Hollow: Isa Fae paranormal romance (Fallen Sorcery Book 2)

by Steffanie Holmes

  Anger bubbled up inside of him. Listen to me, you stupid house. I made a mistake, but I want to fix it. I have to protect her. I’m protecting you, too. Just let me outside and Aisling will be safe.

  As if in response, a great fork of lightning crackled across the sky, lighting up the windows like an air raid. The house groaned, but the door didn’t budge.

  Niall slammed his fist into the frosted glass beside the door. Pain arced up his other arm, but the glass didn’t even crack. It was as if he’d just punched a brick wall.

  Niall sank to his knees, clutching his aching fist. For the first time since his father had died, tears prickled the corners of his eyes, as he thought of what he’d done.

  Aisling was his dream girl, and he’d all but handed her over to the fae.

  15

  Aisling

  Aisling woke up the next morning to gray light pouring in her window. Lightning crackled against the side of the house, shaking the wall. Aisling yawned, and stretched. She couldn’t keep the smile off her face.

  She threw her arm across the bed, expecting to feel Niall’s warm skin and hard muscles. But all she grabbed were cold sheets. “Niall?” She sat up, casting her eyes around the room. He wasn’t there.

  Did I dream yesterday?

  All the memories of what they had done together flooded back to her. The picnic, the room with the forest, the mind-blowing sex, the hours of talking and laughing and entangling themselves between the sheets. She couldn’t have dreamed it all, could she?

  But then, where is Niall?

  Aisling glanced around the room, more carefully this time. On the table next to the bed, she noticed a small tray containing her breakfast – a cup of tea and a small bowl of porridge. She dipped her finger into the porridge – it was ice cold. So was the tea. Niall usually woke her up for breakfast. It looked as though he’d just dumped the tray and left again.

  What’s going on?

  Aisling pulled on jeans and a t-shirt, and padded along the corridor. “Niall?” she called, poking her head into the kitchen. “Where are you?”

  There was no answer from among the filthy pots and pans. He wasn’t in the greenhouse, either, or the billiard room.

  She found him in the library, curled up in the second chintz chair, his head buried in a thick volume on magic. He didn’t look up when she entered.

  “There you are,” she exclaimed. “I was wondering where you got to. I thought I’d come down and put the forest on the map—”

  Niall’s head snapped back, and his face tightened when he saw her. Aisling’s heart pounded. Is something wrong with him? Why is he looking at me like that?

  “I came here to read,” he growled. “If that’s okay with you?”

  “Of course it is. This is your house as much as it is mine, now. You don’t need my permission to read in here.”

  “That’s right, I don’t.”

  Aisling’s body stiffened. What happened to the Niall from yesterday? The sweet boy who had made her feel so amazing? His whole body dripped with hostility, his icy eyes glaring at her with such hatred. Tears stung at the corners of her eyes, but she forced them back. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d gotten to her.

  “Fine.” She backed toward the doorway. “I … I … I won’t disturb you any longer. Thank you for breakfast.”

  Niall leaned forward. Aisling froze, thinking he was going to embrace her. Instead, Niall snatched the phone receiver from the desk. “Why do you still have this?” he snapped, waving the mouthpiece in her face.

  Why was he asking about the phone now? That phone had sat on the desk every day since she could remember. He must’ve seen it a hundred times, but now he was acting as though she’d deliberately placed it there to antagonize him. “Grandmother June used to have all sorts of friends and social engagements. When our family came to visit her, I used to sit in the corner here and listen to her cackling away as she spread neighborhood gossip or exchanged recipes. I keep it here because it reminds me of her.”

  Niall’s eyes narrowed. He gripped the receiver against his chest. “You’re talking about back in the human world, before the war, before the fae opened the void.”

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.” Niall said, his tone accusatory.

  “Why not?” Anger bubbled through Aisling’s veins, replacing the despair she’d felt when finding him in this foul mood. How dare he talk to her like this, in her library.

  “Because the nuclear war wiped out all life on Earth fifty-one years ago.”

  What? What is he talking about?

  “No, it didn’t. It was fifteen years ago. I remember it distinctly, because we’d come to Grandmother’s to escape the city—”

  Niall shook his head. “That can’t be. You can’t remember it. You’ve been inside this house for my entire life. The Hollow has been sitting on this hill overlooking the city for fifty-one years.”

  “Are you saying I’m lying?”

  “I’m saying that what you’re telling me can’t possibly be true.”

  “Then that makes two of us.” She glared back. “I’ve been in this house since I was five years old. That’s the truth. You’re a fae, so you’re the one who’s lying.”

  Niall slammed his book shut and threw it at the wall. Aisling flinched as it bounced off the shelves and clattered to the floor, the pages splaying open. “How come you’ve never tried to get out of this house?” he demanded, his hands balled in fists as he approached her. “How come you’ve never looked at ways to harness the magic buried in these walls to make your own escape?”

  “I don’t know how. It takes a whole coven – at least three witches working magic together – to pull off a spell like that. All the words in all these books can’t make me into that kind of witch. I haven’t had the practical experience.” She narrowed her eyes. “You can blame your people for that.”

  Niall jabbed a finger at the book. “It’s all right here, Aisling. All of it. You could have siphoned off atern from the house, used that power to cast any kind of spell you want. You could have blown up the entire city, got rid of the lot of us. So why didn’t you? Why didn’t you use the power you had, while you had the chance?”

  “Why are you being so horrible?” she sobbed.

  “I’m a fae. Maybe that’s just what I am!” Niall screamed. His voice bounced across the high-ceilinged room. Before Aisling could ask him anything more, he’d turned on his heel and stormed from the room, slamming the library door with such force the house groaned in protest.

  16

  Niall

  There was nowhere to run in the house, nowhere Niall could go to escape the guilt that gnawed inside him for the horrible things he’d said, and the even worse things he’d done.

  He ran anyway, up the stairs, past the doors that led to the opulent bedroom suites and the ladies drawing room. Past the gilded portraits of Aisling’s ancestors, who frowned at him from their lofty heights. You’re an intruder in our house, they seemed to be saying to him. You shouldn’t be here.

  He headed for the room where the forest had been. Perfect, I’ll escape into the woods, and Aisling will never find me. But when he yanked open the door, all he saw was an ordinary bathroom, with a marble sink and pale pink towels hanging over the bath.

  The Hollow had a sick sense of humor.

  Niall flung open the door at the end of the hall, and ducked inside, slamming it shut behind him. He found himself in the largest bedroom in the house, containing not just an enormous four-poster bed, but a sitting room decorated in plush velvet. He remembered this room, as it was where he’d taken the cushions he’d used to make Aisling’s picnic. Was that only yesterday? It felt like a century ago, when he believed it was possible to be happy.

  A long crack ran along the wall behind the velvet chaise lounge. Niall stood in front of it, and stared into the blackness. Inky tendrils of smoke curled out from the edges, and he stepped back before one of them cou
ld graze his skin. The familiar, singsong voice called to him through the crack.

  Niall, come to me, Niall.

  “Go away.” Niall threw himself down on the bed, his eyes finding more black cracks on the ceiling, a spiderweb of darkness ensnaring the entire room. Aisling had been right when she said that these second story rooms would be the next to be taken. No wonder they slept in the servant’s quarters, ceiling rain and all.

  He didn’t understand this feeling that clenched his stomach. By all rights, he should have been ecstatic. The note he’d sent Odiana would save his brother, not to mention the whole of Scitis. When they extracted the atern from the house, overnight they would become the most powerful faction in all of the fae realm. His family’s status would be restored, and he would have his pick of officer commissions.

  But all Niall wanted to do was take the letter back, to find a way to make it right with Aisling, and stop the fae from getting inside the Hollow and destroying everything she’d given her life to protect. But there was no way for him to fix it, and so he was trapped here, trapped with his guilt.

  When she’d found him in the library, all that guilt had coalesced inside him, and he longed to tell her everything, to spill his awful secrets and be rid of them. But he couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come. What had come was rage. He’d watched the tears roll down Aisling’s cheeks and hated himself, but not enough to admit what he’d done.

  He thought she’d made him a better person. He was wrong.

  And then there was what Aisling said, about coming to the house as a child. Despite what he’d yelled at her in the library, he didn’t think she was lying. So what did that mean? How could AIsling have spent only fifteen years in the house, when the house had been on the edge of Scitis for fifty-one years?

  “Meerrrw?” Two black paws landed on his chest, and a wet nose butted his chin. Niall’s hands reached instinctively for that cat, and he stroked Widdershins’ fur with the ferocity the cat loved. Widdershins dug his claws into Niall’s shoulder and started kneading, his rumbling purr shuddering through his tiny cat body.

  As Niall scratched Widdershins under his chin, a thought occurred to him. Something Aisling had said to him the first day he was here, “… he doesn’t seem to age …”

  If Aisling’s timeline was correct, Widdershins had to be at least twenty years old, which made him one seriously ancient cat. He should have been loping around and sleeping on all the good furniture, not chasing strings of yarn across the grand entrance.

  Widdershins disappeared for days at a time. Sometimes he came back with objects that couldn’t possibly be in the house. Often, his fur was covered in wheat stalks. And he was far too healthy to be that old, especially since he hadn’t had a vet visit in more than a decade …

  Niall sat up, staring into the crack again. The void was devouring the house, piece by piece. It was altering the spaces, creating rooms where there had never been rooms before, moving the bathroom around, making storage closets the size of football fields. If it could alter all that, could it not also alter time?

  Niall tapped the clock on his wristband, watching the second hand swing wildly back and forth.

  Was time passing inside the house in a different way? It sounded impossible, and yet … it would explain why time had passed slower inside the house than it did in Scitis. That way, the house would keep Aisling alive for longer, as its guardian.

  That had to be the answer. It was the only explanation he could think of that explained everything. Odiana would be proud of his deduction.

  Niall threw himself out of the bed. Wait until I tell Aisling. She won’t believe—

  He was halfway to the door before he remembered. He couldn’t tell Aisling, because currently, she wasn’t talking to him. And he couldn’t blame her. He’d been cruel. He’d never been cruel to her before. When he was around her, that side of his personality – the side that was pure fae – faded into nothing.

  Until he’d messed it all up. Because as much as he loved her, really loved her, he couldn’t tell her the truth. He couldn’t bear to learn what she’d think of him if she learned what he’d done.

  “There’s nothing else for it.” Niall scooped up Widdershins and headed for the hall. “You and I are going to have to figure this out on our own.”

  17

  Aisling

  Niall didn’t come down for dinner that night.

  Aisling could hear his footsteps pacing back and forth across the whole upper story. Sometimes he ran, other times he slowed his pace, or stood still for long periods. Occasionally, she heard a door slam, or Widdershins meerrrw. Were they playing together up there? Usually it delighted her to see how Niall treated her feline companion. But tonight, anger boiled in her veins.

  Why should he monopolize my cat? He doesn’t care. He’s a rotten liar.

  If she were a braver person, she would have gone up there and yelled at him. But after all the things he said in the library, Aisling was too afraid to face him. She couldn’t bear to see his face twisted with rage like that; rage directed at her.

  Aisling ate alone, hunched over a book in the corner of the library. She left Niall’s plate of roasted vegetables and gravy on the first landing of the grand staircase, secretly hoping Widdershins would find it first and gobble it all up. It would serve Niall right.

  She turned the page in her book, the words barely registering. Outside, the lightning crackled against the side of the house, causing the walls to shake briefly, and the candle beside her to flicker. Aisling set down the book, and peered out the window, into the tempest that raged in what had once been the back garden.

  The storm had been getting worse lately, the lightning strikes larger and more frequent. The waves crashing from the edge of the void sent showers beating against the side of the house. Darkness raged in the heart of the storm, a great black eye that had grown larger and closer and more menacing. And what was really odd was that she could no longer see the university spire glowing on the skyline. It was as if all the lights of the university had been put out.

  Aisling squinted into the storm. There was something else out there, too. At the edge of the garden wall, she noticed a couple of shadows moving. She squinted harder into the storm. Two fae paced along the wall, dressed in the same green shirts and trousers Niall wore. They carried their bows in their hands, and a quiver of arrows each across their backs.

  I wonder what they’re doing here? Are they looking for Niall?

  Maybe they have something to do with that weapon Niall talked about. Aisling’s stomach twisted. If he was even telling the truth about that. But I don’t see them carrying anything?

  The clouds swirled and shifted, converging in a way that felt almost deliberate. Aisling leaned forward in the chair, peering deep into the gray cloud. What is that? She touched the glass window, tracing the design with her finger. That cloud looks like a woman’s face …

  The phone on the desk started to ring.

  Aisling whirled around, the fae outside instantly forgotten. She stared at the red phone, her heart pounding against her chest. It will stop in a second.

  But it kept on ringing and ringing, the shrill sound reverberating through the lofty room. Aisling set down her book and crept toward the desk, her throat closing with fear. She reached out and grabbed the cord from the phone and traced it back, until a small plug fell into her fingers.

  It was as she thought. The phone wasn’t even plugged in.

  Nevertheless, it kept ringing, the red receiver jingling on its perch. Aisling’s heart raced.

  She reached forward, squeezing her eyes shut, and wrapped her hands around the receiver. It thrummed between her fingers, warm to the touch. Slowly, sucking in her breath, Aisling raised the receiver to her ear.

  “H-h-hello?”

  “Aisling—” a voice rasped in her ear. Aisling screamed, and threw the phone on the floor.

  “Aisling … Aisling …” the voice called up at her, muffled by the thick carpet.

>   She reached forward and, with a shaking hand, lifted the receiver from the rug, holding it well away from her face. “Who is this? H-h-how do you know my name?”

  “The fire is coming,” the voice said. “The Hollow will burn.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “The Hollow will burn, but don’t be afraid. I will protect you, Aisling. I will protect you until the last.”

  “Tell me who this is!” Aisling screamed into the receiver.

  The phone made a clicking noise, then went silent.

  Aisling slammed down the receiver, and fell back in her chair. She couldn’t stop shaking. Her fear rose in her chest and bubbled out of her as great, heaving sobs.

  18

  Niall

  That night, he dreamed of Aisling again.

  In his dream, he stood at the window of the library, gazing out into the ruined garden beyond. AIsling stood on the lawn, ten feet from the window, her face downcast as she picked dried, rotten branches from what had once been a rosebush. The thorns pricked at her hands and fingers, so that her pale skin was streaked with blood.

  Right behind her, standing near the garden wall, was the hooded shadow.

  Niall banged on the window, calling her name over and over. But as loud as he called to her and as much as he tried to get her attention, he could not make her lift her head to see him.

  Panic rose in his chest. If she was outside, then how would she get back in? Did this mean she’d found a way out without him? Was he destined to live out his days in the Hollow alone? If the shadow attacked her, he couldn’t stop it.

  Niall spun around, searching the library for something he could use to reach her. He grabbed the old red telephone on the desk, and hurled it against the window. The glass broke, cracks cascading across the surface like spiderwebs. But instead of being clear, these cracks were black; dark, threatening black. The void.