Evermore, an Arotas Novella (The Arotas Series) (12 page)

Roseline
sinks back and releases a weighted sigh. Her hands tremble as she
clenches them tightly together. She is bone weary from the events of
tonight, but she knows this is only the beginning. The battle has
come to her doorstep. They will regroup tonight at the castle and
then split into teams to track down those creatures who have killed
her friends, her family.

This
isn’t over.

Her
head whips around as the door at the top of the stairs bursts open
and Gabriel appears. Roseline’s stomach clenches in terror. He
is covered in blood from head to foot, but she can’t tell if it
is his or not.

She
sprints toward the stairs and leaps, landing halfway up. “What’s
happened?”

“These
were just the scouts.” Gabriel’s face is grim but his
gaze steady as he looks toward the lifeless figure of the tawny hound
that he killed. “We’re under attack.”

Roseline
is instantly at his side, pushing to get past him. “Then we
have to get back to the castle. Claudia will need our help.”

Gabriel
latches onto her arm and shakes his head. “They’re not
attacking the castle,” he says. He looks pained as his gaze
shifts, unfocused. She has seen this look before, when men have seen
unspeakable horrors. When he looks back at her, his face is pallid
but his jaw clenched with determination. “They are attacking
Brasov.”

Ashir
warned that a war was coming. She had prayed that it would not be
quite so soon, but there is no turning back now. No brushing this
under the rug and pretending all is well with the world. If anything,
the world appears to be worse off without Lucien, and that is a thing
she never thought she would say.

She
will fight tonight and many nights to come. She knows this with every
ounce of her being. It is what she was created to do, trained for.
Roseline is a warrior. That will never change.

Roseline
grips his hand and races onto the street, ready to take on whatever
the Shadow Lands might throw at them. As long as she is with Gabriel,
she knows she can defeat anything.

THE END

COMING 2015

THE SHADOW LANDS SERIES

An Arotas spinoff series

Don’t
miss out on the exciting beginning of the Immortal Rose trilogy, a
prequel to the Arotas Series.

DESOLATE
,
book 1 is coming in March

Sneak
Peek ...

1690, Transylvania

Caro
de carne mea. Os ex ossibus meis. Lorem nocte in saecula saeculorum.

The
words whisper through my mind like a long forgotten song as my eyes
flutter open.  Light and dark battle around me, seeking purchase
on the room.  Flames lick the wooden walls, trailing overhead to
embrace the knotted timbers that hold the inflamed roof aloft.

Ash
pelts down upon me like a livid rain, singeing flesh and hair.  I
cry out as I roll away from the gaping hole above, beating at the
embers that set the hem of my dress alight.  

I
pause as my fingers glide across the rich fabric of my voluminous
skirts, seizing it between my fingers to draw it up so that I can see
it in the dim light.  The material was once white and adorned
with lace, accustomed for a wedding.  It is now a dingy gray,
soiled and charred into fraying bits.  The ruffled hem of my
dress crumbles into ash as I run my finger along it, fluttering down
to land upon my bare feet.

I
had slippers,
I
think as I turn to look about me, confused and dazed by my odd
surroundings.

Heat
from the flames strokes my cheek with mounting intensity.  I can
feel my eyelashes beginning to mat together with a sweat that drips
from my brow.  I swipe the beads away with the back of my hand
and realize a fever has captured me in its grasp.

The
air hangs thick before me, weighted with smoke and the scent of
something repulsive, as if the grave itself spewed forth its
inhabitants.

I
blink to see through the haze, startled to discover that when I
focus, I can see each particle of ash that drifts to the floorboards,
leaving a thick dusting on everything within sight.

“Hello?”
I call, my throat croaking with lack of moisture.

My
hands tremble as I push against the floor, attempting to rise.  My
leg muscles coil and I am sent careening backward.  The wind is
knocked from my chest as I slide down the inflamed wall.  The
scent of my burning hair stings in my nose as I crawl forward to
escape the sweltering heat.  

How
did I jump like that?  
I
stare down at my fingers, noting the definition of my skin stretched
taut over pale flesh.

I
was never one for hiding from the sun, as some ladies were accustomed
to.  I lived for the moment when I could escape the confines of
my father’s home and be free.  My mother loved to scold me
about my freckles and sun kissed skin, but as I turn my hands over, I
realize the golden hue of my flesh has been sucked away.

My
gaze trails up from my hands, pausing over the corded muscles that
now lie just beneath the nearly translucent flesh of my forearms.  I
poke at the muscle, bewildered by its presence, but I have only a
scant second to wonder at the changes in my body before I become
aware of the blood that coats my upper arm, vining down to my wrist.
 I draw my hands up to my face and see drying blood caked within
the half crescent circle of my fingernails.

“Hello?”
I whisper as I lower my hands and stare in horror at the billowing
smoke before me.  The fire has begun to spread to all corners of
the room.  I hear movement in the darkened shadows but cannot
spy what causes it.  “Is anyone there?”

A
low, guttural chuckle rises from somewhere within the depths of the
thick cloud.  My stomach clenches painfully as the laughter
rolls over me like a glacial downpour.

A
memory seizes me: My family, perched resolutely in long wooden pews.
 My brother Petru sat beside my mother, stiff backed and vexed
to silence.  Storm clouds brewed along his handsome features,
darkening his eyes.  His hair was combed and slicked with
mother’s cooking oil, a look that would have brought tears to
my eyes had I not been so preoccupied with my own ordeal.

My
sister, Adela sat beside him, prim and proper in her beautiful dress
and ribbons.  Her hair shone like waves of summer wheat in the
candlelight and her heart shaped face lit with excitement.  This
was her first wedding.

Ahead
of me had been an altar of glossed wood and gold, achingly familiar
from my mornings spent in this very room for weekly service.  A
large crucifix stood atop the altar and an aged, cracking leather
bible rested atop its polished surface.  I fixed my gaze on the
likeness of Christ, praying for deliverance, but none came.

I
can remember hearing my feet whisper across the wooden plank floor as
I slowly made my way down the aisle.  My father’s rotund
stomach jiggled as he nodded at each of the guests seated nearest the
aisle.  

My
cousins arrived just this morning for the wedding, all the way from
the southern province of Wallachia.  I had not seen them since
their youngest, a wee pig-faced runt of a boy, was added to their
rather excessive litter.  My entire family had gathered from
near and far for the occasion, nearly fifty people in all.  My
father had seen to that.

It
is not every day that a Dragomir married into such a highborn family.

I
remember the feel of my intended’s hand as he clasped mine in
his.  His flesh was supple with youth and oddly warm to the
touch.  If I had reason to care I would have questioned him as
to his health, but I dare not.  Not after I met his eye.

Hunger...that
is what I saw when I looked at him for the first time, not one moon
past.  It was as obvious as it was appalling.  His dark
gaze made my skin crawl and my fingers tremble from within the
confines of my skirts when my father presented me to him.

There
was something indescribably evil about my betrothed.  Why was I
the only one to see it?

I
suspect that Petru knew, but he was too busy chasing skirts to think
much of it until Father announced a deal had been struck.  I was
sold like cattle in a market.  My pleas did little good.  Nor
did my tears.

I
believe my mother knew of my distress but she had learned long ago
that no one defied my father’s wishes.  His word was law
in the Dragomir household, and to many without.  My sister, dear
sweet Adela, knew of my fears.  She would cradle me in the
night, just as I used to do for her when nightmares plagued her as a
child.  She would whisper to me, plotting our escape.  We
would head to Wallachia and marry farmers and be blissfully happy.
 Childish dreams, but I prayed for them none the less.  

When
Vladimir Enescue seized my hand before the altar, I wanted to pull
back, to run and hide in the woods so that I could not be found, but
his grip was far too tight and my father’s reproval fierce.

I
was trapped.

I
do so pledge.  
My
own damning words echo endlessly through my mind as I crawl forward,
my hands flailing about before me in search of the pews my family sat
upon.  Heated splinters easily burrow into the flesh of my palms
as I hunt, drawn inexplicably toward a sweet, yet oddly tinny scent.

My
hand touches something damp and sticky and I rear back.  My
knees ache from kneeling upon the hard floor, but I dare not move.
 “No,” I moan as I stare down at my mother’s
corpse.  The flesh of her throat has been shredded, as if a
rabid animal tore at her repeatedly.  The front of her gown is a
blanket of crimson.  It clings to her like a vile sludge.

I
turn away as my stomach contracts.  I know that I am about to be
ill, but my convulsion stutters to a halt as I spy my father’s
hand just beyond my mother, sticking out from behind the second pew.
 Only his hand.  I cannot see where the remainder of his
body has gone.  

Beyond
him I see piles of my fair-haired relations strewn about the room,
some dangling over the backs of pews while others have been
carelessly tossed aside in the aisle.  Their clothes are alight
from the embers that flitter down from the crumbling ceiling.  

The
scent of death rises in my nostrils and I gag.  Bile burns in my
throat as I peer through the smoke that now escapes through the
charred hole in the roof to see my brother’s body hung from the
double doors leading into the church.  A rusty nail impales
through Petru’s shoulder so that he slumps to one side, his
chin propped against his sunken chest.  Blood coats his wedding
clothes, dripping from the tips of his shoes.  The sheath at his
hip is barren, his sword lost among the carnage.

I
remember everything.  
I
turn about in place, searching for my new husband.  I know he is
here, somewhere.  

Vladimir
Enescue did this.  He and his horrid brother.

Threads
from the woven tapestries along the walls drift to the floor in
charred piles of irreplaceable ash.  The plank walls groan as
the foundation of the church begins to deteriorate.

The
fire appears to leap from body to body before me as I lurch to my
feet and weave among the blue flames, desperately trying to fight
against the pain swelling in my chest.  It is not the dull ache
of remorse but a sharp, jagged pain that steals my breath away.  Warm
blood clings to my throat and chest like a second skin, sticky and
maddening.  My bronze ringlets feel heavy laden as they slap
against my face, matted with congealing blood.

The
scent of boiling flesh needles at my eyes and turns my stomach
rancid.  The flames chase after me as I frantically scour the
pews in search of my sister.

I
cannot see my husband but I know he is here.  I can hear his
laughter around me, caged within the shadows.  I can feel his
taunting eyes upon me as he watches and waits.

Blood
rains down from my hair, splattering against the bodice of my wedding
dress.  I do not know to whom the blood belongs.  Myself?
 My husband?  My sister?

“Adela!”
 My voice is hoarse as I grip a pew to pull myself over a slain
cousin, Remus and his young wife, Valeria beside him.  I try not
to think of the unborn child within her womb that will never see the
light of day.

My
nails dig deep into the flesh of the pine seatback.  I cry out
as the pew tears free from the floor and crashes atop Remus.  I
stare in disbelief at the flames that crawl up through the new cavity
I opened in the floor.  
How
did I manage that?  Surely it is because the floor is severely
compromised by the fire.

But
as I move to step around Remus, I spy deep indentations where my
fingers laid buried within the wood.  I step forward to brush my
fingers across the markings but a sickening squelch from below my
foot makes me feel faint.   
Oh,
my Lord!  Who did I tread upon?

I
dare not look for fear of losing my nerve as I pick my way through
the carnage.  Dismembered body parts lie scattered before me
like a gruesome puzzle.  Is this Lucien Enescue’s doing?
 My husband’s brother was the one who butchered my family
and stole the life of my brother as I watched in stunted horror.  I
have never a more vile man.

My
hands tremble as I clutch my stomach and lurch to the side, expelling
the acid as it burns in my throat.  I wipe my mouth clean but
the taste of guilt lingers.  My chest rises and falls as the
sound of crackling flames consume my mind.  The smoke is growing
thicker, hanging heavily in the air before me.  Though much of
it rises from the blistered slant of the church gable, the smoke
pouring from the walls around me is suffocating.    

The
room begins to spin as I fight back the terror that grips me.
 “Adela!”  

My
voice is gravelly as I push back to my feet, ignoring the flames that
seize the hem of my dress.  The floor is unbearably hot on the
soles of my feet but I press on, gritting my feet against the
blisters that form.