Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels

by Lindsey R. Loucks

  The noise he made sent a shudder through her. And she wasn't alone. The smaller servant straightened up as if Matteo really were a predatory cat that had snapped at him. He backed away quickly. Behind her, the larger servant snickered. Then Matteo opened his eyes and he stopped abruptly.

  Isobel took one look at those black soulless orbs and knew she was going to die. Time slowed down for an endless moment, then he blinked and his vision seemed to clear. He looked at her, and for the first time really saw her, bound to the chair not more than ten paces from him.

  His face contorted. “No!” His voice was broken—guttural and coarse. “No, not her!”

  There was a rush of movement behind her. She didn't have to turn around to know the other men were fleeing. The door slammed shut with the heavy sound a wood thudding against the jamb. It had been barred from the outside, no doubt one of the new “improvements.”

  “No,” Matteo whispered, struggling to his feet.

  Isobel closed her eyes and cringed in her seat as he ran toward her. But there was only the whipping of air across her face and then nothing. Opening her eyes she craned her neck to look behind her. He was at the door, banging on it with closed fists. He was crying out, the sound animalistic and desperate. His words were clear enough.

  In between repeated shouts of 'Not her!' he was begging his father to kill him.

  Matteo quieted down after a few minutes, but Isobel couldn't see him. The door was directly behind her and try as she might, she was unable to twist her neck back far enough. He hadn't moved, but his hard breathing grated in her ears until it evened out and deepened. She wondered if he had fallen asleep. If he had, maybe she could get free.

  The servant who had tied her to the chair had rushed through the business, no doubt in an effort to be done before Matteo woke. She didn't want to dwell on that. If the servants, both large and strong men, feared him then what chance did she have?

  Trying desperately not to think of what he was going to do to her, she tested her bonds. Even if Matteo was awake, she was going to have to risk it. She couldn't just sit there waiting for the darkness to consume him.

  Struggling not to breathe too loudly, she started to tug and slide her arms down and back up. Her already scraped arms burned like someone was setting fire to them, but she didn't stop. She would surely be raw and bleeding by the time she was free. If she got free.

  Nearly an hour later, her prediction proved true. The raw skin seemed to burn in contact with the air and a little blood stained the ropes binding her to the chair. Ignoring the pain she prayed the smell of the blood wouldn't remind Matteo of her presence, she worked her right hand free and loosened the left. Grateful her legs weren't tied, she held her breath and stood up as quietly as possible before turning around.

  He wasn't asleep. He was sitting on the floor, his back to the door. He stared straight ahead, his face impassive, nearly expressionless. The darkness that stained his aura had grown, almost as if a halo of black smoke surrounded him.

  Oh, my God.

  Isobel trembled as she instinctively stepped back. A floorboard underneath her creaked loudly and she bit her tongue to keep from swearing aloud. The noise seemed to fill the world, and to her terror Matteo moved his head slightly to look at her. His eyes bored into hers, freezing her to the spot.

  Then he smiled—a beautiful and terrible smile.

  For one horrifying second, Isobel felt as if she was falling into a dark well as her sanity started to slip away. Catching herself, she jerked abruptly and flew to the other side of the room, as far from Matteo as she could get.

  Isobel scrambled into the corner, her arm stinging from something she struck on the way. Turning to face the room, she was dismayed to see the lantern she'd knocked to the ground lying a few feet away.

  “No!” she gasped as the light flickered and began to dim.

  The glass hadn't broken, but the oil in the bottom had spilled all over the floor. She didn't want to be locked in here with Matteo in the dark. Throat tight, she scrambled forward before all of the lamp's fuel leaked out.

  Her hand had just touched the overturned lamp when a larger darker one took hold of it and lifted it off the ground. Moving like lightning, Isobel crawled back and pressed herself against the wall. Matteo, or the thing that was living inside him, lifted the lamp and turned it down to a low flame.

  The light dimmed to a faint glow. Unable to look away, she raised her eyes. His head wreathed in shadows, Matteo loomed over her.

  A strange grating and rhythmic sound filled the air. It was her lungs fighting to draw air in short labored pants. But her effort failed as soon as he moved.

  It was like a snake striking. One second she was curled in a ball against the wall, and the next she had been hauled off her feet and suspended inches off the ground.

  The shadows ceased to matter. His face was just inches away, allowing her to see him clearly. Except it wasn't his face anymore. It was a beautiful shell, one made terrible in its absence of a human soul.

  However, it wasn't an empty shell. Something was there looking back at her through his eyes—a dark and demonic force. A tremor ran through her entire body as she took in the expression in those eyes. There was an intelligence there and...hunger.

  Isobel recognized that look. Other men had watched her with something similar in their expression. But those were normal human appetites, much paler and weaker than this. She wasn't going to die right away.

  “Please don't,” she whispered.

  Matteo didn't respond. She couldn't even tell if he was breathing or not. By rights, his respiration should have been as labored as hers. She wasn't a large woman, but no normal man should have been able to hold her like this without showing signs of strain. But he didn't. He just cocked his head at her, the movement eerily reminiscent of a praying mantis.

  She was set down on her feet as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. His mouth was open, his tongue out to taste her. Isobel tried to break free, but his grip was like iron. She sobbed aloud as her feet sliding and dragging across the floor in an effort to get away.

  Matteo made that odd growling sound again, and he dragged them a few paces to the right. He pulled at her hair until she lost her footing and fell backwards, his heavy body following her down. Isobel landed on the bed in the corner, pressed into the soft mattress by his weight. She screamed, a cry that was cut short when he forced his face to hers and plunged his tongue into her mouth.

  Twisting her head aside with a wrenching motion, she struggled against him, pushing and shoving with her arms and legs. When he tried to kiss her again, she bit him. He withdrew his head once more, laughing at her with a strangely flat parody of Matteo's voice.

  His hands were everywhere. One stroked her hip while the other pulled up the hem of her nightgown to stroke the bare skin of her calf and thigh. She used all her strength against him, scratching and biting, but the struggle only helped him. Her attempts to kick him only made it easier for him to slip between her flailing legs. She gasped as his iron hard shaft pressed against her most intimate place.

  Matteo's shirt was open now, the skin of his chest abrading her breasts through the thin nightgown. To her shame, her body quickened underneath him. Confused and frightened she clawed at his face, but he easily subdued her before she could do any serious damage. He took hold of her arms and moved upwards, rubbing his whole body against her with another of those strange growling purrs.

  She should have felt hot, smothered by his heat. Instead Isobel was chilled to the bone, all of her warmth leaching out as it came into contact with the icy exterior of his body.

  When he let go of her to tear at the fastenings of his breeches, Isobel put her arms on his chest and pushed—but this time didn't use her arms.

  She used her mind.

  Acting on instinct alone she reached out with her ability, terrified that the long dormant skill would fail her. But the power came, raw and unfiltered by a spell to give it form or purpose.

  She
didn't have the words or knowledge to put Matteo to sleep or kill him. All she could do was push her energy in his direction in an effort to force him away from her.

  Her hands ached as they made contact with Matteo's chest. Above her, he convulsed, the blackness in his eyes flaring brightly for an instant. His hands reached out to clutch at her. They bit into her skin, and his mouth opened wide in a soundless scream. Horrified, Isobel desperately gathered her energy back to her body to try and strike at him again, but the blackness in his aura followed it, sticking to it like tar.

  Panicked that the creature was now trying to invade her soul, she thrust the energy away again with a force she hadn't known she was capable of.

  For the first time in her life, the energy that she'd always associated with her ability left her body. The effort blinded her, burning out her vision with a wall of white. It was excruciatingly painful, like being stung by a bee everywhere.

  Eventually the moment passed and her awareness returned in fits and starts. She was weak and out of breath, but otherwise unharmed.

  Vision blurred, Isobel gingerly sat up on the bed. Matteo was sprawled on the floor, knocked back by the force of the blast. Her chest was tight and painful as she tried to get a hold of herself. Still trembling, she dragged herself to the end of the bed farthest from the fallen body until she could stand. With unsteady feet, she stepped over Matteo's legs, stopping short at the sight of the stain on the floor a few feet in front of her.

  Isobel tried to step around it. But the strange black stain moved toward her like a creeping shadow. Indeed, part of it seemed to be more of an oily shadow than a physical thing—and it was heading right for her, gaining speed as it went.

  Gasping, she scrambled back blindly. She fell over Matteo's body and landed on his chest. He didn't move at all as she sprang back up, reaching for the lamp burning low on the nearby table. Jerking to the left, she forced the shadow to adjust its course. Muscles screaming with tension, she waited until the shadow-stain moved over the spilled lantern oil before hurling down the lamp.

  Whispering words she'd learned long ago, Isobel used an old fire-starting spell to help build the flames, willing them to form a circle around the shadow. It was one of the first spells her grandmother had ever taught her, one of the few she still remembered.

  A terrible sound like tearing metal filled the air as the ring of fire consumed the darkness from the outside in. Covering her ears and pressing against the wall, Isobel watched the oily shadow bubble and boil before the flames suddenly burned out.

  An ominous silence fell. The stain on the floor had deepened and it was smoking under the broken glass of the shattered lamp, making her cough. Still pressed against the wall, she shifted to the left, but the blackness didn't follow her.

  For a minute she stayed up against the wall. Heart in her throat, she took a tentative step forward, but the stain still didn't track her movement.

  Slumping slightly, Isobel relaxed, until she caught sight of Matteo on the floor a few feet away.

  Was he dead now?

  Isobel inched toward him until she was close enough to touch him. She reached out to prod him with her foot. He didn't move. Kneeling down, she put two fingers on his neck, feeling for the beat of his heart.

  His heartbeat was strong and steady, and he was warm, almost burning hot in the relatively cold room. She hadn't been imagining that when she'd fallen on top of him. And this close she could feel his breath against her wrist. Had it been the shadow that had made him so cold earlier? Had she destroyed it?

  Had she...saved him?

  Pushing away that hopeful thought, she stood up. She didn't know what had happened. And all she knew was that the shade inside him wasn't in control now.

  What was going to happen when he woke up?

  A memory of those hungry and watchful black eyes came, and she squeezed her own shut to blot out the image. The effort failed. Instead, her mind threw up other nightmare scenarios—body after body of all of those women who had preceded her.

  Raising a shaky hand to her lip, she glanced at the rumpled bed. There was a pillow lying on it and Matteo was unconscious...completely vulnerable on the floor.

  A tremor ran through her and tears began to stream down her face. It was impossible. Not only would she be signing her own death warrant when the Conte opened the door in the morning, but she simply couldn't bring herself to hurt Matteo, despite what he'd been about to do to her. And for all she knew, she had permanently damaged him. He might even be dead by morning.

  She tried to tell herself she shouldn't care, but her whole body flooded with remorse.

  Stop that.

  Isobel needed to worry about herself. Sucking in a deep breath, she spun around, taking stock of the room. It was fairly dark inside the cottage now that the lantern was gone, but she'd always had good vision in the dark. Her grandmother used to tell her it was a practitioner's natural element, a fact she was grateful to now.

  Her examination didn't show much. There was little outside of what she'd glimpsed earlier. The furniture was sparse and there were no convenient weapons lying around. The windows were high and small. She could have fit through one, but she had heard the Conte order his servants to guard the door till morning. They would be on her before she hit the ground.

  A pile of brown at the far corner of the mattress attracted her attention. Pulling it off, she found it was Matteo's caped greatcoat. Riffling through it, she found the pockets empty. Disappointed, but not surprised, she dropped it on the bed before thinking better of it. The room was cold enough to see her own breath, which meant it would be freezing outside. If she discovered a way out, she would need the protection the coat offered. However, there was little she could do for her bare feet, she thought, looking down in dismay.

  A nearby roll of thunder distracted her from her self-pity. It was accompanied by the distinctive patter of rain on glass. Her heart sank. A storm would make any escape much more difficult.

  Unless the guards decide to take shelter from the rain.

  If they did, maybe she could slip away. There was no way for them to know that she had survived. As long as the door was left secured then maybe she had a chance.

  Isobel looked down at her feet again. She had to do something. If she had the protection of Matteo's coat, then maybe she could tear strips off her nightgown to wrap around her feet. It was already torn from their earlier struggle. Wincing at the memory, Isobel fisted her hands and sucked in a steadying breath. She turned to Matteo with a critical eye. His exposed chest moved up and down steadily, his lower half still covered in his breeches and boots.

  Still alive. Her life, on the other hand, was in a far more precarious position even if she managed to get out of the cottage unseen.

  Do whatever it takes.

  She needed to be mercenary to survive. Steeling her resolve, she walked over to Matteo's prone form and kneeled down. Tentatively, she reached out and took hold of one of his boots, tugging gently. It was harder to remove than she'd thought. By the time the boot slipped, off she was sweating and shaking, terrified that he would wake up. But he didn't stir. She worked off the second boot and examined them both.

  Stepping into the boots and trying to walk proved impossible. They were simply too large. Isobel almost fell over twice before giving up. Dashing away the moisture that stung her eyes with the back of her hand, she put the boots down next to Matteo. His thick woolen socks would have to suffice. Slipping those off much more easily, she drew them over her feet and was grateful for their warmth. She cast another guilty glance at Matteo before dragging the blanket off the bed and throwing it over him. Then she took it off and put it back on the bed.

  She would not help him.

  Trying to move quietly in case the guards were still outside despite the rain, she carried the chair under the far window. Unfortunately, the blasted thing seemed to be swollen shut. Hands scrabbling on the wood she tried the other window. It too was damaged, and no matter how hard she tried, s
he couldn't open it. Were they nailed shut?

  Giving way to self-pity, Isobel sat on the floor, her eyes stinging. Her eyes swung from the sealed windows to the door, trying to formulate a plan. But no brilliant ideas came to her. Defeated, she sat there for a few minutes, trying to prepare for the worst.

  Though she wasn't a brave woman, it was harder than she'd ever imagined to sit there and meekly accept her fate. Giving up simply wasn’t in her nature.

  Gathering her knees to her and hugging them tightly, she pushed away her feelings of despair and helplessness. She would do something—even if it meant attacking the guards the minute they opened the door in the morning. She couldn't possibly win, but at least she would go down fighting.

  It took her some time to realize that the sound of drops she heard were not from her tears falling on the floor.

  The roof was leaking. On the other side of the newly installed chimney was a small puddle. A desperate idea came to her. It wasn't likely to work, but she had to try.

  Pulling the table with effort, she positioned it directly over the puddle. Then she put the chair on top of the table before adjusting Matteo's coat over her shoulders. She tied the ends together to keep it from dragging and tripping her before climbing onto the chair. Bent over nearly double, she pushed at the weak spot in the thatched ceiling. With some determined pushing, she could poke her finger out to feel the rain and night air outside. But getting her whole body out this way would require some effort.

  Wasn't there something her grandmother had taught her that would help? Some spell for moving immovable objects? If there was, she couldn't remember it. The fire starting spell wouldn't help much, either. Even if the damp thatch caught, the smoke would alert people for miles around.

  Doesn't matter.

  Spine stiffening, Isobel continued to tear and poke at the weak spot in the roof. Eventually, she had created a hole large enough to fit her head through. The rain was slowing down. The occasional fat drop pelted her face, running down her neck and chest to chill her despite the stolen coat.