Harsh Light of Day

by Jaye A. Jones

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  Author’s notes (I’ll keep it short and sweet)

  My favorite stories have always been the ones where the little guy turns the world upside down. The scrawny orphan defeats undefeatable evil. The creature the world overlooks is the only hope for victory. The small blonde girl saves the world (a lot).

  I write the stories I want to read. I hope to write you the kinds of stories that make you feel the way those stories always make me feel.

  Thank you for your interest in the worlds that exist in my mind. I promise to keep ‘em comin’. Please check out the excerpt from book one of my Magic Sways series Craved.

  And Under the Harsh Light is on the way!

  Excerpt from Craved

  Then I felt the surge of energy, the density of the air shift, the heavy sense of something that shouldn’t be there igniting a familiar twinge of panic in my stomach.

  A man walked in, way too tall and way too muscled to be a normal guy. Regular people didn’t look like him. Defined muscles bulging everywhere. Looks only found in airbrushed magazine photos. He was attractive kind of like predators in the wild were. Beastly. Alpha. Utterly masculine.

  But big men didn’t scare me. Nothing to be panicked about so far.

  Behind the beast was a shorter man, less muscular and dominant than the first, but way more breathtaking. Perfectly put together. Not a hair out of place. I couldn’t breathe as I scanned him up and down, even through my bruises and the nosebleed and the bullseye of pain on my face. His honey-colored eyes met mine for a few moments and my rational brain melted.

  I think I actually felt my eyes dilate.

  But gorgeous men didn’t scare me either. Still no reason for my panic.

  “Are you the witch who killed one of the Sinclair sisters?” the huge man said.

  I looked away from the too gorgeous for his own good one back to the beastly one, and it took me a few heartbeats before I processed any part of what he’d said.

  Did he ask if I was a witch? My stomach churned.

  I thought about Myra, her cold eyes and bony, black tipped fingers. I thought about Lorna, her long, raven hair and cat-like sneer. My nose leaked blood, and it ached.

  “I’m not a witch,” I said, and hated the tremble in my voice. My mouth and chin were all sticky now, covered with blood, dripping freely onto the white sheets of my brand new, state of the art gurney.

  My chest clenched as realization struck me. Why the air felt different. Why my body was brutally shaking, my heart galloping, my injuries shrieking.

  Magic.

  The big guy was casting a spell on the nurse. My panic belonged here. It was a Sway spell. The Sisters used it often. I knew the feel of it on my skin, knew the churning deep inside.

  Screw control. Fuck dignity. I screamed.

  I was trapped on this hospital bed, rigged up to this bizarre metal contraption unable to run, unable to fight back. I wanted to get away from the magic, and I could feel it surrounding me, sliding down my throat, creeping into my pores, suffocating every inch of me.

  “Hush,” the beautiful man said, and my scream was cut off. Another spell I knew well. Only air flowed from my throat. But I didn’t stop.

  Couldn’t stop.

  My panic went supernova.

  I had to get away. I couldn’t be trapped like this. Couldn’t let myself be taken. Again. Imprisoned. Again. Squirming sent jets of agony through me and didn’t do any good whatsoever, but I didn’t have control.

  I wanted to go home, though I had no real home anymore. I wanted to be eight again curled up under my blankets, hiding from the monsters in the shadows that weren’t there. I wanted to be safe in my old life where magic never touched me.

  “I’m going to heal you, Daniella Walker,” the way too handsome man whispered, smooth like custard. Soothing like hot chocolate. Or he meant it to be. It should have been. I couldn’t detect any Sway behind his words, but it didn’t matter. They were all out to get me.

  Then, a little late again, I realized what he said.

  Please don’t, I thought. Even though no words came out, the gorgeous one hesitated.

  Take stock of yourself, little girl, the rational part of my brain said. Deep, infected gashes down the left side of your back. Destroyed left arm, leg, pelvis. Torn rotator cuff, six broken ribs on the left side, and one on the right. Swelling, scrapes, and bruising everywhere. Spontaneously bleeding nose faucet. All magically induced. All magically sustained.

  “You won’t walk out of here without this,” the handsome man’s hot chocolate voice was calm, even, collected and unaffected. How dare he be so relaxed? Anger made my eyes slit at him for a second.

  He was right though. I knew he was. I should be reasonable. A man of otherworldly good looks wanted to put his hands on me, take the pain away, make me feel all better.

  But the crawling, the terror, was everywhere. My rational brain understood the necessity of his hands, of this spell, but the rest of me couldn’t stand the thought of more magic.

  “You have to let me—”

  “No,” I cried, surprised the gorgeous one’s Hush spell hadn’t stopped my words this time. “No more magic. N-n-never. Never any more magic.”

  But he didn’t listen. He rubbed his bronze hands together. The gorgeous man’s wrists were bruised, like he’d been wearing handcuffs too tight. I focused on the strangest things when I was terrified—something I recently learned about myself.

  He came closer. Big hands out toward me. Inches from me.

  I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

  Don’t touch. Don’t touch. Don’t touch.

  Those big, bronze hands disappeared.

  Myra’s long fingers, her pointy, black nails cut the girl’s fevered skin like knives. The witch smiled wickedly, then placed her hand on the girl’s face, caressed her cheek with care like a mother would. The cuts she’d given were gone in seconds, healed so the witch could torture her again, hear her screams of misery and desperate cries again.

  I never escaped their basement. I was still there, right now, strapped down by invisible binds and held in place by invisible chains to be tortured, beaten, used up until there was nothing left of me. Until they took everything from me.

  Death should be quick. Please. Please kill me quickly.

  Where the witch had caressed, she slapped without mercy with impossible strength, and the girl spit blood as her bottom lip split open. The witch’s nails came at the girl again, knives on fevered skin, and the witch laughed as the girl screamed.

  I wanted to scream again, and I did, but the sound was only inside my mind. I felt my last grasp of reality leave as I inhaled, and screamed silently again. And again. I screamed at Myra, spitting blood at her porcelain face, the blood never reaching her because she had powers that had no right existing in this world.

  “What are you waiting for, Cam? Do it already.”

  A man’s voice. I heard the words. There were no men in the basement. No men ever around Myra or her sister.

  I shuddered, my teeth chattered, lost all control of my body that continued to thrash and flail, but my mind was back where I really was. Not in the basement. I tasted blood. In the MICU, in Chicago.

  “Lucas, shut up. She’s freaking out.”

  The big man’s eyes were fixed on me. He was Swaying me to relax, and my body was responding now, no longer futilely squirming. He brought me back to this place. But now I was trapped with his mind.

  Couldn’t move. Couldn’t stop him. Couldn’t keep the magic away. But there was nothing I could do about it, for a ridiculous amount of reasons.

  “Do it. Now. I don’t know how long I can hold them both.”

  The grumpy night nurse was gone. When did she leave? The big one must have Swayed her to go get a cup of coffee or move onto the next patient. I knew it was possible. I didn’t know h
ow it worked. Or its limits. Or how long it lasted.

  The handsome one caught my eye, and I was able to watch him as he surveyed my wounds. When he saw my eyes on him, he hesitated again. I think he may have even taken a step back, but I couldn’t be sure considering the awkward angle I was laying in. The Sway was only keeping my body from struggling, keeping my mind here, in this room. I was still able to think what I wanted, look where I wanted. I was still me.

  At least this was one of the better Sways I’d been under.

  The handsome one shook his head a few times, shot the big one a look that went unnoticed, then put his hands on my stomach in a rush and held them there.

  I was trapped. I was helpless. I was bleeding and broken and a basket case. And when the handsome one’s Mend spell started to swirl around me, under my skin, inside my guts, I gagged, wanting to puke to get the magic out of me.

  “She doesn’t have to be awake for this,” I heard, but didn’t understand.

  Magic felt like something, something tangible I couldn’t describe. It felt like something wasn’t right, a feeling deep down that screamed it didn’t belong. Usually, the screaming was on the outside, in the air, on my skin, and I could keep it there.

  “I’m not sure I can,” I heard, but didn’t understand.

  Mend got inside, to the deep place that should be my own. I felt violated. I felt helpless, trapped, breathless and worthless. I was ashamed for my weakness. But it came anyway. Tears joined the pool of blood at my chin on the stiff white sheets that were used once, and now used up and had to be thrown away.

  “You’re going to have to try,” I heard, but didn’t understand.

  Kind of like me. Used once and used up. Tossed aside. I was nothing. I couldn’t stop any of it. Never stood a chance.

  I’ll never be free again.

  I couldn’t open my eyes anymore through the pain, through the shame, through my tears as memories I’d kept at bay tormented me, threatening to finally complete their task and break me.

  “Sleep,” was the last thing I heard before everything disappeared.

  Craved by Jaye A. Jones is available now for your reading pleasure.

  Visit www.jayeajones.com for more.