The letter brightened again. It started pulsating like one of those strobe lights Abram tried to convince me would have been a good fit back in his club. It was ‘too ‘70s’ then, and it was too inconvenient now. If there was one thing that was more noticeable than a bright shining light, it was a bright blinking one.
I really wanted to take this letter back to show Abram as evidence. But if I got caught here, that would be the least of my worries. I was going to have to rip this thing in half, and I needed to do it now.
Curling my fingers around the edges, careful not to let anymore of the light show than necessary, I ripped the letter in two as quickly as possible. I breathed quietly, hoping the light would go out.
And it did…for a second.
As quickly as I had torn the note apart some unseen force stitched it back together. It flew back into one piece right in my hands, burning as brightly as ever.
Damn it!
I had to press my lips together to stop the words from coming out. I was so furious at this damn thing and I’d only found it a moment ago.
The footsteps fell quiet, and heavy breathing grunted from right over me, above the desk. Only a thin piece of mahogany separated me from sure disaster.
The breathing continued as did the pulsating light, my hands dulling the glow quite a bit but not snuffing it completely. It was only a matter of time before the breather found me, and with Abram on the other side of the castle looking at Douchebag’s room of majestic paintings, I was going to have to fend for myself. Which meant one thing.
I was going to have to eat the damn thing.
Cursing my fate, I smooshed the white hot letter into the smallest ball I could.
Then I stuffed it into my mouth.
It tasted awful, and got even hotter against my tongue and the inside of my cheeks. It was like downing a burnt s’more while it was still too hot to touch, let alone eat. But there was nothing I could do. So I dealt with the pain (and the burnt taste) until the steps started to back up again.
This time, they were swift and deliberate. And thankfully, they were headed away from me. When the door squeaked open and closed again, I let out a sigh.
That was close. Too close.
As quickly as possible, I spit the burning ball of enchanted paper back to the floor, coughing and gagging, trying to catch my breath.
The letter straightened itself back out, pulled again by some unseen force, and slid unaided across the floor. I watched, mouth agape, as it literally hopped back into the dusty box and closed the lid behind it. The box slid back into the hole from where I pulled it.
Well, there went my plan to bring the stupid thing back as evidence. I stood, glancing around the room, and headed for the door.
The box clanged loudly against the hole.
Oh, shit. I’d almost forgotten to put the loose board back in place. If I was going to make careless mistakes like that, I might as well sound the alarms myself.
Quickly, I tiptoed over to the box, covered the hole in the floor, and ran back toward the door. The box was still clanging, though, and I had no idea how to make it stop. I just had to get out of here and hope it would give up once I left.
Sucking in a deep breath, I ducked out of the room and shut the door behind me, the whole time certain I was only moments away from being caught.
* * *
The hallway was once again barren as I made my way back toward the room. It was at least a full minute before I even let myself breathe. By then, I figured I was so far away from the room in question that I could make a case for saying I got lost on my way to the bathroom and probably get away with it. Of course, I would have to deal with the fact that Abram told me to stay, and I had obviously disobeyed. But hey, maybe Dark Age thinking took pee breaks, too.
I slid back into my room unnoticed, sighing and leaning against the door and locking it behind me.
“Where have you been? I thought you were caught. Or worse.”
Abram stood by the window. Stripped of that ridiculously royal outfit from this morning, he now wore a tight white tee and a pair of matching pants. They were glorified painter’s clothes, but they looked sexy as hell on him.
“I almost did get caught,” I said, making my way over to him. “But Satina was right. There was something in that room. A letter. I’m not sure what kind it is, besides freaky, but it definitely has something to do with the king’s curse.”
“Go on,” Abram said, bridging the gap to meet me. He took my hand, and a world’s worth of weight fell off my shoulders.
“First of all, you were right. And wrong. There is a spell on this castle trapping him, but there’s also a spell inside the castle protecting him. Second, his curse has already been lifted once before. Kind of. I guess it didn’t work? Sounds like he’s trying to get them to try again.”
“Them?” Abram asked, his eyebrows pulling together. “Them who?”
“Some magical business or something. But it sounds like they don’t think they can help him this time.”
“I’m not worried about whether they lift his curse,” Abram said, his eyes narrowing.
“Then what are you worried about?”
“The cost. The people who dabble in the sort of mysticism it would take to break a Conduit’s curse don’t come cheap, and they wouldn’t even attempt it without being compensated first.”
“So?” I asked, looking around. “Check this place out. This moron obviously has more dough than he knows what to do with.”
Abram’s face darkened. “They don’t take money, Charisse.”
My mind went spinning before the pitch black truth of what Abram was suggesting settled on me. “Oh, God…” Tears pooled behind my eyes. “He’s killing them, isn’t he? He’s having them murdered as payment to get his curse lifted.”
“We don’t know that,” Abram said firmly.
“The hell we don’t!” I screamed, pulling my hand out of Abram’s “He’s a monster, and he’s killing people!” I started toward the door. “I’m gonna kill him myself.”
“Stop!” Abram jumped in front of me. “Keep your head on straight, Charisse. Even if he wasn’t surrounded by guards, you couldn’t kill him. He’s immortal, remember?” Abram ran a hand through his hair. “Besides, if he’s responsible, he’s not the only one. He would need help. He can’t leave this castle, and no magic can enter. All the magic here is either from the Conduit or the company in the letter. That means if King Archibald is responsible for people throwing themselves off that cliff, then he’s got help from someone on the outside to do it.”
“Sleeping Beauty,” I muttered. “The woman in the dreams. She’s the one who’s helping him. That’s why she appears three days before they die. That’s why she guides them to their deaths.”
A slight and maybe even prideful smile tugged at Abram’s lips. “That’s what I was thinking. Look at this.” He turned toward the bed and picked up my cell phone. “While you were gone, I did some research on the internet.”
“The internet?” I asked.
“That’s what I said, Charisse.”
“So…not the window shopper this time?” I giggled.
“This isn’t the Stone Age.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” I muttered.
“Need I remind you, Ms. Bellamy, that I’m over a hundred and fifty years old? You don’t get to be my age without more than a fair share of adaptability.”
“Okay, then. Get on with it. What did you find?”
He hit (way too many) buttons, fumbling with the phone like somebody’s grandfather. Finally, though, he handed the phone over, beaming with pride.
“Her,” he said.
A woman’s picture graced the phone. She had red hair, cat-like green eyes, and a bitchy face that I remembered the instant I saw it.
“I know her,” I said.
“What?” Abram asked, his eyebrows pulling together. “You can’t know her.”
“That’s Briar Templeton. We had the same agent. I hated that
bitch!”
“She’s in a coma,” Abram said.
“Well, she wasn’t that bad…” I said. I wouldn’t have wished a coma on her. Maybe a kick to the head, but nothing that would cause permanent damage. “What happened to her?”
“She was found several months ago, lying face down in a rosebush, of which she apparently has a severe allergy,” Abram said. “She’s been unresponsive ever since. Word is her husband is one of the few people who knew of her allergy, too. They have him in custody now.”
“They think her husband did this?” I asked.
“Apparently she had quite the life insurance policy,” Abram said, spreading his hands.
I pointed to her picture on my phone. “And you think she’s connected to this?”
“The magic, the drought that coincidentally started the day Briar fell asleep, and now the letter you found… Isn’t it obvious? Someone—my guess is King Archibald—is setting all of this in motion again. Not only do I think your old rival is a Supplicant, but I think she’s the new Sleeping Beauty.”
I stared at Abram for a long time, a million questions running through my mind. Unfortunately, one bubbled to the top above all the others. “You think she’s beautiful?”
“Charisse—”
“I mean, cute maybe,” I said, looking at the picture on the phone again. “Unique if you wanna stretch it. But beautiful?”
“You have nothing to worry about,” he said, taking my hand again. “I prefer my women alert and well.”
“Uh huh.”
“Please, Charisse. There’s been fifteen deaths this month, and I don’t think there was even that many Supplicants on the island to begin with. We need to focus. At this rate, there will be no Supplicants by the end of the month, and with so many deaths, it might not be long before it makes international news.”
“Well, then,” I said, heading toward door, “sounds to me like we better pay the new Sleeping Beauty a visit.”
Chapter 12
Part of me figured getting out of the castle the next day would be a problem. Although we’d been taken off of lock down after that first night, and the king had backed off treating us like prisoners, I still worried he would deny Abram’s request to survey the grounds.
And yet, King Archibald was more than willing to send us on our way. He even insisted we take a pair of overdressed (and conveniently dimwitted) bodyguards with us for the trip.
I was unnerved by how easy it had been. It was as though he wanted us gone for the day, and I didn’t want to think what he was up to if that were really the case. But we needed to go.
And now we also needed to ditch two body guards.
Thankfully, one-hundred-and-fifty years of hiding in the shadows had taught Abram a thing or two about being stealthy.
Five minutes and two turns after we’d left the Castle, King Archibald’s henchmen were a distant memory.
“What are you going to say when that royal pig asks you why we ditched his guards?” I asked as Abram held the door open for me and I entered the hospital.
It was a small place—certainly much smaller than any of the vast medical complexes in New York City—but it was even tinier than the hospital that sat on the other side of New Haven. It made me shiver to walk through the halls. I had never been the sort of person who liked hospitals, and after Mom had died, I could barely walk through them. Of course, the whole ‘Dalton’ ordeal, with me being forcefully medicated and put in a paper gown, hadn’t done any good.
Still, there was something even worse about this place, something very rudimentary and third world. If Briar was in here, then part me of might actually feel sorry for her.
“I’ll tell him I was testing them, and that they failed,” Abram answered, keeping pace with me. “King Archibald could never listen to someone question the competency of his pack and think of anything else.”
“Pack?” I asked, looking over at him. “Is he a king or the leader of a lion pride?”
“You know what I mean, Charisse.”
“Were you speaking from personal experience?”
Abram clicked his tongue. “I’m more of an oddity, and oddities don’t get company.”
I found my hand drifting toward his. I loved this man with all of myself, more than I had ever loved anyone, more than I even thought possible. But the truth was, I knew next to nothing about his life between the time he was turned into the beast and the day we met, let alone the years before it.
I squeezed his hand. “You have company now.”
Once we reached the receptionist’s desk, Abram asked where we had to go to sign in for volunteer work. A large woman with chin hair and a bad disposition grunted and pointed to the left. We marched down the corresponding hallway, eerily alone.
Where were all the nurses? Where were all the doctors? Where were the crying family members sitting vigil, like on all the medical soaps I watched in the fall?
“I don’t like this place,” I said, biting my lip.
“I know.” Abram’s hand slipped from mine and slid down my spine toward the small of my back. He guided me through the halls. “Your heart’s practically doing somersaults in your chest.”
He could hear my heartbeat again. But that meant… “Your abilities are back?”
“They’re returning,” he said. “Though not nearly as evenly as what’s normal for me. I think whatever magic is concentrated in the castle also exists, in some quantity, throughout the island.”
“Well, isn’t that convenient,” I murmured, looking through each room as we passed and checking for Briar. “Why?” I asked, turning to Abram. “If King Archibald can’t leave the castle, then why did the Conduit put it throughout the island?”
“Maybe it wasn’t the Conduit,” Abram said. “Maybe the king had a hand in it. Altering magic on an entire island would keep those who hoped to exploit his condition at bay.” Abram shook his head. “It’s smart. It’s something I would do, if I were ever in his shoes.”
I bristled. “You’re not like him at all.” Something, maybe anger, maybe disgust, rose up in my throat. “He’s a son of a bitch. He doesn’t deserve a box under a freeway bridge, let alone a whole damn castle.” My teeth gritted together. “Anyone who’d treat women like that, like they don’t matter, I don’t even know what to say about that.”
“Really?” Abram narrowed his eyes at me. “Is that what you think? That he’s treating them like they don’t matter?”
“Of course,” I answered, nearly stopping dead in my tracks. “Isn’t that what you think?”
He frowned. “Not necessarily.”
“Abram!”
He raised his free hand as though he were about to tell a child to settle down, and if we weren’t in public, that would have been the thing to send me over the edge. I almost fell over when he actually proceeded to speak after that.
“He’s forceful, and his beliefs are unarguably archaic,” Abram said, “but I’m not sure it’s fair to say he doesn’t value women.”
“He treats us like objects!” I couldn’t keep my voice down, hospital setting be damned. At least we weren’t in a library.
“Like precious objects,” Abram said, hurrying me along the hall as he stole a glance over his shoulder. “I know this is hard for you to understand, and it’s hard for me to explain, but for men like Archibald—men who grew up in a time much different than the one we live in now—women wanted this. They wanted a man to take care of them, a man to serve, a man to encourage the best from them. And a man had to earn that kind of devotion and trust. If you think about it, the man has to be good enough for the woman. Not the other way around.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I scoffed. Leaning in, I whispered, “He had you spank me like some spoiled child, for God’s sake. Is there something you’d like to explain to me about that, too?”
“I don’t mean to offend you, Charisse. You know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t hurt you for anything, least of all to defend the honor of a man who most c
ertainly doesn’t deserve it.”
I shook my head. “Then why are we even having this conversation?”
“Because I want you to understand the man we’re pitting ourselves against.” His eyes trailed the floor. “And I want you to understand me, too, Charisse. All of me.” When he looked back at me, his jaw was set. “When I was young, things were different, times were different. Men ran the world and were unopposed. We treated our women the same way we treated our children because they needed us to. The world needed us to.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Abram. Don’t be so self-important.”
“I’m not,” he said, and now he sounded a little angry. “You just refuse to see it any other way than how you were raised to see it.”
“I could say the same to you,” I mumbled.
Abram stopped short, grabbed my wrist, and spun me toward him. “You liked it,” he said, his gaze confronting my soul. “You don’t think other women could like it, too? You don’t think they could want that?”
He always had to have some damn point that could infuriate me and make me want him all at the same time. But I wasn’t going to let him oversimplify this. “You don’t treat someone you love that way, Abram.”
One of his eyebrows arched challengingly. “Just because you discipline your children does not mean you don’t love them. In fact, you discipline them because you love them.”
“What about this aren’t you getting, Abram? I’m not a child!” I said, surprised at how angry I had gotten in such a small expanse of time.
Somehow he was able to keep the calm I could not. “Well, you’re sure acting like one,” he said coolly.
As he turned and continued down the hall, a big part of me wanted to just drop it, but it was as if something had come over me. I wasn’t letting this go. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back to face me again. Of course, it was entirely by his choice that I got any result.
“There’s a difference between love and lust,” I said firmly.
He shook off my grasp. “I thought we had both,” he said, and now I couldn’t tell if he was hurt or angry. “We’ll talk about this later. This isn’t the time or place.”
Sleeping with the Beast: an Adult Paranormal Shifter Romance (The Conduit Series Book 2) Page 8
