by Fiore, L. A.
“Do you trust me?”
She did. She hardly knew him, but she trusted him.
“Yes.”
He smiled. He liked that response. “Lie down.”
Her stomach quivered with lust and nerves, but she did as he asked. He reached across her body for the silk tie and secured one wrist to the bedpost.
Her heart galloped in her chest. She was afraid, but she was more aroused. Secretly, she had always wondered what it would be like to be tied up. He secured her other wrist.
He stood, yanked his shirt over his head, and dropped his jeans. Her mouth watered seeing him already hard, the tip glistening. He stroked himself as he watched her. She wanted to watch him come, but he moved. Climbing onto the bed, starting at her feet, he kissed his way up her body, taking some time between her legs. By the time he reached her mouth, she was begging him.
“I knew there was passion bottled up in there. You just needed to set it free.”
His hands moved down her body to her hips. He lifted her, his cock demanding entrance. Their eyes met before he plunged in deep. For a second, she thought about protection, but the sensations were too much to focus on that. It hurt, but it felt so good too. He was huge, filling her so completely. He withdrew and surged again. She fisted the restraints, getting leverage to move with him; her back arched when he sank in deep. She couldn’t believe she had waited so long to have sex, couldn’t believe she had denied herself something that felt like this. He worked her body like a maestro, and when she came, her eyes closed again as unbelievable pleasure consumed her. His hips moved faster, he grew harder. His face in ecstasy was harsh yet beautiful. The urge to reach out and touch him was strong, but she was bound. Her stomach quivered in excitement because she liked it. Her body was starting the climb again and hungry for it, she followed his rhythm.
He never took his gaze from her, watching what each shift of his hips did to her. He stroked her cheek almost reverently. “I’ve dreamt of this,” he whispered.
Her head was foggy from the wine and the impending orgasm, but those words were the sweetest ever spoken to her. He looked like a dark angel, so damn beautiful.
His arms lifted, the candlelight reflected off a blade.
Her eyes widened in fear; bliss turned to dread and she pulled at her restraints even as her body succumbed to another orgasm. She still hadn’t come down from the pleasure when he plunged the dagger into her heart.
He roared, the surge of power going through him was intoxicating. They were killing each other, turning on one another. Survival of the fittest and all that betrayal, fear, and confusion weakened the barrier that held him. His fingers penetrated the magic, his eyes burned hot with vengeance, a new kingdom on the skeletons of the children who had betrayed him.
15
Ivy
I wasn’t sure if it was the drug doing its thing or my brain was calling uncle. I thought I’d get my memories back as the drug cleared my mind, but I think the drug was allowing me to see what was real and not the illusion I’d been living in. Shadows danced in my room, one took shape. A hoofed beast, the one I’d seen in the courtyard. Blood red eyes stared out of an inhuman face, but it wasn’t fear I felt.
“You’ve been with me since I was a little girl.”
He said nothing, but I felt the warning, the urging for me to escape.
I started from the room but stopped and looked back. “Thank you for keeping the monsters away.” I hurried from my room. I didn’t get far when a ripple of power swept through the hall, and right before my eyes, the scene changed. The white halls I knew were gone, replaced with old papered ones that were crumbling, the wood floors scarred and stained. Light sconces hung from the wall, those that worked flickered. My pulse pounded in my throat, and clarity came like a sledgehammer. This wasn’t a hospital; it was a cage.
The words tumbled from my mouth. “I have to get out of here.”
“Yes, you do.”
I turned to Tristan and yelped because standing next to me was a man; he was younger than me, dressed in clothes that were out of date, the heavy knit of his brown pants, the white loose dress shirt. His blond hair was long to his shoulders and he had bright blue eyes. “Tristan?”
“You can see me?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s about time.” He looked around. “What’s the plan?”
“I have to get out, but I don’t know how?” I continued down the hall, constantly looking back waiting to see Dr. Ellis or Bart coming for me. At the nurse’s station, the woman who was always there wasn’t. Whatever this was, magic I suspected, the spell was breaking.
“Do you suppose there is a key for the gate?” I asked.
“Doubtful, but it’s more than a lock that is keeping you here.”
“What do you mean?”
“You feel the pulse of magic.”
I did. I couldn’t believe it was real, but I felt it. “Yes.”
“Whatever is cloaking this place is also keeping you here.”
“I can’t get past the gate?”
“No.” He studied me before he said, “You don’t believe me.”
“It’s not that I don’t believe you, but well…” I guess I didn’t. I headed for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“I need to see for myself.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised. You’re pigheaded, but do it quickly.”
I stepped outside, it was dawn, and the sun was just rising over the horizon. I didn’t need the light of it, though, because the closer I walked to the gates, the stronger the pulse. Tristan was right. I couldn’t get out. Some unseen force was keeping me in. Well shit.
Back inside, I started to pace because this was going to be harder than I thought. “How do we break it?”
“We have to break the spell.”
“How?”
Mouse came scurrying down the hall at that moment. We both turned to him; he looked frantic, moving exactly how I felt…restlessly. I bent down for him, when he grew right before my eyes.
“Are you seeing this?” I asked.
Tristan sounded freaked. “Seeing, not believing.”
My mouse shifted into a woman about my age with purple spiked hair and dressed in formfitting leather.
“I am never doing that again. I don’t give a damn who it’s for.” She stretched, contorting herself in ways that I didn’t think were humanly possible before her green eyes landed on me. “Ivy.” She smiled. “Sorry. Not my best introduction, but we’re running out of time.”
“You were just a mouse,” I said as almost a question. Because what the hell?
“Yes. Charmed into being one.”
“Magic?”
“Yes.”
That should freak me out. It didn’t. “Why were you charmed into a mouse?”
“I needed a way in.”
“Why?”
“To get you out.”
“You’re here to get me out?”
“Yes, and that is the only reason I let that nut charm me into a field mouse, a fucking field mouse.”
“What nut?”
She waved that off. “Ellis will be back soon. We have to go.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
She held out her hand. “Aine Wolfhart.”
I almost asked what she was, but I bit my tongue. I jerked my head to Tristan. “That’s what we were just trying to figure out.”
“We?”
“Tristan. He’s my imaginary friend. Well he’s not really...”
“I’m actually a ghost,” Tristan corrected, which had me twisting my head in his direction.
“Really? You’re a ghost. That’s kind of cool.”
“You’re talking to a ghost?” Aine didn’t look freaked out; she looked intrigued.
“Apparently.”
“You see him?”
“I never used to, but I do now.”
“You’re growing stronger. You might just get out of here.”
“What i
s here?”
“An enchantment.” Aine studied me before she asked, “You don’t look surprised.”
“I know this place isn’t what it seems. I know Ellis isn’t what he seems. I’ve seen things my whole life, had visions I couldn’t explain. Fire doesn’t hurt me.”
“Come again?” Aine said.
“Fire. It doesn’t burn me; it doesn’t leave a mark, and call me crazy, but I almost summoned it. Didn’t I, Tristan?” Wait, I remembered that.
“Yep.”
Aine smiled. There was meaning behind it, but I didn’t ask.
“What about Ellis? What is he?”
“Not what he seems. Like you and me, he’s different.”
“You mean because you were a mouse…”
“I’m not a shifter.”
I didn’t ask for clarification on that statement and instead asked, “What am I?”
“I don’t know, but your mystical signature isn’t one I’ve felt before.”
“Mystical signature?”
“Every supernatural being has one, even ghosts,” she said as she looked past me to Tristan despite not being able to see him. “Your signature will bring others.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It could be. Depends on who answers the call.”
“Just for clarification, what exactly are we talking about when we say supernatural beings?”
“From ghosts and sprites to...” She hesitated a second before adding, “demons.”
“Is that what you are, a demon?”
“I’m an outer realm demon.”
“Outer realm?”
“Different circles in hell, I’m the farthest out from the epicenter. I can move around more easily than those within the closer circles. But that means I’m not as strong.”
“There really are circles of hell?” This conversation was bizarre, but I knew it was real. Every word. “So the closer you are to the epicenter, the stronger you are but the less able you are to move from hell to what here?” I then teased and asked, “So is that why the devil has never made an appearance on earth, because he can’t?”
“He can and has.”
My mouth opened, but no words came out because I had not been expecting that. Okay, maybe not every word. “The devil is real?”
“Of course.”
“And he’s been earthbound?”
“Often.”
“Why often?”
“He lives here.”
“The devil lives here?”
“Yeah, in Vegas.”
“The devil lives in Vegas?” I guess of all the places in the world he could live, Sin City made sense. “Why Vegas?”
“He owns the Bellagio.”
Of course he did. And this was reality. I may be having a little difficulty getting behind all of it. “I was with you up until the devil.”
“This is all fascinating, but could we hold the chitchat for later. We’re on a timeline here,” Tristan scolded before he looked around. “He’s holding you here for a reason.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know much about magic, but I do know the more personal a spell the more powerful.”
“What does that mean?”
“What’s he saying?” Aine asked.
“He’s trying to figure out why I’m being held here.”
“Good question.”
I’m glad they were on the same page because I was lost.
“If the spell involves something personal to the one it’s casted on, the more binding,” Tristan offered.
“And why do we think I’m the one this spell is for?”
“Because no one else in here is real. I didn’t latch onto you because of your sunny personality. Outside of you, Dr. Ellis, that orderly and Aine here, no one else is real.”
“What did he say?”
“No one else in here is real except you, Ellis, and Bart. What about Harold, Evelyn, Dr. Nelson, and Emily?”
“Ghosts, like me.”
“But I could see them?”
“Yeah, annoyed the hell out of me.” He studied me for a minute. “You actually believe. Don’t you?”
“I can’t explain this new reality, or the part I play in it, and there are pieces that I’m struggling with, but yes, I believe. It’s more real than the existence I’ve been living.” Rage came, burning through me like fire because I had been a prisoner but not for the reason I had thought. “What is Dr. Ellis and why did he keep me here?”
“Not sure. I never felt mystical signatures like theirs either,” Aine replied.
“Theirs?”
“That orderly and Ellis share similar signatures.”
“Wait, Dr. Ellis isn’t human?”
“Not completely, no.”
That was unnerving. I’d been locked away for decades with ghosts and monsters. What the hell? “Dr. Ellis brought me here. He knew where to find me and he brought me here.”
“You said you could summon fire,” Aine said.
“I think I can. I wasn’t successful, but I felt something when I tried.”
“That might be what brought Dr. Ellis to you,” Aine offered.
“You lost me.”
“The mystical signatures, fire might be yours,” Aine reasoned. “It might be the key to getting you out of here.”
There had been a fire that night, one I probably started, saving myself from one monster dropped me into the hands of another. I hadn’t had a chance, but why? What the hell did they want with me? I’d ponder that after we got out of here. “What now?” I asked.
“We find the heart of the house, but I have a question. Why doesn’t your ghost leave?” Aine asked.
“Cause he’s a pain in the ass.”
“I can’t.”
My head jerked to him. “You can’t?”
“No. I’m bound here.”
“He’s bound here.”
“That’s interesting. What of yours do they have?” Aine asked, which made no sense at all.
“Not sure,” Tristan replied, but I had the sense that wasn’t entirely true.
“What did he say?” Aine asked.
This was going to get old really fast. I relayed the message from the ghost to the demon. This was real life?
“Who or what was he before he died?” she asked.
“No one important,” he replied, but again, I got the sense he was holding back. Still, he was important; everyone was important to someone.
“That’s not true,” I said to him before sharing with Aine his comment.
She had a thought on that, but she kept it to herself. “We need to figure out why you’re here…this place specifically?”
“I agree,” Tristan volunteered.
“He agrees. So where do we start?” I asked.
They both answered at the same time. “The locked ward.”
My mind was clearing because the words were out before I considered them. “I’m drawn to that ward.”
Aine’s eyes sparkled. “Then we are onto something. Let’s go.” She started down the hall.
I knew time wasn’t on our side, knew I had to get out of here, but I worried about what Pandora’s box we were opening when I did. “I have a bad feeling,” I muttered.
Tristan kept pace at my side. I saw his smile before he replied, “But you’re feeling. That’s a step in the right direction.”
“Good point.”
Aine was waiting for us. “Locked ward is that way.” She pointed then started strutting. “Just act normal. Don’t need to alert the guards.”
Guards? I didn’t want to know. “Normal stands out in here,” I corrected then added, “It’s locked. How are we getting in?”
“I’m more of a minute to minute kind of gal, sort of living by the seat of my pants so we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
I rolled my eyes because what a ridiculous comment. “We’re going to be at that particular bridge in about two minutes, so now would be a good time to start thinking
about how we pick the lock.”
“Can you float through the door and unlock it from the inside?” Aine asked. As an idea it wasn’t a bad one.
I swear Tristan rolled his eyes. “You watch too many movies. It doesn’t work that way; besides, it’s a padlock and chain not a door lock.”
I shared that with her, but it didn’t escape my notice that I was walking down the hall with a demon and a ghost and this was real. I should be freaking out; reality was even crazier than my imaginings. I wasn’t though. I wasn’t afraid, not of them, not of this new reality, not even of death. Death was the ending we all faced, the path to that end was life, and I was going to have one. Finally.
“What if we’re wrong about the locked ward? What if that isn’t the secret to what’s holding me here?”
Tristan looked grave when he said, “Then it’s game over.”
Aine spun around. “We’re not alone.”
I felt Bart’s malice before I turned to see him looming down the hall after us. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
Aine put herself between Bart and me.
“You won’t keep her from me,” he hissed.
“You want her…then come and get her.” I thought that was remarkably brave considering he towered over her. I stood corrected, because in the next second, she shifted and not into a mouse. My jaw dropped as the petite woman she’d been grew to about seven feet tall, her skin turned gray, her feet turned to hooves, a tail and wings appeared and the green of her eyes turned red. Not the same as the creature from my room and the courtyard, but similar.
Bart charged and she flicked him off like a fly. He flew through the air, crashing into the wall and landed in a pile on the floor. He shook it off and stood, but it was the evil smile that curved his lips that caused me to the shiver. He started for Aine again, but this time, as he moved, he shifted into one of those grotesque creatures that haunted me through the years. They were real. That caused anger, a fire lit in the pit of my stomach to know he was taunting me even when I hadn’t known. Aine charged him; they met in midair; the sound when their bodies clashed rocked the hall. They spun around, clawing and biting. Aine went flying; her body hit the wall, crumbling the plaster. She shook it off and charged again. They wrestled; Aine went down again. She was strong, but Bart was stronger.
