The Delta's Daughter Chapter 283

TAWNY

Heavy eyelids slowly blink open. My hazy vision begins to clear, no thanks to the thumping in my head. I jolt with a start, chest heaving and a scream dying on my lips. As my vision begins to focus, I realize I am not at the campsite. Nor am I in the palace. I reach out to my cat, Juniper, and am met with silence. My heart beats wildly with panic and fear of the unknown.

I’m lying on a soft surface – a bed, but not my bed.

For the love of Bastet, I feel like I got hit by a truck!

I shift my heavy limbs, turning to sit up and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. Everything on me aches and feels heavy.

I almost lay back down. Almost.

Looking around, I take note of the quaint and simple room. Beige walls and a bath sits in the middle of the floor. No toilet. A small wooden table and matching chairs that look hand-crafted I note. The bed I’m on and a small wooden dresser made of the same material as the table. No pictures or decorations. One window has bars across it. And a single entryway.

Groggily, I lower my feet to the floor and impishly move across the room. I listen and hear nothing. I scent and smell nothing. No guards outside the door, and no sounds from the other side of the door.

I have no idea where I am, or if I am even with whatever took Crimson and I.

I wait for a beat, slowing my haste to open the door and make a run for it. It couldn’t be that easy. No way would anyone leave a prisoner unguarded. Unless… I wasn’t a prisoner.

I place a hand over my heart as if that alone would calm the erratic beating. I think for a moment. I’m in no condition to run. I can’t even shift.

The thought has me second-guessing opening the door.

“Fuck it” I mumble to myself, lifting a hand and wrapping it around the brass handle. The handle turns and the door gently and silently opens. “Holy shit!” I gasp at my luck.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,”

“Holy shit!” I jump at the voice that startles me from my skin, turning to find the owner. “Where the fuck did you come from?” I ask the old woman who emerges from a corner of the room.

She smiles like it’s the best-kept secret. Until she turns her face, and it dawns on me that the whole left side of her body is painted the same color as the walls. Even her hair! Blending into the background like a chameleon.

With groggy eyes and heavy lids, she was easy for me to miss.

Still, I felt like a complete moron for not noticing her.

“Who are you? Where am I?” I demand answers, my hand still paused on the door’s handle and the door still cracked.

The old woman crosses the room, and with a quick shove, slams the door shut. “I ask the questions around here.” She looks me over and lets out a “humph”, not impressed with what she sees. “Sit. You will be collected shortly.”

With a quick movement, she shoves me away from the door and I stumble on my wobbly legs. She’s gone before I can right myself and hear the lock on the door click into place.

“Bitch” I mutter.

A glass of water sits on the table teasing my parched mouth. Gingerly I pick it up, giving it a good sniff before deeming it okay to drink and swallow down the refreshing liquid in three large gulps.

Wiping a hand across my mouth, I slowly move in a circle getting a better look at the room I’m apparently imprisoned in. Best looking cell, I have ever seen. I mentally talk to myself.

I couldn’t get a scent from the old woman. And only my scent lingered in the small room.

The haze in my mind is clearing more and the thumping headache is starting to wane. The sound of the lock clicking has me whirling around to face the door and instinctively, I place myself in a defensive stance. Ready to fight whatever comes through that door next.

My shoulders slump and I groan. My arms fall to my sides when two bulking werecats frames fill the doorway. They are huge! Like Mike huge! There was no way I could fight my way past them. What the fuck are they feeding these guys?

I scent them, definitely werecats, but not from Cambiador. I can at least determine that.

“Come with us,” The one with red… wait, they both have red hair. I take a closer look at the hulking men. Twins. And is that… a loin cloth they are wearing?

Where in the underworld am I?

I don’t have a chance to respond before they move forward and grasp an elbow each. “Hey,” I hiss “Watch the merchandise,” As they drag me to and out the open door.

The bright light of day blinds me. My eyes still adjusting, I squint and try to look around but it’s impossible to see anything, being stuck between these two brick walls.

My thoughts wander to Kolby, is he here? Are they holding him somewhere, is he okay? I am unceremoniously shoved into another building and the door slams shut behind me.

The old woman from earlier stands next to a similar table from the room I was in. Sitting on one of the wooden chairs is another woman, not as old but old. Her white hair is a stark contrast to her dark skin and her eyes are black as night. Her eyes flicker with recognition as I too sense something familiar about her.

The room is not much different from the one I was in before, with plain beige walls, and minimal furnishings, but two windows instead of one. Both are barred. So, another cell-like room.

“Sit.” The white-haired woman barks at me. Reluctantly I do.

“Are you going to tell me where I am and where my friend is?” I ask desperately wanting to know where Crimson is.

“We ask the questions. You answer them.” The old woman from before says again. The white-haired woman stays silent her face impassive, and the look of recognition gone.

“I heard you the first time,” I sneer. “You are being rude, kidnapping me and my friend, drugging us, and not even telling us why.” I lift my hand to touch the ring out of habit and gasp when I realize it’s not there.

“Is this what you are looking for?” The white-haired woman asks, pulling the ring and its chain from the pocket of her skirt.

I reach out to reclaim the ring, when she snatches it out of reach, closing her fist around the jewel and clicking her tongue. “Not so fast little one,” She mocks me. The ghost of a smirk hinted at the corner of her lips.

“That’s mine!” I growl out at her, meeting her eyes with a heated glare.

For all my anger, the white-haired woman is unfazed. Unthreatened by me. It does not give me confidence.

“Where is Kolby Crimson, the shifter I was with?” I ask again. This time with a more forceful bite and keeping my chin held high.

“What is your name?” She ignores my question.

“Where is my friend?” I ask again, unwilling to give in.

“Here, alive.” The white-haired woman clicks, tonging the inside of her cheek. I was annoying her. Good. “Now tell me your name.”

“Tawny.” I concede. Figuring if she answered me, I would answer her.

“Second name?”

I narrow my eyes, “Johnson” I tell her watching for her reaction, which doesn’t disappoint. “Give me my ring back.” I try.

“Why?” Even though she asks, she pulls the ring back out from the pocket of the plain suede skirt and holds it out to me. “Why is this so important to you?”

“Because it was given to me,” I tell her, plucking the ring from her open palm. The connection automatically puts me at ease and in seconds I can feel Juniper stir from the deep depths of my mind.

“Fascinating. And curious,” The white-haired woman whispers. Her eyes held fast on the ring in my fingers, which rub the blue jewel therapeutically. “Johnson, you say. Not Phanton?”

I jerk my head up, how did she know?

“You are Marisela’s daughter?” It wasn’t a question, but rather a statement. An acknowledgment. I gawk at hearing my mother’s name on her lips. Again, how did she know?

Her dark eyes soften and a look of longing crosses her face turning her hardened features into ones of love.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” She was making me uncomfortable. Her sudden change in demeanor had my fur prickling. I was missing something vital in the information I gave her and admitted to.

I was fully prepared to play dumb and give these people nothing. My stubbornness shines through but, as I look at her and the hearing my mother’s name from her mouth – I wonder who exactly is she?

I let some of the walls that surround me crumble. Risking myself by opening up and showing some vulnerability. But I needed to know. I was worried for Crimson, for myself, but now… all this was too much of a coincidence for me to not find answers.

“You are Lyoki. Touched by magic. The last in a long line. Your mother was Lyoki just as I am.” The softness of her features now morphs into awe. “You are a Phanton.” She nods to the ring I still play with. I look down to see the swirls of silver moving, a caressing motion under my thumb. “The ring only reacts to those who carry the Phanton bloodline. Or have been touched by magic. You are very special Tawny. Half werecat, half werewolf. My Granddaughter.”

“Impossible. My maternal grandmother died many moons past. When my mother was just a child herself.” I look at the white-haired woman claiming to be my grandmother, skeptically. My father told me many times about how my mothers, mother died when she was just a young girl. My father was orphaned at a young age when his own parents both died in a battle between packs.

She shakes her head with a wistful look. Then glances back down to the ring, snatching it from my hands once more and pocketing it “Hey!” I protest but stop when she cuts me with a harrowing glare.

“Shush now. I will give it back to you… eventually.” I don’t trust her. She seems over-eager to keep the ring. Again though, my curiosity and pride get in the way.

“Will you be giving me back my friend too?” I see her eyes flash with anger and her lip curls with disgust.

“He is no friend of yours.” She spits out words full of venom and I rear back a little at her hostility. What did Crimson do for her to hate him so much? “That… thing is an abomination and should have died at birth.”

I gasp in shock and my heart clenches at the sound of her hate-filled words toward my mate. “That’s a cruel and heartless thing to say. About anyone. I doubt you even know Crimson!” I stand, stretching my neck, raising to my full height, which isn’t much. But I will be damned if this woman thinks she can speak of him this way. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but I can assure you, start treating me and my friend better or you will hate what’s coming for you.”

The threat is there, and I know for a fact, once Mason realizes we are gone he will stop at nothing to find us. If he can’t, then he will be calling Queen Lamia and lord help them all because she will tear the realm apart until I am found. “You have no idea who you are holding prisoner!”

She lets out a long deep amusing laugh. “You are not a prisoner granddaughter,”

“Great then I will just collect my friend and we will be leaving.” I turn, hiding the faint smile on my face at my win.

“Not so fast.” Behind my back, gone is the amusement in her tone. Her voice is back to the calculating and cold hardness. Demanding. “I would prefer you stay of your own accord. I do not wish to keep you locked up, however, I will if that means you staying here.”

“For how long?” I ask turning back slightly to look at her, to see if I can read her.

“Until the rise of the New Sun, the morning after the full moon. Four days.”

“And Crimson? I want to see him.” I thought for sure she would deny my request. To my surprise, she reluctantly agrees and snaps her fingers at the older woman that still stood silently next to her. Without a word the old woman silently slinks out of the small room through the door, closing it behind her.

The white-haired woman shuffles out from the other side of the table and stands next to me, a good head taller. Slender and poised. Rank reeked off her and if I had any doubt as to who was in charge. I didn’t now, as she let her aura wash over me.

She may be powerful, but her age and status didn’t intimidate me and I knew I could take her down – if I needed to. I didn’t want to though, I wanted answers - now. Who she was, why she called me her granddaughter, and why she was so upset and detested Crimson.

“Let me see my friend and I will consider your request.” I look up and into her dark eyes, locking her with a determined stare.

“All right,” She concedes. “Walk with me, let me show you, my home.”

We walk out of the small room and back into the bright light of the day. The haziness has all but receded and I could feel Juniper more. The bright light still had me squinting, but as we ventured out into the open, I was able to see much more this time. The twin guards were still close but gave us enough space to talk in private.

Small cottage-like structures dotted the area, forming a somewhat circle. They were identical, except some held two front-facing windows and others had one. All windows were barred, making the quaint structures look like prison cells.

As we walked through the group of buildings, I noticed a much larger structure not far off from where we were. A huge stately home that was akin to Pack houses back in the New Moon Kingdom.

“Welcome to the kingdom of Tolba.” The white-haired woman says stretching her arms out, gesturing to all I could see. The sound of children’s innocent laughter has my head turning, seeking out the sound of the cheerful souls. “I am Lady Althea, and also, your grandmother.”

“I was told my mother’s, mother died.”

“She did, I did. In a way.” Lady Althea sighs heavily, slowing our walking pace. “I was born here, in Tolba. My family moved to Cambiador when I was a child. An arranged marriage had me becoming the Queen of Cambiador and for years I was happy with Armand, your grandfather. When your mother, Marisela, was a young child and I was happily married to King Armand a visitor from Tolba came. This visitor was my fated mate.” I chance a glance at Althea and see the longing and distant look in her eyes, the look that yearns for their lost mate. I know this look because I would see the same look in my father’s eyes every day. “Armand helped me fake my death so I could be with my true love. His only request was that our daughter, your mother stay with him. I agreed and Armand would keep in touch with me, sending me pictures and letters. At some point, his communication just stopped, about 20 years ago now. Then one day I received a letter with his seal to tell me our daughter had died.” Her eyes glazed over, and I could feel the sorrow rolling off her. It matched my own.

“Why fake your death?”

“Because my dear, it was easier. Back then, times were worse than they are now. Your grandfather would have been forced to take another mate, a queen. He wasn’t ready. It does, however, sadden me to think he never found love again, never found his mate or fell in love.”

“Then what happened?” I urged her to carry on.

“Then, for a time we lived in happiness and peace. Until a man came and found a home here. Falling in love with the most beautiful lioness in the village. The daughter to the Pride King.”

“A Pride? Lioness princess?” I didn’t think there were any true Prides left. There were some villages in Cambiador that called themselves Prides, but they weren’t real Prides not one of them had the spirit animal of a Tiger or Lion. That race had been snuffed out long ago. Or so I thought.

“Yes, Tolba is the last of the true Prides. My nephew will be the Alpha of this pride once he has chosen a Queen that can bear him cubs.” I squirm under the look she quickly casts me, looking me up and down with a satisfied twitch of her lips.

I try to ignore it and turn the conversation “Why do you hate my friend Crimson so much?”

Again, she snarls at the mention of his name, the act digging into my skin and Juniper lets out a low growl at the way this woman regards my mate.

“He is a disgrace, trouble. He holds evil within him.”

“You don’t even know him! How can you say that?” I defend my mate. Anger bubbles inside me, raising and simmering just under the surface of my skin.

We stop outside another building and I take note. Unlike the quaint cottage-looking buildings, like the room I first found myself in, this one is a deep grey, dark and unwelcoming. A coldness creeps over me as I realize this place is a dungeon. No windows, a single door, and the breeze block it is constructed from looks rough - final.

Lady Althea opens the metal door and immediately I am hit with the scent of blood and almost undetectable, is the scent of Cinnamon.

Crimson is here.