Life Bound: The Shadow World Book 1

by Aubrey Winters

  Life Bound

  The Shadow World, Volume 1

  Aubrey Winters

  Published by Aubrey Winters, 2020.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and events in this book are the products of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons living or dead is coincidental and unintentional.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  LIFE BOUND

  First edition. December 27, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 Aubrey Winters.

  Written by Aubrey Winters.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  A PREVIEW OF BOOK 2...

  CHAPTER 1

  I MISSED THE CRISP, cool air as soon as the cab’s door slammed shut. Rolling the windows down with vigor, I savored the wafts of outdoors that threatened to freshen up the musky dampness inside the car.

  It had just rained in Colewood, the dewy droplets clinging onto the leaves and hanging in the air. When my plane landed, it descended into a fog before opening to the familiar landscape that I’d missed for months while away at college. The same fog threatened to cover the streets of Colewood like a blanket that my cab would have to cut through.

  But the dreary weather didn’t bring me down. Small rays of sun peeked through the clouds, and that was enough for me. I was coming home.

  As I left the dorm, my friends—my best and perhaps only friends—Bella and Rose had hugged me tightly and made me promise to text and keep in touch. Just thinking about it warmed my heart. I moved around a lot as a kid, so I never had the chance to make any lifelong friends. Everything and everyone except Nana was impermanent, so I lost as many friends as I made. It wasn’t until I started college and met Bella and Rose that I felt the beginnings of friendship security.

  Leaving the college for spring break knowing my friends would still be there upon my return was a heady feeling I’d never experienced until now.

  The cab turned and I finally caught sight of the street I thought about during the entire semester that I’d been away. Even after returning each semester break for four years, I never tired of this scene. The tree on the lawn had grown a little unruly, but our house was the last on the block right before the forest’s edge, so the tree fit in.

  It was a quaint little house Nana bought when we first moved to this town four years ago. We always stayed in one town for about five years before moving away, so we rented. But Nana had said since I was leaving for college, she was ready to buy a place and settle down. Part of me was a little bitter that we couldn’t have had this stability while I was growing up, but I was glad that she wouldn’t have to move anymore. Though she had always been strong and healthy, I secretly feared that one day I would look at her and realize she’d been growing frailer each year and I’d just never noticed.

  The cab pulled up behind a blue sports car parked right outside of our door and let me out. I thanked him, but the back of my neck prickled as he drove away. The street was quiet—something to be expected for 2PM on a weekday—and our street was at the end of town, so rarely any cars passed by, anyway.

  Still, there was something unsettling about the car; it was out of place on our little street. I shook my head. I had no reason to grow suspicious of uncommon cars. It was probably someone visiting a friend and had mis-parked, so I tugged on the straps of my backpack and picked out my keys.

  Electricity zinged through me as I reached to unlock the door. Shocked, I dropped my keys; the metal making a dull tinkle against the concrete porch. The blue car didn’t move, silent and watching. Of course, it didn’t. It was an unoccupied car. Why’d I look back at it? I almost wished the fog would descend like a blanket to hide the car from view. Something about it didn’t seem right.

  Muttering profanities, I picked up the keys. There was nothing odd about a new car. I had no reasons to be suspicious. I’d been away for a while—the neighbours might very well have gone through a midlife crisis. I was being silly.

  The doorknob turned with a click and a rush of nostalgia hit me, oddities forgotten. The house smelled of Nana. Of home. Excitement tingled through my body as I quietly closed the door, holding the doorknob until the lock safely nestled against the frame to make no sound as I entered.

  I left my bag at the door—exactly how Nana always hated—and swallowed a rising giggle. I hadn’t told her I was coming home. She thought I was staying with my friends in the dorm to study for the upcoming semester, and she’d been so disappointed. I almost felt guilty for lying, but then I thought about how her barely wrinkled face would light up when I surprised her.

  Nana had been old since I was young, and she never seemed to age much, though 22 years had passed. I pulled my hair up to tie it, catching loose red strands before they hit the ground. Nana was kind, but strict. Dropping my bag at the door was enough of a test for her patience. I didn’t need to test it further by shedding everywhere.

  I peered around the hallway into the living room, but she wasn’t sitting in the comfy chair that almost swallowed her small frame when she sat in it. The kitchen was also empty, though saliva pooled in my mouth when I noticed the rack of cooling cookies. I resisted the urge to take one; it would be so much sweeter to enjoy with Nana after I’d surprised her.

  Another wave of electricity hit me and the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up as I approached the stairs. Something was definitely not right.

  Heart racing and fighting against taking the stairs two at a time, I stuck to the side, climbing as quietly as possible.

  An eternity later, I finally reached the top and found Nana’s bedroom door wide open. It sounded like there was a man in her room, shouting.

  Were we being robbed?

  I peered in from the side of the door frame and my hand flew up to my mouth.

  A tall man, lean and blond, had his back to me. His white-blond hair was short in the back and longer on top, and he wore a black long sleeve with dark pants. He stood facing Nana, who stared up at him from her knees within a circle of white powder.

  Nana wore her usual sweater and long skirt, but they rumpled like she had been in a fight.

  Her eyes widened when they flickered over to me. Before either of us could speak, the stranger turned, and I gasped as his steel-grey eyes locked onto mine.

  He snarled, and it sounded so unhuman that I shook out of my reverie.

  “Who are you? What’s going—”

  Nana started speaking an unfamiliar language—one I’d never heard before—and a bright red light shot from her hands, splitting into two ribbons. One crimson ribbon wrapped around me, while the other wrapped around the stranger.

  “Nana?” I gasped. The ribbon grew thicker and longer; I reached out to touch it, but my hand fell right through. Warmth surrounded my body.

  A growl pierced the air, and the man lunged at Nana. Without thinking, I threw myself at him, unsure of how to stop him but sure that I had to do something. The light followed me. I wrapped my arms around his legs before he got to Nana and dragged both of us down. When we tumbled, the two ribbons of red light joined and became one.

  Winded, I forced my eyes open to see his red eyes glowing and his fangs
bared. Red eyes? Fangs? I shook my head, but he recovered before I did. With a growl, he pushed me and I slid across the room, hitting a dresser. The crimson glow followed me, but stayed tethered to him as well.

  “You old hag,” he growled, prowling toward Nana who was sitting as still as a statue and muttering words I didn’t understand from within the white circle—salt, I think.

  The lamp by my side seemed like an apt weapon, so I grabbed it and stood, ignoring the wobbling in my legs.

  His focus was still on Nana, so he didn’t notice as I stalked over and swung the lamp. At the last moment, he turned. Grey eyes widened as the lamp came down over his head, the light bulb shattering with a little crack. But he seemed unaffected. All he did was snarl at me with contempt.

  “I will deal with you later,” he growled.

  “You will not,” Nana whispered, looking up from her position on the ground. I gasped. Her eyes were a milky white and her pearl white hair floated as if suspended by the air. The circle of salt around her glowed with towers of light that almost reached the man in height. “You will protect her with all your years,” her voice grew louder with every word.

  As the light dimmed and her eyes returned to their normal green, her hair fell. The red ribbons on both me and the stranger pulsed twice before dissipating as if it had never been here at all.

  The man roared—a splitting sound like none I had heard before—and grabbed her by the neck.

  “No!”

  He threw her across the room, and my heart stopped.

  In a flash of white light, Nana’s limp body disappeared mid-air without a trace.

  I gasped, blinking hard because I couldn’t believe what had happened. Without thinking, I charged at him.

  Tears blurring my vision, I blindly threw a fist at his face. Pain exploded in my hand as it made contact, but it only angered him further. He looked down at me, eyes ruby red with contempt and shock, fangs longer than a human’s canine teeth should be.

  Suddenly, I was ripped from the ground. A terrifying crack of glass breaking against my back and I was flying. He had thrown me out of the second-story window, and I was falling.

  Falling.

  Falling.

  Pain exploded—there was no origin point. It spread from nowhere and everywhere at once. I saw red. I saw black. I couldn’t speak or make a sound, but I knew he broke my body.

  I was dying.

  I GASPED AWAKE, CHOKING. My body screamed with pain, but no sound came as liquid metal poured into my mouth.

  Through bleary eyes, grey ones stared back.

  The blond man held his wrist against my face, forcing me to drink his blood. Panic shot through my body and I tried to push back—tried to push it away—but I was weak and my limbs were so heavy. Were limbs usually this heavy?

  Fear ricocheted in my chest, and I kicked with more fervor, but it was no use. He held me down. A sudden surge of adrenaline rose and I bit his wrist, causing more blood to rush into my mouth—to my dismay.

  He snarled, but didn’t move. I placed both hands on his chest and pushed with everything I could muster. He only shifted, but I coughed, spitting up blood.

  Finally, he let me go. My bare heels dug against the pavement and I didn’t care about the scrapes and scuffs I got as my brain worked to understand the situation.

  “Alive?” He asked gruffly. His accent vaguely reminded me of a British one, but it was too strange to decipher fully with my muddled brain.

  “Who are you?” I yelled, trying to put more distance between us as he crouched casually a few feet away, hands loosely draped over his knees. “Wasn’t I just dying?” I hadn’t had a near-death experience before, but I didn’t need to have had one to know how broken my body had been. I guess you just knew these things.

  “I see you’re fine,” he muttered to himself and pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket. Wiping the blood from his wrist, he tutted at my teeth marks.

  Panicked as I was, I winced at the angry red marks on his wrist, and finally got a better look at him. He crouched before me in a black long sleeve shirt, unbuttoned at the top, dark pants, and leather shoes. His messy white-blond hair looked as though it never lay flat, and his high cheekbones accented his grey eyes, which tinged slightly red. Even confused and terrified, I recognized how handsome he looked.

  Like a devil in black jeans.

  The casual way he studied me shot my already-rising anxiety through the roof.

  “Answer me!” I yelled, feeling half-mad and fighting back tears.

  “Listen, I just saved your life, so you don’t get to demand anything.” He raised his eyebrows, one side of his lips tugging up, all anger gone.

  “You threw me out of a window!” I must have looked like a crazy person, crying and sitting barefoot on the front lawn with blood dripping down my face and my front. If it weren’t for the very real blood still staining my hands, his casual demeanor would have had me questioning whether the last hour had happened at all.

  “The word is ‘defenestrated,’” he smirked.

  “De—what?”

  “Defenestrate. It’s a verb. It means ‘to be thrown out of a window.’” He flashed a dark grin.

  I slapped him. I didn’t know what came over me or what possessed me to do it, but my palm stung from hitting a very dangerous, possibly deranged man.

  Like a switch, his eyes darkened and his canine teeth extended before he shook his head, huffed, and sat back down on his haunches. His face reverted—no red eyes, no fangs.

  What did I just see? Was I having a panic attack? Were hallucinations part of panic attacks? I was very aware that I’d gone from fear to anger to indignity and back to fear. Was I unstable? Had I died and gone to a personal hell?

  I switched strategies.

  “Help!” A mailman caught my periphery vision. I needed someone to see me—to show me I wasn’t going crazy.

  The mailman looked startled, as if he hadn’t seen us, though we splayed out on the lawn like Halloween decorations. He took two steps toward us before he caught sight of the blond at my side and paused.

  The blond muttered something I couldn’t hear, and the mailman was suddenly on his way again, as if he had already forgotten us.

  “What was that?” I half screamed.

  “It’s useless, love. No one will help you so long as I don’t let them.”

  Panic bubbled at my throat and threatened to spill out like the tears I couldn’t stop. “What’s happening? Who are you?”

  I wrapped my arms around myself as if my bare hands could hold in the flood of overwhelming emotions.

  “Uh...” he shifted so he crouched awkwardly in front of me, hand floating in the air before he pulled it back, like he wanted to extend comfort, but it wasn’t in his nature to do so. “My name is Nikolas. Kol.”

  I barely heard him as I gulped air like it would put me back together again. Like the more air there was in my lungs, the more likely I was going to wake up and realize this was all just a horrible nightmare.

  “Uh. Sorry I lost my temper with your grandmother.” He looked away and pulled a hand through his hair.

  “You... lost... your... temper?” I hugged myself and cried harder, letting the agony pour out of me. Then maybe someone would see how pathetic I looked and finally help me.

  “I... yeah.” He made a sound. “Can you just calm down?”

  “What’s happening?” I wailed to the skies. Police. Maybe the police could help, but—if he could confuse the mailman with a simple look and a few words, something told me the police wouldn’t be of much help either.

  “I’ll explain if you just... look, how about some water?”

  I think I made a whimpering sound, but he had the grace to ignore it and stood up, gesturing for me to follow.

  There was nothing in the world I wanted more than to just lay on the grass and cry my eyes out, hopeless and pathetic. But I knew I would only give myself a headache and nothing would get solved. Nana had disappeared, and it was beca
use of this man. This stranger who was both devastatingly dangerous and handsome. My mind said I needed to get far away from him, but my instinct told me he would lead me to answers I needed.

  I was standing before I realized my body didn’t ache—my bones were fine, my muscles felt normal, and even my feet didn’t sting. Yet I had just flown—had just been defenestrated—from the second-story window and landed on concrete. I knew I’d almost died, and yet my body showed no signs of the incident.

  Sniffling, I followed the stranger back into my own home.

  CHAPTER 2

  I RINSED MY FACE SEVERAL times before plopping onto the familiar kitchen chair, waiting silently as Kol rummaged through Nana’s cabinets for a cup. I could have told him where the mugs were, but I couldn’t bring myself to. After what he had done, he could fumble for a bit.

  Where was Nana now? What had this stranger done to her? Was she okay? Was she dead? I pushed the last thought away, swallowing any lumps that formed in my throat.

  “Here.” He finally set a glass on the counter before me, looking triumphant. “Like I said, I’m Kol. I came to find your grandmother so she could break my curse.”

  “And killing her was the way to do it?” I croaked. I didn’t truly think that she was dead—I knew nothing at all—but I wanted to hear him contradict me. I needed to hear someone tell me she was fine. But fear and dread slowly left my body, leaving it cold and numb. Maybe the hollow feeling was a blessing.

  “No,” he pursed his lips. “I didn’t kill her. I attacked her, but I didn’t kill her. I don’t know what happened to the old crone. I wish I did so we could remove this new curse,” he huffed, crossing his arms.

  “Why would you attack her at all?” My voice raised, and I resisted jumping up at him; hearing him talk about attacking my grandmother—my only family—with such nonchalance ignited a small spark of fury within me.

  “I knocked on her door, and she let me in after I explained what I was looking for, but then she reneged on the agreement. I got angry.” He shrugged as though chatting about the Sunday post.