Dominique's Release: A Captive Souls story Read online

  She’d wanted to investigate it all, and as it appeared as though she was the only one there for the moment, she’d known she should take advantage of the time alone and do some good old-fashioned snooping, but she’d been so damn tired, the only thing she could think about was resting just for a minute. After a quick investigation she’d found a vacant bedroom and pulled her suitcase inside, claiming the room as her own.

  She’d toed off her Nikes and drew her shirt from her body and wiggled out of her jeans. Her hands had hesitated when she reached up to take off the necklace, remembering her mother’s warning

  “I made it here okay. Nothing is going to happen to me if I take it off.” She didn’t know who she’d been trying to reassure, herself or the image of her mother in her head. In the end, she’d allowed it to stay around her neck.

  “Famous last words if I ever heard them,” Dominique said now, fully awake.

  The minute her head had hit the pillow, she must have fallen into a deep sleep. Her brow furrowed, the dream, still vivid, running through her mind.

  Unlike earlier, too tired to do anything else but lie down, in her dream she’d risen from the bed and glanced down at herself, deep in sleep. In her dream she’d drifted from the bedroom and had gone exploring and had come across a closed, locked room.

  Almost as though against her will, the amulet around her neck had begun to warm, seemingly warning her, she ignored the heat and forced the door open. Unlike the other rooms, this one’s furnishings were sparse, besides the end-to-end bookshelves, packed so full there seemed not a micro inch had been spared.

  Her eyes were drawn to the corner of the room. A scarlet red, velvet-covered chair was tucked in a small nook. Next to it was a small lamp, whose golden light was turned on, set atop an old spindly legged table. A single thought brought her near, so that in seconds she was standing next to the setting.

  Set on the table was a large, leather bound, dusty book, lying face down on top of the scarred table. Dominique reached down to touch it, briefly hesitating when the necklace warmed noticeably.

  Again, she ignored what she knew was a warning and picked the large tome up. As soon as she did, she felt a burning sensation rip through her, fleeting but sharp, it swept through her body, setting it on fire. Her stomach clenched, rebelling against the pain, and she doubled over, her body hunched low. Within seconds the pain had left, going away as quickly as it had come, and she slowly rose to stand

  Breathing deeply through her mouth, Dominique wiped away the beads of perspiration across her forehead. When she’d opened her eyes the room had transformed. Although the rows of books still lined the wall-to-wall shelves, now a large four-postered bed sat in the center of the room.

  A sheer net surrounded the bed, similar to the style of many beds in Louisiana, one used to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Within the shadows of the voluminous netting, she could make out the figure of a man.

  At least she assumed it was a man, as his large frame, despite the shadowy netting, was clearly discernible.

  Again, one thought brought her to the bed. When she stood less than a foot away from him, her eyes widened as she glanced down at the sleeping man lying in the center.

  Naked, he lay on his side, his eyes closed, his wide, muscled chest moving slowly, in and out, in deep inhalations.

  Dominique held herself still, barely breathing, not wanting to wake him. She studied him, head to toe. He was massive.

  His big body, ripped and corded with sinewy muscles, dwarfed the large bed. His long legs reached the foot of the bed, and his long arms, biceps sharply cut, dangled over the sides.

  In profile, his features were strong; aristocratic. His face in sleep was relaxed, yet his prominent nose was bracketed by long lines that slashed both sides of his well shaped mouth. His eyelashes were thick and a dark sable brown, much darker than his hair which was a light golden color and held back from his face in a leather thong secured at the nape of his neck.

  Dominique gasped and stepped back when he moved slightly in his sleep, repositioning himself so that he now lay flat on his back.

  Her eyes were drawn down the chiseled muscles of his chest, down the muscled planes of his abdomen, to beyond.

  She inhaled deeply and blew out a long, low, steadying breath of air. Damn…

  His phallus, even in repose, lay solid and erect against the taut, flat planes of his abdomen. And it was beautiful.

  Although Dominique had less than a handful of sexual encounters, she doubted there was a man…or creature…alive with a cock so beautifully crafted it could hang in an art museum as a perfectly sculpted symbol of masculinity.

  What happened next, Dominique still couldn’t explain. All she knew was that she wanted him. Badly.

  Wanted him in a way that even in her dream made her body go into hyperdrive, her mouth go dry and her heart thud crazily Careful not to awaken her dream god, she’d climbed on the bed, even as she dreamed…

  Embarrassed at what had happened next, although no one had witnessed her dream other than herself, Dominique forced the memories from her mind, and shook her head in a desperate attempt to rid herself of the images that beat at her.

  “How long did I sleep?” Dominique wondered out loud. She never wore a watch and as she glanced around the room she realized there were no clocks, not even a bedside clock radio.

  She rose from the bed and put on her shirt. Opening her case, she fished out her favorite oversized T-shirt and pair of panties, secure in the knowledge that no one else was in the house, before walking toward the quaint, adjoining bathroom. After dressing she reached for the necklace, but her growling stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since earlier in the day.

  Casting a considering glance at the necklace, she shrugged, deciding nothing could happen if she went without wearing it for a short time.

  With that, she left the room to find something to eat and do a bit of investigating.

  Chapter Four

  “Come back for me, Dominique…”

  Bacclum came to awareness with a start. He reached out to grab the woman before realizing he was alone.

  “So, how am I still sentient?”

  There was no answer, of course. Just as there hadn’t been for…

  He stopped, his brow wrinkling.

  He had no idea how long he’d been trapped in this place in this world between worlds.

  A hundred years or more…damnation, he had no real idea of time outside this world he’d been exiled to. His last memory had been of the demon invoking the spell that he’d been unable to escape from, the spell that had locked his body and spirit inside the enchanted book.

  The demon had been the one to trap him just when Bacclum had thought he’d been victorious, had felt the demon’s massive power flood into him. Just when he felt that victory was his, that he’d finally have the power needed to find his father, his mother, he’d been outmaneuvered.

  He’d miscalculated the demon’s power and had been unable to break free of the cursed enchantment.

  Until the witch.

  “Somehow the witch…Dominique…has released me,” he murmured.

  Testing his theory, he rose from the bed and stood. He reached down to touch the small table next to the ornate bed. His hand passed right through it, and he cursed.

  “Not completely,” he muttered and began to pace the room. He’d been locked within these walls for longer than he knew. And in that time he’d been utterly alone, with no contact with anyone or any being.

  Although he’d had a semblance of awareness within his exiled hole he’d called home for at least a century, had even been aware in a distant type of way whenever a new tenant took up residence in the mansion, he’d never made any physical or verbal contact with another living being, except once.

  When he’d been sucked into the pages of the book, he’d been transported to this place, this room. He glanced around at the familiar room, at the many books that lined the shelves.

  It had taken h
im years before he realized that he was actually still in the mansion, although no one could see or hear him. Like the witch, one other had brought him to full awareness.

  The man had walked into the room, something no one else ever had done, and Bacclum had seen him, running his hands over the ancient books, spending timeless hours poring over the many ancient books, searching for something, Bacclum knew not what. He suspected the man was a bit on the mad side. Many nights he’d fall asleep, long into the early morning hours, a tumbler filled with cognac on the side table he sat next to, a book sprawled on his chest.

  He’d tried to communicate with the man, but after many attempts he realized that although the man may have somehow called him out, he didn’t have the power to bring Bacclum fully out and could not sense his presence.

  Eventually the man had stopped coming, Bacclum suspected due to frustration at not being able to find what he’d been looking for, and Bacclum had, once again, succumbed to the long “sleep” he’d had before the man’s arrival.

  “And now another has interrupted my sleep.” He began to pace the length of the room. “But this time, it’s different. She’s different,” he continued his out-loud musings.

  As the memory of her—Dominique—her wild kinky curls spread over his thighs as she brought him to wake in the most intimate way, came to his mind, his hand went to his erect cock

  .

  He could still feel her mouth pulling on him; tugging…and her tongue, hesitant, darting out to lick the crown of his shaft.

  But more than that, he remembered the connection he’d made when he’d touched her. Her life, her mind, the very essence of who she was, had played in his mind in split-second images, long enough for him to capture and catalogue the meaning.

  The images hit him fast and methodically, from the time she was a child, made fun of in her small parish by others outside her coven, mocked because of her differences, to a young Dominique saddened when her mother refused to allow her to fully participate in the rituals of their coven, to a defiant Dominique leaving her mother and coming to claim what she felt was hers. He knew of her desperate desire to know who she was, where she’d come from… He saw her mother place an amulet, the same amulet she’d worn when she’d come to him, around her neck. He touched his chest. The sudden burn he’d felt when she’d forced him to disconnect with her was still there.

  He’d long ago learned the art of astral projection and had fine-tuned the skill so that he could link, through spells, with another, at a far distance to view their activities, and at close distance, invading their mind and ferreting out the information he wanted. But never had he been able to do so without using a spell or incantation.

  Bacclum had come to know her, in that brief moment outside of time, in ways that shook him. And the fact that she in turn had been inside his mind disturbed him even more.

  He pulled at the thong that tied his hair back, loosening his hair to allow it to fall free. He knew he’d hurt her, on a fundamental level, with his reaction to her appearance. It had been so unexpected, her eyes, the difference. She was a witch, that he knew. She wore the mark. The mark was a clue to who she was, he knew, and how she’d brought him forth.

  But there was something even more to her, besides the mark.

  He looked down at his hands, his palms, thinking of their exchange.

  “Come back for me, Dominique,” he whispered into the complete solace that was his life.

  ***

  Dominique spent the greater part of the morning exploring much of the downstairs level of the mansion.

  She devoted a shorter time to the large formal living area, dining room and parlor. Most of the décor involved heavy dark-colored brocade draperies and old, obviously expensive, ornately carved furniture.

  In one room there was a piano that drew her attention. As a child, her mother had instructed Dominique and she recalled the countless hours spent at the old piano. But, although her mother had always made sure that she never wanted for anything and that included giving her the best she could afford, her modestly expensive Steinway couldn’t compare to the likes of this one.

  Unlike her grand piano, this one was upright, but was no less beautiful because of it. It was a light beech wood color, gilded with intricate, hand-painted designs and hand-lettered poems covering it in its entirety.

  She lifted the heavy keyboard covering, considering the piano. She was both delighted and surprised to find that it was in perfect tune when she ran her fingers over a few of the ivory keys.

  She rose from the bench, strangely disturbed by that very fact. The entire house appeared as though someone had been living there, and recently.

  But as far as she could tell, she was the first of the inheritors—she shied away from thinking of the faceless women as her sisters—to arrive. And to her knowledge, according to the solicitor for Jean-Paul’s will, no one else had been living there since his passing over six months ago.

  Much like the women, Dominique couldn’t think of him as related to her, that he was her father, even in her own thoughts.

  After leaving the room she did more idle wandering, casting her eyes over the heavy crown molding bisecting the walls in the hall, the wood rich, gleaming, which again gave her pause.

  Her thoughts went to the other two women she shared the inheritance with. She knew their names, Petra Pedersen and Kiara Brodie. But that was all she knew, that and the fact that like her, both had been reared by their mothers. She didn’t even know what the women looked like. She wondered if they shared her deformity.

  Dominique continued her wandering through the mansion, lost in thought.

  She hadn’t told her mother about the other women for fear of Agate’s reaction. Neither had she known if Agate had been aware of the women and had chosen to keep it from Dominique. Either way, she’d kept the knowledge to herself.

  “No way in hell was I going to give her more ammunition and yet another reason to keep me at home. Safe,” she mumbled, shaking her head in disgust and resolution.

  She’d been kept safe her whole damn life. It was time for her to find out who she was, and she knew here, in some way, she would.

  She glanced outside, peering through the large patio-style doors that led to the large backyard, and opened the doors, stepping outside.

  Unlike the interior of the mansion, it was barely kept: wild grass and sycamore trees littered the yard, along with a very large ivory statue of a gargoyle. Her brow scrunched and she felt a sudden chill, despite the warmth outside. Feeling distinctly uncomfortable, she spun around to return to the mansion.

  Further explorations revealed a closed room with patio-style doors similar to the doors leading to the backyard, and stained-glass pane etched in a flowing print which reminded her of the intricate carvings on the piano.

  Dominique drew closer, frowning as she closely observed the script. On closer inspection it held a slight difference from the carvings in the piano. The lettering—or what she thought was lettering, but was unable to make out the language—was carved into the stained glass in a way that it flowed into the abstract design of the pane.

  When she tried to open the door, it wouldn’t budge. After several more attempts she gave up. Shrugging, thinking she needed a key to access the room, she turned toward the winding staircase that led to the upper bedrooms.

  She reached for the amulet, an odd apprehension grabbing her when she grasped the banister, and remembered she’d left it in her bedroom. She hesitated, but cast the fear or whatever it was away and briskly walked up the stairs. Her fingers trailed along the mahogany railing of the banister, the wood shiny and slick against her hands, as though it had recently been painstakingly polished.

  Reaching the top, she glanced around and stopped.

  The upper level appeared as large as the lower, so much so that she felt…overwhelmed. The feeling in the house was something she couldn’t define, it was as though the house was calling to her, beckoning her. The wildness, the energy, felt lik
e eyes that were watching her. She suppressed a shiver.

  She wandered farther down the hall. There were several bedrooms, all with open doors. She walked inside one, curious.

  Turning on the light, she took a deep breath of air, her eyes widening. It was breathtakingly beautiful. The walls were painted a light yellow. Wall-to-wall bookshelves lined the room and in the middle of the floor was a large four-poster, canopied bed, with sheer white netting enclosing it on all sides.

  A matching armoire occupied the room along with an upright chair with a bright yellow patchwork quilt thrown invitingly over the wooden arm.

  “Beautiful,” she breathed, walking further inside.

  The room was Moorish style in design, suited to fit in any medieval castle; the classic, sophisticated décor of the furnishings was made up of rich dark woods. She ran her fingers over the heavy carvings along one of the posters of the bed and down over the thick brocade comforter covering the bed. The blend of dark furnishings, light-colored walls and soft fabrics gave the room a welcoming balance of masculinity and femininity that was appealing to Dominique. There was a soft tinkling sound, like bells chiming. She cocked her head to the side, wondering where the music had come from.

  She spun around, looking for the source, her eyes widening when she noticed, in the corner of the room, the same setting from her dream. She felt the memories of the man from her dream blow into her mind. Dominique walked over to the setting, her heart beating wildly, in fear and excitement.

  She stared down at the book that was set, just as it had been in her dream, face down on the table. She picked the heavy tome up, experiencing a sort of out-of-body feeling, and an exhilarating sense of déjà vu.

  She ran shaky fingers over the flowing script in the book and began to read.

  Her brow knitted as she scanned the pages, studying the script. She wasn’t familiar with this language or its characters. Yet, although alien, there was a familiarity about it that banged at the backdoor of her subconscious. She had studied languages, modern as well as ancient, many forgotten, within her coven, yet this one was one she’d never seen, much less knew of its existence.