Lorehnin: A Novel of the Otherworld Read online

  Lorehnin

  A Novel of the Otherworld

  by

  Jenna Elizabeth Johnson

  Copyrighted Material

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. All material in connection with Celtic myth has been borrowed and interpreted for use in the plot of the story only. Cover image is the sole property of the author. The Faelorehn font used in the title, table of contents and chapter headings of this book was created by P.A. Vannucci (www.alphabetype.it) to be used exclusively for the Otherworld series. Any resemblance to actual persons is entirely coincidental.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Lorehnin

  Copyright © 2014 by Jenna Elizabeth Johnson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book or its cover may be reproduced in any manner without written permission from its creator.

  For more information and to contact the author, visit:

  www.jennaelizabethjohnson.com

  For my Readers, for their never-ending support and constant encouragement.

  Contents

  One

  Disturbance

  Two

  Admirer

  Three

  Lunatic

  Four

  Introduction

  Five

  Meeting

  Six

  Faelah

  Seven

  Monster

  Eight

  Halloween

  Nine

  Ambush

  Ten

  Insight

  Eleven

  Daramorr

  Twelve

  Proposition

  Thirteen

  Accusation

  Fourteen

  Shattered

  Fifteen

  Broken

  Sixteen

  Duplicity

  Seventeen

  Bait

  Eighteen

  Heartache

  Nineteen

  Impulse

  Twenty

  Animosity

  Twenty-One

  Entrapment

  Twenty-Two

  Confrontation

  Twenty-Three

  Caught

  Twenty-Four

  Lorehnin

  Twenty-Five

  Return

  Epilogue

  Home

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books by this Author

  Connect with me Online

  A Sneak Peek of Ghalien – A Novel of the Otherworld

  -One-

  Disturbance

  I didn’t hate my job at the Green Tea Leaf. Really, I didn't. But some evenings even waitressing at this little hidden gem in San Luis Obispo could be unbearable. It was Thursday night, which meant the streets were crawling with people in town for the farmers market, and it was rush week. Every last perky sorority girl and conceited frat guy was out prowling the masses, pressing all the young, impressionable people into uncomfortable conversations complete with big, fake, bleached-toothed smiles and forced enthusiasm. And for some ungodly reason, one of these girls was pestering me.

  Okay, there were two things very wrong with this situation. First, I was in no way, shape or form impressionable. In fact, I think I was born with my opinions already intact. Yup, I’d been forcing my independent nature on the world even before I could talk. And secondly, anyone with half a brain could tell, on looks alone, that I was not sorority girl material. My black hair was more than a dozen shades away from being platinum blond and the streak that was dyed electric violet only accentuated that fact. Furthermore, if the small assortment of silver hoops in each of my ears didn’t scream rebel, then my lovely little collection of tattoos sure did. They had been a birthday present to me, from me, as well as a nice way to remind myself that, thankfully, I no longer lived under the tyranny of my rigid, stodgy foster parents.

  That’s right, the day I turned eighteen they’d met me in the living room with all my bags packed and ready to go.

  “If you continue to live this ridiculous lifestyle of yours and refuse to accept our rules, then we can no longer support you,” my father had said as my mother watched on in stone silence.

  At least the woman had had the decency to look regretful. Fortunately, I’d already enrolled in classes at Cuesta, the local community college which was much more affordable than the better-known Cal Poly, and had narrowed down a few possible apartments in San Luis. Okay, they were more like economy-sized closets than anything else but they would suit my simple needs and that was all I could afford on my meager student loan anyway. Finding a job had been tougher. Just when my stubborn insistence on keeping my pride intact started to falter, I’d stumbled upon the Green Tea Leaf and the Help Wanted sign. It had been a gift from the gods of outcast orphans.

  A bark of laughter from one of the tables snapped me back to the present and the grinning blond hovering in front of the serving counter. I arched one of my eyebrows, the one not pierced, and drew in a deep breath that I hoped would encourage patience.

  “So, I think you’d be a wonderful addition to Delta Sigma Lambda,” the bright-eyed blond chattered. “Here's a flier with a list of our upcoming activities.”

  Gritting my teeth and trying not to be rude, I reached out a hand and took the neon pink paper, skimming it as the girl studied my black-and-silver nail polish and equally dark eyeliner. For the first time since entering the Tea Leaf, her lips twitched in uncertainty.

  That’s right Barbie, you picked the wrong victim.

  My eyes raced across the list of vomit-inducing social events. A barbecue with one of the frat houses, a themed pool party where the guests were encouraged to dress as movie stars from the fifties, a scavenger hunt that included visiting all the bars in town.

  Ugh. Not a single one of these “Nights of Fun” appealed to me. I sniffed and snapped the flier back at the girl. She actually squeaked and jumped an inch. Time to turn on the famous Robyn Dunbarre charm I’d often used in high school.

  “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m a neo-pagan and I prefer to spend my evenings sacrificing small animals and chanting to the gods while drinking blood and dancing naked around a bonfire. Unless you have some of those activities planned, I don't think I'll be joining you.”

  The girl’s blue eyes widened and her jaw dropped open.

  I splayed my fingers on the countertop and smiled as she made a beeline for the exit.

  “Dude, Robyn,” Jonathon, one of my co-workers, whispered, “I know Margie thinks you’re the long lost troubled niece she never had, but one of these days she’s going to hear one of your snide remarks and then you’ll be busted.”

  I snorted and tossed my hair, cut shorter than it had been in high school. Margie was the owner of the Green Tea Leaf. A sweet, middle-aged woman who employed a diverse work force and enjoyed supplying the local college kids with something other than fast food and alcoholic beverages to keep them energized. The Tea Leaf was an organic cafe as well as a gift and book shop, and much of its wares and fare leaned toward the more eccentric types, such as myself.

  “You know, what I said was only half true,” I responded with a sniff. I turned and reg
arded Jonathon, his brown eyes skeptical behind tasteful, wire-rimmed glasses. “I don't really dance naked or perform animal sacrifices or drink blood.”

  “Too bad,” he muttered as he got back to making a cappuccino for one of our patrons. The machine hissed, blasting steam into the decanter of milk, almost covering up his next words. Unfortunately, I heard him. “I wouldn’t mind seeing that.”

  “Jonathon!” I gasped, smacking him with a towel. “There are rules in the work place about sexual harassment, you know!”

  Jonathon’s eyes widened in shock and I could have sworn he would’ve fainted had I not smiled and said, “I’m kidding! I know you didn’t mean it.”

  He cleared his throat and finished up with the drink he was preparing. “Sorry,” he muttered, trying to recover from his embarrassment.

  I reached out a hand and squeezed his thin arm. He towered over me but then again, most people did. Jonathon, however, was a beanpole: all height and no muscle. And he was probably the only friend I had in the world at the moment, except for Margie and Kelly, the other girl who worked here in the cafe.

  When Jonathon gave me a sheepish smile I turned back to my work. With the sorority recruiter long gone, I went back to stocking the shelves. Most people loathed this part of working in the service industry, but to me it was a nice reprieve from dealing with the public, especially if we had recently received a new shipment of books. As the smooth, new age music played in the background and mingled with the sputtering of the coffee machines and the chatter of warm, conversational voices, I let my thoughts wander. Yes, I only had my colleagues to call my closest friends, but that was because those I had known in high school had either gone off to college far away from the Central Coast or, in the case of my friend Meghan, had gone to live in a different world entirely, and I mean that literally.

  I paused as I placed a box of organic loose-leaf tea onto one of the shelves and drew my hand down to touch the cool metal band around my neck. The necklace, well, torque technically, had been a gift from Meghan and her husband, Cade. I gave a short snort. It was still hard to think of Meghan as happily married to the hottest guy I’d ever seen. It was even harder to imagine she was living in the Otherworld, a place I’d been semi-obsessed with for years. All throughout high school I was the one in our little group of friends who’d been into Wicca and anything pagan. Of course I had never really believed the Otherworld existed. I’d always assumed it was more of a spiritual place one might journey to in the afterlife. Turned out I was wrong.

  “Robyn, could you help me at the counter?” Jonathon called from up front.

  I coughed and set the box of tea down.

  "Yeah, sure!" I answered, brushing my hands down the apron I wore.

  I glanced at the clock on my way through the small dining area. Ten more minutes until the end of my shift. Ahhh, bliss.

  * * *

  Downtown San Luis Obispo was still crowded when I left work. There were always people out and about after dark, yet with the new school year just around the corner, college students old and new were making their way onto campus and settling in as they awaited the first day of class. A large clump of young students, made obvious by all the Cal Poly gear they wore, stood in my way. Gritting my teeth, I hiked my purse farther up onto my shoulder, wrapped my arms around my torso and ducked my head, ready to burrow my way through them like a bull. I managed to escape the press of fresh-faced incoming freshmen with nary a bruise nor shout of irritation thrown my way and soon I was enjoying the privilege of personal space as the crowd thinned.

  The night was chilly, but not unbearable. Loosening up the death grip on myself, I glanced up at the banners welcoming the students back to school, their gold and green colors warped from the orange glow of streetlights. Cal Poly was the local state college, a good school but way too expensive for my budget. Cuesta was a better fit, and my student loans paid most of the cost. What the loans didn’t cover I had to work for; hence my job at the Green Tea Leaf. I was all on my own after all, no proud parents willing to sacrifice some of their spending money so their daughter could improve herself by earning a better education. I guess if I fit into their image of a perfect child, my foster parents would lend me the money I needed, but there was no way in hell I was going to change for them. Not because I was stubborn or thought their beliefs were ridiculous. That wasn’t the case, though they would never believe me if I told them so. They thought I was a lost soul and the only way for me to be saved was to cast aside my ‘sinful and heathen ways’. Unfortunately for them, that’s who I was. I knew deep down in my soul that their way of life wasn’t for me. I only wished they could understand that.

  Sighing, I tossed my hair over my shoulder and turned down a familiar alley. My house was only six blocks from the Green Tea Leaf, but I could cut that distance in half if I took a few shortcuts and I had left my bike at home this morning. Okay, technically it wasn’t my house. I rented out the basement apartment from the four girls who lived in the main building. The space was small, but I made it work. I had a bathroom with a shower, a spacious living room and a kitchenette off to the side. I’d taken down the doors to the closet to convert it into a bedroom of sorts. My twin bed fit inside the alcove perfectly, and a set of drapes closed most of it off from the living room. Heck, it wasn’t a four-star hotel, but it was home.

  I took one more turn past one of the local high schools and ended up on a quiet street decorated with a variety of Victorian-era houses, all of them in different states of decay. None of the buildings were completely derelict, but a few could definitely use some fresh paint and a garden renovation: a common problem in a college town.

  The house I lived in was toward the end of the road, a pink, two-story structure complete with lacy molding around the windows and a covered front porch. My roommates, well, housemates really, must have been throwing a party because the door hung wide open, the lights were on and rap music was blaring from the windows, making the panes of glass rattle inside their frames. Three guys holding red plastic cups, undoubtedly full of beer, laughed and conversed on the path leading from the gate. I cringed as I passed by them since every other word of the conversation was an f-bomb. Lovely. Made one question a society’s education system.

  Fortunately, the three vocabulary-challenged party-goers didn’t notice me as I bypassed the porch and headed for the side of the house. The door to my basement apartment was sunken into the side of the building and framed by an arbor of clematis. The flowering vine, along with the side garden space, had led me to choose this apartment above all the others when I first looked. There had been a few places that had extra living space for the same rent, but none of them featured a yard for planting flowers, herbs or vegetables, many of which were now ripe. I didn’t hang out with my Wiccan friends from high school anymore, but I still needed that connection with the earth and growing things. Breathing in the muted scent of flowers and spicy herbs, I let my purse drop from my shoulder.

  I dug around for my house key in the semi-dark, gritting my teeth against the pounding music, and continued crude conversation on the porch above me.

  A rustling in the bushes at the edge of the yard drew my attention away from my task the way a gunshot spooked a horse. The house sat not too far from the place where the road dead-ended and the land sloped downward into a small ravine. A seasonal creek cut through the gap and ran behind the house. Above the creek, an old road bridge stretched across the breach, creating a popular campground for some of the homeless people who called San Luis Obispo home. In my experience, most of them were harmless and usually kept to themselves. Unfortunately, a handful were dangerous. Drug use and mental illness combined with desperation often stripped people of their humanity. I hoped that the disturbance I’d heard just a few feet away wasn't someone looking for an easy victim.

  Whatever had been moving in the bushes stopped, and I quickly got back to my task of hunting for my keys. Probably just another stray cat or dog. A moment later my hand swept across so
mething hard and metallic. Aha! There they were!

  Before I could so much as pull my keys free, however, something crashed through the shrubs that grew thick at the end of the street about fifty feet away. I jumped in surprise and dropped my bag. One of the homeless men who frequented the campsite beyond the end of our street stumbled onto the pavement, his arms and threadbare jacket wrapped around something. I squinted and tried to make out his features in the faint glow of the streetlamp. Despite his dirty clothes and shaggy hair and beard, I recognized him. It was Jerry, an older man who had been living on the streets probably as long as I’d been alive. I had talked to him from time to time and discovered that he was one of the kinder people who shared our city. Seeing him now, clearly trying to escape while hiding something, worried me. As far as I knew, he wasn’t into the drug scene and he didn’t waste what little money he managed to scrape together on alcohol. He also had a soft spot for the local stray dogs and cats, and I could sympathize with that.

  Forgetting my desire to get inside and catch up on my favorite TV shows with a nice mug of tea, I turned back toward the street and headed to the edge of our fence.

  “Jerry?” I called out.

  At first he didn’t hear me. I noticed the distress on his face, and my concern spiked.

  “Jerry!” I tried again.

  This time he jumped and turned to look at me. The fear and anguish in his eyes increased, or maybe that was just the tears gathering in their corners.

  “They got the rest of the litter,” he rasped in that gravelly voice of his.

  I furrowed my brow. “What?”

  “They got the litter, and the mama cat.”

  Carefully, he pulled back his jacket and drew his arm out, revealing two tiny kittens in his huge hand, both pale in color.

  “Who has the other kittens?” I asked, even more worried now.