Autumn Storm (3 page)

“Tomorrow morning, I can show you around
campus,” he offered as they ate.

“Us, too?” Jenna asked with a grin.

Adam flushed again. “Yeah,” he mumbled.

“The forest is scary,” Tanya said. “I’ve
never been in a forest before.”

“I grew up in Idaho,” Autumn said.
I
think.
Troubled, she fell silent. She struggled to figure out
what parts of her world were real and why she couldn’t remember
everything or why no one remembered her when she knew them.

When the huckleberry pie appeared before
her, she wanted to cry. She’d guessed the flavor with the same
confidence she’d guessed the path to the school earlier. She ate a
little then pushed it away.

Something was wrong here. In Boise, it had
been the girl in the mirror. Here, there was a whole lot more that
didn’t make sense.

“Too full?” Adam asked.

“Yeah,” she replied.

Amber appeared a few minutes later to take
her, Jenna and Tanya down the hallway again. They spent the evening
reviewing the information and campus rules. Some were familiar;
others were not. Autumn listened, growing more agitated as the
night wore on.

When she returned to her room, her head was
spinning with all she’d learned. None of it surprised her, though.
Jenna and Tanya were terrified by the thought of magick being real.
Autumn found it intriguing.

Her closet door was open. Autumn frowned and
gazed into it, her eyes catching on a sticky note on the inside of
the door.

LOVE your clothes. Borrowed a sweater! Love,
Dawn

What kind of person took a complete
stranger’s sweater? She didn’t have much to start off with. Her
closet was barren compared to Dawn’s.

With a shake of her head, Autumn closed the
closet door and went to the bathroom. She closed her eyes as she
turned on the light, cringing at the idea the dark-haired girl
might be there. Peeking through her eyelashes, she was relieved to
see her own reflection.

Autumn opened her medicine cabinet and
pulled out one of the bottles of pills. She’d begun to lower her
dosage of painkillers, not wanting to be dependent on anything but
her mind to control the pain. Halving the huge tablets led to
strange dreams when she was used to not dreaming at all. She took
her pills and climbed into bed.

As she drifted to sleep, a dream unlike any
she’d had before slipped into her mind. It was filled with
disjointed scenes of the forest, of night, of falling.

Of death.

Summer was falling. As hard as he struggled,
he couldn’t reach her. Pinned to the top of the cliff, he was
helpless. Her scream ceased suddenly, leaving him in silence.
Alone.

Decker wrenched awake with a gasp, his heart
pounding hard. Though haunted by that night, he’d never dreamt
about it before.

Wiping his face, he oriented himself in his
dorm room at the private school in Washington where he’d
transferred after Summer’s death. No part of him wanted anything to
do with the boarding school in Priest Lake. His clock read three in
the morning. The amount of valium he took should’ve knocked him out
for the weekend but instead, lasted two hours. Every night, it was
harder to force himself into sleep.

Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed,
Decker sighed. The body next to him shifted, and he glanced over
his shoulder.

Bodies. Two women tonight. He remembered
them vaguely. His gaze swept over them. The women he brought home
with him always slept so deep and long after he wore them out. Sex
took him away from the voices in his head, from his memories of
Summer, from the pain. It was a temporary release that never lasted
long enough, which was where the drugs came in: valium for what
sleep it gave him and meth to keep him awake during class.
Temporary fixes. It’s all his life consisted of anymore.

Envious and frustrated, Decker rose and
crossed to the window overlooking a crowded parking lot.

Without Summer, Darkness was all that truly
soothed his misery.

Feed it, and it will take you away. You
are lucky she died before she saw what you are,
one of the
voices in his head told him.

When he’d become the Master of Dark, he’d
inherited the souls of all his predecessors. They were constantly
chattering, filling his head with noise he couldn’t escape. Of all
the Dark Masters and Mistresses before him, the most feared of them
all had taken on the role of mentoring Decker.
Bartholomew-the-Terrible was known for the mass slaughter of humans
and witchlings he committed over the course of dozens of years.
He’d taught Decker where to find the small moments of relief and
how many ways there were to kill with nothing more than a knife and
his hands.

Recognizing the truth in the words, Decker
looked at his hands. He showered half a dozen times a day but
always felt the warmth of blood on him. It was intoxicating to the
Dark side of him. When the high wore off, he was left with the hole
inside of him and a mess to clean up.

His phone buzzed from its place on the
nightstand. His twin, Beck, called or texted almost every day.
Decker ignored him, along with everyone else who tried to contact
him. He’d wanted to talk to one person the past few months, the
woman he’d inherited his Dark role from.

His mother, however, refused to speak to
him. He stopped trying to reach her when it became clear she wanted
nothing to do with him and let Bartholomew guide him.

Maybe tonight,
he thought with
another glance at the clock. No one with a clear conscience was up
at this hour. His mother definitely fit the bill.

He crossed to his phone and saw his father’s
name on it. Surprised, Decker read the text.

Give me a call when you’re up!

Calm, quiet Michael Turner was the
foundation of the family. He was reserved, and normally, it was
Decker’s mother who checked up on him. Decker dressed and pulled at
his magick. He wasn’t going back to sleep this night.

It took him where he willed it, to the cabin
in Priest Lake where his parents were for the next week. The cabin
was quiet and dark. He paced through the ground floor, hoping his
father was down here and not upstairs with his mother. Light in the
kitchen drew him to the large area, where his father and
grandfather sat at the breakfast table. Opposite him, the bank of
windows reflected the light of the kitchen. During the day, they’d
display the stunning view of the lake the nearby town of Priest
Lake was named for.

“Hello, son,” his father said without
turning. “Have a seat.”

Decker hesitated, sensing something was off.
They were playing cards and drinking coffee at three in the
morning. His grandfather wore a robe and smoked a cigar inside the
house, which was usually a no-no. His father was clothed in
sweatpants and socks, the bronze skin of his upper body snug around
his lean frame. Michael Turner ran marathons. Decker knew now it
had to be because of how crazy his mother drove him.

Summer was supposed to sit at the third seat
at the table. Fresh pain filled him as he realized he stood in the
presence of two generations of Dark Mistresses’ mates. His mother
inherited her position from her mother, who married Grandpa Louis
over fifty years ago.

Decker sat, at once aware of the soothing
warmth that flowed off the two Dark mates. It quieted the voices in
his head without silencing them.

“Got a call from the insurance company
today,” Michael Turner said, glancing up. His eyes were
understanding.

Heat crept up Decker’s face. He cleared his
throat. No matter how bad he already felt, his father’s compassion
made him feel worse.

“Glad you weren’t hurt. I’ll send you
another bike, if you promise not to run into any more
mountains.”

It was one thing for Decker to tell his
brother about the suicide attempt when Beck showed up at the
hospital. It was different telling his mother, who understood too
well what it was to grieve as deeply as he did. She’d lost her twin
long ago. Based on all accounts, she’d gone crazy afterwards, like
he was, except that she had her mate, Michael Turner, the man she’d
eventually marry.

Decker revered the unflappable man who
somehow managed to cage his mother’s Darkness. After becoming the
Master of Dark, he was in greater awe, knowing what he did about
how strong that Dark could be. His father wasn’t the best person he
knew; he was also the strongest. In the darkest hours of his
despair, Decker often wondered if Summer was as able as his father,
especially since she failed her trial and fell into Dark
magick.

He hated himself for doubting her. He
deserved whatever the Darkness did to him.

“How about a three-quarter ton truck?” his
father asked at his silence. “Harder to wreck.” A smile was on his
face.

“It’s okay, dad. I don’t need a vehicle,”
Decker said at last. “Thanks.”

“I know you’re struggling, Decker,” he said.
“As my son, you’re half Light, too. The Dark won’t consume you, as
long as you remember that.”

Decker managed to nod. He didn’t dare tell
his father he
wanted
the Darkness to consume him. He’d
driven his motorcycle into a cliff at ninety miles an hour, trying
to end the pain. When he awoke, the bike was in pieces, and he was
in the hospital with Beck standing at his bed. Three days later,
Decker was fully healed.

One of you must sire successors. Until
then, you will be immortal to all but death by magick,
Bartholomew had told him wisely.
I tried many times to end my
life. Eventually, I realized giving into the Darkness was all that
would stop the pain.

Decker couldn’t imagine fathering children
and sharing his curse with them. He’d figured out how to use his
magick to act as a contraceptive. The women he took to bed had no
names or faces he’d recognize the next morning, not with the
Darkness and drugs in his system. They definitely weren’t going to
produce his children. If only Summer …

He pushed the thought away. No, producing
twins to takeover Light and Dark duties when they turned eighteen
was something Beck would have to do. Decker didn’t doubt his
brother would.

“I’m guessing Dawn’s kid isn’t Beck’s,” he
murmured. “I shouldn’t have walked away from that.”

“It’s probably his kid,” his father replied.
“Not twins, though, or you’d be dead.” Always calm, Michael was
gazing at him.

Decker stared at the table. “I take it that
whole … issue isn’t going away.”

“They dropped the restraining order when we
threatened to press charges for statutory rape. She was nineteen
and he was seventeen at the time of conception.” Michael shook his
head. “He’s back in school. They’re playing hardball, though. If
the DNA test comes back with him as the father, I’ll have to agree
to set up a trust fund to keep them from taking Beck to court.”

“Beck, you fool,” Decker said with a sigh.
As much as he worked to divorce himself from the rest of his world,
he couldn’t help mentally lecturing his brother one more time.
Knowing his twin was probably in distress about the whole Dawn
issue brought out the instincts of a reluctantly protective
brother.

“He’s learning,” Grandpa Louis said. “He’s
grown up a lot this fall.”

“They both have,” Michael agreed. “We’ll get
through it.”

“How are you holding up, Decker?” Grandpa
Louis asked.

“Still alive,” Decker replied wryly.

“I lost your grandmother seven years ago. I
don’t know how you’re handling it alone.” There was sorrow in
Grandpa Louis’s old voice. “That’s why I follow your mother around
the world. I lost my wife. One of our children remains missing.
I’ll take care of the family I have left.”

Decker studied him. He didn’t want to end up
like Grandpa Louis, mourning for the rest of his life. He didn’t
want to be like his mother, either, who caused so much pain to
those she loved. Grandpa Louis had no idea his own daughter was the
source of half his pain, for she’d killed her twin, Nora. She’d
hidden what she was from her father and children for eighteen
years.

Decker couldn’t bear to keep such secrets
from those he loved. He didn’t know how his mother spent every day
with her father and let him believe Nora was missing, not dead.
Decker wanted nothing to do with hurting Beck or his parents. Once
the Darkness took him, he’d never have to worry about hurting
anyone.

You will save your family this kind of
pain.
Bartholomew said in approval.

Feeling his father’s gaze again, Decker
sensed Michael knew about Nora’s death, too. It was the nature of
the bond between his parents, the ability for the mates of a Dark
Mistress or Master to accept the truth about their mates. He’d
never have a mate, now that Summer was dead.

“How do you get through it?” he asked
Grandpa Louis.