Crimson Kisses: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (Marked Souls Book 1)

by Sabrina Shelley

  “You’re dreaming, Rory,” I tell myself aloud. Somebody has to.

  “Mrreow.”

  I blink my eyes open in surprise, raising my gaze to the window. It’s not the first time I’ve heard that same low, soft mew, but it’s the first time I’ve heard it during daylight hours.

  And it’s definitely the first time I’ve seen any evidence to indicate that I’m not just going crazy in here and making up imaginary cat sounds from imaginary cats.

  I see a pair of slitted yellow eyes blinking back down at me framed by a fluffy, silky black face. There’s something familiar about it that makes me feel like I’ve seen it around before—which seems stupid. Black cats all kind of look alike.

  “Hey there, kitty.” I stand on my cot and reach my fingers up toward the bars to pet it, but the bars are too close together and too high over my head for me to reach. “What are you doing here?”

  The cat regards my fingers regally, like a king looking down at a loyal subject. I feel a wave of something—heat or heartbeat or static electricity—vibrate through my palms, which I promptly ignore.

  “Mrreow,” it says again, a little louder this time.

  “Yeah, well, meow yourself, big guy. You’re a silly cat, you know, sneaking in here. All the rest of us only want to sneak out.”

  For a second, I swear the cat rolls its eyes at me. It’s so uncanny, I have to blink twice to believe it’s even real.

  Then my guard’s keys clang in the lock of my cell door and the cat is gone.

  “Get down off of there,” the guard scolds me. “You know the drill, witch.”

  He’s not wrong. The greatest benefit to my boring-ass schedule here is that I always know what comes next.

  We pass through the courtyard again as the guard leads me to Dr. Belmont’s office. I catch a flash of purple eyes and a shock of white-blonde hair as one of my fellow prisoners is taken back down to her own cell.

  A glance of each other, just to know that we’re not completely alone. That’s all we get.

  Dr. Belmont’s office would be homey if it didn’t seem so sterile. Books and houseplants and framed photos decorate the room, but none of the books have titles on their spines and all the photos are of safely attractive landscapes, not of friends or family. Nothing ever looks like it’s been moved even slightly since my last visit, and there’s not a speck of dust in the entire room.

  My guard leads me to a small brown leather armchair in front of Dr. Belmont’s desk. The carpet beneath my bare feet feels deceptively soft, especially compared to the hard, rough floor my cell, and the chair makes an uncomfortable squeaking noise when I sink into it.

  “Thank you, Porter. You can go now,” Dr. Belmont says without looking at him. “How are you, Miss Bright?”

  The name plate on the desk in front of me reads Dr. Elza Belmont but doesn’t list credentials of any sort.

  “What kind of doctor are you, anyway?” I ask, squinting at the placard. “Psychiatrist? Psychologist? Chiropractor?”

  Dr. Belmont laughs humorlessly, pulling her black leather gloves off one finger at a time. “You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you. How are your hands feeling today?”

  I give her a distrusting look and ball my hands up into fists at my sides.

  “Mm.” Dr. Belmont purses her red lips knowingly, flashing sharp-looking lacquered red nails to match. “Alright, then.”

  She leans back in her chair and we stare at each other for a while. Her gaze is icy blue, clinical and unfeeling. Mine is defiant.

  We both look like we’re pretty much done with each other’s shit.

  “Miss Bright, do you confess to the use of unregulated magic, unregistered and unapproved by the Regime?”

  “Do you confess to the unregulated use of lip liner? You know, you’d look like a lot less of a frigid bitch if you’d stop overdrawing your lips and grab some Chapstick for a change.”

  This is usually the point when Dr. Belmont sighs and calls my guard back in and sends me back to my cell for the evening. Porter will shove a stale sandwich of rye bread and government cheese at me, I’ll spit on his badge and he’ll slam my cell door—unknowingly knocking the hinges a little looser in the process, putting me a little closer to a freedom that I don’t even know how to attain.

  But today, instead of calling Porter back in, Dr. Belmont’s lips curl upward in a tight-lipped smile.

  “I have something to show you, Rory,” she says.

  Rory. I feel my blood run cold in my veins as she moves her hands up onto the desktop.

  This is the first time she’s ever used my first name.

  I know what she’s going to show me a split second before she turns her palms face-up on the desk, but that doesn’t make it any easier to see.

  On the palms of Dr. Belmont’s hands, there are twin marks. Easily mistaken for tattoos, maybe, but only at first glance. The lines on Dr. Belmont’s hands are darker and deeper than a tattoo gun could possibly create. They’re charcoal black and scarred looking, like her palms have been branded with a ragged five-pointed star contained within a circle. In the center of the star, it looks like there might have been more intricate markings once upon a time.

  Now, only twin charred-looking spots in the center of Dr. Belmont’s palms remain. Like if there was ever anything of beauty about the marks, it was burned out long ago by the lit tip of a cigar.

  “There. Now I’ve shown you mine.” Dr. Belmont’s long, dark eyelashes flick twice as if challenging me to defy her now. “Why don’t you show me yours?”

  I don’t want to show this woman anything. But suddenly, it’s like I can’t even think. Or hear. Or even breathe.

  My gaze is trapped by Dr. Belmont’s as I feel my hands raising up onto the desk, my fingers unfurling like the delicate joints of a marionette being puppeted open with invisible strings. The action feels almost against my will—but at the same time, it’s like I want to do it, even though I know that I definitely fucking don’t.

  “There,” Dr. Belmont coos coldly. “Was that so hard, Rory?”

  I grit my teeth as I stare down at the deepening lines on my own palms.

  A pentagram contained by a circle etched in what looks like white ink stares back up at me, a smaller circle at the tip of each point.

  “Mm. You’ve been a busy girl, Rory.” Dr. Belmont hums with interest as she raises a red fingertip to touch the only smaller circle on my markings that contains anything—a mess of rounded interconnecting arches. When she taps it, it’s like I can feel her touch reverberate all the way in my heart. “Barely even manifested yet, and you’ve a guardian already.”

  I grit my teeth, annoyed, as she taps the other four circles at the remaining tips of the pentagram. These ones are empty—but as her nail falls on each spot, I can feel each of these touches, to a lesser extent, pounding in my heart as well.

  “One down…and four more to go.”

  Part of me wants to call for Porter myself and storm off back to my cell where I can ignore these weird-ass marks that appeared on my hands three days ago and plan my unlikely escape from this stupid place in peace.

  But another part of me—the part of me that I’ve been fighting ever since I was brought to this prison three days ago—that part of me knows that something is happening to me. That something has been happening to me for a long time now, and that no matter how long I ignore it or try to deny it or leave it alone, it isn’t going to stop.

  Whatever’s happening to me, Dr. Belmont knows it. She understands it. Because—judging by the marks on her hands—it’s happened to her too.

  “Ask me, Rory,” she says in a low, sultry voice that I bet men go completely nuts for. “We both know you want to.”

  If I grind my teeth any harder, when I get out of this shithole I’m not going to have anything left to chew with.

  Not that it matters. When Dr. Belmont’s eyes meet mine again, it’s like they pry open the last of my curiosity's aching floodgates.

  “Okay—well
, for starters, what the fuck is happening to me?” Suddenly it’s like my lips can’t move enough. “Everything has been so fucking weird. For months! One day, my stomach feels like it’s full of snakes. The next, I’m blacking out on the street. These weird tattoos appeared on my hands after and sometimes they hurt—sometimes, they even glow. What the fuck is up with that?! I kissed my best friend a few days ago and every light in the entire city went out for twelve fucking hours. And the next night, I kissed—”

  “Go on,” Dr. Belmont says.

  It’s only then that I realize she’s taking notes.

  I don’t know why I told her—why I told her any of it. For a moment, I felt almost like a criminal in one of those old-timey cop movies. Like I’d been running for so long and my strength had been so broken that I was desperate to come clean to someone—anyone—and there Dr. Belmont was, ready and waiting with open arms.

  For a moment, it felt like I was completely under her spell.

  But now, the spell’s been broken.

  “I want answers.” I cross my arms and lean back in the chair. “You can start with what I was arrested for—and don’t give me any of that witch bullshit because if magic was real, I think people would know about it by now.”

  “It is real,” Dr. Belmont says plainly. “Very real, Rory—and very dangerous. Why else do you think the Regime has worked so hard to keep it under wraps?”

  She says it with such confidence—not like she’s trying to tease me or trick me, but like she’s letting me in on a secret that I should have figured out long ago.

  I don’t give a shit, though.

  What she’s saying is ridiculous.

  It’s fucking insane—and considering that I’ve been wondering if I’ve been going crazy for the last six months, I know how to pick out insanity when it presents itself by now.

  Magic. Real, actual fucking magic.

  It’s too impossible to believe…

  “Or maybe, you’re just desperate not to believe it,” Dr. Belmont says.

  Like she can read my mind.

  Hell…maybe she can.

  “Think about it, Rory. I know you’ve been feeling it. Strange things have been happening to you.” Dr. Belmont’s red fingernail traces the markings of my palm idly. Her every movement sends a shiver running straight through my nervous system, all the way up my spine. “Things that seem unreal. Things that are inexplicable. Things that you shouldn’t have to explain. If not magic…then what?”

  “Toxic chemical spill,” I suggest. “Happens all the time under the Regime’s glorious leadership, right?”

  Dr. Belmont narrows her eyes. They sparkle with cunning. “Come on now, Rory. You don’t live in that part of town. Try again.”

  “Radioactive spider bite.”

  “You’re being silly.”

  “Maybe I’m an alien from an ancient civilization,” I muse. “The last of my kind. Hurled across space in the wake of a dying world, crash-landed on earth—”

  “Or maybe, you’re a witch.” Dr. Belmont taps the center of my palm. It feels like grabbing the wrong end of a fucking taser.

  “Not fucking likely,” I say.

  Not because I have anything better to believe at this point, but because I desperately fucking want it to be not true.

  “I have something to show you, Rory.” Dr. Belmont reaches beneath her desk and pulls out a black file folder thickly stuffed with papers. “Brace yourself—it’s gruesome, but you need to know. You deserve to know.”

  When she flips it open, I’m prepared for the insides to reveal, well, anything. Bigfoot. Vampires. Werewolves. Fucking Cthulhu, even.

  But then I see the picture—a procedural shot the size of a full page, taken top down, of a woman lying in the center of a pentagram that looks an awful lot like the markings on Dr. Belmont’s hands…and mine. The symbol has painted onto familiar looking floorboards.

  The woman’s dark hair is spread out beneath her like she’s floating on a bed of water. It’s bizarre, but it almost looks like she’s levitating off the ground. Her arms are spread wide, wrists hanging limp. The thin dress she’s wearing clings to her body like it’s drenched with sweat.

  She’s dead. I can tell that immediately—from the way that her body levitates, broken-looking and lifeless—and from her eyes, staring empty up at the camera.

  That’s not the awful part.

  The awful part is, her eyes are the same as mine.

  When my mother killed herself, I never saw her body after. The funeral was closed-casket. The crime scene, my mother’s attic, was off limits until Drew’s mother was able to have it cleaned.

  But my mother’s face is impossible to forget. I’ve seen her in pictures, hundreds of them, and in my favorite memories as a little girl.

  Not to mention the fact that every time I look in the mirror, more and more as I’ve grown older, I’ve seen her face staring back at me in my own reflection.

  Whatever I thought Dr. Belmont was going to show me…

  It sure as fuck wasn’t this.

  I look away. I can’t help it. There are some things that you just can’t stare at for any longer—the crime scene shots from my mother’s suicide fall into that category with ease.

  “I’m sorry, Rory,” Dr. Belmont says, and I know she can see the way I’m fighting the burn of saline in the back of my throat as I blink tears from my eyes.

  “I think that’s enough for today,” is the only thing I can choke back at her.

  Dr. Belmont closes the file. “Not quite. You wanted answers, Rory. You need answers. If your father had done his job as her Guardian, your mother would have told you—”

  “You can keep my parents’ names out of your mouth.”

  “You’re a witch, Rory.” Dr. Belmont stands, placing her palms face-down on her desk. When I look up at her, there’s an intense look in her eyes. “Your mother was a witch—your father was her Guardian—”

  “Stop it,” I spit at her. “I don’t want to hear any more.”

  “—and if he had done his duty, when her magic flared up out of her control—”

  “I don’t think you heard me.” My palms are burning so hot that keeping them balled up in fists is almost impossible—but I try. “That’s enough. We’re done.”

  “I don’t think you heard me, Rory. Because if you don’t believe me—if you don’t let me help you—let the Regime help you—”

  “Fuck you, fuck your nonsense stories, and fuck the Regime—”

  “Your mother had one Guardian, Rory.” Dr. Belmont leans forward, grabbing my wrist. She pulls it toward her, twisting until my fingers unfurl. The markings on my palm are glowing bright white and burning hot. “One Guardian—and he wasn’t enough to save her from her own power.”

  I try to pull my hand away, but Dr. Belmont’s grasp is firm. She holds me steady as she taps the circles at the points of the pentagram on my palm.

  “Every witch is marked with that matches her Guardian’s. You have so much power within you, Rory, that you don’t just need one Guardian—you need five. If you don’t believe me, there’s nothing I can do to help you—or to save you from your mother’s fate.”

  I feel something boiling up inside me. Maybe a rough, ragged sob. Maybe unbridled rage. Maybe—it’s bullshit, but fuck it—maybe it’s magic.

  Whatever it is, for a moment it breaks free.

  My fingers reach out, every cell in my body singing with power.

  Suddenly, it’s not Dr. Belmont holding my wrist down on the desk.

  Suddenly, I’m the one holding her.

  “What about you then, Dr. Belmont? Where’s your Guardian? Where’s your mark?”

  I tap the charred black mark on the center of Dr. Belmont’s palm viciously. As I do it, I feel something raw and sharp pass between us—something that sticks its nails in my heart and doesn’t let go.

  Like sorrow. Like heartbreak. Like pain.

  “That’s enough for today,” she snaps at me, and just like that, I l
et her wrist go.

  “Couldn’t agree more.”

  “You need us, Rory,” she calls after me as I head for the door. “It’s not a trick. It’s not a lie. You’re in danger—real, ever-present danger. I can help. The Regime can help. You just have to let us.”

  “I’ll take my chances.” I force the words through clenched teeth as my guard reappears, looking a little dumbfounded by the scene playing out before him when he opens the door.

  Not just because my eyes are red and burning with tears.

  Not just because there’s a look on Dr. Belmont’s face like she was just forced to eat shit.

  But because all around us, all of Dr. Belmont’s picture frames and title-less books and scented candles and knickknacks are floating an inch off their shelves. The desk, our chairs and the bookshelves themselves are floating an inch off the floor.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Miss Bright,” Dr. Belmont calls after me as I shoulder past my guard.

  Not fucking likely, I think to myself as he closes the door.

  We walk back through the courtyard in silence, just like always. My guard seems to be even more wary of me than ever—wonder why—and I’m quietly seething.

  It all feels so fucking wrong. So dirty. My palms are still burning beneath my fingers, no matter how hard I clench my fists against the rough black linen dress over my thighs, and the image of my mother lying dead—levitating over a pentagram—is still there, etched in the blackness every time I close my eyes.

  When I open them, I see something small and abnormal tucked just outside the arch between the courtyard and the hallway to my cell.

  “Hurry up,” my guard snaps as he hears my footfalls still to a stop for a moment.

  “What?” I ask, straightening. “Not ‘Hurry up, witch?’”

  He grumbles something under his breath that I can’t quite make out. Probably for the best—because I can tell that where he used to have disdain for me, now there’s something different between us.

  Uncertainty. Danger. Fear.

  He gives me a wide berth as he opens the door of my cell. Even though my gaze passes over him as I slide past, he doesn’t dare meet my eyes.