Bastard Stepbrother (Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)

by Faye, Amy

  He looked out the window at the morning that signaled his second week with The Lore Keepers. There was dew on the patch of grass that grew outside of his window. For some reason, it only grew outside of his window- the rest of the farm had gray grass, grass that seemed more dead than it should after such a warm winter.

  The sun would rise in mere moments, but he stared up at the black darkness outside. Cady was asleep on his bed, her chest rising and falling in time with her sweet, deep breaths. The night before, she had pleaded with him with her eyes, begging him to take her, but he couldn't. He couldn't use a girl who thought she was obligated to fuck him.

  His time with The Lore Keepers told him that no man there had a clean brain. There was something truly strange about the way they dug into that soil, the hole they were making in it. The ground would be softer in the morning. Dean wondered if they would continue digging their hole when it wasn't such an impossible task.

  There were only two options there: Either they were digging just to keep them occupied, of they had a purpose. Whatever that purpose may have been, Dean was sure he didn't know. He had never been handed a shovel or taken to the field.

  No, Dean's entire initiation had taken the form of speaking with Nicholas and The Priest, who he learned had once been more commonly called Jack Arkham. They were curious about monsters and demons, but there was nothing about their demeanor that suggested fear.

  It was Dean's general policy to avoid people who don't fear things that go bump in the night.

  Nicholas had, of course, told The Priest about his past with Olivia. The few things he knew, at least, and many of them were lies. Both promised not to tell another soul, and he was sure that The Priest had taken a liking to him because of it.

  Being given benefits because of who his wife was made him sick, but it might turn out that having Cady in the same room as him could be beneficial. He couldn't tell her what his plans were, especially considering that he did not currently have any. Even if he did, he had to be sure she was mentally sound, first. That she still wanted to leave.

  He saw how she had looked at The Priest. It was the same way most people looked at Olivia.

  There was that possessive anger again. He rolled his eyes and snorted at himself.

  Still, it had been a blessing that she didn't remember him. It meant that he could work on a plan without having to explain it to her at every step. Dean had become used to his antisocial life since Olivia, and explaining himself had always annoyed him.

  That she didn't remember also made Dean feel like the scum of the earth. He had taken her because he thought she had given permission while in a lucid state, but now there was no proof of that. It could have just been another trick, and he could have…

  No, he had to believe that he did the right thing. They would have both been killed, if not. Or he would have been killed, and she would have been kept as a sex slave for the rest of her life, controlled by Olivia and The Priest.

  It was just that he knew he could never make it right with her. She would hate him, if she ever found out.

  Maybe that was for the best. He could avoid her touch until they escaped, and then once they did she didn't belong to him, anyway. Edwin could kick his ass for having sex if it was necessary for their escape. But if Dean fell in love with his daughter, there could be a worse punishment that he no doubt would deserve.

  Turning away from the window, Dean took his pillow and threw it onto the ground. Morning would come soon, but his body still had some aches from sleeping in that damn tree.

  During his hour of sleep, he dreamed of smoke. White smoke that smelled of cloves. He was in a cave, and when he walked forward the smoke became thicker but he didn't cough.

  After a time, he found a man in resplendent white robes, his beard long and his face dark. The man seemed to be Middle Eastern, but Dean couldn't be sure in the dark and the smoke. His greedy, dark lips drank from a golden chalice, which he set down in the air. It floated.

  “You will take care of that girl. My girl. She is your last chance. Humanity only has her.” He took a drag from an onyx-black hookah and whooshed out smoke with a wheezing, sickly laugh.

  “I know you from somewhere,” Dean said, but the man was gone. All that was left was smoke and darkness, but through the darkness Dean could see a looming shadow. It was impossibly large, bulging, disgusting. The thing hummed.

  In the darkness, the man's voice came without body: “The Void draws closer. The stars tug at each other.” He paused. “Ahhhhh,” he groaned. “It is time for you to go.”

  He woke confused, by his surroundings and the vague memory of his dream. The sun was already high, and Cady was sitting on the bed, staring outside. Her red hair burned in the sunlight. He wished he could run his hands through it.

  He stood and dressed while she watched him, her eyes burning into his flesh. “Come on, let's go get the other women. I'll teach you lot about werewolves today, since they're fresh on my mind.”

  The women were hard to teach and easily distracted when a bird flew by or by books they picked randomly from the library shelves. The Priest had given him permission to use the library, since it held books Dean wanted to study.

  He only took 10 of the women, plus Cady. Taking the whole group would have made his work even more impossible. As he tried to impress upon them the need to use a silver blade instead of bullets, the women gasped at a rabbit that hopped by outside.

  When he was explaining to Delilah, an older woman with black hair and a constantly frowning face, that werewolf bites would not turn someone into a werewolf, the rest of the women were reading Jane Austen.

  Cady, especially, was distracted. She would stare off into space, her eyes blank and confused, and then she would look up at him and her confusion would deepen. He worried that she was trying to remember him.

  “Sir,” she said as he drew near the table she sat at. He had given up and decided to let the women read to give him a break.

  “I told you, you can call me Dean.” He smiled, hoping to relax her, but she was tense. She looked around the room as if trying to find an exit.

  “Dean. May I go and grab something from the women's cabin? I forgot something there.”

  He wondered if she was just trying to get away from him for a few moments, but neither possibility bothered him. She was in a stressful situation. Being described as a slave should have upset anyone, but she took it in apparent stride.

  There was something very strong about Cady.

  “Sure. Take your time, and if anyone gives you trouble, tell them I gave you permission to go on a walk.” He smiled down at her, and finally she relented with a twitch of her lips before she stood. She bowed before she left.

  After a time, she returned, and Dean finally got the women to focus on their lesson. The dinner bell was sounded, and the men shuffled into the dorms, telling Dean that their lessons were over and it was time to go.

  The men start to file into the library, staring at the women in surprise as they do so. While they walk out, Dean spots Nicholas. There was a dark look on his face, and he was glaring right at Dean.

  Once in their room, Cady stood still, fidgeting nervously. Dean watched her, concerned. “Is something wrong?”

  “Nicholas… I think he hates you, and I think there's something wrong with him. Every time he touches me, I feel… it's hard to explain. Blackness. Deep, deep blackness that wants to suck me in.”

  “Well, you're right that he hates me. Don't tell anyone else about how he makes you fell, though. Better to be safe and quiet. I'll deal with him.” He rubbed her shoulders, and she again relented with a tiny smile.

  “You're right. I should keep those worries quiet.” She went to the bed and laid down, facing the wall. She curled up into a little ball, but he could see she had a book with her. Had she smuggled it out? He smiled and shook his head. It was clear she had a rebellious spirit. Edwin would have his hands full if they ever got out.

  Dean went to the desk in his room
and took out his journal. It was still dirty from nights in the woods. He had to wait until his probation was over before he could sneak out to get it. In it, he wrote some notes that he had gleaned from some of the library books he looked over. There were many in that room that he had never seen before, and there was no telling what secrets they might hold.

  Chapter 7

  Cady

  Her master refused to respond to her touches or advances, which suited her just fine. After a night and day of attempting to seduce him, as she was expected to do, she gave up and spent the day reading in bed.

  Dean either hadn't noticed the book or didn't care, but she tried to hide it from him anyway. For his part, he spent much of his time with The Priest or with his nose in the books, writing in an old book of his own. She was curious about what was inside, but he kept it with him at all times.

  Cady read through her stolen book slowly, reading and rereading the words until she felt she fully understood them. She wanted to absorb all of the information within, although there was little about the creature from her dream.

  She had found a drawing of the man in tattered clothes, though, when she was flipping through the pages. Having not yet reached that spot in the book, she forced herself to wait to read about him. He scared her, and she didn't want to find out he was some sort of dream demon that might steal her soul. She just folded the corner over, as she had done with any other page that interested her.

  The book was a sort of essay on strange beings, written hundreds of years before she was born. She wasn't sure if she believed most of it, though she did believe in The Great Race of Yith. She just didn't know what they meant, who they were. Why they seemed so familiar to her.

  Some of the pages told of strange rituals that might call some of those beings, though only at specific times. Planets, stars, or whole solar systems had to be in just the right position for the creatures to be called.

  The pages before those that described the man in tatters had just such a ritual. It was said to summon The Black Pharaoh from his slumber. It gave no other name, the book simply called the being The Black Pharaoh. She wondered at that. Was this simply a book of spells from Egypt?

  She looked up at Dean, but he was still buried in a pile of books, grumbling or laughing at what he was reading.

  He was handsome, she had to admit. Of all the men she could have been given to, it could certainly have been much worse. She just wished he would use her. Touch her. Sticking out her bottom lip for a momentary pout, she went back to her book.

  Then she saw what sacrifice was required to call The Black Pharaoh, and her hands began to tremble. It was too much, too much to ask of anyone. 40 women, pregnant. 40 women and their children had to die.

  Below the details of how they needed to be killed, there was a table. As with the other rituals, this one needed to be performed on specific dates. Because the book was so old, none of the dates went up to the present day.

  When the stars align and our planet aligns with the dog star, 40 women with child should be taken deep below the earth and sacrificed to The Black Pharaoh. Through their blood in the dark rock, he will gain life once again.

  This ritual can only be performed in the winter during the following years: 1400, 1456, 1512, 1568 (which is the preferred year, as a comet will also pass by that will invigorate The Black Pharaoh), 1624, 1680.

  She looked over the years, noticing the pattern. They were all 56 years apart, and doing the math, she realized what should have been obvious.

  Of course it was 2016. What other year could it have been? There could be no way that fate would have allowed her to escape such an awful fate. Hopeless. She felt completely hopeless.

  Dean chuckled at something he read, shaking his head at some folly or mistake of an author. Cady didn't know if she should tell him. He could help her. He was strange enough, considering he wouldn't touch her. Maybe he wanted to leave.

  Or maybe he simply cared more about learning than women, and would prefer to stay.

  There had to be a way out. She looked around the room. If she went out the door, she would be faced with a group of men playing cards in the hallway. The window, however, was open. Dean, now asleep at his desk, hated how warm the dorms became at night. Cady found it odd, too. The cabin was often frigid.

  Sure that he was snoring, Cady lifted her leg over the ledge of the window and dropped into the wet grass outside. She breathed in the air outside, but it no longer smelled of freedom. It had the scent of doubt and paranoia.

  It was dark, but not so dark that the men were asleep. If even one of them saw her outside, she would be dead within hours. She had to be careful, crouched on the ground and moving unbearably slow as she listened for any sound outside.

  On the end of the dorms, by the library's window, she saw an orange glow a few yards away. It looked like it was coming from The Priest's office. Curiosity broke down her will, and instead of making a break for the trees, she crept on her hands and knees to the building.

  She felt The Priest's presence when her pulse sped up. Gulping, she moved to a corner and saw The Priest standing around a large fire with his sons. Nicholas was there, his back to her.

  “Is the digging complete?” The Priest asked, looking to one of the sons that worked in the office with him.

  “Yes. The walls...”

  The Priest held up his hand. “Don't speak of them. And Nicholas, are the women prepared?”

  “Most, yes. A few have yet to be tested, and we are sure that one is without.”

  “Finish the job. We don't need it confirmed, as long as you're sure. All that matters is that they're all ready. If we are to bring The Black Pharaoh, they all need to be prepared.”

  “But don't we have more than enough women? The one that we haven't gotten to, she's… special to me. I'd like to keep her.”

  “I know of the girl who caught your eyes. She isn't yours anymore, Nicholas. Let her go. The Goddess herself said that she, in particular, needed to be ready. So do your job.”

  Nicholas sighed, and kicked the dirt. The Priest's voice softened. “You know The Goddess said she was special.”

  “But how? How is she special?”

  “We won't know until She is back from Japan. She needed a few ingredients for the rituals, some pieces of old Japanese monsters.”

  So the book had been right. She had been right. They really were planning to kill all the women.

  But Cady didn't think she was pregnant. It had been weeks since she last had sex, and she should have been seeing signs if she was. Unless it was meant to be a supernatural pregnancy?

  And had Nicholas been attempting to save her? She had been so sure he was evil, but he was trying to keep her alive. Could he be saved, as well?

  She knew one thing: she couldn't leave and let all of those women die. She had to stop the ritual, stop them from bringing something evil into the world. It was up to her.

  She had to be the hero, and that scared the hell out of her.

  Dean

  How exactly was Dean meant to plan an escape with so much of his time spent with other people?

  If it wasn't The Priest obsessively pouring over his every word, it was the women ignoring him and only barely absorbing the information he gave them. It seemed that every day, they were becoming more disobedient and less capable of reasoning and discipline.

  If he were younger, more of a fireball, he would have blown up at one of them. Somehow, though, he kept he patience. Bided his time. There was no choice, if he was going to get Cady out.

  Another woman had announced her pregnancy that afternoon. That was the third one in as many days, and every other woman squealed in excitement. Well, all except for Cady, who seemed as if she might cry. He would have to ask her what had her so upset about pregnancies, which must have been common when they were being used so often.

  Thinking about children made him wonder where The Lore Keeper kept theirs. He hadn't seen or heard even one since he had arrived. He sat next to C
ady while the others were holding an impromptu book club on the far side of the library.

  “Can I ask you a question?” He tried to keep his voice curious, but not forceful. She rarely entertained conversations with him. It was a tragedy, because he voice was like honey to him.

  She shrugged and continued reading through a book on common demons written by a 12th century Catholic priest.

  “Where are the children?”

  “Oh,”she said, looking up finally. “I'm actually not sure. They're kept on the other side of the farm, far away from us except for when we teach them.”

  “I see. But have you seen them lately?”

  “No, but maybe one of the others have.”

  Dean looked at the other women, but asking them anything serious was out of the question. They would just flirt with him or ignore him.

  Deciding that the day was a wash, Dean sat next to Cady and looked out the window. The few spare moments he had were spent trying to figure out what the security looked like. From what he could tell, the large birds circling overhead were a sort of alarm system. One swooped at him when he went to pick up his journal from the woods, and he felt the magic in it.

  They were black, though their feathers could look purple in the sun. Similar to crows or ravens, but almost as large as an eagle. Getting into a fight with one would be extremely dangerous, and best avoided.

  With those things overhead, escape would be nearly impossible. In a perfect world, he would help more than just Cady escape, but even that was looking grim.

  When the men took over the library, Dean turned to Cady. “I'm going to take a walk. I'll meet you back in the room soon. Don't wander, okay?”

  She nodded and left him. He watched her hips sway with each step, enjoying every curve down to her thin ankles.

  The outside air was somehow even warmer. If they didn't get a deep freeze and some snow, the bugs would be hell in the summer. Not his problem, he supposed. He would be long gone by then, taking care of his ski lodge and trying to forget the beautiful, slender face of Edwin's daughter.