Darkangel by Christine Pope (red queen ebook TXT) 📕

again once I got home. When I got to the park, it was deserted. Well, almost, anyway. A man I’d never seen before stood over by one of the stacked stone walls, smoking a cigarette and looking out at the view. A shiny black Cadillac was parked a few yards away from him.

I tried not to stare, but it was hard. We didn’t get a lot of strangers here in Jerome. Well, we got people driving through, as it was only one of two routes you could use to get from Prescott to Flagstaff, but they didn’t stop here much, except to get gas. And of those who did stop here, I’d never seen one who looked like this man. His hair was jet black and gleamed in the sunlight, and he had a profile that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a movie screen.

I looked away quickly, but he must have noticed me. He smiled, and dropped his cigarette and ground it out on the dirt with the heel of his shiny black shoe, then said to me, “That’s a heck of a view, miss.”

“Yes,” I said cautiously, although talking about the view seemed safe enough.

He took a few steps toward me. “Are you from around here, miss?”

I nodded, not quite trusting myself to reply. Something about his dark eyes was mesmerizing. I tried to tell myself that I’d seen handsome men before, so it was silly for me to stand here and look at him like a mouse staring at a snake.

His smile widened. “You have a name, miss?”

Something was telling me not to answer, but the word popped out as if I couldn’t bear to keep it in any longer. “Ruby.”

“That’s a pretty name for a pretty girl.”

“Thank you, sir.” I decided to tack on the “sir” because he was some years older than I, maybe as old as thirty.

He moved a little closer, although he was still a few feet away. “You like looking at the view, Ruby?”

“Ye-es,” I said.

A nod, but it wasn’t directed at me. Suddenly two more men, also tall and black-haired, and wearing dark suits, got out of the car. My heart began to pound, and I realized something was very wrong here.

“I-I have to go,” I told him, my voice sounding weak and stammering, not like the voice of the McAllisters’ future prima.

“Yes, you do,” he agreed. “Although probably not where you were thinking.” Those coal-black eyes fastened on me, and it was as if the world began to spin around me, sky and trees and buildings all swirling like a kaleidoscope. My knees began to give way, and then he was reaching for me, grabbing me. His touch was cold, so cold, and I realized then who he must be.

Jasper Wilcox, primus of the Wilcox clan.

I didn’t know which spell he had cast, or what he had done to me, but I retained enough presence of mind to call out from within, my cry echoing to all the McAllisters. The enemy is here!

Right away people started to converge on the park. Mr. Song came out of the English Kitchen, cleaver in hand, and next to him were my cousins Leonard and Stephen.

I could feel Jasper Wilcox’s hand tighten on my arm. “What did you do?” he demanded.

“I called to them,” I said. “Bet you didn’t know I could do that, did you?”

He scowled at me, and began dragging me to the car.

“There are only two ways out of here,” I told him. “If you let me go and leave now, you might get away. Maybe.”

He cursed, horrible, foul language no one had ever spoken in my hearing before, but I could see that he realized his dilemma. He let go of me, said, “This isn’t the end of it,” and hurried back to his car, his two clan members jumping in, one of them getting the engine started. They sped off with a squeal of their tires, going the wrong way on the one-way street.

No one was coming the other way, and so they made their escape just as I heard the sirens from the town’s one and only police car blaring away up on Main Street. It wasn’t my gift to see the future, but somehow I knew Jasper Wilcox would get away.

Everyone began to crowd around me, asking what had happened. I told them I was fine, which I supposed I was. Nothing had happened, not really. Then my parents came, my mother weeping in fright, and I went with them back home, where they set up a guard to make sure no one else could get to me. Although Jasper Wilcox had said this wasn’t the end, he didn’t reappear the next day, or the day after. No one let down their guard, but people did seem to relax, just a little.

What I couldn’t tell any of them was that I still felt his hands on my arms, still saw his face when I laid myself down in bed at night. So handsome…so evil.

I want my consort to appear. I want that kiss, the one that will bind me to him.

I hope that then I can forget what it was like to look into Jasper Wilcox’s black eyes.

I shut the diary, my hands shaking. No one had ever told me what exactly had transpired when the Wilcoxes tried to kidnap Great-Aunt Ruby, only that the attempt had been made, and had failed. I’d never really understood why they’d bothered, since I’d always been told that a prima’s true power only manifested when she was matched with her consort. For some reason, though, this Jasper Wilcox had believed differently.

I needed to find out why.