Audra’s nose crinkled in distaste when the only two guests she enjoyed exited the party. “Your mother would be ashamed of you, Adam. Your father had that stage built for your violin performances, and this is what you use it for now?”
Adam’s smile froze on his face at mention of his deceased parents, but it didn’t fade. His expression twisted with a haughtiness he wore when challenged with integrity. “The violin doesn’t amuse me. But this?” He leaned against the gold wallpaper that gilded the ballroom in a veneer of wealth and beauty. “This amuses me. Besides, I’m not strong enough to force anyone to do anything. All I did was strip her of her fear.” He waggled his eyebrows at Audra. “She did the rest of the stripping all on her own.”
Audra bit back her scoff of disgust, and set to pouring tea for the guests who wouldn’t have noticed if she’d opted for the good tea. She’d selected the sub-par garbage from a bag instead, and no one said a thing. Most of them were drunk, as they were at all of Adam’s monthly soirees. “Enjoy the cesspool you’ve created for yourself.”
“I always do.” Adam took the teacup and sipped the hot beverage with a sneer of distaste that she’d used the cheap stuff. “This is rubbish, and you know it.” Still, he downed the cup, much to Audra’s amusement.
“I’m glad you hated it. I laced your cup with a laxative.”
Adam’s thick chestnut eyebrows rose in alarm. He was highly desired due partially to his stunning chiseled looks, and partially because he’d inherited the largest fortune in history, along with taking over his father’s profitable mortgage company. Though, he could’ve won the title on looks alone.
He eyed his tea cup skeptically. “You did what?”
“I’m tired of cleaning up bras from your floor. At least this way, there’ll be no women coming after you for child support if you get careless. You’ll spend your night in the bathroom, not the bedroom.”
Adam glowered at her and placed his teacup on the tray. “You don’t have to worry about things like that.”
Audra patted his cheek, softening at his smile. “I always worry about you, you stupid, stupid boy.”
Adam grudgingly kissed her cheek, and left her to join the others, who were hollering at the woman on the stage. She was down to her underwear and bra, which usually meant that it was nearing on midnight.
Audra yawned, but kept on her job, cleaning up the empty bottles and plates as she went. She caught Lucien’s eye across the way, and the two exchanged a sad smile. Lucien’s Pulse was that he could increase your happiness with a simple touch. He could have been put to great use in a nursing home or a preschool, but he was posted in the castle, shaking the hands of everyone as they walked inside. No matter what misgivings they’d had on their way in, the partiers left their caution at the door, smiling at the Pulse of happiness they were given upon entry.
Lucien sauntered over to her with a slight wickedness to his smirk that gave Audra a hint of a giggle. Though he was twenty years her junior, he always made it a point to dote on her. Even without Pulsing happiness into her, Lucien had a way about him that made everyone glad. His hips moved in a tango as he caught her up in a dance that made her feel young and enchanting, rather than the constant mother who, it seemed, would never be finished raising the man-child they’d all been entrusted to watch over.
“You look like you could use a little dance,” Lucien pressed his torso to hers to coax a tango out of her. He was exactly her height of five-foot-ten, but had a longer nose than her modest one, and the ability to make a joke out of anything.
Audra kept up easily with the steps he slowed for her. “Oh, Lucien. I only dance for you.”
Lucien had the kind of deportment that made everyone want to be his friend. While Adam had been blessed with stunning handsomeness (a gift from his far humbler father), Lucien had a smile that touched his eyes, and transcended mere superficial pleasantries. He looked into Audra’s gaze and saw the sadness in the makeshift matriarch. “You’re disappointed in our young man?”
“I don’t want to be. I just can’t shake how hurt his parents would be if they saw all this waste. Adam didn’t used to be like this. He’s barely turned twenty, and he’s been given the wealth of a small country, and too much freedom without the life experience he needs to be able to handle it all.”
“He’s not going to run the company into the ground. He’s like his father – brilliant eye for business. He just needs to get his head about him.” Lucien looked as if he was about to say more, but the doorbell rang, which was his cue. He stopped the tango with an apologetic tilt to his head, resuming the duty that was truly beneath his talents.
“Mind your post,” Bosworth chided Lucien, coming down from the stairs in his military jacket, which had fit him far better a decade ago. That was before Adam’s father had offered him a salary he couldn’t refuse. Bosworth checked his pocket watch and frowned. “The storm is getting more troublesome out there, and the guests are tracking mud into the foyer. See that Vivienne mops it up.” Bosworth’s pooched belly was sucked in, but it hardly made a difference to the strained buttons on the brown and red jacket. As head of the household staff, he made it his job to see to everyone else performing to Adam’s satisfaction, no matter how depraved the parties became.
Lucien wasn’t put off by Bosworth’s haughty scolding, but blew the man a kiss, as he often did to throw Bosworth off his game. “Whatever you say, you old tease.”
When Lucien opened the door, it wasn’t one of the many twenty-and-thirty-somethings all dolled up for a night of debauchery at Adam’s infamous parties. His eyebrows rose at the wrinkled old woman with a long nose and gnarled fingers. She wore a black cloak with the hood pulled over her head, shrouding her eyes in shadow. “The rain’s really coming down out there. My car got stuck in the mud half a mile away, and you’re the first house I’ve seen. Can I trouble you to make a phone call?”
“Of course, young lady. Come on in.” Lucien doted on older women by referring to them as “young” ladies, which always garnered him a smile. He reveled not in using his Pulse, but in drawing out happiness in others without the use of magic. “Oh, it’s really coming down out there. Here, let’s get you into a chair and put a hot cup of tea in your hands.”
The woman smiled at him, and took his arm as she trembled from the chill.
Adam stumbled out with two women, both drunk and cackling at something “hilarious” Adam had said. When the man of the house saw the old woman, he stopped short. “Go on up without me, girls. I’ve a matter to see to.” He narrowed his eyes at Lucien, who pretended not to see the disapproval. “What is this?”
Lucien straightened, his deportment fitting in nicely with the polish of the marble floors and the dust-free golden sconces that bespoke of good breeding. “This is a woman, and her car broke down. She’s coming in to warm up while I ring for someone to assist.”
“We have a dress code,” Adam reminded his attendant, his chest puffing out to show off the expensive three-piece suit he wore. Though Adam was tall, muscular and built for chopping down trees, he’d been bred for real estate and taking over small companies. The tailor-made jacket was unbuttoned, but the blue vest beneath still made him look dapper and powerful. “She can wait in the stables. I don’t need the guests seeing a sopping old crone standing in my foyer.”
Lucien balked at his boss, whom he’d taught to ride horses and instructed on many a dance lesson. Now that Adam was an adult, Lucien wasn’t “Uncle Lou”, but rather the servant who was expected to obey at the cost of kindness. “Adam, surely you don’t mean that. She’s not bothering anyone.”
Adam didn’t act as if he cared when his guests disapproved, but his frown was more prominent when Rory, Henry, Audra, and now Lucien tried to control his behavior. “This is my home, and you’re my servant, are you not?”
Lucien’s jaw stiffened in time with his posture. “I don’t think you understand the difference between a servant and a slave.”
“I don’t think you under
stand the difference between a paycheck and unemployment.” Adam clicked his fingers at the old woman, not bothering with manners. “Out you go.”
Lucien reeled backwards, breathless, as the old woman threw off her cloak, straightening her posture to reveal her true self. In seconds, her wrinkles smoothed, the signature royal blonde hue chased away the gray in her hair, she grew several inches in height, and her face shifted from an old hag to a beautiful woman in her fifties with an imperious look about her.
Adam gasped, and started in on a string of apologies when he recognized the woman as none other than the elusive ousted queen who’d cursed Rory as a baby. “Malaura?” Adam glanced behind him guiltily as his crass treatment of her private love letters to him framed his frozen form like a spotlight of doom.
Dread washed over Adam’s features and he fell to his knees, knowing it wouldn’t bode well for him to run at this point. She hadn’t been seen in years, but whenever there were reported sightings, someone had walked away with a curse, if they’d managed to walk away at all.
“Run, Adam!” Lucien shouted, and then turned and darted into the ballroom to end the party and shoo everyone out through the back exit.
Adam was trembling under her intense scrutiny, humbling his posture so that he looked nothing like the haughty heir to the Fontaine fortune.
The sorceress looked down her suddenly slender nose and shook her head. “I’ve heard rumors of your pride, but never would’ve guessed the son of Moira and Peter Fontaine would’ve grown into such an arrogant prat. How I adored you from afar, but up close?” She glanced up at the private love letter she’d sent him, and a flicker of true hurt dashed across her pinched features. “Up close, you’re quite disappointing. Beautiful, but utterly vapid.”
“Malaura, I can explain.”
She began to circle him, her black dress dragging out behind her. “Moira and Peter wouldn’t have wanted this lifestyle for their boy. Your parents never sponsored my more interesting projects back when I sat on the throne, but I respected their firm command of their capitalistic empire nonetheless. They were good people who raised you far better than this.” She tutted him, and then reached down to tap a pointy red fingernail under his chin to lift his head. “You’re even more stunning than in your pictures.” She bent over and caught his earlobe between her teeth and tugged, laughing at his shudder. “I prefer my toys to be pretty, and you’re by far the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. How I would love to take you home with me. Oh, the things I could teach a virile student like yourself.” Her tongue darted out to wet her crimson lips as she studied his squirming.
“I’m nowhere near as accomplished as your last student. I would be a disappointment to you!” Everyone in the kingdom knew that Remus Johnstone had been her most treasured student. Rory’s uncle had gray eyes that held many secrets, but he never spoke of his time in Malaura’s study, back when she’d ruled Avondale, and he’d been the gifted boy everyone was jealous of for catching the eye of the queen.
Now that her gaze rested on Adam, he squirmed as if that might scrape her attention off of him and cast it elsewhere.
She stroked Adam’s arm, and he let out a whimper, his lips parted and trembling with terror. It was widely known that Malaura’s Pulse was that she could touch a person and mirror their own Pulse. He felt her shooting his own ability of Persuasion and stripping away of inhibitions into him. “Tell me you’ll come away with me and be my toy. I would take such care to train you properly. It’s been so long since I’ve had a pupil worthy of my talents.”
“No!” he blurted without filter, since his caution was gone. She’d meant to use his gift to convince him to run away with her, but it backfired, making him speak more honestly than his fear would normally permit. “You’re disgusting! Even if you hadn’t cursed Rory, I would never run away with you. Look at me, and then look at yourself! Your touch makes my skin crawl. I am not so desperate that I would give myself over to someone so plain as you.” Adam shook his head and tried to rid himself of the Pulse he feared might cost him his life. He began to sweat through his suit. “Don’t listen to a word I say! Take any room in the castle you like. Stay as long as you need. Only don’t curse me!”
Malaura’s red painted lips were drawn in a tight line. “Why would you assume you’re in need of a curse?”
“I know your mind. Everyone knows Rory won’t see her twenty-fifth birthday because of you.”
Of all things, the woman laughed. “You do as you please without thinking of the consequences. Me, on the other hand, I only think of the consequences. What is the consequence of letting such selfishness carry on like this? What is the consequence of allowing such spoiled behavior to be idolized by the public?” Then she leaned in. “What is the consequence of letting you go for some other woman to enjoy your loveliness? Eyes that striking and a face that handsome should only be focused on me. If not me, then no one shall have you.”
Adam swallowed and closed his eyes, lacing his fingers behind his head. “Please don’t kill me.”
“Silly boy. If I killed you, then how would you suffer for rejecting me and making me look like a fool by showing off my letters? I want you to live a long time regretting all we could have had together.”
“No. No, please!”
She knelt before him and opened her fist, producing a handful of gold dust. Then she gripped the back of his head and forced his mouth upon hers, chortling through his blatant disgust, as if she enjoyed his distress. The moment she released him, she blew the gold dust into his face, smiling as he choked and coughed.
Adam sat back on his heels, still wiping the gold dust from his face. “What did you do to me?”
“Your insides will match your outsides now – horrifying as I’ve witnessed them to be.”
An alarm rang through the house, and Adam guessed that Lucien had set off the fire alarm to get everyone out quicker. He rubbed the gold dust from his face, but recoiled, shouting with distress at the sight of his hands. “What are you doing to me? Make it stop!”
Brown hair sprouted from the backs of his hands, growing thick enough to make his pampered fingers appear animalistic. He felt around on his face, and found that his upper lip was now puffy, and his eyebrows were bushy and unruly.
The sorceress pressed her finger to his lips. “You’ll remain ghastly like this until the last petal falls from this rose,” she explained as she opened her fist again. This time, a perfect red bud bloomed out from the center of her palm. “You’ll live ten more years like this while the slowly rose blooms. Then you’ll join the Lupine tribe on your thirtieth birthday when the last petal falls. If I can’t have you, I’ll make it so that no one wants you.”
Panicked, Adam shook his head, murmuring for her to reconsider.
Malaura remained firm in her judgment. “Our world has no place for selfishness like yours. You’ll pay for your sins, and then you’ll join the outcasts, roaming Avondale as a wolf until you die.”
Audra burst into the foyer, eyes wild and arms raised to attack. Despite the danger, she was ready to risk it all to save Adam. “No! You’ll not hurt my boy like this. His foolishness began when his parents died. This isn’t who he’ll always be.”
The sorceress arose with a smile. “I’ll hurt you all like this, unless you step aside.”
Audra dropped to her knees and held Adam, who wailed into her shoulder, clawing at his hands in confusion. Instead of arguing with the woman, Audra closed her eyes and began a chant of her own, her arms shaking with determination that outweighed her fear. Though she’d been cast in the role of servant, she’d sat in on every one of Adam’s lessons when he was schooled in the art of magic.
Then Lucien and Bosworth came forward, murmuring the same counter-curse in hopes of saving the boy they’d been entrusted to watch over. The other servants ran to Adam’s aid, adding girth to the spell that needed to somehow be more powerful than the curse of the elite sorceress.
Malaura’s head tilted back as she let out a heart
y cackle. “Oh, how funny you are to try and counter a curse of mine. Only Remus was powerful enough to come up against me all those years ago, and that’s only because I trained him. Enjoy the feeling of failure. In fact, for your petulance, I’ll grant you with a curse of your own. The Lupine has no use for you all, but you’ll be trapped until Adam turns, and then you’ll be nothing.”
She waved her hand over the foyer, and her voice grew louder as the servants collapsed, one by one as more of them ran forward to try and save the master of the house.
Adam saw precious little through the gold dust and the tears that marred his vision, but when he finally was able to look around, the sorceress had vanished, and the servants who loved him were nowhere to be seen.
* * *
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Also by Mary E. Twomey
Cursed Beauty
Beauty's Cursed Sleep
Beauty's Cursed Beast
Beauty's Cursed Prince
Savage Hearts
Savage Hearts
Dangerous Hearts
Twisted Hearts
Damaged Hearts
Wicked Hearts
Sinfully Sacrificed
Sins of the Father
Sins of the Mother
Sins of Mine: A Paranormal Prison Romance
Territorial Mates
Vengeful Prince
Wicked Prince
Malicious Prince
Vengeful King
Wicked King
Beauty's Cursed Sleep Page 20