Beastly - The Dark Heart, page 1
Beastly - The Dark Heart
Lara A. Steel
Beastly –
the Dark Heart
Lara Steel
Fantasy
Copyright © Lara Steel
Cover design: Michelle Tocilj
Translated by: Siân Robertson
All rights reserved, in particular the right to mechanical, electronic or photographic reproduction, storage and processing in electronic systems, reprinting in magazines, public readings, film adaptations or dramatizations, transmission by radio, television, or video, including text excerpts and images, and translation into other languages.
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Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
Untitled
Untitled
Prologue
Trinity Hospital, Dublin, February 14, 1992:
“Where is she?” Utterly exhausted from the birth, May O’Hara reached out for her child. “Where is she? I need to see her!”
One of the midwives took May’s hand and caressed it soothingly. “Everything’s fine, Mrs. O’Hara. She’s doing very well. Nurse Isobel is washing her and then you can hold your little darling in your arms.”
May O’Hara tried to sit up, but the midwife pushed her back into the pillows. “You need to rest.”
“You won’t take her away from me, will you?”
The midwife was taken aback. “Of course not.”
“I couldn’t bear it a second time, do you hear me? I couldn’t bear it!”
The midwife glanced over her shoulder at the diminutive nurse Isobel, who had washed the baby and dressed it in its first clothes. She nodded and turned back to the bed.
“Everything’s fine, Mrs. O’Hara. See? Your daughter!”
Isobel, a pretty nurse who couldn’t have been more than four feet three inches, approached the bed, beaming and holding Mrs. O’Hara’s daughter in her arms. “She’s very special,” she said. Then she whispered something in the baby’s ear.
When May O’Hara finally held her daughter in her arms, she burst into tears of joy. She would never let her go.
Never!
Once she had composed herself a little, she looked at nurse Isobel. “What did you whisper to her?”
“Oh, that was for Heather’s ears only.”
May O’Hara stared at the nurse. “I haven’t named her yet.”
Before the nurse had time to respond, the door flew open. May’s husband burst in. “I’m so sorry, I got stuck in traffic and...” He broke off when he saw the little bundle in May’s hands. “My God, she’s beautiful!”
May’s chin quivered as she reached for her husband’s hand. “I’m so happy, Robert.”
“So am I, my love.” He touched the sleeping baby’s downy head. “What do say we call her Heather?”
May stiffened. “What?”
“After my grandmother. She was a lovely woman. What do you think? Heather O’Hara.”
May looked around for nurse Isobel, but she had disappeared from the room without a sound.
Looking down at her small daughter, she nodded. “It’s a beautiful name.”
Saint Mary’s Church, Dublin, 2020:
“Heather? Heather!”
Someone was calling to her again.
Jack Beastly froze behind a crude and tasteless statue of the Virgin Mary.
“Heather, the journalists are now at the rear entrance!”
He peered down the corridor, where a corpulent woman – who appeared to be cocooned in a mint-green bale of chiffon – hurried toward a door.
“Send them away!” came a voice through the door in question.
“But how...?”
“Can’t I be left in peace for one day? Send them away!”
“What if they don’t go?”
“Then shoot them!”
The corners of Jack’s mouth twitched. At least she wasn’t a complete...
“Shoot them?” The voice of the chiffon bale grew shrill.
The door flew open and he saw her.
He had seen her many times before.
He had seen her walking down the street, or shopping. He had watched her through her kitchen window, throwing pancakes in the air to old Queen songs and sometimes even catching them again. But this time she looked different.
Her sandy hair was tied back and looked as if it were about to be piled up in some elaborate, towering hairdo. Her slender torso was encased in a sexy bodice that would drive any groom wild on his wedding night. And the dress flowed out from her hips in huge billowing waves of tulle and silk decorated with pearls and embroidery.
He had to admit that, all things considered, she looked quite passable for a human.
But that was irrelevant. He was here to do what had to be done.
As he cast those thoughts aside, a rather large head appeared beside Heather at hip height and eyed the mint-green intruder skeptically.
A Rottweiler. And it was by no means a delicate exemplar.
“Please get rid of those bloody journalists,” he heard Heather say.
“But Frank said...”
“Tell Frank, they’re giving his bride a rash! Herpes! The fucking bubonic plague!”
The mint-green lady’s eyes widened. “I’ll tell him.” She turned on her heel and left.
Heather slammed the door.
Jack Beastly stepped out from his hiding place and walked down the corridor to the door. He could sense her, her excitement, her femininity. He cocked his head as he reached for the door handle.
He could sense something else. The unusually sweet scent of her person, the pungent aroma of her doubt.
As he knocked, he pictured her spinning around on the other side of the door. The dog growled.
“May, I just told you...”
She faltered when she saw him, staggered back and opened her mouth to scream. But he pressed his hand against her lips and a moment later she slumped.
Chapter 1
Dear God, the headache!
I turned over and hugged my pillow. The last time I had felt that bad was after a peer pressure-induced tequila binge when I was sixteen.
It felt as if a bowling ball were rolling back and forth inside my skull, and every time it touched something the pain shot through my body like an electric shock. I groaned.
For crying out loud...
It was a while before I could bring myself to open my eyes.
I frowned at the dark wood ceiling and the chandelier hanging from it.
The headache was driving me nuts, but I still could have sworn that the hotel we booked for our honeymoon looked nothing like this. And in fact, I couldn’t even remember the wedding. Or the cake, the food, or anything resembling a wedding night.
I sat up and looked down at myself.
Why the hell was I still wearing my wedding dress?
My curiosity won out over the pounding headache and I swung my legs out of the bed and stood up. There was a large window with sheer white curtains, and I went to it.
The sun was shining, but only feebly, as it often did at the end of the year. I pushed the curtains aside and gazed out over a huge garden.
There were oaks and beeches that looked hundreds of years old. There were ponds and flowerbeds, but these were neglected and overgrown with brambles.
I was pretty sure our hotel didn’t have a garden like this.
And anyway, where was Frank?
I turned around and took in the room. Opposite the large bed was an open hearth. On the mantelpiece stood two candlesticks, but they didn’t look decorative – more like they were in regular use.
“Frank?” I asked into the silence of the room. Everything remained quiet. I began to feel uneasy, because I had woken up in a strange place, damn it, and couldn’t remember my wedding, or...
I looked down at my hand.
No ring!
...the wedding never took place.
Suddenly the memory shot through my mind like an arrow!
The knock at my door, the dog growling quietly – a warning that I really should have heeded!
I spun around, picked up my bulky skirts in both hands and ran to the door. I tried to pull it open, tearing at the door handle until the old-fashioned nails attaching it groaned in the wood.
Locked!
My pulse accelerated and I was seized with unprecedented panic!
I really should have paused and thought about how to proceed – in a calm, reasonable, matter-of-fact manner.
But a moment later I was hammering against the heavy oak door with both fists and yelling that someone had damn well better let me out.
I retreated a step, almost tripping over my cumbersome dress.
The door began to open and I clenched my fists. As soon as it was open, I would somehow out-maneuver my captor, run past him or her, out of the house, and throw myself screaming into the arms of the first person I saw out in the street.
At least that was the plan, until I saw who was opening the door.
I took another step back and the blood drained from my face so rapidly that I felt momentarily dizzy.
Before me stood a man.
But not the kind of man you might see walking down the street.
This was someone who would make you cross to other side of the street. He was tall, far too tall, far too broad-shouldered. His face was far too angular, his lips serious, his chin determined. The only part of him that didn’t look like it had been cast in concrete was his dark hair, slightly too long and tumbling in gentle waves across his forehead. But the sunglasses he wore darkened even this glimmer of hope.
He stared at me. And I stared back.
“Let me leave!” I managed to say.
I was overcome with panic as he came into the room and closed the door behind him. His long legs were so muscular that he probably could have strangled an elk with them. For me he would only need two fingers.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible! At least not right now.”
My heart skipped a beat. I felt queasy and dizzy. “Who are you? What do you want from me?”
“I’d like you to stay as my guest for a while.”
“Fuck you!” I yelled.
Something in his face twitched. “That’s an offer that would make everything a lot easier, but only if you actually mean it.”
I stiffened. “What?” I breathed.
He came a step closer and I staggered back, getting my heel tangled in the hem of my dress and falling hard on my backside. He stood over me. Evil seemed to ooze out of his every pore. He bent down and I held my arm protectively in front of my face until I realized he was holding out his hand to help me to my feet.
I stared at it as I would the head of a green mamba. Then I pulled myself together and let him lift me onto my feet. He did it with such momentum that I had to perform an inelegant evasive maneuver to avoid colliding with his chest.
I tried to twist my hand out of his firm grasp. When he actually let go, I nearly wept with relief. Being kidnapped was starting to get on my nerves.
“Who are you?”
“You can call me Jack.”
“Jack?”
“Beastly. Jack Beastly.”
I stared at him and began to shake my head. “Jack Beastly?”
He gave a curt nod.
“I know who Jack Beastly is, and you’re definitely not him!”
“Oh?”
Jack Beastly lived in a dilapidated old mansion in one of Dublin’s more affluent neighborhoods. It was the neighborhood in which I had grown up. We children always knew that there was something not quite right about that house. And if you wanted to avoid getting into a situation as nightmarish as it was inexplicable, you kept well away from that property.
“Jack Beastly’s an old man.”
“I’m not exactly young,” he said.
“How old can you be? Thirty?”
He raised one corner of his mouth – half a smile.
He walked past me and drew aside a curtain. “See for yourself.”
I stayed rooted to the spot, but after a moment, I looked through the window in spite of myself.
I went to the window, maintaining a certain distance from my kidnapper.
“That’s our house,” I said incredulously, pointing at the roof at the end of the street.
“Exactly.”
I looked up at him. “Did Jack Beastly die?”
“As I said...”
“I don’t believe you!”
He shrugged and turned around. I stared after him, but when I saw him reach for the door handle, I suddenly leaped into action.
“Where are you going?”
“To have someone bring you something more comfortable to wear. But I can stay and watch you change, if you insist.”
I shuddered. “They’ll come looking for me! My husband...”
“You’re not married!”
“Frank will come looking for me!”
“I doubt it.”
The way he said it knocked the wind out of me. “Why?” I whispered.
“They all assume you’re dead.” Even through the sunglasses I could sense his icy stare. “Nobody will doubt it.”
He disappeared from the room.
The key turned in the lock.
I was alone.
Suddenly, I had a thought.
I lunged at the door and hammered against it. “Wait! I have a question! Can you hear me? Are you still there?”
The door opened again. “What question?”
“Did you hurt Belle?”
He frowned – apparently the only expression this face was capable of. “Who’s Belle?”
“My dog.”
“No.”
“Are you lying to me?”
“No. I have no reason to.”
I almost wept with relief. I took a small step back and nodded. Then I turned and went to the window.
There was a brief pause, as if he was still watching me, and then I heard the door close again.
Chapter 2
The next time I heard a knock at the door, it was dark outside.
There were lights on in my parents’ house, including the attic, which meant my father was working on his model railway.
It was both comforting and distressing. I knew they were nearby, but if my kidnapper was telling the truth, then they believed I was dead.
I buried my face in my hands and heard another knock at the door.
“Leave me in peace!” I yelled at the heavy oak door.
It was quiet for a moment, then a woman’s voice called out, “Dinner is served, my dear!”
I lifted my head. A woman’s voice!
I could maybe overpower a woman, especially now that I had exchanged my wedding dress for jeans and a blouse. There was no alternative to my wedding shoes, so I wore nothing but socks on my feet.
I got up and went to the door. “Who’s there?”
“My name is Maud,” said the voice. “I’m here to escort you to dinner. Mr. Beastly is expecting you.”
The door was unlocked and opened. Before me stood a short plump woman with her hair pinned back. She wore a white apron over a gray dress. Her smile was genuine.
“Miss O’Hara,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to have you in our...”
I shot past her at top speed, headed straight for the stairs. Taking two at a time, I bounded down them and sprinted across the entrance hall to the double doors.
I almost reached them – almost!
Something moved in front of me so fast that I barely had time to instinctively brake to avoid a collision.
I stared breathlessly at the creature standing before me.
“Shit,” I breathed. “What the...?”
“Everett!” Jack Beastly’s voice made me glance sideways. But I didn’t dare turn my back on this thing. Because right in front of me – and this wasn’t animatronics or some sophisticated 3D light show – stood a lion. But wait, it wasn’t just a lion, it...
“It has wings,” I whispered, resisting the temptation to rub my eyes. “It has... wings.”
My kidnapper walked around me and stroked the huge lion’s head. “Well done, Everett,” he said, and the lion simply turned and disappeared into an adjacent room.
I watched it go, utterly dumbstruck.
“That wasn’t real, was it?”
Jack Beastly looked down at me. “Of course he’s real.”
