Shadows and Sorcery: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels

by Adkins, Heather Marie

  “It leads to the dungeons,” Kieran said, looking at the door and what was written on the door. “Those words read dungeons. I don’t know why someone would mark the doors in their house, but sure.”

  “And we’re going to go down there,” Elora said after a while, quite sure of herself. Naik and Vali looked at each other, surprised, shocked and at the same time excited. The two of them actually wanted to go in the dungeon to see what was inside there. Compared to the other campers, they were young and yearned for adventure regardless of the danger. And this sounded like the best way to go adventuring. “Scared?”

  “No,” Kieran said, rolling his eyes. “Why would there be armor hidden in a dungeon.”

  Kieran looked at Elora as if she was stupid. In his mind, there was no way someone would hide something so precious inside of a dungeon. There had to be something wrong here, he knew it. There was another place where the armor was, and he wasn’t going to give his thoughts onto it until Elora broke. Surprising even himself, Elora looked at him as if he was stupid.

  “Why would it not be?” Elora stated as if it was as obvious as humans and life needing air to breathe. “If I was a ruthless king, I wouldn’t store my treasure and toys just in a big room somewhere, that’s just asking to be looted. I would keep them inside of a treasured vault where most of the people wouldn’t even think of going because they were scared of what would be lurking deep inside, and the dungeons is one of the places. Look at you yourself, I can see in your face you don’t want to go in the dungeon.”

  Kieran was stumped. He didn’t know what to do. The fact was that he wholeheartedly agreed that Elora was right and the vault with all the treasure and toys was definitely inside of the dungeon where they had not yet been to. But he didn’t want to say that out loud. He didn’t want to be the one that broke and bowed down first, instead of Elora, so he just shrugged. Vali and Naik cheered.

  “Wait.” Vali called out suddenly as Elora prepared to open the door. “Don’t go in there, not yet.”

  “Why?” Elora asked, looking at the two of them in confusion. “Are you afraid?”

  “No, of course not. We actually want to go in the dungeons.” Vali said, looking at Naik who nodded. “But you are unarmed and have no way of combat. It wouldn’t be wise for you to be the one that opens the door and somehow if something pops out at you, let one of us open it.”

  “Yup, we’re young and ready to fight.” Naik said, walking towards the door. “And we’re also replaceable. Besides, going by a stranger waiting to kill us in the Castle of Tarith’s dungeon door is the best way to go in my eyes.”

  Elora scoffed at the immatureness that the two were suddenly showing she knew that they were as young as she was and wanted to go in there because they wanted to see what was inside there as well, and she admitted that they were, also, right. Completely and utterly right. There was no other way to admit that around Kieran because he would be then unstoppable with his insults.

  “They’re right,” Kieran said, looking at Elora. Elora nodded and moved back. Surprisingly, Kieran didn’t comment. He knew that Elora was strong and this was a smart decision, so he would keep his mouth shut, for now.

  And meanwhile, Chaiya and her team managed to find the throne room of the dungeon. She didn’t know why they were there or what they were doing there, but she had a feeling that this was the place where they had to be. The throne room was also empty, but there was a throne, golden and red in color, still sitting on the center and head of the room. As Chaiya looked around, she never even noticed the set of the glowing yellow eyes looking at her from one of the windows.

  Chaiya was completely obvious to the eyes as she walked closer to the throne. She was hoping to find some clue at least, some clue that would say as to where the armor was. Inwardly, she was hoping that her brother and Elora were getting along. She knew that Kieran was very, very masculine and didn’t take to someone challenging his decision kindly, but Elora was really strong as well, and she would constantly challenge Kieran’s masculinity, and have a chance to win. Eventually something would pop up and they would have a big fallout and inside of a castle that is not what she wanted. It was a hesitation that had popped up once they had parted, but now it was too late to wonder and worry about that. She needed to get to the point and she needed to get to it now.

  “That girl...” A Raspy voice, unheard by all of them belonging to the sinister yellow eyes that were looking at Chaiya was whispering its voice breaking and growly. “She is a perfect target, a perfect woman to be our pet. She would be the perfect wife for all of us, she will be only ours to do as we please...only ours to have.”

  And the yellow eyes continued to look at Chaiya, not seen by anyone.

  5

  There was unfortunately no one waiting for them on the other side of the door, but Elora was glad that it wasn’t her that had been the one to open it and go inside. Had it been her, she didn’t know if she would have been able to contain the scream of utter horror and terror that had come out of her mouth.

  The entire cellar floor was dark. The steps looked surprisingly normal, but the floor was not. It was filled with insects. There were cobwebs and spiders all over the dungeons, and what seemed to be actually bones as well. But Elora didn’t show anything. She was scared, but she didn’t show anything.

  Kieran grinned at the sight of the cobwebs and instinctively turned around, and looked at Elora to see her frightened face. Instead, he saw her emotionless face. She didn’t even say anything, just raised an eyebrow at him as he looked at her with a smug look on his face, hoping to see her break.

  ‘That’s not right!’ Kieran groaned inside of his head. ‘That is not how it is supposed to go! I usually sweep in and save the girl, and then she thanks me, and then we find ourselves entwined in a night of pure passion and our bodies wake up entwined together the next day! Why is this girl not like the others?! Why is she so difficult for me to bed?!’

  Kieran was starting to get irritated. He couldn’t fathom how Elora was so strong-willed against his manliness and masculinity. She didn’t even give him the time of her day, instead she just ignored him or came back in such a way that it hurt her right in the spots where it wasn’t supposed to. He was the one that had to be strong willed and powerful here, not her, he was the one that had to be emotionless and calm headed, not this girl! And yet, how the hell was she better than him in so many ways that he couldn’t even dream of being?!

  Elora smiled smugly when Kieran turned around, disappointed and disheartened. Oh she knew his type very well. He showed out his masculine and manly self, hoping for girls to fall for his charm and then end up in bed with them, but she wasn’t like that. She was not going to fall for his charm so easily, not at all, hell rather she would just ignore him, he was acting so pathetically that it was starting to get a bit ridiculous. He wanted to see her react, he wanted her to break so he could gloat as to how much of a girl s he was, but she was not going to break.

  ‘As if.’ She snorted. ‘I am not going to give you the satisfaction of watching me break, Kieran, no matter how much you open your mouth and yammer around. I am going to destroy your personal masculine pride if you continue to this and I am going to laugh as I do that.’

  Suddenly she blinked, realizing that she had just thought something so vile and so vengeful.

  ‘Wow.’ Elora wondered, as she walked up ahead slowly. ‘I truly am getting into this. I need to be careful, I am not going to give him the pleasure of watching me react. His pride be damned. In fact, I wondered what Chaiya is doing, she is such a better company then he is.’

  She noticed the room that they were in, like a giant dungeon with six cells around. All of the cells were completely and utterly made out of iron, and all of them had a mark on top of it. All of the walls had strange marks, which she obviously couldn’t read due to them being in a different language, but as she was an archaeologist in training, she knew it was a clue. But she also knew what was coming. She could literally se
e the smugness rolling off Kieran as they explored around the dungeons and looked for anything, but found nothing.

  Kieran felt the urge, the urge he couldn’t ignore to gloat how stupid she had been. He knew that he should simply keep his mouth shut because this was not doing him any favors in particular, but he just had to do it because that is how he had grown up. Before he did however, the hand that Elora raised stopped him.

  “Before you open your mouth to undoubtedly gloat about how you were right and I was wrong, but don’t bother. It is not as if I care about your stupid gospel either way.” Elora rolled her eyes. It only increased the irritation he felt as his entire urge was replaced by those words. If she wasn’t going to react, what was the urge for gloating? “You are only looking at it in your way because you are a stupid meathead who hasn’t even noticed what is all around you. Tell me, Naik, what is the first thing you see?”

  “The fact that there are walls with marks on them but only one of them doesn’t have a mark.” Naik said all too amused to answer as he watched his so fearless leader grumble even more as he finally realized that he had been the one to play for a fool here.

  “Correct. All the cell walls have a mark over them, except for this one. Now if your oh so fearless and ‘I am the savior of women’ leader actually used his brain into looking for the armor and not proving me wrong because of his failure to not being able to bed me, he would actually think of it as a clue,” Elora said, shooting a nasty glare at Kieran enough for him to look away from her as his words hit even harder than before. “So please keep your mouth shut unless told to speak and let me look around because there is only one of us here looking for the armor and not to egg me on and gloat about their masculinity.”

  Kieran felt enraged that he had been treated this way. He couldn’t believe the embarrassment he felt as he was chastised and caught without even a single thought behind the words, as he glared at Naik and Vali. Surprisingly, he didn’t feel embarrassed and enraged at Elora. Instead it was the rage on himself for being so gullible. Perhaps he would have to simply forget about bedding her for sure she was not going to be able to do so. His masculinity and pride had already been destroyed by this girl, so he would bow down to her, for now. He didn’t even know her either way.

  “Now there is something else,” Elora said suddenly. She noticed the wall, where she saw that there was something wrong. She noticed at the ground, and back at the wall, and then again at the ground. There was a simple patch on the ground that looked wrong, that looked like it didn’t belong here, that looked as if it wasn’t made out of the same material that the walls were made as. It looked to be completely and utterly different. She stepped on the spot and started to tap down on it, feeling the spot of the ground under her leg. She would have removed her shoes, but that wasn’t what she wanted to do.

  And on the other hand, though, Chaiya was in a completely different situation. She could feel eyes on her, someone was looking at her and she didn’t know who it was. She felt as if she was being stripped naked and she felt as if she was going to be corrupted by that look. Instantly she realized that perhaps it was time to take action. She took a bow and readied it, acting as if she was just about to go on the corner. But faster than anyone could look, she turned around and fired the bow right at the window, only for it to be caught by a grotesque hand.

  The being that had caught the arrow was no normal, mere being. No, it was a demonic being. There was no other way of describing such a thing other than calling it demonic.

  Its skin was purely made out of utter rock. As Gargoyles were supposed to be made out of rocks as well. Its eyes were glowing golden, with pure malicious intent inside of them. Its two large, giant wings were unfurled behind it as it stomped inside of the room. And the very presence of the creature sent deep, dark chills of pure and utter fear inside of her chest.

  Chaiya gulped as she looked at the face. It was not human, but it had human like features on it. The creature had two horns on top of its head, and large, extremely sharp teeth running with some yellowish liquid that corroded the ground as it dripped out of its teeth. Its hands were strong and powerful, holding all the power that its rock like body could offer but Chaiya knew that it bled as much as she herself did.

  The being’s legs were scaly, as if that of a monster that she had only read about, as if that of the mythological dragon and that of a being that far pre-existed the mortal human that she defined herself to be as. Its claws were sharper than its teeth, and its eyes were glaring a hole into her, filled with such perverted, destructive desire that Chaiya knew for a moment she shouldn’t be on the receiving end of that desire.

  “You, girl, you will be mine!” The creature growled, its voice deep and gritty, fitting for a creature like this one. It would seem that it was a Gargoyle, as she could already see the stone line beasty face. “And I will enjoy you every single night! I shall ravage you until I cannot stop ravaging you and my brothers will enjoy feasting on your flesh! You shall be our pet and toy for all eternity!”

  Chaiya felt dirty as the gargoyle spoke, but she didn’t react. She just took her bow and arrow and prepared herself, and looked at the two campers that were with her, both looking afraid. Chaiya knew that these were the campers that had never seen creatures and only faced men and women before. They had never encountered something like this, but that was not what Chaiya was. No, Chaiya knew everything that was to know about this mess. She knew what she had to do and she knew what had to be done.

  “Run! Find my brother and the others and tell them about this!” Chaiya ordered to the two campers, as her arrow pointed at the strange creature. “And you! Speak! Who and what are you?! And perhaps I shall not fill your head full of my arrows!”

  The creature laughed at the audacity of this girl as it rumbled forward towards him, it’s beastly and grotesque body thumping against the ground.

  “I am one of the six gargoyles that guard this castle, foolish girl.” The Gargoyle rumbled as it came forward slowly. “I guard the armor within this castle walls, and all trespassers are killed who dare and take it. It is not meant for anyone, only for the one that is shown to have the true heart of the wielder! But you, no, you shall not be killed. Instead, I shall take you as my personal pet, I shall enjoy you every single night and then my brothers will enjoy your flesh as well...”

  The human like creature growled as it got ready to jump on Chaiya, but Chaiya aimed her arrow and instantly fired off to the side. The gargoyle started to laugh, a sick, torturous sound that filled the entire throne-room.

  “You missed.” The gargoyle said, amused and not even bothering. But Chaiya smirked.

  “I never miss,” Chaiya said. The glass from the ceiling of the room suddenly shattered, and the shards fell like solid water droplets during a stormy night, each one of them glinting with the light of the moon outside, falling right down on the Gargoyle, sharp point downwards and stabbing right into the Gargoyle’s skin. The creature growled, howling in pain as the sharp glass stabbed it, and instantly Chaiya ran as fast as she could behind the campers.

  Meanwhile, back with Elora, she was now jumping on the spot of the ground she knew was different from others. She just knew that there was something on that spot and it was making her want to rip her hair out. There was something below, she just had to know how to get it and how to get a hand on it. Without that, there was nothing that she could do. Naik and Vali were looking at her, wondering what she was doing. But it was Kieran that had spoken first.

  “As much as I want to ask what you’re doing, I think you’ve gone mad,” Kieran deadpanned. “You are jumping on the spot for no apparent reason, Elora, just admit you were wrong, there is nothing here, we looked everywhere. Those markings could mean anything. Look if it pleases you, I’ll ask-.”

  They were, however, interrupted when the two campers followed by Elora suddenly came running down the stairs, literally flying, all of them panicking and all of them having scared looks on their faces.

 
“Kieran, Elora, we have trouble,” Chaiya said as she stepped down from the stairs. “The gargoyles are alive, they’re coming for us.”

  Elora suddenly stopped jumping, her heart freezing over as she remembered the gargoyles, and their gazes. She remembered what they looked like, their eyes, their faces, their scars and their bodies. They looked like they were actually real, but that wasn’t right. Yes, in her excitement of finding something, she was perhaps hearing this.

  “C-Can you say that again?” Elora asked suddenly, looking at Chaiya. “Right? You can’t have said that the gargoyles are alive, right?”

  “The gargoyles are alive, and they’re coming down,” Kieran suddenly exclaimed as he looked up at the shadows coming from the top of the cellars. Chaiya grabbed Elora and suddenly rushed for the bars, the iron bars. “Inside the cells! Now! They cannot touch iron!”

  Naik and Vali were quick to go into the cells and lock it shut from the inside, and so were the other two campers. Kieran, Chaiya and Elora jumped into another cell and stopped inside, just as a large gargoyle came in. Elora gasped.

  This one was unlike the others. Unlike the others, this one had pure golden glowing eyes, while the others simply had golden eyes. Unlike the others, this one had pure black skin, and unlike the others, this one had two pairs of wings instead of one. Unlike the others, this gargoyle was so powerful that its pure aura was shaking her heart and causing it to tremble down with such force and such utter fear that she was wanting to fall down onto her knees, but she stood tall. She knew that it wouldn’t be long before the gargoyle would tear them all apart and she didn’t want that to happen to her. No matter how powerful they were, gargoyles were far more powerful and only those blessed with magic could defeat them, this one included. And this one, it was far powerful than the other ones, even Chaiya knew it as she could see the other woman shudder in pure terror when faced with the being.