Scorched (Rulers of the Sky Book 1) Read online

  Samantha looked up at the thick, charcoal clouds drifting closer to the castle. For a moment, her blood went cold. While England suffered many storms, none of them, not since she’d arrived anyway, had made the countryside look so ominous, so bleak. She hugged herself and scanned the courtyard. Nothing seemed amiss.

  “Maybe it was thunder,” she suggested.

  Together, they checked the entire perimeter of the inner bailey and when they found nothing, they checked the drawbridge. Everything was intact…or as intact as it would remain until Sam could get it repaired.

  From where she was standing, Samantha could see the stables over Ellie’s shoulder. She narrowed her eyes as her mouth fell open. “Oh great! Just great.”

  Ellie turned to see what Samantha was looking at and took a step back. One side of the roof belonging to the old stable was caved in, jagged wooden splinters pointing every which way, as if a giant bird had crashed through it. “What in the name of the saints happened there?”

  Sam’s first reaction was one of disgust that another piece of her property was in need of repair. But as she listened to Ellie’s breathless query, it dawned on her that something had fallen into her stable. Something big.

  She took a step forward to investigate, but Ellie held her back, placing her hand on Samantha’s. “We don’t know what it is.”

  Sam stopped and stared at the stable for a few minutes. When no sound was heard, she shook her head and continued on her path. “Come on, Ellie.” She called over her shoulder. “It could have been a meteor or something. They give you money for space rocks around here, don’t they?”

  Yielding to the slight shove of her fingers, the stable’s wooden door creaked and groaned with age when Sam pushed it open. She peeked inside, but all she saw were empty stalls, bales of old, dried hay, and a beam of fading light from the hole in the roof. She walked toward the light cautiously, holding her arm back to keep Ellie behind her. A small dormouse skittered across a wooden beam directly in front of her and Sam squeaked, swallowing a scream. She moved closer to the dim shaft of light, clutching Ellie’s sleeve behind her.

  And then she stopped dead in her tracks. If it hadn’t been for Ellie pushing past her, Sam was sure she wouldn’t have budged for another week. She had never seen a dead person before. The man lying in the pile of loose hay certainly looked dead to her. He was as big and as naked as a newborn babe. His right leg was twisted behind him in a grotesque position. The muted gray light that fell on his form bathed him in an eerie glow and showed the exact direction from which he’d fallen. Up.

  “He’s alive.” Ellie was leaning over his body with two of her fingers on his throat. She turned to look at Sam still standing dumbstruck behind her. “He must have fallen from a plane.”

  “Then he should be dead,” Sam whispered, surprised that any words came out of her mouth at all.

  She stared at him and then looked up through the hole in the roof. She shook her head. It was impossible that he was alive. And why on earth was he naked? Averting her gaze from his groin, she finally took a step forward and squatted next to his face. Since he wasn’t dead after all, she reached her hand out to touch him. He needed help and she needed to quit gaping at him.

  But holy smokes, he was extraordinarily beautiful in a huge, ridiculously virile sort of way. Inky black hair fell in glossy tresses around his face and over the flare of his shoulders. His raven lashes were long and lush, smudging his pale cheeks. His nose was straight and slim, perfectly shaped for his angular face. His lips, relaxed and slightly parted in slumber, were full and so lusciously carved, that Sam found herself staring at them, breathless. The rest of him was just as glorious.

  His arms were corded with thick, sleek muscle, not the kind of muscle a man gets from too much time in a gym, but tight, lithe, naturally sculpted sinew. She couldn’t make out the swirling markings on the back of each arm, accentuating his strength. They looked like tattoos that went around to his back. His chest was broad, his belly flat and corded with more muscle. His flesh was ice-cold.

  “He’s freezing,” Sam said and sprang to her feet to retrieve a woolen blanket thrown over one of the stalls. Swiping away the cloud of dust that arose from the disturbed blanket, she bent to her knees and placed it over the man’s naked form. “We need to get help, Ellie. Where’s the nearest hospital?”

  She pulled the blanket up to his neck and tucked it gently around his shoulders. He moaned, and Sam leaned in close to his face. “It’s all right.” She kept both hands on his shoulders and soothed him in her gentlest voice.

  Her gaze swept over his face, suddenly unable to move away from him. The man was flipping gorgeous, chiseled like some ancient warlord carved in stone.

  He inhaled a sharp breath, startling her. He whispered a word in a thick, lilting accent, a word Sam had never heard before. Moving closer, she raised her hand to his brow and smoothed the heavy locks away from his forehead. “We’re going to get you help.”

  She was about to turn to Ellie to tell her to go back into the castle and call an ambulance when he spoke to her. No, no help.

  Sam blinked and straightened her back, moving away from him. She stared at him, unsure of what had just happened.

  “Sam?” Ellie touched her shoulder and Sam almost jumped out of her skin. “What is it?”

  “I think he’s awake. He just spoke to me.” Sam gave him a gentle nudge. “Hello? Can you hear me? You need help. You fell from a…” She looked up again and shook her head. “…from something. I think your leg is broken so don’t move. Though, how you’re alive, is beyond me.”

  “Samantha, he’s unconscious. What are you doing, dear?”

  Sam glanced at Ellie over her shoulder. “He must be coming to. He just said he didn’t want help.”

  “He doesn’t want help?” The older woman intoned quietly. “Why on earth wouldn’t he want help?”

  “He must be delirious. He doesn’t realize what’s happened.” Sam returned her gaze to him. “We need to call—”

  Do not go.

  The command was potent, rumbling from deep within his chest and…inside her head! Sam sprang back from her haunches and fell onto her bottom, then struggled feverishly to her feet. Her eyes were wide with confusion and disbelief.

  “What’s the matter, child?” Ellie paled, catching Sam before she stumbled backward. Ellie had to shake her by the shoulders twice before Sam could take her eyes off him. “What is it?” she asked again when Sam finally looked at her.

  “I thought…” Sam stared down at him, wringing her hands together to stop them from trembling. “I thought he…” She trailed off and laughed at herself. “I’ve been worrying about this place too much. I need to de-stress. For a crazy minute, I thought he spoke to me in my mind, like telepathically or something. They were my own thoughts, of course, but it sounded so real.”

  Ellie smiled at her, her huge powdery-blue eyes soft and grandmotherly. “Samantha, dear, let’s go back inside. We will get some help for the wretched man and…”

  Sam shook her head. “He doesn’t want any help.” Even when she said it, she knew it was crazy.

  He had fallen out of the sky and into her stable, his leg was obviously very broken and he was unconscious. She was simply imagining things. He hadn’t spoken to her. And even if he had, of course he needed help. He needed to be in a hospital. Without taking her eyes off him until she left the stable, she ushered Ellie back to the castle.

  Her heart sank when Ellie clicked the telephone receiver over and over.

  “It’s dead.”

  “He probably hit the wires on his way down,” Sam said, cursing herself for not having a cell phone. She had no one to call but Ellie, and she couldn’t afford the added expense.

  “Down from where?” Ellie asked, lowering her spectacles and looking toward the direction of the stable.

  “I don’t know.” A tremor trickled down Sam’s spine. Even now she could feel his presence, as if he was probing her mind with his finger,
trying to talk to her.

  Her overactive imagination was in full swing. That’s what she got for not sleeping a solid eight hours in the last two weeks. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she hurried to her room, pulled the thick quilt off her bed, stuffed some candles under her arm, and met Ellie on the way back down the stairs. “We can use the quilt to wrap him up and take him to the hospital ourselves.”

  “No, his back could be broken,” Ellie pointed out. “I don’t think we should try to move him. Besides, he’s too big for the both of us. We probably can’t budge him.”

  Sam nodded. “You’re right. Go home and call the hospital from your phone, El. I’ll be okay. I’ll keep him warm till help arrives.”

  “Samantha, come with me. It will take more than an hour for help to get here and I don’t want to leave you here alone with him.”

  Sam smiled at Ellie reassuringly. “He’s unconscious and his leg is badly broken. I don’t think he’s any threat to me. I was imagining things earlier. Go. Please. Get him some help. I’ll be fine.”

  Ellie walked her back to the stable and checked to make sure the man was still unconscious while Sam lit the candles. The old woman shook her head in pity before she covered him with Sam’s quilt.

  “I don’t think he’ll be waking up anytime soon. He does need to be seen by a doctor. I’ll make the call as soon as I get home and see you in the morning.”

  Nodding, Sam threw her friend a quick smile, bidding her farewell. She barely heard Ellie leave the stable, or the old truck start and drive over the rickety drawbridge. The stable was quiet and the mental probing she was sure she felt had stopped. She settled down on the hay-strewn floor to stare at him in the soft candlelight.

  She wanted to laugh at herself for thinking that he had spoken to her inside her head. She wanted to, but she didn’t. Had he somehow managed to convey his thoughts to her? She’d felt him, like a gentle touch of pressure on her brain. Did the mind work differently when the body stopped functioning?

  She realized, with a measure of guilt and shame, that she was staring at him and thinking about how utterly handsome he was. He looked like the kind of man who could have stepped out of her medieval books. She wondered what color his eyes were beneath those sooty lashes. He was tall, judging by the length of him, probably at 6’2 or 6’3, and was built…extremely well.

  Looking up at the hole again, she shivered wondering what had happened to him and how he’d come to crash naked through her roof. Poor man, whatever had happened, he was in bad shape, that much she was sure of. Unconsciously, she hummed a song while wondering how long it would take the ambulance to get here. She rested her elbow on her knees and planted her chin in her palm.

  Was he a psychopath? Maybe he escaped from some London loony bin. That would certainly explain his lack of clothing. She felt safe for the time being. Even if he woke up, it wasn’t like he could chase her or anything with his leg all mangled. She leaned closer to him, wanting to lift the quilt and take a look at the injury for herself. “Poor thing,” she soothed. “You’re going to hurt when you wake up.”

  Samantha.

  She shrieked and scrambled away. It was him! She was sure of it! His voice sounded like a low, sultry whisper in her mind. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t even fluttered his lids. Yet, she’d heard him. Her hands trembled and her heart beat furiously. She knew she should run for her life but she couldn’t. He looked too helpless lying there.

  Cautiously, she moved closer again and gaped at his motionless face. “Are you…talking to me?” she asked with a quivering voice.

  Sing some more.

  His voice was an intoxicating blend of huskiness and raw force. “God help me, you are talking to me!” It was impossible. It had to be her imagination. Then another thought crashed into her mind, making her swoon a little.

  Maybe he was an angel. Wonderful! She was as insane as he was! She looked up at the hole again and shook until her teeth chattered.

  Sing, Samantha. It pleases me.

  Chapter Three

  Samantha closed her eyes and breathed deep trying to gather her wits that felt like they were on their way to Bermuda. She decided that while the ambulance was taking him away, she would beg the paramedics to get her to a shrink, and fast. She opened her eyes again and looked at him. He certainly was beautiful enough to be an angel.

  “What…what are you? Are you an angel?” She felt ridiculous even voicing her thoughts, but since she was hearing him…and he was still lying there like a rag doll…

  I am Drakkon.

  She repeated the word over in her mind. What the hell was Drakkon? Is that what they called fallen angels these days? Oh, she was losing it. Drakkon. It sounded German, which would explain his accent and that foreign word he’d uttered earlier.

  You are a virgin.

  Her blood drained from her face. Oh, this was more than telepathy. Maybe he was an angel—an angel privy to her most intimate secrets. Either that or he was an amazingly gifted psychic who could not only read her mind but see into her past. No one knew she was a virgin. It wasn’t something one trumpeted around at twenty-six years of age, especially living in New York. But a virgin she was, and a virgin she would remain, at least until she found a man worthy of her virtue.

  So far, there hadn’t been one. She had thought Raymond was her knight in shining armor, but when she walked in on him screwing his secretary on top of his desk, she was glad they had practiced abstinence and left the son of a—

  Samantha.

  His beautiful voice shattered her thoughts of her ex-fiancé. She waited a moment, hands shaking at her sides anticipating his next words, but he was silent. And then his eyes shot open and Sam gasped. She had the sudden and insane urge to cover her eyes the way she used to when she was a little girl alone in yet another strange house, afraid to face the night in a bed that wasn’t her own. But she wasn’t a little girl anymore and this was her castle. If he was an escaped maniac, he was about to find out that New Yorkers didn’t die without a fight. She looked around the stable frantically for a weapon to club him over the head with. When he groaned, her gaze slid slowly back to him.

  He’d come awake and lay staring wide-eyed directly above him at the gaping hole in the roof. His chest rose and fell beneath the heavy quilt so forcefully, that Sam feared he would hyperventilate. He looked as frightened as she was, and the sight of him realizing what had happened to him, that he had apparently fallen almost to death from only God’s knows what, broke Sam’s heart.

  “It’s okay. You’re safe,” she whispered for want of anything else to say to comfort him.

  His head snapped up and when his eyes found her, he looked surprised, like he had no idea she was there at all, despite his speaking to her all this time in her thoughts. The eyes she had wondered about turned out to be the most startling shade of blue-green she had even seen in her life. Ringed by raven lashes and a dark foreboding brow, they pierced her very soul. His expression turned dark and deadly, and then he opened his mouth and hissed at her.

  As if stunned that blowing his breath at her hadn’t scared her witless, which in fact, it had, he lifted his hands and looked at them. Horror distorted his features, followed by fury.

  Sam finally found her footing, scrambled to her feet and hid behind a wooden beam.

  He was groaning, staring at his hands. Sam was sure it was the most pitiful sound she’d ever heard. Slowly, he brought those same hands to his face, touching and feeling the contours of his strong, sculpted jaw as if he’d never felt his own skin before. Loony bin.

  He spoke. Not in her mind this time, but with his mouth. The words were deep, masculine, and laced with such poignant sorrow, that even though Sam could not understand what he was saying, she wanted to rush back to his side. He tried to sit up but fell back into the hay wincing in pain.

  “Don’t try to move,” she called from her hiding place. He wasn’t speaking English, so Sam suspected he had no idea what she was saying. Still, she was concerned en
ough to try. “You fell from…” Right. What had he fallen from? A plane? Heaven? Another planet? She shook her head at the lunacy of it all. “You had a great fall and your leg is broken.” Her mouth snapped shut when he turned his head in her direction again. The fury in his expression was gone now, replaced by something far worse. Terror, pure, unadulterated terror.

  “What happened to you?” she asked, feeling terribly sorry for him. “Where did you come from?” She had to know.

  For a moment, he just stared at her with those huge, extraordinary cerulean eyes, then he tilted his head curiously. “Va hevita.”

  “What? Heaven?” She wanted to laugh, and right after that, she would have herself committed. She took a reluctant step away from the beam.

  The sky. She heard his voice in her mind.

  Running her sweaty palm across her forehead, which was beginning to throb, she said a quick prayer for her sanity and her life and then eyed him warily. “Is that you I’m hearing in my head?”

  He nodded.

  “How?” she asked quietly, stunned. “How are you doing that? And why can I understand you that way and not when you talk with your mouth? Am I nuts? Are you nuts? Have I finally cracked like the walls outside my—?”

  But he wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was staring at his hands again. He looked like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Sam took another cautious step closer to him. She looked at his hands, too, and wondered why on earth they frightened him so. They were big hands, strong with long lean fingers.

  “What happened to you?”

  I am a man. His voice played like a soft, tormented melody in her mind. “Fra semer lacodanay,” he repeated aloud, just as sorrowfully.

  “Of course, you’re a man.” Sam looked at the raven locks falling around his head, the strong contour of his jaw. He was a man all right.

  She blinked her thoughts back to reality and suddenly realized that he wasn’t stating what gender he was. He was telling her, and himself as well, that he was a man. As in human. Normally, Sam would have written him off as a psycho. Part of her was screaming it already, but he looked so wretched that he couldn’t be feeling anything but true emotions. And God help her, but her imagination was flying right out of that hole in the roof. “Are you an angel…Drakkon?” she asked breathlessly, using the name he had given her.