Life Bound: The Shadow World Book 1

by Aubrey Winters

  Reluctantly, I put my card away and followed Kol to the stairs as he hummed a tune I didn’t know.

  The stairs creaked and complained the way one only does in a budget motel. We reached the second floor to reveal a hallway lit dimly by cheap bulbs. A pit grew in my stomach, and I almost wished I had let him talk me into a hotel—or even a nicer motel. Was this my foreseeable future? Hallways lined with peeling wallpaper and stained carpets?

  I gripped the straps of my bag tighter, hoping it would stave off the sudden wooziness that developed at the thought of my imminent future.

  “I guess I’ll see you in the morning.” I took my card from him and slid the plastic into the little blinking square on the door with anxious anticipation. The lock beeped and flashed a green light. Pushing it open felt like I’d just unlocked the door to a wall of dread. Fumbling against the wall until I hit the switch, the swath of light that flickered on did no justice to the room.

  It was exactly as I’d imagined. A small bathroom was situated to my left. The carpets were clean, but worn. As were the beige-white sheets that covered the single bed in the middle of the room. I didn’t want to know if the sheets had started out white. The air was musky in the way that only happened if a space had been unoccupied for a while.

  Tears sprang up to my eyes as I realized motels like this were what awaited me on this journey to find Nana. The physical discomforts of this motel didn’t bother me—rather, it was what the motel represented that turned my stomach.

  My room at Nana’s hadn’t been the height of comfort, but it was mine in a house we owned. For the first time in my life, it was something that was unequivocally ours. Even the dorm room I shared with Bella and Rose at the college—it hadn’t been the Shangri-La, but it had been comfortable and it felt like home when I was there.

  This motel room represented the first of many new places I would sleep until I found Nana. The foreignness of this room felt like a manifestation of the strange world I now found myself. The uncertainty of where I would go and whom I would meet on this perilous journey hoping to find Nana unharmed and bring her home. But would home still feel like home?

  Shaking my head of these debilitating thoughts, I let my bag slide from my shoulders onto the bed and plugged my phone into the outlet, leaving it to charge on the nightstand.

  I headed straight to the bathroom, stripped my clothes, and turned on the shower to let the water warm. In the cheap lighting, I barely recognized myself in the mirror, even though I looked exactly as I had this morning when I got ready to leave for Nana’s.

  My eyes were the same green as they’d always been; my nose was a little crooked—as it had been since I got into a fight in elementary school, and it never healed quite right. My red curls were loose and growing past my shoulders.

  I stepped into the scalding hot shower, letting it wash over me and rinse away the remaining hope of waking up to discover that I’d simply had some bad pizza and a horrible nightmare.

  Everything about me looked the same, and yet I felt like a different person. This face belonged to a girl who didn’t know about the existence of vampires, werewolves, faeries, and magic. These hands belonged to someone who thought her grandmother looked youthful for so long because of all the walks she took and the vegetables she ate. This body belonged to the girl who left college to visit her grandmother, expecting to return in three weeks for the next semester.

  Instead, I was a girl who didn’t know if her grandmother was okay. I was a girl who didn’t know where I’d be sleeping the next day. I was a girl tethered and life-bound to the world’s oldest vampire.

  Yesterday’s Elle Kore would never have believed today’s Elle was the only weakness to an otherwise untouchable vampire. Yesterday’s Elle would have been horrified to discover today’s Elle seemed gravitationally drawn to the adrenaline of being so close to such a dangerous man.

  “HEY, WAKE UP,” KOL’S voice pierced my dreamless sleep, and I woke with a start when a soft bundle hit me square in the chest.

  Blinking hard, I remembered where I was, what had happened, and why. That very reason stood before me, dressed in dark pants and a leather jacket over a black shirt, hair looking perfectly mussed. My annoyance grew when I noticed he only had a coffee for himself. None for me despite the rude awakening.

  “How did you even get in here?” I mumbled, throwing my head back against the flat pillow. I wasn’t ready to face the day, nor was I ready to face him.

  “You shouldn’t leave your windows unlocked.” He took a seat in the motel armchair in the corner and flashed a crooked smile. He made the chair seem small.

  “That is extremely creepy of you,” I glared at the popcorn ceiling. The room looked no less unattractive in the daytime.

  “Hurry up. I want to get out of this hole before more of its... motelness... rubs off on me.” He picked at the sleeve of his jacket.

  “Are you wearing new clothes?”

  “How kind of you to notice.” He sipped his coffee again, making my irritation grow. “Whoever said women notice nothing?”

  “Nobody says that. Did you pay for them?”

  “I tipped the boy,” he shrugged. “Those are for you, by the way.”

  I sighed and sat up. The paper bag that lay squarely on my chest rolled over and a shirt tumbled out. Mixed feelings tore through me. On one hand, the brand on the bag was a nice one from which I’d never normally purchase. On the other, the method used to retrieve these nice clothes was morally grey at best.

  “Get out. I have to change and get ready. I’ll meet you at the car.”

  He grinned wickedly. “You can change while I’m here. I won’t judge.”

  Heat rushed to my cheeks. I hated the reaction he elicited; he was a monster. A charming and handsome monster, but a monster nonetheless.

  I glared at him until he finally shook his head, crooked smile never wavering. Kol stood up, rolled his shoulders, and strutted out of the room like he had won some silent battle.

  Sorting through the bundle of clothes he threw at me, I sighed. Two short-sleeved shirts, a pair of dark jeans, and a pair of socks. To his credit, they were all my size, and the clothes were basic enough that it would have suited anyone’s taste.

  Grappling with myself, I finally refolded the clothes and placed them back in the bag. I made the bed and then set the bag on top where it couldn’t be missed, with a scribbled note saying to please return the purchase for their money back.

  The employees here probably paid with their own money; as much as I’d wanted to keep the clothes, it wasn’t fair to them.

  I stared at myself in the mirror for a hard moment before getting ready. Last night’s Elle looked normal. Today, I was a puffy-eyed version of myself. I didn’t feel any better after a restless night’s sleep, and lying to Bella and Rose just made everything worse. They’d messaged our group chat asking about my trip and about Nana, and I’d responded with kind lies, which led to lots of crying before I finally fell asleep. When I remembered thinking I would head back to college after spring break, I let out a hollow laugh. Even if we found Nana before semester break ended, everything was different now. I didn’t know if I could go back. How does a person sit in a classroom and listen to their professor lecture on biology when all I wanted to learn about was the Shadow world?

  I couldn’t help but shed tears when I lied to my only friends about having to drop out of college to take care of Nana. Being the great friends that they were, they both worried and respected my choice to stay home for my grandmother. When Rose said they wanted to visit during the next semester break four months from now, I said it was a great idea. Truthfully, I had no idea where I’d be four months from now, but I’d have had to explain myself if I’d said no.

  Lying to them was hard, but not as difficult as explaining over text how I’d returned home to discover that vampires, werewolves, faeries, and magic were real, and that I was on a quest to find my missing grandmother who also happened to be a witch. Oh, and that I was
now traveling with the very vampire who attacked my grandmother, and also was a maniacal murderer.

  And that was before I even mentioned the life-bond.

  Shaking my head, I put it all past me. It was useless to dwell on these things when they did nothing to further my search for Nana. I was already hanging onto sanity by a thread, and thinking too much about my normal, human friends at our normal, human college threatened to undo me at the seams. I needed to compartmentalize if I wanted to survive.

  I showered quickly and changed into fresh clothes, dumping the ones from yesterday into a laundry bag and then stuffing it all into my backpack. I’d clean my clothes at the next motel. I didn’t need to accept Kol’s encanted gifts.

  Pushing open the building’s glass door, I spotted the little blue sports car immediately. Kol leaned against its hood, looking at his phone. It was a shame that he was such a cruel monster, because he was quite attractive when his vampire face wasn’t out. Lean and lithe, his legs stretched out before the car as the leather jacket hugged him. Confidence rolled off of him in waves, and the messy white-blond hair he couldn’t seem to tame somehow worked to his benefit.

  I’d have liked him a little more if I didn’t want to strangle him every time he opened his mouth.

  “You didn’t like what I got you?” He slipped his phone into his pocket when I approached.

  “You mean the clothes that Chester got me?” I blinked innocently and tossed my bag into the trunk.

  “The thought was there,” he shrugged. “Are you still intent on driving?”

  “Yes,” I nudged him out of the way to sit in the driver’s seat. “It helps me feel like I’m still in control.”

  “No one is in control of their lives,” he winked, opening the passenger door. “Not really, anyway.”

  He took a seat, and I stilled. In one night, I’d forgotten how small this car was; Kol’s scent of citrus and spice wafted over when he closed the door. It struck me how odd my life had become in such a short time. Driving a vampire around in his own car and being close enough to smell him while we searched for my grandmother—whose disappearance I still hadn’t decided wasn’t his fault—was outlandish enough that I was glad he let me drive.

  “Control isn’t about deciding where to go or when. It’s about what you do with what happens to you.” There was a rare glimpse of somberness in his eyes that said he spoke from firsthand experience he would not share with me today.

  “I just need this,” was all I said.

  He let me carry on with driving, and for that, at least, I was grateful.

  “WHAT AM I GOING TO say to Alice?” I asked, drumming my fingers against the steering wheel once more.

  We’d been driving for hours, stopping only to get some quick fast-food, so we were getting close to the little flag on my phone’s GPS.

  “Does Alice know that Anna’s a witch?” Kol tilted his head.

  “Um,” I tried to remember the other letters that I’d stuffed back under Nana’s bed. None of the ones I’d read had mentioned any form of magic or anything about Shadows, but I was in such a daze I didn’t think I’d read them very thoroughly. “I’m not sure.”

  “Best to just play it safe, then. Just say Anna’s disappeared and you’re looking for her.”

  I turned over words and phrases in my head, trying to figure out how to explain the situation in a way that didn’t make me sound insane in case my suspicions were wrong and she wasn’t a Shadow.

  All too soon, the GPS announced our arrival, and I pulled the car up to a small gravel patch that appeared fitting to park.

  The location we stopped at was a short drive away from a small town; close enough for regular travel, but not so close that townspeople would traipse over unexpectedly.

  A small, nondescript wooden house stood before us. Floral curtains covered the windows, and a little blue wind chime twinkled in front of the door, a contrast to the bright red, pointed roof.

  The gravel crunched beneath my feet, doing nothing to ease the knots of tension in my belly, but a thought occurred. I knew this house. I knew this location. Not this exact house or this exact place, but I knew many houses and towns just like this.

  Until our home in Colewood just steps from the forest, Nana and I had lived in small, inconspicuous homes at the outer edge of towns—just close enough that we were part of the town, but not so close that we made many connections or relationships with other townspeople. That Alice followed our pattern made me positive that she was a witch, too.

  “What if she doesn’t even know who I am?” I asked quietly, more to voice my concern than to seek answers. Alice had asked about me in her letters, but approaching her front door made it all more real, and the uncertainty set in like a rock.

  “Then you introduce yourself,” Kol stated, like it was the simplest thing in the world. Hearing him say it out loud made me feel a little better, but I was certain that nothing could truly assuage my anxiety until I could confirm Alice’s true identity.

  Kol fell back as we approached the porch—presumably to watch my back—and in turn, his own.

  I rang the doorbell and took a deep breath, trying to calm my heart. I planned to tell her a watered-down version of the truth: the truth with the Shadow bits omitted. As we waited on the porch, I rehearsed what I was going to say.

  If she asked why I didn’t call or write? Well, there was no way to reach her by phone, because Nana hadn’t kept a phone book and I couldn’t find her phone. And Nana’s disappearance was too urgent to wait for a letter.

  The little bubble of confidence that rose in my throat burst when the lock clicked and the door swung wide open before I had even rung the doorbell.

  A heavy woman, barely taller than I and dressed in a long, casual burgundy dress, appeared. Her dark ringlets bobbed as she greeted me.

  “Can I help you?” Though her face showed middle age, her eyes seemed older. She studied me for a moment before checking around, turning stony cold when she noticed Kol.

  “Hi, I don’t know if you know me,” my hands played with the hem of my shirt, and I cleared my throat of the sudden lump that had formed. “My name is Elizabeth, and I believe you’re a friend of my Nana’s—Anna. Anna Kore.”

  Those shrewd eyes lit up, and a hand flew to her chest. “Are you the granddaughter, Elizabeth? Little Ellie?”

  “Um, yeah,” I smiled, relief flooding my body. “I’m a little bigger now, though.” Kol scoffed in the background. “And this is Kol. He’s um—”

  It didn’t seem to matter that I wasn’t sure how to introduce him, because Alice pulled me into her chest and hugged me tighter than I thought was humanly possible.

  “Oh, please come in, Ellie. Or do you go by Elle? Or Elizabeth?” Her hand was warm and somehow enveloped mine as I let her pull me through the door. Unlike the homes that Nana and I had, Alice’s was well-lived in. There was no mistaking that she had been here for a long time.

  Nana hid any trace of the Shadow world from me, so I didn’t know what to expect from a practicing witch. I thought that there would be more witchy items on display, but I was surprised by how normal everything looked.

  “Elle,” was all I could say as I let her lead me straight to the living room, where she sat me on a couch facing the fireplace. Framed photos of all sizes covered the mantle, some black-and-white, with each featuring people of all ages and from around the world. Some of them included Alice, but she looked exactly the same in each one, regardless of how old and weathered the photo looked.

  “Shall we leave the vermin outside?” Alice smiled kindly, as though she had just asked where I’d parked rather than about someone with real—albeit questionable—feelings.

  “Don’t confuse me with a mutt, hag,” Kol drawled from the doorway. He leaned against the doorframe casually with crossed arms.

  “I said vermin,” Alice glared daggers at him. “And I don’t know why you’re traveling with Elle, but this ends now.”

  “Hold on,” I reached to touc
h her hand, but thought better of it. “I know this probably looks bad, but...” I trailed off, realizing that any explanation I had would not sound any better. “Okay, so it’s all pretty bad.” I turned to Kol, feeling flustered. “Are you just going to stand there and let me explain everything?”

  “He can’t come in without my permission,” she frowned at me, like it was something I should have known. I immediately felt stupid; of course he needed an invitation. He’d told me as much himself, but I’d forgotten.

  “She didn’t know about Shadows until just yesterday,” he raised his eyebrows, a wicked grin on his face.

  Alice’s face slackened. “But you knew about us, right?”

  I took a deep breath. “If by us, you mean that Nana had a friend named Alice, then no. If you mean witches, then also no.”

  Worry and confusion flashed on her face. “Anna never told you?”

  “Nana never told me anything, Alice. That’s why I came to you for help.”

  The colour drained from Alice’s face. “What’s happened to Anna?”

  “That’s the hard part to explain,” I winced. “Maybe if you let him in, we can try.”

  CHAPTER 5

  KOL BROODED NEXT TO me as I explained the last 24 hours, finding it hard to believe my own words even as I spoke.

  “So, let me get this straight,” Alice raised a finger while in thought. “Nikolas wanted Anna to break his original curse, ended up attacking her because she refused. She then, out of spite or protection for you—maybe both—uncursed him only to bind his life to yours.”

  “I... Yes.” I thought I’d processed yesterday’s events, but recounting the tale to Alice left me weak and slumped against the couch.

  Alice burst out laughing, and Kol stiffened.

  “That’s exactly something I would expect from the old girl,” she sighed and shook her head.