Chosen Thief Read online

  Chosen Thief

  A Forever Evermore Novel

  Scarlett Dawn

  www.escapepublishing.com.au

  Chosen Thief

  Scarlett Dawn

  The second saga in the bestselling, groundbreaking Forever Evermore series begins with Chosen Thief, where the life of a skilled lawbreaker becomes much more than she ever wanted...

  Caroline Jules knows death is imminent. She’s only 22, but as an inmate of Death Row in the most secure Mystical jail, what else could her future hold?

  Caro has no idea. Her solitary, transient life is about to get flipped on its head when it is revealed that she is the new Prodigy Elemental, and she has responsibilities and ties that she can’t ever escape. Caro is attempting to run from a brutal past, but the Rulers have other plans for this thief’s future.

  But the transition from a self-contained existence to life with the other Prodigies, the Kings and Queens, and even the Elders was never going to be easy, and Caro has secrets she’s loath to share. Suddenly she has friends, mentors, lovers — and they all want to know more about her than she is willing to reveal.

  Will Caro ever escape the darkness of all she is, or will she fall deeper into the life that has been chosen for her?

  About the Author

  Scarlett Dawn is the author of the Forever Evermore new adult fantasy series, which includes King Hall, King Cave, and King Tomb.

  She lives in the Midwest of the United States, where she loves to ‘people watch’ and daydream. She adores her music loud and her fries covered in cheese.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to my family who are always there to listen to my crazy ideas for a new written world. You are my best cheerleaders, and I couldn’t ask for a more supportive family. Much love all around.

  Thank you to my managing editor, Kate Cuthbert. You rock hard, and your understanding of an author’s reality is crucial. I’m very blessed to have you.

  Thank you to my ball-crushing agent, Laura Bradford. You’re hard as rocks on the outside, and just as formidable on the inside. I need that. We fit.

  Thank you to my constant and steady line editor, Nicolene Hale. I love working with you, and I hope the feeling is mutual. You’re awesome!

  Thank you to all of my readers. From longstanding bloggers to new fans, every single one of your precious words mean the world to me. Bringing these characters to you is why I do this. I could have just as easily never published a book, but I truly wanted to share them. With you.

  To Jason,

  Your natural humor brightens even the darkest soul.

  I would like to think I passed this on to you, but it’s all you.

  You make the world that much more beautiful.

  Forever with a smile,

  S.D.

  Contents

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Bestselling Titles by Escape Publishing…

  Chapter One

  May 25, 2032

  Exquisiteness walked into the room, adorably locking the door as she always did when alone in a room with me. It was one of the many traits I found sweetly innocent about her, as if she thought a simple lock could hold back someone who really wanted in. The second was her smile, which she was now gifting me as she turned. She was dressed in slightly finer apparel than she normally wore: a long black dress formed to fit her small stature. On my own tiny frame I was wearing black leather pants with layered tank tops and a slim-fitting, black leather jacket — all made to hide the weapons I always wore — whereas she wore white pearls as her accessories.

  “We don’t have much time before my family gets back from their,” her hands fluttered about sweetly, “mission, or whatever they’re on, but I need to tell you a few things.” Her features suddenly turned apprehensive. “About me. I haven’t…” She paused, taking a deep breath, and began wringing her hands.

  Which I didn’t have time for.

  Nor was I really of the mindset to deal with any added surprises to my evening.

  “Isa…” I shook my head slowly, standing from the chair the butler — who the fuck still had butlers? — had led me to. “About tonight.” Inhale, slow exhale. “I’m not the woman to out yourself with.” Control, focus on control. “First, there’s no way in hell your family is going to be okay with us being together. By all accounts of what you’ve said about your mother, she’s pretty hardcore, and I’m sure she would rather string me up from a tree than let her daughter be with someone of a different faction — an illegal action, need I remind you — let alone with someone of the same sex. You’ve always told me how she goes on and on about you finding love with the perfect man, which I am obviously not.”

  Isa was already shaking her head quickly, her black and red hair flying about her cheeks.

  But I continued, knowing this wasn’t going to be easy. “Besides all that, one day you’ll meet the perfect woman, possibly your mate, and then you’ll tell your mother you prefer women. When you’re older, not seventeen years old. When you aren’t so afraid to be yourself.” I held her beautiful green-eyed gaze steadily. “But I’m not that woman for you.” I would never be.

  Isa’s jaw set, her mocha skin beginning to flush. “Caro, what the hell are you talking about?” She waved her hands at the fine, upscale living room we were standing in. “Why are you having cold feet right now? We talked about this!” Her nostrils flared, clearly agitated. “And why are you bringing up my age, especially when that’s never mattered between us.” She waved a finger up and down my frame. “You’re only twenty, so don’t act high and mighty.”

  “Exactly, Isa. We’re still young and just learning who we are.” We weren’t officially adults until the age of twenty-two. That seemed like a damn laughing-stock to me, since I couldn’t remember the last time I felt young, but it worked for what I needed to do. So I used it. “I’m not the woman you need for this.”

  “You don’t understand. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” She took two steps toward me. I countered, keeping distance between us, which she didn’t miss, her spring green eyes focusing on my feet for a moment. “Caro…” Her voice was swiftly cautious. “Why are you backing away from me?”

  I focused on nothing. Isa Jones, the girl I had let myself fall in love with, was a Vampire, having gone through her Awakening a few days ago, so she could scent my emotions. For this to go as planned — for her to move on with her life — she couldn’t know the truth. So I lied out of my ass, centering on white space, a limitless void I often found solace in. “Isa, you need to listen to me. I came here tonight to,” hold her gaze calmly, “end things between us.” Truth.

  Isa’s petite, sexy, perfect body went completely still.

  I focused on keeping my heart rate steady, knowing she was using every gift given to her to ferret out my intentions. “I’m sorry, Isa. I never meant to lead you on, but,” slow words, “I don’t love you.” Lie.

  She blinked ever so slowly. “What are you talking about?” She shook her head quickly, but blinked again, and with just as hesitant words she stated, “I don’t understand.”

  Inhaling gradually through my nose, I murmured, “Isa, I don’t want to be w
ith you anymore. I never wanted anything serious and I thought we were on the same page.” Lie. “But you got serious, so this,” I waved a hand between us, “has to stop. Tonight.” Truth. I felt my jaw start to clench and I quickly relaxed it, thinking of white hollowness. “I am sorry if I hurt you. That was never my intention.”

  Isa’s chest pumped in time to her gradually panting breaths.

  The only thing that kept me rooted to the floor, instead of exclaiming the truth and holding her close in the pain she was so obviously trying to hide, was the cell phone in my pocket. The phone that wasn’t mine. Unfortunately, the call I had received on it, during my drive over here, was. Placing my hands in my pockets, I specified a truth. “I told you in the beginning I wasn’t right for you. This shouldn’t come as a surprise—”

  She held up a stopping hand. “Shut up.” Her voice was a furious whisper, her eyes beginning to glow. “Just shut up, Caro.” Her Vampire growled quietly as she dropped her hand, her attention swinging to the side, staring at nothing. In the strained quiet, her chest heaved twice.

  Then her eyes snapped to mine.

  I saw the look I had hoped not to see tonight.

  Knowledge.

  Worldly knowledge.

  It was one of the reasons I had tried at a relationship with her after our initial attraction. Isa, the girl who held almost all of my heart, at the age of seventeen had sporadically shown me this side of herself. The portion that would rival old souls, someone who knew more about life experiences than middle-aged Mysticals. Since we lived many hundreds of years past Commoners, such knowledge was something to behold in someone as charmingly innocent as the beauty in front of me.

  “I call bullshit,” Isa blurted. She used her Vampire speed, giving me no time to keep the distance between us. She brought a slight breeze with her, and the smell of her sweet perfume. She stood nose to nose with me, her furious green eyes staring me down. “You do love me. I fucking know it.” I held my ground as her Vampire peeked out, her eyes glowing dimly and becoming all the more intimidating as she began a slow stalk around me. Her shoulder lightly rubbed against mine, sensually soft but also potent, forcing me to stare straight ahead and zone in on my calming thoughts. “Every time we made love, I felt it. For this entire year, I’ve seen it in your eyes.”

  She paused behind me, pressing her soft curves against my back, running her hands over my hips. “I didn’t even need to have my power to know.” She pressed her forehead against the back of my head and breathed softly, the warmth sending tendrils down my spine.

  I ground my jaw together, fighting the need to let our mouths meet.

  I heard her inhale and chuckle quietly before resuming her slow stalk around me. She whispered, “But now that I do have my powers, I’ve known for the last two nights we spent together that you love me. Even if you haven’t said it yet.” She stopped in front of me, and it took all of my willpower to not back down, because she was a seductress as she let her Vampire out to play.

  Through gritted teeth I claimed, “You can stop this game. Just because I find you attractive, it doesn’t mean I love you.”

  Her Vampire growled quietly, and I couldn’t stop what she did next. She came at me too fast, blurring. The sweetest Cupid’s bow lips were on mine, caressing in a not-so-sweet way, sensually wrecking my resolve, my mind.

  “Isa…” I whispered and pathetically, against my plan, desire outweighed practicality. I gave in for the briefest moment, needing this one last taste of her.

  With her lips as soft as silk, I took what she was offering, grabbing her face and driving my tongue inside her mouth. I turned us, slamming her back against the glass double doors behind me. Our tongues glided against each other’s, feeling and tasting of pleasurable devotion, our groans filling the air in a perfect melody of affection.

  “There it is,” she murmured breathlessly as our mouths unmolded. As I bit her delicious jaw, one of her hands swept into my hair while the other ran under my jacket to my back, holding me flush against her. “I can scent it. Your love for me is so fragrant.” She gripped me tighter, tilting her head further for my mouth. “I love you just as much, Caro.”

  I stilled, my teeth on her earlobe as she sighed softly.

  Goddammit. It can’t be happening like this.

  I jerked away, taking a few steps back, running a hand through my hair as I tried to catch my breath. I peered anywhere but at the mocha-skinned goddess before me.

  Silence reigned as we stood motionless.

  I knew she was regrouping just as much as I was.

  Which meant my game plan had to be damn perfect. She was anything but stupid.

  Slowly lifting away from the door, Isa took one step toward me. But stopped when I backed away. “Look, Caro, I know what you’re hiding under that black hair.” My gaze snapped to hers, and the corners of her lips tilted. Again, there was that age-old look staring me in the eyes. “I’m a Vampire, honey. When I bit you, I knew you weren’t an earth Elemental gone goth like you tell everyone.” Arched red eyebrows lifted. “But I didn’t even need to taste you to know that.” Her eyes dipped then swung back up. “I’ve seen you naked plenty of times.”

  “Isa,” I stated instantly, holding up my hands. “I would prefer you not—”

  “I won’t tell anyone,” she interrupted, her arms crossing. “You have my word, no matter how this plays out between us. I’m a firm believer in secrecy when someone hides what they are as hard as you do. Although, I have to admit, what I tasted was the last thing I thought you were.” Fuck, she was going for reasonable…which meant I couldn’t. “Now, tell me what the hell this is all about. Are you scared what my mom will say or do? Because I can tell you right now, she won’t care we’re of different factions—”

  “Stop, Isa,” I cut her off this time, and held her gaze steadily. “You don’t want me. You may have smelled love and attraction on me, but my love’s twisted.” And I was learning — too late for her — that was a whole other truth in itself. “I wouldn’t want to be with someone who has done what I’ve done. You deserve better than me.”

  Gently, her head tilted. “What have you done that you don’t think I would approve of? I know you have a past. No one at the age of twenty wears as many weapons as you do and doesn’t.” A slight shrug of her delicate shoulder. “I’m used to violence. Whatever you’ve done doesn’t even compare to my family, I can assure you. If anything, you’ll fit right in…if they don’t have a conniption that I’m not the little princess-to-marry-a-prince they always thought I was.”

  I didn’t back down. “You shouldn’t love me, Isa. You should move on.” I stared into her patient scrutiny…and took the deep, black plunge. “I cheated on you.”

  The very air shifted. It felt frigid as she gazed back at me, utterly frozen. “When?”

  “Multiple times in the past two months.” I kept my breathing steady, even as hers escalated. “I’m sorry, Isa.” I held my hands out like a true bitch, as if it wasn’t my fault. I even tilted my lips in what I thought was a careless fashion. “But like I said, I’m not the woman to bring home to meet mom. Not when I’ve been out fucking someone else.”

  There was no warning as a blurred fist slammed against the side of my face.

  Sparkles danced in my vision as I knocked into a table, the sturdy wooden antique and the pristine lamp on top of it falling to crash loudly on the wooden floor. The sound of porcelain shattering echoed before I reacted on years of training, twisting against what could be a bloody fall, and landed in a crouch. I shook the fuzziness off as I instinctively popped up, taking a few steps back from the furious Vampire. And my God, she was furious, her eyes glowing brightly, her fangs beginning to extend.

  “You fucking bitch!” she shouted, fists clenched as she leaned forward…and hissed at me. She had never looked more beautiful. “Who the fuck is she?”

  Calmly, I wiped the side of my face where I could feel blood slowly trickling down my cheekbone. I was fully playing the part I had c
hosen. “Not a she, Isa. A he.” I wiped the blood on my pants. “You know I’m bi.” I shrugged a shoulder. “You weren’t giving me everything I needed, so I—”

  I grunted, words and breath gone as her knee flew into my stomach, suddenly in front of me again. Jackknifing over with the precisely placed hit, I let her finish me off, shouting as pain exploded in my lower back when her elbow connected with my kidneys, taking me down to the ground.

  “Fuck you,” she hissed. “Goddammit, Caro. Fuck you.” She stepped over me as I sucked air on the ground, her heels clicking loudly on the hardwood. “You think you’re the only one to fuck the other person over here?” I lifted my head, pushing up on my arms as she turned around, walking backward. Her face was flushed and her eyes still glowing, enraged as she glared at me. “I’ve been lying to you this whole time, bitch,” she sneered at me as she lifted a pair of keys off a hook by the back door. “You don’t even know my last name. I didn’t trust you that much.” She threw open the door to the pitch-black night, the sound of crickets heavy on the air. She growled quietly, her Vampire pissed as she glanced to the wooden door she had first entered, and shook her head. “And to think I almost did.”

  Furious green eyes found mine as I slowly sat up on my knees. “I sure hope the dick was worth it, Caro, because you’ve lost me. Lost what we fucking had.” She shook her head fiercely. “What we could have had for a future together.” She turned to the opened door. Paused. Then she laughed harshly. “And you’d better get the hell out of here before my mom comes home.”

  Fierce exquisiteness strode out the door, slamming it behind her, though I heard the latch click, locking as normal. Not even five seconds later, I heard her Mercedes revving before the brash sound of her car speeding around the side of the intimate house could be detected, gravel picking up, more than likely wrecking its paint job.

  I waited a full minute before I let it hit me. And it came in a tidal wave.