Читать книгу Reflected Desire - Kendra Castle Leigh - Страница 7

“This mirror looks like something out of the Wicked Queen’s castle,” Neve muttered, then smirked to herself. It had to be the ugliest mirror she had ever seen with the freakish woodland creatures frolicking around the ornate silver frame. The way it dwarfed everything else in her bedroom in both size and sheer, unabashed hideousness. And there was also something creepy about looking in the glass, even though it was just her looking back out at herself. And now, because of a series of events that seemed to grow hazier the more she tried to remember them, the mirror was hers. Had, in fact, been chosen for her by the aptly named Morgan le Fay.

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” Neve repeated.

The line seemed appropriate. The response, however, had her yelping and stumbling backward.

“You are, of course, mistress fair,” came the disembodied voice, echoing, it seemed, from the glass itself.

Her heart thudded in her chest as she raced from the room on a short, sharp scream, ice in her veins. She nearly fell face first onto the carpet in the living area, just managing to stay upright as she fumbled around the coffee table. Then she was standing in the middle of the room, hand over her mouth, blood pounding in her head. The mirror. The freaking mirror had…

No. No way. You’re finally losing it.

Her heart beat against her rib cage like a trapped butterfly as she stood there, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. An auditory hallucination? A haunting? Some kind of sick joke?

Terror turned quickly to embarrassment as she realized what had probably just happened. Her heart slowed, the adrenaline rush fading.

“A trick mirror. Has to be,” she breathed. This was some kind of piece-of-crap haunted-house mirror, rigged to talk back when you said the right words. She’d pegged the Wicked Queen’s castle thing just right. This monstrosity was going in the trash at first light, because her nerves were bad enough without living with an ugly talking mirror with hidden batteries and no discernible off-switch. Morgan had probably been just waiting for the right person to unload this “gift” on.

But she wasn’t going to be forced out of her room by some cheap trick. And she wasn’t sleeping on the couch in her underwear.

Steeling herself, Neve stepped back into the bedroom, talking out loud to calm the jitters that wouldn’t quite go away.

“I’ll just put a blanket over it,” she said. “A really big, really thick blanket. And if it talks again, I am sleeping on the couch.”

This time, when the mirror spoke, it gave her a jolt but didn’t send her running.

“What is your command, mistress?”

Neve managed not to jump this time. And it was, once again, a pretty generic response. Still, she gave the mirror a wide berth as she went to the dresser to get out her pajamas. The mirror fell silent, the glass still reflecting nothing but the room. Neve shook her head and wondered where on earth the so-called Morgan had found this thing.

If only she could remember why she’d wanted it! Or…even if she’d wanted it. It made her worry that the panic attacks were doing more than just messing up her social life.

“I am waiting, mistress.”

This time the voice—deep, male and cultured—sounded slightly peevish. Neve turned and looked again at the mirror, frowning. Maybe there was a verbal command to turn it off.

“Off,” she said, feeling slightly foolish. “End. Done. Deactivate.”

It was quiet for a few minutes, long enough for her to slip into a simple cotton tank and a pair of sleep shorts, and quite long enough for her to decide she’d figured out how to shut it off. Neve had just started to relax when it spoke again, the voice sounding unmistakably strained now.

“I’m not clear on what you wish ended, mistress.”

Goose bumps rose up on Neve’s skin at the reply that was, this time, unmistakably for her alone. That voice…it was incredible. The accent sounded British to her, but with a hint of something a little more exotic thrown in that she couldn’t place. A dark, beautiful voice.

She walked slowly toward the mirror, seeing nothing but her own pale reflection, shaken and wide-eyed, looking back.

“Are you…are you talking to me?” she asked softly. It was ridiculous, insane. But the growing certainty that the mirror was talking to her, specifically, refused to abate.

At least no one else was here to watch her lose her mind.

“Who else would I be talking to? You called me. I am at your service.” The words were bitten out, with a hard edge that made Neve shiver. Dozens of possibilities raced through her head, each less plausible than the last, until finally she just relented and decided to go with the crazy and have a conversation with the damned mirror.

“I don’t believe you,” she finally said. As though arguing with it was going to make the mirror shut up.

“That I am yours to command?” the voice asked, and a shiver ran down her spine. It was the kind of question that made her wish, just for one wild instant, that this could be true, that she really had stumbled onto something right out of a fairy tale. Impossible, longed-for things.

“No, that you’re real,” she replied. Then she lifted her hands to push them back through her hair, her voice catching as she spoke to herself. “I’m finally losing it. This is a psychotic break or something.”

“You think you’ve gone mad?”

Neve stared into the glass, at her own reflection. “I think that’s pretty obvious,” she said with a shaky laugh. “I’m talking to inanimate objects and hearing voices.”

“Those things are not signs of madness where I’m from. But…it has been a long time.”

Neve looked away and wrapped her arms around herself, unable to shake the chill that settled deep into her bones. “Well, here that sort of thing only happens in fairy tales. When you start talking to mirrors and think they talk back, they lock you up and throw away the key.”

“Here. I will prove myself, then.” The voice had gone gentle, soft, surprising her into looking up.

The glass shimmered before her, Neve’s reflection vanishing into a glittering mist. The mist roiled and shifted before her, catching light from some unseen source and reflecting every color in the spectrum. It was beautiful. The most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

“Impossible,” she whispered.

“This is what you now command,” the voice replied. “I can show you the future, the past…the weaknesses of your enemies, or the private moments of your lovers. I am your servant.” And then, with a harder edge, the voice added, “I am very real.”

“Who are you?” she asked hoarsely, wishing she could believe what she was hearing even though it made no sense. A possessed mirror was better than cracking up. Most things were. But she knew she was grasping at straws, no matter what her senses were telling her.

“I am the Mirror Slave. Or just Slave, if you prefer. I answer to either.”

Neve shook her head, trying to hang on to some shred of her sanity even as she watched that beautiful swirling mist, listened to that decadent, echoing voice. “That’s not a name. Don’t you have a given name? Or were you not ever human?”

“I was…I am.” Now the voice sounded defensive. “I’m bound to the mirror, but I still have my form.”

“Then let’s hear it,” Neve said. “I command you. Or…whatever.”

“You learn your role quickly, for someone who professes not to believe this,” the voice said blandly. She felt a prickle of guilt, but her curiosity was piqued.

“Your name,” Neve repeated.

There was the slightest hesitation, but after a moment, the voice responded.

“I was…am…Adrian.”

“Adrian,” Neve repeated, her heart pounding like a drum in her ears. “You can show me anything?”