Violette Dubrinsky (2 page)

“Don’t do that thing with your face, Azaleigh! You’ll get wrinkles and frown lines. Plus, a spa day will be fun. It’ll be like old times.”

“No, Mama. I want to see this through.”

Seeing she was getting nowhere, Priscilla shook her head. “Just as stubborn as your Daddy. Lance Montclaire was’s handsome’s he was stubborn.” A secretive smile touched Priscilla’s lips as an accent came through and her eyes grew warm with memories. Azaleigh had only seen her mother’s amber-brown eyes light up like that for her daddy. Not even her current husband made her do that. “Convinced me to run ’way with him after two dates, marry him after four. Everyone said I’s crazy, even Aunt Toni.” She chuckled, brushing a hand over her face and shaking her head. “You remind me so much of your daddy, pursuing law like him, too.” Her eyes glistened and she looked away. “I’m gonna wash up, then make breakfast.”

Azaleigh watched her go with a sad smile, understanding some of her mother’s pain. When her father passed, Azaleigh had cried until she threw up, but gradually, the pain ebbed. Life moved on, but the throb was still there. She’d only been fifteen when he had the heart attack, and hated Priscilla for remarrying so soon after. It was only as she grew older Azaleigh realized her mother had been trying to survive and keep the comfortable, if excessive, lifestyle to which she’d become accustomed.

“
Azaleigh
...”

There it was again! She spun, whirling and expecting to find someone with a sickle, waiting to cleave her in two. Way too freaked out to stay in the basement, Azaleigh followed in the footsteps of her mother and fled, locking the door behind her.

Chapter 2

The night her mother left, Azaleigh had a strange dream, one that had her waking in a sweat having little to do with the oppressive heat. There had been a man with dark, hooded eyes and a harsh face, solid like granite, staring down at her. His hands had drifted over her forehead, her straight, flared nose, her lips, and her collarbone in a caress that bordered on intimate, before he stepped away.

Azaleigh remembered being terrified, but his touch hadn’t been unpleasant. A bit cool, but once his skin meshed with hers, he’d become warm. Like a candle flame.

Strange
.

She spent Thursday visiting family members to disperse Antoinette’s heirlooms. Constance Macray, an older cousin, received some of the lockets, Odessa Franklin, a great-niece like herself, took possession of some the China plates and combs, and Benjamin Bradley received some of everything. He seemed to need it the most, with a family of five children and no mother.

After completing those tasks, she spoke with the realtor, who told her the couple looking to purchase was getting anxious. Apparently, they’d learned the previous owner had been considered a ‘witch’ by the neighbors, and the place haunted. Mr. Townes advised her to lower the price by five grand. After agreeing to consider it, Azaleigh took a seat in one of the padded arm chairs in the sitting room overlooking the huge backyard. The house was unique, as it was the only one separated from the woods by a high, chain-link fence, one with a gate that could be opened for complete access to the wilderness. Thick clusters of trees lined the backyard as well, making it almost impossible to tell where the wilderness began.

Minus the creepiness, the place was beautiful. In New York, a home like this would go for a million, easily. In Hallows Brook, it was less than half that price, although the lifestyle was arguably better for a family.

Shaking her head at the irony, Azaleigh took a long drink of the cold, lemon iced tea Priscilla made before shipping out. Life here seemed so easy. No hustling and bustling, and no loud noise. It was so peaceful that for a few days after settling in, she’d considered staying. Her fantasy was shattered by the fact that she knew no one in town, and wasn’t at the place in life where she could readily pick up and move. She’d just graduated law school, and was waiting on her Bar results while working part-time at a human rights firm owned by a family friend.

Hallows Brook was not the place to pursue an entry-level career in corporate litigation or human rights law, her interests. Still, maybe she should just keep the house. Rent it out, and sell it in a few years after the economy picked up.

The decision would need to be made before tomorrow, as she was returning to the city in the evening. Tucking her legs up and slipping the quilt cover across her body, she closed her eyes. It was so easy to relax out here.

***

The second dream scared her so badly, Azaleigh awoke screaming, clawing at her invisible attacker. Before she could realize where she was, she was hopping off the chair and running. She collided with the wall, the flat of her palms halting a head injury, and slumped down, wiping her eyes and shaking her head.

It was a bad dream. Bad dream. It wasn’t real.

But the images came back each time she closed her eyes. Images of children being attacked so viciously their necks snapped like match-sticks, of women protesting, faces bloodied as their bodies were violated in disgusting and terrible ways, of men putting up futile defenses, their guns barely slowing the gray-tinged monsters who came for their families.

“What the hell’s wrong with me?” Azaleigh whispered to herself, still facing the wall. Gradually, she turned around. It had grown dark, but not dark enough she could see nothing. It was probably after seven, with the sun setting to the west behind the tall, leafy trees of the woods.

On shaky feet, she made her way to the bathroom just off the side of the sitting room, to wash her face. Azaleigh didn’t recognize the woman who stared back at her from the etched Venetian mirror. Gone were her rosy cheeks and relaxed face. She was blanched to a sickly tinge under the usually healthy glow of her toffee colored skin.

Instead of washing her face, she jumped into the shower. The spray of the lukewarm water and steam did much to relax her, and when she emerged, she was looking more her usual self, minus the haunting in her eyes.

It would probably be a good thing to sell the house because she’d only been having strange dreams here. At her small apartment, she slept dream-free. Running a hand through wet hair that curled to just between her shoulder blades, Azaleigh winced as something snagged it. With the mirror as her guide, she slowly removed caught strands of hair from Antoinette’s ring before peering closely at the ruby-topped golden heirloom.

Maybe Antoinette had been a witch—a real one—and the house was haunted. That would explain the dreams. Maybe the ring was haunted, too? She was moving to pull it from her finger when a loud thud, sounding much like the slap of a door against a wall, reached her ears. The basement was right below this bathroom. Heart thundering once more, Azaleigh quickly slipped into the clothes she’d discarded, going commando. This wasn’t Scary Movie or any other B-rated horror flick, and she wasn’t about to be the stupid girl who died first.

If the freaking house was haunted, Azaleigh wasn’t staying around to find out.

Her hands were on the brass doorknob pulling the front door open. She could see the front yard. Freedom, in the form of the street that would lead her to neighbors, families settling in for their after-dinner television, was in her sights.

The door suddenly slammed shut.

Shit
.

She grabbed the knob and turned hard, but the door refused to budge. Her hands felt raw from strain. It was as if she’d locked it. Worse, like she’d sealed it shut.

“Shit!” she hissed, taking a step back, and another. Her back hit the wall, and she blinked. What happened next was the scene from one of those very same B-rated movies. A bulb went off in her mind. The wall wasn’t that close to the door. In fact, the house opened into the living room, which meant she should have toppled over a couch or two by now rather than hit the wall. Slowly, she looked up, already knowing what was there yet needing the confirmation to get her reflexes to kick in. Fight or flight.

A massive hand was pressed flat against the door, thick fingers splayed.

Someone was in her house. Worse, someone was in her house, at her back.

Before she could think, Azaleigh elbowed him in the solar plexus, a shriek escaping her lips when he grunted. She spun away, sprinting for the back door. The rush of blood in her ears did little to prevent her from hearing his heavy boots thundering on the bare, wooden floor after her. What she wouldn’t give for her canister of Mace. Still, she was fast. She jogged, she sprinted.

She was promptly caught about the middle and lifted off her feet.

“HELPPPPPPPPPPP!”

All else had failed, and although the house was located in an isolated position, closer to the woods and further from the neighbors than any other, Azaleigh prayed she was loud enough. Her scream died abruptly when he tossed her over his hard shoulder, knocking the breath from her lungs as surely as if he’d hauled back and punched her.

He kept walking, surely, calmly, and once she’d caught her breath, Azaleigh realized they were outside. She inhaled to scream once more and was promptly bounced on his shoulder. Another lost breath.

They said three was a charm, and Azaleigh was a fighter. She drew in the third breath, and was promptly deposited on her feet. Her confusion resulted in a low sound, a grunt that quickly faded. Looking up, because even at her height of five feet eight inches she had to strain her neck, Azaleigh’s breath caught. It was him! Her dream guy. In the flesh. Or was she still dreaming?

The analytical part of her brain made her pinch herself before reacting. When the pain came, Azaleigh let the scream building inside her rip. The night wasn’t quiet, but it drowned everything else out. Even the crickets seemed to give precedent to her scream, letting it flow over their harmony and become part of the night.

“Azaleigh...”

She stopped abruptly, hearing the familiar, low and raspy voice, the one she’d heard in Aunt Toni’s basement, and now matching it to an equally familiar face.

“I won’t hurt you, Azaleigh. I’d give my life for yours.”

The giant fell to one knee, and for the first time, Azaleigh noticed his hair. Midnight-black, like his eyes.

She began to shake. What began as small shivers soon turned to uncontrollable tremors. The last she remembered, those eyes had been green. Now they were black with no whites, pitless voids of empty. The man—
thing
—before her was not human. It wasn’t possible. Demons, or whatever the hell he was, weren’t real, but somehow, he was there, on his knees...

He lifted her hand to his firm lips, and kissed the blood-red ruby, which now seemed to glow. “I am your Protector, Azaleigh Montclaire. Summon me and I shall come. Need me, and I will be there. My purpose is to protect you from all who would cause you harm. My breath for yours. My blood for yours. My life is yours.”

Azaleigh had been called many things in her twenty-five year existence. Smart. Sophisticated. Pretty.
Eloquent.

But at the moment, only three words registered in her mind, three words pierced through the fog into which she’d descended, and she managed to mutter them before the world went black.

“What. The. Fuck?”

***

She came awake in her bed, groaning as her leg and back muscles protested fiercely. Azaleigh felt as if she’d run miles over hilly terrain. When had she dragged herself to sleep and—

Her body went rigid. Where was the non-human psychopath swearing to give his life for hers?

As she popped up, eyes darting around the moonlight-and-shadows room, she relaxed. It was another dream. Christ! She was getting the hell out of this place. She’d never had nightmares before coming here, and now all of a sudden, she was having one a night.

Her body still shaking from fear, Azaleigh slipped from under the thin covers and made her way to the bathroom. As she relieved herself, she got a good look at her clothes. Faded gray jeans and a soiled T-shirt. Hadn’t she showered? Yes, she remembered that. And then had come the loud thud from the basement, and she’d been chased. But that had all been a dream. Maybe she’d dragged herself upstairs and fallen asleep before the shower.

Strange,
she thought, her brow creasing on a frown.

Flicking on the bedroom light, she stripped out of the clothes, shocked to find she wore no undies, like the dream. She quickly slipped into a pair of Hanes cottons, navy-colored pajama bottoms and a v-necked tee.

Where was her brush? Her other suitcase was across the room, by the rocking chair with the knitted quilt—

“Oh my God! You’re real!” Her back pressed to the wall as she stared at the man who was everywhere. “I can’t believe this.” If this was another dream, that was it. When she woke up, Azaleigh was out. Out of Hollows Brook, out of this house…
out
.

“I’m sorry you’re finding out this way, but time is against you.” The thing did not move from its relaxed position in the rocking chair.

“Time? Who the hell—? What the hell are you?”

“I will respond to whatever name you give me.” A black brow lifted and he seemed to be waiting.

“Huh?”

“My name. That which you call, and I answer.”

“I know what you said, damn it! What do you mean? You don’t have a name?”

He cocked his head to the side, like a patient dog analyzing its master. “Antoinette called me Victor.”