Deprived (Obsidian Souls #1)

CHAPTER 1 ELODIE

ELODIE

The dark is my friend now. My first memories of darkness are not so friendly. Where I’d look into a corner and see the monsters lurking in the depths, carrying with them that foreboding malice, telling me they’ve come to gobble me up.

But now the monsters are my friends. I talk to the shadows and the beasts inside them.

They keep me safe. Conjured up from the remnants of nightmares that only exist now at the edge of my consciousness.

Because over the past twenty-one years of my life, I’ve encountered so many things that are worse than the entities that haunt our dreams and dark corners.

Those faceless monsters only ever lurk, tease, and haunt. They never reach out, touch, or hurt. But everyone in my life does just that.

They started talking to me a couple years back. They told me not to be afraid, that the dark can save me. And it has. Over and over. At first, I didn’t believe them. Why would I? But recently, I’ve come to find the darkness is the only solace I have left.

When he locks me up in here, they think it’s a punishment.

And sure, physically, it is. Barely any water, no daylight for the skin, no food that’s normally required for the basic running of the anatomy.

It used to be bearable, back when my older brother Lewis used to sneak down here and stay with me for a little while, leaving just before our dad discovered where he was.

He got me through it. But since they took my brother from me, the darkness has become my ointment.

They can break my skin, flesh and bones, but mentally, they can’t break me.

Not when I’ve been broken my whole life.

I’ve been in this dingy cell for six days now in preparation for today. Not the longest imprisonment I’ve had, not by a long shot. I only learned to count the days by being given a dog bowl of water twice a day. No windows to see the rotation of the sun, certainly no clock.

The cell is made up of three sandstone walls with a steel wall making up the fourth.

Only a few air holes break up the perfectly solid metal, along with one steel door in the middle of it that makes a bone-shaking, ear-piercing shriek whenever it’s shoved open and scrapes along the stone floor.

No windows. No light coming in, no light going out.

My family’s castle is hundreds of years old.

The steel wall had rusted and eroded long before I became a resident behind it.

The bricks have a spiderweb of cracks. Sometimes I picture the cracks spreading, expanding, then gloriously crumbling down on top of me.

He put me in here to make sure I was too weak to protest today. So that I went willingly. Which was smart. I’m capable of being quite a nuisance when someone tries to touch me. Courtesy of my savage father. Nothing’s off limits for me when it comes to self-defence.

And so, I’ve been starved and beaten for the past six days to make sure I go with my husband-to-be without fuss.

I don’t know who it is, Dad wouldn’t tell me, which only led me to believe it’s someone who I would put all my strength into resisting.

We don’t know any good people in this life.

When you work in the underworld, where every person you know will either kill you, rape you, or keep you alive long enough to wish you were dead, it’s highly unlikely any of them would get the husband of the year award.

All I knew was that we were integrating our family into a new business venture, then all of a sudden, I’m engaged to someone I’ve never met.

While it’s true my body is limp and heavy like a bucket of gold, and there is no way I can lift a finger right now, my mind is fully intact.

Totally aware and coherent. My brain is impenetrable.

Too many cracks and holes and fractures in it to be broken any further.

My body is practically the same. I feel nothing. I’ve been numb for too long now.

The beautiful organ inside my skull is a masterpiece of amendments. Broken down and glued, stitched, and soldered back together a thousand times, and is no longer a fully functioning thing to destroy anymore. I’m a maniac. Lunatic. Psycho. It’s what I’m told on a daily basis, anyway.

And my future husband is apparently the only one who can handle me now.

All I see in that is a challenge I’m not going to lose.

I may have been overpowered by my dad more times than I could count, but there was incentive to stay here for a while.

As of a few weeks ago, there’s no more incentive.

Not now I can no longer look for my brother’s murderer.

Nothing’s keeping me here apart from this cage.

Once the cage is gone and my strength is back, and I’ve got the money I need, I’m gone.

To where, I don’t know. As long as there are no sharp, pointy things and a place where the darkness can dwell with me, it’ll be a start.

It’s dank in here, but I no longer smell what lingers in the stagnant air. My senses have become long accustomed to the particles of rotting flesh and other rancid stenches that come from the body. Makes me wonder how many bodies have decayed in this little dungeon.

They’re coming for you, the darkness whispers.

I hear the echoing footsteps from a distance. I don’t move. The cold stone of the floor has moulded to my skin.

They grow closer, the clack of expensive loafers on cobblestones racketing through my body. Maybe I’ve melted beneath the ground, perhaps they won’t find me in here at all.

A jingle of keys. A scrap of metal on metal.

Don’t fear, Elodie, the darkness caresses with its gentle hiss, we’ll come with you.

I silently thank them. I’m going to need them to get through the rest of my life.

The ear-piercing squeak of my cell door bounces off the walls as it opens.

My eyes are closed, but even behind my eyelids, the light floods in and slices through my retinas. I squeeze them shut tighter.

“Wakey, wakey, sunshine.” It’s my father’s grating bellow of a voice.

Even if I wanted to open my eyes to see him, peel my cracked, tight lips apart to respond, I don’t have the energy. I’m simply a dormant vessel for my soul. Incapable of movement. Exactly how they wanted me.

He smacks his hands together in a ringing clap. I feel the wince in a body that’s been still for too long. The sharp motion sending a firework of pain through my skull.

“Come on! The day is upon us, you lucky girl,” he says.

I wonder what I look like now. Is there any meat left on my bones? Have I wasted away like the leaves of a tree, all essence of life withered from my being?

He sighs. “Fine, be a lazy ass. I knew you would be. Benedict!”

He summons one of his slaves. He’d call them employees, housemaids, service people. But they’re slaves. The things these people do for him are at complete odds with the normal criteria of a standard butler.

Squeaky wheels run over the cobblestones and draw closer to me. He’s in my cell. I can picture leaping up, jumping on Benedict like a spider monkey and biting an ear off, before lunging for my dad, ripping his nose off his smug face and running away. I’m pretty sure my legs twitch at the idea.

I’m scooped up off the floor. It’s akin to having skin ripped off.

My body having moulded perfectly to the grooves and dips and bumps of the ground, I’d become one with the stone.

An animalistic groan tumbles out of my lips as agony rips through me.

Every bone and muscle that had lain idle for days screaming in protest. I just want to lie here. I want to be still.

I’m dropped into a seat and my head’s pulled back before it can loll my body forward.

“Very good,” Dad says, pleased, “take her straight to the front doors now. Don’t want to keep him waiting any longer.”

Ah, my betrothed. My beloved husband-to-be awaits my gracious arrival. I work on opening my eyelids so I can catch the spectacle of his reaction when he sees his gorgeous, perfectly-put-together, promised wife for the first time.

The clean, light air bites through my stagnant nostrils.

The overbearing sunshine, pouring in through all the windows we pass, sends little spears of pain through my skull.

Along with the sweltering heat that penetrates my cold, clammy body, I’m guessing we’ve now transitioned from spring to summer.

I taste copper and dust when I poke my rough tongue out to wet my dry, chapped lips. My stiff, aching body is swarming with gratitude when we reach the marble floor, smooth sailing from then to the main entrance.

I finally adjust to the elements by the time we conclude our lengthy travel to the front doors. My vision’s blurry, eyeballs dry and sore, but I see him. His silhouette anyway.

The front doors are open behind him, bathing him in sunlight, creating a glow around that silhouette.

It’s a tall one. Not very broad. Slim, like a runner’s build.

Not much muscle going on. Hair’s messy on the top of his head, tendrils sticking up every which way.

Must have driven with the top down. I imagine he’s got some flash convertible to match his status.

Not that I know who he is. I just know he’s part of the underworld, hence rich as fuck.

My eyes clear bit by bit, allowing me to take more of him in at a time. Pale skin. Like he spends his days in a basement. Or a cell. Probably have the same colour skin, any tan I had has most certainly faded by now, eaten away by the endless darkness.

My head feels like it might tip over as I tilt it to focus on his features.

I more so feel, rather than see, his eyes spearing into mine.

Through my blurry and distorted vision, I can just about see they’re assessing me even closer than I am him.

They’re a cutting green, dark but dull. Like moss covering the windows to his soul.

There’re balls of silver sporadically across his face, the sunlight bouncing off them and making me wince away from the brightness.

He doesn’t speak, doesn’t so much as offer me more than a slight upward curl of his lip, which can only be identified as disgust. It’s all blurry though, so it’s just an inkling.

You wouldn’t look so hot after a week in a dungeon either, buddy.

There is an air to him that rushes me like a breeze filled with spikes. It’s hard, sharp, ominous. Definitely not a welcoming energy.

It penetrates me so forcefully I cringe away, closing my eyes again.

“Here she is,” my dad’s voice floats forward.

I can just picture him flourishing his arms at me, presenting me like some goddess of the clouds. Not some crippled bundle of skin and bones in a wheelchair.

“What’s wrong with her?” the man’s voice is a raspy slice of disdain that reverberates through my stomach.

“Like I said to your father, she has discipline issues. You may have to teach her some manners.”

The guy grunts, sounding as uninterested as possible. “No luggage?”

“Nothing worth keeping. You can dress her as you want her.”

The guy huffs quietly. Seems neither of us are ecstatic about our new union.

“So, what does she do usually?” he says.

“Nothing. She’s only good for her job,” Dad sneers, “and making a nuisance of herself.”

“Why have you kept her around if you despise her so much?”

Dad clears his throat, my own tightens. “I lost my favourite child. She’s my only chance of continuing my bloodline. Her mother’s not alive to give me another kid. I need an heir, as do you. A merger for both our families. This girl is pretty pathetic, but at least she can give you a child.”

Favourite child. Just the vague mention of Lewis has my chest tightening. If he was his favourite, how could he never have picked up that he probably wouldn’t have got an heir from Lewis? Not in the traditional way, anyway.

“Good thing I’m not the romantic type, otherwise I’d be overcome with love and excitement right now.”

Dad hums. “Well, she’s not all bad. Like I said, she’s good on the computer. But she has a talent for making you want to rip your own hair out.”

“Gees, you’re really selling me on this.”

Dad chuckles. “I’m sure you can beat her into shape. This will be good for all of us, son.”

While they go back and forth about how incredible and perfect I am, I crack one eye open into a slit, spying the wide-open door behind this man.

If I can get my muscles to move in sync again, if I can get my bones to whir to life, I could make a run for it now.

I could make it out there and just keep running. They wouldn’t catch me.

Do it, the darkness whispers.

The encouragement spurts the machinery in my body to life. I lunge in an eruption of adrenaline. Freedom is a few feet away and I make the leap. Fuck yes, I’m gone.

Freedom feels a lot like a brick wall. My body hits the marble with a crunching thump, elbows and skull smashing into the ground. A roaring buzzing fills my brain, and pure agony consumes every muscle, bone and nerve in my body.

“What the fuck?!”

“I’m so sorry,” Dad says. “She’s a bit out of it at the moment. She’ll be alright in a couple days. She never takes long to bounce back. One of the few good things about her. She’s a strong one.”

“She just fucking attacked me.”

“I think she was going for the door, if I know my daughter.”

I’m hefted up off the floor again and dropped back into the wheelchair, my entire skeleton screaming in agonised protest.

A long, slow sigh blows near me before the guy says, “Alright, whatever. Thanks.”

Movement begins, and I realise I’m being wheeled forward. I can just about make out the blurry shape of a dark grey, sleek-looking car.

“Can you walk?”

It’s probably directed at me, but I’m currently too busy channelling every ounce of strength to make one last ditch attempt to run out to the field to the side of us to answer.

“Fucking great,” the guy mutters.

He appears at my side, and his arms go to scoop my limp body up.

NOW!

The word is like an electric charge to my limbs. I spring into action once more. I don’t think I make it two steps before I’m hauled back by a fist in my hair.

I let out a pained shriek and the guy growls impatiently, like dealing with a disobedient child. “Fuck this.”

A sharp jab plunges into my arm. Then the darkness beckons me in with open arms.