Finding Hope (The Others Book 2) Read online

  FINDING HOPE

  The Others – Book Two

  Sabrina Rue

  Finding Hope: The Others – Book Two by Sabrina Rue

  Copyright © 2010-2018 Sabrina Rue

  Published by Always the Good Girl LLC

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  However, if you believe in the paranormal or supernatural, I might be talking about you or someone you know in your world. Anyway, for the non-believers…it’s absolutely a work of fiction.

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise. Don’t pirate books. It’s a jerk thing to do to authors who put a ton of work into their writing. Just don’t steal. Easy.

  HUMANKIND IN REVIEW

  An Observation

  Few mortals understand the vastness of the world around them. Nothing is as they believe it to be and watching them was an exercise in both patience and pity.

  However, they are a wonderfully curious lot. Their physical maps simplified the supernatural world and made it easier for territories to be defined and defended.

  Despite their fragility, humans breed at an incredible rate. Faster than any race of Others.

  Their numbers are great, unmatched by any sentient species in the galaxy. Their violent natures and incessant wars threaten the lives of all who call the small blue planet home.

  It was when the Others looked away, grew bored with Homo sapiens, that the lesser beings bent their minds to global domination equipped with weapons certain to kill everything and everyone, including themselves.

  Those of the Greater Kingdoms are strong in power, wealth, and history. They keep the humans enthralled enough to keep them fearful and off-balance.

  Even those who don’t openly believe in the existence of Others question the unknown. It’s taken thousands of years of focused propaganda, but it’s necessary to conduct business. The childlike minds of mortal men make them susceptible to superstition, magic, and myths.

  The earliest inhabitants of the Greater Kingdoms watched the creatures emerge from the darkness and aided in their evolution.

  Every Daemon believed they would continue to evolve.

  As millennia passed, humans sought knowledge and mastered the world around them. No matter their art, music, books, or technology, there was limited change to their natural propensity for violence, cruelty, and greed.

  They view the world in stark black and white, placing anything considered different in categories of good or evil. Blanket designations that don’t apply to any species or race in their entirety.

  As time passes, humans exhibit less patience and more aggression.

  The Others tire of placating beings who behave as locusts while displaying meager empathy toward their fellow man or the planet that sustains them.

  Should they unify, the Lesser Kingdoms could crush the humans, even without the help of the Greater Kingdoms. A focused assault would decimate their numbers in a way that would take a thousand years for them to overcome. Leaving them alive but without the capacity for global harm they currently possess.

  One thing grows painfully clear as the centuries pass and the world grows ever more unstable…

  Something must be decided about the humans.

  GREATER AND LESSER KINGDOMS

  A History of the Others

  Our kind exist in an additional layer to your own. Much like a cool blanket of snow over warm earth.

  You see us every day, pass us on the street, frequent our establishments, and at times, even give birth to our children. You are unaware, complacent, and certain you are the most important fish on a little blue planet of water.

  While you are the largest, you are far from the most dangerous.

  Few mortals consider anything beyond their busy – but strangely short – lives. Fewer still find the answers to the questions they’re told not to ask.

  Because you’ve searched, because you needed to know, because you seek the truth despite the chill that races up your spine even now…you are granted entrance to a world not intended for you.

  You’ll need to understand the inhabitants of this realm or risk your life with unintentional ignorance.

  Our kind already knows yours…better than you do.

  We begin with the ruling classes of the Greater Kingdoms.

  Daemons (and Angels) exist at the top of the food chain. There are no predators of any species as dangerous. They arrived when humans still lived in caves.

  They originate from a pristine planet in a galaxy that prided itself on peace, knowledge, and growth. Only their shrinking numbers due to a lack of compatible Mates sent five thousand of their kind into the vast universe in search of more.

  Daemons made it their job upon arrival to raise mankind to a higher place of consciousness. As a result, they are woven throughout the very fabric of human history in the form of myths, legends, and gods.

  They breed rarely. Female Daemons are only fertile with their biological Mates. While this is most commonly other Daemons or humans…Fate can have a strange sense of humor.

  Their true lifespans are indeterminate as is the full range of their power. Most succumb to death by their own hand when the sorrow of loneliness becomes too great to bear.

  Over time, these powerful and little understood beings became scapegoats for the perversions of men. For every supplication to a benevolent god, there is a curse toward the supposed opposite.

  Daemons, devils, darkness…interchangeable concepts in the human mind.

  Angels are Daemon kind. Despite human belief, they’re Daemons with wings. The skills, breeding, and lifespans of Angels mirror those of their wingless brothers and sisters.

  The ability to fly is a genetic anomaly that manifested on their old world but more often on their new one. They took to the air and enthralled humans easily inserted them into the framework of their emerging spirituality and consciousness.

  Earthbound Daemons were perceived as evil.

  Winged Angels were perceived as good.

  Wars based on different interpretations of the same beings brought Daemon kind to the forefront of conflicts.

  Some stirred the humans to greater aggression and found entertainment in their bloodshed while others retreated to the Daemon dimension as bodies piled up. Few involved themselves as forces for good to stop the dying.

  The races of the Lesser Kingdoms are powerful against humans but no match against Daemons of either form.

  Humans are insanely curious by nature and became fascinated with improving their lifespans and abilities. They combined Daemon blood – often involuntarily – with other creatures through early forms of science labeled as witchcraft.

  After hundreds of attempts and devastating failures, they succeeded. They did not accomplish their goals without guidance. The results of these experiments resulted in the inhabitants of the Lesser Kingdoms.

  Two thousand years later, their creation gave birth to a Daemon faction determined to wipe out what they consider abominations.

  Purists, a Daemon cult spawned by one of the oldest of their kind, terrorize and murder all beings created from Greater Kingdom blood.

  Their zealously defended core principle is that any possessing Daemon blood, but not one of their kind, must be executed.

  Witches and Warlocks were the first humans to question what could be seen with the naked e
ye. It was their dabbling with things they struggled to comprehend that gave birth to the earth-born Others.

  Scientists at heart, they used aspects of nature to test their theories. Their unusual control over nature energy has no known origin but it’s believed the Daemons themselves tweaked human genetics to increase mutations and the likelihood of compatible Mates.

  A theory neither confirmed nor denied by Daemon kind.

  Witches procreate as quickly as other humans but have little desire to do so. To ensure their people and skills didn’t die out from lack of offspring, prophecies were put in place to protect family bloodlines that bred true for magic.

  Covens are insular, meant to protect everything learned by the Witches who belong to it. Persecuted throughout history, they are secretive and distrustful. This extends to most inhabitants of the Greater and Lesser Kingdoms.

  Weres are the oldest race created from human stock. Their earliest recorded appearances, failed attempts by the Witches, were fraught with ignorance, terror, and death.

  They learned to hide in plain sight, so they could exist in peace.

  Most Weres were created from wolves, bears, and big cats. They were more compatible and accessible to early Witches. However, there are whispers of Were kind among the apes as well.

  Half-breeds consisting of both human and Were have a higher survival rate during the brutal pregnancies. For two millennia, it was believed that Weres could only Mate with their own kind and humans.

  An assumption disproven as cross-species Mates begin to connect.

  Weres are long-lived. The oldest of them recorded to have lived to three hundred years. Their power began in Europe during the Middle Ages, but the Americas opened vast avenues of wealth and opportunity for their kind as well as uninhabited land to run.

  Overall Were kind are organized, Pack-oriented, and aggressive about protecting their people.

  Vampires came into being several decades after the Weres, yet firmly overlook this small detail. They’re the most violent of the Others. Willing to go to war over imagined slights or perceived threats.

  With a tendency toward narcissism, they enjoy playing cruel games with humans that can result in countless deaths.

  Vampires avoid others of their kind to limit exposure within their preferred hunting grounds. Generally solitary by nature, they create another by exchanging great quantities of blood until it overwrites human cells. Infertility is common, but the cause is not.

  Ever hungry for blood and power, Vampires have attempted to out-breed the other races of the Lesser Kingdoms by turning humans in incredible numbers. The wars that inevitably followed ushered in the deaths of most of their volatile offspring.

  The Council put strict guidelines in place to prevent such reckless attempts in the future. Vampires care little for rules.

  Shifters are direct descendants of the Witches; however, their true origin is unknown and shrouded in secrecy.

  Some believe they are the by-product of experiments to create Weres, a result of cross-contamination between animal and Daemon tissue.

  Shifters flourish in ways the purer races do not. This may be due to the fact that their genes began as an accidental mutation and continue to mutate. Unlike most members of the Lesser Kingdoms, Shifters can completely conceal their true natures.

  They have the ability to take on the appearance of any beast with the skills and senses inherent to it.

  They breed quickly and are prone to multiple births. However, always feeling somewhat apart from the Others, they’re usually solitary with all but those they consider their litter mates.

  Goblins, Nymphs, Elves, Fairies, Sirens, Gargoyles, Wraiths, Djinns, Yeti, Mers and others maintain tribal societies who rarely admit other races to their ranks.

  This insular behavior and lack of new blood led to dwindling births and fewer allies over time. They’ve been decimated, some annihilated entirely, by Purists and being caught in the crossfire of human wars.

  While these races are capable of breeding with humans, the half-breed offspring were often shunned or killed. It’s been many centuries since they interacted with the world outside their tiny enclaves.

  The Council

  The Council consists of twelve seats of power. Six belong to Daemons (and Angels). Witches possess two seats. Weres, Vampires, and Shifters each possess one. The final seat represents the smallest societies among the Lesser Kingdoms.

  Each race of Others maintains a Parliament that governs the laws of their kind. All Parliaments answer to the Council.

  When humans such as you stumble into this world without the protection of a Mate, the Council meets to determine your fate.

  There’s no guarantee you’ll leave your trial alive.

  The world is changing yet again. The Others have long been accustomed, even encouraging, of these changes. Humans remain undeveloped in this skill.

  Perhaps you will be different. Perhaps you belong here.

  In the meantime, enjoy the following story.

  PROLOGUE

  Hope Kassis could smell her twin sister and didn’t understand what that meant.

  At first, she wondered if the Montana Wolves chasing them for fucking years had caught Harmony and were using her as bait to catch Hope.

  As the possibility entered her mind, she laughed. No Were would ever best Harmony. No fucking way.

  Then she received confirmation that her twin was safely with her Mates in Texas Pack.

  There was no time now to solve the mystery. There was a lot to do and very few hours to do it.

  At this moment, Ryan had to come first. She had to rescue him before he succumbed to his injuries.

  Everything depended on getting him to safety.

  When one of the human servants loyal to her parents got her a message that Ryan Sharpe was being held in the cells beneath her childhood home, Hope put together a plan.

  She had no choice but to return to Montana Pack despite her vow never to do so again when they were exiled.

  Stashing everything of value, she drove from Arizona to Montana with rage in her heart and vengeance on her mind.

  She didn’t try to shake her hunters. She killed the ones she could and outran the ones she couldn’t.

  New people chased her and she suspected Harmony had sent them but she couldn’t be sure. There was no way to tell whose side they were on. Just in case, she got gas in specific towns, sending a message to her sister.

  Otherwise, the risk was too great.

  Even if the information she received was part of an elaborate plan to get her here, she had to try.

  One thing at a time. Anything less than her total concentration would mean failure.

  The cave was high in the hills set back from a rocky ledge. The slim pack she carried held medical supplies for a wounded male. She had to keep him safe long enough to get him out of enemy territory.

  The temperature was steadily dropping at night. In her insulated climbing gear, she scaled the sheer wall and pounded in anchors every few feet. She’d need them on the return trip to rappel a wounded Ryan safely to the ground.

  The going was slow but she had the almost full moon to guide her. When she reached the narrow ledge in front of the hidden cave mouth, she hauled up her pack and all her ropes.

  Slipping sideways into the cave, she put down her gear and took the bitter deer urine spray hunters used and covered the ridge with it, spraying some over the side to coat the ground.

  It was already all over her boots and she’d done what she could to cover her tracks through the forest that lined the property she’d grown up on.

  All her precautions might be for nothing but she did her best.

  Dropping down the dark fur rolled above the entrance, she knew it would cover any light inside the cave or tunnels.

  She removed the medical kit and snapped together a lightweight titanium litter she’d designed in case things were worse than she realized.

  After eating jerky and dried fruit, she sucked down as
much water as she could hold and curled up in her sleeping bag for a couple of hours. The climb had taken a lot out of her.

  Too long on the run without enough food and sleep had worn her down over the years and her body had been through a lot. She knew she had a low-grade fever and multiple infections.

  Going into Change would help her heal but the thought of shifting into her physical Wolf filled her with terror.

  Willing herself to get the first sleep she’d had in too many days, she didn’t hear the visitor who checked on her without a sound but left her in peace.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Hope was sore when she woke hours before dawn but knew she had to push herself if she was going to have any hope of getting out of Montana Pack territory alive with Ryan.

  She carefully packed her gear and left it beside the opening of the cave so it would be ready for a full-speed exit.

  Checking her weapons, she strapped them to her thighs. Never as skilled at hand-to-hand as her twin, Hope had long ago learned to use man-made weapons to fill the gaps in her training.

  All the years of her childhood, her father warned her to take his lessons seriously. Harmony had loved the games but Hope was a daydreamer, a reader, and just wanted to sit in peace with the young members of their Pack.

  Her ammo could kill a full-grown male Were but she often used tranquilizers to drop them on their asses.

  A little less blood-thirsty than her big sister, Hope hated killing. Not that she wouldn’t, she just didn’t want to.

  Coiling her long hair into a tight knot at the nape of her neck, she covered her head with a dark cap. Smudging black makeup over her pale skin, she sprayed her body with scent masker again before pulling on snug black gloves.

  Her tactical pants, body hugging under armor, combat boots, and flak jacket were all black and coated with scent-blocker.

  Turning on a low-beam flashlight in case there were areas weakened since she was last here, she strapped on the smaller slim black pack, grabbed the litter, and headed for the solid rear wall of the cave.