Temptation of the Butterfly, page 20
Live, fight, and die with honor, her father’s voice answered, a distant memory translating the family crest. Her eyes lifted to the doorway, to the old Latin words etched into the stone, ‘Ago pugna quod intereo per veneration’.
They gave her strength as nothing else at the moment could. All around her, the chamber was in shambles. They’d ransacked her father’s old study, knocking aside the candelabras and overturning the furniture she’d sat on so many hours as a child. Taking a blue candle that rested by her hand, she flung it at the man who spoke, knocking his foot with the hunk of wax. He merely laughed at the weak defense, kicking the candle aside.
Shiny white boots stepped closer, now smudged with the faintest trace of blue. The man leaned down, the low bass of his voice just above a whisper. “Just like your father and your brothers. Fighters all until the very end. Is it fear or pride that drives you on?”
The end?
At that she managed to lift her head, though her eyes were still on the white boots. “Rain?”
“Even the boy,” the general in white answered. Josselyn caught her battered reflection in the boot, a stretched version of her face. His tone soft as a lover’s, he added so only Josselyn could hear, “He died well. Have no fear of that.”
Then it was true. The last of her family had fallen, save for the mother who would come home to a dried crimson river that was once her life. Would they wait for her mother? Would they kill her, too? Even as she thought it, she knew the answer. It was etched into the irritated lines of the general’s face. A tear slipped over Josselyn’s cheek. It would seem she still had energy enough to cry, even if she couldn’t push all the way up from the floor on her own.
Josselyn gave a cold laugh. What else could she do? Tell him she hated him? Tell him he was a monster? Call him names and curse his children’s children? She’d already done as much when he and his men were beating her senseless. They wanted names and she could die knowing she never gave them.
Ago pugna quod intereo per veneration.
“Get it over with,” she croaked. No part of her wanted to die a failure, but her family was gone and she knew they had failed to win an impossible war. All that was left was to die well.
Was it wrong to be tired of the fight? To want death so she may again be with those who loved her? How could she live with the loss of so much? Forget that they’d failed. Forget that soldiers were taking over the land and there was no one left to stand up to them. How could she live knowing everything she loved was gone? Pain rippled through her at the thought.
“Lift her,” the general ordered, his shiny boots walking away from her, taking her reflection with it.
Two men hauled her to her feet, holding her up by her arms. Josselyn suppressed a cry as they jerked her dislocated shoulder. She couldn’t see their faces, didn’t need to. Her body hurt so badly she couldn’t tell where the pain was coming from anymore.
The one who’d betrayed them stood before her. General Jack Stephans. He’d deceived her family and the fifth moon settlement. He’d traded them in for money and power. Josselyn lifted her gaze briefly to the hard depths of the steel green eyes before her. She wanted to kick, to give one last good blow, to go down fighting, but she couldn’t raise her limbs.
“Poor little Josselyn, so heartbreaking,” the general grabbed her chin and swiped beneath her eye. He looked young, was in fact very young for his position, only a few years older than her six and twenty. And yet they all knew so much more of fighting than anyone their age should, than anyone ever should.
“We gave you a home,” she whispered. “How could you do this? How could you join them?”
“You gave me a place in your stables,” he spat, his grip tightening on her chin, bruisingly so. “Not a place at your table. Not a place by your side. Not equal. They gave me a rank, a title. They give me respect. They give me a place in this world.”
“Jack,” she said, her voice softening for the orphan boy they’d found over twenty years ago. If she begged him, maybe fate could be turned around; maybe this day could be erased. Fate had spit them out in a whirlwind of chance and deceit. Maybe all that had happened wasn’t his fault. Maybe it wasn’t hers. None of it mattered. None of it changed the fact that he had taken everything she held dear, everyone, and now he was robbing her of her family home. Her tone hardened and she closed her eyes. “General.”
“Look at me, Josselyn,” he said. His tone caught even as his grip on her face tightened until his fingers pressed the inside of her cheeks against her teeth. “You’re so cold. Even now, your face is composed. Is one, lonely tear all the passion you can muster?”
“I am Lady Josselyn of the House of Craven.” Her eyes opened slowly, focusing on the shiny white of his uniform. It gleamed with the orange glow coming from the fireplace. The material looked odd in the drabber earth tones many on the fifth moon wore. Theirs was a world based on Medieval Earth. Each moon in the Florencian system was different, each settlement patterned off a singular time in the human past, times that history had almost forgotten. But the principals of the ancestors who’d established the colonies no longer applied. Times were different now. What had started as preservation of history had turned into reality, into laws and a way of life they all believed in as generation after generation was raised into the worlds of the Florencian moons.
The general shook her by the face until finally she forced her eyes to meet his. He looked angry, hurt, wildly hopeful. “I can save you. I can say you had nothing to do with the treachery of your family. No one wants to kill a woman of noble blood. The line of Craven doesn’t have to die. I will take your name; the name denied me by your father.”
Was he serious? She knew he’d asked her father for her hand in marriage. In fact, she’d dismissed the proposal with the full knowledge he only asked because he wanted power. Did he think she could love him now? Want him? Take him into her bed?
He must have read the answer on her face because his own expression hardened. She knew Jack. He wouldn’t ask again.
“I suppose not,” he said, almost sad. “Even if you agreed, I could never trust you not to take a blade to my back. Not after today.” He sighed heavily. “Not after this.”
“Ago,” she whispered, even her voice beginning to fail in its strength, “pugna quod int—”
“Quiet your tongue! This house is mine. Mine.” He let go of her chin and her head drooped. “And you can die knowing that I have taken more than what you all refused to give me in life.”
“A place at our table,” Josselyn said, her tone softer still, the will to live leaving her. Her heart called out to her ancestors, to her dead family, begging them to come and get her.
“My table,” he corrected, stepping away. The general lifted a gun, pointing it at her head. She heard the telltale click of metal on metal. The weapon was not one found on the fifth moon. They fought with swords and axes, like the old medieval ways. Though technology was available, not using it was a point of honor. He must have brought the weapon from another moon. Perhaps the Victorians? The Elizabethans? It appeared to be too old to be from much later in time.
“Do it, Jack.” She didn’t look at him as she waited for the final discharge of the gun, the loud bang before the end. When it didn’t come, she repeated, the words a mere mouthing of her lips, “Do it.”
“Speed you to a quick end, Josselyn Craven,” Jack whispered. “You all brought this on yourselves.”
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About the Author
New York Times & USA TODAY
Bestselling Author
Michelle loves to travel and try new things, whether it's a paranormal investigation of an old Vaudeville Theatre or climbing Mayan temples in Belize. She's addicted to movies and used to drive her mother crazy while quoting random scenes with her brother. Though it has yet to happen, her dream is to be a zombie in a horror movie. For the most part she can be found writing in her office with a cup of coffee while wearing pajama pants.
She loves to hear from readers. They can contact her through her website.
www.michellepillow.com
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Check it out before you buy!
Love Potions (Warlocks MacGregor)
by Michelle M. Pillow
Contemporary Paranormal Scottish Warlocks
A little magickal mischief never hurt anyone…
Erik MacGregor, from a clan of ancient Scottish warlocks, isn’t looking for love. After centuries, it’s not even a consideration…until he moves in next door to Lydia Barratt. It’s clear that the shy beauty wants nothing to do with him, but he’s drawn to her nonetheless and determined to win her over.
Lydia Barratt just wants to be left alone to grow flowers and make lotions in her old Victorian house. The last thing she needs is a demanding Scottish man meddling in her private life. Just because he’s gorgeous and totally rocks a kilt doesn’t mean she’s going to fall for his seductive manner.
But Erik won’t give up and just as Lydia let’s her guard down, his sister decides to get involved. Her little love potion prank goes terribly wrong, making Lydia the target of his sudden embarrassingly obsessive behavior. They’ll have to find a way to pull Erik out of the spell fast when it becomes clear that Lydia has more than a lovesick warlock to worry about. Evil lurks within the shadows and it plans to use Lydia, alive or dead, to take out Erik and his clan for good.
* * *
Love Potions Excerpt
“Ly-di-ah! I sit beneath your window, laaaass, singing ’cause I loooove your a—”
“For the love of St. Francis of Assisi, someone call a vet. There is an injured animal screaming in pain outside,” Charlotte interrupted the flow of music in ill-humor.
Lydia lifted her forehead from the kitchen table. Her windows and doors were all locked, and yet Erik’s endlessly verbose singing penetrated the barrier of glass and wood with ease.
Charlotte held her head and blinked heavily. Her red-rimmed eyes were filled with the all too poignant look of a hangover. She took a seat at the table and laid her head down. Her moan sounded something like, “I’m never moving again.”
“You need fluids,” Lydia prescribed, getting up to pour unsweetened herbal tea from the pitcher in the fridge. She’d mixed it especially for her friend. It was Gramma Annabelle’s hangover recipe of willow bark, peppermint, carrot, and ginger. The old lady always had a fresh supply of it in the house while she was alive. Apparently, being a natural witch also meant in partaking in natural liquors. Annabelle had kept a steady supply of moonshine stashed in the basement. If the concert didn’t stop soon she might try to find an old bottle.
“Ly-di-ah!”
“Omigod. Kill me,” Charlotte moaned. “No. Kill him. Then kill me.”
“Ly-di-ah!”
Erik had been singing for over an hour. At first, he’d tried to come inside. She’d not invited him and the barrier spell sent him sprawling back into the yard. He didn’t seem to mind as he found a seat on some landscaping timbers and began his serenade. The last time she’d asked him to be quiet, he’d gotten louder and overly enthusiastic. In fact, she’d been too scared to pull back the curtains for a clearer look, but she was pretty sure he’d been dancing on her lawn, shaking his kilt.
“Omigod,” Charlotte muttered, pushing up and angrily going to a window. Then grimacing, she said, “Is he wearing a tux jacket with his kilt?”
“Don’t let him see you,” Lydia cried out in a panic. It was too late. The song began with renewed force.
“He’s…” Charlotte frowned. “I think it’s dancing.”
Since the damage was done, Lydia joined Charlotte at the window. Erik grinned. He lifted his arms to the side and kicked his legs, bouncing around the yard like a kid on too much sugar. “Maybe it’s a traditional Scottish dance?”
Both women tilted their heads in unison as his kilt kicked up to show his perfectly formed ass.
“He’s not wearing…” Charlotte began.
“I know. He doesn’t,” Lydia answered. Damn, the man had a fine body. Too bad Malina’s trick had turned him insane.
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