by Amy Sparling
Copyright © 2017 Amy Sparling
All rights reserved.
First Edition April 11, 2017
Cover image from BigStockPhoto
Typography from FontSquirrel.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems -except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews-without permission in writing from the author at [email protected].
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Also by Amy Sparling
About the Author
Chapter 1
I am awake.
I don’t know when it happened, when I fell asleep or how I woke up just now, but I am here, covered in a thick blanket of foggy memories. Curious, I lie here with my eyes closed, feeling sleepier than I’ve ever felt. It’s like an avalanche of melatonin fell on top of me and buried me into a coma-like sleep from which I never want to wake up. My joints ache, begging me to stay still. My head hurts a little, and my eyes are heavy with exhaustion.
But fear tickles at my insides until my heartbeat quickens. I remember now. A beautiful woman with wild short black hair and smoky eyeshadow, the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. She is behind this.
I killed Alexo.
I tried to save Riley.
Did I save Riley?
What happened after? Theo. I saved Theo.
At least I think I did.
I squeeze my eyes shut and focus on keeping my breathing steady because you never know who might be watching you, waiting for you to wake up. Where am I? My face itches a little, and the air smells like … new carpet?
Yes. I’m lying on the floor. There’s a blanket on top of me, and the scent of new house in the air. Like that time Riley and I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity one weekend because Riley was crushing hard on this guy, Jack, who worked there. We painted bedrooms in the newly constructed houses. They had this new smell to them, like fresh lumber and drywall and paint. It smelled like the possibility of starting over, the birth of a new house untainted by drama or pain or poverty. It smelled like hope in there.
Yet somehow, the same smell here sends a shiver down my spine. This is not my bedroom. I’ve been taken against my will and put somewhere I don’t want to be.
Slowly, my eyes crack open, trying to discern more details of my whereabouts without being noticed.
I’m in a room. It’s small, like Uncle Will’s bedroom at his old house. Square, with beige carpet and tan walls and white crown molding around the ceiling. A square table across the room has things on top of it. Bottles of water, snack foods. I can’t see it all, but I can tell a little. There’s not any more furniture in here, but there is a door in the corner. A shadow moves near my feet and I’m too scared to look down, so I close my eyes again, hoping for a few more minutes of solitude while I figure out what the hell is going on.
“Cara?”
I don’t realize I’m on the verge of a panic attack, until hearing Theo’s voice takes it all away and replaces the panic with joy, relief of unbelievable proportions.
I sit up on my elbow. “Theo?”
He closes the book he’d been reading, Hideaway by Dean Koontz, and puts a hand on my calf. With my eyes fully open, I take in the room again. I’m lying on the new carpet, my back pressed against the wall behind me. My feet are in Theo’s lap, his back against the wall, his book in one hand.
I try to sit up, but dizziness washes over me, slowing my movements to a snail-like pace. “Take your time,” Theo says. “You’ve been drugged.”
I gasp, eyes wide. I am not a fan of drugs, especially if they’re given to me against my will. “What kind of drug?”
Theo shrugs. “We were put to sleep. I don’t think it was anything harmful, love. I’ve been checking on you and you seem fine.”
“How long have you been awake?”
“A few hours.” He looks at the book, where his thumb is holding his place about halfway through it. “However long it takes to read this much.” He chuckles, the sound echoing off the walls of this small room. “This book is fucked up.”
“Why did you wake up before me?” I ask, followed by, “And where are we?”
“Immortals heal faster, so I guess my body metabolized the sleeping drugs faster. As for where we are…” He sighs and glances around the windowless room. “No clue. Underground, probably.”
He must see the fear in my eyes because he leans over and places a hand on my cheek. His amber eyes crinkle in the corners. “Cara, it’ll be okay.”
“Lady Em did this,” I say, as that bitch’s name comes back to me. Every moment I’m awake, I start to feel clarity again. The sleeping drug is wearing off and I’m remembering everything. Remembering her.
“What the hell did she do to us?”
I stand up, holding onto the wall for support. I expect Theo to jump up and try to keep me from moving, but he doesn’t. He’s calm, like always. I wonder if he’s accepted the fact that we’re prisoners, or if this is how he deals with knowing we’re completely screwed—stoic calmness.
I walk across the room, toward the table. It’s set up like some complimentary breakfast at a three star hotel. There’s a coffee maker, paper cups and cream and sugar. Pastries, fruits, bags of chips and granola bars. Bottled drinks and Moon Pies.
I rush for the door in the corner and pull it open.
It’s a small bathroom.
I turn back around to Theo, who is still sitting on the floor, but he’s watching me with an expression I can’t quite place. “Where’d you get the book?”
“It was on the table.” He glances at the cover and curls his lip. “Not exactly my preferred genre.”
“How do we get out of here?”
He motions behind him. It’s hard to tell at first glance, but the solid tan wall has a rectangular line going through it, the outline of a door. There’s no handle, no lock. No hinges. Just the faintest outline hinting that there might be something beyond the wall.
“It can only be opened from the outside,” he says, as if reading my mind.
I say what I’ve been fearing since the moment I woke up. “So this is a fancy jail cell?”
He nods once.
“Lady Em is holding us hostage?”
“Looks like it.”
I march across the room and put my hands on my hips. “Theo, what the hell is wrong with you?” Before, I’d kept my voice low, hoping that whoever is on the other side of these walls won’t know I’m awake yet. Now, I’m yelling, unable to control it. “You�
��re just sitting there! This is not okay! Stand the fuck up and help me find a way out of here!”
His eyes close, his lips forming a slight frown. When they open again, he’s staring at the wall behind me. “Do you think I haven’t already tried that, Cara?” His voice is gravely calm, and it sends chills down my spine. “I’ve checked every wall, every corner. There’s concrete behind this new drywall. Concrete below the carpet. Concrete in the ceiling. The door is at least a foot thick and it’s locked electronically from the outside. If Lady Em had made it easy to escape, I would have already done it.”
I sink to the floor next to him, feeling like shit for having yelled at him just now. Of course Theo would try to get us out. Why did I doubt him?
My mind scrambles for a solution, no matter how impossible it might seem. “Theo, you’re crazy strong. Why don’t we just hurl that table at the door or something? See if we can’t break out of here?” I tap the wall behind his head. “You said this is drywall. Let’s rip it all off and see if there’s a way to get out somewhere. This place smells like it was just remodeled, so maybe there’s another door hidden somewhere.”
“Yeah, that would probably work,” Theo says. The way he says it though doesn’t make sense. This is a good thing, yet he’s acting like it’s a bad idea.
“Well?” I grab his shoulders and put on a smile. “Let’s get to work.”
He takes my hands and pulls them down, putting them back in my lap. “I said brute force would probably work, love. This isn’t a dungeon, it’s just a room, probably a basement. But we can’t attempt that.”
I fold my arms over my chest. “Why not?”
He’s silent for a long moment. Then he reaches for my hand, running his thumb over my palm. “Using that much energy would drain my lifeblood,” he says, his voice solemn. Then he meets my eyes. “I can’t do that to you.”
Chapter 2
I guess all of my memories haven’t come back yet, because Theo’s words hit me hard. Alexo, Lady Em, being held prisoner. None of that matters as much as the bitter truth that I am now Theo’s lifeblood. When Lady Em used her freaky telekinetic powers to rip Theo’s necklace right off his neck, she was trying to kill him. Without the immortality stone the necklace contained, he would die quickly. I almost watched it happen just a few weeks before when his lifeblood died, leaving his stone useless.
So when she did that, I snapped. I did the only thing I could think of—kill Alexo and give his stone to Theo. What I didn’t know was that the immortality stone on my bracelet was the matching stone to Alexo’s. I was his lifeblood. The moment I ripped his necklace off and he began to die, I was free. I could have taken off my bracelet and turned back into a regular person, one who’s not tied to a secret immortal world, my life slowly wasting away to give power to another.
But I didn’t know that.
I thought only for Theo’s sake, and I pressed Alexo’s necklace to Theo’s chest. I was once again connected via immortality stones, but this time, I was keeping him alive. The man I love.
Now, in the moments that follow, I relive the entire event over and over in my head. Lady Em’s seemingly magical powers that allowed her to throw people across the room with just her hand. Alexo’s cowardice when talking to her. The way his eyes looked when I stole his necklace and kicked him off the balcony.
I remember it all.
Theo sits against the wall, his head tipped back while he stares at the ceiling. I take his hand. “I don’t regret it,” I say. “Not a single bit of it.”
“You should.” His voice is cold. He turns to me, his eyes bloodshot. “I don’t deserve to be alive at the cost of your life.”
“Honey, it’s okay.” I pull his hand into my lap, hugging it to my chest. “We were always going to find a way to safely remove my bracelet. Now we just have to safely escape this place first.” I put on a smile even though I’ve never been more doubtful or terrified in my life. “We’ll be okay. You won’t suck out too much life from me before we find a way to get this bracelet off.”
“I don’t deserve to be alive,” he says in a low growl. “If I’m dead, you’ll be free.”
There’s this resolute promise in his voice and it shakes me to the core. I grab his chin and make him look at me. “Theo, don’t you dare say that. You’re not making yourself die just to save me, okay? That’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid to save the one you love.”
“Yes, it is,” I say, knowing that if the tables were turned, I’d happily die for Theo. “You can’t give up now. I have plenty of life left in me, and we’ll find a way out of this.”
He gives me this look like he doesn’t believe me. And I guess I don’t believe myself either. The truth is, this entire situation is so terrifying I don’t know how to function, so I’m choosing to be positive. Otherwise, I might fall apart. It was bad enough knowing I was someone’s lifeblood. But now I’m Theo’s. Now it’s personal. He can’t live without a lifeblood and I can’t live for long as one. This whole thing is screwed.
Theo leans forward and kisses me, his lips soft on mine. It’s not romantic or steamy, more like a yearning for something to hold onto.
“You are so beautiful,” he says, his voice softer now. He leans back against the wall and gazes up at the ceiling. “This world is made better with you in it. The same cannot be said for me.”
“Shut up, Theo.” I let out an exaggerated sigh. “I love you, but I’m not even going to entertain the idea of you dying right now, okay?”
His lips quirk and I am fully aware I just said I love him out loud. As my ears turn red, I keep talking. “Since we’re stuck here for the time being, we should be productive.”
“Sexually productive?” he says with a wiggle of his brow.
I punch him in the arm. “No way in hell. What if she walked in on us?”
Theo cracks a smile, and it takes away some of the chaos in my mind. He grabs my thigh and tugs me over a few inches until I’m sitting next to him. “This place could use a couch.”
“And an exit,” I say.
He laughs.
Now that the mood is a little lighter, I feel like chatting. Sitting here bored will only freak me out more than I am. I am worried about Riley. Worried about the other girls at the mansion. I’m worried about me and Lady Em and Theo’s future. My future.
Hell, I am worried about everything.
“So you really don’t know Lady Em?” I ask.
Theo picks up the paperback book and thumbs through the pages. The smell of old pages fills the air. “Nope. My Embrook clan was right; Alexo wasn’t in charge of the Rosewater clan. But I never got to tell them that.”
“You’ll have a chance,” I say, nudging him with my elbow. “We will get out of here.”
Theo goes silent again. I keep talking. “How do you think that bitch got her powers?”
“I’ve thought about that all morning,” he says, turning to me. He plants a kiss on my cheek before talking again. “One stone gives you immortality. Who knows what several stones do. I’ve never heard of anyone trying something like that. The stones are rare. You can’t exactly make your own.”
“I wonder what all she can do,” I say, more to myself as I recall how she moved us around with just a flick of her hand. “Can she fly? Levitate? Control people with her mind?”
“God, I hope not,” Theo says.
We eat a random assortment of food from the cart, and Theo and I take turns making up stupid games to play to pass the time. He reads me some of the book, but it’s about a kid who kills his best friend by shoving him off a roller coaster, and I lose interest quickly, although I could listen to Theo talk forever. His voice is like honey, and the way his eyes peek up at me every few pages is really cute. Still, that book is gross.
I don’t know how many hours have passed before I start getting sleeping. With only the recessed lighting in the ceiling, I have no idea what time it is. If the sun is up or down or somewhere in between. The bathroom has new toothb
rushes and toothpaste, so I guess we’re doing all right as far as being prisoners goes.
I sit back against the wall and snuggle the blanket into a ball in my lap.
Theo returns from brushing his teeth and sits next to me. “Come here,” he says, holding out his arms. “I miss you.”
I crawl into his lap, leaning against his chest while my legs hang off the side of his thighs. Theo’s arms wrap around me, his head resting on my shoulder.
“Am I squishing you?” I ask.
“Not at all,” he says, sighing softly as he holds me tightly. “Cara, at some point they will open this door. Whatever I say or do, I want you to just go with it, okay? Even if it’s some off-the-wall crazy shit. Just go with it.”
I nod. “What kind of crazy shit are you planning?”
Theo sighs. “I have no idea. Figured I’d make it up as I go along. I just need to know you’ll back me up. No matter what I say, don’t act surprised by it. Act like it’s normal.”
“I can do that,” I say. My heart beats a little easier now that I’m so close to Theo. I can feel his own heart beating through his chest. Steady, soothing. We’re both getting tired and it’s been a very long day. But I still don’t want to stop talking, if only to keep the silence away.
“So what was that weird spell you started reciting when we were in front of Lady Em?”
Theo laughs. A real laugh, which shakes me since I’m sitting on him. “It was total bullshit. The Embrook clan invented it a couple centuries ago. They claimed they’d found ancient documents that contain a …spell… to immediately eradicate the immortal properties in the stone of the person you cast it on.”
My mouth falls open. “What?”
Theo shrugs. “Immortality stones are science. They were created by an alchemist using scientific shit that’s well beyond my mental capacity, but there’s one thing they’re not, and that’s magic. For every action, there’s a reaction. The stones are give and take. You can’t just verbally say something and have it work.”
“So it’s a joke?”
“It’s a scare tactic.”
“Wow,” I breathe.