Things Get Dark

Chapter Three

The door closed with a thud that echoed through the pitch-black room. A jingle of keys and a click followed as Nox locked the door behind us, and I pulled my cloak tighter around my shoulders. Somehow, I felt chillier standing inside the manor than sitting outdoors. As my eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness, Nox clicked a switch, and lanterns lit the large foyer in a dim glow. Not exactly historically accurate, but useful, nonetheless.

“I need to keep them darker than usual, so we’re not spotted from outside,”

Nox muttered, dimming the lights with a remote until I could only make out vague shapes around me.

What a shame. It would’ve been cool to look around at the manor—it sure would’ve made Andy jealous—but I supposed that’s what the daylight tours were for.

“At least I might not bump into a table now.”

He pocketed the remote along with the keys. “True. You just need to worry about things bumping into you.”

I could practically hear his mischievous grin. It was easy to see why he’d been painted like a harlequin. He was smart, but in the short time I’d known him, Nox seemed to truly come alive when causing chaos. He’d moved around outside with a nimble, yet elegant freedom, swerving his body between people with a single-minded focus on where he wanted to be. Ready to deliver a dose of playful terror to anyone in range. I wasn’t sure if I admired him exactly, but I was certainly fascinated by him.

Glancing back at the door, I asked, “Are you sure this is okay? I’m not going to get you in trouble with your boss or anything?”

He chuckled, a low sound that made my knees weak. “Believe me, the only one in trouble here is you.”

My heart pounded at his words. Here I was, in a supposedly haunted manor with a strange man I’d just met, ready to have his friends jump out and scare me. My sister knew where I was, but thought I was still on a date and wouldn’t be calling any time soon, and no one would be coming back to the manor until morning. I had enough red flags for a parade.

As if he sensed my trepidation, Nox sidled up to me and tilted my chin up to meet his gaze. “Listen closely. If you want out at any time, just tell me, and I’ll get you out. No questions asked.”

I searched his face for any hint as to if he was lying. It was difficult to see past the paint. “You swear?”

“On my soul, if I had one.”

He winked as he ran his thumb over my lower lip. “Tell me, have you ever had a safe word before?”

I nodded, and his wicked grin widened.

“Perfect. Let’s use ‘pumpkin’. If you say that, everything stops immediately, and I’ll get you out safe and sound. Got it?”

“Do your friends know, too?”

Nox pulled away, grabbing his phone and quickly tip-tapping on the screen. It lit up his painted face, and I couldn’t help but stare at his eyes. They were so dark, like pools of pure shadow. I couldn’t see any difference between the iris and the pupil, both were completely black. Maybe he wore contacts, but somehow, his eyes felt like the only real part of his face.

“Okay, they know what to do.”

He tucked the phone away and turned his attention back to me. “Now say it, so I know you understand. My friends and I want to hear your words as much as we want your screams.”

I almost wanted to ask what kinds of screams he was after. The way he stared at me, asking for a safe word of all things, made my mind wander to steamier places than this icy manor currently offered. I’d come out tonight to be fucking scared, but I was willing to settle for scared and fucked.

“Pumpkin.”

“Good girl. Shall we?”

He offered his arm, a surprisingly gentlemanly move, and I took it. The heat of his skin through his shirt immediately warmed my hand and energised me. I’d always wanted to attend a Halloween tour here, and now I get a private one? Fuck, yes. Let’s get spooky.

Nox led me through the foyer and up a grand staircase, the wood warped from centuries of footsteps. Ornate frames lined the walls, the gold glinting in the light even though I couldn’t see the paintings they framed. As he took me down the hallway and up a smaller set of stairs curving around a corner, I kept anticipating a jump scare of some kind. We wandered past abandoned scare-rooms from the tour, lined with black and orange fabrics and filled with smoke machines. I think I saw a room decorated as a laboratory with lightning rods, but we weren’t here for those cheap thrills.

Eventually, we reached an attic room that Nox had to use his keys to unlock. Was this usually closed off to the public? The thrill of going somewhere I shouldn’t quickly dissipated as I entered the room. There were no lanterns here. The only light came from a huge circular window at the back of the room that glowed from the festival below. The air was warm and thick with dust, but the walls seemed to shine with something stringy when the light hit them. How long had this room been closed off for? I turned to Nox, ready to ask what we were doing here, when I saw him looking up at the high point of the ceiling.

“Levi!”

he called. “Come down here. I want you to meet Hazel.”

Tiny tip-tapping noises sounded from above, then all around. They began quietly, then grew in volume. Movement in my periphery made me turn and curiously approach the corner of the room. Reaching out with a gentle finger, I lightly touched one of the strings covering the walls. It was thinner than I expected, more like a thread. It stuck to my fingertip, and I pulled away before I could get any more of it on me. Strange. It didn’t leave any residue on my skin.

The noises around me steadily grew louder, more insistent, and a large spider scuttled across the wall in front of me. Holy crap, was that the noise? Hundreds, maybe thousands of spiders?

Footsteps behind me made me jump. I spun on the spot, and my hand smacked against the wall. My palm instantly stuck to the threads. Wriggling furiously, I twisted my arm as I pulled. The sticky bindings held fast and wrapped my hand firmly in the threads. Damn it!

The footsteps drew close, and my head shot up. A young, pale man with dark hair approached me slowly. His bare feet tapped against the floorboards, and that’s when I noticed his clothes. Though they were threadbare in places, and especially rough at the edges of the low neckline and sleeves, they shone like silk. Almost like he wore threads of moonlight draped over his lithe body.

“Seems a little fly is caught in my web…”

Levi mused, his head tilted as he eyed me curiously. His voice was deep, rumbling low enough to make my knees weak.

He watched me with dark, unblinking eyes as I tried again to pull my hand free, to no avail. What the hell was this stuff made of?

“That won’t work,”

he chided. “You’re not strong enough to break my threads. I make them myself. See?”

He lifted his palms, and I noticed tiny dark marks on the tips of his fingers. He pressed his hands together, rubbing his fingertips against each other for a moment before separating them, revealing five long, thick lines of shining white thread being pulled from the marks.

“What the…”

My heart pounded in my throat. How was he doing that?

With swift movements I couldn’t avoid, Levi twirled the threads around my free wrist and yanked it up, sticking it to the wall above my head. He chuckled darkly, taking in the sight of me pinned to the wall by his threads. No. His webs.

“There. Doesn’t she look pretty, Nox?”

I turned my head to the harlequin in question.

He leaned against the door, casually blocking the exit as he played with a spider running over his hands, grinning madly, showing bright white teeth between his black lips. “She looks fucking delicious.”

Trying again, I tugged against the webs with all the strength I could muster. But no matter how hard I pulled, it was no use. The webs wouldn’t budge. I was completely helpless.

My pulse thrummed in my ears so loudly, I couldn’t hear the skittering spiders above me over the sound of my own heart. The lines between excitement, fear, and lust blurred dangerously, and I could barely tell the difference anymore.

Levi’s pale hand circled my throat, not squeezing, just testing the fit of me in his hand. He leaned his face into the crook of my neck and inhaled deeply. His lips brushed my skin, and shivers skittered down my spine. I squeezed my thighs together, and slick desire pooled in my panties. My body felt like it was on high alert. Every touch set my skin alight and made me want more. Whatever these monstrous men were willing to give, I wanted to take.

Nox tutted from the door. “Not so fast. You know we can’t have her here, Levi. Callan would be very upset.”

Levi pulled away from me, scowled in Nox’s direction, then sighed deeply. “Mm, yes. I don’t want to deal with that hound in one of his moods again. And I don’t want him up here, ruining my space again.”

He looked me up and down and smiled almost sweetly. “Besides, it won’t be long before she’s back in a similar position.”

Heat pooled in my belly at his promise. The way they both spoke about me like I wasn’t right in front of them—like I wasn’t a real person trapped at their mercy—shouldn’t have turned me on so much. I’d never allow someone to speak to me that way normally. But I liked it when it was them. And I wanted them desperately.