by Bella Klaus
Abducted
Bella Klaus
Copyright © 2021 by Bella Klaus.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.
www.BellaKlaus.com
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Also by Bella Klaus
Chapter One
Things I must do before I die:
One, lose my virginity.
Two—
A pomegranate branch whacked me upside the head. The trowel I was holding slipped from my fingers and clattered onto the greenhouse’s floor.
I whirled around and shot the tree a filthy glower. Punica granatum rustled her glossy little leaves as though I was the one who had caused her the offense. The tree stood seven feet tall—only halfway to the glass roof—but in the ten years since I’d grown her from a seed, she had never once produced so much as a blossom, let alone a fruit.
“What?” I asked, trying not to sound snippy. “You think a woman who’s never left the mansion doesn’t have a chance of finding love?”
The judgmental pomegranate tree raised her branches in a planty shrug.
My nostrils flared, and my brow broke out in sweat. I wiped it off with the back of my hand, loosening a strawberry-blonde curl that boinged across my face. I shook the soil off my hands, tucked the strand behind my ear, and straightened my linen pinafore.
“Today’s the first day of spring, and I haven’t fallen sick since the end of last summer,” I told the tree and the other shrubs gathered around her. “Maybe I’m cured.”
Punica didn’t respond. Maybe because she knew I was right.
Sunlight streamed through the overhead windows, filling me with a burst of energy I hadn’t felt since Autumn. I tilted my head up to the roof and basked under a sky as bright as cornflower petals. This spring would be different. I could feel it in my bones, my veins, my very core. This year, I would finally bloom.
Punica lowered her branches in apology.
“No offense taken.” I gave her a gentle pat on the trunk, offering her my warmest smile. “You’re going to live centuries, and you have all the time in the world to fruit. It’s different for me.”
The tree sagged, as did a few of the others surrounding her. Ficus, the fig tree, extended a branch, her large leaves running over the bare skin of my arms in a caress.
“Sorry for being morbid,” I murmured to my plants.
Their collective sighs filled the space with a burst of oxygen. I’d told them a hundred times that I wasn’t going to be around forever. Women with corporality sickness didn’t have long lifespans. It was one of the worst diseases imaginable. The body would become so shriveled and weak that it couldn’t support its own weight, and my bones would ache and shrink until the pain consumed my soul.
Living under the threat of death meant that every moment was precious, even if Mother never allowed me to leave the confines of our home. My entire life consisted of lessons and potions and gardening, and the only reproduction I got to participate in was in the procreation of plants.
I didn’t even have magic of my own. Mother’s regular infusions of power were the only thing that allowed me to work with plants. I would probably have died before I’d reached twenty without her help.
As I bent to pick up the trowel I’d dropped, a kiwi vine curled around my wrist, its smooth tendrils twining with my index finger.
“Thank you,” I murmured with a sigh of my own.
The doorbell rang, the sound shaking the flagstones and making the vine draw back with a snap. My heart made a double-backflip before landing in its resting place with a thud.
We had a visitor.
Dropping the trowel once more, I rushed around the trees and alongside the bed of raspberry stalks to the exit. A cool breeze swept in from the doors and windows I’d left open for ventilation, making my heart soar. Mother couldn’t lock me away this time. Maybe I would get to say hello to this newcomer.
Our greenhouse was on the side of the house, less than a minute’s jog from the front door. If I ran fast enough, I might get to the front of the house before she even noticed.
The air thickened with every step as her magic activated some kind of ward, but I clenched my teeth and powered through. Four more steps, and I would pass the threshold. Four more steps, and I could run around the house and see who was at the gate.
With a blast of magic, the ward solidified and shoved me backward. I fell onto my ass and slammed my fist against the invisible wall.
“Mother,” I snarled. “You can’t keep me locked up forever!”
“Meow?” asked a little voice from the other side of the greenhouse.
I scrambled around on my hands and knees. “Dami?”
The most beautiful cat in the world emerged from behind the fig tree, staring at me through eyes as green as Omani limes. Dami had the pelt of a tiger but the body and face of a domestic cat. On the rare occasion I could scam our butler into looking up things for me on the internet, he told me the humans called this particular breed a toyger. But she was more than just an exotic cat.
I didn’t fully understand where she’d come from or how she managed to burrow through the wards, but Dami had become my best friend, my confidant, and the person who would break me out of my prison.
The cat glanced from side to side, her pink nose bobbing up and down for signs of Mother. Mother would skin Dami alive and use her fur as oven mitts if she knew I was consorting with a cat.
“She has a visitor.” I beckoned her close. “You can shift.”
The cat trotted toward me, her body uncurling, expanding, and lengthening into a girl who barely reached five feet, with acorn-brown skin and short tiger-striped hair. She was tiny compared to me, with doll-like features and limbs as thin as saplings, looking like she might shatter if I mishandled her.
Biting down on my bottom lip, I tried to tamp down my excitement, but it burst from my chest like the first shoots of spring. Nobody could ever understand what it was like to finally have a living, breathing, speaking friend when all I’d had before were plants.
I scooped her into a hug and swung her in a circle. “Tell me everything you’ve seen and done in the outside world.”
“Maybe if you’d stop crushing me I could tell you,” she said into my chest.
“Whoops.” I placed her on the ground and tucked my hands beneath my arms. “Sorry.”
Even though Dami fit into the clothes I’d worn at the age of twelve, she assured me she was a full-grown woman. She didn’t know her exact age, but she couldn’t be any older than me.
Nothing about our physical appearances were alike. I stood five-ten with skin as pale as vanilla flowers, while her skin was a deep shade of summer. Dami could barely fill my old training bra, while I was a 34DD with what Dami called a big booty. We might have been opposites but our personalities melded together.
I tilted my head to the side, wondering if her small stature was related to being a cat. Mother was six-two wi
th broad shoulders and an athletic build. Our butler was as tall as a Douglas Fir. Until I met Dami, I thought I was stunted.
She pulled back her thin shoulders and rocked forward on the balls of her feet. “Who’s at the door?”
“Someone dangerous?” I raised a shoulder.
She huffed a laugh. “You don’t still believe your mother’s bullshit about the outside world?”
I shook my head and smiled. “I always knew she was exaggerating.”
“By the way, I left a little present under your pillow.” The cat-shifter jogged toward the open door, looking like she was going to dart out through the exit.
Alarm shot through my heart. I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her close. “Mother just erected a ward around the greenhouse. If you touch it, she’ll know there’s an intruder.”
Dami turned to me with a mischievous smile that made the corners of her eyes crinkle. “Then we’ll just have to burrow.”
I stepped back, my brow furrowing. It was one thing for a domestic cat to travel beneath a warded property. According to Matura’s Compendium of Magick, most wardsmiths allowed for the movement of animals like moles and foxes. Besides, Dami’s cleopatra stone collar and the tiger stripe tattoos down her back disguised her magic.
“What’s the worst that will happen if your mum catches you trying to leave the greenhouse?” she asked.
A shudder ran down my spine. “She could keep me in my room for a month like she did that time I touched the gate.”
“Then consider today a practice run.” Dami wrapped her smaller hand around mine and walked toward the back of the greenhouse. “Come on.”
I glanced at the row of dwarf apple and pear trees, who leaned into each other, seeming to chatter among themselves. The raspberry canes on the other side stiffened in disapproval. Ignoring them, I continued toward the center of the greenhouse with my best friend.
Dami stopped at the fig tree and placed her fingers in a knot on its trunk.
“What are you doing to Ficus carica?” I whispered.
The knothole expanded into a fifteen-inch-wide doorway that took up half the tree’s circumference. Dami flashed me a grin before stepping inside.
I placed a hand over my mouth. “Why didn’t you tell me about this secret entrance before?”
She turned back from the trunk’s interior to face me. “Remember that plant food I gave you to help it to produce figs?”
My teeth worried at my bottom lip. “You lied?”
“It contained a drop of phoenix tears to help grant your deepest wish.” She reached out from the hole and tugged me closer. “Turns out you wanted freedom more than you wanted your trees to fruit.”
Dami dropped down with a whoop. I stuck my head into the knothole and stared down at my best friend. The pit below her was over a story deep and shrouded in darkness. She tilted her head up, reflecting the light, and cupped her hands around her mouth.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked.
“Alright.” I climbed inside, my left foot landing on a knotty ledge, followed by my right.
This couldn’t be as bad as the time I fractured my ankle climbing the fence or the time I broke my arm trying to descend the ivy. Could it? My throat spasmed. This was just like the shows on Netflix. Now I knew what it was like to be Alice about to jump into the rabbit hole. Or Neo from the Matrix.
With a deep, shaky breath, I launched myself off the ledge. My stomach lurched as I fell, but I landed on both feet.
Dami clapped me on the shoulder. “Agile as a cat. Let’s go.”
We jogged in single file through a narrow tunnel. Dami took the lead because of her excellent night vision, and I held on to her shoulder so I wouldn’t trample her into the ground. My pulse quickened. If I could travel beneath Mother’s wards, then I could leave the mansion. If I could leave the mansion, I might just get a chance to fall in love before my life expired.
“I still don’t understand how this works,” I said.
“Your fig tree’s roots extend beyond the walls of your home,” she replied. “When we met at Samhain, they created a burrow in the ground barely large enough for my feline form.”
I gaped at my best friend, marveling at the way her teeth and eyes shone in the dim light like the Cheshire Cat. “That’s why you brought me plant food for Yule?”
“I thought it would make your trees blossom, but the tunnels had doubled in size by Imbolc. Hold on, we’re about to resurface.”
The ground rose at a sharp incline, but we had to climb a network of tangled roots to reach a pinprick of light shining overhead. We emerged from the weeping willow closest to the koi pond and darted across the lawn toward the mansion’s raised patio. Our butler, Pirithous, had already set the twelve-seater dining table for two, but there was no sign of the butler.
At this time of the morning, the sun’s rays lit the blades of grass a shamrock green and reflected off the ivy with leaves shaped like throwing stars. The camellia bushes around the mansion’s perimeter were still in full bloom, their flowers ranging from deep fuchsia to the palest pink.
Running through the garden without Mother’s express permission was the closest thing I’d felt to freedom, even though we were still in the confines of the mansion’s wards. My heart skipped. Why were we wasting time, using this opportunity to spy on the visitor, when I could be exploring the streets of London?
I grabbed Dami’s arm. “Why don’t we go outside?”
She shook her head. “The roots are too narrow to fit a person your size, but they should expand to the right circumference in four or five weeks.”
“Then we’ll leave?” I asked.
“We can go anywhere you like.”
Nodding, I continued around toward the side of the mansion, inhaling the warm breeze. It carried the woodsy scent of cypress, freshly picked mint, and something… dangerous. Fiery. And dark.
As we reached the corner, I slowed my steps and peered out into the courtyard, where a black limousine awaited. Its driver stood by the car, dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and black pencil skirt. It was hard to see her face beneath the brim of her cap, but she adjusted her black leather gloves as though readying herself for a fight.
I braced my shoulder against the wall and turned my gaze to the front steps. Mother stood at the edge of the grand portico, looking tiny compared to the two-story columns that held up the structure’s triangular roof. She rested her balled fists on her hips, trying to tower over a man standing at the top of the steps.
His relaxed posture said he didn’t find her the least bit threatening, and the way he tilted his head toward a point over Mother’s shoulder said that Pirithous was standing at the doorway, out of my line of sight.
Dami positioned her smaller body in front of mine and peered around the corner. She didn’t care about things like wandering about naked. Besides, if she got caught, she could transform back into a cat.
“Who is he?” she asked.
“Don’t know.” I could barely see the man Mother was trying to menace. “One of them needs to step back so we can get a better look.”
As if the phoenix tears from Dami’s plant food had soaked through my skin and granted me my wish, the man descended the step.
Seeing his profile was like being kicked in the gut.
His features called to me from thirty feet away: the strong brow, dark eyes, a perfectly straight nose. His full lips were twisted into a snarl that accentuated his high cheekbones. My hands twitched to run my fingers through his mahogany strands and over the contours of his high cheekbones. His skin was golden, bordering on olive, and everything about him made my insides clench.
The man was taller than Mother, but he was broader, darker, and wearing a black suit that was tailored to his athletic frame. Unlike the double-breasted jacket Pirithous wore, he wore his unbuttoned, with his shirt opened to reveal a muscular chest.
My breaths turned shallow. Who on earth was he? How did Mother know him, and why would she be so aggr
essive in the face of such beauty?
“Please let him be my new tutor,” I whispered.
“There’s no chance of that,” Dami whispered back. “Your mum looks like she’s about to commit murder.”
“Maybe they’re negotiating his salary.”
Dami huffed a laugh.
I placed a hand over my mouth to hold back a chuckle. “A lady can live in hope.”
“He could teach me a thing or two,” she muttered under her breath. “Meow!”
“Shhh! They’re talking.”
“I don’t know how you tracked me down,” Mother barked. “But if you don’t get off my doorstep this instant, I’ll release the winged serpents.”
The man spread his arms wide. “Why the animosity?” he said in a deep, rumbling voice. “I merely wish to discuss—”
“Get out of my sight.” Mother reached into her belt and withdrew a golden short sword, her blonde curls shaking with the force of her movements.
The man stared down at the blade and exhaled a long sigh. “Must you be so melodramatic?”
I nodded. Mother had a way of exaggerating everything, and her punishments were never predictable.
“On guard.” She sliced through the palm of her hand and aimed the bloody point of her sword at his throat, making him freeze.
The limo driver charged up the stairs, a flaming longsword appearing in her right hand.
A scream caught in the back of my throat. The man’s head whipped to the side, and our gazes locked. Something flared in his eyes. I couldn’t tell if it was fire or if he had eyes like Dami’s that reflected the light, but seeing those glowing irises was like a bolt of lightning through the heart.
Every ounce of moisture evaporated from my throat. My pulse pounded between my ears, and my feet drifted toward the stranger. Before I could emerge from around the corner, Dami grabbed my wrist and yanked me around the side of the house.
