where she can heal. I’ll take care of the bastards who took her.”
She nods and gets up to leave, a female wolf following her out. I didn’t even realize she was there. That’s how bad I am. I need to get my head in the game. “What’s the plan?” I ask the room.
Chapter
Three
ORRIAS
I’ve spent a lot of time with Lovely these past three weeks. I had to report to my father twice. I held back my urge to throttle him for doing what he had to the leaders, but he informed me that wasn’t him. Suggested that they have many enemies. I didn’t tell him I could scent his magical essence in the air. I just shrugged. I lied to him, too. I told him I couldn’t get close to the witches since the attack. It’s not entirely a lie. I haven’t been alone with them. Lovely and the other wolves are always there. Whenever Tristan comes around, I’m not allowed to be there, leaving Lovely and me to take long walks to talk about anything we can think of.
There’s just something about the little wolf that I can’t shake. She leads me to our spot; it’s separated from everyone, and there’s a little bridge that connects the pieces of land that are divided by a small creek. We cross the bridge and sit on the riverbank facing the water.
Lovely absently tugs at the grass. She’s been on edge lately, and I just want to help soothe her fears, but I know I'm part of the reason they’re there. Even though I started this, I won't finish it. Something about Keasia, the leader of the Wolf Coven, calls to me. It’s like we’re linked. I’m part witch, not wolf, so I know that I’m not her wolf familiar. But there’s just this undeniable kinship. I won’t be the reason this coven and pack fall.
