Corrupted Vows by Kiana Hettinger

Prologue

Caitriona

The fires of hell surrounded me.

With every breath, smoke assailed my nostrils while the heat of the flames scorched my lungs. Flames that were so close I could feel them creeping toward me like predators stalking their prey, surrounding me, taunting me, tapping at me with the tips of their fiery claws. Instead of growling, the flames crackled at me as they closed in.

I tried to scream, but my lungs revolted, spewing out a pathetic spasmic cough I could barely hear over the fire’s roar. I’d never imagined fire could be so loud.

“Help,” I cried; at least, I tried.

The spasms wouldn’t stop.

With every passing second, the smoke grew thicker, turning my breaths to wheezing gasps.

Move.

Run.

Get out!

My brain screamed instructions at me, but I couldn’t obey.

I couldn’t move.

My leg was trapped, pinned beneath a fallen cabinet.

I was going to die.

The realization shot through me like a lightning bolt.

I was going to be burned alive.

No!

It couldn’t end like this. Not like this.

I tried to yank my leg free, but it wouldn’t budge.

I dug my fingers into the carpet beneath me and pulled with all my might, but the heavy wood kept me pinned.

If I could wedge something beneath the cabinet, maybe I could pry it up enough to slide out.

I looked around, my eyes stinging from the smoke and heat. Tears poured down my cheeks, but it felt like they dried almost instantly.

Squinting, I tried to focus on the big oak desk three feet in front of me, but flames had already begun to climb up its legs. The chair behind it too, not that I had any hope of reaching it.

Turning my head the other way, the fire was even worse here. The wingback chairs in front of the window were engulfed in flames that licked their way up higher, climbing the curtains behind the chairs.

There was an old-fashioned fireplace beyond the chairs, and there, right in front of it was a long, sturdy fire iron, tipped casually against the hearth.

It stared back at me, laughing at me. Ten, twelve feet away? I had no hope of reaching it.

And then the fire iron disappeared. And the fireplace. And the roar of the fire.

I couldn’t see; I couldn’t hear; I couldn’t think.

The whole world became nothing but fire. Heat that felt like alcohol on open wounds.

The flames had crept closer, but I couldn’t tell where they’d struck me.

My leg? My hip? My back? I felt it everywhere. Blinding white-hot pain.

Screams ripped from my throat, warring with spasmic coughs as I tried frantically to free my leg from the cabinet’s crushing weight. But I couldn’t move.

Burned alive—that’s how I was going to die.

I tried to accept it, to stop fighting it, but the human body, it seemed, was not programmed to accept death gracefully. It fought. It screamed. It begged and pleaded. All while the fire burned through me like acid.

“Is anyone there?” a deep voice called out in Spanish. Not a voice I’d ever heard before in this wretched house.

There was nothing but flames.

“¡Madre de Dios!” the voice exclaimed.

It was close.

The weight trapping my leg disappeared.

The stranger picked me up, but the burning didn’t stop. The flames came with me as he carried me out of the fiery room into a foyer that looked no less like the bowels of hell. More fire; it was everywhere, climbing the walls, licking along the floors, and blocking the front door like Hades’ sentinels.

So bright, and yet it began to dim as darkness crept in along the edges of my vision. Darker. And darker.

“You’re going to be all right, señorita,” the voice said.

My eyes were closed. When had I closed my eyes? I forced them open.

We were outside. There were stars above me. Stars.

My lungs gasped as I forced my eyes open wider.

It had been two years since I’d seen the stars, since I’d breathed fresh air.

But no matter how hard I struggled against it, the darkness crept back in, pulling me down this time. So far down. Away from the stars, the burning house, the fire that felt like it had burned right to my bones.

If this was death, then maybe it wasn’t so bad.

Outside, beneath the stars, at least I would die free.

***

I opened my eyes, but they squeezed shut reflexively. It was so bright, the light hurt. Not like the light of the fire, though. That light was angry and hot. Here, it was warm and gentle.

I took a breath and then another. My lungs were clear, and the smell in the air was crisp and clean. No pungent smoke.

Forcing my eyes open to slits, a pale wood ceiling stared down at me.

I turned my head to the side and found sunlight spilling in through big French doors. From what I could see beyond them, it kind of looked like I’d woken up in paradise. Lush greenery, tropical flowers climbing trellises, an Olympic-size swimming pool, and a stone patio that seemed to wrap all the way around it.

Was I dead?

Probably not.

Since I didn’t believe in a god—not a benevolent one, at least—heaven seemed an unlikely destination for me.

I turned my head in the other direction, and my breath caught in my throat.

There was a man sitting back in a chair four feet from me.

My heart rate picked up, but his eyes were closed, and his chest rose and fell in the smooth, rhythmic cadence of sleep.

I let out the breath and looked over at the man I’d only seen through the hazy fog of smoke.

The strange man appeared to be in impeccable shape, but the ease with which he’d picked me up already told me that. He had dark hair, short on the sides and longish on top, and heavy stubble on a chiseled jaw. There was a scar that cut across his right eyebrow, but instead of detracting from his good looks, it only served to enhance them.

He'd rescued me, but why?

I’d learned enough in the past two years to be in no hurry to wake him—even better if I could escape before he awoke.

I tried to sit up, but pain sliced through my body, reigniting the banked flames.

I bit the inside of my lip to keep from crying out. Though the fire no longer danced on my skin, I could still feel it there and see it in my mind’s eye.

The fire. The fire that had nearly killed me, but I’d been in the shower, beneath the cold spray, washing away the grime that lived perpetually on my skin. And then… nothing. Nothing but flames, like I’d been transported there in an instant. Burning and screaming.

A strangled noise slipped from my lips, and the man’s eyes flew open.

Shit.

He was on his feet and at the side of my bed in a flash, the corners of his dark eyes creased with concern. Eyes so dark, I couldn’t call them brown; they were almost black. I could imagine them sparkling with malice, though, they weren’t doing that right now.

“What is it, señorita?” he asked, hovering over me. He spoke English well, but his deep voice was heavily accented.

“Where…?” My voice came out hoarse and every sound felt a bit like glass scraping up my throat. “Where… am I?” I tried again.

“You’re in my home. My doctors have been caring for you.”

“How… bad?” It hurt too much to move.

He sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair, looking at some spot beyond my shoulder.

“Please, tell me,” I whispered.

His gaze moved to meet mine, his lips pressed together for a long moment, then he nodded and cleared his throat. “The burns… they covered nearly fifty percent of your body. Mostly first- and second-degree burns. Any more, and my doctors tell me it could have been fatal.”

“Lucky… me,” I croaked.

His lips twitched in a half smile, and he reached out a hand to mine but stopped halfway there and withdrew.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I didn’t want to be touched.

“The other girls?” I asked, though the words tried to get stuck in my throat. I didn’t even know how many others had been in that house. Most of them, I’d never seen. I only knew them by the screams I’d heard through the walls. Screams that had filled the house day and night for two years.

During the fire, I’d heard none.

He shook his head.

A sob wracked my chest. I might not have known those girls, but I was them and they were me. I’d felt connected to them through their screams, so often mingled with my own.

Now, they were gone.

The silence had never seemed so deafening.

Every connection I’d had left severed all at once.

I felt like I was drifting out into nothingness, nothing to tether me, to keep me grounded to this life.

“I’m sorry, señorita.”

I tried not to cry.

I tried to swallow it back, force it down, bury it deep in the core of me, but silent tears slipped out.

I cried for girls I’d never met, for girls who’d burned to death. For girls who were more fortunate than me.

Their suffering was over; I was still here.

He didn’t move; he didn’t look away.

He stared back at me silently and let me cry, but it felt like his dark eyes were reaching out to me, trying to keep me from drifting away.

I don’t know if he succeeded or if my body simply ran out of tears, but eventually they subsided, leaving me spent. Exhausted.

“Can you tell me your name, señorita?”

No one had asked me that in a long time. The name I’d had didn’t fit anymore; it belonged to a different girl. I thought of the fire, the flames that should have destroyed me. Fiamma—that was the only other word I knew for fire or flames, but that name didn’t fit right either. I’d burned in those flames, and yet, here I was. “Phoenix.”

He smiled. “Rest, Phoenix. I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but it will get better. I promise you,” he said with so much conviction I almost believed him.

My eyelids grew heavy as he turned to leave, but I forced them to stay open for just a little longer.

This strange man walked into an inferno to rescue me, and I didn’t even know his name.

“Who are you?” I asked, finding it a struggle now to make my tired mouth form the words.

He turned back and stood up straighter. “My name is Nacio Morales, señorita.”

My heart sped up.

I’d heard that name before. Whispered in fear and in awe. This man was powerful. Well-connected.

Adrenaline pulsed through my veins as hope squeezed my chest so tight, I could barely breathe.

“Señor Morales, I need your help.”