A Girl in Black and White (Alyria Book 2) Read online

  A Girl in Black and White

  Copyright 2017 Danielle Lori

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written consent of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes only.

  This a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously and are a product of the author’s imagination.

  Cover Model: Clarissa Adams

  Cover Photographer: Nicole’s Picwork

  Cover Designer: Okay Creations

  Interior Formatting: Champagne Book Design

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  PLAYLIST

  EPIGRAPH

  PROLOGUE: MY BLOODY FAIRY-TALE

  ONE: SYMBIA

  TWO: BROTHELS AREN’T ONLY FOR WHORES

  THREE: GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS

  FOUR: LOVE ME RELUCTANTLY, TITAN

  FIVE: FAKE SLAVERS AND, UNFORTUNATELY, REAL PRINCES

  SIX: UNTOUCHABLE THAT

  SEVEN: PATRICIDE, IT’S IN

  EIGHT: BUTTERFLIES

  NINE: THE POX & PARADE

  TEN: IF YOU HAVE A SOUL TO SELL

  ELEVEN: NAME’S CALAMITY

  TWELVE: TAKE ME FOR A SWIM, I WON’T DROWN THIS TIME

  THIRTEEN: THE TASTE OF REVENGE

  FOURTEEN: MEET THE FAMILY

  FIFTEEN: PLAYING FOR KEEPS

  SIXTEEN: CLOCKS & MADNESS

  SEVENTEEN: VILLIANS

  EIGHTEEN: ONE WORD

  NINETEEN: MOTHER’S ADVICE

  TWENTY: ANXIOUS VIRGINS

  TWENTY-ONE: FUCK—WESTON

  TWENTY-TWO: NOT EXACTLY CUDDLING

  TWENTY-THREE: SMOKE & CONVERSATION—WESTON

  TWENTY-FOUR: TORTURE, LITERALLY

  TWENTY-FIVE: DOING PRINCESSES

  TWENTY-SIX: SHADOWED LOCKS

  TWENTY-SEVEN: TICK, TOCK

  TWENTY-EIGHT: THE BITTERNESS OF CLOSURE

  TWENTY-NINE: HAUNT ME IN BLACK AND WHITE

  THIRTY: THE CONSEQUENCES OF NUMBER 13

  THIRTY-ONE: MAKE ME A FOOL

  THIRTY-TWO: TAKE MY THOUGHTS AWAY

  THIRTY-THREE: ONE DARK-EYED WOMAN—WESTON

  THIRTY-FOUR: COLOR ME IN BLACK AND WHITE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CONNECT WITH ME

  For the most supportive husband in the world.

  Without music, I can guarantee you this book would have never been written. I’m notorious for playing one song on repeat for an entire day. Yes, you heard that right. It drives my husband just a tad bit insane. Anyway, these are the songs that inspired me throughout writing this novel.

  Listen here

  Angus & Julia Stone – Big Jet Plane

  Hozier – Arsonist’s Lullaby

  Florence + The Machine – Seven Devils

  Vallis Alps – Young

  Glass Animals – Black Mambo

  Amber Run – Fickle Game

  Billie Eilish – Ocean Eyes

  Jai Wolf – Indian Summer

  Elliott Moss – Without the Lights

  Calum Scott – Dancing on My Own

  Half Moon Run – Need It

  Daughter – Medicine

  Fever Ray – If I Had a Heart

  Låpsley – Hurt Me

  Banks – Waiting Game

  X Ambassadors – Gorgeous

  “Once upon a time there was a girl—”

  “Oh!” The little girl dropped the bucket; water sloshed out the sides and onto the wooden floorboards. “Was she the fairest in the land?”

  Her grandmother wiped her bloody hands on a rag, glancing at the man on the table. He hadn’t made it—a simple bar fight and one life lost. She’d humor the girl with a story; it was the first death she’d seen, after all.

  “You could say she was fair,” Isadora replied.

  Her granddaughter shot her a frown. “Not the fairest?”

  “Not every story gets the fairest maiden in the land,” Isadora replied. She needed to weave a lesson into this story. Her granddaughter could surely use it—she lived in a fairy-tale.

  The girl pursed her lips but pressed a cloth to the wound on the man’s chest still seeping red onto the table. “Go on then, Grandmother.”

  “But she was beautiful: blond hair, smooth porcelain skin, and dark eyes.”

  The little girl’s brows lowered in suspicion at the description of her own features. “Grandmother—”

  “Oh, hush. This is my story, not yours.”

  Her granddaughter frowned again, but kept her mouth shut, rinsing the bloody rag in the bucket.

  “She was a simple girl, living a simple life. Doing chores around the farm—”

  “Oh, Grandmother.” She drew out the word. “Surely you jest. No magnificent tale starts this way.”

  “How do you know? You’re only six, after all.”

  “I know more than you think,” she grumbled.

  Isadora continued. “She lived a simple life for quite some time . . . until she realized she wasn’t a normal girl.”

  Her granddaughter’s eyes widened, now interested in the story.

  “No, she wasn’t normal at all. She had . . . magic.”

  “Really? Could she read people’s minds?”

  Isadora shook her head. “No . . . she could open the seal, and release magic to all the land.”

  The girl got an itch on her cheek with the back of her hand. “But, how did she have magic if it was locked up?”

  “Well, some people were born with magic, and some were not. If the magic were unlocked, then everyone would have it.”

  “What’s so bad about that? It sounds like fun to me.”

  “It made many human men insane,” Isadora said simply.

  The girl’s brows knitted. “How so? Did they go pillaging and raping?”

  Isadora blinked. “Where did you hear about that?”

  “Johnny and Castor were talking about how Titans go pillaging and raping.”

  Isadora sighed. Six. Six years old going on twenty. She’d have to drag out the etiquette books soon. “You’re not to play with those boys anymore. They’re getting too old for you anyway.”

  The girl’s eyes shot up from her work. “But, Grandmother, they are the only ones to play with. Otherwise, I have to cross the stream to get to Sarah’s, and you’re always complaining when I come home wet. Besides they’re only a few years older.”

  “You’re a lady. You don’t need to be consorting with those Briar boys.”

  The little girl snorted at the word ‘lady,’ but Isadora went on, ignoring the crass sound—she’d take one battle at a time. “The girl had to wear these . . . cuffs—” Her granddaughter frowned as she looked down at her own silver cuffs, “—to hide where she was. Otherwise, anyone would know how to find her. Well, one day, one fell off.”

  The girl eyed her grandmother skeptically. She had the power to make one feel silly beyond disbelief with that gaze, yet she was only a child. “And one just fell off? Just . . . plop . . . on the ground?”

  “Why is that so unbelievable?”

  The girl pursed her lips as if she was disappointed in this story. “Mine have never fallen off.”

  Isadora sighed, regretting that she agreed to tell this tale. “Fine . . . someone stole it.”

  “Who?”

  Her granddaughter’s expression was still dissatisfied, so Isadora thought, why the hell not? “Well her mother, of course.”

  The girl’s mouth dropped open. “Her mother?”

  Isadora nodded. “The girl had to go on the run because now everyone knew where
she was. So, she took off on her own, and tried to find an escort to get her somewhere safe.”

  “A prince!”

  “No, not a prince, just an escort.”

  The girl frowned, dunking her rag in the bucket. “Grandmother, Old Man Briar has told a better tale than this.”

  Isadora rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she huffed. “He was . . . an assassin.”

  The girl looked up in awe, and Isadora wondered if she had a grandson instead of a granddaughter—but she was as stubborn as a girl, that was for sure.

  “Did he carry a sword to chop off heads?”

  “No, he only had knives. He was a skilled knife thrower, you see,” and because Isadora was beginning to think her story really was worse than Old Man Briar’s, she added, “the best in the land.”

  “Did he kill lots of people?”

  Isadora didn’t know how far she should take this, but there was a dead man on the table—the child wouldn’t be sheltered from death. “Well, he was an assassin,” she said simply.

  “Did he kill men to save the princess?”

  Isadora sighed. “She wasn’t a princess; she was a farm girl.”

  The little girl pouted. “But, Grandmother—”

  She huffed, acquiescing or she’d never get through this story. “Fine. She was a princess, she just didn’t know it.”

  Her granddaughter nodded, pleased. “This is a great story!”

  “Yea, yea,” Isadora grumbled. “That’s because you’re twisting it how you like.”

  The girl shrugged. “I’m only making it better. So what next? She doesn’t kiss the assassin, does she? Princesses are only supposed to kiss princes,” she said matter-of-factly.

  Because Isadora was tired of her granddaughter bending the story how she wanted it, she said, “Yes, she does kiss him.”

  The girl scrunched her nose. “Gross.”

  Isadora was pleased with her granddaughter’s reaction; she hoped it would always stay that way.

  “Do you mean I should go kiss assassins, Grandmother? Because I know you like to put your little lessons in these stories.”

  Isadora blinked, wondering how the girl was only six. “No—”

  “That’s how it sounded to me. After all, the princess kisses an assassin. And every girl looks up to princesses.”

  Isadora let out a little noise of frustration. “Okay, he wasn’t an assassin; he was a prince. He was only pretending to be an assassin.”

  “Oh! I bet the princess was happy when she found out.”

  “She didn’t find out.”

  Her granddaughter frowned. “Why didn’t he tell her?”

  “Because he wasn’t a good prince, but a bad one.”

  The girl’s eyes widened. “There’s no such thing.”

  See, this was a lesson needed . . . “There is no black and white in human nature. Just because a man is a prince doesn’t make him a good man.”

  “How do you know? You’ve never met one.”

  “Yes, I have.” When it looked like her granddaughter was going to cut her off again, she hurried to say, “but that’s a story for another day.”

  The girl sighed. “That sounds like a better tale than this one. But do go on, Grandmother.”

  Isadora wasn’t sure she wanted to continue, but they had some time to kill until the man’s family came to retrieve him. “He was a bad prince, and he wanted the princess to free the magic.”

  The girl’s mouth dropped open. “What an awful prince! Or maybe he didn’t know there would be pillaging and raping?”

  Isadora couldn’t help the little laugh. “Oh, he knew.”

  “Then why would she kiss him?”

  Isadora sighed. She was beginning to forget the details of this story. So she shrugged and said, “You can’t help who you love.”

  The girl scoffed. “I bet the princess didn’t love him. How could she love an evil prince? I bet she just wanted to try kissing, like Alysia. She kisses boys she doesn’t love.”

  Isadora’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know about that?”

  Her granddaughter shrugged. “Alysia kisses lots of boys—I’ve seen her. She says it’s fun.” The girl scrunched her nose. “I don’t know why. It looks gross.”

  “Who has she been kissing?”

  “I’m not a tattle-tale. You’ll go and tell her mother, and then Alysia will tell Sarah not to play with me after mass no more. And little sisters listen to big sisters; at least that’s what Alysia told me when I threatened to tell on her for kissing Tai—” The girl clamped a hand over her mouth.

  Isadora chuckled. The town was small enough she knew Tailor was who her friend’s daughter had been fooling around with. He was a charming young man, she’d admit; the favored in the town. But he was a little too charming, and Isadora had no problem interfering if it saved Alysia from being ruined. “Ladies don’t kiss boys until they are married to one,” she said finally.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll never kiss a boy; it’s disgusting. Now forget about kissy Alysia and tell me more.”

  Isadora let out a breath. “Well, the princess and her escort went on a journey, and then one day, she finally discovered he wasn’t a good prince.”

  “What did she do? Did she kill him?”

  Isadora pursed her lips. “She didn’t want to, but she stabbed him.”

  The girl’s eyes widened. “In the heart?”

  “No. In the gut.”

  “Why? Did she find out he wanted to free the magic?”

  Isadora was tired of her granddaughter taking over the story. Maybe it was a little petty, but she was the one telling this tale. “No . . . she found out he wasn’t human.”

  Her granddaughter eyed her warily. “Grandmother, your story is getting a little far-fetched.”

  Isadora smiled. “It’s what happened, and if you don’t want to hear it, then you don’t have to.”

  “I want to.”

  Isadora continued, “She found out he wasn’t human—”

  “How? Did horns sprout out of his head?”

  “No . . . he, ugh, had sharp teeth.”

  Her granddaughter’s eyes widened. “Like fangs?”

  Isadora shrugged. “Sort of.”

  “What do you mean ‘sort of,’ Grandmother? You cannot ‘sort of’ have fangs. Either you do, or you don’t.”

  Isadora sighed. “I didn’t take you for a fang extraordinaire.”

  “What’s an extraordinaire?”

  “Someone who knows a lot about something.”

  “Oh. What was he, if not human?”

  Isadora smiled. “It’s a secret.”

  Her granddaughter groaned. “Tell me!”

  “You need to be patient. Maybe if you are good and don’t fall asleep in mass tomorrow, I’ll tell you.”

  The girl pressed her lips together. “It isn’t my fault that Father Mathews’ voice puts me to sleep, Grandmother. I’m not much older than a babe, anyway. And they’re allowed to sleep in the chapel.”

  Isadora laughed. Her granddaughter was younger or older, whichever served her purpose.

  The girl tilted her head in thought. “Did he die when she stabbed him?”

  “No . . . it only made him angry.”

  “Like poking a bear with a stick?” the girl questioned.

  “Exactly,” Isadora replied. “The girl escaped the prince and went out on her own—”

  “And he caught her! And threw her in his dungeon!”

  “Well, no. He didn’t have a dungeon.”

  Her granddaughter’s brows knitted. “Every prince has a dungeon.”

  Isadora thought she’d need some wine to get through the rest of the story. “Fine, he had one, but he wasn’t near it. So, he only held her captive on his journey.”

  “And when does she kiss him again?” the girl asked, disbelieving.

  “I’m getting to it.”

  Her granddaughter sighed, put out. “Does he tie her up and make her walk behind his horse? Does she fall and get
dragged?”

  Isadora wasn’t sure where the little girl got her imagination—it hadn’t been from her. “No, he wasn’t that evil. She rode on the horse with him.”

  “But he’s supposed to be a bad villain!”

  Isadora raised a brow. “You’d rather he tie her up?”

  “Well, yes, otherwise she’s just following the evil prince around. She sounds silly.”

  Isadora frowned; it did sound a little silly. “Well, he had a very . . . good sense of smell, you see. He could find her anywhere she went, so she had no choice but to follow him.”

  “Like a wolf!”

  “Like a wolf.”

  “That’s why he has sharp teeth, he’s a wolf.”

  Isadora shook her head. “No, he’s not.”

  “I don’t know. I think he is and you are only trying to bring suspense to the story.”

  Isadora sighed, her granddaughter was a handful, but at the least there wasn’t a boring day in their small cottage. “He isn’t a wolf,” she said finally, staying firm. Her granddaughter could persuade Old Man Briar he was young again.

  “Okay,” the girl replied, drawing the word out. “So, what happened then?”

  “Well.” Isadora pursed her lips. “She kissed him and lived happily ever after?”

  The girl frowned. “She married the evil prince?”

  Isadora shrugged. “The prince went to the chapel, repented his sins, and became a good prince. Then the princess and prince married, kissed chastely on the lips, had two children, and lived long healthy lives.”

  The girl looked down at the wooden floorboards as silence rushed into the small cottage. The only sounds were the echo of soft splats as the man’s blood dripped off the table and onto the floor. The little girl bit her lip, tilting her head. “But, Grandmother, that’s not how it went at all.”

  Isadora sighed. “I told you that you couldn’t twist the story how you wanted.”

  “But I’m not. That’s not how it went.”

  Isadora put a hand on her hip. “Then how did it go?”

  “You’re right,” the girl whispered.

  Isadora watched hesitantly as her granddaughter caught the drops of blood dripping off the table in her little hand. “How so?” she managed to ask, the hair on the back of her neck raising.

  “The princess does kiss the prince,” the little girl said, looking down in her cupped hand.