by Marian Tee
His Fair Lady
An Invitation to Eden Novel
(Soulmates Prequel)
By Marian Tee
Copyright 2014 by Streak Digital Publishing
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
The royal family has given Prince Julian an ultimatum: take a much-needed vacation or lose all their support when he makes his bid for Ethereal’s throne. Their choice of destination: a whimsical exotic paradise called Eden, which travel guides describe as a place where every person’s fantasy becomes reality. The cynical workaholic prince expects the island’s magic to be lost on him until he stumbles upon Cass, a blind girl whose face has been mysteriously haunting Julian’s dreams for years. As their time together on the island becomes preciously short, Julian knows he must force himself to accept the truth. Cass may own his heart, but another woman shall be his princess.
Prologue
Cass
My first taste of darkness had me gagging. It was too oppressive. I couldn’t make sense of it, this darkness. It was a word I knew, a concept I understood, but it was also not normal for a strange blind girl like me. Nothing was dark in my world, but now I was drowning in it.
So, so dark.
Why was it dark?
I tried to make sense of my surroundings without moving. Not that I could, with my hands bound tightly behind my back. I was lying down on something old and hard. It was not the carpeted floor of my bedroom, not the marbled tiles of the living room, and definitely not the soft grassy lawn of our yard.
Unfamiliar sounds whispered hints to my ears.
Swoosh, swoosh…
Creak…
The sound of water lapping underneath wooden planks.
Wherever I was now, it was not home.
Murmur of voices. One, two, three…four…
Was that all of them? I couldn’t tell. All I knew was that the people around me were not Mom or Dad. They were not people I could trust. They were…bad.
Thud…creak…thud…creak…
Heavy footsteps heading towards me, the darkness becoming more suffocating—
“Are you awake?”
No! I almost cried it out, almost allowed myself to be baited.
The words came from the darkness.
The darkness was alive. It had spoken. And now I knew.
Oh God. Now I knew why it was so dark. The darkness was all…him, and it made me wish I was really blind like the others.
But I wasn’t, and because I was not, because my eyes worked differently, like soldiers with infrared glasses, like canines with heat vision, I saw.
I saw the darkness. I saw him. And I saw death.
In my world, man-made objects were outlined, and everything else, like the sun, the sky, the ocean, and the earth, blended in a great blank white landscape. Every creature whose heart beat was a fiery orange. Or at least it used to be until Mr. Darkness.
Mr. Darkness was so twisted inside his soul had swallowed every bit of light inside him, drowning all shades of orange with black – empty, hollow, evil black.
“You’d like to pretend you’re still sleeping?” Mr. Darkness’ voice was cultured and filled with cold amusement, each syllable that dropped from the darkness ripping my world apart.
You’d like to pretend you’re still sleeping?
Rip, rip, rip, rip, rip, rip, rip, rip, rip.
My world was black, dead, and lacerated into pieces by the time he finished speaking.
But we both knew he wasn’t finished with me.
“Is this how you want to play it?”
My world continued to rip apart with each word he spoke. It was a struggle not to answer, not to squeeze my eyes tightly shut to ward him off. It took everything not to move and reveal just how terrified I was of his darkness – God, he made my world so, so dark.
His eyes remained on me, something I sensed like insects crawling all over my skin.
“How about we play make believe?”
He almost tricked me into shaking my head and betraying I was awake. I would never want to play with him. Never ever. If I played and he said ‘game over’, it wouldn’t just be the game ending. It would mean I’d stop breathing, too.
“You’re the sleeping princess and I’m the prince who’d wake you up with a kiss.” This time, his voice was no longer a playful taunt. This time, it was laced with bitterness, the words loaded with meaning I didn’t really want to understand. Mr. Darkness’ words told me that there was a person he hated, and he was taking out that hatred on me.
God, oh God, please make this darkness end.
“Do you want a kiss?”
I didn’t react.
“No? Then what about this? If you don’t speak in the next three seconds, I’ll kill you.”
Oh God, oh God—
“Three…”
What do I do?
“Two…”
Was this a trick?
“On—”
“Where are my parents?” I opened my eyes as I spoke, never feeling so thankful that I was blind.
Mr. Darkness laughed, the sound as chillingly musical as his voice. “Where do you think?”
I SCREAMED.
“Clairvoyant” was the first word I learned to spell when I was three years old, drawing the letters with my fingers when Mom placed me in a sandbox to play with other kids. I only needed to touch someone to see the good things that could happen to them. Sometimes, the images were vivid and clear. Other times, the images were hazy.
But when bad things happened—
Everything would become painfully sharp, each scene in high-definition 3D. To the point that I could feel the splatter of blood on my face as Mr. Darkness sank his knife in my father’s back and severed his spine.
God, I hated it when I saw the bad things people could do. It made me wish I was really truly blind.
(My mother’s corpse draped the stairs, all mangled limbs and dead eyes dilated.)
(My father next to it, face ashen as he stared at my bedroom door.)
(Mr. Darkness had stabbed him five times.)
(Mr. Darkness wanted to stab him 661 more times.)
(My father shouting at me, “Wake up, baby! Run!”)
(But I hadn’t woken up, and now Mr. Darkness had me.)
“You killed them!” I struggled against my bindings. I wanted to kill Mr. Darkness before he killed me. I didn’t care what happened to me after that. He killed my parents. Oh God, he killed them.
Dad, my strong, loving dad—
Mom, my beautiful sweet mom—
I screamed and screamed and screamed.
Mr. Darkness laughed and laughed and laughed.
It was a childish sound, like laughter belonging to a baby born wrong.
I sensed him turning his back on me, a little bit of white light peeking into my world against his infinite blackness. He was talking to the other four, bragging to them about my “beautiful eyes”.
God, oh God, I had played right into his hands.
He had heard about me, but wasn’t really sure that I could see things. Now, he knew and he would never let me go.
Darkness surrounded me again, just a second before he kicked me in the ribs. It was Mr. Darkness’ way of playing. As the pain struck me, I saw—
(A teenage girl, naked, chained in the basement.)
<
br /> (Her body was like a tiger, only this time the stripes were red and violet, kisses made by a whip.)
She was his toy.
And I was next.
Mr. Darkness was looking at me again.
God, please God, please save me.
Mr. Darkness had crouched down on one knee. “I’m going to need you to show me things. And you will do it if you don’t want to end up like your parents.” Mr. Darkness was smiling as he spoke, as if he relished the thought. The smile was a tangible sensation, making me feel like buzzing bees had started to gather around my body, covering every inch of flesh.
“You don’t want to end up like them, don’t you?”
I whispered, “No.” It was a lie, but my instincts told me I needed to keep Mr. Darkness thinking that I was going to be a very good toy.
Mr. Darkness turned his back on me again. Slowly, light started to filter into my world as Mr. Darkness walked away and talked to the others.
“If you ask her the right question, she can tell us when we can kill him—”
“How do we know she’ll tell us the right thing?”
Riiiiiiing…
Mr. Darkness cursed. The word became a heavy black cloud that threatened to smash me against the wooden planks.
“Prince Julian.” Mr. Darkness had answered the call, his voice deviously light and carefree.
Prince Julian.
Prince Julian.
Prince Julian.
Just saying the name was enough to make the darkness go away.
Prince Julian.
Tall. Longish dark hair. A beautiful face, hard and perfect, proud and strong.
I wanted to weep. Just looking at him made me want to hope.
Prince Julian—
Was looking at me.
My body became rigid with shock. This had never happened to me before. When I saw, the people I saw didn’t see me back. But somehow, this Prince Julian was different.
Prince Julian saw me, his dark eyes fierce and possessive as they rested on my face.
“You must escape them.”
And now he was talking to me, his voice commanding and fearless.
I almost shook my head but didn’t, afraid that if I did, Mr. Darkness would see it.
“Don’t be afraid. I will protect you.”
I wanted to laugh and cry. Those words were so easy for him to say. He was not the one bound and blind, alone in the world—
“You are not alone. I’m here. I’m yours. And I will protect you – if you let me. If you trust me.” Prince Julian looked at me in the eyes. “Do you trust me?”
Crazily enough, I did.
I whispered, as softly as I could, “Yes.”
Triumph, tender and powerful at the same time, glittered in his eyes. Prince Julian cared very much to know that I trusted him.
“Very good, sweetheart.” His voice was softer now. “I need you to trust me because what I’m about to ask you to do will take a lot of courage.”
I didn’t speak, waiting tensely for his next words. Behind me, Mr. Darkness was still talking on the phone, distracted by the Prince Julian of the real world.
“You’ll need to roll towards the end.”
The end? The end of what?
“They will shoot you. One of the bullets will hit you—”
As Prince Julian spoke the words, it was almost as if I could already feel the impact of the bullet bursting through my body, destroying flesh and bone. I wanted to scream at the pain of it.
“—but you mustn’t stop rolling. You need to roll yourself to the end as fast as you can.”
I didn’t think I could do it. If this didn’t work and Mr. Darkness realized I was trying to escape him, he would be mad. So mad. What he did to the other girl, to his previous toy, would be nothing compared to what he’d do to me—
“If you trust me, sweetheart, then you need to do exactly as I say.”
I trusted him. But I was scared. Couldn’t he understand that what he was asking—
Mr. Darkness was saying goodbye on the phone—
“Do it NOW.”
I rolled.
The others realized what I was doing as I rolled my body for the fifth time, not knowing where I was heading. All I knew was that I had to roll my way till the end.
Mr. Darkness cursed. The others shouted. And then they started shooting.
Bang. Bang. Bang!
But I didn’t stop rolling, not even when one of the bullets wheezed into my side. Pain exploded. Blood gushed. But I kept rolling.
Splash.
I fell into the water.
Ragged edges of wooden planks making up the boardwalk came into contact with the bindings that held me as I fell. They cut through the rope and slashed my arms as my body dropped into the water.
“Swim!”
My arms broke free from the ropes and I swam underwater, the same time a sailboat’s flashing lights beamed over me, its captain making sure it was about to dock at the right place. The lights fell on Mr. Darkness, and the others hid their guns.
“Swim faster. A fisherman will rescue you, but he won’t be in the water for long.”
I swam. I swam and swam and just when my lungs were about to burst, I bumped into something hard, which later I’d learn was the fisherman’s oar.
I surfaced, gasping for breath. “Help!”
“God almighty!” The fisherman, strong despite his years, hurriedly hauled me into his boat, and I landed in an awkward tangle of arms and legs onto the floor.
As he helped me to a sitting position, he gasped, and I knew he had seen my eyes. “You’re blind!”
I wanted to thank him for saving me, but all I could do was weep.
Mom. Dad. Mr. Darkness.
There seemed to be no end to the tears.
The fisherman gave me his old coat, placing it over my shoulders. It smelled of fish, but it was warm and safe and I couldn’t remember feeling anything as beautiful against my skin. I wanted to thank him, but I couldn’t. The only thing I could do was cry.
“You’re safe now, milady. You’re safe now.”
Was I really? Was I? Mr. Darkness would hunt me down. Of that I was sure. If he found me, he would kill me.
“Trust me, sweetheart. I will keep you safe.”
Prince Julian walked towards me in my mind. He kissed me on the forehead. I could have sworn I felt it, his lips touching my skin, even though common sense told me it was just the wind teasing my senses.
I looked up at him. What do I do now?
“Wait for me.”
Where? What if Mr. Darkness finds me first?
“Ask the fisherman to take you to the island of Eden. The Master of the island there will keep you safe while you wait for me.”
You promise you’ll come for me?
“I will not be able to rest if I don’t. So wait for me.”
My eyelids started to droop in exhaustion. Prince Julian started to waver in my mind, and I mentally cried out. No. Don’t leave me.
“Trust me. I will always be with you in your dreams. Do not be afraid. Wait for me.”
Please, please don’t leave me—
“Wait for me in Eden, Cass. I will come for you.”
Chapter One
“What do you mean there’s no way for me to leave the island?”
Garth pulled on the collar of his white polo shirt, which was feeling a little too tight. Normally, he loved working on the field as one of Eden’s official customer service reps. It was a dream job, being paid to hang out at the beach all day long. He could even dine in any of the island’s restaurants or take advantage of any of the services offered in Eden and have everything paid for by the Master.
All he had to do in exchange was take care of the guests according to the Master’s wishes. Normally, that was easy. But right now wasn’t normal. Right now, he had a six-foot-plus European prince who wanted to leave the island staring at him with icy rage.
Unfortunately, according to the email he rece
ived from the Master’s office, the prince was not “allowed” to leave the island.
Garth cleared his throat. “I am very sorry, sir – I mean, Your Highness. There is truly no way to book an unscheduled ferry ride or flight out of the island.”
The prince didn’t say a word, but his blazing hazel eyes spoke volumes. If Eden had been under the jurisdiction of Ethereal, the kingdom which Prince Julian Rivera came from, Garth was fairly certain his head would have been on a platter by now.
Garth pulled on his collar again. There was really nothing he could do. What the Master wanted, the Master got. But in all fairness to the Master, his orders were usually crucial to ensuring that a guest’s fantasy would indeed come to life in Eden. Sometimes, the rules did get a bit eccentric and strange things did happen on the island, but the ends always justified the means.
More seconds trickled by. The prince was still gazing at him, dangerously quiet. He was one of the most ridiculously good-looking men Garth had ever seen, and he had seen his fair share with the world’s rich and famous constantly flocking to the island. But Prince Julian was in a league of his own. Shiny black hair, a perfectly chiseled face, a bronze tan, and a powerful body that made him look like he had been trained to wield a sword rather than a scepter.
No wonder women all over the world flocked to him, Garth thought, suitably awed by the prince’s, well, sheer awesomeness. Those looks alone would make women lust after him. Add the fact that he was a prince to one of the wealthiest kingdoms in Europe, and Garth could easily believe a recent news report that the Prince received millions of love letters each day. In fact, one employee of the kingdom said that if all the pages of love letters written by the prince’s admirers were to be recycled, then they would have been enough to print an entire year’s supply of textbooks for Ethereal’s schoolchildren.
What a life. If only he was one-tenth as handsome as—
“The girl who flew the plane yesterday…” The prince’s abrupt tone had Garth flushing as he crashed back to earth and his dreams of becoming a good-looking prince disappeared.
“Joely?” Garth tried not to smile, imagining what the pretty green-eyed pilot would think of the dismissive way in which the prince referred to her. Granted, Joely did look a little too young to be Eden’s pilot, but she was very good at her job. The Master wouldn’t have hired her if she wasn’t.
