“Gillian,” I whisper taking in her entire body, my eyes gobbling up the ethereal sight of her in her wedding gown. Then the white hot anger hits me like a thousand punches to the gut. The dress isn’t for me. Her perfect beauty, the halo of light surrounding her, it’s for him. The rich fucker!
“Young man, you need to leave before I call for help,” the bag of bones screeches.
I shake my head walk over to the woman, hold her head and look directly at Gillian. “Let me go you vagrant! Do you know who my son is?” The scathing tone is too much.
“Do I know who your son is?” I grip her head yanking it back hard, tilting her chin.
“Daniel no, we can talk about this. Let’s talk. Leave her out of it.” Gillian starts to move closer. I pull out the knife and put it directly under the loose turkey-like skin of the old woman’s neck.
“Don’t fucking move. Go over there and sit on the bed. Now!” I contain my tone not wanting to bring any more attention. I have about fifteen minutes left before that blonde cunt I’ve been fucking comes calling for the bride.
Before I can make a decision, the old heap bites my wrist so hard she draws blood. In less than five seconds she has a new smile. Blood sprays out and pours down her purple dress. Her eyes go wide and then roll back into her head. I watch the life leave her body. It’s the least I can do.
A scuffle behind me grabs my attention. Gillian has reached the door and is opening it. Lighting fast I catch a hand full of her satin and fabric yanking her back hard. I drop the knife and drag her back into the room a hand over her mouth. Like the old broad, she tries to sink her teeth into my hand.
“Fuck! Stop struggling or I’ll kill you!” I breathe into her ear. She stops instantly. I kick the door shut, lock it then remove my hand from her mouth.
“You’re going to kill me anyway!” she roars and then slams the spike of her high heel into my foot and pushes off my body. On a roar, I flail back, turn and punch her hard in the cheek. She falls to the floor blood spraying from a busted lip. My ring must have caught her lip when I cold cocked her. The hit gives me just enough time to get the other syringe out of my pocket and ready to strike.
Gillian is a quick one. She scurries back, her dress preventing her from moving too quickly. She screams at the top of her lungs and that’s when I lunge. I’m on top of her. She’s kicking and screaming her head off. I lock one hand down as the other scratches down the side of my face feeling like little knives skinning me alive. Blood oozes from the four wounds smearing all over her as we roll around. Finally, I’m able to get a knee up and hold her down. With all the strength I have I pin her down and plunge the syringe into her neck.
“No, please no!” her scream turns into a garbled moans as I hold her down a few seconds until she’s out.
Quickly, I lift her body and toss her on the bed. Wrapping her entire body in the comforter I yank the sides together and drag her along the floor. Stripping the bloody uniform off I have an exact replica of it on underneath. Double layers is my friend. Besides, it was just as easy to steal two hotel issue coveralls as it was to steal one. Once I’m outside, I lift her into my arms and walk her quickly to the industrial sized laundry cart I had waiting at the edge of the path and toss her in. I cover her up with the linens and push the load towards my vehicle. A few patrons of the hotel walk by and I whistle as if I’m just a regular Joe doing my job. Nothing to see here.
Gillian
Dead roses. The putrid scent swirls in the air like toxic gas waking me from a drug-induced haze. The scent is sickeningly familiar. Blackness engulfs the space I’m in. Only a sliver of light shows under what must be the door. The crystals scrape against the cold, hard foundation beneath me, sounding like a rat scuttling across concrete, its nails grasping for purchase. The lace and beads covering my dress swish and crunch as I try to sit up. Dry, thick rope abrades the skin at my ankles and wrists as I move, pinching the tender skin. Taking a breath is difficult, the air humid, stifling. Sweat slickens my skin trailing uncomfortably down between my breasts and hairline. My mouth is so dry I can’t even swallow to rebuild the moisture.
This is not how I expected today to go. Right now, I should be kissing the man I love, promising him eternity. Thoughts of Chase rip through my mind tears swell and spill, carving a path through dirt and grit. I do my best to wipe them off on the lace capped sleeves of my gown, not wanting him to see me cry. The last thing I need is to prove how he has weakened me. If I’m ever to get out of this situation alive, get back to Chase, my friends, and my life, I’m going to have to play his twisted game and come out the victor. Otherwise, he will kill me.
My only hope is that someone saw him take me or he left clues. Daniel “Danny” McBride was never once on our radar. There was never a reason to suspect him. We broke up months before I started seeing Chase. It makes no sense. We dated for less than a year. Yes, I ended it, but he didn’t seem fazed at all. Boy was I wrong. He killed Chase’s mother. Oh, my God. Chase is going to find her like that with her throat slit and me gone.
More tears stream down my face. My arms ache in the joints where they’re tied behind my back. The rope around my ankles is digging painfully into the skin shredding the surface. It’s nothing compared to the hollow burn in my heart. I had everything I could ever want and within minutes, it was all taken away from me.
The door rattles and the sound of metal scraping across metal reaches my ears. The light shines into the room landing directly in my eyes, blinding me with the yellow glow.
“You’re awake. Finally, sleepyhead. I’ll bet you’re hungry, too?” he asks. Every one of his footsteps hitting the concrete sounds overly loud in the dim space. All of a sudden light floods the room.
Danny stands under a string that leads to an uncovered light bulb. I look into his black, dead eyes. The kind, sweet man I once knew is gone. This man, is a stranger, a very vile and dangerous one. His lips lift into a half snarl, half smile.
“It’s been too long…” He crouches down and pets the side of my hair trailing a finger down the side of my face. I gag and push away, leaning my head against the cinderblock of my cell.
“Have you anything to say? This has been a long time coming,” he says almost jovially.
“Let me go, Danny. Please,” I beg, the words coming out of my mouth sounding as if they’ve been dipped in acid and rubbed raw with sandpaper.
Danny tips his head back and laughs heartily as if my request was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.
“Oh Gillian my love, I finally have you back. Look around, today is the first day of the rest of our lives together...forever.”
The End…for now.
Gillian and Chase’s story continues in the final book, Soul (Trinity Trilogy - Book 3). Expected release March 2015.
Continue reading for a short excerpt from Soul.
Excerpt from Soul (Trinity Trilogy - Book 3)
CHASE
She’s gone, but I can still feel her. My soul aches to be with its mate. If Gillian were dead, I would know it, for I too would cease to exist. One cannot live with only half a soul. I’m so tired but I can’t sleep, not with her still out there. It’s been three days and very few leads. Austin is still out. He barely survived the lethal dose of the Etorphine plunged into his neck, but he hasn’t woken up. Every day that passes is another day my love is with a madman.
The resort performed a forced lockdown at my insistence. Every hotel guest was offered a free night off their stay for their inconvenience and each person was questioned. One couple gave the best lead. Right around the time that Gillian was kidnapped they were walking the path behind the bride’s room. Said they saw a man wearing a uniform pushing a laundry cart. The staff confirmed that the laundry service is far more discreet and doesn’t wear the grey utility uniforms, they wear the standard black and white, connoting the housekeeping service. And the staff knew not to be anywhere near the location of the wedding at the time unless specifically requested by my assistant Dana.
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br /> The two only remembered that the individual was a white male and built. Meaning, he was either overweight or worked out a lot. They couldn’t recall any descriptive features aside from that he was very tall, a few inches over six feet. Unfortunately, that didn’t narrow things down at all. We were at a complete dead end until Austin woke up. He’s the only person that has seen the kidnapper face-to-face and he’s unconscious in a hospital bed, in Cancun, Mexico. The city where I was supposed to marry the only woman for me. Also the place where my Mother took her last breath.
Deep gut-wrenching pain tears through my gut, twisting and swirling. For the umpteenth time I swallow and convulsively grip my stomach. I cannot lose it. Staying strong is the only thing I can give to Gillian. As it is, I can’t keep any food down. Coffee is my only salvation. Reflexively I clench both hands into fists and stare unseeingly at Austin’s prone form and close my eyes. Once again she comes to me.
Red hair spills over porcelain skin. The towel is covering her lower half as she dips a toe into the steaming water. My gaze caresses the skin of her rounded shoulder, the slight curve of her spine where her back arcs and her waists slopes in. The small indents at her lower back catch the light and I salivate, wanting nothing more than to press my lips against those smooth patches, maybe even bite down until she purrs.
With one hand she sweeps the fiery locks over one shoulder exposing her entire bare back to my view. It calls to me, like a homing beacon. A halo of light sparkles around her as she turns her head slightly. I can now see the swanlike column of her neck, except something’s not right but instead my gaze shifts and my focus changes when she drops the towel. Her heart-shaped ass is glorious. My love turns just the side of her face but her eyes, are dark, hollow, tortured. They’re not the stunning green of the most perfect emerald like usual.
I gasp but cannot move toward her, but still I watch my love as something red trails down her smooth back like paint dripping down a canvas. Her head tips back and a gnarled gaping black hole stretches along the front of her neck. As I watch her turn her head around completely, giant purple bruises mar every surface of her face. It’s swollen, bloated and splotched with dried rusty colored blood.
“No! Gillian!” I scream but nothing comes out.
Her eyes close and when she turns around fully, her body can be seen in all its hideous glory. Dark black and blue bruises cover her breasts, her ribs, and stomach as blood pours down her chest and sternum from the wide cavernous hole at her throat.
I yell and shout and battle with my unmoving limbs, trying desperately to get to her, but I can’t move.
With everything I have and through sheer force of will alone, I send her love. All that I have to give, the grief, the sadness, the ache of not being with her. I need to be with her.
I open my eyes and she finally speaks. “Wake up, Chase,”
My loves body shimmers and disappears as white light pierces my eyes and a hand is at my chest.
“Chase!” Dana shakes my chest and I push her away forcefully, jump out of the chair and back up until I hit the wall, still stuck in the gnawing clutches of the sick and twisted dream. Three sets of eyes are staring at me. Dana’s, Jack’s and Austin’s. “You were dreaming, you’re okay,” Dana whispers, eyes brimming with tears.
I suck in a breath and clasp Austin’s arm. “Can you speak?” I swallow down the bile stuck in my throat.
Austin blinks and licks his dry lips. Dana rushes over a cup with a straw. Austin takes it between his lips and sucks the water down. I can hardly breathe as I watch him take one, two, three, gulps before looking back to me. His eyes water. “He got her,” he croaks.
I close my eyes and breathe in slowly, tamping down the desire to shake him, yell, or pound my fists into every surface within a mile radius of me. Instead, I nod.
“I’ve seen him before.”
Jack comes close to the other side of the bed. “Where?”
Austin swallows and his voice comes out sounding pained. “Pictures, you have them.” He sucks in another breath and grits his teeth, then closes his eyes. “She knows him.”
Jack pulls out his phone and pulls up something. “From the pictures I showed you?” Jack asks, his own voice tight but holding on. Austin shakes his head.
“The penthouse. Her stuff that we moved in,” the tone turns into a scratchy roll of words. Dana brings him the water and he sucks down more. Then pushes it away clearly frustrated. He tries to sit up, “have to go there. He’s in the pictures in her stuff. Blond, blue eyes. Big fucker. Huge.”
I push him back against the hospital bed with both hands as Jack grabs his wrist before he can rip out the lifesaving meds being pumped into his arms. The doctor said once he woke up he’d be in the hospital for a while and right now he’s still getting the antidote that’s helping to stabilize his vitals.
Blaring alarms start in the room from the multitude of equipment. “I have to get to her!” he roars. “It’s my fault, he’s going to hurt her!” Austin’s eyes look wild, completely black, like a man about to lose it.
Several doctors rush in. One holding a needle. “Everyone out!”
“No, no! He knows who took Gillian! We need him awake!” I press through the doctors trying to get to Austin. I make it to his bed as random arms claw and grab at me.
Austin holds my arm. “Scar, scar on his hand like a burn,” he says winded right before the doctors stick a needle into the port for his meds and I sink to my knees. The tears finally come and rip down my face. I grip my hair and pull on it.
A heavy set of arms lifts me up and drags me out of the room before slamming me against the wall. “Chase, pull yourself together! We have a lead on him now!” Jack holds me against the white hospital hallway wall outside of Austin’s room. His eyes are focused and his mouth held tight. “We need to move, call the girls. See if they know him?”
Instant calm melts over my form like stepping inside a perfectly heated hot tub. I pull out my phone and dial Maria.
“Chase?” Her voice is strained when she answers. Everyone is beside themselves with worry, waiting for any shred of information about Gillian.
“Maria, did Gillian know a man that was blond, blue eyes, and big.” She gasps into the receiver and I hold it tight against my ear. “Had a scar on his hand, like a burn?” I said the rest in a rush.
“Dios Mio. That could be Danny.”
I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood as that tingling sensation skid down my spine. The warning that we were close to something. “Danny who?”
The line was scratchy. “Danny Mc uh, Mc something. Bree, Kat? What was Danny’s last name?”
At the same time that Maria said McBride, so did Jack who was already lifting his phone. “Daniel McBride, get there now! His work, his house, his gym, now!” He growls into the phone. “I want everything you have on him. I want to know who his parents are, his childhood friends, what he fucking had for breakfast this morning! Now! Every man on it.”
For the first time I was able to breathe. We had a lead. A solid one. She was closer. Had to be, because I could feel her essence now more now than before.
“Daniel McBride,” Dana croaks, her face pale. She leans against the wall as tears slip down her cheeks. “No,” she shakes her head. “No it can’t be!” she whispers.
“I’ll call soon,” I clip into the phone and drop it into my pocket before taking the few steps to Dana and cup her cheeks. “You know him?”
Dana’s eyes flash and her face contorts into a pained expression. “He’s my…my boyfriend.”
Continued in Soul (Trinity Trilogy - Book 3) Expected Release: March 2015
Books and Coming Soon by Audrey Carlan
The Falling Series
Angel Falling
London Falling
Justice Falling
Trinity Trilogy
Body (Book 1 - Released 11/17/14)
Mind (Book 2 - Released 12/29/14)
Soul (Book 3 - Estimated Release 3/2015)
&nb
sp; Calendar Girl Serial
(A twelve month serial. New installments will be released every month throughout 2015)
January - Estimated Release 12/15/15
February - Estimated Release 2/2015
Acknowledgements
For this one, I have to thank my soul sisters Dyani Gingerich, Nikki Chiverrell, and Carolyn Beasley first and foremost. Yes, I dedicated the book to you, but without the three of you letting me craft characters in your likeness, this trilogy would be nowhere near what it is today. It would be like baking cookies and not adding the sugar…the essential ingredient to make something sweet. You three are my sugar. Always. My love for you knows no bounds.
To my critique partner, Sarah Saunders, I always feel like I won the lottery every time I get one of your critiques. Each and every one is like a gift. I remember going through the process of trying to find a CP that fit well with me and thinking, “Maybe I just suck and no one wants to work with me?” Even though we were already friends, I think this process has strengthened our relationship and forged it in stone. I can’t thank you enough for keeping me and my characters honest and consistent and making me laugh through every comment.
To my editor Ekatarina Sayanova with Red Quill Editing, LLC, I’m in awe of you. Not many editors would start in the middle of a trilogy, go back and read the first book and then continue on editing with a seamless transition. It just proves your professionalism and genuine concern for the author and their story. I look forward to working with you on Soul.
Any author knows they aren’t worth their weight unless their story is backed by badass betas. I have the best!
Ginelle Blanch - You Dearheart prevent me from looking like an idiot. Your ability to find every single time I screwed up the spelling of words, used the wrong word, or just plain added words that shouldn’t be there, blows me away. I’m pretty sure my readers would send you thank you notes if they knew all the errors you found right before each book goes live. And even though I made you cry, then made you mad at the cliffhanger I PROMISE to make you so happy you’ll be bursting with joy at the end of Soul. Love you girlie!
Mind (Trinity Trilogy Book 2) Page 28