Stricken (The War Scrolls Book 1) Read online

  Werewolves?

  Something worse?

  She shivered at the thought of something worse than the weak demons prowling through the dark in cities far and wide. Some of those demons were decent. They didn’t harm the humans who lived beside them. But the others? They were worse than foul—hunting and murdering without regard for human life.

  Stop cowering, and run, Aubrey demanded of herself.

  Her muscles screamed in protest, refusing to unbend and move.

  Her shoulders slumped.

  Who was she kidding?

  If another wolf appeared, she wouldn’t last five minutes. So she stayed put, too scared to creep from behind the hedge and ask the men for help and too tired to make a run to safety.

  Sure, give up, a little voice complained from its corner of her mind. Maybe your heroes will kill you quickly when they find you lurking around out here.

  “They won’t kill me,” she muttered, praying she was right.

  From the little bits and pieces of their conversation she’d heard, the men were more concerned with being found than with committing murder. Knowing that didn’t make her feel any safer, though. She’d seen them kill one of the wolves with nothing more than knives.

  God. The wolves. Were they wild, or were they—?

  A sharp scent wafted toward her, halting that painful thought in its tracks.

  Too late to ask for help now, the little voice observed.

  A familiar growl sounded behind her.

  A bloodcurdling scream tore from her throat, terror and fury winding together and ripping through the still night before she could stop herself.

  Aubrey leaped to her feet and ran full tilt toward the rotting house and her mysterious knights. A part of her mind warned her that she was being careless. But she couldn’t stop screaming any more than she could stop herself from pounding up the decaying steps and plunging headlong into the pitch-black of the condemned property.

  She made it an entire four feet into the murky darkness before slamming into a wall.

  No, not a wall. A person.

  “Oh!”

  She bounced off his chest and sat down on the floor so hard, her teeth clacked together, jarring her.

  “What the—?” Strong arms reached out and plucked her from the rotting wood. Warm hands wrapped around her upper arms. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Outside,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes closed. “There’s another wolf outside.”

  “Another one?” One of the men swore in alarm.

  A thud sounded somewhere beyond the voice, followed by a more colorful curse from a third voice and the hiss of steel leaving a sheath.

  “Dom!” The man holding her upright spun around, his grip on her not wavering. “Hold her!” He let her go before she stopped spinning.

  Her arms windmilled wildly as she scrambled for balance.

  “Got her.” Another set of arms grabbed her before she could fall on her face.

  Her head smacked into something hard—an arm, a chest, she didn’t know—and the man hissed between his teeth. “Damn, girl, stand still!”

  He shifted her around, his large hands like vises on her upper arms. Her back thumped into a wall before she felt the man spin, putting himself between her and the wolf outside.

  Her heart pounded as she waited for the wolf to tear through him and gobble her up like a pig in a straw house. For long moments, her breath rasping in and out of her throat and the chattering of her teeth were the only sounds in the oppressive darkness. Then a howl ripped through the air, seeming to bounce around the house. Chills raced up and down her spine as the distorted, eerie sound echoed in dark corners.

  Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, fear and exhaustion overwhelming her.

  A second howl started as soon as the first began to fade, followed by wordless shouts and the sounds of a brawl. A curse rang out and then a heavy thump.

  The animal’s howl faded into a whisper and then dead silence in the blink of an eye.

  Aubrey’s heart broke a little as the whimper died. As much as the wolves scared her, she didn’t wish for their deaths. Something was obviously wrong with them, and she wasn’t callous enough not to care about that.

  “Yes!” The man holding her to the wall cheered. “Got him!”

  Aubrey felt him turn toward her.

  She pressed herself farther into the wall, holding her eyes open wide against the darkness. If she closed them again, would she have another chance to open them?

  Don’t be ridiculous. He shielded you with his own body, didn’t he? the rational part of her mind pointed out.

  He’s going to kill you, the hysterical part screeched in response, refusing to listen to reason. Probably hide your body in a suitcase in the wall, never to be seen again! Aunt Mel won’t know what happened to you.

  The man shifted positions, moving so close his warm breath blew across her temple.

  She flinched away from him, startled.

  “What’s your name, beautiful?”

  “Aubrey,” she whispered, not particularly soothed by the pleasant tone of his voice or by the implication that he saw well enough in the darkness to think her pretty. She certainly couldn’t see anything.

  “Aubrey,” he murmured. “Cute. I’m Dahmiel, but you can call me Dom. You’ve heard of me?”

  “N-no.”

  “Well,” he huffed, sounding more amused than offended. “Spend your time saving the world from ravaging hordes of infected things and do you even get a thank-you? Of course not. They don’t even know your name.” Another soft huff left his lips. “Bloody rude, if you ask me.”

  Aubrey listened to his rant, her eyes wide. A choked laugh bubbled up in her throat, followed by another. She clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle the sound, afraid Dom would think she was laughing at him. Which she was, sort of. He complained about not being famous while her life unraveled around her.

  The irony wasn’t lost on her.

  Dom chuckled.

  The knot in her throat began to loosen.

  “Well,” that first man she’d heard—and smacked into—said from somewhere near the gaping front door. He had a beautiful voice. More lyrical than the Southern drawl she heard day in and day out. Kind of lovely, actually. “Now that you’ve gotten that out of your system, perhaps you could ask her what in the hell she’s doing here?”

  Okay, so maybe not that lovely. Slightly condescending, really.

  She narrowed her eyes in his direction but couldn’t make out anything more than a thick shadow standing right inside the missing front door.

  “I could,” Dom said, making no move to step away from her, “but I won’t. I prefer to believe she came to sweep me off of my feet and was rudely interrupted, first by the thing outside and then by you taking up the entire hallway and forcing her to bump into you. She’s working up to confessing her undying love for me as we speak.”

  “I am not!” she protested. Did he actually believe the things he said, or did he simply like to hear himself talk? “I was chased here.”

  “By the thing outside?” the condescending one asked.

  “No, by the one you killed inside,” she muttered, irritated by his antagonistic question. He didn’t have to be so rude.

  “The one we…” Dom whistled.

  “How do you know we killed it?” The rude one moved closer, his shadow still little more than a heavy mass in the darkness.

  Aubrey gulped at the threat in his question. “Lucky guess?” she whispered, her voice shaking. Never need rescuing again, she demanded of herself. It was terrifying and exhausting and pretty much a huge pain all the way around.

  “Try again,” he said, softer than before. Oddly, with his voice pitched low like that, he sounded even more dangerous.

  Aubrey couldn’t think of a single suitable lie. I’m omniscient would have sounded just as false as I guessed. Both were equally true, which was to say not true at all. And she wasn’t nearly stupid enough to tell the truth
with his threat hanging in the air around them. She closed her mouth instead, licking her lips nervously.

  “Did either of them bite you?” Dom asked, saving her from trying to come up with an answer she didn’t have.

  “What?”

  “The wolves,” the rude one snapped. “Did they bite you, drool on any open wounds?”

  “Um, no?”

  “You’re sure?” he demanded.

  “Yes. I’m sure.” One of them had clawed her up a little, but no bites. Luckily. She didn’t want to consider how that might have ended. The leg the animal had clawed hurt enough, thank you very much.

  “That’s good,” Dom said.

  “How do you know we killed the wolf?” the first asked a second time, apparently not willing to let that question go.

  Aubrey said nothing.

  “Still waiting,” he reminded her.

  “I’m sure this is all very fascinating, but we’ve got to go,” the third man broke in. He didn’t sound as though he found the conversation particularly riveting. He sounded tired. “The entire neighborhood heard her screaming, and the police will be on the way soon if they aren’t already. I’d rather not have to break out of jail.”

  “Hell,” the first man swore again.

  Did he know any other words?

  Who was he?

  “Dom, take the girl. Abriel, grab the shifter outside. I’ll get this one.” A faint thud sounded.

  “Sure, Killian.” Dom snorted. “Just remember you said that when you decide to try to steal her away.”

  “Oh, shut up,” the other two, Killian and Abriel, said simultaneously.

  Dom’s laughter echoed around the decrepit house.

  Take the girl, my ass. Aubrey pushed away from the wall and squared her shoulders, ready to do battle. “I’m not going with you,” she warned Dom, holding up her hands to ward him off in case he made a grab for her.

  “I’m sorry,” he disagreed, “but you have to. You don’t seem the jail type, and since we’re lugging around a couple dead bodies and the police have no clue about infected shifters, that’s exactly where you’ll end up if you stay.” He paused. “Feel free to argue if it makes you feel better, though.”

  “Infected shifters?” Her voice trembled, and her thoughts seemed stuck on those words. “Infected shifters?” That was not good. Not good at all.

  “Infected shifters,” Dom repeated. “Elioud shapeshifters, the distant human descendants of angels.” He paused. “Are you going to puke?” He sounded more curious than concerned.

  Elioud shapeshifters…

  Oh God. No. Not again.

  “Oh God,” Aubrey whispered, blood rushing in her ears. She slid weakly down the wall, her legs no longer willing to hold her up.

  “She’s fainting,” Killian said from a distance.

  She thought she heard herself sigh in response, but she was already too far under to care.

  Chapter Two

  Where am I?

  Aubrey glanced around, confused.

  She stood at the edge of a driveway. A neat white house nestled between two towering oaks, a sea of waving grass stretching to each side. A tangle of trees spread out beyond the grassy field, dense and shadowed but familiar. The front shutters of the house were thrown open, the pale yellow curtains beneath fluttering in the warm breeze. Thick chains holding the old porch swing in place creaked as the wind tugged them into lazy motion.

  A smile spread across her face as memory made sense of the scene before her. This was her home, the little paradise where she’d grown up. Time hadn’t changed the house at all. It stood exactly as she remembered.

  But that wasn’t right, was it?

  Aubrey frowned as a less gentle memory demanded her attention.

  The scene before her flickered.

  Her heart twisted painfully.

  The massive oaks on the far edges of her vision blinked from life to death, branches bared and charred. The porch swing shifted from whole and hale to a melted and charred ruin. And the house…one minute, her home was pristine white and standing tall. The next, the house was little more than a gutted ruin, collapsing into a pile of rubble beyond the porch.

  Smoke stood thick in the air, choking her.

  Fire still smoldered in places, reducing to ash what it had not already destroyed.

  “No.” Aubrey squeezed her eyes shut. She remembered this. Standing in this same spot. Watching the home she loved burn. Finding her—

  “No!” She dashed toward the house as fast as she could, her heart in her throat as memory spurred her onward. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t.

  “Daddy! Aaron!” The cast on her leg tripped her, causing her to nearly fall onto the charred porch before she could catch herself. She lurched across the wooden slats on unsteady legs, then flung herself into the ruins, heedless of the dangers lurking there.

  “Aaron, where are you?” She ignored the alarm bells clamoring in the back of her mind, clenching her good hand into a tight fist to slow its shaking. The smell of char hung heavier in the air here, clogging her nose and throat. Smoke billowed like fog around her. She stumbled through the collapsing ruins of her home, fear for her family urging her forward.

  Portraits and their heavy wooden frames were melted onto the walls, glass broken all along the charred floor. Her brother’s graduation picture was ruined, his face burned through. The photos of her mom were destroyed too, the edges of those beloved images still smoking in places.

  “Dad?” Aubrey coughed, gagging at the bitter, painful taste of smoke in the back of her throat.

  A groan sounded to her left, coming from the once-tidy little kitchen. She spun and dashed that way, a strangled cry breaking from her lips at the sight awaiting her inside the twisted doorframe. The room was gutted, pots and pans twisted into unrecognizable detritus atop melting linoleum. The kitchen table, charred a deep black, stood upright amid the destruction.

  It didn’t matter.

  The room no longer burned, but that didn’t matter, either.

  Her father lay pinned beneath a roof beam. His left leg was bent, his flesh red and blistered halfway down the length of the limb. His familiar, handsome face was covered in soot, his dark hair singed. A nasty gash across his temple oozed blood, staining the right side of his face. His mouth pulled up in a rictus of pain when he turned his head, but his gaze was as gentle and loving as ever when it fell upon her. “Aubrey,” he said. “Sweetheart.”

  “Daddy!” She collapsed to her knees beside him, ripping at the roof beam pinning him to the floor. Her broken arm and leg screamed in protest. Tears rolled down her face, silent sobs racking her body.

  “Aubrey,” he murmured and then coughed, a sick sound. “You’ve got to get out of here, sweetheart.”

  “No!” she cried, still pulling frantically at the rubble burying her father. Heat burned her hands, and wooden shards dug into her skin. She ignored the pain, determination driving her. “I can get you out. I can!”

  “No, baby,” her father said, his voice a frail whisper, “you can’t. You’ve got to get out of here before the house collapses.”

  “I’m not leaving you, Daddy,” she sobbed, tugging at the roof beam that refused to budge.

  “You have to.” He sounded so much weaker than she’d ever heard before.

  “No.” Aubrey shook her head, refusing to obey the man she’d always idolized. She couldn’t leave him here. She wouldn’t.

  “They’re going to need you, Aubrey. You’re the only—” A harsh cough cut him off. He winced and groaned again.

  “No,” Aubrey choked on the word, still tugging at the beam pinning him to the floor. “I can save you and Aaron!”

  Her father’s gaze drifted off to the side and then quickly back to her, but he couldn’t hide the broken look in his eyes.

  She turned her head and saw what he had.

  Her brother’s arm, charred and blistered, peeked from beneath another fallen roof beam.

  “Aaron’s gone,
Bree. He’s gone, baby.”

  “No!” She shook her head back and forth, trying to deny the truth fracturing her heart. “No.”

  “He’s gone, sweetheart.”

  “Aaron!” Aubrey jerked upright, her breath coming in gasping sobs.

  Oh God, Aaron. And her father.

  A nightmare, but not.

  The dream was an exact memory, dredged up from that place deep inside where she’d tried to bury it three long years ago. Her shrink had told her then that memories didn’t stay buried forever, but she’d tried anyway.

  Would the pain of that day ever fade?

  At night, when she slept, the loss of her family haunted her like a wraith. It terrorized her, leaving her a broken mess over and over. But she was awake now, and in the light of day, she controlled what held her attention.

  She drew a deep, shuddering breath and swiped shaking hands beneath her eyes. Shoving the memory back into the corner reserved for it and the others like it, she buttressed the walls she’d built around those painful flashbacks long ago. When her body stopped trembling, she took stock of her situation.

  At some point, she’d been moved from the abandoned house and tucked into a massive four-poster bed. A deep red comforter twisted around her legs. Dark curtains—so red they might as well have been black—covered long windows on the opposite wall. An overgrown armchair sat in the far corner, a wooden table beside it. Two large bookcases flanked it, each stuffed to overflowing with books and papers of all shapes and sizes.

  Aubrey drew another breath and disentangled herself from the blankets before climbing unsteadily to her feet. It felt as if a great weight sat upon her chest, fear and pain squeezing her heart in a vise. But she could curl into a ball and cry later. Right now, more important things demanded her attention.

  “Which door?” she asked herself, staring at three identical doors situated around the room. None provided any hints as to where they led.

  She chose the closest and pulled it open.

  A bathroom, impressively decorated in deep blues and soft creams. No help there.

  The second door opened onto a closet full of jeans, T-shirts, and combat boots far too large for a woman. So, one of her rescuers—if that’s what they were—lived here.