Dominus Read online

  Dominus

  Terina Adams

  Copyright © 2020 by Terina Adams

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover by Melissa Stevens at The Illustrated Author Design Services

  Edits by Amy at Blue Otter

  Cedar

  Thanks for the courage to get this far

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Author’s Note

  Califax

  About the Author

  Author’s Note

  Lover of young adult science fiction and fantasy thrills and adventure?

  You’ve downloaded the right book.

  Fall into Sable’s tale but be careful you don’t fall too far or you may be left wondering where your world ends and her world begins.

  If you would like some ya sci-fic fantasy action in your inbox now, join my newsletter and receive three stories.

  Happy reading

  Chapter 1

  Ajay squeezed my hand tight, as tight as the day that murderer was taken from our home. Shame it wasn’t from our lives. I turned him to face me and ran a hand over his hair to straighten the curls like Mum had always done as the bus came into view, belching black smoke as it accelerated away from the last set of lights before our stop.

  “Do I have to?”

  Staring down into his brown eyes, I saw my father looking back at me. I turned away for a moment, eyes closed, a quick swallow, before turning back to him, lips pressed together. The lecture waned on me, no doubt on him too. I placed a finger to his mouth at the first sign of a quiver and bent to his height. “Six hours. That’s all. And I’ll be here when you get off.”

  “But I don’t have any friends.”

  “It’s been two months. Friends worth having take time to build.”

  “They’re all mean.”

  “Have you given them a chance?”

  He dropped his eyes to the paving, but I returned them to me with a finger under his chin. “I want you to do something for me today.”

  Ajay’s moody face appeared, an expression of sullen resignation. “What?”

  “Ask one boy a question about himself today. About his favorite TV show, favorite sport, favorite movie star, favorite pet, favor—”

  “I get the picture.”

  The falsity in my smile hurt. “I bet you haven’t thought of doing that yet.” I gave him a playful jab in the stomach.

  He swiped my finger away. The smile now hurt my cheeks.

  The bus squealed to a halt with a jolt. The doors jerked open, cutting off my chance to say yet more hollow reassurances. A good thing as they hurt me to say them as much as they closed one door in Ajay’s heart.

  I straightened, my hands on Ajay’s shoulders. “I’ll be right here when you get off.” I bent again to whisper in his ear. “I might even have a surprise for you.”

  He slouched out of my hands and up the steps to the bus without looking back. If only I could say something different, something that would earn me his smile. As usual he took a seat on my side of the bus, where he stared down at me with dead eyes as I waved him away. The routine was the same, his expression unchanged for the last two months, mine neither.

  I inhaled, then held my breath against the black smoke belching from the bus’s exhaust as it joined the rest of the rush-hour traffic.

  Every morning, five days a week, I was the bad guy. For two months, I’d tried to make up for it by being the cheerful welcoming committee of one at the end of the day. Hard to do when the cheer was far from touching my heart. The hours in between, I’d gone from schoolgirl to thief. Ajay didn’t know this. Mum didn’t know this. I kept my lie, kept pretending, kept smiling, but only when I was around my family—what was left of it.

  Adults were wrong; passing time did not heal.

  With a break in the traffic, I crossed Northcote Street, heading for a small convenience store two blocks down. My air became the churn of cheap perfume, cologne, tobacco, and leather as I dodged and ducked through the steady stream of oncoming pedestrians.

  Weaving around one young guy in torn denims, I collided with a heavyset man wearing a white shirt, white until his coffee decorated it brown across his chest. The stain spread like blood would seeping from a gunshot to the heart. I dodged around him and kept going, closing my ears to his abuse.

  At the store, I turned my back, facing out onto the road, and stared at nothing while my pulse racketed up a notch. One week ago, I’d stood in front of the open doors of my bus while I fought an internal war. Four months and I would’ve graduated from high school. Then what? I couldn’t go to college without money. Getting a job was my only option, which meant there was no point in going to school, not when we struggled to survive, not when the rent was due, the gas bill went unpaid, and most days I couldn’t find enough for Ajay’s lunch.

  I exhaled as I turned to face the store, peering through the glass to the young guy behind the checkout, head buried in a magazine, leaving the bush of his hair spiking over the top.

  My arced adrenaline made my stomach churn. Before I pushed through the door into the shop, I spied my reflection. The girl staring back looked only marginally familiar. The difference was in her eyes and the angular jut of her cheekbones. She looked older, harder, weaker. But the biggest change was inside. One day I was someone; the next I was someone else, someone I didn’t want to be.

  The magazine stayed in place when I entered, while his head bobbed to a silent beat. Earphones and magazine, it couldn’t be more perfect. My eyes flicked to the mirror at the end of the first aisle, raised high enough to scan over the top of this one and into the next, possibly the next after that. Ignoring the cleaning products, matches, candles, foiled barbecue trays and tongs, I hurried to the end of the aisle on whisper-quick feet, fighting against my adrenaline, which wanted me to run.

  At the back of the shop, I paused behind the shelving separating the two aisles and forced in two breaths. I had to be smart, rein in the jitters.

  I picked up a can of beans on special, staring at the label, surreptitiously casting a few fleeting glances to the front of the shop. From this angle, the guy was out of sight. A quick glance behind me at the mirror and I saw the small speck of him right up the back—I should say front—of the shop.

  Beans would be useful, but at this price, they were something I could afford to buy. I skipped the next few aisles until I found one useful.

  Only a handful of items I took at each trip, anything that ate into our grocery budget too much. And I visited the shops
once. Only items small enough to fit into my lunchbox I slipped straight from the shelf into my backpack.

  Up the next aisle, I slid my backpack from my shoulder. The silence in the convenience store increased the decibels of my zipper as I inched it open and rested it between my feet. I swiped a tube of toothpaste and hid it away in my empty lunchbox. The bristles on Ajay’s toothbrush were horizontal, so I grabbed one of those as well, sparing no time to decide if he should have sensitive, medium, or hard bristled. Lid closed, I returned the lunchbox to my backpack. Batteries were next, in case we delayed payment on our electrical bill.

  I craned over the aisle to the checkout, but the kid with the spiked hair remained buried behind his magazine. Hold out, luck. I ran the sweat from my palm down my denims, then swapped hands and did the same with the other.

  At the back of the shop, I moved a few aisles farther along, hunting for the batteries, and found the shelving for the chocolate instead. This would put a smile on Ajay’s face. Chocolate-coated licorice was his favorite, had been since the day Dad returned from a business trip with a tin full of it. I’d loved it too until the memories made me feel sick whenever I smelt it.

  I knelt to take my lunchbox out again. All I saw was the smile on Ajay’s face as I chose the longest one on the shelf. His eyes would pop. Those cute dimpled smiles of his were long gone, two months on, and I’d forgotten how much they warmed my heart. But the damn thing wouldn’t fit in my lunchbox. That one would have to go down to the bottom of my bag under my sweater.

  “I would’ve gone for the Hershey.”

  I jerked, dropping my lunchbox, which clattered across the smooth floor and under the chocolate aisle, spilling the toothpaste and brush.

  Eating my heart, I looked over my shoulder to a young guy dressed in black, but not the spiked-haired kid from behind the checkout. Black from neck to toe, even his hair, which was a mess of shaggy loose curls. The dark shadowing around his jawline made him look older than his smooth skin implied. He reclined on the opposite shelves, elbows resting back on stacks of savory crackers.

  I gave a stupid little half laugh, which revealed my nerves more than anything, then turned back to the toothpaste and brush.

  “Do you often take your toothbrush to school?”

  I closed my eyes. Go away. “It’s a spare.” I heard my nerves in my voice.

  I scooped both the toothpaste and brush and shoved them to the bottom of my backpack, then retrieved my lunchbox. The lid wouldn’t fit on, the snap locks refusing to close. It took a few tries and my heart crawling up my throat to snap them closed.

  All packed, I straightened.

  “You going to get your chocolate bar?”

  It lay between us on the floor, between my trainers and his thick-soled boots. I bent to pick it up and returned it to the shelf.

  “Changed your mind?”

  From here his eyes looked black, blending with his black lashes and olive skin. My heart banged to get out of my chest, and my legs itched to be gone. Even so, I couldn’t help think him good-looking, like dark, smoldering good-looking, but the flat stare of his eyes, the hard line of his mouth, the heavy vibe that emanated from him, and I wanted to back away. There was nothing in his demeanor or expression that made him appear welcoming.

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t look like you need to steal, but I guess your clothes may have been lifted too.”

  My organs fell through my body to the floor. It was as though my feet were stapled there as well. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  The back of my neck prickled from his blunt stare. Eyes like bores, they tunneled through into the core of my lie, my shame. The heat rushed up my throat. Asshole, go away. Goading me like this. If he wanted to turn me in, he should do it now. Get it over with rather than taunt me. Christ, I hope he doesn’t.

  “I gotta go.”

  I made to move past him. He pushed off from the shelving, a cat ready to pounce. The swift grace of his sudden movement and I backed up, my heart like a jackhammer as he squared on to me, placing himself in the middle of the aisle.

  “You sick of our conversation already?” There was a faint sneer to his question, matched by the hardness tensing the corners of his eyes and around his lips.

  “I wasn’t aware we were having a conversation. Not really. Not a proper conversation.” And that didn’t sound casual at all, not when I practically swallowed my last sentence.

  “Didn’t your dad teach you any manners?”

  Oh, god. “Can you just let me go?” I had to sound stronger than this. No ninny voice, no slight quiver at the end. I clenched my fists. “I have to get to school.”

  He smiled, no…sneered, dropped his head, and looked at the floor. Released from those viper black eyes, I heaved a silent shuddering breath.

  He inched his head up, eyes finding mine through another of his piercing-dart stares. “That started twenty minutes ago.”

  “And I’m getting later by the minute.”

  Slinging one strap of my backpack over my shoulder, I walked toward him, angling for the small gap between him and the chocolates, but he sidestepped to block my path.

  I pulled up. “What do you want?” This time, with another sudden spike in my adrenaline, I found the anger I needed.

  “I want to know how cunning you are.”

  Jesus. This guy was a loon, a creepy loon.

  “Why would you want to know that?” My hand found my hip.

  “Can you be trusted? Are you loyal? Willing to do what it takes regardless of what it means to you?”

  I opened my mouth but slammed it closed again. Don’t make conversation with unstable people, especially unstable people who look like they know how to wield a knife. “Get out of my way, please. I’m late already.”

  He nodded, pretending to assess what I’d said when really he was enjoying himself. “Jax.”

  I gave him a blank stare, blank because my mind was blank. Was that his name? He bothered to give me his name? Not good. People gave names when they excepted to meet someone again.

  You’re not getting mine, asshole.

  “You need to know it.” That sounded semi-permanent, as in let’s hang out.

  I swallowed. “My parents will receive a call from the school if I’m late. I’ll get in big trouble.”

  Parents. The word had come out so easily. I swallowed my correction.

  Clean clothes, no holes, he wasn’t a street kid. His black tee shirt looked good quality and the gold ring on his pointer finger would have cost a few hundred. Could be a drug dealer, then he’d be rich, if he was any good. There would be a knife tucked down the back of his black denims, or a gun. The idea of either and the sudden tingle that swooped through my body paralyzed my limbs.

  “Parents? You look like a single-parent home to me.”

  “You look like a no-parent home to me.”

  The creepy twitch at the corner of his mouth, threatening a smirk, slid away like an avalanche, leaving a dark coldness behind, so cold, so dark I involuntarily backed up a step.

  “Is that so?” Calm, quiet, sharp as a knife.

  I shook my head. “No, not really, I was just saying stuff.”

  His eyes said he was capable of anything. It was possible to feel the rage of someone else. It was a living emotion, suffocating in its tangible nature. Seen through the eyes of a stranger, and it became the flash-fast fist, the slice of a blade, the sudden pulled gun, the end of my life.

  I flicked my gaze away from the stab of his eyes, which were nothing now but the steal of a knife, down to the floor, but they were arrested halfway by the black tattoo on the inside of his forearm. A vast labyrinth of thick black marks with no apparent design. What happened to skulls or girlfriend’s name? Who’d decorate their arm with such an ugly tattoo?

  He turned his forearm inward, hiding it away. I snapped my eyes up to his.

  “You like?” He said.

  Despite my nerves, I’d thought him good-looking, but the smirk ruine
d everything. The guy was an arrogant ass who liked to scare people. Mystery as an allure worked as long as the person was actually nice. This guy was the opposite. “It’s ugly.”

  “It’s not decoration.”

  It was a gang thing. It had to be a gang thing. Get out now.

  No way was he letting me pass him, so I spun and fled toward the back of the shop, rounded the shelving and up the next aisle, squeaking my trainers on the smooth floor as I went. God, so stupid, hardly an escape routine, but what could I do?

  At the end, I found Jax leaning one elbow against the counter. The fuzzy-haired kid had dropped his magazine and was eyeing Jax, then me. Jax was back to that cruel smirk.

  My mouth twitched a small smile at the kid as I strode past the counter, practically wetting myself.

  “You might want to check her bag.” That drawl, that arrogant voice, sliding out like silken thread.

  I froze, spun, faced his horrible sneer. The cruel smile was in his eyes, black insanity, the devil’s henchman. “Leave me alone.”

  This time my gaze was stolen by the tattoo just below and behind his right ear, but my eyes soon snapped to his with no time to work out what it was.

  I promised Ajay a surprise, the promise the only thing that would get him through the day. This guy was making me break my promise, so now it was my turn to share the venom. We locked weapons, our eyes, in silent threat, and I swallowed the lump in my throat. Fear is powerful, anger just as big. The two together…