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    Aida's Hope : A Merrow Dragel Story: Lost Children of The Merrow, #2
    Aida's Hope : A Merrow Dragel Story: Lost Children of The Merrow, #2
    Aida's Hope : A Merrow Dragel Story: Lost Children of The Merrow, #2
    Ebook138 pages2 hoursLost Children of The Merrow

    Aida's Hope : A Merrow Dragel Story: Lost Children of The Merrow, #2

    By Chera Carmichael

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    About this ebook

    Sold to creature hunters by her new foster family, Aida seizes the first chance at escape when stealing her new little sister, Keely. She knows nothing about her creature roots, but a caged life is too much to bear.

     

    Rushing along the water's edge, she stumbles into their unlikely rescuers in the strangest way. The water holds secrets, but maybe some of them should've stayed buried…

     

    Giving into her Merrow instincts might help, but will she sink or swim?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChera Carmichael
    Release dateAug 31, 2021
    ISBN9798201190163
    Aida's Hope : A Merrow Dragel Story: Lost Children of The Merrow, #2
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    Author

    Chera Carmichael

    Chera Carmichael (aka Scioneeris) to her TBDH fans is a Writer by night and a 9-to-5 worker by day. Her dragel stories feature slow-burn Poly romances featuring dragons, soulmates, elemental powers and otherwordly adventures.

    Read more from Chera Carmichael

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      Book preview

      Aida's Hope - Chera Carmichael

      1

      Running For Their Lives - Aida

      Her footsteps dulled and slowed along the sandy beach as Aida shifted the bundle of precious cargo—the newest unfortunate member of their nightmare, six-year-old Keely—and kept pushing forward. She could swear the men from that cursed house were still chasing after them. It’d been pure luck that got them out of that place and she didn’t want to know how thin it stretched.

      Phantom shouts and screeches of pain and anger rang loudly in her ears. Aida stumbled, struggling to ignore Keely's frightened whimpers that played like a haunted melody in her ears as they went. The scent of saltwater and stale vegetation curled around her like a thin, invisible wet blanket. The humidity did her no favors at all, though the faintly damp air soothed her raw throat.

      The awful, familiar feeling of being trapped in her own skin coaxed alive the urge to scratch and pick at her skin. A pointless, painful habit that never helped, though sometimes served as a suitable distraction. Some days, it just felt as if she could carve her messy self out of her skin and find some sort of freedom—some kind of release—anywhere, but within herself.

      Her left ankle wobbled as the sand sunk a few inches down instead of keeping the same height as before. A cry struggled to escape her throat and Aida stubbornly willed it down. She could not give into her own weaknesses now.

      Not now. Not here. Not when Keely was the possible price for that misstep. They were lucky they'd managed to make it this far down the deserted beach without attracting attention from any of the deserted outdoor restaurants and cafes dimly lit in the distance. Scattered along the upper shoreline, most of them were already closed for the night with only decorative lights still on at such a late hour.

      Beyond the eateries, she could see rows of shadowy structures with softly flickering lights aglow in perfectly-square windows. The sight of the tourist cabins greeted her frantic gaze as she continually swept her gaze up and down the shoreline, trying to spot any potential danger before it could attack. Fear overrode panic, bolstering her to keep moving.

      She didn’t know what she’d do if someone actually caught up to them now—she hadn’t dared to think that far ahead.

      A-ai-i-i-da-! Keely hiccupped. Her small, damp hands clutched at the fabric of Aida’s swimsuit coverup. I wanna walk. Don’t feel good.

      Shh, shh, almost there, she gasped. Don't make a sound, please Keely, please, if they hear us, we're going to be in so much trouble, Aida lied.

      Trouble as in, they'd both be dead.

      But there was no point in trying to scare her adopted younger sister. There was enough trauma to spare from the shock of the armed guards bursting into the vacation home of their new foster parents and dragging them out of their bare rooms.

      Her scalp throbbed dully from where they'd seized her by the hair and hauled her into the trashed living room. It wasn't as much of a shock as it could've been. To realize that her new foster parents were nowhere to be found and the luggage—all the fancy clothes and new suitcases—were gone.

      They hadn't wanted her after all. At least, not to be a proper child to them. They'd wanted what they could get from her and that was what hurt the most. It was easy to swallow her own hurt when she realized that Keely was included in that awful truth as well. They hadn’t wanted a perfectly normal, adorable child like Keely and that was wrong.

      After all, unlike Aida, Keely was a perfect child. Cute, adorable and a little bit clingy. Always wanting to be carried, cuddled and fussed over, something that had felt so natural from the day that they’d met. It was easy to like her, especially when Keely gave hugs and snuggles and her foster parents only gave chores and exasperated sighs.

      Aida's lips pressed tightly together in a wobbly line. She didn't dare think of what those sorts of details meant now. Not when it could bring on a breakdown that she wasn't ready for. She’d tried so hard in the group home and everyone had celebrated—begrudgingly—when she’d been adopted out.

      I wish I was back there again. Wish I was just arguing over time in the bathroom and whose turn it was to do the dishes… Aida sucked in a breath, scanning the shoreline again. A dry, flat taste lingered in the back of her mouth, drawing a grimace.

      Their captors were cruel and vicious, all of them identical in their scuffed tactical gear and greedy, beady eyes. No visible symbols or imagery was anywhere on their person and the house where they’d kept them was as bland an uninteresting as could be. The exception being that there were locks everywhere and metal cages to divide the larger rooms into smaller cells.

      Bile rose in her throat and she choked it down.

      Their break had come when the crew had brought in another half-dozen children of all creature types and were briefly outnumbered, five to one. Creature children they were, but they were still children and there were some things that a child never grew out of, until the moment was forced.

      Pure chaos was one of them.

      Aida clung to hope for as long as she could, but each day that had passed, chipped away at that hope, bit by bit. Nothing good had replaced any of her weak hopes in the following days after they'd caught her. Except for now. That final hopeful sliver was too tantalizing to ignore.

      So when the children had screamed, shrieked and caused the best—and loudest distraction she'd ever seen in her time there—Aida acted. If this was her one chance, then she’d take it. Snatching up Keely, she bolted for freedom. There were too many children shuffled through the trashed vacation home and no one had come running until she was down the front stairs and three steps to the sidewalk.

      It was enough of a headstart to spare them.

      Running the length of the street had fueled her to keep on moving. To go somewhere that the awful people couldn’t follow.

      The very realization of why they were there and how they'd been chosen, made her sick to her stomach. It wasn't fair. It wasn't her fault. They couldn't help what they were born as. Even if some idiots seemed to think they were.

      She shouldn't have to be running for her life along the edge of a darkened beach, hoping she could find something or someone that would at least allow her to catch her breath long enough to retaliate.

      Her arms ached and burned with the weight of carrying Keely for so long. They'd been running well past a half-hour now, it seemed. Maybe more. She couldn’t tell. Instead, her, a choked wheeze slipped out as she tried to catch her breath.

      ...Ke-keely? she croaked. Her steps slowed to a near stumble. Keely, sweetie, you gotta—we need to- Aida swallowed a sob. She wanted, desperately, to give into the exhaustion working its way through her, but the adrenaline ebbing in her veins, refused to be quelled so suddenly.

      Quiet sniffles reached her ears. It seemed Keely couldn’t keep her emotions from overflowing.

      Hey, hey, shhh. It's alright, sweetie, it's alright, she crooned as best as she could, even as her body trembled from the sheer stress that hadn't let up since her rude awakening. She scanned the shoreline again, this time zeroing in on the nearest fancy tourist house with stilts sticking out of the water and a fancy thatched roof.

      Maybe that could work for now.

      There were no candles in the windows, no obvious lights, but the hulking shadow was definitely house-shaped and that was good enough. Even though it was a ways out in the water, she just had to make it to the woods pier and then further along until she could get there. The men would never think to look for them there and somehow, the water felt safer than the land.

      An instinctive scrap of knowledge that made no sense at all, even as Aida forced her feet to carry her in that direction. She readjusted her grip on Keely's too-warm body. Hey, hey—we’re gonna hide in that house over there, alright? Look at that house. See it over there? It’s far out on the water. They won’t come to look for us there and if they do, we can hide in the water, m’kay?

      Safe? Keely wanted to know. Her small hands curled tightly in the give of Aida's dark swimsuit cover-up.

      Originally, their foster family had promised a fun family outing. There’d been promises and pretty words with enough half-hearted actions to make it seem real enough to believe. She'd happily indulged in her favorite foods at the restaurant and her new father had promised a full evening of excitement. They were supposed to have gone swimming, then to dinner on the beach.

      A sharp jolt of pain went up her left ankle as Aida pitched forward, barely catching herself. Keely tumbled out of her arms, landing with a cry of surprise and shock, before scrambling to her skinny little legs.

      Aida! she stage-whispered, her pretty periwinkle blue eyes were wide and round, even

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