Page 19

Chapter Eighteen

Joy

I stood in the middle of the bayou, shadows dancing around me like a merry-go-round. The crickets and frogs sang their song, but beneath their chorus, I heard something else—determined footsteps, searching and familiar.

“Joy, Joy. I know you’re here. I’ll find you.” Enzo called from the darkness, powerful yet frustrated.

My heart leaped at his promise, heat blooming in my chest at just the sound of his voice.

My lips tingled with the phantom sensation of our kiss, that moment when the world had fallen away and nothing existed but the two of us.

I tried to call out to him but no sound escaped—my voice stolen by whatever magic held me.

I realized I had chains on my wrists, heavy and cold against my skin.

The shadows responded to my distress, swirling faster around me, but still I couldn’t make a sound.

I could see Enzo through the trees now, prowling like a predator, his movements deadly and precise as he searched for me.

So close, yet unable to see me through whatever veil Maximo had cast.

Someone grabbed the back of my neck, nails digging into my flesh until I felt warm blood trickle down my spine. “He’ll never find you,” Maximo whispered, his breath like ice against my ear, “even as he hunts right beside you.”

He snapped his fingers, and the darkness parted like a curtain. Enzo appeared just yards away, stalking through the shadows. He moved with lethal grace, every muscle tense as he sensed danger but couldn’t locate its source—even with his vampire eyes, he couldn’t find me.

“Look at your protector,” Maximo taunted, forcing my head to turn and watch. “The mighty vampire enforcer, blind to what’s right in front of him.”

Enzo stopped, his head tilting slightly as if catching a scent.

His nostrils flared, the muscles in his jaw tightening beneath his pale skin.

He turned directly toward me, his eyes narrowing to predatory slits, reaching out into the seemingly empty air.

His fingers passed inches from my face, so close I could feel the cool whisper of his skin against mine without actual contact.

“Joy…where are you? Call out to me and I’ll find you.” My skin prickled with goosebumps despite the humid bayou air.

I opened my mouth again but no sound came out, only a slight gasp that burned in my throat like swallowed glass.

My chest heaved with the effort of trying to make any noise at all.

I strained against my chains until the metal bit cruelly into my wrists, warm blood trickling down my fingers in thin rivulets.

Desperate to touch him, to make him see me, I leaned forward until my forehead nearly touched his outstretched hand, the air between us charged with an almost electric tension.

The shadows responded to my silent anger, coiling around Maximo’s arm like living smoke, darker than the night itself.

But instead of forcing him away, they seemed to feed him, their essence draining into his skin like water into parched earth.

His blood-red eyes began to change, turning brighter, hotter, until they became bottomless fiery pits that reflected no light, only consumed it.

Heat radiated from him in nauseating waves that smelled of sulfur and decay.

He released my neck suddenly, my skin stinging where his nails had dug in.

My knees buckled slightly at the unexpected freedom.

With deliberate slowness, he bent down and picked up a bow and arrow off the swampy ground that I hadn’t even noticed was there.

The weapon seemed to materialize from the very mud itself, dripping with dark water that hissed and steamed when it touched the gleaming obsidian arrowhead.

“The tip of this arrow is deadly to vampires.” His smile stretched too wide across his face, showing teeth that seemed too sharp, too numerous.

The arrow’s tip caught what little moonlight filtered through the cypress trees, reflecting it back with a sickly green glow.

It sent ice through my veins, a primal instinct recognizing death itself.

I shook my head, hair whipping against my cheeks, tears springing to my eyes from sheer desperation. Every muscle in my body strained toward Enzo, who continued to search, unaware of the threat aimed directly at his heart.

“Think you can save him?” Maximo’s voice crawled into my ear like insects. “Use your shadows to protect him.” The challenge in his tone was unmistakable, cruel amusement dancing in those burning eyes.

He nocked the arrow, the bowstring pulling taut with a sound like a woman’s distant scream. Time seemed to slow as he released it. The arrow ripped through the leaves, spinning through the humid air with a whistle that sounded almost like my name.

I drew on my shadows with every ounce of will I possessed. They rushed from me in a torrent, my skin growing colder with each tendril that left my body. They floated around Enzo like a dark shield, swirling and condensing. For one heartbeat, I thought they would be enough.

But the arrow penetrated them as if they were nothing more than mist, the shadows parting and dissolving around its path.

With a sickening thud that reverberated through my own chest, it struck Enzo directly in the heart, the force pinning him to an ancient oak tree behind him.

His eyes widened, meeting mine for just a second—could he see me now, at the end?

A molasses-thick secretion, crimson so deep it bordered on black, spilled over his bottom lip and tracked ominous patterns across his now soaked shirt.

His head gradually fell forward, raven hair covering his face like a funeral shroud.

The sight tore through me worse than any physical wound, a pain so absolute it transcended mere sensation.

I screamed with everything I had, my soul rupturing with grief, but once again, only a strangled yelp escaped my lips.

“He’s dead.” Maximo squeezed my cheeks hard. “And it’s your fault. No one will save you now.”

I thrashed my head back and woke with a start, my heartbeat nearly bursting my eardrums. A choked gasp tore from my throat as my eyes flew open, vision blurring with unshed tears.

My skin felt clammy, the unfamiliar nightclothes drenched in cold sweat that made the fabric cling uncomfortably to my trembling body.

The aftermath of Marsha and Henry’s assault kept time like an unwelcome drumbeat, with my eye, cheek, and mouth serving as painful percussion instruments.

Each pulse of pain brought a different memory—Henry’s knuckles connecting with my cheekbone, Marsha’s open palm cracking across my face with surprising strength.

I gingerly touched my swollen lip with the tip of my tongue, tasting the faint metallic hint of blood that lingered.

I was so tired of my face being used as a punching bag, so weary of bracing for the next blow, of that moment of sickening anticipation before impact.

I could understand why Henry had hit me, even though he deserved what I’d done to him—his violence was straightforward, the simple reaction of a brute.

But Marsha—her cruelty ran deeper, more calculated.

She seemed to genuinely enjoy hurting me, her eyes lighting up with a cold fire each time her hand connected with my flesh.

Broken rules were met with punishment, and running away with Enzo had been a major transgression.

It gave her an excuse to hurt me, to assert her dominance in the most primitive way possible.

The bruises on my face were her artwork, her signature written in swollen tissue and broken capillaries.

I froze and a spike of panic shot through me.

I stared at my white night shirt that was too sheer, revealing my nipples.

Someone had changed me out of my jeans and T-shirt while I was unconscious.

The violation of it sent a fresh wave of nausea through me, anger mixing with vulnerability. Who had undressed me?

I climbed out of the bed, my bare feet flinching at the touch of cold hardwood floor.

Goosebumps prickled across my exposed skin as the air hit the damp nightshirt, making it cling even more to my body.

My hands trembled with a mixture of anger and humiliation as I frantically searched the room for my jeans and T-shirt.

The drawers yielded nothing but more delicate, revealing clothes. My breathing quickened, a knot of panic tightening in my chest. Where were my clothes? The room suddenly felt smaller, the walls pressing in as I realized how completely someone had stripped away even this small autonomy.

I whipped open the closet doors with enough force that they banged against the wall, the sound sharp and satisfying against the quiet of the room.

The metallic rattle of hangers echoed my jangled nerves.

Inside hung row after row of slinky gowns in silks and satins that caught the light filtering through the blinds.

I almost laughed at the bitter irony—these provocative dresses would actually cover more than this nightshirt that might as well have been transparent.

My fingers ran over the different fabrics, each touch a small sensory assault when I was already overwhelmed.

Silky, rough, beaded, smooth—none of them mine, all of them meant to display rather than clothe.

I pulled out a black one that would at least cover me, the heavy fabric substantial between my fingers.

The weight of it felt like armor compared to the wispy nothing I currently wore.

The scent of unfamiliar perfume rose from the clothes—something expensive and cloying that made my nostrils flare in distaste.

Even the air in this place wasn’t my own.

I clutched the black gown against my chest like a shield, jaw clenched so tight it ached.

I’d find a way out of this place, whatever it took.

But first, I needed to not feel so damn exposed.

Once dressed, I peeked out the window, hoping I could figure out where we were.

The humid air immediately clung to my face as I pressed closer to the glass, my breath briefly fogging the pane.

But what I saw crushed me. A weathered stone wall, mottled with patches of dark green moss and streaked with decades of water stains, surrounded a courtyard below.

Guards patrolled the grounds, their movements methodical and predatory beneath the sprawling oak trees dripping with Spanish moss.

The architecture was unlike anything I’d seen in New Orleans before—a strange fusion of Spanish colonial and French military design with ornate wrought-iron balconies that seemed at odds with the fortress-like stone.

From my vantage point, I could see distinctive hexagonal towers at each corner of the compound and thick defensive walls that must have been fifteen feet high.

It looked like Fort Maurepas, a place I’d only heard whispered about in local legends.

According to the stories my grandmother used to tell, Fort Maurepas had been built in the 1700s by a paranoid Spanish governor who feared both the local Choctaw tribes and his French rivals.

The fort had supposedly been abandoned after a mysterious plague killed everyone inside, and the land was considered cursed.

Most locals claimed it had been reclaimed by the swamp decades ago.

Clearly those stories had been wrong—or deliberately misleading.

The courtyard below had been meticulously maintained, with stone pathways cutting between carefully pruned gardens.

In the center stood a fountain that looked centuries old—an elaborate creation with water cascading over dark granite, carved with symbols I didn’t recognize but which made my skin crawl.

I strained to see more, pressing my palms against the cool glass.

In the distance, beyond the walls, I could just make out a sliver of swampland where cypress trees rose from misty water.

We were definitely on the edge of the city, far from the tourist-filled French Quarter, in a place few would think to look.

A place where screams would be swallowed by the bayou.

A chill shot through me despite the warm air.

This wasn’t just a temporary holding place—this was a fortress designed to keep people in.

And if the local legends about Fort Maurepas had any truth to them, it was also a place where people disappeared without a trace.

I wrapped my arms around my waist as I stepped back from the window, mind racing.

Maximo certainly had the resources to restore and secure an entire forgotten fort.

He wasn’t taking any chances of me or being found this time.

My grim situation cast a shadow that seemed to darken my bones.

Were the others here too? The younger girls from the auction?

Zoe—her absence pierced my heart like an arrow.

Where was she? My breath hitched as memories of her kindness flashed through my mind.

Panic pumped through me, making my hands tremble.

What happened to her after I passed out?

Had Henry finished what he had started? The thought made bile rise in my throat.

My legs suddenly felt too weak to hold me as the full reality of our imprisonment crashed over me.

No one knew where we were. No one was coming to save us.

I had shadows that I couldn’t properly control, and we were in a forgotten place deliberately chosen so our disappearances would remain permanent.

Even Enzo wouldn’t be able to find us here.

I sat on the bed, the mattress sinking beneath me as my knees finally gave way.

The moment I closed my eyes, that terrible dream of Enzo dying rolled over me again, adding fresh horror to my despair, and I shuddered.

I put my shaking hands over my face, fingers pressing into my temples where a dull ache had begun to form.

The image of him pinned to that tree, blood spilling from his mouth, still burned behind my eyelids whenever I blinked.

He was lethal and terrifying, but he was a dark hero, one that had left a mark on my heart. Was it the kiss? Had he used compulsion? Or something even more terrifying—was I actually attracted to him? He was darkness to my light.