Madison's Song Read online

  Madison’s Song

  Christine Amsden

  Twilight Times Books

  Kingsport Tennessee

  Madison’s Song

  This is a work of fiction. All concepts, characters and events portrayed in this book are used fictitiously and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 Christine Amsden

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except brief extracts for the purpose of review, without the permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  Twilight Times Books

  P O Box 3340

  Kingsport TN 37664

  http://twilighttimesbooks.com/

  First Edition, July 2015

  Cover art by Tamian Wood,

  http://www.BeyondDesignInternational.com

  “Mama’s Going to Buy You a Mockingbird.” (Traditional lullaby; usage dates from the 19th Century)

  “On Eagle’s Wings.” Composed by Father J. Michael Joncas. Copyright © New Dawn Music, a subsidiary of Oregon Catholic Press.

  Published in the United States of America.

  Table of 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

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  For my husband, Austin, who always believed in me.

  He’s all the magic I need.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to give special thanks to all those who struggled through early drafts of this book:

  Laurel Amberdine

  Linda Amsden

  Stephen Amsden

  Leah Cypess

  Austin Morgan

  Kat Otis

  Prologue

  MADISON COULDN’T MOVE. THE ONLY MUSCLE in her body capable of stirring at all was her heart, and it felt like it was trying to make up for the rest. No ropes bound her. Nothing visible pressed her back and legs into the coarse beige carpet of her new rental home. Yet even as she writhed and twisted against unseen restraints, she knew she was trapped. Tied to the ground in a way that made her feel like a virgin sacrifice atop an altar.

  The man looming over her, chanting spells and arranging crystals, didn’t look like a powerful sorcerer. David McClellan had too weak a chin and beady little eyes. Those eyes, brown as mud and just as compassionate, told her without words that they would be the last thing she ever saw.

  She didn’t even understand why! Not that it would make a difference if she did. But she wasn’t anyone special. She wasn’t important. She was just an elementary school music teacher – or would be after she finished a semester of student teaching. This kind of thing didn’t happen to her. To her friend, Cassie, scion of a powerful family of sorcerers, maybe. But Madison had no family connections and almost no magic aside from her beautiful, subtly enchanting voice. Why would anyone hurt her for a song?

  A tear fell sideways into her sweat-dampened hair, joining countless others and doing exactly as much good. How long had she lain here, helpless? Minutes? Hours? It might only have been seconds. The box of “Card and Board Games” she had been carrying into the house lay on its side a foot or two away, some of its contents now strewn across the bare living room floor. There hadn’t been any warning. One second she was on the way to her new bedroom to unpack her tenth or eleventh box, the next instant she was on the floor. Immobile. Helpless. Confused. Terrified.

  Oh Lord! Why hast thou forsaken me?

  There was magic in the air, growing stronger with each new crystal David arranged into a pattern only he could see. Cold, deadly magic that reinforced her every childhood fear. Her father had told her that magic was from the devil. Was this what he’d meant? Was this her punishment for brushing up against the world of sorcery, no matter how lightly?

  David placed one last crystal before ceasing his chant. The silence felt ominous, like a lull before the storm, and when he moved away, out of her sight, a fresh wave of panic seized her. She strained anew at her bindings until the scent of incense filled the air. She had a sudden, vivid memory of Palm Sunday Mass, and of Father Owen making the sign of the cross as he wafted the same scent over his congregation. Father Owen didn’t believe magic was evil; he had told her more than once not to listen to her father’s “superstitious nonsense.”

  The time had come to pull herself together. To think. She wasn’t helpless. She had a little magic of her own, even if the thought of using it made her feel sick inside. God had not forsaken her. He had given her a tool, if only she could rein in her stampeding heart rate long enough to search her memory for what little knowledge she possessed.

  First, she had to find her quiet place. Madison drew in a deep, shuddering breath and started to close her eyes, when a glint of something metallic caught her attention. She stared at the long, lethal dagger in David’s hands, an ornate golden hilt largely hidden within his iron fist. His eyes drifted up and down the length of her bound body before settling on her midriff. He lowered the blade.

  He was going to cut her. She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing herself against the expected pain. Or worse.

  Think, Madison. Focus!

  She took one last steadying breath. Then she counted. Breathe in one ... two ... three ... four ... breathe out ... five ... six ... seven ...

  Her concentration snapped when cold metal bit into warm flesh. Her eyes popped open, her muscles strained once more against invisible bonds, and she screamed.

  Wait, she could scream? She had a voice?

  “Silence,” David commanded.

  Her throat continued to work, but no sound emerged. She felt like a fish being gutted, choking and spluttering as David returned to the work of cutting into the soft, sensitive flesh of her belly. Yet even as tears refilled her eyes and fear devoured her heart, some part of her recognized that her guts remained intact. Whatever David was doing to her with the dagger involved tracing shallow patterns across the surface of her skin.

  Fight the pain. Take deep breaths. Ground and center. She was not in the empty living room of a house she had not quite moved into yet, she was at church, singing in the choir. Above her, Jesus hung from a cross, a crown of thorns atop his head, a soft glow surrounding him. She usually found the magic within that glow. She reached for it...

  “Stop that!” David slapped her hard across the face.

  Once again her eyes flew open. She saw the dagger dripping with blood – her blood. Had her feeble grab for magic actually made a difference? David seemed to have noticed something, but what?

  “You’re just making this harder on yourself,” David said.

  “What do you want?” Madison tried to ask. Her mouth moved, her lips forming the question, but no sound emerged.

  She didn’t think he would answer; he couldn’t even have heard the question, but to her surprise he only hesitated a moment before saying, “Your soul.”r />
  He lowered the dagger.

  Her soul? What did that mean? What could a man do with someone’s soul? She now knew what he wanted, at least in part, but she’d been right – knowing didn’t make a difference. If anything, it made things worse. She couldn’t calm down now. She couldn’t focus. She needed to breathe, to block out all distractions, in order to find her quiet place. How was she supposed to block out the razor-sharp sting of a blade slicing across her abdomen? How could she focus with her very soul in danger?

  Forget magic. Time to pray. Prayer was something she understood.

  Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name...

  David slapped her across the cheek, leaving behind a fiery trail.

  Madison prayed harder.

  Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee...

  She braced herself for the strike of his hand against her cheek once more, but it didn’t come. For a heart-stopping moment, she thought her prayer hadn’t worked this time. Then an ear-splitting CRASH shook the room. It felt like an explosion. Surely the roof would come crashing down at any moment. Madison instinctively covered her head with her hands and curled into a ball.

  She didn’t have time to take in what had happened – either the crash or the fact that her invisible bonds had evaporated as if they’d never existed. The house still trembled and dust filled the air when a great, primal roar made every hair on Madison’s body stand on end.

  Slowly, she lifted her head. David stood in profile to her, his face white with terror, his gaze fixed on the splintered front door, which now hung precariously off its hinges. The sun had all but set, casting the unlit room in deep twilight, but she could just make out who had blasted his way through that door.

  Scott Lee.

  Her heart gave a painful little twang at the sight of the man she’d spent the past few weeks daydreaming about incessantly. Now here he was like an avenging angel out of one of her fantasies, frightening her enemy and offering her hope. In that moment, she could honestly say she had never seen a more beautiful man. He wasn’t particularly tall, but he was powerful, the clearly defined muscles of his bare upper arms rippling with strength.

  Rumor had it he was a werewolf, and perhaps he was. Something lent him superhuman strength. The evidence was there in the splintered remains of the front door and then, the next second, in the ferocity of his attack.

  David met Scott in mid-lunge, and Madison’s hope turned to newfound concern when she realized that David’s strength matched Scott’s. The front door … David’s white face … her fantasy hero … these things had made her momentarily forget that David, too, was a powerful sorcerer who reportedly sold dark and cursed artifacts out of his shop in downtown Eagle Rock.

  What if David won? She could see the scene more clearly now: the crystals placed in a ritualistic pentagram pattern, the bowl of incense, the tiny drops of crimson staining the beige carpet, and …

  The dagger! She scrambled on hands and knees to reach the place where David had dropped it, tracing the ruby in the hilt with her thumb as she picked it up. She stood, trying not to focus on her weakness or the blood on her stomach. Now that she had the dagger, she had no idea what she would do with it. She didn’t know how to fight and even if she did, David and Scott were locked together in mortal combat. If she attacked, Scott might get hurt. Still, she watched and waited, her palm growing sweaty against the ruby hilt, ready to help in any way she could. Or make her final stand.

  Suddenly, the two men split apart. David staggered into a wall, hitting his head and bracing himself against a fall. Scott only stumbled backwards a step. He looked like he had the advantage, but for how long?

  “Here!” Madison called, flipping the dagger around so she could thrust it hilt-first at her ally.

  Scott took the weapon from her, turned back to David, and shoved it into his belly. It all happened in a second and with almost feline grace. Scott hadn’t hesitated. He hadn’t balked. His eyes held no remorse.

  Time seemed to freeze. David’s eyes popped open, gazing into his own mortality. Madison knew what he was seeing. She had seen the same thing only minutes before, and now she felt it again almost as powerfully as she had the first time. It didn’t matter that he had been about to kill her. It didn’t matter that he was evil and needed to be put down. It only mattered that he was a man, and death was nigh.

  Scott withdrew the dagger from David’s belly, raised it to his neck, and cut his throat. David fell. Blood spurted everywhere, drenching bare walls and floors. Scott seemed to anticipate the gush because he backed away quickly, escaping the worst of the spray.

  Madison had never seen anyone die before. She was alive. She was safe, but at the moment that knowledge paled in comparison to the horror before her. There was so much blood! The average human body contained five-and-a-half quarts of blood. Such a stupid thing to think, a random fact she’d picked up somewhere, but here were all five-and-a-half quarts – on the floor, on the walls, and on the remnants of the door. Madison trembled, the knowledge of life and death marking her in ways that would scar her forever.

  Scott had seen death before. She could see it in his jade green eyes when he turned them away from the corpse as if it were so much busted-up furniture. He had other more pressing concerns, those eyes seemed to say as they scanned her from head to toe. She shuddered at his blatant perusal, trapped between horror and fascination. How many times had she imagined him looking at her just like that? But in none of her imaginings had a bloodied corpse lingered in the background, nor had she borne the bloody, stinging reminder that she had nearly become such a corpse. Gingerly, she pressed a hand against her abdomen, cringing when it came away red.

  “The sun is setting,” Scott said. Such a mundane statement in the wake of everything that had just happened.

  “What?”

  “The moon is full tonight.” Scott paused. “You know what I am, don’t you?”

  “A werewolf?” She whispered the word, as if afraid that saying it out loud would make it true.

  She looked out the distant kitchen window, facing the western horizon where the sun had already disappeared. Only the faintest of glows still marked twilight instead of true night.

  Would he transform in front of her? Or was he begging her forgiveness while he sought privacy, leaving her alone with the destruction he had wrought? She longed to meet the wolf within him, partly out of curiosity, and partly because she could not stand the thought of staying by herself tonight.

  She would never admit it to him, but she had read a couple of werewolf romance novels since meeting him, and they had tickled her imagination. Was Scott his pack’s alpha? He exuded the right aura of power.

  “I’ll take care of this,” Madison found herself saying, though she had no idea how. Was she seriously going to dispose of a body? “If you need to go.”

  “You don’t get it. It’s too late. There’s rage in my blood, murder in my heart, and the scent...” He sniffed the air. “You’re bleeding.”

  She swallowed, convulsively. His words ... his tone ... this wasn’t right. She saw her fantasies as a bubble on the verge of popping, but she didn’t have enough real information to use as a pin.

  “I’ll go clean up, if the blood is bothering you.”

  He licked his lips.

  Madison crossed her arms over her chest, only just realizing that her torn shirt exposed more than her belly. The ugly old sports bra she had been wearing while toting boxes back and forth from her car, stained in her own blood, would not be a big loss. But she wished she had been wearing her prettiest bra, even if it meant the garment’s destruction.

  Not that Scott seemed to care one way or the other. He looked at her with pure heat in his eyes. She felt that sense of being overwhelmed yet again. He’d saved her life, hadn’t he? She owed him a serious debt and among sorcerers, those weren’t just pretty words. What would he want? Would she even want to deny him?

  “When I turn into the wolf, it’s not me any
more,” Scott said. “Do you understand?”

  “No.” Madison was more than half in shock. She tried to wrap her mind around his words, but all she understood was his tone of desperation – and that she didn’t know the first thing about real werewolves.

  “Of course not, but you will. It’s not me. The beast acts on emotions and instincts and hunger.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “It may kill you.” He swallowed uncertainly. The tiny movement made him seem more human. More vulnerable. It made her foolishly long for him even more. “I might know a way to save you. I’ve never tried it before.”

  Save her? Hadn’t he already saved her? “What is it?”

  “I need to mark you.”

  Her mouth fell open, but no words emerged. In her mind’s eye she could see the pin approaching her fantasy bubble, but it had not yet popped. Something felt wrong. He was supposed to want to make love to her, not mark her. But maybe it meant the same thing to a werewolf.

  “Please, Madison. There’s no time.”

  Madison still didn’t understand his words, but she recognized the urgency in his tone and she would have done anything to wipe the look of panic off his face.

  She nodded, jerkily, and it was all the invitation he needed. He didn’t even remove his t-shirt, only his shoes and pants. He came towards her and she thought he would kiss her, but he didn’t. Instead, he pushed her backwards until she understood that he wanted her to lie down on the floor. As soon as she had, he stripped away her sweat pants and underwear, then he was lying on top of her, leaning over her.

  It was all happening too quickly. He’d said it would, but she hadn’t realized how it would make her feel. Overwhelmed. Uncertain. Afraid. Shock almost gave way to numbness, but not quite. Scott was there with her, hot and heavy and solidly real; she focused on that. On his physical presence and his strength. He had saved her already; he would keep her safe now.