The Lost Years by Natalie Shaw Read Free Book Online

thousand. The boredom was the worst part. I knew every blade of grass in the small enclosure. I could pick out a dozen different bird songs although I couldn't put a name to any of the species. Occasionally, a small creature would appear in the clearing: a rabbit, a mouse or a hedgehog. That would make my day. I sometimes had to throw stones at the rabbits to keep them away from the fence. I'd even grown accustomed to the smell of the wender berries which filled the air all year round.
    For the first few years, I'd held onto the hope that Craven would rescue me, but I'd long since realised that was never going to happen. Had he been killed or just given up the search? I had no way of knowing.
    What was the point of living if this was all I had to look forward to until they decided it was time for me to die? Why had they kept me alive for so long?  That was the question that still drove me crazy. It made no sense, but then nothing about my life made sense any more.
    The first three years had been the worst. During those years, I'd had to endure visits from a woman I'd once considered to be a friend. Layla had taken a perverse pleasure in torturing me at every opportunity. Not physically—she'd never stepped foot inside the fence. She'd inflicted her brand of pain with words. I hadn't seen her for twelve years. It was Marlow who'd told me she'd been taken by Milton as his mate. Having to associate with me was now below her status. I had three guards who worked a rota. Each of them covered one week in three. I didn't know the names of two of them, and had never exchanged a single word with either. Marlow was different. He not only spoke to me, but treated me like an equal. We talked. Or at least he did. I mostly listened to his tales of my pack. I'm sure he didn't tell me everything, but I was grateful for the small crumbs of information he fed me. From what he'd told me, it was obvious Milton's reign had brought chaos to the pack. For decades the Maja had lived in security under my father. His alliance with the vampires, and his tolerance of the humans, had meant the pack had thrived and expanded. Things had changed and not for the better. Milton had entered into a pact with Lassiter, but it was an uneasy alliance. Instead of co-existing peacefully with the humans, the vampires had persuaded Milton to turn a blind eye to their open blood-lust. As if that wasn't bad enough, there had been numerous attacks by shifters on humans. It was exactly the kind of folly my father had strove to avoid. Humans may be the weaker species, but they aren't stupid. While shifters and vampires had kept the peace and remained in the shadows, the humans had been content to perpetuate the illusion we were simply mythological creatures. The whole territory was now like a bomb about to explode.
    It was Marlow's turn on the rota. My other two keepers spent the bare minimum of time with me. Just long enough to deliver food, a change of clothing, and any other provisions I needed. Marlow stayed much longer—sometimes as long as three hours. Today was his last before the change of guard.
    It was late morning—I was in the cabin. Every day I washed with cold water from the sink. I'd managed to secure soap, hair shampoo and other toiletries, but it was still an unpleasant experience. My outer clothes and towel were swapped only twice per week. I did at least have a change of underwear for each day. That 'privilege' hadn't been introduced until the fourth year of my captivity. I don't think it was any coincidence it was granted shortly after Layla stopped visiting me. Marlow had never admitted it, but I was sure he'd been responsible for negotiating my additional privileges.
     
    A clanking sound caught my attention. I stood perfectly still and listened. No one else had actually been inside the enclosure since the fence was erected. Even when I'd fallen ill with a severe stomach bug, the medicines had been slid underneath the gate. I heard