Severed by Sarah Alderson Read Free Book Online Page A

the Elders? Five hundred years ago maybe? During the Shapeshifter rebellion? A thousand years ago when the Originals were culled?
    ‘How are they recruiting an army?’ he asked. ‘They couldn’t even recruit enough members for the Brotherhood.’
    ‘I’m just telling you what I’m seeing,’ Issa answered.
    ‘But if the prophecy is marked,’ asked Flic, ‘why are they bothering to send an army? It won’t change anything, will it?’
    ‘No. But that’s never stopped anyone from trying. That’s why we don’t get involved,’ Issa answered with a frustrated sigh.
    Lucas continued to study her. She was staring innocently back at him, her enormous blue eyes clouding over as if she had cataracts. He wondered what else she could see. Could she see his future? Could she see where it intersected with Evie’s and the point at which it diverged? He fought the urge to ask. ‘Issa,’ he said instead, ‘I need to find someone – another Sybll. She was in the Brotherhood. She might be able to help. I …’
    ‘You mean Grace,’ Issa interrupted before he could even finish.
    ‘Yes,’ he said, realising she must have anticipated this question.
    Issa shook her head. ‘She vanished around the same time that the Elders took Tristan.’
    ‘They took Tristan?’ Lucas asked, his stomach dropping. Tristan was the man in charge of the Brotherhood. The man who had trained him and ordered him to kill Evie. ‘What have they done with him?’
    ‘They banished him to the Thirster realm,’ Issa answered. And then, as she anticipated his next question, she added in a quieter voice, ‘They blamed him for what happened to the Brotherhood – to the others.’ She paused, ‘For your betrayal and for Evie escaping.’
    Lucas was acutely aware of the three of them watching his reaction, so he blanked his expression. But all he could see now in his mind’s eye was Tristan, a Shadow Warrior, but a wounded one, banished to a land where he would be easy prey. Unless he found some allegiance with the Originals – the older Thirsters who no longer fed. There were worse fates, but right now Lucas couldn’t think of any. And it was his fault. He was the one who should have been banished. The crime had been his, but Tristan was the one paying. He squeezed his eyes shut.
    ‘Look,’ he heard Flic say, ‘we need to get going.’
    ‘Where to?’ Lucas asked, trying to clear his head of the images that were now racing through it, trying to shake off the molten layers of guilt that were settling over him.
    ‘The Tipping Point,’ Flic answered.
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘It’s a club.’
    ‘And there’ll be unhumans there?’ he asked.
    ‘Oh yes,’ Flic answered with a slow smile. ‘You’ll have your pick. Last time a fight broke out between some Scorpio and some redneck Thirsters and the rogue Hunters arrived and broke it up quicker than a Shapeshifter can shift. Let’s just say the place is now a charred relic, as are the bodies of those unhumans.’
    ‘You don’t need to come with me,’ Lucas said. ‘It’s going to be dangerous. Just tell me where the place is.’
    ‘No. We’re coming,’ Flic snapped.
    ‘Issa says it’s fine,’ Jamieson added when Lucas opened his mouth to protest.
    ‘You’ll need someone to get you past the doorman,’ Flic said. ‘You can’t walk in there and show your face. You’ll have to stick to the shadows.’
    ‘Word’s out, Lucas,’ Jamieson said with a grin. ‘Everyone’s talking about the Shadow Warrior who ran off with the Hunter. You’re famous.’
    ‘And you have a price tag on your head.’
    Lucas looked at Issa. She seemed vaguely amused. ‘How much am I worth?’ he asked.
    ‘Enough for me to reconsider family ties,’ Flic quipped, though Lucas wasn’t entirely sure she was joking.
    ‘Six figures dude,’ laughed Jamieson.
    Lucas smiled grimly. ‘Let’s see if we can up that.’

Chapter 7
    Evie looked up at him when he walked in. She was crouched on the ground, her