She shut the door behind her, doing her best not to slam it or make a noise in her fear, and heard the voices pass in front of it. Whatever they were talking about, she couldn’t understand the language they were using. French, maybe?
Lydia leaned her back against the door and tried to catch her breath. Tried to calm the pounding of her heart in her ears. Oh, poor Evie.
She could barely see in the darkness of the room. It took a long moment for her eyes to adjust. Was she in a barn? No—a stable. Rows and rows of bays stretched out on either side of her, blocked off with high wood sides. The whole place looked like it had been hacked together by people whose tools were a hand saw and a mallet. It looked like something out of a history documentary, impossibly old, even if it was well kept.
The air was thick with the smell of animals. Hay, wood, and the fetor that came along with beasts being nearby, doing what they did best. There was another smell she recognized from her line of work—the acrid scent of blood.
She could see those bug-horse things in several of the stables, horns arching behind their heads, insectoid eyes and weird exoskeleton bodies. The troughs in front of them were stained crimson with gore and bits of bone. Lydia shuddered, remembering that everything in Under was carnivorous.
Focus! Now was not the time to dwell on meat-eating cricket-horse-monsters. If she didn’t get out of here fast, they were going to be the least of her concerns.
Think, Lydia. Think!
She had to come up with a plan. Had to come with some means of escaping. What did she have? What could she use? She had a candlestick, a fork stuffed into her boot, and…
Oh, she was an idiot.
Bug-horses. She had bug-horses.
***
For a while, it was a mystery where the spitfire of a mortal had gone until there was shouting from outside. The sound of hooves on packed dirt was enough to send Edu charging through his halls and bursting outside. The stables had been emptied, sending the small herd of horses charging into the darkness, letting out screeches and cries of joy as they broke for freedom in all directions.
Edu clenched his fists. One of them would have the girl on its back. It would take time to chase them all down. And now, they had no horses on which to do so. They’d have to wake the wyverns that slept in the rookery to give pursuit. And by then, the girl would have made it to the woods.
His jaw twitched in fury. He stepped down the stairs of his home, and with a gesture of his hand, a crimson pool of fire appeared in front of him. From it rose his own steed, climbing out of the ground as if summoned from some netherworld. Its claws dug deep into the ground, wrenching up dirt and leaving thick gouges in the surface as it slithered up from the depths. This was no horse.
It was foolish to ride the drake-like monster he reserved for battles and war only to hunt down a girl in her desperate bid for freedom. His beast would find it a pathetic excuse for exercise. He would have to have him fed well to compensate. Perhaps tonight the girl Evie would learn what it meant to be eaten by a dragon.
Edu slung himself onto the back of the creature and kicked his heels into its sides. It let out a roar.
The hunt was on.
***
Suddenly those horseback-riding classes she could have taken as a child seemed less silly than they had at the time. Maybe she should have done that instead of the piano lessons after all.
At least the bug-horse had plenty of jagged bits to hold onto, with its exoskeleton and all. Lydia did everything she could to cling for dear life. A road curled into the woods ahead of them, and while she had no clue where she was going, it was the only path she could see.
Lydia kicked the thing to move faster, and it was happy to oblige. It was in a full gallop now, which was actually far more comfortable than all the gear shifts it took to get up to that speed. For the moment, she felt free. The wind whipping her hair behind her felt amazing. It was cold, and she might care about having no sleeves if she weren’t being driven forward on adrenaline alone.
The woods around her were pitch-black and terrifying. It looked like every nightmare forest from a fairytale, twisted and warped with bare branches and jagged vines. There was no doubt in her mind that monsters lurked in the darkness.
The wind and the speed and the sheer overwhelming need to hold on consumed her thoughts. Lydia barely heard a roar from back toward the keep. Barely listened to the echo of creatures in the woods. It didn’t matter. Right now, she had one task—forward. Ahead. Away. Freedom.
Maybe she could make it to the city Yej on horseback. Maybe she could make it to the gate in the center of town and back home to Earth. Without a mark on her, maybe she could get away and not be found again. She had a lot of maybes.
There were two moons in the sky that had risen to replace the turquoise one. One was a deep and saturated magenta, and the other was a rich blue. Where the two mixed, it almost looked like white light, like a typical moon. But the shadows were strange and one color or the other, alternating depending on the angle.
The horse seemed overjoyed to race down the road, seeing an empty stretch ahead of them, tossing its head as it galloped along. They both wanted freedom for different reasons, but for now, they had the same goal.
It was funny how quickly things could change. It was incredible how quickly things could happen.
You never saw chaos coming. You could never predict exactly how or why it hit. Only after the moment was over could you parse it out and figure out exactly what happened when, and in what order, to try and lay out a timeline and better understand it.
She had been racing through a nightmare forest on a nightmare horse in a nightmare world. Hope had bloomed in her heart for the first time since this whole mess had begun.
Then she was on the ground. Everything hurt. Her body ached with searing pain as if she had been in a car accident. The wind had been knocked out of her, and for the second time in as many days, she couldn’t breathe. Her head was bleary, her sight clouded.
Lydia managed to finally pull a gasp into tortured lungs and felt the clarity the cold air gave her. Then she remembered the strike of lightning. It had come down on the path in front of her, the air splitting with the tangy taste of electrons and ozone. The light had been blinding, the sound was deafening, and left her ears still ringing.
The lightning had struck the path in front of her and her horse, sending the creature hauling up to a stop and rearing on its back legs. It had thrown Lydia to the ground in the process.
That was why everything hurt. At least she hadn’t landed on any rocks. Small favors.
After she had managed to catch her breath, she pushed herself up off the ground. She was trembling, her hands were shaking. She felt loosely connected to the world around her. But she had to get back on that damned creature and keep going. There was no way the lightning strike hadn’t been on purpose. It was far too convenient.
It took every ounce of strength Lydia had to push through the searing pain and back up to standing. By the sharp sting and the sticky feeling on her leg, her knee was bleeding. With a shaking hand, she pushed her hair away from her face.
When she looked up, all her thoughts of freedom were dashed away. All hope was gone.
Edu hadn’t been the source of the lightning bolt.
A figure stood there watching her, standing at the spot where the blast had struck. He was tall and thin, the carefully tailored suit belying the lithe muscle underneath. Dressed entirely in a mix of black fabrics and cast in stark contrasts by the glow of the overhead moons, he was imposing.
When he spoke, his voice was just as it was in her dreams. A knife, wrapped in velvet—a low tenor that was as dangerous and dusky as it was sharp.
“Hello, my dear.”
Aon.
***Sneak Peek***
King of
SHADOWS
The Masks of Under
Book Two
Coming March 26th, 2019
Chapter One
“Hello, my d
ear.”
Aon.
“How wonderful to finally meet you, Lydia.”
Aon looked like a nightmare come to life. His suit made him look as though he didn’t belong against the twisted and warped woods and yet like there was nowhere he should rather be.
Lydia tried not to cry. Tried not to scream or turn and run the other direction. She wanted to do all those things. Her bleeding knee felt like it was on fire, and the rest of her wasn’t in much better condition. Running would be pointless.
Aon stood before her, twenty feet away, the moonlight reflecting off his featureless black metal mask. He had not moved and seemed content to let her decide what she wanted to do.
Lydia could try to turn and run. She could cry or scream. She could fall to her knees and beg. None of them felt right, so everything locked up. There was nothing she could do to stop whatever Aon wanted to do to her. She had nothing. No hope, no power, no knowledge she could bargain with. There was one thing she could cling to in desperation.
Defiance was all she had left.
So Lydia raised her head, straightened her shoulders, and did her best to look brave. Not because she felt brave, but because there wasn’t anything else left to do.
Aon chuckled, a sound that carried easily in the silence of the forest. He began to walk toward her, and although she wavered, she didn’t back away. He closed the distance in slow, long, easy strides, seemingly in no hurry. One of his hands moved to tuck across his lower back, adding to his dramatism as he approached. He was giving her the chance to balk and run from him. He was seeing her bet and raising it, pointedly challenging her resolve.
Good god, he was terrifying. Far more so now that he was real and not a ghost in Lydia’s dreams. She knew her imagination was probably falling short of what that man was likely about to do to her.
When Aon finally got within arm’s reach, he extended his gauntleted hand to touch her face, the sharp claws glinting in the moonlight. Lydia flinched away from his touch, but by some miracle, she managed to stand her ground. Aon let out a small hmm in his throat. He curled his fingers in toward his palm and brushed the backs of the metal fingers down her cheek.
In the absence of adrenaline, she was shaking in the cold truth of her failure and the chill night air. The touch of metal on her cheek didn’t help matters. Aon was pushing her, calling her bluff once more.
Lydia ran through her options again. Sink to her knees and cry. Turn and run. Plead for mercy. Bargain with him for her freedom. Try to fight him. Faint was now solidly high up on that list.
She scratched each one off in order again. Not her style, wouldn’t make it ten feet, pointless, pointless, hilariously pointless, and maybe, in that order. With no other option but accepting her fate, she resigned herself to whatever Aon was going to do and let him run his metal-clad fingers down her cheek without any further fuss from her.
“Tell me, what was it I have just witnessed play out upon these lovely features of yours?” Aon said, his voice low and soft, but no less dangerous than before. When Lydia sought him with a questioning, confused glance, he tilted his head back. When he spoke again, his voice was a rumble that made her stomach twist. “Indulge me…”
Lydia stammered twice before getting a word out edgewise, but Aon seemed content to wait. She stopped, took a breath, and tried again. “Crying won’t help. Begging won’t work. I can’t run, and struggling will do more harm than good. I…I’ve lost. The only thing left to do is die with pride,” she admitted quietly, and only fear kept her from just shutting her eyes and accepting her fate.
“Mmh, beautiful.” Aon stepped in closer, and Lydia went rigid. The talons of his gauntleted hand stroked through her hair slowly, brushing her waves away from her face and tucking the strands behind her ear. She pulled in a breath and held it. Even if he wasn’t hurting her now, she had already seen firsthand how abrupt his moods could be. “Then you are no fool, my clever child, to see the truth so easily. Good. That will make this far more interesting.”
“If you’re going to kill me, please do it already,” Lydia said quietly, her voice shaking. That was all she could ask of him. Just please, don’t let it linger.
Metal fingers curled under her chin and broke her gaze from where she had fixated on his black-on-black striped tie. “Oh, my dear. Kill you? Why ever would I do that?” He sounded legitimately surprised.
Was he kidding? “I mean, last time…you…”
“Ah. Yes.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his masked face turning away for a moment as if in thought. “I think perhaps I have given you the wrong impression. What I did was merely to teach you a lesson. Hopefully, I will not have cause to demonstrate another.”
Aon turned his face back toward her as he pressed the point of the thumb of his clawed hand against the line of her lower lip. He stepped in closer, just a few inches away. “No, beautiful darling, you are the first unusual thing to happen in this forsaken world in a long, long time. I have no desire to kill you. Far from it.”
Lydia’s world suddenly felt unsteady. The ground tipped and swerved. Her hands grasped Aon’s arms in a desperate attempt to hold herself upright. He let out a curious hmm at her movement and then, realizing she was about to fall, wrapped his arm around her waist, pressing her to him. “Well, now, all you had to do was ask,” he teased.
“I…uh. I don’t feel so good.” Lydia’s world was spinning. She must have hit her head when she fell from the horse, and her fear and adrenaline had only lasted so long. Fainting was now solidly at the top of her options.
“My poor little thing,” he murmured. “It is quite all right. You are injured. Do not fight it. I will take care of you.”
“Edu’s going to kill me,” she mumbled, barely able to get the words out. Her head was reeling, and she felt the soft fabric of his suit against her as he pulled her in closer.
“Oh?” The smell of books was there again, like an old library.
“To keep me away,” the world spun dangerously, “from you. Edu…” Lydia couldn’t hold onto consciousness anymore. Her grip on it was slipping, just as her hands were falling from clinging onto his coat to stay standing.
His metal-clad face was close to her ear, and she heard his words—quiet, dangerous, and a threat even as it was meant to be comforting. “He will not harm you. With me, you will be safe. I promise.”
About the Author
Kat has always been a storyteller.
With ten years in script-writing for performances on both the stage and for tourism, she has always been writing in one form or another. When she isn’t penning down fiction, she works as Creative Director for a company that designs and builds large-scale interactive adventure games. There, she is the lead concept designer, handling everything from game and set design, to audio and lighting, to illustration and script writing. Also on her list of skills are artistic direction, scenic painting and props, special effects, and electronics. A graduate of Boston University with a BFA in Theatre Design, she has a passion for unique, creative, and unconventional experiences. In her spare time, she builds animatronics and takes trapeze classes.
Thank you for reading King of Flames. I hope you enjoyed this first installment of the Masks of Under series. Stay tuned for more!
If you would like to be updated on the series, or would like access to deleted scenes, my sketches, and extra content, please join me online. You can also find links to join my mailing list or my Discord server, where you can come pester me with questions and thoughts directly.
And if you have a moment, consider leaving a review at the store through which you purchased it.
Thank you again, dear reader. I hope we meet again soon in the world of Under.
For an exclusive excerpt from the next installment in the series, giveaways, deleted scenes and more, sign up for my newsletter and join my reader group!
“The Society of Under” Reader Group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/thesocietyofunder/
&nb
sp; Newsletter:
https://www.kathrynkingsley.com/newsletter
Website:
https://www.kathrynkingsley.com
Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18902774.Kathryn_Ann_Kingsley
Twitter:
https://www.twitter.com/vodriel
Join our Reader Group on Facebook and don't miss out on meeting our authors and entering epic giveaways!
Join today! "Where reading a book is your first step to becoming limitless..."
https://www.facebook.com/groups/LimitlessReading/
BEFORE YOU GO…
DON’T MISS OUT!
Would you like to be a part of our FREEBIE FRIDAY LIST and get 6 FREE eBooks and other exclusive sales sent to your inbox every Friday?
One email every week packed with bookish goodies!
We send out different genres such as Romance, Suspense, Thriller, Westerns, Paranormal, New Adult, and much more! If you’d like to join over 53,000+ subscribers, click below to be a part of FREEBIE FRIDAY…
Join FREEBIE FRIDAY!
Who doesn’t love a good eBook bargain?
Now, imagine receiving daily eBook sales straight to your inbox…Bookworm heaven!
Sign up for the BOOKSHARK NEWSLETTER and don’t miss out on epic eBook sales ever again!
BECOME A BOOKSHARK
King Of Flames (The Masks of Under Book 1) Page 20
