Contents
Cover
Tempted by Evil
Copyright
More from the Authors
Dedication
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Tempted by Evil
By
Shannon Morton
&
Amber Lynn Natusch
Version 1
Copyright © 2012 Shannon Morton and Amber Lynn Natusch
All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN-13: 978-0-9849464-8-8
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, businesses, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental.
Published by Shannon Morton and Amber Lynn Natusch Cover Design and Photography by Dannielle Gleim - Vella Photography Cover Model: Jennifer Gleim
Edited by Jennifer Ryan and Kristen Bronner
www.redheadsread.com www.amberlynnnatusch.com
The Light and Shadow Trilogy (YA Fantasy)
By Shannon Morton and Amber Lynn Natusch
Tempted by Evil Tried by Fire Tested by Faith
More by Shannon Morton
Immortal Treasures Series
Book Reviews
www.redheadsread.com
See More Including Release Dates:
www.redheadsread.com
facebook.com/shannonmortonwrites
Follow @redheadsread
Tweet @redheadsread
More by Amber Lynn Natusch
The Caged Series CAGED
HAUNTED
FRAMED
SCARRED
FRACTURED
Novella 1
STRAYED
Novella 2
BETRAYED
The UNBORN Series
See More Including Release Dates:
amberlynnnatusch.com
facebook.com/amberlynnnatusch
Follow @AmberLNatusch
Tweet @AmberLNatusch
To the crazy people that love us.
We aren't quite sure why you do, but we'll take it anyway.
Prologue
Sister Mary Constance,
I miss you terribly.
I need your soothing words of wisdom now more than ever before. You always encouraged me to listen to my heart and believed that it would guide me, but I am afraid my heart and my mind are leading me astray. I am not the girl you once knew.
If only this were a dream from which I could awaken . . . but dreams are for children, and I am not a child anymore. You've long told me that we have nothing to fear in death, for the Father so loves us, that He will welcome us with open arms into His kingdom one day. But it is not death I fear, Constance.
I fear my own failing mind . . .
1
I found myself, once again, perched on a wood and wrought iron bench outside a little café called Holy Grounds. Not having enough money to actually go inside, I’d spent the majority of my time for the past two days reading and people-watching from my lovely outdoor spot. Placing a bookmark near the end of Great Expectations, the only book I still had in my possession, I thought about what a disappointment it was that reality could never be as colorful in real life as it was in literature.
Sitting there silently, I would watch people for what seemed like hours. The older couples who walked hand in hand, the middle-aged businesspeople with their technologically advanced cell phones and laptop computers, the young people on their lunch break between classes, and the mothers with babies and young children in strollers. All of them were taking a brief respite from their day-to-day drudgery and mundane lives within the solid walls of the café while I, ever the outsider, pondered the small adrenaline rush that came with sitting still. The nuns had always forbidden idleness.
I was occupying my familiar space on the bench when he approached.
I’d always been a smart girl and took for granted that I possessed a clever mind, the ability to formulate a coherent sentence, and a more than adequate vocabulary with which to express myself―all of which abandoned me the instant I laid eyes on him.
Instinctively, I knew he was one of the most beautiful people in existence. He was certainly the most beautiful person I’d ever seen, and he was walking toward me. I looked around to see if he could possibly be headed toward someone else and then began to stare at my feet while nervously biting my lower lip. Certainly a being as magnificent as he was would completely overlook a girl as plain as I.
The butterflies in my stomach began to fly around in wild circles, and I heard the faint sound of someone clearing his throat. Realizing that I probably looked ridiculous staring at the ground, I turned my gaze upward to discover the most stunning blue eyes I’d ever seen.
“Hi.” His voice was low and warm, like an old fire with only the embers remaining, making even that ordinary word sound heavenly. “I’m Julian.”
“Um, hello,” I stammered, so focused on his perfectly sculptured face that I was having difficulty remembering my own name.
He raised an eyebrow expectantly and tilted his head in my direction.
“Oh, I’m Aspen,” I nearly whispered, unable to catch my breath.
“Nice to meet you, Aspen,” Julian continued in that glorious voice. I couldn’t believe this god-like stranger was actually going out of his way to speak to me. “Mind if I join you?” He was serious, though still smiling.
“Why?” I blurted in disbelief.
He raised both eyebrows this time, seeming surprised by my response, and started to chuckle. “I dunno. You just looked a little . . . lost, and I thought you might need a friend, or at least someone to talk to.”
“I’m not lost, exactly.” I mentally crossed myself while rationalizing that I wasn’t completely lying. “I guess you could say I’m stuck.” The words just fell out of my mouth while my mind mulled over the events of the past couple of days.
“Wow, I’m not sure if anyone has ever used that word to describe sitting with me,” he said incredulously, with a hint of false pain and a grin that caused my previously erratic heart to suddenly stop beating altogether.
“No,” I corrected, a bit late for having been struck with the force of Julian’s grin. “Not stuck with you, just stuck here, in this town.”
In this life, my mind continued.
“I don’t mean to pry. Well, actually, I guess I do,” Julian smirked, “but how old are you?”
“Eighteen, two days ago.” I forced a half smile.
“Happy belated birthday.” He grinned again, and I was only slightly less affected. “And it’s exactly what I thought―you’re too young to feel stuck anywhere. You can do anything, go anywhere, be anyone.” I was struck by the confidence in his tone. But then, I knew he was confident because he sat and started a conversation with a total stranger outside a café. I found myself wondering what it would feel like to have the
kind of confidence that Julian possessed―to be so self-assured that every word from my mouth sounded like truth. I wanted to know what that felt like.
I let Julian’s words run through my head like an untamed jungle cat, allowing myself to ponder 'doing anything and going anywhere' and being someone completely different. I saw myself as the main character in every story I’d ever read and felt truly free, if for only a moment.
Julian shifted in his chair, drawing my attention and making me realize that he was staring at me with a curious expression. Feeling slightly embarrassed once again, I lowered my head quickly, bit my lower lip, and began to fidget with the edge of my scarf. It didn’t seem to discourage Julian’s examination of me―I could still feel the weight of his gaze upon me.
“What were you just thinking about?” he asked as if he were sincerely interested in the daydreams of a silly girl.
I knew I would sound ridiculous attempting to explain to him that I was imagining myself rafting down the Mississippi with Huck Finn or picking apples with Anne and Diana at Green Gables. Giggling to myself at my own lack of actual human experience, I replied with a less than believable “Nothing.” He squinted his eyes in disbelief, but thankfully didn’t force the issue. I could see a million unasked questions in his eyes.
“So where ya from?” he asked after a short pause, seeming satisfied with his choice of topic.
“Not far from here, actually. I was raised by the nuns at the Sisters of the Sacred Heart Convent just outside of town,” I replied with a nostalgic tone in my voice. I was convinced that anyone could recognize the wistful look on my face as I remembered the place and people I’d always considered ‘home.’ Still, it somehow seemed like make-believe as the words tumbled out of my mouth.
Julian’s expression was still curious, and I knew that he expected me to continue.
Drawing a hurried gulp of air into my lungs, I exhaled with what must have sounded an awful lot like a sigh. “I’m an orphan,” I began. “My parents died when I was so young that I have no memories of them.” I paused to gauge his reaction to my tale; his face was a study in calm, but his ocean-blue eyes darkened with an emotion I desperately hoped was not pity. “The nuns took me in because I hadn’t any other family, or any family that they could find, in any case.”
Julian shifted slightly in his seat, and I looked up from the captivating pattern of my worn-out jeans, immediately regretting my decision to do so as I noticed a strange look in his eyes. The look made me feel like I was drowning in his gaze, as if each second spent looking into his eyes stole yet another breath from my lungs, but at the same time, made my heart believe that drowning in Julian’s eyes was the absolute safest place I could possibly be.
Drawing another shaky breath, I broke eye contact with him, allowing my tortured brain to form yet another coherent sentence. “So, um, since the sisters couldn’t find any relatives, I was raised at the convent.”
“You lived with nuns all your life?” Julian broke in incredulously.
I looked at him with what must have been surprise or exasperation because he smirked as I answered, “Is there something wrong with that?” He shook his head slowly, pondering my question, just as an elderly couple walked by hand in hand. “Nooo . . .” He trailed off slightly until the couple was out of earshot. “It's just . . . well, kinda weird. I’ve never met someone who’d been raised by nuns before. What could you do for fun in a convent?”
“Oh, we did all sorts of things to stay occupied,” I began with slightly less hesitation. After all, it was something I knew like the back of my own hand. “We knitted blankets for the elderly. We served meals at the homeless shelter. We visited the children in the hospitals. We―”
“Yes, yes,” Julian interrupted, “but what did you do for fun?”
I just looked at him with a puzzled expression.
He gazed expectantly at me. When I didn’t answer, he spoke again. “You know, climb trees, watch television, go out to the pizza parlor, or hang out at the movie theater on Friday nights?”
Still I looked at him, dumbfounded.
“You mean you’ve never done any of those things?”
“Well, I certainly know what television is. I mean, the Mother Superior used to allow us to watch programs of religious importance from time to time. And one time, Sister Mary Constance snuck me a Coke when she purchased the groceries. But that made me sick to my stomach.” My heart stuttered when he smiled that mischievous smile. “And, of course, I was allowed chocolate cake on my birthday every year.”
Julian eyed the candy bar sticking out of my duffel bag pocket on the bench next to me. I blushed. “I love chocolate,” I almost whispered.
He settled back in the seat, blue eyes twinkling as that maddeningly beautiful smirk tugged at his lips. “So you never did anything just for fun?”
“Everything should be done for a purpose. Idleness is strictly forbidden at the Sisters of the Sacred Heart.” I sighed thoughtfully and traced my finger around the edge of a small hole in my pants, knowing that I had spent my morning indulging in that forbidden activity.
“Ahhh,” Julian said cryptically. I looked over at him to find he had one eyebrow raised in amusement. I’d always wanted to be able to raise one eyebrow; the Mother Superior was horribly talented at using hers to inspire confessions from or strike fear into the novitiates, and she often used it on me as well. Sadly, I’d only ever been able to raise both at once.
“You’ve never had real fun,” Julian explained. “And that,” he gestured dubiously to the candy bar once again, “is your version of rebellion?” He paused for a brief moment. “I guess it's a beginning to your quest for independence.”
I paused for a moment, digesting Julian’s assertions.
“I read!” I blurted out finally.
“Oh?”
“I love to read. It’s what I do for fun,” I explained in choppy sentences.
“But certainly a convent can’t possibly have the most . . . entertaining literature?” His eyebrow lifted along with the inflection at the end of his sentence.
I blushed again.
“Well, um, Sister Mary Constance . . .” I spoke hurriedly, trailing off.
“I see.” He smirked again. “This Sister Mary Constance, she was your co-conspirator, then?”
“Oh no!” I exclaimed, horrified. “I would never plot to do evil! It's just, well, it sometimes doesn’t seem quite so evil in the moment.”
Julian’s smirk deepened into an almost-grin. “Indeed.”
“It was nothing so horrible.” I mentally crossed myself again for lying. After all, I had been raised in a convent. I knew that all evil was still evil. Murder was a mortal sin. Breaking curfew would be a venial sin. Others were more of a gray area. “She would simply borrow books from the library for me, except for this one.”
I held up my copy of Dickens’ classic for his inspection.
“It’s one of my favorites so she bought it for my birthday last year. And since she was largely in charge of my education, Constance allowed me to read books that, I suppose, would not usually be found inside convent walls.”
Julian leaned forward expectantly.
“Like what?”
“Mark Twain, Jane Austen, The Brontë Sisters . . . ,” I drifted off. “Too many wonderful authors to even name them all.”
When I dared a glance, Julian was looking at me with a mixture of what I surmised was disbelief and admiration.
“Which is your favorite Mark Twain?”
I grinned and clasped my hands together tightly on top of my lap. “Huck Finn, of course!” I exhaled enthusiastically, suddenly feeling a bit like a five-year-old child.
Still smiling, Julian just nodded.
“I’m hungry. You want to go get something to eat with me?” he asked as I looked up at him.
“No, I’m fine,” I lied again as my stomach rumbled. He looked at me, disbelieving. “Well, um, it’s just that . . . I don’t have much money.” I breathed as I bit m
y lower lip, looking down once again at the bench.
“It’s on me,” he said, as if I should have assumed it from the beginning. “Consider it my contribution to your bid for independence.” He grinned again. “In fact, we should get pizza to make your journey to the dark side complete.” He chuckled softly at some joke it felt like I should have understood, then looked at me in consternation. “You’ve never seen Star Wars?”
I returned his gaze with my eyebrows raised in as close an approximation of a sarcastic look as I could manage. He laughed outright―whether at my look or his own forgetfulness, I had no idea.
Still laughing, Julian rose from the bench and helped me up as well, swinging my overstuffed duffel bag over his shoulder as if it weighed nothing.
Standing next to him made me feel small and insignificant. He was very nearly a head and shoulders taller than I, and, while not bulky in any way, he had a distinctly strong and animalistic aura about him. Even though he had been nothing but a complete gentleman while we talked outside the café, I had the sudden intuition that he could potentially be very dangerous.
2
“So, you comin’?” Julian asked with a boyish grin that spread across his face as he extended his left hand toward me.
“Where exactly are we going?”
“To look for some fun, of course.” His grin widened impossibly. “Although you won’t have to look too far when I’m around.”
“But,” I hesitated, my mind finally screaming at me that Julian and I had only just met. “I don’t know anything about you. I don’t even know your last name.” I’m sure my voice sounded shaky, but not because I was nervous―well, not completely because I was nervous.
I knew that I was kidding myself by thinking that anything Julian said would deter me. Inexplicably, I would have followed him almost anywhere he wanted to take me.
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