Scarred Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  SCARRED

  Copyright

  More by Amber Lynn Natusch

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  Epilogue

  Connect with ALN

  Next in the Series

  Tempted by Evil

  What I'm Reading...

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  SCARRED

  By

  Amber Lynn Natusch

  Version 1.0

  Copyright © 2012 Amber Lynn Natusch

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9849464-3-3

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

  Published by Amber Lynn Natusch

  Cover Design by Jamie Rosen

  Editing by Jennifer Ryan

  www.amberlynnnatusch.com

  More by Amber Lynn Natusch

  The Caged Series

  CAGED

  HAUNTED

  FRAMED

  SCARRED

  FRACTURED

  Novella 1

  STRAYED

  Novella 2

  BETRAYED

  Coming Soon:

  The UNBORN Series (Caged sister series)

  The Light and Shadow Trilogy (YA Fantasy)

  See more in the back of this book

  By Shannon Morton and Amber Lynn Natusch

  More Including Release Dates:

  amberlynnnatusch.com

  facebook.com/amberlynnnatusch

  Follow @AmberLNatusch

  Tweet your thoughts through the book

  To Shannon Morton and Amanda Zabski for teaching me that we all have scars. It doesn't matter if they're large or small, emotional or physical. What matters is how you choose to wear them.

  Prologue

  A familiar sweat covered my body.

  My head throbbed, limbs quaked, heart pounded. There was only a single reason why my body acted that way. It meant one thing and one thing only.

  While my mind reeled from what I'd just seen, the contents of my stomach found themselves all over the floor.

  Another woman dead.

  A corpse in white―wedding white.

  He'd decorated her face with her blood, carefully―meticulously―painting her cheeks and lips with a delicate touch before turning his cold, dead stare on my mind's eye.

  “You cannot escape me, my love,” he'd told me, running his nose along the bride's jaw―fearsome eyes still pinned on me. I retched again. “You will be mine, and mine alone. I will have you or no one will.”

  His message had been painfully clear: join him or die.

  Alone, in the darkness of my room, I exhaled a fuck-my-life sigh, acknowledging out loud, if only to myself, what I'd long feared. My reprieve was gone. My normal life interrupted. My crazed courtier returned.

  “He's back.”

  1

  “I’m back,” a male voice called loudly from the rear mudroom. “Please try to contain your excitement.”

  “Hey, honey, we're in the dining room,” Kristy replied. “Come join us.”

  “Sorry, miss, I don't have time for groupies tonight; I'm a married man.”

  “Well, then bring your married ass in here and say hello to your wife.”

  Detective Alan Beauchamp rounded the corner and stood in the vast entrance to the dining room of his Victorian home. The six-foot plus, black haired officer seemed to dwarf everything around him; I never got used to how commanding his presence could be. If he'd been a werewolf, he'd have been an alpha for sure.

  His wife, Kristy, hopped up out of her seat to greet him, her child-like smile lighting up her face. That happened every time she looked at him. Due to their rather staggering height difference, she pushed up onto the very tips of her toes, while he stooped down low to meet her. Modesty drove me to look down at my glass of wine, not wanting to gawk.

  “Sorry, Ruby,” Alan said, pulling away from his wife. “I didn't see you there.”

  “Not a problem. I tend to fade into the background easily,” I replied sarcastically.

  “Somehow,” Kristy interjected, “I find that impossible to believe. When you're built like a model and have the looks to match, you rarely blend in.”

  I blushed, unsure of how to take what she said. She'd meant it as a compliment, but I always had a feeling that there was the slightest bit of edge to the comments she made regarding my looks, like I reminded her of someone. Someone she didn't like. It always made me wonder if she'd had a hard time in school.

  Kristy had what some would say were average looks and an average build. I never looked at her that way. I always saw someone who shone with a light inside that was too bright to contain. Her smile could change someone's day from abysmal to amazing, and her personality only added to her charm. It was always clear that Alan saw exactly what I did. When he looked at her, he really didn't see anything or anyone else in the room.

  I loved that about him.

  “It's not the looks, Kristy,” I argued. “It's the paleness. Even in New England, it's rare to see this shade of white on a person.”

  We all laughed as Alan joined us at the table and Kristy poured him a glass of Merlot.

  “Oh, Alan!” she gasped, “I forgot to text you. Guess what Louie said today?” Alan looked at her quizzically, afraid to even hazard a guess. Picking up on his hesitation, she blurted out the answer. “He said 'Ruby'!”

  Louie was the Beauchamp’s eighteen-month-old son, who had rapidly become one of the most enjoyable things in my life. Kristy had started referring to me as “Aunty Ruby” around him, and I guess the name was finally starting to sink in. Sort of.

  “Actually,” I countered, taking a huge swig of wine, “I believe he said, and I quote, 'Booby'.”

  “He called you 'Booby'?” Alan asked, half-choking on the sip of wine he'd just taken. “As in boobies, booby?”

  “Yep,” I quipped. “A decade or so more and he'll be referring to me as ‘Tits McGee'.”

  “Not if he wants to live he won't,” Kristy said, putting her glass down firmly.

  “Well, let's just hope he masters the letter 'r' soon then.”

  “Agreed,” Alan said, raising his glass. “To Aunty Booby!”

  Laughter broke out again and we clinked our glasses to Alan's toast. The merriment carried on for an hour or so more while Alan ate his late dinner, and Kristy and I polished off another bottle of wine. I'd gotten quite close to the family over that summer―the summer that followed a visit from the PC's head honchos and a raving lunatic rogue werewolf we referred to as the Rev. I had been in need of a whopping dose of humanity after all that, and, as fate would have it, the universe provided me with the Beauchamp family. I'd met Alan in town one day after plowing into him on the street―literally―while I was busy ogling a crime scene. By chance, I met his wife at
a flea market an hour or so out of town a few days after that. I had really enjoyed her company, but I avoided following up with her offer for a lunch date. It was tough to make plans when you were slated for death.

  But once things simmered down with the Petronus Ceteri, and I retained my “alive” status, I tracked down Alan at the precinct and got his wife's number. They were stuck with me from that moment on.

  “Ruby,” Alan said, swirling his glass, “I've had a downer of a day today. Tell me one of your hilarious mishap stories to cheer me up.”

  “Hmm...which genre of mishap would you prefer: inappropriate public behavior, random outbursts—both vocal and bodily noises—or just generally mortifying?”

  “That's quite a selection to pick from,” he joked.

  “Sadly, I have quite a library to pull from,” I groused.

  “I don't know,” he sighed. “You pick something.”

  “Well,” I started, searching the air around me for inspiration, “I did manage to knock over an entire display of Coke at the grocery store last week.”

  “And do I even want to know how you managed that?” he asked, doing the same annoying eyebrow thing that all the men in my life had mastered.

  “Probably not, but I'm pretty sure the store manager never wants to see me again. I'm going to have to drive to Dover from now on to get my groceries.”

  “Wait,” Kristy interjected with a quizzical look on her face. “I thought you didn't cook.”

  “I don't really, but Cooper does, so I like to keep him well-stocked. He doesn't have time to shop with his class schedule.”

  “And how is Cooper these days?” Alan asked, eyes devious. “Have you realized your undying love for him yet, or are you continuing to torment the poor bastard?”

  “Alan!” Kristy shouted, throwing her napkin at him. “She is not tormenting him. He's her roommate. They're just friends.”

  “And I'm the pope,” Alan mocked. “Really, Ruby, you need to put the guy out of his misery. I can't stand to see how he looks at you with those puppy dog eyes when you're not looking. It offends my manhood.”

  “Cooper is hardly in misery, Alan. He could have his pick of virtually any woman on the seacoast, available or otherwise,” I informed him, avoiding the matter at hand.

  “And yet he seems to want you—the one who may or may not want him. It's interesting,” Alan said, leaning back in his chair, hands locked behind his head. “I bet ten-to-one odds he has mommy issues.”

  “No clue,” I lied. “We’ve never really talked much about his family.” The reality was that I knew all too well about Cooper's family history and it wasn't especially pleasant. Not only did Cooper have mommy issues, he had daddy ones too, and rightly so. His mother had thrown him out after he tried to tell her that her husband was not only cheating on her, but also had created a second life complete with a second family. The rejection had cut him deeply, and for all of Cooper's exterior joviality, it was abundantly clear at times that the wounds within were still raw―as raw as the day they were inflicted.

  The Beauchamps didn't need to know that.

  “We must have something more exciting to discuss than my lack of love life,” I lamented, desperate to change the subject.

  “Yes, I agree,” Kristy said, turning her attention back on her husband. “How was your day, dear?” Alan crumpled forward to the table in response, resting his elbows down. He clasped his hands together tightly, and his gaze looked distant and troubled. “Alan?” Kristy prompted, leaning closer to him, “did something happen today?”

  My stomach tightened. The memory of the vision I'd had only the night before flashed through my mind and I knew what he was going to say—they'd found another body.

  “It seems as though there's been another murder of a young woman.”

  “But that stopped,” Kristy protested. “I thought the Chief said it was over.”

  “PR can be a nightmare, Kris, and he did what he needed to do to give peace of mind back to the people in the area,” he explained, looking exhausted. “The reality is that the murderer must have been laying low for a few months. Now he's back.”

  “Do you know it's the same guy?” I asked, all too aware of the answer.

  “We do. Everything fits the profile of the other cases, but we think we may have a lead this time,” he added, looking more hopeful than he just had. “The murder took place near the marina. One of the owners down there has a private security cam on his boat. He's sent in the footage and the boys are going over it now. The Feds have been called in for assistance. With any luck, we'll have a picture of him soon.”

  Every ounce of blood in my face drained away―it pooled quickly in my stomach, making me nauseous. If the crime was caught on film, the Portsmouth Police Department was in for a lot more than just a picture of the Rev. I needed to call Sean.

  “Ruby? Ruby, you okay?” Alan asked, looking concerned. “What's wrong?”

  “Sorry,” I said, pushing my chair back as I rose from it. “I don't feel so good. I think I had too much to drink. I'll be right back.” Grabbing my purse, I walked quickly to the powder room down the hall. I locked myself in and turned on the light. My nervous system was in total panic mode, and I was sweating by that point, a slight dew glistening on my forehead under the vanity lights. As my belly churned, it threatened to spill the contents it had collected throughout the evening. The wine was not to blame.

  The images of the murder that could have been caught on that video evidence ran over and over through my mind. Disturbing as those were, they weren't the worst part of all. My mind jumped ahead to a potential future—to a room full of slack-faced middle-aged men wearing FBI windbreakers and khaki pants, holding extra-large coffee cups in their hands. They were all standing around a single computer monitor, which clearly displayed every intimate detail of the murder in a grainy black and white picture show. When the finale came, those coffee cups all simultaneously fell as the Feds watched the suspect up and vanish from the camera.

  A large black wolf stood in his place.

  2

  I had to physically shake my head to bring my consciousness back to the matter at hand. Digging through my purse for longer than time allowed, I finally unearthed my phone and dialed it frantically.

  “Hey, I was just going to—”

  “No time, Sean. We have a huge problem,” I blurted out, cutting him off. Remembering where I was, I quickly lowered my voice. “Actually, we have two.”

  Sean was the head of the Petronus Ceteri, a brotherhood whose sole purpose was to maintain the balance between the human world and the supernatural one. It would be his responsibility to make sure that nothing caught on the marina video would ever come to light. He and I had a tenuous relationship, spanning over a year or more. It was both complicated and made simpler by the death of his mate, Sophie, months earlier. Our love was unnatural, considering that my existence called to the mercenary within him, but it was there nonetheless. We'd muddled our collective way through a kidnapping, murder attempt, and, most recently, my being framed for the murders of several of his PC brothers. After enough time had passed and he'd fully processed what life was like untethered from Sophie, we were trying to get back into a natural rhythm.

  The Rev's return was yet another attempt by the universe to throw us off course, and my guess was it would likely succeed.

  “I know...the Rev is back,” he said, sounding mildly frustrated.

  “Did you know that the Portsmouth PD has a video tape potentially showing the crime?” I snapped sarcastically. “Because I think that's an even bigger problem.”

  “Where is it?” he snarled.

  “At the precinct. The Feds are looking at it now from what I was told.”

  “And I'm assuming you know what it is they'll see on it if it does have footage of the crime.”

  “Yep.”

  “Do I want to know?” he asked. I could tell by the tone in his voice that he was rubbing his forehead and temples, his headache alread
y brewing.

  “No, but you don't get that luxury,” I replied, slapping him with reality. “It's worse than you think. He Changes before he leaves the scene.”

  “Fuck!” he growled while something wooden in his vicinity splintered into kindling. I hoped it wasn't the teak coffee table; I really liked it. “This is bad, Ruby. Very, very bad. I don't have anyone in place to easily deal with this, and if the Feds are involved that's only going to make things worse,” he explained before going quiet. “There are ways around this, but I don't want it to come to that.”

  I didn't like his tone, or anything that it implied.

  “Ways around it?” I asked, fishing for clarification.

  “Never mind,” he said quickly. “Has your friend, the cop, seen it?”

  “No, but he knows about it. I'm at their house now pretending to be sick so I could get away and call you.”

  “You mean you're actually reporting something to me in a timely fashion?” he asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

  “Ruby?” Kristy called from the hallway. “Are you okay in there?” She tried the door, but, thankfully, I’d remembered to lock it.

  “I'm fine,” I replied, trying to sound like someone who'd just puked her brains out. “Just give me a minute to clean up. I'll be right out.” I listened as she retreated back to the dining room, waiting for her to be out of earshot before resuming my conversation.

  “Yes,” I hissed at Sean, “I did call you right away. This is no joke. They are going to see a man morph into a huge, black hellhound, Sean. It'll be all over the news before the night is over.”

  “I need to contact the boys,” he said, his business tone taking over. “You call me if you hear anything else.”

  “I will,” I agreed, “but promise me you won't do anything unless you absolutely have to. Please?”

  “I'll try,” he replied, softening his voice. He hung up immediately after.