Page 112 of Evil Hearts

With my hand still over my mouth to keep myself quiet, I carefully begin backing away from the banister, slowly putting that horrible stranger out of sight, but when I take a third step, my foot comes down over the only creaky floorboard in the entire upstairs, and Pelifer’s eyes snap to mine.

A slow, evil smile splits his lips, and for a moment, I’m frozen in place.

My entire body breaks out into goosebumps, rippling with a chill so icy I feel it wrap around my heart, tightening as it pounds furiously in my chest. The hate I felt from him amplifies, and it becomes consuming, almost suffocating, and then the undercurrent of his aura surges, and I feel a second wave wash over me; power.

Pelifer is full of hate, but he has a hunger for power, ultimate power, living inside of him so strongly it’s like a disease, a sickness that’s crawled through his veins and spider-webbed through every inch of his wretched body.

We stare at each other for a few moments, my legs unwilling to move no matter how hard I try, and just when I think thiscreatureis going to leap up the stairs and drag me back down by my hair, a noise from behind him has his black eyes flicking over his shoulder briefly.

“Get her,” he snaps, breaking the spell he seemed to have over me, and I act quickly so he can’t cast another one.

I spin on my heel and run toward Reggie’s room, quickly scooping up the sweet baby, and clutching him to my chest. I dart into the hall as those footsteps, the heavy horse-like footsteps move up the stairs, and when what appears to behornslike that of a bull’s, sitting on a head full of long, dark brown and red hair comes into view, my fear skyrockets.

What isthat?

I run down the long hallway past my room, and the washroom, past the linen closets, and guest bedrooms. I keep running asI hold Reggie tight to my body, only stopping when I get to the Hughes’s master wing at the end, and pray the doors are unlocked.

Gripping the knob tight, I glance over my shoulder briefly, the thing with horns just now almost at the top of the stairs, and I have to scold myself for the curiosity trying to worm its way through the fear.

I want to see his face.

Quickly, I shake that thought away and push inside, lay the sweet little boy down on the sofa in the sitting room, then lock the doors, and begin barricading the heavy wood with everything I can. The writing desk, both high back chairs. I drag the fainting couch over then add the liquor cabinet just as thethingchasing me turns the doorknob.

I rush to Reggie and cradle him to me once again as a heavy thud bangs against the doors behind me, then run into the Hughes’s bedroom, where I repeat my actions, locking and barricading the door with everything I possibly can.

The sound of wood breaking and splintering rings out from the sitting room, and panic grips my heart, tightening and squeezing as I try to find a place to hide.

Try to no avail, until I remember the secret staircase.

The secret staircase that my employer had commissioned recently, most likely because of this very scenario.

It leads directly down to his office, which is only a few feet from the back door, and if I can get down there without being noticed, then I should be able to get Reggie and I to safety.

But it’s too late.

The second I move toward the door disguised to look like a shelf of books, the bedroom door bursts open and in stomps…a monster

Well over six feet tall, the enormous body looms in the doorway for a moment, and once again I find myself rooted to the spot, and far too curious for my own good.

Horns and the ears of a bull sit amongst the darkest brown hair, streaked in red, and falling in gentle waves past his shoulders. The face of a man, a painfully, terrifyingly beautiful man with almond shaped eyes colored the same as his hair—deep brown with red pupils. His face is covered in markings, patterns in black and red that are similar to Pelifer’s, but also different, almost as if they’re unique to him and him alone. And through his straight, almost boxy nose, sitting above full, Cupid’s bow lips, is a thick brass hoop, clearly a bullring, and it’s connected to a chain.

My eyes follow the links past rich tan skin, a wide muscled chest bare of anything but a smattering of dark hair and dozens more markings, toward a heavy leather belt where the chain appears to be connected before it splits in two directions. Again, my gaze follows the large metal links toward thick, corded forearms, arms that seem to havefuron them. There are shackles around each wrist above his hands, those a shade darker than the rest of his skin, and long fingers tipped in black flexing quickly at his sides.

I flinch as the thing—the beast—before me snorts and prods at the floor, which is when I all but scream in horror at what I see next.

The belt at his waist sits on top of what looks like a leather kilt, but what has my fear rising to a new level are hislegs.

His legs that are identical to the hind legs of a bull.

Heavily muscled, covered in fur, bent and tapered in the exact same way as the animal, and completed by huge, black hooves that shift and move with agitation over the wood floor below them.

My stare snaps to his face again, the beast unmoving the moment our eyes connect, staring at me as he snorts and barely blinks.

He won’t hurt me.

The thought flickers in my mind briefly, and for some reason, I believe it.

Right up until the beast snorts again, prods at the floor, the tail I didn’t notice twitching out from behind him a few times just before he drops his head, and charges at me.

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