Taken (Ava Delaney #4) Read Online Free

Cursing, he leaned against the desk and took a
couple of deep breaths. The weakness hit him at random moments, and
from the hard set of his jaw, he was still struggling to deal with
it.
    “Can I get you
anything?”
    “No! Just… just
go, Ava.” His good mood had vanished, and I felt a squirm of
agitation at the look in his eyes.
    I desperately
wanted to talk to him, but I let it go for fear of scaring him off.
I knew he was still trying to find his place in the world, but his
weakness wasn’t something that should shame him. I could have
helped him. Somehow. Like Peter, he retreated and pushed everyone
away when things got tough. Not that I could talk.
    On the way
home, I amused myself with thinking about the witch and what she
might be doing with Eddie. It was possible they were in some kind
of relationship, but Eddie had a habit of picking up strays so he
could use them later on, and she set my alarm bells ringing. I was
slowly learning to trust my instincts when it came to people being
off in some way.
    I bought Dita a
comic with a female superhero on the cover. Something about her
mother sparked a memory, and I wanted for Dita something I’d never
had—to let her see it was okay to be brave, that it was okay to
learn how to save ourselves. That lesson was something I was still
learning.
     

Chapter
Three
     
    Uncomfortable
dreams haunted my sleep that night. Back in Liverpool with the
twins, Lucia and Lorcan, surrounded by hooded figures with baseball
bats. Lorcan trying to protect Lucia with his sword. Lorcan
failing. The usually silent Lucia, covered in blood, looking
straight at me and screaming like a harpy.
    I awoke
shaking, covered in cold sweat, although my arms felt as if they
burned. Turning on the light, I stared at my wrists in horror. A
chain of scarred burn tissue circled both of my wrists.
    A quick scope
of the house soon reassured me that no one had been in my home. So
what was the wound from?
    I remembered my
dreams. They had featured the half-fae twins, who I still owed a
favour. I had promised to find a way to free them of their slavery
to the vampires. I had promised them safety. I had made a deal, and
I still hadn’t completed my end of it. Maybe the branding was some
kind of reminder.
    I scrubbed my
entire house, but even the excessive cleaning didn’t ward off the
feeling of dread that scratched at my insides whenever I glanced at
the brands on my wrists.
    I had agreed to
meet Esther at Gabe’s bar, so I walked there that evening, enjoying
the feel of the sun on my skin. If I was lucky, we would have a
real summer, thus keeping the vampires away for longer.
    At the bar, the
burly bouncers let me in without any hassle, although a couple of
people in the queue hissed as I cut in line. I didn’t care. I
couldn’t see, or smell, Esther, so I sat at the modern bar and
waited for Finn.
    “Something
non-fae tonight,” I warned the blond bartender.
    He grinned, but
the smile froze on his face when he caught sight of my newly
branded wrists on display as I removed my jacket. “Who did you piss
off?” he asked, lifting my arm delicately and peering at the burn
with real concern.
    “Someone who
doesn’t exist,” I said sharply, remembering his dismissive comment
about half-fae. “So what is it then?”
    “A link,” he
said. “You and your deals are going to get you killed.”
    “What do I do
about it?”
    He looked at me
as if I were mad. “Do whatever you said you would do before your
entire body gets covered with these. Eventually, it’ll get inside
you. You won’t like that, Ava, so get cracking.”
    “I’m trying. It
just isn’t as easy as I thought it would be.”
    He shook his
head as he wandered off. “Sucks to be you.”
    I had been trying, but there were problems. England was going through one
of their committee elections. Things were in a bit of an uproar
because the elections had been called while most of the vampires
hibernated or flew north for the summer. The sneaky