Master of Salt & Bones
Page 1
Master of Salt & Bones
Keri Lake
MASTER OF SALT & BONES
Published by KERI LAKE
www.KeriLake.com
Copyright © 2020 Keri Lake
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events, locations, or any other element is entirely coincidental.
Cover art by Hang Le
Photography by Morten Munthe
Editing: Julie Belfield
Warning: This book contains explicit sexual content, and violent scenes that some readers may find disturbing.
Media vita in morte sumus
(In the midst of life, we are in death)
For Diane
Because even those who write fairy tales with happy endings need a fairy godmother of their own.
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Other Books By Keri Lake
VIGILANTES SERIES
RICOCHET
BACKFIRE
INTREPID
BALLISTIC
JUNIPER UNRAVELING SERIES
JUNIPER UNRAVELING
CALICO DESCENDING
KINGS OF CARRION
SONS OF WRATH SERIES
SOUL AVENGED
SOUL RESURRECTED
SOUL ENSLAVED
SOUL REDEEMED
THE FALLEN (A SONS OF WRATH SPINOFF)
THE SANDMAN DUET
NOCTURNES & NIGHTMARES
REQUIEM & REVERIE
STANDALONES
RIPPLE EFFECT
Contents
PLAYLIST
DEAR READER,
Prologue
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
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Epilogue
Other Books By Keri Lake
Acknowledgments
About the Author
PLAYLIST
This book would not have been possible without the talented musicians who provided inspiration along the way.
“Unspoken” -Myuu
“Come Back For Me” -Jaymes Young
“Love Is A Bitch” -Two Feet
“Soda” -Nothing But Thieves
“I Walk The Line” -Halsey
“Why Don’t You Save Me?” -Kan Wakan
“Oceans” -Seafret
“Fear Of The Water” -SYML
“Bottom of the Deep Blue Sea” -MISSIO
“Curse” -Koda
“Million Dollar Man” -Lana Del Rey
“Chopin: Nocturne in C-Sharp Minor” -Frédéric Chopin, Alexandre Tharaud
“Madness” -Ruelle
“Drown” -Seafret
“Liebestraume No. 3: Nocturne in A-Flat Major” -Franz Liszt
“Twisted” -Two Feet
DEAR READER,
In an effort to preserve the setting and characters in my head, this story is set in a fictional town, on a fictional island off the coast of Massachusetts. It’s very loosely based on Martha’s Vineyard, with Bonesalt Bluff inspired by the Aquinnah Cliffs. A quaint little fishing community with a modern-day castle.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy Lucian and Isa’s story ❤️
~Keri
Prologue
Lucian
Fifteen years ago …
“Mother, I want to go home.”
Straps across my face limit the movement of my jaw, where I lie bound to a stiff bed in the middle of a mostly empty, dark cell. An incessant chill burrows deep within my bones, over the thrum of anxiety that’s only mildly subdued by the drugs they’ve forced down my throat. Restraints at my wrists and ankles ensure that I won’t leap from this bed and follow her when she leaves.
“This place is hell.”
A hospital, from the looks of it, but far from any place designed to heal. Their method is torment. Aversion therapy. Experimental medicine that hasn’t been approved by any governing body. I doubt any practicing doctor has ever set foot inside.
Considering where it’s nestled, deep in the northern woods of Vermont, it’s a wonder my parents managed to stumble upon it.
“You’re ill, Lucian. The doctors here … they’ll help you.” Tears gather in Mother’s eyes that’re red and swollen, from days of crying, no doubt. “They’ll make you better.”
“There’s … nothing wrong with me.” I manage to grit the words past the tight clench of my teeth that’s reinforced by unyielding leather stretched across my chin. The pressure against my jaw sends a throbbing ache to my skull that pulses behind my eyeballs, and the shape of her blurs behind a watery shield, while little snippets of memory, things they’ve done to me here, flash through my head.
Injections. Drugs. Clamps. Cuffs. Electric shock. Hissing. The screams.
“Take me home!”
“She’s lucky she’s already dead, or I’d insist she get the worst of it.” Fingers curling around the strap of her designer purse, she stares off, lips clamped tight with her disgust, but then her eye twitches, and her expression changes into what I surmise as satisfaction. “My God, do you have any idea what they do to female child predators here?”
Chapter 1
Isadora
Present day …
“You seem nervous.”
Cigarette smoke mingles with the warm, salty sea air that’s breezing through the cracked window, as my aunt taps her thumb like a metronome against the steering wheel. “Yeah, you would be, too, if you paid any at
tention to the rumors, as you call them.” Cheeks caving with a drag of her smoke, she doesn’t bother to look away from the road ahead, toward me.
Wind whips my too-long hair, which I don’t fuss to brush away, while the old junker she affectionately named Hal in an ode to her ex rattles along the seaside road. The early morning sky, with its heavy gray clouds, is the foreboding threat of a storm later, and the barometric pressure seems to be adding a nice dose of anxiety to her already cantankerous mood.
“What bliss it must be to ignore everything around you, like it’s all one big lie.”
I have heard some of the rumors of Blackthorne Manor. A modern-day castle that sits on the edge of a seaside bluff, otherwise known to the locals as Bonesalt, for the white clay and sand that covers its steep walls. The place is now owned by the only heir, Lucian Blackthorne, affectionately called the Devil of Bonesalt. And I’ll be tasked to serve as a companion to his ailing mother over the next few months. “Oh, right. What’s that again? He runs naked through the woods to eat animals alive? Or is it the one where he bathes in human blood?” In mocking, I shake my head and point at nothing in the air. “No, wait, you’re talking about the one where he sneaks into town to snatch children from their beds at night.”
“Go ahead. Poke your fun. Won’t take long for you to find out for yourself.”
“That people in this town have too much time on their hands? Already knew that.”
“That the man is madder than a hatter. Why else would they call him The Mad Son.”
Oh, Lucian Blackthorne is also said to have spent some time in a psychiatric ward, earning him the second nickname, but just like every other ridiculous rumor that surrounds the guy, I’m not sure I believe that one either. “You’re just pissed that you don’t really know anything about him. Facts, anyway.”
“It’s unnerving that a man keeps to himself that way. Just isn’t right.” Tongue resting on her lip, she shakes her head. “Only ones who stay away from people are the ones who have something to hide.”
“Maybe he just likes his privacy.”
“Most murderers do.”
Snorting, I shake my head and look away, knowing it’ll piss her off. From what I’ve read, his wife committed suicide and his son went missing. Somehow, the locals equated that to a double homicide. “If you honestly thought he murdered her, you wouldn’t be driving me to his house.” I glance back at her. “So, why are you driving me to his house?”
“Because I know ya well enough to know you’d find a way, with or without me. That, and I figured the drive would give me enough time to change your mind.” After a quick once-over, she huffs. “Should’ve known you’d be stubborn. You don’t have to do this, you know. There are plenty of jobs--”
“Bartending?” It’s a knock at my aunt, but I’ll resort to a whole list of unsavory jobs before I’ll consider doing what she’s done day in and day out for the last twenty years. I refuse to be yet another Quinn sopping up the leftovers in this town.
“Hey, The Shoal’s been good to me. Good people. Good work.”
Shitty pay. “Look, I’m not doing this to rattle your cage. We need the money. You need it.”
“I don’t need it this bad, Isa.”
This bad.
Tempest Cove is a town ruled by its superstitions. Etched in the northern cliffs on a small island off the coast of Massachusetts, it’s a place where most of the redheads are single, and no one, no matter how ambitious, leaves port on a Thursday or Friday, because Sunday sails never fails. Women are said to be bad luck aboard a ship, and there’s no whistling for fear of a gale. Also, the dudes walking around with shaggy hair and unkempt nails aren’t bums, but die-hard fishermen who believe good hygiene spoils a catch. Hell, half the regulars who close down The Shoal every night look like they stumbled in from the streets, because of their crazy superstitions.
Here? It’s just the way of life.
They also believe that if you cross paths with a Blackthorne, you’re doomed to an unfortunate and indeterminate fate.
Which probably explains why I got the job of looking after Mrs. Blackthorne based on nothing more than a phone interview. No one else in Tempest Cove is crazy enough to tempt their luck by working for them.
I just happen to be desperate enough.
As I understand, the family owns the most successful shipping company in the whole United States, so I’m not the only crazy person in need of a paycheck. To be fair, though, the business is said to operate out of Gloucester, where their employees aren’t likely to know much about the family history, like folks here.
Or what folks here think they know about them, anyway.
The only thing I really know about the Blackthornes is that they are the richest family in Tempest Cove, true royalty, and they own the only castle I’m aware of, which can be seen from any point downtown.
Oh, and they’re cursed, too. Supposedly by a siren, although some accounts reference a sea witch. Depends on who’s telling the story.
Ask anyone in Tempest Cove, and they won’t so much as bat an eye at the mention of a sea witch, or siren. They believe in such things nearly as much as the God they insist will deliver them from the evils of the world.
Including the Blackthornes.
“What about an education?” Eyes on the road, she doesn’t bother to look at me, while she sucks in another drag of her cigarette. Good thing, because we’ve already gone over this, and I’d hate for her to see the exasperated look on my face. “You have a gift. One that shouldn’t go to waste.”
Since childhood, I’ve had an uncanny ability to play music by ear. Note for note, even though I can’t actually read a lick of music. My high school music teacher referred to me as lost potential before I graduated six months ago. A prodigious waste of talent, I believe were his exact words. Not that he ever believed I’d amount to anything if I did pursue my music. After all, kids in this town are cursed to follow in their parents’ footsteps.
Sons become fishermen. Daughters become their lonely wives. It’s been that way for generations.
It so happens, though, my mother has been, and still is, the reigning whore on this island who’s kept their husbands from becoming lonely, too. A somewhat colorful deviation from the town’s norm, I suppose. While my real father died when I was born, my mother insists it could’ve been any of the men who got her pregnant. She’s always made a point to tell me how lucky I am to have a whole damn town as a father. My own personal kingdom, she once called it.
As if that makes it easier to fit in here.
What I wouldn’t give to be ignorant to this town’s disapproving stares and whispers. The way the women shield their husbands and sons, as if I walk around with snakes wriggling about my head, ready to turn them to stone.
Unfortunately, I grew up as the daughter of a sinner, and as far as they’re concerned, that’s all I’ll ever be.
“Need money for an education,” I answer, drawing a dollar symbol in the nicotine stained film on the window beside me. “That’s the problem. I’m cursed with impractical potential. Just like you’re cursed to meddle where you shouldn’t.”
“And if I didn’t meddle, you’d be living under a viaduct right now.”
She’s not lying, although I haven’t visited my mom in weeks to know if she’s still camped out off the highway. Last I checked, she’d gone on another bender with one of her many junkie boyfriends.
“Your mother wasn’t always bad, for the record.”
Sometimes I forget that, if anyone is capable of understanding what it’s like to be the daughter of the town’s blacksheep, it’s the sister of said sheep. Maybe that’s why Aunt Midge is so hardened and jaded by life.
Could be that my mother made her that way, too. Or maybe it was having to raise me all these years.
Either way, we’re both cursed, just like the Blackthornes, so it doesn’t make sense that she’d side with the rumors.
A thick fog hovers over the road where the oceanside gives way to
trees. An object ahead, off to the right, draws my attention, and I squint my eyes to focus through the white haze, only noticing the shape of a cross once we pass it. Another stands a few feet ahead of that.
I twist around in my seat and catch a third on the opposite side of the road, through the back window. “What’s with the crosses?”
“Churchy types like to come up here sometimes and remind us all how useless they are.” In spite of the crucifix around her neck, my aunt has always had a certain disdain for religion. All those years of catechism seem to have burned her out on it.
That, or the people who tried to cram it down her throat after finding out my uncle cheated on her.