The crow and the beast - Kaz brekker

chapter 18 - Betrayal

When Cara awoke in the morning kaz was gone. She looked around but did not see him anywhere. So, she got out of bed and put on her outfit for the day. She saw the desk and table was full of papers. Kaz must have had a rough morning she thought to herself and started to clean up the table and desk, putting all the papers where they belonged.

she took a hold of a piece of paper and her eyes landed on the text on the top: Cara's family. She couldn't just put the piece of paper away after reading that so she looked further and found out that kaz had been looking for any family she might have left. And it seems he found somebody.

the name only said 'peter' and there wasn't an address more like a drawing of how far he was from a town, she knew where the town was so she could most likely find the place. She was overjoyed, she wanted to find kaz immediately and thank him.

so she went downstairs but he wasn't there, she went on the street. It was quite a busy day and a lot of people were out on the street. She decided that her small wolf form would be her best way around for now as she could easily get around in the crowd.

She picked up his scent quite fast and followed it to the edge of the barrel where it entered a building. She did not know the building so she jumped on top of the roof of a nearby building and made her way over to a nearby window.

she pushed her belly against the wooden boards of the roof as she peered into the window, she saw kaz sitting at a table together with another man she did not know. The house was fairly quite so she could make out their voices if she focused.

"its to dangerous brekker." The unknown man spoke to kaz.

"rest assured mr. wykman i already have a plan to deal with her." Kaz had his back to the window so Cara could not see his facial expressions.

"if you don't mind me asking mr. brekker, how do you plan to deal with the monster? I have been informed you are rather close to it" Something clicked, they were talking about her. Cara felt her heartrate rise

"the only reason i got so close to her is because i needed her to trust me enough so i can safely dispose of her without risking my gang. We will deal with her today and dispose of the body somewhere safe."

Cara could not believe her ears; her eyes became glossy but she dared not to move from her spot. Suddenly her eyes were drawn towards a door opening in the room with kaz and the man, in stepped jesper who stood next to kaz and whispered something to him. Kaz only nodded but the man opposite of the table started talking again.

"you boy, have you seen the monster?" jesper nodded he now stood with his back towards the window as well.
"yes sir, we have seen her loose control and kill everything in sight, i agree with you that we can not let her roam around free in ketterdam, it is a disaster waiting to happen. She should be dealt with."

the man furrowed his brows. "you talk about it as if its human, calling it a 'she'. I understand that you and brekker have spend a lot of time with it but let me assure you, they are not human, they are failed experiments and that is all they are."

jesper glanced at kaz as kaz started talking.

"i agree sir, i will not mourn when we get rid of it. Its for the better of ketterdam. At least it gave us the opportunity to get rid of all their kind. This one is the only one left. i will kill it myself."

Cara couldn't take it anymore, the tears flowed down. She felt utterly betrayed and heart broken. She let out a whimper. She immediately wished she hadn't as she saw kaz snap his head towards the window and for a split second they made eye contact.

she quickly jumped down. She didn't know what to do at first, there were still so many people on the street it was making her dizzy, it was to much. She shifted into her big wolf form and growled loudly. The mass of people jumped away from her, some screaming.

she ran. She ran until she was out of ketterdam. She debated if she was going to the clearing in the woods but decided against it, it would be the first place they would look for her.

she left everything behind as she ran south. She did not look back and did not stop moving until she saw the sun disappear behind the horizon.

she found herself a place in the middle of a forest to sleep, however her dreams were far from peaceful.

when she woke up the next morning she felt more tired than before she went to sleep but she got up and started moving again. She had nowhere to go, nothing to lose. Then she remembered the piece of paper on the desk.

she decided she was going to pay her uncle a visit.

it was late in the afternoon when she found the house. It was not hard to find as she had memorized the drawing kaz had made. There was a smithy attached tot the house. The fire was burning but she could not hear anybody working there.

she slowly stalked into the clearing. She slowly walked over to the smithy to look for a sign of life.

she was 3 meters away from the smithy when she was thrown into the air, she felt her ribs protest from the impact. She fell on the ground with a hard thud but got up quickly.

once she got a good look on her attacker she knew she couldn't win this. A big grey wolf, in his monstrous form but more weirdly it had on a set of armour. Almost blinding her as the sunset was reflecting on it.

she shifted to her monstrous form and growled at the other wolf. If she was going to be killed by her own family might as well go down with a fight.

suddenly the grey wolf seemed to smirk and he shifted back to human. Before her stood an old man, Cara guessed he was around 60 years old. "you look just like your father." Peter said.

Cara shifted back to human. Peter looked confused for a second. "wasn't there supposed to be somebody with you?"

he meant kaz. "no, i am here alone. There is nobody else anymore" peter nodded, seemingly understanding that it was not a topic she wanted to talk about. "so, are you hungry?" peter smiled and beckoned her inside.

she went inside after him, either his cooking was delicious or she was just starved. Probably a little bit of both considering this was the first time she at in over 24 hours.

"so, i guess you are here for some answers." Cara nodded. Peter stood up and walked over to another room, when he returned he had a small box with items in it. He put it in front of Cara.

"you are the daughter of my son, this is all that i have left of him." Cara looked through the box, found some toys. Then picked out a picture of her parents together.

"that was taken the day before he left for fjerda. You were just a baby." Cara looked at peter, wanting to know more. "your dad was employed in the fjerdan army at first. He quickly jumped in rank, he was a powerful wolf probably the most powerful shifter i have ever seen."

Peter eyes glazed over. "some people in fjerda did not like him, thought he was to powerful. They murdered him, tortured him for days before making him shift and cut off his head. After we heard i went there myself to find the people that killed them, but instead i got badly hurt and was lucky to make it out of fjerda alive."

Cara hugged peter who had started tearing up. He hugged back tightly before regaining his composure. "you look just like him you know, your wolf i mean. You are an exact copy; the only difference is your eyes. He had brown eyes while you have green eyes."

Peter continued "so in the letter i got it said that you could use help with control." Peter paused for a moment. "training starts tomorrow."

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"jesper she is gone" kaz said. Jesper stood behind him with his head down. "you can't blame her kaz, she probably heard everything." Kaz felt his hands tremble from emotions. "she wasn't meant to! She was meant to remain here, sleep in while we went to the meeting."

"you should have told her before. She would have understood." Kaz stormed out of his room. Downstairs he met inej. "i have looked everywhere but i cannot find her, not even in her old apartment." Kaz could feel the panic settle in his bones. He had lost her.

jesper came to stand next to them. "what do we do now boss?" kaz looked defeated. "send an informant to rollins and the other gangs, tell them that it's done." Jesper nodded, knowing he should not go against kaz right now.

kaz turned to inej. "get word to nina and Matthias, i want them both to watch the crow club." Inej nodded and went on her way.

he stormed back upstairs to his room, once he closed the door behind her he closed his eyes. Feeling panic rush through his veins. He hated saying what he said at the meeting but once he heard Cara whimper and locked eyes with her his hearth broke. He had rushed outside as fast as his legs would let him but he was to late.

he had gone to the clearing in the woods, hoping to find Cara there but he didn't. Her horses had greeted him and looked around to find her as they saw him which made his heart break even more.

when he had returned to the slat jesper was waiting there for him already but reported to him didn't find Cara either. She was gone, she had believed everything he had said.

however, he had only said those things to protect her, the other gangs had threatened to attack the drags together if he did not get rid of her, under the command of rollins of course. They were scared of her, and rightly so, he knew how powerful Cara was.

but instead he had wanted to go to her uncle with her, he even send her uncle a letter explaining in short the situation, leaving out the part where he would tell the gangs that he would kill her.

but that was all gone now, she was gone now. She left everything behind. He looked over to the little wooden wolf and took it in his hands. A single tear rolling down his cheeks as he had lost the only person he had truly loved.