by Ainsley Shay
“After you tell me.”
“You are so full of shit!” A binge of laughter threatened to start and not stop. I tried to force it down, but fear faded into delirium. “You will kill me, eat me, drink me, whatever the hell you have planned as soon as I tell you.”
“Tell me!” His voice bellowed with anger throughout the deserted barn.
“You tell me why you so desperately want to know first.” I already knew; I had no idea why I felt like I was invincible. I wasn’t incapable of doing anything except peeing in my pants. He could kill me as easily as he killed my dad and that woman. Involuntarily, I looked up to the beam that stretched from one end of the barn to the other and pictured her naked body hanging, broken and dead. I squeezed my eyes shut.
My cell phone rang, and this time Penemuel answered it. “Hello, brother.”
Blacwin.
46
Their conversation had been brief. Penemuel enjoyed toying with his brother’s emotions. Sick bastard. He had told Blacwin I was comfortable and enjoying the scenery.
“Just like all those centuries ago, he won’t be able to save you.”
I ignored Penemuel.
Night had settled in. The creatures that thrived in the darkness where getting louder outside the barn. I pulled my legs in as tight as I could and rested. Neither of us had given in; I was still tied while I watched Penemuel walk circles around the barn. Occasionally, he would stop and take a moment to look at his phone and then replace it to his pocket. He was determined to get the secret, and I was determined to live. I hadn’t come this far to fail now; I had to live for my father’s sake. His death would be pointless if I let myself be killed by the people he warned me against, and had protected me from all this time.
“Are you hungry? I bet you miss having his blood,” he asked.
“You’re disgusting.”
“His blood has been coursing through your veins since the first time you arrived at Skelside.”
“Impossible.” The thought sickened me, and I refused to believe it.
“No, it’s actually very possible.” He leaned against the pole next to me. “Once you drink even a sip of his blood, it is forever part of you; no matter how many times you’re reborn.”
“Reborn,” I whispered.
“Child, have you not realized anything? Adelina’s curse is stronger than death. It wants to live as much as you do,” he said condescendingly.
I wondered how many times I had been reborn. Chandler had said this is as far as it has ever gotten. Had he meant my life? If I lived through this, I would ask him.
The key, if I lived through this. “Why do you envy that creep so much? He’s disgusting and evil.”
Penemuel was in my face in an instant. “He made me what I am today. Alive, immortal—”
“Not for much longer,” a deep voice said.
I peered around Penemuel. Blacwin was standing in the barn’s doorway. Penemuel turned. “Come to rescue your true love, brother?” He nonchalantly studied a ring on his finger. “Which, I have a feeling, you won’t succeed this time, either.”
Blacwin’s hands clenched and unclenched. “You know Darenfys—”
“That’s Lord Darenfys to you!” Penemuel held Blacwin’s stare. “You’re not deserving of anything he ever gave you.”
Even in the darkness, with only a few streams of moonlight falling through the rotted roof for light, it was easy to see the hatred for each other on their faces. I pulled and yanked on the ropes again. They hadn’t loosened. I could no more escape this barn or their war, than I could fly.
“I had not intended for you to be involved in this. I only wanted to come get what I came for, kill your little sweetheart, and then be on my way.”
Blacwin rushed Penemuel. Penemuel crouched and waited for the collision with a grin on his face. Blacwin’s body left the ground and his extended leg connected with Penemuel’s chest. Penemuel teetered only slightly, then quickly found his balance. Blacwin landed on his feet, arms raised in defense. Each blow Blacwin threw, Penemuel easily dodged. Each move brought him closer to me. I squirmed against the rope and tried again to slip my wrists free. My nightmare came rushing back, and I felt as if I were chained to the bars in the cell, Penemuel who had brought me there, Blacwin who could not save me. I closed my eyes and willed the image away. The helpless feeling was paralyzing. My eyes flew open when something cool touched my neck. Penemuel’s hot breath left a layer of fog on the cold blade. Numbing fear shivered down my back.
“Let her go,” Blacwin roared.
“Oh, come on brother, you can be more clever than that.”
Blacwin stood less than ten feet away from us. His gaze on us was pure anguish mixed with hatred.
“You can’t kill him.” It was Chandler. He had come up behind us. His steps were quiet, and I hadn’t heard him approach. Blacwin had to have seen him but never drew attention to him.
“Why not?” Blacwin demanded to know.
Penemuel’s laugh echoed off every surface in the barn. “I’m invincible, what, no one told you?”
“Nothing is invincible,” Chandler said. “Difficult to kill, but not unable to be killed.”
Penemuel was trapped between Chandler and Blacwin. I was still wedged between Penemuel and the knife he held to my throat.
My voice rasped and was barely audible to my own ears from the blood pounding in my head. “If you kill me, you’ll never get what you want.” I felt the knife’s blade ease a fraction.
“Tell me what I want to know!” Penemuel growled in my ear.
He couldn’t see my eyes and I looked at Blacwin, pleaded with my gaze to go along with whatever I said. Chandler, who was behind me, I knew would understand. Whatever I said had to sound believable for him to move the blade away from my neck, and have enough time for Blacwin or Chandler, or both, to get to Penemuel... and then, I didn’t know what. I had to think of something quick, some lie or possible truth. “Adelina left something for my dad. I think it’s some kind of spell, like to reverse something; a counter-spell.”
The blade moved a fraction from my throat. “Where is it?”
“At my dad’s house. I hid it until I knew what to do with it.”
That was the second Chandler leaped from behind me and was on Penemuel in less than a half of breath. The knife fell. The blade fell on my arm, slicing through my flesh. Blood trickled down my arm.
Blacwin was at my side while Chandler fought Penemuel. Using the same blade that just threatened to end my life, Blacwin cut through the ropes at my wrists. My lifeless arms fell to my sides. He looped one arm under my knees and the other around my back and lifted me up. His eyes seemed to glow in the darkness of the barn. Their intensity set my heart on fire.
“Get her out of here!” yelled Chandler.
Blacwin didn’t hesitate. The moment we were in his Jeep, he floored the accelerator. Dust and gravel spewed from the back tires as we tore across the field and out onto the main road.
“What about Chandler? We can’t leave him there!”
“Trust me, he’ll be fine.”
“But—”
“It’s more important to get you to safety.”
He drove us to Adelina’s house. I insisted on walking instead of Blacwin carrying me. I was more shaken than hurt. The house was dark. Afraid of running into one of the statues, I stayed on the porch until Blacwin turned on a light. He took my hand and led me to the back of the house and into the bedroom.
“Sit down, I’m going to get a couple of things to clean and bandage your wounds.”
The only place to sit was on the bed. I glanced around the room. It was small and quaint.
When he came back, he knelt in front of me. “I’m sorry. I never thought he’d... I knew he was capable, but I should have known he would feel desperate enough to do this.” His voice cracked. He bent his head in shame. I laid a hand on his shoulder and tried to assure him none of this was his fault. No matter what I had said, he would blame himself.
He looked up and said, “Iris, I swear on my life, I will never let harm come to you ever again.”
I believed him. He reached up and smoothed back my hair, his hand resting on the nape of my neck. Pulling me slightly to him, he kissed me. It was more than a kiss; it was a promise.
47
Even though I was grateful Blacwin and Chandler had found me, I think I was pissed off at Chandler. “How’d you know where I was?”
He showed up at Adelina’s about a half hour after we did. Penemuel knew he had failed in getting what he wanted from me, and after a wicked fight, which Chandler swore he won, Penemuel stormed out of the barn, threatening he’d be back.
“I was hoping you weren’t going to ask me that.”
“What? Is it like a weird connection we have or were you doing the stalking thing again?”
“Shit,” he said in a hushed tone. “Promise you won’t freak out?”
“I will promise no such thing,” I said.
“I ah... kind of have been tracking you by your phone.”
“You are stalker-worthy—you know that? How could you?”
“If I hadn’t, you’d be dead. Actually, it hadn’t worked as well as expected and that’s what took so long to get to you. It wasn’t until Penemuel finally answered Blacwin’s call, that I was able to find you.”
“That was cheap. You did not just use that as your excuse.” It was a damned good one, but he couldn’t get out of this that easily. I thought back to when I admitted that he was hot. Ugh! I told my brother he was hot. That seemed like forever ago.
“You’re a piece of work, you know that? Besides, Snow would kick my ass if I let anything happen to you. I think she might be just as scary as Darenfys when she’s mad.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” I agreed.
“Did you call her?” he asked.
“No, but I sent her a text from Blacwin’s phone that I was okay.”
Blacwin came and stood next to me in the kitchen. He wrapped his arms around me.
“You know this is only the beginning.”
I nodded. I knew Penemuel would haunt me until he got what he wanted. But right now, I savored being safe in Blacwin’s arms. I was still trying to understand everything that had happened in the last month, and put it into a perspective I could wrap my head around, but it was difficult. I had been born numerous times, only to die or be killed. I still had no idea how to kill Lord Darenfys or break the curse. Who knew if I’d ever know? For now, those secrets were locked away somewhere in my past.
“He’ll be back to get what he wants,” Blacwin said.
“I know.” The fear of admitting the obvious still stunned my every nerve. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” said Blacwin.
“Your brother—I mean Penemuel said that you needed blood to survive. Is that true?”
His hold on me loosened slightly. “No.”
“Good, ’cause that’s gross.” Relief flooded me. “Can I ask you something else?”
He nodded.
“Who was that girl you were sitting with at the café when you met Snow?”
Blacwin had glanced at Chandler before he answered. “Adelina’s sister, Carina.”
“I didn’t know she had a sister,” I said.
He nodded. “I was hoping she might know where Adelina was. She knows something, but she wasn’t willing to share.”
“Trust me, she’s just as creepy as her sister,” Chandler said.
I looked over Blacwin’s shoulder and stared at the back of one of the statues. It was a woman. Her graceful figure held out her arm like she waiting for her dance partner to return. I felt Blacwin’s stare on me and looked at him.
His eyes scrolled over every inch of my face. “Stunning,” he whispered. He touched my lips with the tip of his thumb. “Iris, I know you hardly know me. You probably think I’m just some freak off the street and some creep who haunts your dreams. So, the only thing I can ask from you is for you to give me a chance. Let me prove to you how much you mean to me and I’ll show you a love worthy of every second of the last five hundred years.”
I glanced at Chandler, who sat on the arm of the chair near the door. He had heard everything Blacwin said to me. He nodded as if giving me the approval to accept what Blacwin told me to be the truth. When I turned back to Blacwin, his eyes were warm and patient. I was falling for someone I supposedly fell for in a prior life. The thought was terrifying and impossible. But he was neither. I nodded. “Okay.”
Blacwin pulled me tighter to him, eliminating all space between our bodies, and his lips claimed mine. We stood in each other’s arms amidst the statues created by a witch who cursed me over five hundred years ago. A curse that still had not completely revealed all of its facets to me.
My dad and the Carving Witch had been right in their cryptic note, they had come for me. But, they had also been wrong. Only one of them would ever bring harm to me; unless, there were more like Penemuel, more of Lord Darenfys’ minions. Then, a chilling thought occurred to me, what if Lord Darenfys himself came for me? I refused to think about that right now. What mattered now was giving Blacwin the chance I had promised, and mourning my father. Tomorrow, I would go to the cemetery to visit him and tell him thank you for loving me the way he had. I would spend the day there, telling him all about Blacwin and Chandler, the son he never had a chance to meet.
Until tomorrow came, I would stay here in Blacwin’s arms.
48
For eight nights, I was dreamless. On the ninth, I wasn’t so fortunate.
40 days after ~
Sheer light fabric sheathed Adelina’s body. A carving knife was in her hand. I observed from afar the grace and divine beauty of her etching away the stone. It was like watching a dancer. She turned her head ever so slightly and looked directly at me. Crooking a finger, she beckoned me forward. I went; wanting to be close to her and all the exquisite beauty she created.
It was only she and I in a large spacious room, surrounded by all of her statues. She caressed the handle of the knife. I wasn’t scared or uncomfortable until she spoke.
“My dear, Iris.” Her voice was as delicate as the stone that encircled us. “You are the only one to make it all right, again. You are the only weapon against him.”
She turned, dismissing me, and slid the blade across the statue’s neck; dark liquid poured from the gash. The statue’s head fell back and onto the floor. It didn’t shatter as it should have. The severed stone rolled and settled against my shoe. When I looked down, I stood in a puddle of blood and saw my eyes staring back at me.
The colors had not returned.
Adelina’s Curse
Book Two
1
The dewy grass dampened my jeans as I sat next to his grave. I regretted not bringing a blanket. I leaned against the rising stone that read Mason Thorn, A beloved Father who was cherished, 1971 - 2014. Knowing the stone was not in any way part of him, touching it gave me the sense I was somehow closer to him. Today was the first time I had come alone. The other visits had been with Snow, my best friend, or Mr. Yves, my guardian, and sometimes both.
Snap! I plucked a piece of grass and told my dad everything that had happened since he was killed forty-one days ago. In the stillness of the morning, my hushed words sounded like a droning hum. They would have been difficult to hear for someone sitting beside me. I was glad no one else was around to listen; I sounded certifiably insane. Even though I had lived through the events of the last six weeks, it felt surreal and inconceivable. It was almost as if I were reading to my father from a book about faraway places and fantastical creatures. But no, the fallen angel, a binding curse, and the colorful nightmares were all very real.
I closed my eyes and imagined the two crescent shaped creases that dimpled my dad’s left cheek when he smiled. And, if he were here, his mouth would widen into his inevitable bright smile as I explained to him the way the colors had been so beautiful when I saw them for the first time.
Since I had been colorblind from birth, I couldn’t hide the excitement nestled in my tone, and he wouldn’t have wanted me to. The colors were gone now. They had lasted for one month in a series of nightmares after his death.
I forgot about the blade of grass until the bulging tip of my finger began to tingle with pain. I unwrapped the grass from around my finger and the darkened swollen tip shrank and lightened. No matter what seems to be hopeless now, with time, it will be healed, understood, or made right. My dad’s words still stung. They were proving to be as untrue as the lies told by a politician. How much time? I wanted to scream. But, there would be no answer, at least not one I wanted to hear.
The tears came as silent as the blade of grass, as I ripped it down its center. Crying was something I only used to do when I saw a sappy movie. Now, it usually happened somewhere between breakfast and lunch on a daily basis. There were fleeting moments when the old-happy-me—the me who was content in a colorless world, before my father’s death, before Skelside—would surface. I missed that part of myself, and it scared the hell out of me I’d never find it again; I’d never be whole again.
I didn’t tell my dad about the nightmare I had last night, or how it woke me, or the horrid image of staring at my own severed head, which would forever be seared into my brain. I also left out the part Blacwin was laying next to me when I woke. He had stayed with me every night since his brother, Penemuel, had kidnapped me. I was positive my father would approve of Blacwin, even though he was a couple of years older than I was. But, he most definitely would not approve of him sleeping in my bed, even if it were innocent.
When I bolted up, startling Blacwin awake, he reached for me and asked what was wrong. I hadn’t answered. Involuntarily, my hand grasped my neck. Feeling the dampness, I hurried to the bathroom. Terrified to pull it away, I held my hand there and prayed it wasn’t my blood; prayed my nightmares were not seeping into my reality...again. When I finally looked at my hand, sweat coated my fingers. Only sweat. The insidious dream had played me. When I went back to bed, Blacwin pulled me tight against him until the sky was stripped of its darkness.