Page 24 of Summoned
But when I ground myself back, his silhouette is cast against the window. For a second, I question if I got drunk and brought some stranger home, and all of this has been an elaborate hallucination.
The witcher isn’t looking at me but at something in his hand. My attention shifts to the photograph held between his inked fingers. When I recognize my handwriting on the back, my entire body freezes.
8
Gaetano
My harvest’s whole expression changes. Shadows dance across her soft features, as if ghosts have slithered out of the picture.
“Where did you get that?” she snaps, not taking her attention off the yellowing photograph in my hand.
I raise an eyebrow at her sharp tone. The Little Baroness has yet to understand that she’ll be expected to mind her manners around me. “You didn’t know it’s tucked away in the cupboard beneath all your childhood diaries?” I ask innocently.
The sound of her teeth grinding is audible as she clenches her jaw. I examine the three faces in the Christmas picture. A beautiful blonde woman, a younger version of the one who was just in the room. A broad-shouldered man, wrapping an arm protectively around her. And in front of them stands a girl about nine or ten years old. Long copper hair frames a smile so wide it almost hurts. All three are wearing Christmas sweaters, and behind their heads towers a lavishly decorated tree.
I trace the girl’s features with my finger. “You were a cute kid. What happened?”
“Don’t touch the photo!”
She crosses the distance between us in a few swift steps, snatches the photo from my hand, and sets it face down on the desk. I follow the movement with interest. This isn’t the first time I’ve toyed with someone’s sentimental keepsake. Usually, when they retrieve it, they clutch it to their chest, cherishing it, as if that sole action could bring back the past it holds.
Her? She keeps the memory at a distance, face down. Just like she buried it in the cupboard—out of sight, but not gone. I wonder if she’s not shielding a cherished memory but hiding one that consumes her. Why keep the photo at all? Why not toss it, burn it, destroy it? Another weakness worth studying.
I stroll to the shelf lined with framed pictures. Friends, fleeting moments, maybe half-forgotten stories. No sign of her parents. Interesting… Among the photos lie perfumes and plush toys. Trinkets that remind me I’m in a girl’s room.
Madeline’s curse robbed me of the simplest pleasures, of the thrill of discovering something new, alive, and unknown. Every encounter with my harvests is a small celebration for the senses, a moment to escape the dullness of my exile. Call me a voyeur, but I enjoy rummaging around.
People’s belongings reveal what their mouths never will. Here, her room’s neatness screams of an obsession with order, but the small objects—the toys, the perfumes, the photos—hint at another story. Maybe one she’d rather forget.
Because of her need for control, I already know how irritated she’ll be when I run my hand over her things.
My fingers slip along the smooth surface of the shelf, brushing against anything that seems personal enough to disturb her order. A few books, arranged perfectly. A small glass figurine that appears to be begging for displacement. I give it a gentle nudge, just enough to shift it out of place, and the tension in the room begins to simmer.
“Stop touching my things!”
My hand freezes on the shelf. The Baroness has a temper that makes the game more entertaining. I rather enjoy the ones who fight back. Breaking them becomes so much sweeter.
I teleport in front of her in less than a second.
She gasps and stumbles backward, hitting the wall. I close the gap between us until I can smell her rose perfume mingled with the scent of fear. My voice drops to a dark whisper. “Rule number one.”
Her eyes widen.
I move closer to her ear. The nearness of female flesh caresses my senses, and warmth creeps across my skin in the form of a fleeting spark. The magic in my veins stirs in a manner I have long forgotten.
It has been years since I last had a real lover. And even longer since I met a woman as defiant as the Little Baroness. In the days when I was free, I would have taken great pleasure in subduing that rebelliousness.
I inhale her perfume and imagine breaking her in my hands, but the vision fades fast.
Instead, fury builds inside me, and the weight of my cursed fate weighs heavy on my shoulders. Madeline stripped away everything that once gave me happiness. She left me longing for lost opportunities, doomed to reach out to human women who are far beneath me. Because that’s what my harvests usually are—ignorant humans who don’t possess a shred of magic.
“I give the orders. Push me one more time, and there will be consequences.” I press my palm to her forehead. Nicole tries to pull away, but all she succeeds in doing is trapping herself between my body and the wall. “See your future, Baroness.”
I project an image of my castle into her mind: tall stone walls cloaked in darkness that even the wall sconces can’t chase away. It’s more than just a play of light and shadow.Darkness is woven into the very fabric of the castle.
“Where… are we?” Nicole’s pupils dilate into black dots. Inthis moment, she’s blind to the reality of her own world.
“In my castle. A fortress born of magic, existing in a realm of its own, accessible to no one but me. And, of course, to the inhabitants. Look carefully. They’re the shadows with strange shape. Dark figures unlike anything you’ve seen before.”
