by Lee Monroe
www.hodderchildrens.co.uk
Also by Lee Monroe
Dark Heart Forever
Dark Heart Rising
Other books by Hodder Children’s Books
BEAUTIFUL DEAD
1. Jonas
2. Arizona
3. Summer
4. Phoenix
DARK ANGEL
1. Dark Angel
2. Twisted Heart
3. Broken Dream
Eden Maguire
Sisters Red
Sweetly
Jackson Pearce
Copyright © 2012 Lee Monroe
First published in Great Britain in 2012
This ebook edition published in 2012
by Hodder Children’s Books
The right of Lee Monroe to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form, or by any means with prior permission in writing from the publishers or in the case of reprographic production in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency and may not be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 444 90871 8
Hodder Children’s Books
a division of Hachette Children’s Books
338 Euston Road,
London NW1 3BH
An Hachette UK company
www.hachette.co.uk
For Naomi, my excellent editor and dear friend
PROLOGUE
The corridors were deserted as I crept along them, my heart in my mouth. The place was eerie at night; all those abandoned classrooms, the sound of a loud clock ticking like a bomb coming from one of them.
‘Ashley!’ I called, my voice echoing. ‘Ashley!’
A sound made me turn to look back down the corridor, but there appeared to be nothing. Nobody. I took a step backwards.
‘Is anyone here?’ I waited, my hands curled up in my pockets. I wanted to get out of here, but I couldn’t leave until I’d found Ashley at least. Something was wrong.
And then, as if in slow motion, a silhouette began to appear around the corner. Not human. Bigger than a dog, but elegant, with a sharply pointed head and a gazelle-like body.
I blinked. I couldn’t be seeing this. An animal inside the college.
I couldn’t make out any features; the creature, whatever it was, was still a silhouette against the moonlit window at the far end of the corridor. I swallowed.
‘What … ?’
The animal’s finely pointed ears pricked up and I glimpsed its imperious snout and then, against the dim light, the almost amber colour of its coat.
The animal seemed to be changing before my eyes, the body shrinking and altering its position. I peered, in spite of my fear, and saw it stand upright.
It was not an animal. It was a human. I felt as though I was going to black out.
‘Who is it?’ My voice was reedy, scared.
‘Don’t be frightened,’ a familiar, almost mocking voice told me. ‘I’m glad you came.’
‘Where’s Ashley?’ I said more forcefully. ‘What have you done?’
He laughed. ‘Ashley,’ he repeated. ‘I had almost forgotten about her.’
‘I don’t know who you really are –’ I tried to stop the shaking come through into my voice ‘– but I’ll just forget about everything … if you tell me where she is.’
‘It’s not that simple, Jane.’ He took a step closer to me.
‘What do you want from me?’ I crossed my arms protectively over my chest. ‘It’s like you’ve singled me out.’
‘Perceptive.’ He moved even closer and I saw the vivid contrast of his hair against his flawless skin. ‘But it isn’t exactly you we want …’
‘Then who?’ I played innocent; I knew exactly who he wanted.
‘He’s big enough to take care of himself,’ he said. ‘And he has known this time would come.’
And then he was standing right next to me, so close I could feel his breath on my face. His eyes, glinting and sharp, made my skin tingle. It wasn’t the first time this boy had had this effect on me. He reached out then and touched my hair, so softly, tenderly, that I relaxed my arms a little.
‘I don’t want your help.’ He took a strand of my hair, twisting it gently in his fingers. ‘I’ve only ever wanted one thing from you.’
‘What?’ I breathed.
Didn’t I already know what he was going to say? Hadn’t I known all along the price I had to pay?
Positioning himself so that he was looking right into my eyes, he waited a few seconds so that I could take in his full mouth, the cool blue of his stare.
‘You, Jane,’ he said. ‘I want you.’
CHAPTER ONE
‘What are you doing?’ I asked my sister, who had my entire collection of cheap jewellery laid out on my bed.
She scrambled over to the mirror on my bedside table holding an earring against her ear and pushed up her long blonde hair, looking at her reflection from every angle.
‘Dot.’ I put down the magazine I was reading, and frowned at her. ‘Got a date or something?’
‘Ugh, no.’ She screwed up her nose. ‘I was just seeing how I’m going to look.’
‘How you’re going to look when?’
‘When you and Luca get married,’ she said airily. ‘And I’m your chief bridesmaid.’
‘My only bridesmaid, you mean.’ I shook my head. ‘What am I saying? Luca and I are not getting married. We’re far too young for all that.’
Dot turned to face me; she had a humouring look in her eye.
‘Not right now, maybe. But Luca hasn’t moved in with us because the two of you are “seeing how it goes”, has he?’
I laughed. ‘I guess. But we don’t need to get married.’
‘Oh.’ Her face crumpled a little. ‘Ever?’
‘I don’t know!’ I smiled. ‘You’ll get to be a bridesmaid one day, babe. I’d place a bet on it. Ambitious bridesmaids always get their way.’
‘So.’ Dot plumped herself down next to me. ‘You are happy, aren’t you?’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Really happy. I didn’t think I could ever be this happy.’
I still hadn’t totally absorbed the fact that Luca and I were finally together, and nobody, nothing, was trying to pull us apart. As I felt Dot lean in to me, pick up Mum’s magazine and absorb herself in the Stylehunter section, I thought of how much she didn’t know. The only one who knew the truth was my mother. And she was the only one who understood. Luca wasn’t like anyone I had ever met – quite literally, because he was only half human. Yet the two of us were soulmates. A notion I would have found ridiculous before I met him, but now … The boy who came into my life in my dreams turned out to be real. It’s like the stuff of romantic comedies, except that Luca is also half wolf. He comes from a world called Nissilum. One vast world populated by all kinds of supernatural creatures. The kinds you only read about in books – or so I thought. Vampires, witches, angels. All stripped of evil intent, with rules and a strict moral code. Luca had broken the rules to be with me. The ultimate romantic gesture.
I sighed out loud and Dot looked up.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘Nothing.’ I ruffled her hair. ‘I was just thinking how in
credibly lucky I am.’
‘Hmm.’ Dot hesitated. ‘Does Luca have any family?’ she said after a bit. ‘I mean, he never talks about his family. Nor does Mum or Dad – or you. Are they all dead or something? Did they die in a horrible car accident?’
‘Nothing like that,’ I told her, picking my words carefully. ‘They just live a long way away … and he doesn’t really get on with them.’
‘That’s sad,’ she murmured. ‘I can’t imagine never seeing you again. It would be so awful. Wouldn’t you miss me, too?’
I looked down at her. ‘I certainly would. But you and I – we’re never going to fall out.’
‘I bet Luca thought that once,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I bet he never imagined it either. He must have really fallen out with his family. Big time.’
‘Something like that,’ I said, biting my lip, wondering how she got to be so grown up all of a sudden.
Apart from Dot’s sudden spurt of emotional intelligence, I was taken aback by how her words made me feel a sudden fear. The family bond is strong, and the bond between a girlfriend and a boyfriend is rarely that unbreakable. Luca and I had only just begun a normal relationship and, ahead of us, there was acres of time. Time for us to fall out of love, and for Luca to realize he had made a terrible mistake.
Suddenly the world, and my happiness, seemed just a little bit fragile.
CHAPTER TWO
The old man looked up from his newspaper and gave the boy a bemused, dry look.
‘You’re late,’ he said, but without judgement, as though he were just stating a fact.
‘I got caught …’ Luca shrugged off his cagoule, spattering old Pete’s newspaper with drops of rainwater. His clothes underneath weren’t much better, his T-shirt sticking to his stomach. He peeled it away, grimacing. ‘I’ve never seen rain like that.’ He looked up at Pete, who was now regarding him sympathetically.
‘Out back,’ he gestured with his thumb. ‘Clean shirt and overalls, hanging up. Leave your wet clothes next to the boiler and they’ll be dry in a couple of hours.’ He sniffed, dropping his eyes back to his paper.
‘Thanks.’ Luca walked carefully out to the storeroom; he needed to get out of his jeans.
Inside Pete’s tidy storeroom, rain thumping on the corrugated roof, the boy took a moment to inhale the smell of hardware: tools, pots of paint, the lattice of pigeonholes carefully labelled with essentials for the trade – nails, two dozen different sizes of hammers and screwdrivers. Luca loved the smell of all this … practicality. Though he was beginning to shiver from the damp, he smiled to himself. A surge of well-being came over him. He opened the cupboard by the door, where Pete’s spare overalls hung from one hook and a clean denim shirt from the other.
‘OK out there, boy?’ Pete cleared his throat, scraping his stool back. ‘We got work this afternoon, out by the old army training ground. Demolition job.’
Luca heard Pete moving around the workshop and, registering what the old man had just told him, his good mood evaporated.
The army training ground. A place he had no wish to return to. It was there, nearly two years ago now, that Raphael, heir to Nissilum’s Celestial family, had held Jane and her family hostage, intent on revenge for his father Gabriel’s death. Raphael, half mad with anger and grief, had blamed Jane and her mother – Gabriel’s long-forgotten love – for his father’s fate. Luca and his younger sister Dalya had arrived just in time to stop Raphael. It had been a day like today, pelting rain, the whole place damp, dark and deserted. A lot had happened since then … Luca and Jane had been apart for a long time, while Luca tried hard to be an obedient son, wanting to please his family by marrying into his breed. He hadn’t gone through with it; he had never stopped loving the beautiful mortal girl and now they were together, living with her family here on Mortal Earth. It was what they had both wanted, never to be apart. But Mortal Earth held dangers of its own … Today’s casual news from Pete was a salutary reminder of that.
Luca took a couple of deep breaths, closing his eyes, not just at the horrific memory but at the thought of what he had nearly lost for ever.
Jane.
‘Luca.’ Pete stuck his head round the door. ‘Rain’s easing off now. What’s keeping you?’
Luca shook his head, reviving a smile for the old man. ‘Sorry, Pete. We’re leaving now?’
‘Good a time as any.’ Pete narrowed his eyes for a second, as though detecting a false bravado in Luca’s tone. He was a shrewd old guy, Luca had already recognized that. He’d given Luca the job in his small independent construction company on a good word from Jane’s father Jack, but it hadn’t been long before he’d picked up on the aura around the boy. As though he had smelled the wolf on him. Luca knew that there were mortals who had an extra sense in that way – who could detect a supernatural presence. He just hadn’t expected this gruff and practical old man to be one of them. Pete had questioned Luca for a long time on his background and, though Luca had worked out a story ahead of time with Jane and her mother, he was unprepared for the level of interrogation on his first day in Pete’s yard.
‘Pale, aren’t you, kid?’ Pete had leaned in closely, his eyes sweeping over Luca’s delicate cheekbones, his jawline, his extraordinary green eyes, dark-lashed, gleaming. ‘Celtic?’
Luca had just nodded, not knowing what Celtic meant, but realizing it was better to comply with the old guy’s assumption.
‘You used to heavy work, then? A lot of physical stuff going on here. Lifting, shifting, carrying … Not a job for a faint heart or a weak constitution.’
‘No, sir.’ Luca had pulled up his shoulders, setting his jaw. ‘I did a lot of that stuff for my dad. He had a similar set-up to you. I’ve been helping him out since I was a kid. I’m strong – I don’t look it, but I am.’
Pete had nodded, the beginnings of a smile appearing on his face. ‘Sure, sure. I believe you, son. It’s what Jack told me too.’ He’d looked down at his hands. ‘But, if you don’t mind me saying, you look the serious type … sensitive. I got to be sure you won’t break down crying once the wrecking ball comes out.’ He’d glanced up, almost fondly, at Luca. It was then that Luca knew instinctively that the old man would be on his side … if he ever needed him to be.
‘Well, come on,’ Pete said now. He reached over, pulling the overalls straight on Luca, brushing at something on the collar in a paternal way. ‘We have to pick up a few things for the job.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘It won’t be the most pleasant of jobs – creepy old place. Full of ghosts, bad energy …’
Luca swallowed, forcing himself to look unaffected, casual. ‘The sooner we get there, the sooner it’s over, I guess.’
‘Exactly.’ Pete lightly punched the boy’s shoulder. ‘That’s the attitude I like. I’ll meet you out front in two minutes.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘See, this is exactly why I would like a lock on my room.’ I put down my bag, glaring at Dot. ‘Did I give you permission to borrow my favourite T-shirt?’
Dot opened her blue eyes wide. ‘I didn’t know. I’m sorry.’ She swivelled her head to appeal to my mother, who watched the two of us wearily.
‘No harm done, hey?’ She ruffled Dot’s hair before smiling at me. ‘We’ll wash it and then you can have it back.’
‘Not the point,’ I snapped, wondering why I was such a grouch today. I’d overslept and missed half of the first Art class of the new term. ‘I need some privacy.’
‘Well, we don’t have locks except for the bathroom. You know that.’
‘Tell her to keep out of my things then.’ I cast another glower at Dot.
‘What’s the matter with you lately? It isn’t like you to get so wound up over stuff like this.’ Mum looked concerned, sighing. ‘This must be the terrible teens at last.’
‘Mum!’ I wrinkled my nose. ‘You make me sound like a little kid.’
‘Then don’t act like one,’ Dot supplied chirpily, though backing towards the door. For a moment I felt furious, but then I
took in Dot nervously hopping from foot to foot and I smiled.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ I said softly to my mother. ‘I suppose it’s college. I can’t seem to catch up. I’m panicking, I guess.’
Mum looked stern. ‘I knew it would be too much, Luca living here.’
‘No. It’s not Luca …’ I hesitated. ‘Well, yes, it is Luca. But it has to be this way … I can’t, I couldn’t—’
‘I know.’ With a sigh, Mum pulled out a chair from the table and sat opposite me. ‘And I’m not suggesting that Luca goes back home.’ She lowered her voice, both of us aware that neither Dot nor Dad knew the whole truth. ‘But this is your future. You need to focus on your studies for the next eighteen months. Luca will have to take a back seat.’
I nodded. ‘You’re right. But he’s given up a lot for me. I can’t just ignore him after all that sacrifice.’
‘Luca is going to be busy himself, earning some money.’ Mum drew up her shoulders. ‘Old Pete will keep him occupied, believe me.’
‘I know. I’m probably worrying too much.’ About everything, I added to myself. Luca and I had been so happy to be together again after all that had happened in Nissilum. There had been a time – an eternity it had seemed then – that I thought I had lost him for ever. I guessed I had Soren to thank for changing things. Soren had come in and out of my life so dramatically. For a while I had even felt that I had more of a bond with him than— I shut my eyes, forcing that thought out. It felt disloyal. But I missed Soren. He had seemed to understand me, like Luca did. But half vampire, half angel, Soren’s future lay back in Nissilum, where he now shared equal status with Raphael, heir to the Celestial dynasty. Half-brothers who had no affection for each other. But they had to make it work.
‘Jane.’ My mother’s voice cut through my thoughts. ‘You’ve gone into one of your daydreams again. What are you thinking about?’
‘Nothing.’ I hadn’t told Mum half of what had gone on back in Nissilum. She herself had been embroiled in a fatal love triangle there. It meant she knew things not many mothers would understand. But it was a past she wanted to leave behind. I smiled at her, changing the subject to something more mundane.