Austin's Lost Bride (The Sterns) Read Online Free Page A

houses needed to be anonymous and she’d let herself be seen leaving. Too late now and a few people were outside, making a last-minute veil impractical.
    She sighed and kept walking. They’ll go on with their day and forget her in a few minutes, she hoped.
    After a few blocks she made it to a small park and decided to rest under one of the trees. She needed to think. Find a way to control the images that swept past her even as she walked.
    Thoughts of Austin. Of that day five years ago that changed her life forever.
     
     
    Rebecca Carter was happy, ecstatic, and totally nervous. This was their day. In less than thirty minutes she’d be married to Austin and then he’d whisk her off to her dream vacation in Hawaii. Nothing could ruin it for her.
    She met and fell in love with Austin in training, and when she was still and meditating she could see the love in Austin’s soul. It was a six sense she developed that told her Austin’s love was true and that her late mother was always watching over her. It never failed her. Except for that day.
    Standing in the church, waiting for her father and Austin to take their places and let the ceremonies begin, she felt her mother’s presence with her. Not serene as usual but excited and trying to reach out to her. She thought at the time that she was trying to share in her joy, but seconds later she realized she was wrong. It was a warning.
    The windows shattered with teargas and flash bang grenades. Guests started screaming but it was too late to get out. The grenades went off stunning people and teargas filled the room.
    Gunfire erupted outside and people dropped to the floor crying, not knowing which way was safe. Only guests who were hunters, some shielded, could still move around and they headed straight for the fighting. She was shocked and outraged. Her friends, her extended family, had just been hurt and she was going to make whoever did this pay. She prayed that Austin was safe.
    She turned to head outside and hit the floor. The attack on her mind came so suddenly she almost didn’t have time to defend against it. Her mental defenses went up as she went down and the last thing she remembered was a vision of Mannus laughing at her.
    When she woke up at the hospital the next day, Austin was at her side, head hung low. He couldn’t even look at her as he spoke. The fighting had ended almost as quickly as it had begun. They weren’t looking for a big fight. They just wanted one person and then they fell back.
    They wanted her father.
    Austin had organized the available hunters as fast as he could. Austin’s connection with her father was strong. Her father had loved him and couldn’t wait until he was a proper son-in-law. Another hunter had used tracking charms to trace the connection from Austin to her imprisoned father. The hunters fought the thralls and Austin confronted Mannus to save her father.
    But he didn’t. Mannus had already turned her father. Instead of saving him and killing Mannus, he let Mannus escape. Then he killed her father.
    She knew in that instant that if she had been able to move better she would have killed Austin in the hospital. She gave back his ring and dismissed him from her life. No man who could harm her father, even as a vampire, could be her husband. She knew her father had to die. He had become a vampire and the beast would drive even a good man to evil. But other hunters were nearby and could have done it. Austin chose to do it himself and she would never forgive him.
    That day she lost her future husband, her father, and her connection to her mother. Her paranormal senses never fully came back and she didn’t know why.
     
     
    Sitting in the park thinking of the past, she didn’t hear the man approaching until too late. She spun quickly to face him but the Taser had already pierced her skin. As tens of thousands of volts of electricity surged through her body, she cursed Austin’s name a final time before blacking