Lust Born
by
Jacquie Underdown
Lust Born
Copyright © 2015, Jacquie Underdown
ISBN: 9781940744933
Publisher: Beachwalk Press, Inc.
Electronic Publication: October 2015
Editor: Kelly Anderson
Cover: Fantasia Frog Designs
eBooks are not transferable. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
Back Cover Copy
When destiny knocks, do you invite it in?
When a spell book lands on Ariana’s doorstep, her world is thrown into turmoil. That’s nothing new for her, except this time it involves bizarre and terrifying creatures who attempt to kill her. Then there’s the little fact that she now has the ability to perform magic.
Hadeon is another new addition in her life. He happened to drop in at the same time the spell book appeared. He’s dark, sexy, and alpha as hell, and Ariana doesn’t know if she wants to kill him or love him.
But all this chaos is nothing compared to what destiny has in store for her. A future is promised of royalty and immense power, palaces and undying love. But hers is a destiny that is not easily won. She will have to fight to the death against those who want to take it all for themselves. And when the real battle begins, just who the true enemy is will surprise everyone.
Content Warning: contains explicit language, sex scenes, and some violence
Dedication
For Jemma
Acknowledgements
A special thanks to my niece Jayde Hawking and beta reader Lea Darragh for your input during the initial revision stages. Also, thanks to Kelly Anderson for your keen eye during edits. Many thanks to Pamela Tyner for your continued belief in my stories and all the hard work you do behind the scenes. And, as always, thank you Brad for your unceasing support, love, and friendship.
Chapter 1
Ariana flinches when a heavy knock sounds at her front door. She knows who it will be and the rumbling of nerves in her belly entices her to ignore him. The knock beats again, echoing through her apartment like loud drums of warning, and she groans, knowing that she is going to have to face him sooner or later. Ariana rushes to the door, opens it wide, and is met by the enormous barrel chest of her landlord.
Her head tilts back until she meets his angry glare, and she gulps. “I’ll have the money by tomorrow morning. I promise.”
Her landlord crosses his thick arms and narrows his gray eyes further. “Not. Good. Enough.” His voice is deep and gruff.
Ariana’s heart beats faster. Her breathing quickens. “I know. I know. But I’m good for it. I promise with the tips I earn tonight, I’ll have the full rent money by tomorrow morning.” She holds her finger up, runs back inside to her kitchen table, grabs her purse, and pulls out this month’s rent minus the eighty dollars she hopes like hell she’ll make tonight.
Back at the door, she thrusts the cash into her landlord’s huge palm. “Here. See. That’s almost all of it.”
After counting the money, he crunches the dollars in his fist and shoves it into his pocket. “I told you last time—no more chances.”
“I know,” she says, trying hard to hide the cracking of her voice. Her lips are trembling. Damn lips. She can’t lose this apartment. Despite its tiny size and her stark, scrappy possessions arranged throughout, she has made it her home. The first real home she has ever had. This is the one thing in her life that is stable. The only place she feels she belongs. “Please. I’ll have the rest to you tomorrow morning. Please.” She hates to beg, but some things are worth humiliating herself over.
Her landlord releases a long, agitated breath. Jaw tight, he says, “Tomorrow morning. By nine AM. Or you’re out. You hear me?”
She nods.
“Because, by God, I’ll not be putting up with your tardiness anymore. I don’t care if you have nowhere else to go. I don’t care if you end up on the streets. I don’t fucking care. You get that?”
Again she nods.
He smacks his palm against the doorframe. The sound makes Ariana flinch. He all but growls at her like a dog before he spins and marches away, yelling over his shoulder as he does, “Nine AM tomorrow or you’re outta here.”
Ariana shuts the door with a shaking hand and leans back against it. As she looks around at her modest home, she sighs with relief. She has bought herself some more time. More time is all she needs.
Her wristwatch beeps in the silence to notify the new hour. She looks down at the time. Five o’clock.
“Shit,” she hisses and jogs toward her bedroom to get ready. She has half an hour before her shift starts.
Fifteen minutes later, with just enough time left to walk the ten minutes to work—if she walks super-fast—Ariana swings the front door open. The late afternoon sunlight, pink and gold, spills across her apartment, caressing the dying day’s warmth into her skin. A current of cars blow past, rumbling and whooshing in an unbroken stream, leaving their dusty, acrid plumes in the air.
Stepping onto the landing, her three-inch heel finds an uneven surface. Ariana’s arms fling out to find purchase as she stumbles, but there is nothing to clutch. Pain gouges her ankle as it rolls with a crunch. Her knees collapse and gravity sinks its claws into her shoulders and drags her down, her ass smacking as it collides with the cold, concrete step.
Mother fuc…
She bites her lip, breathing deeply through her nose. “Ow!”
Reaching to sooth her throbbing ankle with a gentle rub, she spies the offender—a brown paper package. Ariana grips the heavy parcel. Her name is scrawled in big, black letters across the label. She purses her lips and flips the package over. No return address, no other markings.
Using the door handle for leverage, Ariana eases from the ground, placing pressure on her good leg. She groans like an old woman easing a timeworn body from her sick bed. Hot with frustration, chest squeezing, she pitches the package inside her apartment and slams the door behind her before hobbling off down the street.
* * * *
Nearing the end of her shift, Ariana curses under her breath as she limps while carrying a tray of bourbon mixers to a table of burly, straight-faced men. Her ankle is hot and puffy with deep purple violets blooming across the flesh. Tears swim with every bumpy step.
At the table, she plunks the tray down with a loud cry, slops of liquid spilling over the glasses. The strobe lighting flickering from the dance floor doesn’t help the reeling and growing nausea, nor does the strong scent of cologne and stale alcohol. She lowers her head, sucks air between her teeth, and rests both hands against the table to take the pressure off her ankle.
A tall man stands and holds her steady with an arm around her waist, the other on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
She takes deep breaths and wills the throbbing, which beats all the way up her leg, to dissipate and the dizziness to subside. When the agony morphs to a dull ache and the world straightens, she lifts her head. The table of ten, all dark haired with dark brown eyes, are looking at her with stern brows.
Tough crowd. “I’m fine.” Ariana presses her foot to the floor. Pain smashes her like a knuckle-dustered fist, and she winces. “No. I’m not.”
A towering, more brutish male with tight biceps and broad shoulders rushes to her side. He slides a hand around her back, the other under her legs, scoops her into his arms, and sits her down.
For a moment, Ariana stares. Not because he’s handsome, because tha
t’s not the case. No way can he be called handsome. But he has appeal: a primal, beastly quality. Thick, dark brown, almost black, hair hangs around his neck and face. Coarse black stubble covers a strong, square jaw. His nose is long and a little crooked—been broken once or twice.
Kneeling on the sticky floor, he lifts her foot onto his strong thigh. Ariana tugs down her rucked short skirt as he rolls her leg from one side to the next between his enormous, gentle hands. His dark brown gaze rests on her face and he grimaces.
“You shouldn’t be walking on this,” he says with a deep, harsh tone as he takes her stiletto off. He holds the shoe in the air. “And you shouldn’t be wearing these fucking things.”
Of course she shouldn’t be walking on her ankle. She would love nothing more than to be resting back on her couch at home, watching the television, heelless. But that doesn’t pay the rent. Work does.
Ariana grips the side of the leather booth. Her first instinct is to stand, but she stops herself; she can’t place pressure on that ankle again regardless of his arrogance pushing her away. She flicks away strands of hair that have fallen across her sweat-sheened forehead and offers a scowl, just as transparent as his. “You gonna pay my rent?”
“No.”
“Then don’t tell me what I should and shouldn’t be doing.” With a split-second thought, she berates herself for reacting so harshly, but some people, this man included, underestimate what it takes to be a self-reliant nineteen-year-old girl. “I’m fine,” she says more gently. “If you could help me over to the bar.”
He slips her shoe back on and places her foot to the floor.
She gasps. “No! Take the shoe off again. Please.” Tears wet her cheeks.
He slides off the stiletto and frowns with his long, full lips. “Now what?”
Ariana peers around the darkened space. Unnatural rainbow lights pulse in time with the music. Her stomach churns. Acid finds her throat and she has to swallow hard to keep it down.
“Um, my boss Johnno—he’s the big guy behind the bar—can you tell him what’s happened please?” She drops her head into her hands and mumbles, “He’s going to lose it.” Because she promised him she’d be able to manage this shift, sprained ankle or not.
“Then I’m driving you home.”
She lifts her head and holds her hands up. “Oh no, buddy. Not so quick. You aren’t taking me anywhere.”
He lowers his coarse brows and narrows his eyes. “What are your other options?”
Ariana glances around at the thriving bodies—hot, sweaty guys and girls, laughing, chatting, groping, and dancing. She doesn’t know any of them on a personal level, not enough to ask them for help anyway. And Johnno is not going to drop everything to drive her home.
Ariana blows out a long breath and assesses the height and breadth of the brawn in front of her. Two Tasers would be needed to shut down someone his size, and she only owns one. She shakes her head, pushes against the booth, and heaves herself into a standing position. As the blood rushes to her ankle again, the throbbing re-ignites, but she breathes through it.
“I appreciate your help, ah…”
“Hadeon,” he says.
“Hadeon,” she repeats, distracted from her pain by the way his name slides across her tongue, teasing. “I’m—”
“Ariana,” he says.
She nods. “Yeah. How’d you know?”
“I just know.”
Wary now, she watches him closely as she says, “Okay. Well, as I was saying, I appreciate your offer, but I think I’m just going to catch a cab home.”
Hadeon nods and takes his seat again. “Suit yourself.”
* * * *
The taxi ride home is torture. Each bump in the road amplifies a thousand times in Ariana’s ankle. By the time she arrives at her house and manages to half-jump, half-limp with one shoe off into her apartment and fall onto the couch, she’s crying.
She grabs a couch pillow from behind her back and stuffs it against the opposite armrest, slides off her remaining heel, and groans as she rests her ankle on the pillow. Black smudges and blue smears have stained her skin, competing with the swelling. The damage looks so much worse than she realized. Perhaps broken.
Her heart thrums and that familiar stressful ache settles in the muscles between her shoulder blades. No way can she afford to take time off work, nor can she pay expensive medical bills if she has to get a cast. Especially after she had to use the last of her grocery money paying for the taxi home. She fluffs another couch pillow, places it behind her, and lies back, huffing.
But something sharp jabs into her ribs. She rolls to the side, careful not to disturb her ankle. She digs behind her back and pulls out a brown paper package. She’d forgotten about this heavy little troublemaker and, looking at it again, all the resentment she felt for this unwanted parcel returns. Her first instinct is to pitch it across the room, but a restrained band of inquisitiveness twangs and stalls her.
Ariana sets the package on her stomach and tears at the paper until her fingers touch something smooth.
She pulls out the contents.
A book.
She sits up and lowers the book onto her lap. The scent of honey, old leather, and time, drifts around her. The cover is worn black leather with a pink-painted enamel cherry blossom pushed into it.
She opens to the first fusty, yellow page.
It reads Spells and Such.
The name is intriguing—the type of book she’d want to read and lose herself in. A smile creeps onto her lips, her dislike for this tripping hazard fading. Each embossed black letter of the title is entwined with twisted limbs, ripe buds and flowers of a cherry blossom tree painted with wishy-washy colors and brushstrokes reminiscent of ancient Japanese artwork.
She giggles. “What the hell? Who would give me this?”
Ariana flips to the next page.
Blank.
She turns to the next page, the next, and the next—all blank.
And then the most beautiful image slams her in the face and she gasps. Unfurling in the forefront is a field of white grass, as though a winter frost has kissed each individual blade. It shimmers so brightly it almost burns her eyes to gaze upon it. Nestling within the grass are speckled flowers and plants of blood red, dark eggplant, vintage green, pale blue, and marbled with gold and silver. All are luminescent and lush. Unique varieties she has never before seen. Her chest heaves with a yearning to experience such dizzying loveliness.
A glowing gold pathway, crossing a moat of liquid silver, slices across the landscape and wends toward the grand front door of a palace. The palace is ethereal with shimmering pale pink and mother-of-pearl towers, tall spires, alcoves, and archways. So imposing as it soars into the sky. A sky shaded with crimsons and purples, hanging with puffy clouds of fairy-floss pink.
The picture is bright, slick, and textured like an oil painting. She runs her fingertips across the surface of the page—silky smooth. Ariana’s heart squeezes. Tears swell and dribble down her cheeks, but she palms them away and continues to stare.
“What is this?” Her voice is loud against the silence of the room.
“Aaaaa-nnnn-ssss,” hisses in the air around her.
Ariana’s heart punches blunt blows to her ribcage. Did she really hear that? She shakes her head and listens harder. Soft, so soft is another rustling whisper then the voice fades to silence.
She flops back against the pillow, places an arm over her forehead, and takes a few calming breaths. I’m delirious. Her ankle is choking her with pain, and she wishes she’d grabbed a painkiller or two from the kitchen before she lied down. But there’s no standing up again now, not a chance.
“Aaaa-rrrrr-iiii-aaaa-nnnn-aaaa.” Another whisper in her ear.
She sits bolt upright, jolting her ankle. The book falls to the floor. Pain beats hard and she groans. Blinking back tears, she searches the room.
No one.
Nothing.
Yep, definitely delirious, and the aching in
her ankle is so severe there’s no doubting it’s broken. She sniffles, rubs the tears from her cheeks and nose, and settles back against the pillows. She is going to need a cast, but that will have to wait until tomorrow, along with the accompanying medical bills. Sleep is what she needs now. A good night’s sleep, then when she wakes, the pain will be less and her delirium will be gone. She hopes.
Ariana rests her forearm over her eyes to block out the light and tries not to think. In times like this, now more than ever, she wishes she had parents, family, someone to help her out so she didn’t always have to deal with it all on her own. Someone to say Rest here until you get better. Don’t worry about work or money, I’ll help you out until you’re back on your feet.
A sob falls from her lips and fills the silent space, because Ariana knows, and has learned, that no amount of wishing can ever change what was and what is. The only influence she has is about what will be. But even that seems an impossible task at times.
Chapter 2
The morning doesn’t bring the reprieve Ariana hoped for. She sits up, careful not to move her ankle too much. The swelling has increased and a stiffness has settled in. There is no way she can go to work tonight.
Rent. Nine AM.
Ariana smacks her forehead with her palm. She didn’t grab her tips before she left last night. Tears pool and fall down her cheeks.
“God. Stupid book,” she growls to the quiet room as she spies Spells and Such open on the floor below the couch. She rolls, snatches it up off the ground, and rests it on her lap. Her heart thuds and she jerks as the pages stand on end and flutter in the air. She looks around for an open window, for a source of wind.
My God, I’m still freakin’ delirious.
But then the pages settle and staring up at her are the words Healing Spell. Pulse hammering, she twitches to throw the book away from her, but her curiosity is winning. She peers at the crudely drawn pictures on the page of a cracked skull and the various stages of healing until the bone is back to its original connected form.
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