Summary:
Psycop #5
Psycop #5
Victor Bayne honed his dubious psychic skills at one of the first psych training facilities in the country, Heliotrope Station, otherwise known as Camp Hell to the psychics who've been guests behind its razorwire fence.
Vic discovered that none of the people he remembers from Camp Hell can be found online, and there’s no mention of Heliotrope Station itself, either. Someone's gone through a lot of trouble to bury the past. But who?
Original Audiobook Review October 2026:
Can't believe it's been more than 6 years since I read Camp Hell, I won't say there are things I forgot per se but didn't necessarily recall ahead of time either. So brilliant and so good. Having just reread my original review, I honestly have nothing to add. Once again the narrator brings Vic, Jacob, and all their "friends" to life perfectly.
Vic discovered that none of the people he remembers from Camp Hell can be found online, and there’s no mention of Heliotrope Station itself, either. Someone's gone through a lot of trouble to bury the past. But who?
Can't believe it's been more than 6 years since I read Camp Hell, I won't say there are things I forgot per se but didn't necessarily recall ahead of time either. So brilliant and so good. Having just reread my original review, I honestly have nothing to add. Once again the narrator brings Vic, Jacob, and all their "friends" to life perfectly.
As I say in all my audio reviews, as a fan of old time radio shows of the 30s, 40s, & 50s, I tend to hold them up as a bar, why you ask? Well, obviously they aren't the same medium but they do set out to accomplish the same thing: paint a picture with voice only so for me it's an obvious bar to measure by. Gomez Pugh does an amazing job again not only bringing the lads and Jordan Castillo Price's words to life, he does it so well that more than a couple of times I forgot what I was listening to and found myself waiting for the sponsor's commercial. Camp Hell definitely ticks all the boxes story-wise and shatters the bar audio-wise.
Original Review March 2020:
As the title suggests and continues on from Secrets, Camp Hell is about Vic revisiting his past or trying to find answers. The flashbacks were wonderful and blending in and out of them was spot on. Some times there was confusion but it was confusion on purpose so the reader could fully appreciate Vic trying to understand everything and that it takes time, seconds and/or minutes, to fully grasp the difference between then and now. Just brilliantly written.
Who do you trust? Who do you hate? Who's on the level? Okay so you know what I'm about to say: you have read Camp Hell for yourself for those answers, I won't spoil it for you. I will say that this may be mainly Vic's journey for answers, Jacob stumbles into a new bit of himself along the way and I can't wait to see where that goes, so much potential.
I'll admit that I missed Lisa in this entry but I love the working relationship between Vic and Zig. I think there is plenty of basis there that could turn a respectful working partnership into a full-fledged friendship. As for Crash, well I'm probably not 100% on board with his place in Vic and Jacob's world but I can't deny his contributions are quite entertaining and I'd love to see him finally find happiness of his own.
As a total package and the next entry in PsyCop series, Camp Hell is an all-around blend of mystery, heat, drama, paranormal, humor, danger, and plenty of mayhem, there may be a little less romance but I never doubted that the love and heart was there. Can't wait to see what's next for Vic and Jacob.
RATING:
Original Review March 2020:
As the title suggests and continues on from Secrets, Camp Hell is about Vic revisiting his past or trying to find answers. The flashbacks were wonderful and blending in and out of them was spot on. Some times there was confusion but it was confusion on purpose so the reader could fully appreciate Vic trying to understand everything and that it takes time, seconds and/or minutes, to fully grasp the difference between then and now. Just brilliantly written.
Who do you trust? Who do you hate? Who's on the level? Okay so you know what I'm about to say: you have read Camp Hell for yourself for those answers, I won't spoil it for you. I will say that this may be mainly Vic's journey for answers, Jacob stumbles into a new bit of himself along the way and I can't wait to see where that goes, so much potential.
I'll admit that I missed Lisa in this entry but I love the working relationship between Vic and Zig. I think there is plenty of basis there that could turn a respectful working partnership into a full-fledged friendship. As for Crash, well I'm probably not 100% on board with his place in Vic and Jacob's world but I can't deny his contributions are quite entertaining and I'd love to see him finally find happiness of his own.
As a total package and the next entry in PsyCop series, Camp Hell is an all-around blend of mystery, heat, drama, paranormal, humor, danger, and plenty of mayhem, there may be a little less romance but I never doubted that the love and heart was there. Can't wait to see what's next for Vic and Jacob.
Summary:
The Raines Pack #1
A bond torn apart by grief. An omega hunted by his own blood. A child worth a fortune to the wrong people. And an alpha who’d rather die than watch history repeat itself.
Soren was born into a world that had already decided what he was worth.
Not a person. An investment. A rare omega bloodline with documentation going back twelve generations, and a body that made him valuable the moment he presented. When his family forced a breeding arrangement that cost another man his mate, his life, and any say in what came next, Soren was locked away to give birth in secret.
Alpha wolf Cassian has been alone on his mountain for three years, with a shattered bond and no intention of getting involved in anyone else’s problems. His bonded mate died, and what’s left of Cassian runs the fence line at night and waits to be ready. He doesn’t take in strangers. He doesn’t get involved.
When his camera picks up a small shape crawling up the snowbank on the county road with one arm braced under a pregnant belly, he tells himself twice that this isn’t his problem.
Snowed in on a mountain with no way out, Cassian has weeks to keep a frightened omega and his unborn daughter alive — and no idea that keeping them safe will mean learning how to live again. But the family Soren ran from isn’t done, and the brother who wants his niece more than he ever wanted his sibling is coming to collect what he believes is his.
Omega Hunted is an MM omegaverse romantic suspense featuring a grieving alpha wolf, a pregnant omega on the run, a broken bond healing into something neither man expected, a desperate crime family, forced proximity, hurt/comfort, and genuine darkness.
Summary:
Enchanted Folklore #1
Fifteen years ago, Prince Graham of Ardglass barely escaped from the ancestral castle with his young life. Rescued by a magical creature and spirited off to a faraway valley, he grew into a strong, capable man—never shirking his duties on the farm, but forever bitter over his father’s betrayal. But just when he has finally come to terms with being lost and staying lost, a visitor arrives in his valley and changes everything.
After a lifetime spent lost in his beloved books, Prince Emory awakens to find his villainous aunt working to usurp the throne of Fontaine. When she sends him on a dangerous quest, he’s certain the journey is a trap, but he’s not willing to accept defeat without a fight.
But a fight is something Rory is unprepared and untrained for, until he’s saved by a handsome, unassuming farmhand and his snooty, smug, and surprisingly talkative unicorn.
Yours, Forever After now includes a bonus novella, completing Gray and Rory's magical quest for true love.
Summary:
Outfoxing the Paranormal #4
The dead will not be silenced.
When Oscar, Nigel, and the rest of the OtP ghost hunters travel to Devil’s Den Island, their job seems simple: lay the ghost of a dead medium to rest at last.
But more than one ghost haunts Devil’s Den, and soon the team realize there’s more to the island’s dark past than they’ve been led to believe. As the fallout from century-old secrets closes in around them, one thing is clear: the dead have a story to tell.
And ignoring it could prove fatal.
Warders #1
Julian Nash should be excited: he’s just earned a huge promotion at work and is going out to celebrate. But his happiness fades when he discovers his date cheating on him an hour before. Suddenly alone when everyone knows he’s supposed to have a plus one, Julian is set for a long night until longtime acquaintance Ryan Dean bails him out of the embarrassing situation.
During dinner, they discover they have more than just friendship between them: there is mutual admiration and heated attraction. But getting to know Ryan better—and finding a place in his life—will bring Julian frightening surprises and supernatural danger he never expected or dreamed existed.
Camp Hell by Jordan Castillo Price
"So. You're here to gloat over how you'll nail me with your civil suit." Roger Burke nailed me with the world's smuggest grin, and when I didn't accommodate him by being lured into some sort of argument, he added, "I'd just like to see you try."
My civil suit. I checked that phrase against the known phrases in my admittedly limited catalog of things-I-knew-about, and came up blank. I was coasting on the sweet spot of my Auracel and I didn't feel the immediate need to tell Burke that I had no idea what he was talking about, so I stared at him instead.
He'd been grinning at me. His smile faltered. "Don't give me that look."
I attempted to look even more like I currently did.
"Go ahead and sue me. I've got less than five thousand dollars in the bank. And believe me, I've got my countersuit all planned out. You could've given me a stroke by shooting me up in the neck. I'm prepared to testify that a long-time drug user like you would know that."
It had never even occurred to me to sue him. I pressed the heel of my hand into my right eye. It felt great, and then it hurt, and then I saw a flash of pretty colors. "Would you shut up for half a second?"
"Think you'd win over a jury? Maybe they'd sympathize with you on the drug angle if you did your 'boo-hoo, I'm a medium' routine. But once my attorneys parade in that big, smug, steroid-pumped gorilla you play house with…."
"I was planning on talking about a way we could avoid the courtroom, but keep running your mouth, and my next phone call is my lawyer."
Burke crossed his arms over his chest as far as his handcuffs would allow, and he glared. He had a hell of a glare. I'd never seen him use it during the time he'd been my partner at the Fifth Precinct. He'd spent over a month projecting a wholesome, helpful, non-threatening persona as the Stiff half of our PsyCop team, and I'd been totally sold on his good-cop act.
Now that I knew him for what he was, I had no idea how I ever could have seen him as harmless. His eyes, which once seemed unguarded and approachable—at least, for a homicide investigator—now looked so cold and calculating that I wondered why I'd ever thought it was safe to get into a car with him, let alone accept a drink he'd bought without my surveillance.
He sat across the plastic table from me in the visiting room, with his pale, reptilian eyes trained on me so hard that I felt like I needed to go take a shower under a water cannon to wash off the evil. There was a repeater in the corner, the ghost of a former inmate who'd died pounding on the two-way mirror, who continued to slam his fists into the glass long into the afterlife. I'd been spooked by him when I first came into the room and discovered I hadn't taken enough Auracel to block him. Now I found his presence almost comforting. It meant I wasn't alone with Roger Burke.
I controlled my revulsion toward him enough to plant my elbows on the table and lean forward. I'd been hoping to buy his information with Marlboros, but the guards wouldn't let me bring cigarettes into the visiting area. His hissy fit had given me an idea, though. "Here's the deal. I promise not to sue you, if you tell me what you know about Camp Hell."
I did my best not to look too full of myself, but I had to admit: a promise to refrain from any future lawsuits seemed a lot more valuable than a few packs of smokes.
Roger eased back into his chair. I wouldn't say he looked exactly comfortable, but he was interested enough to stay awhile, if only to taunt me about things that he knew, and I didn't. It was a start.
"I assume that you're not talking about the new Heliotrope Station. You want to know about the real deal. Where you trained."
In name only, Heliotrope Station lived on. It was now a series of night-school classes they held over at the Junior College. None of it was even remotely like the original Camp Hell—not the administration, not the staff, not the location. Hell, not even the textbooks. Still, even the old name made me start to sweat, and swallow convulsively.
Roger's smug grin was back. "You'd need to talk to me 'til my release date to find out everything I know about Camp Hell. And given that they haven't even set my sentence, who knows when that'll be?"
Posturing. That was good. It meant that he wanted to seem like he had something valuable to dangle over my head. Unfortunately, I already knew that he did. Lisa's si-no talent had told me that Roger could not only tell us why stories about Camp Hell had never made it to the Internet, but who'd managed to bury them.
"I'll be checking out what you say to make sure it's true," I warned him. "I smell bullshit, and I'll see you in court."
Roger smiled. There was some genuine pleasure in that smile, along with all the malice. My creeped-out meter ratcheted up to eleven. "April eighteenth," he said. "It's a mild fifty-five degrees outside. The subway tunnels are being drained from a freakish flood incident that occurred when an old access tunnel collapsed and the Chicago River poured in. And twenty-three-year-old Victor Bayne was transferred from the Cook County Mental Health Center to Heliotrope Station at approximately fourteen hundred hours. In a straightjacket."
My right eye throbbed. I jammed my thumb into the corner of it at the bridge of my nose, and reminded myself to breathe. "Big deal."
"Could anyone else have told you that story? Your co-workers? Your lover?"
He said the word lover like it was something rotten he'd found stuck between his teeth. "You know things about me," I said. I think my voice sounded normal. Maybe. "I'd be surprised if you didn't, since you and Doctor Chance schemed to kidnap me for, what, a year? Maybe two? That doesn't mean you know Camp Hell."
"West Fifty-Third Place, behind an industrial park that housed a small factory that manufactured dental posts and implants. No address. No signs. But a big, electrified, razor wire fence covered the whole perimeter. Been there lately? Seems like the whole building, all sixty five hundred square feet of it, has just…disappeared. Kind of like the residents."
The front doors were black tinted glass. I blinked. Roger hadn't told me that. The fried remnants of my brain had cheerfully offered up the long-forgotten detail.
The gag reflex fluttered, deep down in my throat. How did I ever think I could hear about Camp Hell without shoving my keys into my ears and punching out my eardrums?
I stood. My cheap plastic chair tipped over.
"Am I wrong, Detective?"
"This was a dumb idea. Go back to your cafeteria food and your group showers."
"They didn't kill them all. Maybe half, give or take. But the ones who didn't pose any threat, or the ones they could use…." He spread his hands. His handcuffs clicked as the chain in the center hit its limit. "Well. They crop up every now and again. They might even be leading fairly normal lives. As long as they don't travel anywhere suspicious, like Afghanistan or Cuba, the FPMP is happy to let them go on thinking they're just plain, old, ordinary American citizens, just like you and me." He blinked in mock sincerity. "Although…come to think of it, neither one of us really does fit that description. I'm up on felony charges, and you're a class five medium—as far as they know, anyway."
"I tested at five a dozen times. That's no big secret. What's FPMP?"
Roger smiled.
Our little chat wasn't going anything like I'd planned. I was supposed to give him some smokes, and he would thank me for my present by telling me a name or an address, and that would be that. That's how it'd gone down inside my head, anyhow.
"A bunch of butch guys running around with letters sewn onto their windbreakers," I said, "right? Whatever. Look, I've got somewhere to be."
I went to the door and knocked. The guard opened it.
"You could always recant your statement, you know. Tell them it wasn't me holding you captive. I was just along for the ride."
Coffee I'd drank a couple of hours before burned at the back of my throat. I needed to get to a bathroom before I hurled. "Yeah. They'll believe that."
"Why wouldn't they? When you gave your testimony, you had traces of Amytal, psyactives and muscle relaxants in your system. You were confused." He stared me in the eye, and he'd finally stopped grinning. "C'mon, Bayne. I'd make it worth your while."
"Don't hold your breath."
"I can tell you about Camp Hell, but what's the point? You were there. A second point of view isn't going to change anything that happened. But the FPMP? The people who made it disappear? They're still around. Think about it. Can you really afford not to know?"
I was standing half-in, half-out of the room. The guard gave me an "are you through yet?" look. I took another step out the door.
"And…Detective?" He sounded so mild, so matter-of-fact, that I should have known a zinger was coming. But I couldn't stop myself from turning back around and taking one more look at Roger Burke's cold, pale eyes.
"What?"
Roger's grin reappeared, and spread like blood welling out of a deep papercut. "Happy birthday."
• • •
I lay in bed staring up at the tin ceiling, racking my brain and trying to figure out which was worse: knowing that Roger Burke would walk sooner, maybe even immediately, if I recanted my statement—or knowing that he could tell me everything I wanted to know about Camp Hell and then some, but that I was too gutless to pay the price he wanted for the information.
I heard Jacob come in and bound up the stairs. He's got energy to do things like that, because he eats right, exercises, and doesn't take questionable pills.
"Are you mad?" he said.
I glanced down from the ceiling. He stood in the bedroom doorway, loosening his tie.
"No. Why?"
"Me. Forgetting your birthday." He slipped out of his suitcoat and hung it in the closet. "Do you want to go out? It's not that late. I'll bet I can get us in at Villa Prego."
Villa Prego was fancy enough that I didn't think the staff would ruin my dinner by trooping out and singing me a half-hearted, cheesy birthday song. But they served fussy little portions of things that once crawled around on the bottoms of ponds. "Nah. Let's just get a pizza. I'm really not big into birthdays."
Jacob took off his holster and put it in a drawer. "How hungry are you?"
Thanks to my cozy alone-time with Roger Burke, my stomach felt like it'd been ripped out, switched with a giant wad of rotting trash, then stuffed back into my abdominal cavity. I shrugged.
Jacob flashed some skin while he pulled on a T-shirt and sweats, and even his unintentional strip tease wasn't enough to cheer me up. I was too busy mulling over just how much I hated Burke, and wishing that he wasn't the one who had the information I needed.
Jacob shut the closet door and looked at me hard enough to make him squint. "Something's wrong. Is it Lisa?"
"Lisa's fine. She sent me her e-mail address. Maybe one of these days she'll trust me with her phone number again."
He planted his hands on his hips and kept on staring. I felt myself scowl even harder. I know he was accustomed to teaming up with the Human Polygraph, but didn't he understand that sometimes people lied and minimized because they were wrestling with something too ugly to lay out there for everyone to see?
"You're mad that I borrowed your Auracel," he said, finally.
There—something I could hang my mood on. Thank you, Jacob. "Don't go through my pockets."
"I'm sorry."
Like I gave a damn that he'd slipped some of my meds to an astral rapist. It wasn't as if it was my last pill or anything. And it'd gone to a good cause. I did my best to scowl harder.
Jacob sat on the edge of the bed, pulled my foot into his lap and dug his thumb into the sole. I turned all to jelly inside, but I think my scowl didn't slip, much. "I'm truly sorry. I did what I thought was right at the time."
The nerves at the bottom of my foot seemed to be connected directly to my spine. I sagged into the mattress, and my eyes rolled up to stare at the ceiling again. Jacob swept his thumb over the ball of my foot, and I made a noise that I usually reserve for sex.
"Please don't be mad."
"I'm not mad," I said. "It's just been a rough couple of days."
My civil suit. I checked that phrase against the known phrases in my admittedly limited catalog of things-I-knew-about, and came up blank. I was coasting on the sweet spot of my Auracel and I didn't feel the immediate need to tell Burke that I had no idea what he was talking about, so I stared at him instead.
He'd been grinning at me. His smile faltered. "Don't give me that look."
I attempted to look even more like I currently did.
"Go ahead and sue me. I've got less than five thousand dollars in the bank. And believe me, I've got my countersuit all planned out. You could've given me a stroke by shooting me up in the neck. I'm prepared to testify that a long-time drug user like you would know that."
It had never even occurred to me to sue him. I pressed the heel of my hand into my right eye. It felt great, and then it hurt, and then I saw a flash of pretty colors. "Would you shut up for half a second?"
"Think you'd win over a jury? Maybe they'd sympathize with you on the drug angle if you did your 'boo-hoo, I'm a medium' routine. But once my attorneys parade in that big, smug, steroid-pumped gorilla you play house with…."
"I was planning on talking about a way we could avoid the courtroom, but keep running your mouth, and my next phone call is my lawyer."
Burke crossed his arms over his chest as far as his handcuffs would allow, and he glared. He had a hell of a glare. I'd never seen him use it during the time he'd been my partner at the Fifth Precinct. He'd spent over a month projecting a wholesome, helpful, non-threatening persona as the Stiff half of our PsyCop team, and I'd been totally sold on his good-cop act.
Now that I knew him for what he was, I had no idea how I ever could have seen him as harmless. His eyes, which once seemed unguarded and approachable—at least, for a homicide investigator—now looked so cold and calculating that I wondered why I'd ever thought it was safe to get into a car with him, let alone accept a drink he'd bought without my surveillance.
He sat across the plastic table from me in the visiting room, with his pale, reptilian eyes trained on me so hard that I felt like I needed to go take a shower under a water cannon to wash off the evil. There was a repeater in the corner, the ghost of a former inmate who'd died pounding on the two-way mirror, who continued to slam his fists into the glass long into the afterlife. I'd been spooked by him when I first came into the room and discovered I hadn't taken enough Auracel to block him. Now I found his presence almost comforting. It meant I wasn't alone with Roger Burke.
I controlled my revulsion toward him enough to plant my elbows on the table and lean forward. I'd been hoping to buy his information with Marlboros, but the guards wouldn't let me bring cigarettes into the visiting area. His hissy fit had given me an idea, though. "Here's the deal. I promise not to sue you, if you tell me what you know about Camp Hell."
I did my best not to look too full of myself, but I had to admit: a promise to refrain from any future lawsuits seemed a lot more valuable than a few packs of smokes.
Roger eased back into his chair. I wouldn't say he looked exactly comfortable, but he was interested enough to stay awhile, if only to taunt me about things that he knew, and I didn't. It was a start.
"I assume that you're not talking about the new Heliotrope Station. You want to know about the real deal. Where you trained."
In name only, Heliotrope Station lived on. It was now a series of night-school classes they held over at the Junior College. None of it was even remotely like the original Camp Hell—not the administration, not the staff, not the location. Hell, not even the textbooks. Still, even the old name made me start to sweat, and swallow convulsively.
Roger's smug grin was back. "You'd need to talk to me 'til my release date to find out everything I know about Camp Hell. And given that they haven't even set my sentence, who knows when that'll be?"
Posturing. That was good. It meant that he wanted to seem like he had something valuable to dangle over my head. Unfortunately, I already knew that he did. Lisa's si-no talent had told me that Roger could not only tell us why stories about Camp Hell had never made it to the Internet, but who'd managed to bury them.
"I'll be checking out what you say to make sure it's true," I warned him. "I smell bullshit, and I'll see you in court."
Roger smiled. There was some genuine pleasure in that smile, along with all the malice. My creeped-out meter ratcheted up to eleven. "April eighteenth," he said. "It's a mild fifty-five degrees outside. The subway tunnels are being drained from a freakish flood incident that occurred when an old access tunnel collapsed and the Chicago River poured in. And twenty-three-year-old Victor Bayne was transferred from the Cook County Mental Health Center to Heliotrope Station at approximately fourteen hundred hours. In a straightjacket."
My right eye throbbed. I jammed my thumb into the corner of it at the bridge of my nose, and reminded myself to breathe. "Big deal."
"Could anyone else have told you that story? Your co-workers? Your lover?"
He said the word lover like it was something rotten he'd found stuck between his teeth. "You know things about me," I said. I think my voice sounded normal. Maybe. "I'd be surprised if you didn't, since you and Doctor Chance schemed to kidnap me for, what, a year? Maybe two? That doesn't mean you know Camp Hell."
"West Fifty-Third Place, behind an industrial park that housed a small factory that manufactured dental posts and implants. No address. No signs. But a big, electrified, razor wire fence covered the whole perimeter. Been there lately? Seems like the whole building, all sixty five hundred square feet of it, has just…disappeared. Kind of like the residents."
The front doors were black tinted glass. I blinked. Roger hadn't told me that. The fried remnants of my brain had cheerfully offered up the long-forgotten detail.
The gag reflex fluttered, deep down in my throat. How did I ever think I could hear about Camp Hell without shoving my keys into my ears and punching out my eardrums?
I stood. My cheap plastic chair tipped over.
"Am I wrong, Detective?"
"This was a dumb idea. Go back to your cafeteria food and your group showers."
"They didn't kill them all. Maybe half, give or take. But the ones who didn't pose any threat, or the ones they could use…." He spread his hands. His handcuffs clicked as the chain in the center hit its limit. "Well. They crop up every now and again. They might even be leading fairly normal lives. As long as they don't travel anywhere suspicious, like Afghanistan or Cuba, the FPMP is happy to let them go on thinking they're just plain, old, ordinary American citizens, just like you and me." He blinked in mock sincerity. "Although…come to think of it, neither one of us really does fit that description. I'm up on felony charges, and you're a class five medium—as far as they know, anyway."
"I tested at five a dozen times. That's no big secret. What's FPMP?"
Roger smiled.
Our little chat wasn't going anything like I'd planned. I was supposed to give him some smokes, and he would thank me for my present by telling me a name or an address, and that would be that. That's how it'd gone down inside my head, anyhow.
"A bunch of butch guys running around with letters sewn onto their windbreakers," I said, "right? Whatever. Look, I've got somewhere to be."
I went to the door and knocked. The guard opened it.
"You could always recant your statement, you know. Tell them it wasn't me holding you captive. I was just along for the ride."
Coffee I'd drank a couple of hours before burned at the back of my throat. I needed to get to a bathroom before I hurled. "Yeah. They'll believe that."
"Why wouldn't they? When you gave your testimony, you had traces of Amytal, psyactives and muscle relaxants in your system. You were confused." He stared me in the eye, and he'd finally stopped grinning. "C'mon, Bayne. I'd make it worth your while."
"Don't hold your breath."
"I can tell you about Camp Hell, but what's the point? You were there. A second point of view isn't going to change anything that happened. But the FPMP? The people who made it disappear? They're still around. Think about it. Can you really afford not to know?"
I was standing half-in, half-out of the room. The guard gave me an "are you through yet?" look. I took another step out the door.
"And…Detective?" He sounded so mild, so matter-of-fact, that I should have known a zinger was coming. But I couldn't stop myself from turning back around and taking one more look at Roger Burke's cold, pale eyes.
"What?"
Roger's grin reappeared, and spread like blood welling out of a deep papercut. "Happy birthday."
• • •
I lay in bed staring up at the tin ceiling, racking my brain and trying to figure out which was worse: knowing that Roger Burke would walk sooner, maybe even immediately, if I recanted my statement—or knowing that he could tell me everything I wanted to know about Camp Hell and then some, but that I was too gutless to pay the price he wanted for the information.
I heard Jacob come in and bound up the stairs. He's got energy to do things like that, because he eats right, exercises, and doesn't take questionable pills.
"Are you mad?" he said.
I glanced down from the ceiling. He stood in the bedroom doorway, loosening his tie.
"No. Why?"
"Me. Forgetting your birthday." He slipped out of his suitcoat and hung it in the closet. "Do you want to go out? It's not that late. I'll bet I can get us in at Villa Prego."
Villa Prego was fancy enough that I didn't think the staff would ruin my dinner by trooping out and singing me a half-hearted, cheesy birthday song. But they served fussy little portions of things that once crawled around on the bottoms of ponds. "Nah. Let's just get a pizza. I'm really not big into birthdays."
Jacob took off his holster and put it in a drawer. "How hungry are you?"
Thanks to my cozy alone-time with Roger Burke, my stomach felt like it'd been ripped out, switched with a giant wad of rotting trash, then stuffed back into my abdominal cavity. I shrugged.
Jacob flashed some skin while he pulled on a T-shirt and sweats, and even his unintentional strip tease wasn't enough to cheer me up. I was too busy mulling over just how much I hated Burke, and wishing that he wasn't the one who had the information I needed.
Jacob shut the closet door and looked at me hard enough to make him squint. "Something's wrong. Is it Lisa?"
"Lisa's fine. She sent me her e-mail address. Maybe one of these days she'll trust me with her phone number again."
He planted his hands on his hips and kept on staring. I felt myself scowl even harder. I know he was accustomed to teaming up with the Human Polygraph, but didn't he understand that sometimes people lied and minimized because they were wrestling with something too ugly to lay out there for everyone to see?
"You're mad that I borrowed your Auracel," he said, finally.
There—something I could hang my mood on. Thank you, Jacob. "Don't go through my pockets."
"I'm sorry."
Like I gave a damn that he'd slipped some of my meds to an astral rapist. It wasn't as if it was my last pill or anything. And it'd gone to a good cause. I did my best to scowl harder.
Jacob sat on the edge of the bed, pulled my foot into his lap and dug his thumb into the sole. I turned all to jelly inside, but I think my scowl didn't slip, much. "I'm truly sorry. I did what I thought was right at the time."
The nerves at the bottom of my foot seemed to be connected directly to my spine. I sagged into the mattress, and my eyes rolled up to stare at the ceiling again. Jacob swept his thumb over the ball of my foot, and I made a noise that I usually reserve for sex.
"Please don't be mad."
"I'm not mad," I said. "It's just been a rough couple of days."
Omega Hunted by RJ Scott
Chapter One
SOREN
The noise dragged me out of sleep so violently that for a heartbeat I couldn’t work out where I was. My hand flew to my belly before I was properly awake, searching for the reassuring weight of my daughter, and Asha answered with a slow push into my palm.
Red light.
A shrill burst from the siren echoed through the building, followed by the deep mechanical voice that normally announced anything from shutdown to medical appointments. This time the words dissolved into static before I could make anything out, and then there was just the light and my door gaping open.
I blinked at the flashing emergency lamps sweeping scarlet across my ceiling, trying to understand what had happened. The building was usually so quiet, so controlled, every hour of every day running with the precision of a prison. The SED patrols changed every twelve hours. Boots echoed along the corridor. Radios crackled. Keys rattled against belts. Center 14 called the men in their black Shifter Enforcement Directorate uniforms welfare officers, but nobody locked behind those doors believed that. The lights had never flashed. The alarms had never sounded. Every morning, the SED walked these corridors, checking doors, scanning wristbands, counting omegas as though we were livestock. Today there was nobody.
My door had never been open.
Red light.
I climbed out of bed before my mind had caught up, my hips protesting as Asha shifted inside me. The pregnancy had become an awkward balancing act over the past few weeks. Everything ached. My lower back burned whenever I stood too quickly, and my feet had swollen enough that my sneakers barely fit anymore.
But the door was open.
There wasn’t a guard looming to force me to a physical or make sure I swallowed the right drugs.
I could leave.
I have to get out of here.
I stumbled to the door, and the corridor beyond my room was empty, sirens screaming, their relentless wail filling the omega wing. Smoke drifted along the ceiling, carrying the acrid smell of burning plastic where the electronic lock beside my room had melted into a blackened lump. The tiny green light that had taunted me for every failed escape attempt for months had finally gone dark.
Next to mine, Yannick’s door stood open, the room stripped bare after they’d taken him to the birthing suite a few days ago, so I hurried to the room opposite, Franco’s, but the handle refused to move beneath my grip. “Franco!”
“Help!” Franco’s frightened voice called through the door. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, pulling harder even though I already knew it was useless. “My door was open. Hold on; I’ll get you out.”
The lock didn’t even click. I hit the control panel with the heel of my hand, searching desperately for some kind of release, but the tiny red light glowed back at me without changing. Goddess, no.
“I’ll be back!” I yelled over the siren, then ran to the next room.
Locked.
The one after that.
Locked.
Every door to each omega cell refused to open. Somewhere behind me an omega had started crying so hard his words dissolved into sobs, while another pounded frantically on the metal, shouting for someone to let him out before whatever was happening reached us.
“Please!”
“I’m trying,” I yelled back, already moving again. I slammed my shoulder into another door hard enough to send pain shooting down my arm, but the lock held firm. I tried another and then another, hauling at the handles until my breath came in ragged gasps and my hips burned beneath the weight of my pregnancy. Asha shifted inside me, and I rested my trembling hand over my belly for the briefest moment before trying the final door at the end of the corridor.
It didn’t open either.
My cat was no longer the distant, exhausted presence he’d become over the past few months. He was awake, every instinct flooding through me with a desperate urgency that made my pulse race.
Run.
“I can’t.”
Run!
“I can’t leave them.”
Orders echoed up the stairwell and through the building, and I knew we were running out of time.
I stood there for one agonizing second longer, staring at the line of locked doors, hearing frightened omegas calling for help from rooms I couldn’t get into, their voices rising in panic while I stood uselessly on the other side.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, knowing they would never hear me over the alarms. “I’m so sorry.” Then I shouted. “I’ll get help!”
The apology and promise felt pitifully inadequate, swallowed by smoke and sirens before they’d even left my mouth, and I hated myself for turning away. My cat pushed at me from inside, frantic and insistent, driving me toward the stairwell, toward escape, toward help. Every step felt like I was abandoning them, but he knew what I couldn’t bear to accept: staying wouldn’t save anyone. If I remained, I’d become another omega trapped behind a locked door, waiting for my baby to be stolen from my arms or my next heat to be used to force another child into me.
The stairwell reeked of chemicals, and the odor grew heavier the farther I descended, forcing me to pull the neck of my pajama top up over my nose. The emergency lights now flickered, plunging each landing into alternating pools of crimson and shadow. Halfway down I almost stumbled over the first body. An SED agent—not one of the kinder ones—lay sprawled across the concrete with his rifle several feet away, his eyes fixed blankly on the ceiling. Another one lay farther down, slumped against the wall with blood spreading beneath him, and when he saw me, he reached for me, the same disgust I’d seen when he hurt us twisting his face before it gave way to fear, then despair, and after one wet, choking cough, he died right there in front of me.
I picked my way through the dead as fast as my aching body would allow, forcing myself not to look at the faces of men I recognized, men who’d patrolled the omega wing for months, who’d watched us suffer and done nothing, and kept moving because there was only one way out. The birthing level stood between me and the main entrance, and I slowed as voices cut through the smoke ahead, close enough that every instinct screamed at me to run.
“Protect the assets!” Adrian. The man who’d built this place to cage omegas, steal our babies, and turn our bodies into something he could use and sell, and the jailer who’d made sure none of us escaped. The sound of his voice rooted me to the spot. “I said move them!”
There was a burst of gunfire, close enough to send ice through my veins. I kept low and edged toward the open theater door, because I’d only ever seen the birthing suite, the doctor’s office, and the locked omega wing, but there had to be more than that, another corridor, another door, some way out of this nightmare. Somewhere beyond the rooms they’d allowed me to see there had to be a phone, a fire exit, anything I could use to get outside and bring help back for the omegas I’d left behind. My heart hammered so violently it drowned out everything, but the gunfire as harsh surgical light spilled through the open doorway and cut across the smoke-filled corridor. I checked inside the room where they’d hurt us, examined us, drugged us, and done things to our bodies we’d never consented to, searching through the horror for the door I knew had to be there before fear could stop me.
There was a body on a gurney.
Yannick.
For one impossible heartbeat, I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. The omega’s belly was flat beneath blood-soaked sheets, his babies gone, his body abandoned where they’d cut them from him, one arm hanging limply over the edge of the table and his head turned toward the door, eyes half-open and empty, as though he’d died still waiting for someone to come and save him.
“No…” I crossed the room in a daze, barely aware of anything except him. A stuffed wolf had fallen onto the floor beside the table, one stitched ear dark with blood, and I bent to pick it up. He’d carried that stupid little wolf everywhere, stubbornly holding on to it through every cruel joke and taunt because it was for his babies. It was my brother’s, he would say, over and over, as though that should have been enough to make them understand why it mattered. As though anything we loved had ever mattered to the people who kept us here. I rubbed desperately at the stained fur, trying to make it clean again, but the blood had already soaked too deep.
“No,” I whispered, looking back at his face.
He’d talked for weeks about his boys. About the tiny cabin he was going to find somewhere far away from his family, where no one could ever take them from him. About teaching them to shift and climb trees and howl badly at the moon until they all laughed themselves stupid. He’d built that future piece by piece, clinging to every impossible detail because believing in it was easier than accepting what this place intended to do to him. Yannick had been stronger than me. He’d dared to imagine a life beyond this place, while I’d never let myself picture anything for me and my daughter because wanting something that badly, only to have it ripped away, had been too terrifying.
“Wait!”
Adrian stood in the opposite doorway, the beta’s white coat streaked with blood, and when he saw me, fury twisted his face because the omega he’d drugged, bred, cut open, and controlled had somehow slipped his cage. A gunshot cracked through the corridor, and the wall beside his head exploded in a shower of plaster, sending him stumbling back as shouting erupted somewhere beyond him. Another shot thundered behind me, and this time Adrian jerked violently, his hands flying to his throat as blood poured between his fingers. For one terrible second, his eyes locked on mine, still furious, still accusing, as though even his death was somehow my fault. Then his knees gave way, and he crumpled to the floor.
Someone yanked me backward.
I cried out and twisted, every memory of hands restraining me crashing through my body at once. A broad-shouldered alpha filled the doorway, dressed in black tactical gear, his rifle covering the corridor behind him while his attention swept the room where Adrian lay dead, with a single glance. His face was hidden behind a black mask, leaving only his eyes visible.
My cat surged awake so violently it stole my breath.
Fight.
A gloved hand had closed around my forearm. Every instinct I possessed screamed that if an alpha had hold of me, I was already lost.
“No!” I screamed, wrenching against him with everything I had.
My shoulder burned, as I raked my nails across the exposed strip of skin above his wrist. He sucked in a sharp breath but didn’t retaliate. His grip tightened just enough to stop me from throwing myself past him.
“Stop!” he barked. “I’m here to help you!”
Lies.
I slammed my shoulder into his chest. We rocked backward, his boots slipping on the polished floor as he fought to keep us both upright. For the smallest fraction of a second, his grip loosened.
It was enough.
I threw my hand upwards, grabbing for anything I could reach. My fingers caught the edge of the black fabric covering his face.
I yanked.
The mask peeled down.
For one frozen heartbeat, I saw him.
Dark hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. Golden eyes, wide with surprise rather than anger. A scar cut through one eyebrow. He looked younger than I’d expected, and nothing in his expression matched the cold satisfaction I’d always seen on the SED wolves from Center 14.
Then his free hand shot up, dragging the mask back into place.
“Stop,” he said again, breath coming hard as he fought to restrain me without hurting me. “I’m not here for you!” His frantic gaze swept past me, searching the room, and then he saw Yannick. He went utterly still. Whatever he’d been about to say died on his lips, and the despair that broke across his face was so raw I almost looked away. Then a sound tore from somewhere deep inside him, too broken, too animal to be human, his wolf howling through him at the sight of Yannick on that table. It lasted no more than a heartbeat before he dragged it back under control, but I’d heard it. I’d heard what seeing Yannick dead had done to him.
He knew Yannick?
“Fuck!” he yelled, then yanked me back, staring at me, calculating. “Can you run?” I couldn’t answer. “Can. You. Run?” he repeated, louder this time.
“Yannick…” My voice broke around the name.
His gaze drifted back to the operating table for the briefest moment. “He’s gone.”
I clutched the stuffed wolf to my chest. “The others,” I whispered. “Please… help the others. They’re still locked upstairs.”
His shoulders sagged. “I can’t.” His gaze remained fixed beyond me, on people I couldn’t see. “But if I can get at least one of you out…”
Another volley of gunfire exploded down the corridor, and this time he didn’t wait for me to answer.
“Move.”
He grabbed my arm and yanked me through the door, pressing me into the shadow of an alcove, one arm locked around my shoulders, gun raised and sweeping the corridor over my head. Panic clawed my throat as I stumbled onward, one hand on the wall, my back aching at every stride, searching for an exit while my mind tried to understand what I’d seen. Shouts broke out behind me. “Someone’s in the wing, find them”—and boots hit the floor ahead.
He yanked me sideways, and I twisted and clawed—
“Stop.” His voice was low and rough, right against my ear, as he locked his arm around my shoulders, and my leopard lurched between submission and escape so violently it made my knees weak.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
My daughter pressed hard under my hand. The pain in my back stayed deep and constant. Voices were getting closer. He dragged me into the dark, and I went, stumbling, his gun raised as we moved, and I didn’t know who he was or where he was taking me, only that behind us, people were dead, and I had to keep going.
A shadow emerged from the laundry alcove ahead with a weapon. A gunshot exploded beside me, deafening me, wiping out every other sound as the man dropped. My ears were screaming with a high, piercing whine; we were already through the service door before his body finished falling.
The stairwell beyond was narrow, and I stumbled on the first steps, grabbing at the man to stop myself tumbling. “I can’t leave the others!” The words came out ragged and wrong.
“Get the fuck down the stairs,” he snarled, his animal in his eyes.
“My baby—”
“This is your only chance.”
I stumbled and half fell two flights, then three, my breath tearing, while the stranger stayed close and kept me upright. My stomach cramped, tight enough to make me gasp, my back flaring with a deep, dragging knife that made my knees threaten to give. I had to stop, gripping the banister.
He caught my face in both hands, and his expression didn’t suggest we could rest. “Move,” he snapped.
“O-okay.”
Somehow, we reached the bottom. “When we go through the next door, you run,” he said, his voice muffled and distant beneath the relentless ringing in my ears as he pressed a cold metal key into my palm. I stared down at it.
“Fuck,” he snarled. “Do you know how to drive?”
“A little, around the … before I was… before—”
He waved a hand in front of my face. “Can you make a car go forward without hitting anything?”
“Probably.”
“Good enough. Blue Toyota. Staff lot, by maintenance. The address is already in the navigation. Put it in drive, don’t deviate from the nav, don’t stop, just drive. They’ll be looking for you.”
“Where—”
“Find Cassian there. Tell him Ronan sent you.”
“C-Cassian. Ronan.” The words tangled in my mouth; I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get my chest to expand, panic locking everything tight. “I don’t understand.” The words dragged out between breaths that wouldn’t come. “Yannick—” I couldn’t finish it. My lungs burned. “Where are Yannick’s babies?” I hit his chest, hard enough to hurt my hand. “Please. Find them!” I hit him again, sobbing.
“Stop.” He growled and caught the back of my neck, fingers tightening, thumb pressing hard at the base of my skull, and my cat subsided instantly—no fight, no hesitation, instinct snapping under the force of his command, and terror crashed through me a second later because I couldn’t stop it and the panic forced my lungs to draw in air.
“If the SED catches you, they’ll take your baby.” His fingers tightened on the back of my neck. “There is no way out of this for you if you don’t get to Cassian. Do you understand?”
I sagged into his hold, and he cursed.
“He won’t understand why I sent you to him, but he’ll protect you from anyone who wants your baby. He works with the Haven Network, okay? You can trust him to get you across the border.” I recoiled, but he held on. “I’m opening the door, and you run. Okay?” I stared at him, mute, and he tightened his grip enough to make me yelp. “Cass is strong. An alpha wolf. Are you listening, omega?”
“Y-yes.”
“Good.” The praise settled deep enough that my cat lifted, alert, locking onto the fear running through me. He’d been absent so long I was used to the emptiness where he should have been, but now instinct crashed so hard it drowned everything else, driving me toward the alpha, toward obedience, toward escape. “Everything you need is in the car, okay? In the trunk, bags of it…” He stared at me, swallowed, and there was more shouting behind us. “Fuck it. Ready. On three. One—two—three!”
The door burst open, and he lunged out into the kitchen garden, half dragging and half lifting me, the thin grey light of dawn just breaking over the high security fence, not enough darkness to hide us.
“Over there!” someone shouted from the verandah.
His gun came up over my shoulder. “Go!”
I stumbled, one hand braced under my belly, the other locked around the key and the stuffed toy I’d yet to drop. Gravel tore under my sneakers as I lurched through the gate and into the staff lot, cold dawn air biting through my pajamas.
Twenty yards to the car. Then fifteen. Then ten—
An explosion tore the air apart, loud and close, and gravel kicked up and cut my ankles. I screamed and half-turned before I could stop myself.
The alpha who’d pulled me out was on one knee, firing back toward the house, when something slammed into him hard enough to snap his shoulder backward. He staggered, almost went down, then forced himself upright and kept firing. The moment he saw me still standing there, something savage broke loose in his expression, his nails lengthening into claws as rage consumed every trace of the man who’d been there a second before.
“GO!” His voice tore through me, so full of alpha command that my cat shrank back with a frightened cry. Another bullet struck him, and he dropped hard to both knees, but somehow his gun came up again, one-handed now, his other arm hanging uselessly at his side.
Every instinct screamed at me to run before they reached me, but I couldn’t abandon the alpha who’d dragged me out of that nightmare and leave him there to die. “Come with me!”
“No!”
“Please—”
“GO!”
I wrenched open the car door, sobbing, and fell into the seat, my belly catching under the steering wheel, and I wriggled in terror, grabbing the belt and shoving the key in the ignition at the same time. The engine caught on the first turn. Another crack split the air, and I flinched so hard my vision went white. In the side mirror, I watched him go down. He fell sideways, his gun slipping from his hand, his fingers reaching for it even as he hit the gravel, and then his body jolted—a wrong movement under his skin, shoulders bunching, spine twisting, his wolf breaking free. He clawed into the dirt, dragging himself forward a fraction, leaving a dark smear behind him.
That was the last thing I saw as I accelerated down the drive, the gate wide open, and I didn’t slow as I hit the road.
The calm voice from the dashboard cut through the noise in my head.
In three hundred feet, turn right.
I turned.
And I didn’t look back.
Yours, Forever After by Beth Bolden
She came for him in the middle of the night.
Prince Graham of the kingdom of Ardglass woke suddenly, and despite being only eleven years old, knew something was not right.
The castle fortress of Tullamore bustled with noise during the days—servants, visitors, and diplomats from the thirteen clans that comprised Ardglass talking and laughing and drinking. Led always by his father, King Gideon. But during the nights? Tullamore quieted, only the occasional creak of wood and stone as the castle shifted with the occasional servants’ preparations for the next day.
But tonight, sound vibrated in the walls, the rhythmic echo of booted feet wrapped to dull the noise, pounding in harmony with the fierce beating of Graham’s heart. Something was definitely not right. Had the clans laid down an ultimatum that his father hadn’t told him about? Graham knew they were unhappy with his advisor and the King’s own increasingly dissolute and drunken ways. Sabrina, the King’s advisor, was noted throughout the kingdom as a powerful and intelligent woman. But some whispered she was a witch and a sorceress and that her magics had enslaved the King until he did not know what he did or why. But Graham believed it wasn’t entirely Sabrina’s fault that chaos was rising in Ardglass. His father, who was the tenth of his line, had, at the beginning of his reign, been a strong and steadfast ruler, but as time had gone on, power had corrupted him. He now spent most of his days drinking and his nights with a revolving group of girls that seemingly materialized from thin air.
Graham had asked his tutor, Rhys, about these women, and Rhys had simply affixed a bland expression on his face and told Graham that with his mother long dead, his father was lonely and desired company.
Graham had not replied that, if his father was lonely, there were many in Tullamore he could pass the time with—namely his only son, and in addition, all the many clan representatives who had begun to arrive in larger and larger numbers. But Graham did not particularly care to spend time with his father lately, so he said nothing.
Tonight everything felt different, and his apathy over his father evaporated as Graham was gripped by the real fear that something terrible had happened while he’d been sleeping.
His door opened, a wedge of dull candlelight spilling into his tower room. Graham fumbled for the little dagger his father had gifted to him on his last name-day, but even he was not naive enough to believe it would make any difference against a broadsword.
“Graham.” The voice of his tutor, Rhys, was harsh. “Graham, you must wake quickly.”
The one person in Tullamore, and truly in all Ardglass, that Graham trusted was Rhys. He made sure he was fed and clothed and educated—both from texts and from the members of the guard. Often it felt like the only one in all of Tullamore who gave more than a passing thought to Graham was his tutor.
Graham climbed out of bed and stared at Rhys, who was illuminated by a single candle. His face was white and drawn, as if all the blood had leaked out of it.
“Quick,” Rhys repeated, his voice frantic, “put your boots on, lad. Yes, good, you have your dagger.” Rhys glanced behind him, as if he expected someone to suddenly emerge from the dark shadows. “There is no time to lose.”
Graham did what he was told, and even grabbed his cloak from the chair by the desk, where he had carelessly tossed it earlier in the evening.
Rhys’ expression as he looked at him was frozen, and it nearly stopped Graham’s heart in his chest. Something indeed was wrong, and though he wished to ask what it was, the cold look on Rhys’ face trapped Graham’s words in his mouth.
“There is a rope outside your window,” Rhys said. “You must use it to climb down. At the bottom is a horse, with several saddlebags of supplies. You must take it and ride as far away from here as you can.”
He could not help it; Graham gaped at his tutor. “I must what,” he repeated, panic lancing through him.
If it was even possible, Rhys’ face grew even colder, until it looked to be carved from the marble that lined the walls of the great throne room of Tullamore.
“You must go, they will be here any minute, and . . .” Rhys paused, and suddenly, there was fear in his eyes. “I promise that if they catch you, you will not survive her.”
Rhys had long been the only constant companion that Graham had had. Rhys’ face came more easily to him than his dead mother’s. He had always been there—firm and much enamored of enforcing discipline on Graham’s behavior—but always there. Did he mean that Graham should leave without him?
“What about you?” The words tumbled out of Graham, even as he tried to hold them back. He did not want to go into the forest surrounding Tullamore at night. He did not want to leave. He especially did not want to leave without Rhys. His father surely would have frowned and chastised him for his lack of bravery, but at that moment, Graham simply didn’t care.
Rhys bent down, his head level with Graham’s own. “I must stay, my prince. I will delay them, if I can. But you must be very brave for me now, and go.”
Swallowing back tears, Graham nodded. “When may I return?”
Solemnly, Rhys just shook his head, and Graham could not hold back his choked sob. “Why?” he asked plaintively.
“It is your blood she wants,” Rhys said, “and he has finally agreed to give it to her.”
Graham had an idea of who “she” was, but did not ask the identity of the man who had acquiesced. He did not ask, because deep down, he knew the truth, and he did not want to see the look on Rhys’ face as he told Graham that his father had agreed to sacrifice him.
He wiped his eyes. Fear still clogged his throat and held his lungs in a vise, but Rhys would not lie to him. If he needed to go, he would do as he was told, and go.
Rhys reached out and laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “You are brave and strong and loyal,” he said to Graham. “Someday, you will need to remember that.”
Graham did not ask what he meant, just nodded, and then turned towards the window.
He fumbled for the latch, and after pushing the heavy leaded glass panel, it swung open. There, just as Rhys said, was the rope, dangling right in front of the open window.
But when he glanced back, Rhys was gone, the candlelight disappearing down the darkening hallway.
Taking a breath, Graham faced the window and the rope again. It was not so much different than the exercises that the guard had set for him. Of course those exercises had been only a few feet over the dust of Tullamore’s training grounds, and now there were several stories between him and the ground below.
Not that different, he told himself as he sat on the ledge and gripped the rope carefully in his hands. It was too dark to see from where it came, but it seemed solid as Graham gave it a hard tug. Still, his heart pounded as he gripped it hard, and swung his body out the window.
For eleven, he was tall and, as his father had crowed about on more than one occasion, he had inherited the hardy, muscular build of the Ardglassian line. His palms slid a little as he positioned his feet against the hard stone of the tower, and he began to carefully shimmy down the rope.
There were more windows in the tower aglow than normal at night, and each time he passed one, Graham’s breath caught in his chest. His dagger was tucked in his cloak, and he could not easily draw it to defend himself if one of the windows suddenly and unexpectedly swung open.
But all the windows remained closed, though more than once, Graham saw dark-cloaked shadows pass across them.
He reached the ground, and as Rhys had promised, the horse was saddled and waiting, tied up by its reins.
“Hello, boy,” Graham whispered to the horse, who dipped his head, and let Graham rub its nose.He was just about to grip the pommel of the saddle and swing up to mount when a rustling noise stopped him in his tracks.
A tall woman with long dark waving hair and a single emerald set into her gold circlet emerged from the thicket of trees surrounding the tower. Graham mounted before she could stop him, but when he dug his heels into the side of the horse, nothing happened.
“My prince.” The woman’s voice was dark and rich, like the honeyed wine that had so enslaved his father recently. Graham did not believe that was a coincidence.
“Lady Sabrina,” Graham said, his voice calm even though he did not feel calm. He had heard much talk about how difficult she was to have as a friend, nevermind an enemy, and even though Graham did not believe he could convince her to change her mind, it was wise to proceed with caution. “Please release my horse.”
“Why?” She laughed melodiously. “So you can escape?”
Graham had trusted Rhys. He had not believed Rhys would lie to him, but hearing the Lady confirm his suspicions was painful. He swallowed hard. “Gideon, the King and my father, would not stand for this,” Graham insisted, because if he was not mistaken, he had few choices left and one of them was to appeal to his royal blood.
But then he remembered, with a horrifying chill, what Rhys had told him. It is your blood she wants.
She laughed again. “Here he comes.” She beckoned to the trees, where a cadre of guards emerged, led by his father on his great black war destrier. “He may tell you himself.”
Graham did not want to listen to his father, but even as he dug his heels into the horse’s side repeatedly, the horse remained still and unbothered, like Graham was not even on its back.
Some terrible enchantment, Graham thought, but did not know how to possibly break it.
If the situation had been slightly less dire, Graham would have dismounted, come to the King’s side and begged to be spared. But despite the inactivity of his horse, Graham still knew the safest place for him to be was on its back. If somehow Sabrina’s enchantment could be broken, he was a good rider, and he had a chance at escaping the guard.
But before he could phrase his request, Sabrina’s face shifted, like water under glass, and suddenly she was terrible and unrelenting. “My king,” she said to Gideon, even as his gaze barely shifted to her. He was either heavily in his drink, or ensorcelled by Sabrina’s powers.
“What is the meaning of this?” Gideon asked, words slurring together. “Graham, you have left the safety of your room.”
Graham was speechless, and for a split second, he was not sure who he should trust. Had Rhys betrayed him? Had he indeed been safe in his room? It hurt to believe it, but it hurt less than believing that his father had agreed to give him to Sabrina.
“Father, I . . .” Graham stuttered. He’d meant to ask for safe passage, but the words stuck in his suddenly uncooperative mouth. He did not know whether this was another dark trick of the sorceress’ or if fear and anxiety had suddenly overcome him.
“Graham,” Gideon said, “you will go with the Lady Sabrina, at once.”
“Where will she be taking me?” At the same moment the words tumbled out, Graham felt the horse stir beneath him for the first time since Sabrina had come into the clearing. Was her spell lifting?
“That is none of your concern,” Sabrina insisted. Her dark eyes grew somehow darker in her beautiful face, and it morphed again, frustration marking it, before her features smoothed out again.
Graham’s heart leapt in his chest. Something was preventing her from continuing the enchantment, and whatever it was, it wouldn’t last long. He needed to make a choice, once and for all.
“Father,” Graham repeated. “Where is she taking me?”
Instead of answering, the King turned his horse away, his face fading into the shadow.
Graham felt sick to his stomach, but he couldn’t waste even a second, because he now knew, unequivocally, that his father had betrayed him. He dug his heels hard and fast into the horse’s sides, and held tight to the reins as the horse reared and took off. Luckily, the guard had not surrounded him, probably because they hadn’t wanted to frighten him, but it gave him the necessary gap between Sabrina and the guards’ horses to squeeze through. Graham leaned over the horse’s neck and urged it faster and faster, dodging trees and upturned roots. He knew the forest around Tullamore like the back of his hand, and he used every bit of his knowledge to wind his way through the trees, jumping over a stream as he heard the pounding echo of the guard chasing him. Sabrina’s voice carrying through the dark leaves, threatening and cursing and angry. If her true colors hadn’t been exposed before, they were laid bare now. Graham had no doubt that if she got her hands on him, he would be immobilized and taken someplace where he’d never see the light of day again. He did not really understand why she wanted him or his blood so fiercely, but he did know she wouldn’t risk him getting away again. He’d be locked up, and not even his princely status would save him.
Graham’s heart pounded in rhythm with his horse’s hooves as they galloped through the forest, towards the main gate and freedom. It was the middle of the night, and Graham was counting on the fact that Sabrina, despite all her magical power, could not have raised the guard at the gate so quickly, and the way through would be open.
More shouts sounded from behind, and he heard Sabrina yell, “He’s headed for the gate.”
Risking a look, Graham saw that two of the guard were chasing him, but their horses weren’t bred for quickness or speed, as his clearly had been. They were loaded with a lot of fancy armor, worked with gold and brass, and glinting with silver, and with those ridiculous velvet tassels that his father had once found dashing. All that extra weight meant that they might be excellent riders, but they could not overtake Graham and his light, sure-footed horse.
“Good boy, faster, faster,” Graham breathed out and the horse leapt ahead, the wind streaming through Graham’s hair, his cloak billowing as they gained more speed. The horses behind may not have had a chance, but he would be a fool to think that Sabrina had made no precautions at the front gate. She couldn’t have raised the guard, not so quickly, but she was a woman of unusually keen intelligence, and he would be stupid to underestimate her.
They made the final turn towards the gate, hooves skittering across the cobblestones as they raced through the village. The light was better here, and he could see signs of people stirring in their beds, awoken with the noises of the chase. Please don’t let her have raised the guard at the keep, Graham prayed as they approached. They were good men—loyal and obedient—and they would take him with only a word from her, and he would have no chance of evading her capture.
But it was not the keep’s guard that met him at the gate.
Sabrina stood in the middle of the archway, eyes closed, murmuring a long string of words, flames spitting from her fingertips. He might have kicked his horse’s heaving sides and tried to make it past without stopping, but just as he approached, her eyes shot open. Instead of their normal darkness, they glowed bright gold.
“You will not escape me,” she said, her voice unearthly, and echoing with the power flowing through her veins.
He pulled up abruptly on the reins and watched in horror as her long golden cloak fell away in flaming strips, and her body began to bulge and shift into something out of a nightmare.
Graham set a reassuring hand on his horse as it bucked and skittered away from the creature Sabrina had become—head like a lion, attached to an oversized body, with a long, whip-like tail. Heart in his throat, Graham shrank as he realized the end of the tail was actually a spitting serpent.
“A chimera,” he whispered out loud, remembering all of Rhys’ lessons on creatures that had long ago tormented Ardglass and its neighboring kingdoms. A chimera had not been seen in many, many hundreds of years, but Graham couldn’t doubt what he saw in front of him. He did not know how he could possibly evade such a creature and make it through the gate, but he would not cower in the dark and let her corral him into captivity. He would face this thing head-on, as the Prince of Ardglass, or he would die trying.
Then it occurred to him. She wanted him alive. She needed something from him, from his blood, and though he did not know what it was, it might stop her from fully attacking him if he approached.
The chimera growled and flames spit from its jaws as it paced in front of the gate, its tail whipping back and forth rhythmically.
It was expecting its very presence to cow Graham, to push him back, but he could not let that happen. Whatever occurred, Graham knew he could not stay here. His fingers trembled on the reins, but he gripped them tightly, his knuckles glowing dull white in the graying darkness.
The horse underneath him seemed to understand his purpose, and even though it shied a little under his hands, clearly terrified of the chimera, Graham knew—the way he knew he couldn’t stay—that it would follow any directions he gave it. This horse had been bred for the royalty of Ardglass, and it recognized the Crown Prince on its back, and would follow Graham unto death, if that was what Graham asked of it.
But Graham hoped, fear making the edges of his vision fuzzy, that neither of them would be dying tonight.
“With me,” Graham whispered to his horse, and it sprang suddenly, moving forward like a ghost in the night, weaving and dodging the chimera’s flickering, hissing tail, and its spouts of flame. It screeched, the sound grating and unholy, but somehow still feminine. Graham ducked as the serpent-tail lunged for him, narrowly missing his shoulder, its teeth clacking uselessly against the heavy wool of his cloak. He reached up, blindly slashing with his dagger, disorienting the tail, and before the lion could turn and sear Graham and his horse onto the paving stones, they were gone, racing off into the darkness outside the gate.
They rode for what felt like hours, even though there had been no sound behind them and no obvious pursuers. It seemed impossible that he could have escaped so easily, even though battling a chimera could hardly be called easy. Still, he rode on, despite his horse’s increasingly panting sides. They rode deeper into the forest surrounding Tullamore, and then deeper still, until between the darkness and the strange territory, Graham did not know where they had gone. They were away; that was all that mattered in the moment.
Finally, abruptly, the horse slowed, and then veered to the right, and then stopped in front of a small, bubbling stream. Light was beginning to seep through the trees, and Graham supposed dawn was only a few minutes away.
Graham dismounted on wobbly legs, still feeling like he might vomit. Between his father’s betrayal and then Sabrina’s enchantments, he felt unmoored and lost—and not just because he had never been to this part of the woods before. He could not easily hide, not in Ardglass. He would almost certainly be recognized instantly as the Crown Prince, and easily captured by Sabrina. Perhaps, Graham thought moodily as he watched the horse dip its head to drink in the clear water, that was why he had gotten away. Because she knew it was only a matter of time before she or the guard caught up to him. After all, he was young, and he was alone.
Not for the first time, Graham wished that Rhys had been able to come with him, to guide him, to show him what he should do. To explain what had just occurred. Why did Sabrina want his blood?
He decided that her reasons did not matter—only her purpose, and that certainly seemed terrifying enough.
“What should I do?” he asked the forest, even though he knew quite well that the forest could not answer back.
Yet, it did.
“You will come with me,” a deeply resonant voice answered. Graham jumped and nearly reached for his horse’s reins, but it moved away, giving him a bored, lazy look as it continued to drink from the stream.
At first, the source of the voice was not immediately apparent, and then before Graham could get his bearings or decide to wade into the stream to capture his horse’s reins, a bewildering mirage appeared between the trees.
Graham shouldn’t have been so astonished. After all, just tonight, he’d been betrayed by his father, then chased by a sorceress turned chimera, and now he was in the deep woods and alone for the very first time in his life. A unicorn shouldn’t have felt like such a surprise, but Graham stared openmouthed and wide-eyed as it picked its way through the underbrush both elegantly and snootily. A little like all those bits of pine needle and bark were not quite good enough for it to walk across.
The unicorn shimmered—there was no other way to describe the brilliant white shine of its coat, or its single, silvery horn. Its flowing mane and tail were so ethereally pure white, they nearly gleamed blue in the muted dawn light of the forest.
Graham blinked, and then blinked again. Each time, he expected the vision in front of him to pass. Maybe he had hit his head? Maybe the chimera’s serpent-tail had gotten him after all and injected him with some form of hallucinatory poison. Otherwise, what he was seeing simply did not make sense. Unicorns had not been seen in Ardglass for hundreds of thousands of years, if they had ever even existed at all. They had long since passed from history into legends whispered over the fire and a good tankard of mead. Emphasis on the mead, as most rational and reasonable men did not believe they had ever even existed.
But the unicorn remained present, as it gracefully stepped towards Graham. Then, stopping in front of him, it unexpectedly—Graham knew if he ever looked that word up in the large, leather-bound dictionary housed in the library of Tullamore, there would be a description of this night inscribed as the definition of “unexpected”—bent one knee and bowed to him, its long white mane rippling in waves to the forest floor as its head tipped towards Graham.
“My prince,” the unicorn said again, in that deep, sonorous voice. “I am at your command.”
Rhys had been carefully preparing him for a distant future in which he would be King, but he had never covered what one should do in the event of a talking unicorn pledging itself to Graham.
“Um,” he said, because words had failed—and were still—failing him.
The unicorn raised its head and affixed Graham with a stern look. “Your Highness,” it said, the two words it uttered an undeniable reprimand.
Graham flushed, embarrassed and flustered, but still not at all sure how he should proceed.
“It is very nice to meet you,” he finally said. “You can call me Graham.”
The unicorn huffed in surprise. “I certainly will not,” it said. “But you may call me Evrard, Your Highness.”
“Evrard,” Graham said, testing out the name. “I have never met a unicorn before.”
Evrard’s face turned haughty. “I am not just any unicorn,” he said, “I am King of the Unicorns.” His attention flicked suddenly to Graham’s horse, who had lifted its head from the stream to observe the newcomer.
“Goodness, there is no need to stare,” Evrard continued, directing his comments towards Graham’s horse. “How rude.”
“He’s not being rude. He just got ridden half to death, saving my life.” Graham felt somewhat duty-bound to defend the creature who had protected him, while bravely and selflessly facing off against a sorceress-turned-chimera. For all his formality, Graham had difficulty imagining Evrard throwing himself into a fight with such reckless abandon. He’d probably want to negotiate with the chimera first, and then find a pair of seconds, and then set off at fifty paces, and make some sort of ridiculous honor-bound production out of a fight.
“Excuse me, he did not save your life,” Evrard corrected him. “He prevented your untimely death. I intend to save you. That is why I have come to Ardglass.”
“I’m why you’re here?” Graham questioned in awe. The Kingof the Unicorns had come to Ardglass for him?
“I told you that you should come with me, and you will. We shall journey to the Valley of the Lost Things, and you will be safe from the sorceress who intends to take over your father’s kingdom and drain you of your innocent royal blood in order to further her own filthy life.”
Graham stared at the unicorn, another shock invading a system that was already over-full of them. “That’s why she wanted my blood?” He shuddered, imagining her treacherous face looming over him, a silver knife flashing in her delicate, graceful hands.
Evrard dipped his head, sorrow in his voice. “Your blood is valuable for the power it contains, Your Highness,” he said. “You are of the royal house of Ardglass, historically known to possess powerful magic, and you are on the cusp of adulthood, yet still innocent. It is that which the Sorceress Sabrina wishes to utilize for a spell that will extend her own life. Immortality is a powerful motivation.” Evrard hesitated, the first time since he had appeared that he did not seem fully certain of everything he said and did. “That is why I believe your father agreed. Power works viciously on a weak mind.”
It was one thing to have witnessed his own father’s betrayal; it was entirely another to hear Evrard speak of it in that careful, sympathetic voice. Graham’s throat closed and he pushed back the angry, hurt tears and wiped his eyes with hard, quick movements. He did not want anyone to see, especially Evrard. Some pain felt too great to expose to the light, and there was nothing in the world Graham had seen that was as light as Evrard. He glowed. “He was weak,” Graham agreed quietly.
Evrard’s eyes stared deeply into Graham’s own. “He was weak because she wished him to be weak. It was not entirely of his own making. She saw the seed in him, and she exploited it. It is one of her great talents.”
“How do you know all this?” Graham questioned. Evrard seemed exceptionally well-informed considering he was a unicorn. A royal and talkativeunicorn, but still, a unicorn nonetheless.
“I was called here because, in the world of magic, there must be balance,” Evrard said.
“Who called you here?”
“I think you know,” Evrard offered. “He who was always loyal to you, and was loyal to you to the very last breath he took this night.”
It was just as Graham had feared. Rhys must be dead, but his actions had also prevented Sabrina from obtaining what she wanted most—him. And even though he could not accompany him, Rhys had made sure that he was not alone. Somehow, he had summoned Evrard to help him.
Graham felt undone. Too many emotions he could not control swirled inside him like a storm cloud. Abruptly he stomped away, choosing a fallen log some distance away and sitting down upon it heavily. He had been afraid that Evrard would follow him, but he did not, and let the Prince sit there in quiet contemplation for several minutes.
The tears he’d barely held back before began to fall. He had lost his home, his loyal tutor, his safety, and his father in one single moment. Nothing would ever be the same again. Never again would he spar in the courtyard of Tullamore, or sneak honey cakes from its kitchens. Never again would his father swat at him good-naturedly when Graham made an impertinent remark. Rhys would never again tuck him into sleep or set for him too many mathematical problems or texts to be read. Life as he had known it, Graham thought dully, was over. He could not go riding back to the keep and pretend that what he had seen and heard had not occurred, even though there was nothing he wanted more.
There was nothing left to be done except move forward, one foot in front of the other.
He stood and walked back over to where Evrard and his other horse stood. “When shall we leave?” Graham asked.
Evrard gave a sharp, decisive nod. “It becomes light. We will leave immediately. Fetch the supplies and I will deign to carry them.” Graham went over to his other horse, and then hesitated, his hands on the saddlebags.
“But what about this horse?” Graham asked.
“He will find his way back to the keep eventually,” Evrard said dismissively.
Graham had always been a quiet boy, an observer more than an active participant, which was probably because he had grown up in a castle full of adults who usually did not wish to be bothered by a child or a child’s questions. He’d long since learned to watch, and to form conclusions based on his observations. Even though he had spent less than an hour with Evrard, he could already tell that the unicorn was a snob who looked down on any creatures that could not speak as he could.
Clearly, Graham’s horse had been relegated to this view by Evrard, no matter its bravery or tenacity in helping Graham ride to safety.
Rhys had always told Graham that loyalty was the most important currency he could gain as a king. And even though now, Graham had no reason to believe that he ever would be a king, those lessons still felt important.
“No,” Graham said firmly. “He will come with us.”
“That creature cannot speak,” Evrard said, cruelty edging his voice. “Why would we need it?”
Graham shot the unicorn a chastising look not unlike the one Evrard had given him earlier. He was also a very quick learner. “We will not leave it behind because it has earned the right to come with us,” he said.
“Well, I suppose we can hook his reins to your person, and he can carry the supplies. He may be useful, yet,” Evrard said with resignation.
The horse gave a little whinny of agreement, and turned kind, warm eyes onto Graham, as if it knew what Graham’s intervention had saved him from.
“I pay my debts,” Graham murmured to the horse, and went to make sure all the saddlebags were properly secure, before looping the reins across his arm and leading the horse out of the stream and towards Evrard.
“What about the saddle and the bridle?” Graham asked, when he stopped next to Evrard. “How shall I ride without them?”
The look on Evrard’s face was worth a million gold pieces. “You shall ride me like men have always ridden unicorns. Carefully and with respect,” Evrard said in a haughty tone. “You may use my mane, carefully, as means to keep yourself secure.”
To Graham, it seemed the utmost disrespect for him to even touch that pure white hair that cascaded from Evrard’s brow, but in his hands it felt much as any regular horsehair did. He tied the reins to his cloak, and the horse trotted carefully behind as Evrard began to pick his way through the forest. There was no trail, which was a blessing, because on a trail there might be other people, and a unicorn would surely raise questions that Graham couldn’t answer.
As they traveled a direction that Evrard seemed very certain of, Graham asked additional questions.
“Where are you from?”
“A place very far from here,” Evrard answered patiently.
“What’s it called?”
Rhys had always told Graham that one day his curiosity might get him into trouble, and Graham felt it must be true when Evrard paused in his normally very steady gait, and then continued without answering. Some questions then, Graham realized, were off-limits.
But that did not stop him from asking.
They stopped when the sun was very high in the sky by another bubbling brook. Graham chewed on a few pieces of dried meat, while Evrard and the horse drank deeply from the cool water.
“How do you know where we’re going?” Graham asked before climbing back onto Evrard’s back.
“I know because the valley we are headed to is one of ancient magic. Protective magic. It calls to the magic in me.”
“Is it far?”
Evrard took off at a slighter faster canter than before, the horse moving behind them like it had always followed Evrard.
“It is several days’ journey,” Evrard said, “since we must keep to the forest, and off any known trail. For your safety, of course.”
“But what if someone spots you?” Graham asked. “How am I to explain what you are?”
Evrard glanced back at his passenger. “People see what they choose to see. I do not think you will have any questions about me, Your Highness.”
They slept that night in a well-hidden cave that Graham further camouflaged with several large leafy branches he had cut from neighboring trees with his dagger. There was a small ax in one of the saddlebags and a tinderbox kit, and Graham kindled a small fire with twigs to take away the chill of the night. The cave was large enough for both Evrard and the horse, though Graham knew that Evrard was not altogether pleased about sharing even a temporary domicile with the horse.
They set out bright and early the next morning, continuing to journey into the thick of the forest. By midday, there was a fine sheen of sweat on Evrard’s back and Graham realized that as he’d been daydreaming, staring up at the leafy canopy of the trees, they had been steadily climbing uphill. After stopping for a rest, they continued on, and once Graham offered to help conserve Evrard’s energy by walking, and leading the horse himself, but Evrard’s complete silence as a response told Graham exactly what he thought of that particular idea.
By later in the evening, when the shadows were beginning to grow longer, the trees had thinned out, and the ground had gone from densely packed dirt to a much rockier, harder surface.
When they stopped, Evrard’s voice finally reflected his own exhaustion. “Tomorrow, we will climb,” he said, “and then we will be in the valley.”
As Graham gathered branches for their fire, he asked, “What is in this valley?”
“A farm, though I do not know how inhabitable it will be. It may need repairs. It has been abandoned for many, many years.” Evrard paused. “But no matter, it will be safe there.”
Graham realized then that ever since Evrard had appeared in all his majestic glory, he had not felt particularly unsafe. He had been sad, mourning a life lost to him, along with Rhys and his father’s loyalty and affection, but he had not once felt like they were in any particular danger. When he said so, Evrard shook his head gravely.
“We have always been in danger, Your Highness. Sabrina searches for us in many forms. Our magic has shielded us from her view, though with the taxing climb tomorrow, I may not be able to shield us for much longer.” Evrard sounded reluctant to share this information, but Graham was glad he had.
“What can I do to protect us?” he asked.
The unicorn’s eyes seemed to bore into his very soul. “Be brave a little while longer, my prince.”
The Hollow Sea by Jordan L Hawk
PROLOGUE
“I’m still not sure we should do this,” the woman says.
She bobs in and out of the camera’s view as she climbs the stairs. Her hair hangs down her back in a honey-colored sheet, and her pleated skirt swishes around her knees. She stops, half-turns, revealing a necklace with an amethyst crystal dangling from it. “We should wait for—”
“No.” The voice from behind the camera is feminine as well. “We’ve already talked about this, Robin.”
“I know.” Robin’s shoulders slump, and she turns back to the fore.
They reach a short landing. An ornate door appears briefly in view as Robin’s flashlight crosses it. She pauses, her hand on the doorknob. She looks back, seems about to say something…then presses her lips together and nods.
The camerawoman follows her through the door into a room cloaked in shadows. Three large windows look out onto darkness. There’s a heavy table with a candelabra in the center, a Ouija board sitting at one end.
Robin goes to look out one of the windows, then sighs and turns back to the room, one hand on the crystal around her neck. As if sensing her reluctance, the camerawoman says, “This has to be done. You love me, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.” Robin looks startled by the question.
“Then can we just get this over with? Please?”
Robin’s answer is to take a lighter from the pocket of her blazer. She sets a flame to each candle in the candelabra, then takes a step back. “She’s already here.”
“Good.”
Robin lets go of the crystal around her neck, takes a breath so deep even the camera catches the rise and fall of her chest. “You don’t belong here.” She stares at what appears to be an empty spot in the air—but no, a wisp of what might be fog is forming, incongruous inside a house. “You must cross the veil.” Her back straightens, even as the mist thickens. “Your time in this world is over. Begone! Leave this place, and trouble the living no more!”
The mist rushes at her. Robin’s eyes widen, and she lets out a startled scream—
Then she flies backward, through the window behind her with the crash of breaking glass.
“Robin!” the camerawoman screams. The camera falls to the floor, its lens focusing on a table leg. Out of shot, footsteps rush across the floor, accompanied by a low moan of horror. “No, no, no, no.”
For a moment, all is silence. Then, slow and unsteady, the footsteps return, closer and closer. A hand picks up the camera, and the recording ends.
His Hearth by Mary Calmes
IT WAS supposed to be my night. Well, maybe my and my best friend’s night, but definitely I was in there somewhere. When the stars aligned and you got your dream, nothing was supposed to get messed up. But since there was no such thing as perfect, I shouldn’t have counted on it.
“Julian,” she said before her arms wrapped around my neck. “Honey, where’s Channing?”
Here was the crux of the matter. I turned on the barstool and looked at my best friend’s wife. Phoebe Vega was a stunning creature, and waiting expectantly, breathless from dancing, her pale jade eyes focused on me, she was as close to a goddess as I would ever see.
“God, you’re beautiful,” I sighed.
The scowl came fast. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t just give you a compliment?”
“No.”
I couldn’t contain my grin; it was just too stupid to even have to explain. “I need a drink.”
“Oh no, what happened?”
This is the problem with having good friends; they know you well enough to interpret your mood from the expression on your face with simply a look.
“Jules, where’s your date?” she demanded, her voice rising.
I emptied the shot of Patron in front of me, refocused my vision since it was the third one I’d had, and looked at her. “Having sex with Peyton Wilson in his office.”
She was silent, stood there just looking at me for several moments, blinking, absorbing what I had said. “I’m sorry, what?”
I cleared my throat. “My date, the guy I’ve been going out with for the last six weeks, well, the last time I saw him, he was taking care of Peyton Wilson in the production office.” And I could have been much more graphic, even more crass, but this was my girl, the wife of my best friend, and she was seven months pregnant. I didn’t want to upset her any more than I had to. So I just took in her sweet face.
There was a long pause. Maybe we were having a moment of silence to grieve.
“Ohmygod!” she shrieked, startling people around us, her voice high and shrill. “Are you kidding me?”
“Oh.” I nearly choked on my beer, trying not to laugh. “We’re doing loud.”
“This isn’t funny!”
I really had way too much alcohol in me for it not to be funny. My date giving another guy a blowjob when he was supposed to be with me when the CEO of the company came to offer me his congratulations on my promotion… oh hell yeah, it was funny! And yes, it was more funny sad than funny ha-ha, but still… funny.
“Julian Nash, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Twenty minutes ago, Channing was on his knees in the—”
“Ohmygod!”
“Sorry.”
She swatted me hard. “Not you. Ohmygod! Channing, ohmygod!”
“Oh,” I grunted before lifting my glasses, settling them on top of my head for a moment as I rubbed my eyes.
“Julian!”
She was upset enough for both of us.
“Ohmygod!”
“Can you stop saying that?” I chuckled, rubbing the bridge of my nose before putting the rimless glasses back on, settling them comfortably on my face. They were my favorite pair and made me look much smarter than I was in real life.
“What’d you… how’d you…?” Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. “Julian, for fuck’s sake, what did you do?”
I shrugged. “It seemed rude to interrupt.”
“Julian!”
The woman was pregnant and scary hormonal, and as a result, she was much more emotional than I was. I was pragmatic because it made sense. Channing Isner had obviously needed to have sex, and Peyton Wilson was the hottest guy, correction, hottest gay guy, in our office after himself. Cash—Carlos Vega, my best friend and Phoebe’s husband—was hotter than both of them, but the man was married and straight, so he really didn’t count when Channing was looking to get laid.
“It’s okay, Phoeb,” I soothed her.
“No, it’s not!” she snarled at me, picking up one of the empty shot glasses in front of me as I lifted my finger to order another. “How many of these have you had?”
“Only three.”
“Ohmygod,” she said yet again, yanking on my arm until I slid off the barstool, tugging me after her through the crowd. I was dragged across the floor to where Cash stood in a group of people. When he saw me, his brows furrowed instantly.
I put up a hand to calm him. “I’m fine.”
He excused himself from those around him, grabbed hold of my bicep, and gave my arm a solid yank to get me moving. When we were out of earshot, he spun me around to face him. Normally, when I wasn’t buzzed, it would have been impossible for him to manhandle me, as we were close to the same height and build, but as I was a little out of it, he had the leverage.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
“Nothing. Everything’s fine,” I soothed him. “When are we eating? Your wife’s starving.”
“I’m not starving,” Phoebe chimed in, coming up beside him, rubbing her seven-months pregnant stomach. “I’m not always starving, you know.”
“Jules,” Cash snapped at me. “What the hell’s going on?”
“He’s got no date,” his wife answered for me.
Cash squinted at me. “What are you talking about? Isn’t Isner coming?”
So I explained to him how I had gone to Channing’s office early to pick him up and passed by the production office on the way.
“Wait now,” Cash said, staring at me, “you’re telling me that your boyfriend and one of my account reps were having sex in the production room?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I corrected him.
“They were dating,” Phoebe insisted, glaring at her husband, daring him to contradict her, “but he wasn’t Julian’s boyfriend. No boyfriend of Julian’s would ever cheat on him.”
I tipped my head to Phoebe. “Hopefully.”
She scolded my lack of faith. “Julian Nash!”
“Are you kidding?” Cash half-yelled.
What would be the purpose of that? “No, I’m not kidding. Why would I be kidding?”
“Did you kick his ass?”
I shot him a look.
“You want me to do it?”
“Who are you gonna beat up? Channing or Peyton?”
“Both of them,” he said, and I heard the irritation in his voice. “Goddamn it, Jules, this is why I told you to never shit where you eat. Now how in the hell are you supposed to be able to work with either of those fucks?”
“Easily,” I assured him. “I promise there won’t be any weirdness from me.”
“Shit.”
“It’s fine. I promise you.”
“God, you’re so calm,” Phoebe growled. “I say we go bitch slap Channing ’til he cries.”
We both looked at her.
“What?”
I grabbed her and hugged her tight. “It’s okay, love. Just lemme get another drink, and I’ll meet you guys back there in the big room.”
“Aww, Jules,” she sighed deeply. “What a way to celebrate your big night.”
And that was the part that stunk. It was the culmination of five years of work, and I had wanted to share that with someone special.
We had both just been promoted, my partner and I, Cash to marketing director, and me to creative director of our division. It was a huge step up the corporate ladder, especially since at twenty-eight and twenty-nine respectively, we were the youngest division heads in the company. In celebration of the promotion, our CEO had made a special trip out to congratulate us. Kelly Davis, who had made the decision to reward us based on the revenue our office generated and the quality of our ideas, had told Cash on a phone conference the week before that he was really looking forward to talking in person. Video conferences and phone conversations aside, he wanted to shake our hands and meet us face to face. It was very flattering, as the man seemed to be taking a special interest in both of our careers. He was also looking forward to meeting the people we shared our lives with. It was probably lucky that Channing had decided to show me what my true value was to him so early on. I would have hated to have my heart involved along with my pride. As it was, I would survive this blow to my ego. The timing was the only horror.
“He doesn’t know what he’s missing,” Phoebe said, interrupting my thoughts.
“Oh yeah?” I sighed, meeting her loving gaze. She was crazy about me, and it was there in her soft expression.
She took a quick breath. “Yeah. You have the best heart, you never take yourself too seriously, and you always, always keep your word.”
“Aww, sweetie,” I teased her.
Cash squeezed his wife playfully. “Quit, honey, you’ll make the boy blush.”
I grinned at her.
“Mmmm, gotta love that smile,” she sighed. “You’ve got that down pat.”
“Stop flirting with my partner,” Cash scolded her, and then he looked at me. “Go get a drink and meet us at the table. I’ll save you a seat.”
As I turned back toward the bar, I had to wonder about my judgment.
I had thought that Channing Isner and I were getting along great. After six weeks of talking and laughing, listening to jazz in the park, and driving to Napa, things seemed like they were going well. We’d had a few dinners during the week and long phone conversations where he shared the pitfalls of his day working as a junior media buyer at our firm. How had we gone from a progressing romance to him having sex in the production office with someone else? What had I missed?
“Jules.”
I looked over my shoulder at Cash.
“Hurry up!”
The man lived to order me around. I was still chuckling when I reached the bar. I was waiting for my drink when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Turning, I was stunned to find my date—my ex-date, the guy I had thought was going to be my date, the guy who had just been sweating and panting with somebody else—standing in front of me. It was surreal.
“Julian, where were you? You were supposed to pick me up at my office, and we were gonna take a cab over here together.”
I just stared at him. Seriously, the balls on the man… Christ.
“I looked everywhere for you.”
But I had not been down Peyton Wilson’s pants, so what was he doing looking for me there? The thought, because I have an overactive sense of the ridiculous, made me stifle a laugh.
“Julian?”
He was standing there, lying to my face, and it was hard to wrap my brain around it.
“Are you alright?”
I leaned around him to grab yet another shot of Patron and the bottle of Corona the bartender had just put down for me.
“Jules?” he said, his voice rising.
I threw back the shot before taking a long swallow of beer. If he had not barred my path when I moved, I would have walked away. As it was, he cornered me.
“Julian? What’s going on?” he asked fast, worried suddenly, his hand flat on my chest.
“Move your hand,” I ordered, turning to face him, my voice hollow and cold.
“Why? Why can’t I touch you all of a sudden?” He sounded scared.
I took a deep breath. “I saw you in the office with Peyton.”
The bright blue eyes that I had found so lovely got huge and round. “What?”
I took another long swallow of my beer.
“Julian?”
Looking at him, I realized that he was trembling. “Just go home, Chan, or go meet Peyton, or do whatever the hell you want… I don’t care.”
“Are you kidding?” he asked breathlessly.
Why did everyone keep asking me that?
“Who told you I was in the office with Peyton? Was it Cash?”
I squinted at him. “No one told me, Chan. I saw you myself.”
“Jules, I need to explain.”
“No, don’t, just… go. We don’t hafta have a whole big blowout. We weren’t together long enough. You can just walk away, so g’head.”
“I don’t wanna walk away.”
“Fine, then I will,” I said, slipping by him.
Before I could take more than a step, he was back in front of me, his angelic face suddenly a mess, like I had hurt him.
“It’s all your fault, you know. What kind of man doesn’t have sex?”
Of course it was my fault; why wouldn’t it be? The blame just came faster than I thought it would.
“Julian? Tell me, explain it to me.”
“I did,” I assured him.
“Do it again. Why didn’t you have sex with me?” His voice was sharp, attacking.
Heavy sigh. “Because I wanted to have more of a connection than just a physical one,” I told him. “And for the record, I thought you enjoyed the time we spent together.”
“I did,” he gasped out. “But being around you and not having sex is… because the way you kiss should be followed by fucking. You’re the biggest goddamn cocktease I’ve ever met.”
“Okay,” I said flatly, putting the half-empty beer on the bar before brushing by him to go join my friends for dinner.
“Julian!” he almost screamed. I would have kept walking, but I was afraid his volume would only increase. I had been humiliated once already. I was not ready for a second go-round. Pivoting, I was surprised that he was right there in front of me.
“I’m sorry, all right? Just forgive me already.”
Already? The whole mess was not even an hour old. And furthermore, I had no idea what was with the tortured look on his face. I wasn’t the one who had ended close to a two-month-long relationship on my knees in the production office.
“You’re not actually going to say no to me, are you?”
The reasoning was there in his voice. He was young and hot and was I crazy to even be thinking about calling it quits with him. Who the hell did I think I was?
“Julian?”
“I’ll see you at work,” I said, stepping around him, making clear the new parameters of our relationship.
He stepped into my path, hands on my sweater, fisted there, holding on. “God, Jules, just… don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what?”
We both turned to look at the man standing beside us. It took me only a second to process who I was looking at.
“Ryan Dean,” Channing breathed the name out quicker than I could. “Holy shit.”
Everyone always reacted that way, and I understood why.
Ryan Dean was a household name in the bay area. His show, Ryan’s Rundown, was on Channel 5 and came on every night right after the local news. He had been approached to take it national, to have it make the next big splash on Bravo, but as far as I knew, he had not signed a contract to make that jump to cable. At least, he had made no announcement on his show. And I would have known because I never missed watching him if I was home. It was pure pleasure just looking at him. The man was drop-dead, stop-traffic, catch-your-breath gorgeous. I, with everyone else, understood how he had made a pile of money modeling.
He used to be huge. Magazine editorials, runways all over the world, high-profile advertising campaigns—he was the guy the big fashion houses called, the one who made booking agents lose their minds. He had worked for all the big names: Valentino, Hugo Boss, Dior, Hermès, Calvin Klein, Gucci, Prada, Versace, and so many more. Even though his name was elusive, his face, body, rippling abs, and golden skin were ingrained forever in your mind.
“Hey,” I said, my voice low, husky. “How’re you?”
I was given an appraising look. “I’m good, Mr. Nash,” he said softly, his voice low, seductive, the grin hinting at evil before he turned to look at Channing. “You’re standing in my spot.”
Channing moved fast, stepping away from me so that Ryan could take his place.
“Thanks,” he said before he took hold of the hem of my sweater. “You can go.”
When Ryan Dean dismissed you, you went, and Channing Isner was no exception. The man was far too beautiful to disobey.
“That was mean.” I chuckled, looking at him, unable to see anything or anyone else. Dressed as he was, the man could have walked off the cover of a magazine. In his black boot-cut jeans and a short-sleeved lime green shirt that pulled tight across his chiseled chest and biceps, he looked like he was ready to be the center of attention at a photo shoot.
“Like I care.” He shrugged. “And if you cared, you would have said something. It’s one of the many reasons I enjoy working with you. You’re never afraid to tell me anything, even if it’s to go to hell.”
“I’ve never told you to go to hell.”
“No.” The look on his face made me feel like prey. “But you could.”
We had worked together many times over the past two years as my company, Miller Freedman, did all of his publicity work. And just like everyone who had ever met the man, I had been mesmerized.
Whatever word you wanted to use wasn’t enough. He was more. Ryan Dean was a little over six feet, with blond hair that was always artfully messy. It was thick, streaked bronze and wheat, and fell down the nape of his neck to his shoulders. He had hazel eyes that changed color constantly, and his skin, which he showed off quite a bit of at any opportunity, was smooth golden perfection. He had a lean, sculpted, muscular physique and moved fluidly like a dancer, with a walk that was more strut than anything else. The man was, without a doubt, a walking, talking wet dream come to life. The blond stubble of his beard, tawny mane of hair, long golden lashes, and thick dark brows: you just thought sex when you saw him. I understood how he had made an incredible living as a model, but even more alluring than that, to me, was the man’s attitude.
During the times we had worked together on the publicity for his reality show, Ryan had made every day fun. One of my favorite times with him had been a charity event for the homeless. It had been a huge party, very exclusive and wildly successful, raised a ton of money, and he had shown his happiness with how everything turned out by inviting everyone who worked on the event to attend it as well. I had watched him hold court, seen all the gorgeous men who trailed after him, and felt thoroughly intimidated. I had left early; there was no way to compete with other models for his attention.
Ryan’s Rundown had been on the air for three years and was about all the things you could do in San Francisco with your partner to keep the zing in your relationship, from attending cooking classes together to having a picnic at the beach to getting dressed up and hitting the town for a night of dancing. It was fun to watch, and he never took himself too seriously. His audience was as addicted to his personality as they were to his face. People, especially men, threw themselves in his path wherever he went. His conquests were legendary, his sexual appetite consuming. I never stood a chance of capturing his interest, but it was always flattering that whenever he saw me, he remembered my name.
“How are you?” he asked, stepping closer to me, his head tilting back just a bit to look into my face. As I was six-three to his six feet, he had to look up at me just a little.
“I’ve been better,” I sighed, taking in the sensuous lips, how full and dark they were.
“Why? What’s wrong?”
I realized I was staring and stopped, looked away, but then had to look back or be rude. His eyes were so beautiful, the different colors in them, flecked with gold and copper, the brown, gray, and an ever-changing green, that sometimes caught the light and almost glowed. Funny that Ryan Dean never failed to bring out the poet in me.
“Nothing. How’ve you been? I saw you on a lot of stuff, lots of guest appearances, and you did one of your shows from New York during Fashion Week, very cool.”
“Yeah, that’s great,” he said dismissively, his gaze not moving from mine. “But I was doing too much and the show took me away from home. I don’t want that.”
“Why not? Don’t you want your show to get picked up by a network?”
“No.”
“No?”
He gave me a wicked arch of eyebrow. “You sound surprised.”
“’Cause I am. Why don’t you want a syndicated television show?”
“Just don’t.”
“Why?” I pressed him.
“It’s not my dream.”
“But you could be a household name.”
“No thanks.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Not to you,” he said. “I need my show to be just big enough to keep me and my crew employed, help the station, still be current, and actually provide a public service. Any more than that is excessive.”
He could conquer the world if he wanted. Wasn’t that what he wanted?
“There are things I hope to get a chance to have.”
“Oh.” I didn’t want to pry. “Okay so—”
“But none of that matters tonight,” he said, and I watched him bite his bottom lip. I wondered if he even realized he’d done it. “Why didn’t you call me?”
It took me a second. “I’m sorry?”
“You were supposed to call me.”
“When? We finished all the work for your—”
“No,” he cut me off, placing a hand over my heart. “I told you to call me.”
I tried to think back to the last time I had seen him. We had wrapped the spring campaign for his show, and then there was the press release and the launch… what was I missing? “Wait. Why would you have needed to talk to me?”
“You really have no idea, do you?”
“No.” I racked my inebriated brain. “The only reason for me to call would have been if something went wrong, and as far as I know that event went off flaw—”
“Something getting messed up was not the only reason to call,” he assured me, and I saw him swallow hard, saw the muscles in his jaw clench.
“Yeah, but—”
“You didn’t even show up to my spring cotillion fundraiser, the one you planned.”
I raked my fingers through my hair. “Yeah, well, it turned out that my friend Melina had her baby that night, and I was her coach.”
He nodded. “Well then, I guess I’ll forgive you.”
“Thanks,” I said, my mouth dry, my voice failing me. I could feel the heat radiating off the man as he stepped even closer, his thigh brushing mine, his breath ghosting over my face.
“You’re a hard man to get ahold of. Every time I call your office, your assistant tells me you’re busy. You never answer your cell, and apparently, my e-mails are going to the wrong guy.”
Note to self: kill Conner. My assistant had turned away Ryan Dean? Was he high? “I had no idea you were trying to get ahold of me.”
“Well, now that we’ve got everything cleared up, how ’bout I drive you back to my place and make you some dinner?”
I squinted at him from behind my glasses. “I’m actually here for dinner.”
“Oh? With who? Not the guy I just got rid of?”
“He was supposed to be my date.”
“Supposed to be?”
“Yeah,” I sighed, “I found him at work giving another guy a blowjob.”
Unlike both of my friends who had been livid, his snort of laughter was instant.
“It’s not funny,” I scolded him.
His low chuckle filled me with warmth. “No?”
“Hell no,” I said with no conviction whatsoever.
One gold eyebrow arched as he studied me.
I shrugged. “Anyway, it’s my fault, I guess. I must not be all that interesting.”
“It’s not you, Mr. Nash,” he promised me.
“What’re you doing here?” I ignored the compliment, looking around for the people who normally trailed after him. The man was never alone.
“I came by myself.”
“You sure? You can tell me if you’re on a date. I promise not to leak it to the tabloids,” I teased him.
“I don’t date.”
“Why not?”
“Everybody bores me.”
I chuckled softly. “I see.”
“Except you, Julian Nash. You don’t bore me one bit.”
He was trying to give me a heart attack. “How’dya know? We’ve never been on a date.”
“And I’d like to remedy that, so… come home with me.”
“How is that a date?”
“I dunno. I don’t care. Just come home with me.”
I sighed deeply. “God, I wish I could.”
“Why can’t you? Just blow off your dinner.”
But I couldn’t, and when I explained who the dinner was with, his face lit up so fast that I could barely breathe. He was a vision of heat and sex, and the way he looked at me with his narrowed cat eyes was enough to turn me into a human torch. The man was trying to kill me by lavishing me with all his attention.
“I have an idea.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“I’ll be your date for dinner. Then afterwards you have to come home with me.”
“Are you serious?” I squinted at him.
“Very.”
“Well, as nice as that offer is, you don’t have—”
“I’m not placating you; my motives are completely selfish, I assure you. I’ve waited more than long enough.”
I didn’t believe him for a second. He was taking pity on me because I must have looked like hell. “You know I appreciate what—”
“Oh.” His voice rose. “Was that guy going as your friend or your—”
My laughter cut him off. “Everybody at work knows I’m gay, if that’s what you’re thinking. I don’t keep secrets.”
“Well, okay then, you have no reason to turn me down.”
And he was right, I didn’t. “Okay, Dean, you’re on. What am I, stupid?”
“Should I answer?” His eyes glittered, wicked with humor. “’Cause you didn’t call me.”
I grunted, taking his hand and leading him through the crowd toward the back. When he stopped suddenly, I looked over my shoulder at him. “What? Changed your mind already?”
He shook his head. “No, I just….” He lifted our joined hands. “This is nice. Nobody ever just holds my hand.”
“Why?”
“I usually just fuck,” he said matter-of-factly.
I nodded, smiling. “Well, can I hold your hand first?”
“Smartass,” he muttered. I tightened my hold on him and tugged him after me.
Jordan Castillo PriceAuthor and artist Jordan Castillo Price writes paranormal sci-fi thrillers colored by her time in the Midwest, from inner city Chicago, to various cities across southern Wisconsin. She’s recently settled in a 1910 Cape Cod near Lake Michigan with tons of character and a plethora of bizarre spiders. Her influences include Ouija boards, Return of the Living Dead, “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” girls with tattoos and boys in eyeliner.
Jordan is best known as the author of the PsyCop series, an unfolding tale of paranormal mystery and suspense starring Victor Bayne, a gay medium who’s plagued by ghostly visitations. And her quirky, sweet, magical series The ABCs of Spellcraft is sure to make you smile.
RJ ScottWriting love stories with a happy ever after – cowboys, heroes, family, hockey, single dads, bodyguards
USA Today bestselling author RJ Scott has written over one hundred romance books. Emotional stories of complicated characters, cowboys, single dads, hockey players, millionaires, princes, bodyguards, Navy SEALs, soldiers, doctors, paramedics, firefighters, cops, and the men who get mixed up in their lives, always with a happy ever after.
She lives just outside London and spends every waking minute she isn’t with family either reading or writing. The last time she had a week’s break from writing, she didn’t like it one little bit, and she has yet to meet a box of chocolates she couldn’t defeat.
Beth Bolden
A lifelong Pacific Northwester, Beth Bolden has just recently moved to North Carolina with her supportive husband. Beth still believes in Keeping Portland Weird, and intends to be just as weird in Raleigh.
Beth has been writing practically since she learned the alphabet. Unfortunately, her first foray into novel writing, titled Big Bear with Sparkly Earrings, wasn’t a bestseller, but hope springs eternal. She’s published twenty-three novels and seven novellas.
Jordan L HawkJordan L. Hawk is a trans author from North Carolina. Childhood tales of mountain ghosts and mysterious creatures gave him a life-long love of things that go bump in the night. When he isn’t writing, he brews his own beer and tries to keep the cats from destroying the house. His best-selling Whyborne & Griffin series (beginning with Widdershins) can be found in print, ebook, and audiobook.
If you want to contact Jordan, just click on the links below or send an email.
Mary CalmesMary Calmes lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband and two children and loves all the seasons except summer. She graduated from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, with a bachelor's degree in English literature. Due to the fact that it is English lit and not English grammar, do not ask her to point out a clause for you, as it will so not happen. She loves writing, becoming immersed in the process, and falling into the work. She can even tell you what her characters smell like. She loves buying books and going to conventions to meet her fans.
Jordan Castillo Price
AUDIBLE / SMASHWORDS / BOOKBUB
EMAILS: jordan@psycop.com
RJ Scott
BOOKBUB / KOBO / SMASHWORDS
EMAIL: rj@rjscott.co.uk
Beth Bolden
Camp Hell by Jordan Castillo Price
Omega Hunted by RJ Scott
Yours, Forever After by Beth Bolden
The Hollow Sea by Jordan L Hawk
His Hearth by Mary Calmes
