Hearts of Darkness: A Valentine's Day Bully Romance Collection

by Joanna Mazurkiewicz

  Blaze added more wood to the fire and lingered nearby to relish in the warmth. “Almost.”

  Drake dropped the towel, displaying his nudity proudly, and changed into slacks and a t-shirt.

  “And the drug?” asked Drake.

  Blaze glanced at the nightstand where a small vial was perched. “Half-full,” he said. “A dose punched with a twelve-hour sleep.

  Blaze stood and stretched his tired limbs. The heat from the fireplace spread around the room, and his chill had begun to dissipate. “It shouldn’t be an issue. If she won’t drink it, we’ll force it down her throat.”

  Drake combed his pale blond hair to the side.

  “Might be best to slip it into a drink,” said Blaze.

  “Only if you bother yourself with convincing her,” said Drake darkly. “Given the circumstance, it isn’t necessary to put more effort into it than what’s needed.”

  Blaze tutted from his bed, whilst filing his nails. “Thoughtless Drake. You’ll have a harder time securing her trust once it’s all over.”

  Drake slipped his arms into a fitted sweater before he pulled it over his head. “Ready?”

  “Give a man a moment to get pretty,” replied Blaze. He fiddled with his impeccably combed hair in the mirror. No point. It would curl within the hour.

  13

  NOW

  I’m bogged down by bags when I see two shadows linger in the dark corners of the Trim.

  I’m close to the walls, at the edge of the old slums, and I watch the shadows step out of the darkness. They’re all that stands between me and getting the fuck out of this hell.

  My heart feels like it’s throbbing in my throat. Then the shadows step into the moonlight and, I remember with a sinking feeling, they asked me to meet them.

  Blaze and Drake are here, at the old slums near the Trim, before midnight. They must have gotten here early, suspecting I would try make a run for it.

  They were right.

  It’s exactly what I plan on doing, and I won’t let these two get in my way.

  I reach behind my back for the kitchen knife tucked into my belt. No one will get in my way. I won’t hang publicly; I won’t face the stockades.

  But Blaze surprises me.

  He steps closer to me, and I see that he’s wearing a warm winter coat, a rich one, and has a large satchel at his hip. He looks at me, really looks at my puffy face and reddened eyes, and he asks me with a tender, sincere tone, “Are you all right?”

  “Fuck you.” It’s instinct now. It just comes out, but it comes out with the early kisses of tears and my face twists.

  Drake moves around Blaze. He’s identical to him with his warm coat and satchel, too big to just be carrying books for school.

  “You’re packed,” he observes, eyeing my bags. Lifting his gaze to mine, he says, “Good. Let’s not waste any time.”

  “What are you talking about?” My face is twisted with the agony in my chest and tears slick my voice.

  “We’re leaving,” Blaze says as though it’s obvious. He sighs and takes a careful step closer to me, his hands up as if to surrender. “We planned on doing this another way,” he says, and shares a quick look with Drake. “But we need to get you out of the city, now.”

  “I’ll get myself out.”

  Drake scoffs. “How long do you think you’ll survive on your own?”

  “Longer than I’ll survive your company,” I shoot at him. By now, my cheeks are soaked. Even my nose is running.

  “I’m sorry.” It’s Blaze and, as an afterthought and a glance at Drake’s scowl, he adds, “We are sorry. But we really need to leave. The Force are arresting you tonight. If they haven’t already figured out that you’re gone, they will soon. And your father—he won’t make it to morning.”

  I let out a laugh of disbelief, a hollow sound. “Yeah? And how would you know any of that?”

  Drake’s lashes lower at me. “Having an evil bastard of a father means knowing everything before it happens.”

  “Did you know?” I square up at him, chin raised and a danger in my eyes I never thought possible. “Did you know about the train?”

  He looks away, jaw clenched. “Not until it was too late.”

  I run at him.

  Drake staggers back, as if avoiding me, but then he shoves forward, grabbing my arms and spinning me around. He hooks his arms around me like a cage, and holds me to him.

  Facing Blaze, I let out a vicious scream and fight against Drake’s hold. “Let go of arggh—”

  Drake’s hand muffles my mouth.

  Almost nose-to-nose, Blaze hushes me. “The Force are marching on the Trim tonight. Without your dad to oppose him, Edward wins the Supreme role by default. He’s already giving out orders. Not tomorrow, now. Do you really want to be shouting, announcing your location to a trigger-happy henchman?”

  My cries silence against Drake’s hand, but he doesn't let me go. His palm is now wet with all the tears slipping down my face.

  “Wha oo wan wi ee?” My question is garbled by Drake’s hand, but Blaze seems to understand me.

  His face falls and, after a moment, he shares a long look with Drake. I feel Drake nod, his chin grazing my hair.

  Bringing his gaze back to mine, Blaze says, “Have you ever wanted something so much that, when you know you can’t have it, you learn to hate it?”

  I shake my head.

  But it’s a lie.

  I want to be a noble. I want to have the rights that they have, never losing my mum in an attack, never running from the Force for standing up for myself. I want it so bad I hate them all—all of them who have what I don’t.

  Still, it’s hardly the same. Mine is about rights. Their cruelties are selfish prat-boy bullshit.

  Slowly, Drake slips his hand away from my mouth. His fingers drag along my lips, lingering a little too long.

  “We’re going to get you out of here,” Drake whispers into my hair.

  “We leave tonight.” Blaze taps his satchel. “Prepared.”

  I jerk out of Drake’s hold. “Like hell,” I spit. “I’m going alone. The pair of you can burn with the Trim for all I care.”

  “Well, I care, and so I choose not to die.” Blaze smirks. “Besides, we have the supplies, the weapons, the plan to survive. What do you have?”

  Drake grabs me from behind.

  I scream, but something is shoveled into my mouth, a warm sloppy liquid, and gurgles my shouts. He pinches my nose, tossing a phial onto the ground, and clamps his hand over my mouth. I can’t breathe. In my fight for air, I swallow whatever it is he forced into me.

  And it acts fast.

  Slowly, my struggle fades to a lazy writhe. My lashes drop into my sight, fringing Blaze’s face in front of mine.

  “Sweet dreams.”

  I don’t know who said it, but those words carry with me to a place of rest. And soon, I’m out cold.

  14

  A chill is biting at my cheeks as I wake.

  I’m on my side, tucked up in a thick blanket, the side of my face pressed into a make-shift pillow made from a rolled coat. A rich, winter coat.

  I blink against the murky sight plaguing me.

  The night is thick with darkness, but the air is hollow and cold. I try to stir, but whatever is in my system weighs me down and the blanket feels like it’s made from lead.

  I roam my gaze around as much as I can. Faintly, I can make out the corner of a small campfire glowing orange. Somewhere around it, out of my line of sight, there are soft murmurs. Drake and Blaze speaking.

  We’re out of Stonewall. I know because I lay on wild grass, and feel the tickle of weeds touching my hair. I shudder and hug the blanket closer to myself.

  My eyes drift shut and I fall away again.

  THE SECOND TIME I WAKE, it’s to the glaring memory of my mum.

  The image of that train, fragmented like broken glass, is burned into my mind forever. I ache to sketch it, to sear the image somewhere else but my eyes whenever I close the
m.

  But I barely notice that we’ve moved sometime while I slept before I slip away again.

  This time, I’m more alert.

  Not completely, but enough that I can sit up and face the fire crackling under the evening light. A forest hugs us, branches snapping not far away, owls hooting from the thick leaves above.

  Blaze sleeps with his winter coat. Drake keeps watch, a rifle resting over his legs. He picks at a packet of rice crackers he got from his bag. He gave me the chocolate bar. It’s rare. Chocolate. Even in Stonewall. We only have whatever’s left over from before the Great War.

  I ask Drake where we were. He just stares at me for a long moment, then turns his haunted eyes on the fireplace. Haunted, no doubt, by the horrible things his dad is doing at Stonewall. If those evil deeds don’t torture him, he wouldn’t have saved me from that fate and brought me here, to the middle of a forest.

  “Far,” he eventually says. “We’re far from Stonewall.”

  15

  Beauty to me is something to be reimagined, then drawn or painted. Beauty is something you can only dream up, never see.

  That is, before I stood in the middle of a wild forest as sunrise kissed the sky.

  I LET MY HEAD FALL back as I lean against the rough bark of a tree.

  Above, leaves are dotted with white flowers and tiny birds hopping from branch to branch. This, this right here, is beauty.

  And not even the two nobles packing up our camp can taint what I see.

  “We need to get moving,” Drake says. “Can’t afford to lose any daylight.”

  He’s pushy, always wanting us to move every day.

  Four whole days of walking through the forest, and he still won’t shut up about it.

  I tried to run on day three when my clarity came back to me.

  Blaze was in the trees, doing business, and Drake fell asleep by the supplies. I made a run for it. And I found a monster worse than the two I left back at camp.

  My screams called them to me like sirens.

  They just made it in time.

  No stories can do the radiation monsters justice. Skin looks like melted candy, slanted features, and limbs so thick and bent that it’s hard to tell which is which.

  Part beast, part once-human.

  The nobles saved me from it. Go figure.

  I walked away with a cut on my arm from the struggle. That’s all. Now, I stick with the pair.

  Out here, their weapons are necessities. And I’m not going back to Stonewall.

  We take our chances out here and, with Drake insisting on our constant travels, we head for the red spot on his map.

  Farmland.

  We’ll set up in a white farmhouse. We’ll grow what we can and eat what we can. And the three of us will live there, never quite safe, never quite happy, but a hell of a lot better than miserable or dead back in Stonewall.

  I’m as free as I’ll ever be.

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  Hope you enjoyed the read!

  Amazon has released this amazing new feature on their kindle apps and devices. Once you reach the last page, all you have to do is rate the book if you don’t wish to review!

  Stonewall Nobles is a standalone short story, not part of a series as yet.

  To check out my other works, thick with dark antiheroes and bully themes, check out Gods and Monsters here.

  ~Klarissa King

  TWISTED SOUL

  The Cruel Obsessions Series

  D.W. Marshall

  About Twisted Soul

  Evil isn’t born, it’s made. My name is August Mitchell and my life started out like many others with more things to complain about than be grateful for. Sure, I was born with more money than sin, but that wasn’t enough. Money can’t replace love.

  Unluckily for me, I was used to this. I would have continued to survive through the emptiness and the quiet had she not come into my life.

  Eldoy.

  She showed me what it feels like to love and be loved in its truest form. With her, the sun was brighter in the sky, and the stars didn’t just twinkle, they sparkled. Loving someone and being loved, man, I had no idea what I was missing.

  Until it was gone.

  I should have never tasted it, that way I would never have known what to yearn for, what to hate.

  Twisted Soul is book one of three that twists us into the heart and mind of August Mitchell. The answer to how he becomes Mason, the elusive creator of The Chamber will be revealed by the end of the series.

  Twisted Soul travels between the past and their present. During the past scenes there is a relationship between a young adult and a teen. Any kissing/sexual scenes featuring their past is consensual, and the characters are well aware of the inappropriateness of their behavior.

  AUGUST

  2010

  IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE this is the same downtown Denver bar that my buddies and I used to sneak off to when I came home from college. At nineteen, it seemed larger than life. Back then, the wooden bar was more like a foreboding bench in a courtroom with a wise bartender whose general nature emanated, “Your fake ID ain’t gonna work here, son!”

  Now I look around at the space, and while it still holds its size—with scattered circular tables and the requisite billiards, upright classic arcade games, and darts—the bar is much smaller than I remember, and the wood appears cheaper. It’s not my kind of place anymore, but when your best friend calls and says he wants to meet up at your old dive bar hangout, you show up.

  “Seems like we have ourselves a celebration of hotties.” Clyde turns to a small group of women who have deposited themselves behind us. “Drunk chicks celebrating is my shit,” he remarks.

  I shake my head, let out a small, amused laugh, and pat him on the back. “Sounds like a good time for you. Swing away.”

  He stares at me with wide eyes and holds up four fingers. “There’s four. What the hell am I gonna do with four chicks?”

  I shrug. “Get creative.”

  Clyde should never have to search too hard for chicks, drunk or sober. Hell, I’d date him if I was into dudes.

  “Besides, I don’t do drunk chicks. I only fuck the ones who are lucid and alert,” I add.

  He scoffs. “Seems like a fucking waste of a chick.” He turns back toward the table. “Damn, August, these are some fine ones, too. You have to check them out. Ooh. The brunette is fire.” He taps my arm to get me to turn, and just to appease him, I start shifting around. Then, one of them squeals. I stay put. Squealing and drunk definitely doesn’t do it for me.

  “Staying away from drunk girls was one of the best pieces of advice my father ever gave me,” I say. “As much of a dick as he may be, he was right, so I’ll pass.”

  Clyde sighs. “You’ve always been such an old man. Are you sure you’re still in your twenties?”

  I take a swig from my glass, loving the burn as the liquid runs down my throat. “Funny.”

  Clyde puts his arm around me. “Even your fucking drink is old, dude.” He laughs and clinks his beer bottle to my glass of bourbon.

  He undrapes his arm and pushes his shoulder against mine. “Love you, man.”

  “Love you, too.”

  Clyde is the only one I say those words to, and he’s one of the only people who says them to me. We’ve been friends so long, we’re brothers.

  I can’t stop myself from remembering the one other person who said those words to me. Elody. My chest aches and hollows. I tighten my grip on my glass as the memory comes and goes quicker than usual. That was a long fucking time ago.

  “Hey, speaking of your father, how’s about you score me a couple of tickets to his fancy Heart Smart Valentine’s Day fundraiser?” Clyde asks.

  I smirk at Clyde and take another gulp of the liquid.

  “It’s called the Save the Hearts Gala, and I’d have to be speaking to him to get you tickets.” I burp before throwing him a bone. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  He holds his hand out for a fist bump, a
nd I stare down at it, resisting. I finally relent and participate in his childish gesture when he gives me the look that tells me that even though it’s the first of February, he’ll keep his arm up until summer. I roll my eyes and hit his fist with my own, but I refuse to do the fucking explosion with my hand.

  “Thanks, brotha. That gives me two weeks to find a date.” Clyde raises his hand and motions for the bartender. “Check, please.”

  “I got it. Keep a tab running.” I hand the bartender my black card. “What about the hot brunette?” I ask.

  “Nah, maybe I don’t do drunk chicks anymore, either. Thanks, man.” He smiles and winks at me.

  He puts on his coat and hat and gloves. It’s a cold one tonight. I squeeze him tight when he hugs me.

  “Call me tomorrow,” he says. I nod, and he scoots out the door.

  I motion for the bartender to bring me another drink while I ponder how I’ll ask my father for Clyde’s tickets. I could email him, or better yet, I could go through my mother. I don’t know why Clyde even wants to attend the stupid gala. It’s a hard pass for me.

  The bartender sets the glass in front of me and rushes off. I’m thankful that he isn’t much of a conversationalist, the background noises in the bar are enough stimulation for me.

  I pull out my phone and shoot a quick message to my driver. There’s no way I’m going to be in any condition to drive, so I’d better have him on standby. I’m in no rush to get home to the quiet of my loft, though. Squealing girls is better than the sound of nothing.

  Maybe Mom is right. I need to get more friends and surround myself with a large social circle like hers. I could be at my third diner party of the week by now. Of course, eventually people start pairing off, and that’s not in the cards for me. I learned long ago that my deck has no pairs.

  I quickly eliminate thoughts of filling my social calendar. Just the idea of the amount of work and commitment it takes to entertain people hurts my brain.

  It only takes a few minutes after Clyde is gone before a woman takes his empty seat. There was a perfectly good seat on her left. Hmm. I turn my head and nod in greeting.