The Outcast

Other Titles

By

Calle J. Brookes

Paranormal

Dardanos, Co.

The Blood King

Awakening the Demon’s Queen

The Healer’s Heart

Once Wolf Bitten

Live or Die

The Seer’s Strength

The Warrior’s Woman

The Wolf’s Redemption

A Warrior’s Quest

The Wolf God & His Mate

Out of the Darkness

Dardanos, Co: The Adrastos

The Outcast

Romantic Suspense

Watching

Second Chances

Hunting

Running

Redeeming

Coming Soon

A Warrior Blind (Dardanos)

Revealing (PAVAD)

Calle J. Brookes
is first and foremost a fiction writer. She enjoys crafting paranormal romance and romantic suspense. She reads almost every genre except horror. She spends most of her time juggling family life and writing, while reminding herself that she can’t spend
all
of her time in the worlds found within books. Calle J. loves to be contacted by her readers
via email and at
www.CalleJBrookes.com
.

To my daughter, always.

The Outcast

Calle J. Brookes

Springs Valley, Indiana

The Lost River Literary name and imprint are the sole properties of independent publishers Calle J. Brookes and B.G. Lashbrooks. They cannot be reproduced or used in any manner; nor can any of their publications or designs be used without expressed written permission.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, or locations, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

Copyright © 2014 Calle J. Brookes

Cover by B.G. Lashbrooks

All rights reserved.

ISBN-10:

1940937302

ISBN-13:

978-1-940937-30-4

The Outcast

A 

DARDANOS, CO: THE ADRASTOS NOVEL

Book One

WAR
came. Like they had predicted it always would. She had no real choice, did she? Her people were being forced out of their homes, she would go with them—she would lead them. There was no other option. The only real choice she had left was in what she could carry in a bag on her back.

She wouldn’t let any other questions run through her mind. Like where would the people go? They were so outnumbered, they had no true defense in this war. Her people, the lost of the House of Amyenka, were mostly women and children
.

They were already refugees when the orders of the goddess had been granted.

Three hundred Dardaptoans, all under the age of one hundred, with more children than grown men and women, all poor, all hungry, all so pitiful. And they were all hers.

She was one of the lucky ones, though she did not feel it so. She at least had more than a single change of clothing, had some coin of the human world—had some food. So many of the children she knew were so hungry. The females of her people did the best they could to gather enough for the children, but the world in which they lived was so inhospitable to the young of their Kind.

Havalana Amyenka shoved what little possessions she had into the bag she had sewn with her own hands more than a decade ago. A book of her people’s histories, a doll her mother had given her before her death, her spare
vestis
and
pardus,
and her spare shoes. Her coin purse, she tucked deep into the pockets of
pardus
she wore. That was something she could not afford to lose.

She did not know where the goddess’s edict would find her people, and she would need something with which to barter—or buy what they needed.

She stepped outside the small wooden structure that had served as her home for the last two years. It had no frills—why would they be needed in this world? —but it had served her well these years.

But she had learned long ago not to develop sentimental attachments for personal things.

Her home was no bigger than any of the others in the small village. She was no different than those who chose to follow her, after all. She was deserving of no special treatment, though sometimes the people tried.

She was an Amyenka, after all. And these people had been trained from birth to follow an Amyenka. Even when that Amyenka was bad. Evil, as her brother was.

The people she led were gathering in the center of the village. It was there she headed. One hundred seventy-eight children, eighty-three women, and forty-nine men made up her tribe, and Lana was responsible for every single one. She did not take that responsibility lightly.

She also did not dare show her fear. She nodded at the five people who she considered her top advisors. They stood waiting for her decision, though most of the tribe understood that the only choice that they truly had was to follow the edict of the goddess’s emissary.

Lana planned to implore that goddess directly. Her people could not go unprotected from her brother in a new world.

He would strike them all down, even the youngest infant, for their leaving his tribe. Her, he would stake out in the midst of everyone to watch as she slowly bled to death for her treason.

This was after he spent days torturing her.

She had no illusions of brotherly love from him. If Ragner spotted her, she’d be dead. Period.