The Scarlet Heron Read online

  The Scarlet Heron

  Healer Series

  Book Four

  Sharilyn Skye

  Dark Horse Publishing

  Morgantown, WV

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead is coincidental.

  Copyright 2019 by Sharilyn Skye

  All Rights Reserved

  E Book ISBN 9780960015962

  First Edition: April 2019

  Cover Photo: DepositPhoto/Piolka

  Cover Design: Dark Horse Publishing

  Chapter One

  I loved her from the first moment I saw her. Regardless of what she thinks, I loved her in spite of what she is and not because of it. I hated all things Faerie, up to and until that moment. The hatred boiled inside of me, a deep and abiding rage. I did not know exactly what she was until she pricked her finger on a thistle in a bale of hay and her blood called out to me. I did have my suspicions, but was not sure until that moment. I had ripped the throat out of the last being to carry that blood and there should have been no more, or so I thought. I had made it my life’s work to kill them all, but that was a lifetime ago and another story entirely.

  I was leaving the new house in the suburbs of Baltimore with the interior decorator when we passed her on the lane. She was magnificent, like a light shining through the dark of night, I could not tear my eyes from her and yet she was oblivious to me. She rode her magical creature, his purple aura bright around him, like she had not one care in the world and perhaps she did not. I knew what he was immediately, but had not seen his like in over two thousand years. It is doubtful that any other creature in this world would have recognized him for what he was, but I am also like no other creature. I too, used to ride such a beast. He was a gift from The Goddess and the rarest of all things, given only to those the Goddess deems worthy of such a gift. I did not know what a Faerie child living on this plane had done, or would do, to deserve such a protector, but I was determined to find out.

  Her bare legs wrapped around his short, stocky frame and carefree bare feet with toes painted red, swung like a child’s, mail in one hand and cellular device in the other. Her dark auburn hair kissed by the sun was pulled in a haphazard ponytail that grazed her lower back. Errant strands blew in the breeze around her face. She wore jean shorts, a white tee shirt, no socks and no shoes, not at all riding attire regardless of the century. A rope dangled loose around the creature’s neck and nothing more. He did not even wear a halter. My Guardian would never have allowed me to be so free with him. Hers sensed me, even if he could not see me and reared up, striking out tossing his mane. He was right to be worried. She threw her head, back and laughed at his behavior, baring her slender neck. If only she had known what he was trying to tell her, perhaps she would have listened. Clinging lightly to his mane, she swatted halfheartedly at him and urged him past my vehicle with an apologetic wave and a jaunty smile in my direction.

  She kicked the horse into a canter and rode with only her legs touching him and one slender hand wrapped in his mane up the hill to her house, isolated at the end of the lane. She laughed the whole way, it tickled my ears and stirred my heart. She was brilliant. The red of the creature blended with the red in her hair until they were one being. Summer sun glinted off of them, deflecting the light and breaking into individual colors like a prism. I watched her until we turned the corner and she was gone from my sight. The decorator watched me with a concerned eye and said nothing.

  I studied her for months, stalked her, if I am honest. I could not help myself. I needed to know what she knew about herself, if anything. I learned her routine and followed her so closely that I came to realize just how dangerously unaware she was, of what she was. She was a child by Faerie standards and should not have been out of her parents care. Her power, whatever it may be, lay dormant. I had heard no rumor of a Faerie in the area and my intelligence is better than the United States government, any government for that matter, She rode her horses, went to work and brought a seemingly endless stream of human males into her home. She made love with them. Nearly blinded by rage each and every time, I dreamt of killing them all. I am a vampire and have no compunction against killing and would not have mourned their loss. Sometimes, I got too close to her and she would reach for her head, shaking it, then look around. I would back off and her actions would stop. I began to think that she had some inborn way of detecting my kind, but could not be sure. I tried to keep my distance and watch her only from afar. I stayed in the neighborhood so much prior to our move that my People became curious. I poured more and more money into the new house so that I had a reason to be there. To be near her. I have a spectacular and costly home to show for it.

  It is not as if I was alone during this time. I too, had lovers. Many of them. I can not maintain one consistent human partner because of my faerie curse, but I had many men and women willing to lie with me. The longer one lives, the less physical form matters and the more having a connection of any sort influences one’s attractions. Where once these relationships had been a release to me, they no longer were. There was no satisfaction in mere sex after I found Lara Hennessey. I tried relations with other supernaturals because they burn hot, quick and had always been more than enough to satisfy me, but no longer. I engaged in every type of sexual dalliance I could think of to find sexual release and still I found no peace. Going back to my old ways, I reverted to disregarding any type of relationship for meaningless feedings and unfulfilling sex, before I eventually stopped even that. These interactions left me so empty that they ceased being worth it. Just seeing her that one time ruined me for any other soul.

  I watched her laugh and play with her lovers and recognized the similarities in our behavior. As delighted as she appeared to be in her moments with them at dinner or a movie, she was alone. She slept with them anyway, trying to find something, some magic that she had lost or never found. I did not know. Sometimes they would leave and never come back, others came and went a few times, but she allowed no one to stay in her life. I knew that she was broken, but did not care, for so was I. In fact it made me want her more. We had that deep seated emptiness in common.

  One night, when I could stand it no longer, I compelled and drank from one of the lovers leaving her house, drinking his memory of her and taking it for my own. I did not care that this was against our new laws, laws that I had made, myself. The new laws had yet to become public. We had yet to go public, so I drank from him as in the days of old. Though his memory was a pitiful imitation of truth, I could feel him in her, the memory of her skin sliding against his and the small sounds of pleasure she made with him. I could feel her hips moving against him and the tightness of her flesh around his, her smell, her hair and the memory of his orgasm. I could taste her on him and she was indeed magnificent, even more than I had imagined during these long months of watching. I felt her disconnect through him, even if he did not. She had allowed him into her body, but it went no further than that and before the act was finished, she was done with him, even if he did not know it. I imagined what it would be like to set such a creature on fire with true passion. I had not felt the stirrings of my heart in ages and I was shocked by them, especially when the object of my desire was as twisted as I. She brought forth strong and complex emotions, I thought long left behind. Long lived creatures often stop feeling anything, except boredom and lethargy. She stirred something in me long dead and it maddened me. Since that first moment, that first glimpse, that first laugh, that first smile on the drive. She made me crazy. I had hoped perhaps it was a passing infatuation or fit of lust that would fade, but I knew then that it was much, much more.

  She
was completely unaware of my intrusions into her life and it bothered me that she was so unafraid. What if another of my kind found her? We were coming out of the shadows soon and whatever web that kept her heritage a secret would be at risk. My people were dangerous and webs are easily destroyed.

  I used my contacts at the local hospital where she worked and learned everything I could about her. Lara Hennessey, BSN, RN, a graduate of the University of South Carolina with an excellent reputation as a nurse, even if her personal reputation was a bit less stellar. She was smart, clever, kind, direct and a dedicated employee. Her personal file stated that she was a widow. It did not say how her husband died. She left her house before sunrise, dressed as a warrior, with her stethoscope, scissors and other tools of her trade hanging off her scrubs and would return slouched, exhausted and sometimes defeated. Yet she did it again and again. Why I did not understand then, but have since come to. She is a Healer and was driven by that fact from her very birth. Her job as a nurse was a symptom of the larger drive she has to care for others. She cannot help herself, regardless of the cost. She has likely been doing it since her birth in an unknowing, unconscious way.

  One night, I meant to knock on her door and introduce myself, but I was struck by the sight of her through the window. She sat at her table wearing scrubs that reeked of the blood of another, staring at some point on her walls, a steaming cup of coffee untouched in front of her. She did not move, she barely breathed and she was so still I worried over her and could not walk away. After thirty minutes of this she rose, dumped her coffee in the sink and went into her bedroom. She never bothered to wipe away the tears that fell down her face. She got up the next morning and went back to work, I watched her leave from my bedroom, as I readied for the dawn. Her job is who she is. It did not always seem so harrowing, many a night she came home and her step was light, she would sing along to some modern song while she did her chores in her scrubs, sometimes dancing along with a pitchfork, rake or an imaginary partner. One particular night, I was entertaining the Ambassador of Germany and a few other important political figures when Lara came barreling up the driveway at impossible speeds, before careening to a stop in front of her house. We were out on one of terraces and had the perfect vantage point to see her go into her backyard, strip completely naked, burn her scrubs, bra and underwear in the seldom used fire pit while issuing forth a string of swear words like I have never heard before as she proclaimed death unto all bedbugs and lice and what they could do to themselves during the process of dying, all of which are physically impossible. Then she marched into her house, slamming the door. My colleagues stared at one another for a long moment after her tirade before low chuckles broke out. I did not know bedbugs had made a comeback, but after much discussion among my visitors and several Google searches, we found that indeed they have. My visitors have never been so entertained and congratulated me on my choice of neighborhoods. I shook my head and added another layer to the enigma that is Lara Hennessey.

  After the Oprah interview and the "Big Announcement," I was buried under paperwork, politics and appearances. I am the oldest of my kind and the leader of the Eastern Region of vampires and I am respected. I fought my way from the darkness and now all my hard work was beginning to pay off. We are legitimate, we are legal and we are proud of this. Mostly. I did not lose track of Lara, but I let her breathe and I breathed too. The emotions calmed and stabilized and only after I gained complete control over myself did I walk across the field between our homes and make my introduction.

  She knew what I was instantly. She is the first and only, even among The Tuatha de Danann, to know instantly what I am. She did not care. She aimed down her long rifle at me for a breath before making some internal decision I had no part in, then put it down and chatted amiably like I was a friend. She never looked at my power or the fact that there is no greater an apex predator. She looked at me from a face of pure perfection with emerald faceted eyes that do not belong in this world or any other and smiled. I was lost to her in that moment, hopelessly and forever lost. She smelled of salt, sun and the sea, it was a scent so out of place here on the outskirts of Baltimore, where she did not belong. She talked about horses like a starving person talks about a meal. She was excited and engaged, they are her true passion. I can attest to this. We could have talked all night, but she shivered in the fall air wearing thin scrubs that are little more than pajamas and I worried for her, her kindness and desire to talk about her favorite subject would have kept her there all night.

  Her Guardian was not as kind though and stomped his feet, striking at me from whatever angle he could manage, trying to tell her in no uncertain terms to send me away. She shushed him and did not. She had no idea what she was. Even after I told her. She laughed, throwing her head back without fear and stated in no uncertain terms that I was insane, which perhaps I am.

  The next night she fell asleep with her warm, calloused feet in my lap and a thin line of drool on her lips. She was exhausted from her day. The stink of the ill clinging upon her skin, even after her hot shower. I had offered to talk to her about her heritage and rub her feet. My exhaustive research on nurses revealed just how much they value a good foot rub and I was practised at them. I bored her to sleep. I am a two thousand year old Vampire-Faerie Hybrid; the only one of my kind left, I know because I killed the others. All of them. No one, not even my children, knows the extent of my power because it is not safe for them to know. I have destroyed entire family lines. I have been the most foul, vile, bitter and dangerous creature in the history of the world and there she slept with her feet in my lap, after I bored her out of her mind with my chatter. No one but she would do this. Has ever done this. My own children know better and rarely turn their backs on me, despite the fact that I haven’t killed a single one of them in many a decade. They are an unforgiving bunch.

  As she slept in the quiet of her home, I did too. I could not remember the last time I slept voluntarily, nor could I remember the last time I had been at peace. With her, I felt the deepest peace in many a lifetime. I learned the definition of home that night. All these endless lifetimes and all the machinations, set me up to find the one elusive thing I did not know I was missing and did not know I needed. Home. She was home to me. The realization shook the foundation of my existence and changed everything in my life going forward.

  In the early hours of that same morning, one of her many lovers came to the door. He said despicable things about her because of my presence and then hit her in the face, darkening her eye. Enraged, I nearly killed him and still, she did not seem concerned by me. She asked me to let it go and shushed me like she does her Guardian. She patted me on my back in an effort to comfort me and then sent me on my way. Bewildered, I left. I had to look up the English word ‘bewildered’ to put the word with the emotion, for it was a new thing to me, but has since become quite common and I have since learned the many ways one can conjugate and use it in sentences. That night I bent my knee to the Creature in her barn. I swore to him an oath of fealty upon my life if he would allow me to guard her and protect her, I would always remain true to her and see to her growth and safety. Whether she did, or did not accept me as a suitor, I would die for her anyway. She was a Queen. I told him this. Guardians are among the most intelligent of all Faerie Creatures and after discussing the matter at length, he agreed.

  He had long ago forgotten his true name. He called himself Tuffy, because that is what she called him. She has that effect. As a Faerie myself, even a changed one, he took my word as a bond and told me his story. His time was near. He had lived twice as long as a Guardian’s normal lifespan allows and was going to die soon. He had been born on the tip of an Island under the eye of a great Hurricane and he had loved and served her well. The Goddess had forged him for Lara alone and he had been her first and only Guardian to date. He said her parents could no longer care for her and that she had been on her own since she was thirteen. I mourned her loss of a childhood. For that is what it was. She was
an infant left to her own devices, regardless that the human world raises its children differently she is still a Faerie and should have had better care. Tuffy said she had done the best she could to make her own way.

  This was another commonality we shared, my own mother became unable to care for me at around the same age. I, however, was not raised to be independent and went to a wonderful foster home and they cared for me as their own. I do not remember much of my mother, only that she was the most beautiful woman ever, but I imagine all children feel this way. When I try to see her face in my mind’s eye I cannot, but I know for certain that she was lovely. I do not begrudge her for leaving me with a foster family, she did the best for me that she could. I feel some bitterness towards Lara’s parents, however. I do not understand what happened to them and doubt very much the story she tells about them is true. I understand it is the truth as she knows it and that makes me like them less. They certainly did not set up a contingency plan as carefully as my mother did and she has suffered because of it.

  I offered my life should I break my word to the Guardian. I would protect Lara and also help him with his transition to the afterlife and there begins the story of Galahad, who was to be Tuffy's replacement. The Goddess had prepared him for Lara, or so I was told, I knew then that Lara was a force to be reckoned with and that long range plans glimmered on her horizon. For only the most coveted and the most powerful of our kind will get a Gift so precious from the Goddess and she has received two. Lara is oblivious to all this. She is oblivious to many things and not in a bad way. She lives her life and could not care less what others think. She is vivacious and unapologetic. The rest of us should attempt to achieve this level of nonplus.