by Luxie Ryder
Evernight Publishing
www.evernightpublishing.com
Copyright© 2011 Luxie Ryder
ISBN: 978-1-926950-39-6
Cover Artist: LF Designs
Editor: Caitlin Ray
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
— Roald Dahl.
SOUL BOUND
Luxie Ryder
Copyright © 2011
Nathan. His was the face I saw in my mind, as my life flashed before my eyes at the moment of my death.
I heard the rapid volley of gunfire and closed my eyes to wait for the pain, the flash from the barrel still visible behind my eyelids as if burned into my retinas.
My hand was on my holster, fumbling with the fastening, stopping me from grabbing the butt of my gun and evening up the odds of my survival. Hernandes must have known his wife had called the cops and that we were coming. He was waiting out in the hall for us and we never really stood a chance. A routine domestic disturbance call had just turned deadly.
Total silence and complete stillness followed the sound of the gunfire and I wondered if I was dead but just didn’t know it yet.
Open your eyes. You’re safe.
I obeyed Nathan’s command without question, so surprised by the clarity of his voice that I looked at my would-be assassin to see if it was really he who had spoken. Hernandes was staring at the semi-automatic in his hand like he didn’t understand how it got there. He lifted his disbelieving gaze to my chest and his eyebrows knit together as his confusion deepened.
My partner Jorge barreled past me, shoving me out of the way, charging forwards and grabbing Hernandes’ gun. Jorge’s anger at the situation made him a little more heavy handed than usual and he slammed Hernandes to the ground, knocking the wind out of him, a knee pressed into the small of his back. The part of my brain that wasn’t preoccupied with an image of Nathan had some sympathy for the guy sprawled on the floor with six feet four and two hundred and fifty pounds of buzz cut ex-linebacker on top of him.
“You ok, Jessica?” Jorge barked at me, glancing up only briefly as he took far too much time and got far too much pleasure in cuffing the guy.
I realized then I hadn’t yet moved. My training kicked in and I rushed to help Jorge drag the guy to his feet and haul his ass down the stairs to the cruiser. Jorge read him his rights but the guy wasn’t listening. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off me.
“Bruja,” he whispered, his lips quivering around the word as his gaze became fearful.
“What does that mean?”
“He thinks you’re a witch,” Jorge said, giving the guy another shove.
I laughed, ignoring the fear twisting my gut at the expression in Hernandes’ eyes. “Typical! Calls me a witch rather than admit he couldn’t hit the side of a barn.”
“Bruja,” he said again, louder this time, hysteria creeping into his voice. I pushed him into the cruiser and slammed the door. I’d encountered some crazy cons in my time but I’d never seen one go from cold-blooded cop killer to sniveling wreck in the space of two seconds. But his very evident terror got to me, and I decided it might be best to let Jorge deal with him back at the station.
****
I managed to ignore the questions churning in the back of my mind and twisting my stomach in knots until I sat down to right my report. Questions like, if my life was flashing before my eyes, why had an image of Nathan, who I hadn’t seen in my years come to mind rather than David, the man who I’d been dating up until a year ago?
Words filled the page, painting a picture for those who weren’t there, and I knew others who tried to make sense of the scene my report recreated would have the same misgivings as me when they saw the gaps in the logic.
When forensics got through with the crime scene, my captain called me into his office, and I saw the same disbelief I felt mirrored back at me in his expression. He told me they’d found empty shells on the floor - but no bullet holes anywhere - which was weird because Ballistics was sure the gun fired a round of maybe ten shots or more, all of them aimed at me.
That’s when I started to cry.
Chapter One
“I need a volunteer from the audience.”
Nathan Cain’s midnight blue gaze slid along my row of seats, crawling ever closer to me. I tensed; sure I could almost feel its approach. But it didn’t land on me, not straight away.
“Will it be you, Madam?” Nathan said to the audience member sitting to my left. The edge of his mouth lifted in wry humor when the woman shook her head so vigorously, my seat wobbled beside hers.
His gaze shifted to the man on my other side. “How about you, Sir?”
My heart beat once, maybe twice, before Nathan’s stare found me, as I knew it would.
“Or will it be you…Jess?”
Pinned against the back of my seat by no more than the intensity of his gaze, I didn’t react at first to the sound of my name on his lips. Seattle seemed a million miles away and high school almost as many years ago, and he had no reason to remember me the way I did him.
Nathan strutted to the edge of the stage, the shape of his long legs outlined in almost obscene detail by black leather trousers. The shift and roll of the clearly defined muscles shaping his torso and abdomen told me his feet were actually on the ground but, with the dry ice swirling around his shins, I could swear he floated towards me like some errant spirit. A tangle of silver crucifixes, gothic charms and skulls with ruby eyes, suspended from thick chains around his neck, swayed hypnotically across his alabaster skin as he moved. His face creased into one of the half smiles I remembered so well and I knew he was coming for me.
I swallowed hard when he crouched to put a hand on the floor of the stage and leapt to stand in the aisle in front of me in one fluid, catlike movement, his stare never wavering. He stalked towards me and reached for my hand before I had time to let out the breath I’d been holding.
He leaned over my seat, blocking the glare from the gaudily lit stage and sending his large frame into near silhouette. Yet his kaleidoscope eyes still sparkled, their dark blue flecked with gold and brown, reflecting the soft glow of the house lights.
I experienced a moment of déjà vu. If I had the power to look away, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find I was still a sophomore, sitting next to that empty seat in English class, waiting with pounding heart and baited breath for him to walk in to the room.
Nathan’s dark, shoulder length hair fell forward when he reached down for me, casting his pale, almost Messianic features, wide mouth and high cheekbones into stark relief. His touch on the back of my hand sent a sizzle up my arm, kick starting my brain into action and my heart into a sprint.
“Pick someone else,” I hissed at him, trying to warn him off with the kind of stern look that worked on the perps back home. Except here, I didn’t have the uniform, my gun and a shield to back it up. He simply smiled, and wrapped his palm around my wrist. I resisted the pull but his fingers gripped tighter, gentle yet firm, and I had no choice but to comply. I stumbled and put my free hand against his chest to steady myself, snatching it back when Nathan’s hot, slick skin burned my palm.
“Don’t you trust me?”
The deep, honeyed tones of his voice still had the power to mesmerize and before I could gather my wits and repeat a plea to be left alone, he turned to the audience. “Come on, Ladies and Gentlemen, give her some encouragement.”
The Vegas crowd, already very impressed by Nathan’s brand of New Age magic, and high from too much sun and free booze, erupted into rapturous applause.
This is what you came for, stupid!
I tried to ignore the taunts of my inner, angst ridden teenager, the one who had never gotten over the loss of Nathan – the one who had taunted me into coming here tonight with a plan to seduce him. The one who hadn’t allowed for the fact that Nathan’s magnetism might have multiplied so much so, that I would still feel like a gawky kid beside him.
The captain had insisted I take some time off until the shrink said I was fit for duty. I should have known to keep my mouth shut about the voice I’d heard, but post traumatic stress robbed me of my common sense I suppose. A month spent sitting at home watching daytime TV drove me stir crazy, so I followed the wild impulse to get out of Seattle and leapt on to the next available flight to anywhere. Until I saw his name on the billboards lining the route to my hotel from the airport, I didn’t know Nathan would be here too. Random luck had brought me to Vegas, but now I was here…and he was here and, well, maybe everything happened for a reason.
“Don’t be scared, Jess. I’ll look after you.”
Nathan’s breath caressed my cheek and I started, surprised to find him so close. Jess. Nobody had called me that for years. Not since the summer after he’d left town, taking my heart with him, and I’d forbidden anyone from uttering that word ever again. To hear my old name on his lips took me back in a way nothing else ever could. For a moment, just for the briefest second, the glitz and glamour of Vegas faded away and all I could see was the mysterious and enigmatic young man with the spiky hair and the sad smile who had ignored my fragile teenage heart up until about six months before he moved away.
“What do I have to do?” I whispered, conscious of the strangers watching our every move.
“Just help tie me up, that’s all.” A suggestive glint in Nathan’s eyes did nothing to make me feel better, despite the enticing image of him bound and at my mercy that flashed into my mind.
His gaze flicked over me and I prayed the hot weather hadn’t frizzed my hair. Taming my unruly curls into a sleek sheet of burnished bronze had not been easy. But I’d wanted to look good without coming across like I’d tried too hard, and smooth, sexy hair, tight but not too obvious black jeans and a simple white peasant blouse had been all I could come up with at such short notice.
“I don’t remember you being this much of a wuss at school.”
I didn’t let the challenge slide. “I’m still braver than you, Cain.”
The corner of his mouth hitched up into another quirky grin and his fingers tightened around mine. “I’ve told you before, Jess, people with brown eyes shouldn’t try to tell lies.”
A thundering guitar riff tore out of the speakers, filling the theatre with sound and leaving no chance to protest further or come up with the kind of sassy reply I wanted to give him. Acting like a frightened little virgin wasn’t part of the plan. Okay, so I didn’t actually have a plan, but if I did, squirming like a bug under a microscope definitely wouldn’t be part of it.
Nathan turned toward the crowd I had forgotten for a moment, who were watching and waiting, and I sucked in a shaky breath, released at last from the prison of his all-seeing, penetrating stare. He was different than I’d expected somehow and it was more than just the fact he’d grown into a gorgeous man and developed a decidedly Gothic taste in clothing. There was…something. Something dark. Maybe something I should be afraid of?
Bright light flooded the stage, not a single beam but many beams, giving the illusion of dappled moonlight filtering through trees. The black stage curtain, adorned with satanic symbols and strange hieroglyphics began to rise, revealing an area bathed in red light. In the center, stood a large object, so big it dwarfed the assistants dressed as executioners standing beside it.
Nathan left me at the edge of the stage and walked over to the rectangular box, making a show of sliding away a large bolt and revealing that the shape was made up of two equal sized parts, joined by a couple of hinges. The heavy looking door creaked open when Nathan and the two assistants braced their weight against it, their muscles bulging with the effort. As the interior of the box was revealed to the light, hundreds of long, sharp spikes jutting out from the inner walls of the casket came into view. On Nathan’s count, the men let go of the door. The sound of screeching metal drowned out the background music and the casket slammed shut with a force that shook the stage.
They forced the door open again and two more helpers appeared, dragging a long, thick rope with a hook secured at each end onto the stage. One end was clipped to a large ring welded to the outer edge of the door, the other attached to the wall of the theatre. Nathan and his assistants stepped away from the casket and the rope snapped taut as it took the strain of the door’s weight, keeping it from slamming shut again.
Nathan took a metal baton from one of his assistants and dragged it over the spikes inside the box, banging the stick around between the prongs to show the audience that the lethal looking stakes didn’t just look lethal.
“This is an Iron Maiden,” Nathan announced to the crowd. He walked back over to grab my hand and lead me back to the center of the stage. “And this beautiful woman, who just happened to be my high school crush, is going to send me to an almost certain death by locking me inside.”
His high school crush? The laughter of the crowd and a little tug on my hand robbed me of the chance to absorb and savor his words. Maybe Nathan hadn’t been as immune to me as I’d thought? Whatever the truth, I didn’t have time now to think of it.
I followed his prompting and turned to face the casket. The back of it had some of the spikes missing, the resulting gap forming a rudimentary outline of a man. Nathan stepped into this space, explaining what he was doing to the audience with every move he made.
Thick chains entered the chamber through holes in either side and I stepped forward when instructed to lock the shackles welded to the ends around Nathan’s wrists. Next, he told me to fasten the padlock on his neck clasp, and I held my breath as I stepped up and reached behind him to grasp the ends of the thick leather straps and my breasts brushed over his torso. Nathan’s husky laugh and my shaky hands made the job take far longer than it should and I couldn’t look him in the eye when I pulled away. Finally, I shackled his ankles to the bottom of the box. I straightened up to face Nathan and await further instruction. He gave me another smile and announced loudly, for the benefit of the audience, that I should step out of the way and keep clear.
His assistants grabbed the ends of the chains protruding through the holes in the box and secured them to the outside of the Iron Maiden with padlocks the size of my fists. The stage lights dimmed, leaving only the silhouette of the casket and the men flanking it visible against a blood red backdrop. A single spotlight found Nathan’s face in the darkness, illuminating handsome features taut with either concentration or fear, I wasn’t sure which.
“As you can see, the rope holding open the door is all that is saving me from certain death. My assistants will now set fire to that rope and, by my estimation, I will have thirty seconds before the flames eat through the fibers and they are no longer strong enough to keep the door open and spare my life.”
My heart lurched when I saw the fire lick at the rope. It’s just an illusion…a silly magic trick. And although I knew it, I couldn’t help but react to the growing sense of peril. Nathan and his team had gone to great lengths to ramp up the drama and stoke the fear of the audience by saturating the atmosphere inside the theatre with tension. I was being played the same way as everyone else in that room but I just wanted it to be over and for Nathan to be safe.
“The curtain you see attached to the top of the casket will now be lowered - for two very good reasons. First, I am sworn to protect the secrets of my profession and second, to spare the audience the trauma of seeing what happens to me if I cannot escape in time.”
I raised my eyebrows and shook my head in mock disbelief at his antics when he grinned at me, determined not to show him that I’d fallen for the melodrama by revealing my nerves. As soon as the curtain obscured him from view and I didn’t have to control my reactions any longer, my gaze darted to the fire consuming the rope, burning hot and fast, at the side of the stage. How long had passed? Ten seconds…maybe more? I counted silently in my head, my attention torn between the box and the rope. Would he get out?
I tried to laugh at myself but the breath wouldn’t leave my lungs. Twenty seconds. The rope was burning too quickly. I stared at the curtain hiding Nathan, searching for some sign that he was at least trying to save his own life. Something bumped the fabric near to where his feet would be and I let out a gasp, stupidly relieved to see that he was making progress.
Nathan’s hand appeared at the edge of the cloth, as if about to sweep it to one side…when the rope snapped with a loud twang and an explosion of embers.
I’ve always heard that when a person sees something horrific unfolding before their eyes, it seems to happen in slow motion. I’d never seen it during my ten years on the force but I know now that it’s true. The door seemed to pause for a second before it gave a loud metallic groan and its immense weight pulled it forward. My gaze stayed fixed on it for only a heartbeat longer and then I buried my face in my hands.
I felt as much as heard the moment one huge metal slab met the other. The music stopped with a jarring screech, as if someone dragged the needle across a record, leaving nothing but an echo bouncing around the auditorium. Someone screamed and a ripple of nervous laughter followed.
“Is he okay?” a voice shouted.
“Oh my God!” a woman said. The mumbles of the crowd swelled and merged, intensifying in volume as lots of people began talking all at once.