Sleeping with the Beast: an Adult Paranormal Shifter Romance (The Conduit Series Book 2)

by Conner Kressley

  “A Conduit’s mind has natural protections like an onion has layers. Walls and walls of energy block anyone and anything from piercing her mind and stealing her secrets or invading her consciousness. Because you’re a Conduit, you can peel away those layers.” He swallowed, belying his confidence as his jaw gave a small tremble. “But it won’t be easy.”

  “When is it ever?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “Though, for the sake of argument, just how ‘not easy’ is it going to be?”

  “Peeling back the layers of protection is a high level act of magic. It’s going to be very intensive for a newer Conduit like yourself and as painful as a surgery for her,” Ramsey said, looking down at the witch.

  “I’m not exactly a surgeon,” I answered hesitantly.

  “You’re the closest we’ve got,” Ramsey said. “Let your emotions overtake you again and focus on connecting with the Conduit, on opening her thoughts to you. You can touch her if you think it would make it easier.”

  I shook my head, remembering the innocent blood that, just minutes ago, covered these walls. “Not for a million dollars.”

  “Fair enough.” Ramsey didn’t look as though he blamed me all that much. “Just focus, and get ready for some pain.”

  “You know, as long as it means I can make her hurt, too, I’m surprisingly okay with that,” I said.

  I knelt down, shuddering as I neared the Conduit. Her body was horrific, stretched and changed by magic. There was hardly a piece of a woman in there. Whoever she had been was likely a million miles away by now, but there was only one way to find out for sure.

  I stretched my hands over her horned head and instantly felt her energy intensify. It was darker than Abram’s, and full of a vengeful heat that threatened to burn my palms. Closing my eyes, I pushed through it. Was this the pain Ramsey had spoken about? If so, he was sorely underestimating me. I could deal with this.

  A hard jerk pulled at my insides, lighting my gut on fire and causing me to wretch forward. My eyes flew open wide.

  Okay. This was the pain. But no matter. I had to do this—for Abram, for myself, and for everyone who had already fallen to this monster.

  “Open up, bitch,” I murmured through clenched teeth.

  I let go of my previous decision not to touch her and grasped her horns hard, needing something to hold onto as the pain pulsed through my body.

  Light filled my mind and my vision, and suddenly, I wasn’t in the cave anymore. I was in the woods at night. A young couple stood before me, crying and grasping at each other.

  “Please, Luca. Let’s just leave,” said a young girl. Her dark hair stuck wet to her head, and her eyes welled with tears. “We can get new names, new lives. A new land would be kind to us. We can be together.”

  The boy, tall and lanky, but somehow familiar, shook his head. “And what sort of life would we have together, Ameena?” His eyes flickered to the ground. “You know I am not as a man should be. I am weak. I am sickly. Your father is right. How could I care for you? The Lord you were promised to is a much better fit—for you, for your family.”

  She opened her mouth, but he lifted a finger to silence her.

  “He is a king, Ameena. He’ll give you the world. “

  “I do not wish for the world,” she said. “I wish for you.”

  Ameena clamored for the boy again, but he brushed her away.

  “He has a daughter, Luca,” she said. “A daughter who is nearly my own age. You cannot leave me with him. I will not survive it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Luca said, and he darted off into the forest.

  Ameena crumpled teary-eyed to the ground.

  And then I was gone.

  I was in a castle now, watching from above as the woman from the woods married King Archibald. Only he wasn’t King Archibald—at least not then. He was Jacob Navaar. And this was the Conduit from the original Sleeping Beauty tale.

  My God. This Conduit was the Conduit from back then. How old was she? How powerful?

  I left that scene as quickly as I came to it. Now I was in a darkened room. Ameena sat with energy crackling around her. I could feel her emotions. She was afraid. This was the first time she was coming into her powers, and it was freaking her out.

  I was gone again. Reappearing in the same room. Time had passed, enough time for Ameena to become the badass Conduit from lore. Luca was at the window.

  “I knew you couldn’t stay away.” She cooed, marched over to the window with energy swirling around her, and kissed him.

  I was in the woods again. Things were moving faster now, too fast for me to keep up. A hand ripped Luca from Ameena’s arms. It was Huntsman. His hair was longer and the ax across his back didn’t glow. But it was him nonetheless.

  “You must leave her. She has bewitched you, brother,” Huntsman said, his voice heavy with apology. “Look at what you have become.”

  The world whipped around, and I was gone again. I stood at the edge of a long cliff…of the cliff that all the Supplicants had thrown themselves from.

  “Please!” Ameena cried. King Archibald stood next to her. They both looked out at a beast—a beast I knew in my mind to be Luca.

  “He won’t die.” She turned to the king, as though she was trying to convince him of something. “Throw him off that cliff a thousand times, and he won’t die. I won’t allow it.”

  “I don’t doubt that, my love,” King Archibald said. “But he will hurt. And should he come to you a thousand times, then yes, he will be compelled to throw himself from this cliff a thousand times. And I promise you, my love, eventually he will stop coming.”

  He had put a curse on Luca. No, that couldn’t be it. He wasn’t a Conduit. That meant he’d convinced someone else to do it.

  The world melted away, and I was at the bedside of a beautiful sleeping woman. I didn’t need to guess as to who it was. It was the original Sleeping Beauty. Ameena had been her stepmother and the wife of the man we now knew as King Archibald

  “Fine,” King Archibald said, kneeling beside her. “You’ve made your point—you will have your way. Take me instead, and I will let you have him. Let me take her place, and you can have your lover.”

  Ameena appeared from the thin air, fiercer than before. “An eternity,” she said coldly. “An eternity in this castle in exchange for the eternity you stole from me. Agree and promise never to break your word, and I will release your daughter.”

  Luca appeared beside her. He was the beast we now had chained to the cave floor. God, it all made sense. But something about him seemed…off… He was different from how he had been in the visions. Had Ameena bewitched him, as Huntsman had suggested, or had something else been stolen from his mind?

  “Fine,” King Archibald said and a flash of lightning seemed to seal the deal.

  Another clap of magic, and I saw Briar dancing in a nightclub. Ameena sidled beside her, dressed to the nines and grinding against her. She kissed Briar flush on the lips and then they disappeared into a backroom.

  She was seducing her. She was using Briar for the charm Ramsey had placed on her. I knew it in my bones. And, as if to confirm my suspicion, Ameena’s voice vibrated through my ears.

  “I need you, Briar. You’re very special.”

  Pain shot through my body and, when I opened my eyes, I was back in the cave. Ameena was being pulled away from me, breaking our bond. Her beast, Luca, had her hoisted over his shoulder. And her hand was spotted in blood…my blood.

  “How?” I murmured, but my hand traveled to my face to answer the question. My nose was pouring blood, probably from the strain caused by the magic I was performing.

  Abram leapt toward the fleeing pair, but Ameena clapped her hands and a wave of energy nearly froze us all where we stood (or, in my case, sat).

  Slowly, I felt energy returning to my body, but every movement was so slow…as though weighted beneath quicksand. Apparently that was something my blood could do—if only it was me who had done it instead of that bitch Conduit.

&
nbsp; “Damn it,” Ramsey said, only his lips moving at first, but his body and Abram’s soon “woke up” as well.

  “He’s not just any beast,” I said, my mind flickering back to the memories I had just witnessed. “He’s her one true love. And I think he’s how we stop her.”

  Chapter 25

  Abram and I walked back to the castle, almost literally licking our wounds. While he wasn’t physically injured anymore thanks to my weird Conduit abilities, we still had a lot to mend.

  Though we had come across more than a piece of information about who the Conduit was, we had just been through what anyone would see as an incontestable defeat.

  Abram walked along the beach beside me, the low hanging sun casting dark shadows along his jaw. We didn’t have much time left before he lost ability to control the beast inside of him, and yet neither of us hurried our step to get back.

  He huffed as we headed up the beach’s incline, away from the ocean and toward the high path to the castle.

  “She’s powerful,” he said, his nostril’s flaring.

  “That’s an understatement,” I mumbled, as ready as he was to rehash what we’d learned. Bad news always took more than one go around to really sink in. “She’s old—so old that she makes you look like a newborn. And her power is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I felt it, and it was enough to burn my eyeballs out.”

  “Not the greatest visual,” he said, cutting his gaze toward me.

  “She was married to King Archibald back in the day,” I said, ignoring his glare. “She’s the one who put his daughter—the original Sleeping Beauty—into a trance and used the energy to rebuke a spell King Archibald enacted to keep her away from her true love. As long as Sleeping Beauty slept, then Ameena could nullify the spell and be with Luca, who she turned into a beast in order to give him eternal life, big muscles, and that sexy musk thing you guys have got going on.”

  Abram growled. “So it’s not just me?”

  I stopped, and he spun toward me, his eyebrows pulled together. I spread my hands. “I’m serious, Abram.”

  “Then what’s your point?” He turned to hike back up the incline again. We’d reached the road now, and he waved one arm out to the side, as though indicating the path ahead. “That the king is the victim here? Should we feel bad for him? He’s still pretty villainous, if you ask me.”

  Now he thinks the king is a villain, and I’m the defending him? Could my life get any weirder?

  I came to Abram’s side and placed my hand on his arm. His muscles were tense. A vein bulged in his arm under my fingertips. “But Archibald sacrificed himself in order to save his daughter. That’s why he’s stuck in the castle.” I shook my head. “At least I thought he was. Once his daughter was safe and long gone from this world, the Company began helping him break the curse, and that risked Ameena’s lover being away from her again.”

  “Luca,” Abram mumbled as we crossed the street and headed toward the castle’s path. “Ameena and Luca; the Conduit and her lover turned beast. God, I can’t believe this is all about love.”

  I’d already tried skimming over the details for him once, but it was hard to summarize it all, and here we were—Abram hadn’t taken much but their names from the first go around, maybe because I’d been talking a mile a minute.

  “I think she sensed her slipping hold on the king and sort of went crazy, if you can believe it,” I added, rolling my eyes. “And got all hell bent on finding a way to re-enact the curse. Remember, if she doesn’t keep someone trapped, they can’t be together.”

  “Looks like she found her way,” Abram muttered.

  “But that’s not all. I think the Company helped her with it. I just don’t understand why. In the letter they wrote the king, it sounded as though they were trying to help him.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Abram said. “The magic is not the same. She’s using Briar this time, not a Supplicant.”

  “The letter made it sound like she was manipulating magic in ways she shouldn’t.”

  Abram rubbed the back of his neck and blew out a tired breath. “It also made it sound like maybe that’s what they wanted her to do.”

  “Which brings us back to why.”

  Abram shook his head. “Let’s forget the Company for a minute. What do we know? Ameena is using Briar, who’s already gifted with a persuasion spell, to draw Supplicants to the island and control them through their dreams. And she’s using the blood of those Supplicants to feed the curse that keeps the king trapped.”

  “Right. And I already considered maybe using her own magic against her, but even if Briar could choose the victims herself, she can’t turn on Ameena—”

  “Because Conduits don’t sleep,” Abram continued. “Not even mutt beasts like myself.”

  I bit my lip. That part wasn’t entirely true. Somehow, my Supplicant nature had nulled that aspect in myself. That, or I had awakened that side of myself soon enough. If only we’d met Ramsey sooner…if only we’d done the awakening ritual before Briar had visited. Would my life not be on the line if we had?

  “We also have the issue of how she’s storing this Supplicant blood to begin with.”

  “So I’ve noticed,” Abram said. “It makes her impossible to contend with, at least until we find out how she’s doing that. It’s as though she’s mutated her magic beyond the natural way of things.”

  “That’s not the only thing about her that’s mutated,” I mumbled with a shudder, remembering her bull-head and satyr-like body.

  “We’re missing something,” Abram said. “If the king is trapped, why is she still doing this?”

  “Briar might have special abilities, but she’s not a Supplicant, and she doesn’t have the makings of one. For all of his crappy-ass ethics, Archibald’s daughter was an honest-to-God Supplicant. Since Ameena can’t curse him directly, I’m guessing Sleeping Beauty got those Supplicant traits from her mother. But Briar—”

  “Doesn’t,” Abram finished. “That’s why Ameena needs a constant supply of Supplicant blood.”

  “Right,” I said. “But that’s—”

  “But that’s not all, I know,” Abram said, heaving a sigh. “What else?”

  “I think the Company that’s writing those letters has something to do with that, too. The storing the blood part, I mean.”

  “Char—”

  “No, Abram. This is important. I can feel it. Something else was going on here. Something big. Both Archibald and Ameena got letters from that company, and I get the feeling neither of them knows the other is getting assistance from the same people.”

  “That’s not unheard of in this world, though, Char. We don’t have time to go chasing down some company.”

  “But the Company is the one pitting these people against each other, and the feud between Ameena and Archibald is the core reason Supplicants are being killed. This company is playing both sides, and there has to be a reason for it.”

  “And what reason would that be?” Abram asked, though I got the feeling he didn’t expect me to have the answer.

  “I’m sure whatever it is, it’s not good.”

  “It’s also not something we can worry about right now,” he said as we crossed through the large fence that told us we were back within the grounds of the castle. “I mean it, Char. Leave it alone. One mountain at a time.”

  “This was supposed to be a vacation,” I said, a saddened smile breaking across my face.

  “We’ll have a lifetime together for vacations, I promise you.”

  I winced, but bit my tongue. The sun was about to set on the day before the day I die. The thought started a ticker in my head: Tomorrow night I die. Tomorrow night I die. Tomorrow night I die.

  “We need to get inside,” I mumbled, motioning toward the horizon and trying to keep my voice from cracking.

  Abram took my hand, and we ascended the steps that led to the front door of the castle.

  “Oh,” I said as something else entered my mind. “But that’s not—”
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  “Don’t say it,” Abram warned.

  But that’s not all.

  I forced a smile to keep back the words. “Luca is Huntsman’s brother. I saw it inside Ameena’s head.”

  Abram’s hand slipped down to the small of my back as he guided me toward the castle’s gates. “This little web couldn’t get any denser,” he murmured.

  “Let’s hope not,” I said. “Unless you’re going to tell me that Ameena is actually your long lost sister or something.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. My sister isn’t lost.”

  I was about to ask what he meant by that when the door of the castle flung open. Archibald stood, dressed ridiculously in a purple suit studded with bird feathers. A pipe hung from his mouth, making him even more disgusting than usual, and he was flanked by his usual bevy of armed guards.

  “Good of you to finally join us,” he said to Abram. As was custom between the two of us, Archibald didn’t bother making eye contact with me. “I was afraid you would miss dinner. We’re having stuffed quail. I shot the bird myself. Well, Charleston did,” he said, patting the guard beside him on the back. “But he did it with my permission. Isn’t that right, Charleston?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” Charleston answered, seeming more than a little tired of the question.

  “You must be positively enamored of yourself,” Abram said as Archibald moved aside and allowed us to enter.

  “Usually.” Archibald grinned as we made our way into the main hall. “Normally, I would instruct you to make yourself presentable for dinner, but I’m too excited.”

  “Excited?” Abram asked with raised eyebrow.

  “Yes. I got you a present, and I simply can’t wait to see what you think of it.”

  Immediately, I was on guard. Archibald wanted us dead. I had heard that much with my own ears. Whatever this present was, I was sure we didn’t want it.

  As the main doors to the dining hall were pushed open for us, I braced myself, half-expecting to see Huntsman on the other side, all glowing ax and fervor.

  Instead, one of the most beautiful women I’d ever laid eyes on lounged in a chair near the foot of the table. Her skin was dark caramel, and her hair was raven feather and glistening. She wore a red dress I would’ve killed for and filled it out in a way that made me bite my lip in envy.