Page 18 of Summoned
I yank it off, as if I’m peeling away flesh, not fabric. Only when the damn thing drops to the floor does my breathing ease.
No wonder that bastard thought I was easy prey. I must’ve looked like a caricature, leaping through a cave in a costume made for someone else’s amusement. Chasing voices.
I’m no one’s prey.
And I don’t bow to anyone—especially not to shadows.
5
Gaetano
My silhouette blends with the night just before I teleport back to my castle. The rugged stone walls greet me with their familiar sense of hopelessness, always reminding me that I’m their prisoner, not their master. The fire flickers with a slow rhythm, casting shifting patterns across the towering bookshelf.
I sink into the worn-out sofa while myharvestssurround me. They’re the creeping shadows along the walls, the colorless silhouettes in the corners, the ghosts haunting every room of this palace.
Two hundred and eighty-nine souls collected by my hand.
Soon, there will be another one. Harvest 290 is a polished porcelain doll, coated with Mommy and Daddy’s money. Disappointment will break her proud little shoulders when she witnesses her parents’ influence crack the second it faces off against mine.
Her face flashes unbidden in my mind. Soft features, a slightly pointed chin, and a sharpness in her expression that seems to declare,“I’ll fight until you break.”
From the moment I identified her as the next harvest, something about her grated. That smug demeanor, the entitled certainty that the world owes her, and the audacity to try and command me with such unfounded confidence. In another life, that kind of challenge might have sparked the thrill of the hunt. But now, all I want is to cross her off the list.
My fingers tap against the back of the sofa. Every encounter with the outside world pulls taut the strings insideme, leaving a restless tension that lingers long afterward.
I stand and reach for the wine decanter on the small table next to the library, pouring some into a glass. When I take a sip, its aroma fills my senses, anchoring me in the present.
The firelight flickers along the wall, and the dance of light and shadow bathes everything in a blood-red hue. My gaze locks onto the color that reminds me of my latest harvest’s hair. Copper-toned, though darker than flame, with hints of brown that suggest burning. I remember her lips in an arrogant pout, and the dark magic within me stirs.
It isn’t in my nature to claim someone without making them bleed a little for it first. I’ve always been a joker. Long before the curse. Long before I became a leader of shadows… Games have always been my art. That small trick with the voices was just a warm-up. How things unfold from here depends on my mood over the next few weeks.
I could take her fast. I could take her slow.
After all, what kind of game would it be without a dash of dread? I enjoy the anticipation. Watching the realization sink into them, drop by drop, until they understand that my arrival isn’t a nightmare they can wake from. That there’s no escape, no loophole. The game ends when the contract is fulfilled.
Otherwise, we both lose.
ButInever lose. The harvestsdrifting around me are proof of that. They’re gray echoes of their former selves, shadows without substance or voice, stripped of all emotion save one: despair.
They’re an audience I can never make laugh. But also a guilty conscience that never quite reaches me. That was Madeline’s intent when she cursed me. The witch wanted to prove that mercy doesn’t suit me. Oh, how deluded she was.
Once again, my thoughts drift to Harvest 290, and how her panic seemed more like fuel than fear. How she darted through the cave chasing her voice, that ridiculous bunny tail bouncing behind her, driven by a resolve I hadn’t expected from someone like her.
My grip tightens around the base of the glass, and the dark magic hums through my veins. Its waves surge through me, stoking that ever-familiar hunger for control.
It’s either me or them.
With each completed contract, I loosen the curse’s grip on me. Harvest by harvest. Until I take three hundred souls.
I perform this charade for one reason alone: when I reclaim my freedom, I’ll make Madeline pay for every one of the four hundred and fifty years I’ve spent shackled to her curse. And I’ll finish what I began just before she locked me away.
Until then, I remain attuned to the dark, always listening. For the innocents who call out to me from the world beyond these walls. For the unsuspecting souls, unraveling the threads of their own fate. For the harvests ripening, ready to be claimed upon their twenty-first birthday.
6
Gaetano
Day 3
