gifted

  GIFTED

  Edited in UK/Australian English

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Published in Australia

  Gifted published 2018

  Gifted was first published as Cursed with Crimson Romance 2015

  web: www.charmaineross.com

  twitter https://twitter.com/CharmaineRossAu

  Facebook https://www.facebook.com/charmaine.ross.01

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Charmaine’s first foray into romance was as a fourteen year old where she fell hopelessly and eternally in love with her hero as only a teenager can. Instead of watching movies and staying up late, she would go to bed at eight thirty and continue her very romantic, very safe, love affair.

  Since then, she has fallen in love with many heroes, some less safe than what her teenage brain could possibly imagine. After earning a Fine Art’s Degree, a Diploma of Secondary Education and a Diploma of Marketing. She now works in Internal Communications in a global company. Despite her day job, she always returns to writing.

  Although she has travelled, she always returns to her home town of Melbourne and lives with her husband, two children and two cats in the ferny-greens of the Dandenongs. If she’s not working on her latest romance and falling in love with yet another hero, you’ll find her reading, watching and basically indulging in her addiction to any story on any media type she can get her fingers on.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Prologue

  Blistering flames. Acrid smoke. Heat stung my skin. Fumes clogged my throat. I was on hands and knees, dragging in each breath, knowing my body would give out at any moment.

  And there was nowhere else I’d rather be.

  I don’t know how or why it was here, but it was a godsend. I whispered a prayer of appreciation to whatever deity had thought to start the bushfire. Even it was just a flippant, toss-away thing for an almighty, I was thankful.

  The flames sent plumes of writhing brown smoke into the sky. My father’s buildings were just beyond the line of flames. So damn close I could taste their desecration, but then the fire headed away from them, turned by a strong wind. I’d waited my life for an opportunity like this, and I wasn’t going to let it slide.

  This was my chance to end the hell I’d been living in for years. It was kill or be killed. Both sounded good.

  I clutched the trunk of a gum tree, using it to get to my feet. A wave of giddiness overpowered me. I waited it out. I leaned against the trunk, breathing deeply, the bark prickling into my back. Sweat beaded my face and trickled down my spine.

  I willed the thought-energy into myself and drew it into my core. I don’t know what to call the energy. It might be my life force. It might be universal energy. I’d had it for as long as I could remember. A gift from my father. My curse and now my savior.

  This was what my father—Victor—wanted from me. This was why I’d been left in the middle of the bush for weeks, starving, slowly dying. So he could see how strong I was. How long I could keep on living in these conditions. It was his right, he told me. Years ago, he’d taken me in when there was no one else. A sick child. Too much work for prospective parents when other, healthier children could be adopted. At least he’d named me: Katia.

  He’d spent years searching for me after I ran away, and I had to pay for that, too. He said it was the least I could do. That was eight years and several lifetimes ago, before they’d found me and brought me back. It had slowly destroyed me, but I’d resisted him. The nightmares of what he’d made me do when I was a child still woke me at night, sweating and screaming and believing I was still that helpless fourteen-year-old again.

  Well, I’d show him just what I could do now. Now it was on my terms, and the only people who were going to die this time were the ones who deserved it.

  The energy pulsed through my body. It was living, throbbing, vying for life. It screeched through my limbs, spiked my veins. I gritted my teeth, fighting unconsciousness, letting the pain of a thousand needles prick me from the inside. I invited the pain, let the energy feed on it. This was the buildup of eight years of depriving myself. Eight years of letting my energy lie dormant. Letting it rest and build and grow strong. I wasn’t a naive, weak teenager anymore. I was twenty-four and stronger.

  I pried open my eyes, concentrated on the acrid flames. I called the energy from my blood, balled it into my core until it was all I could feel. All I knew. All I was. Then, when it was almost too much for me to restrain, I pushed it from my body, out toward the flames. They exploded, soaring upward until they blocked out the blue of the sky.

  For a moment, I thought it hadn’t worked, that I had depleted myself for nothing. Then there was a shift in direction of the flames. They danced and flickered, letting off black smoke at the moving tips, as though they were thinking for themselves. And despite the direction of the wind, the flames moved, charging toward the buildings—that hell on earth. Flames descended, obliterating and destroying. There was a lot to destroy in this area of the Toolangi State Forest.

  I laughed. My legs gave out. I sank into the dirt, so dry it spiraled around me and clogged my throat. I closed my eyes, felt a smile on my mouth as I welcomed death. At last, I had ended the nightmare.

  Chapter One

  “She’s alive!”

  The voice came from a tunnel. Muted. Like I was hearing it over a bad, long distance telephone line. It sounded surprised. That was strange. I thought they’d be ready for me here. I couldn’t smell the smoke, so I guessed I’d made it into the next world. I drifted back into the soft, black abyss.

  “No you don’t.” A voice, loud and angry.

  I felt rough hands on me pushing hard on my chest. It hurt. I wanted to drift into the blackness again. It was warm there. Nothing could hurt me. I was safe.

  A sting on my neck. Burning in my veins. The voice was yelling. I didn’t think angels yelled. At me? No. I heard other voices. Indistinguishable urgent mumbles. People. More than just one. A group.

  Thoughts tumbled through my mind and pooled in an untidy heap. Was I in Heaven? My recollection of what I’d heard about Heaven was that it was a pretty nice place to go. In those years where I existed on the street, Heather would tell me, “Katia, you’ll love it there. The sky is a beautiful cloudless blue, and there are green fields full of wildflowers, and you are always happy. There is no sadness or pain. You can do whatever you want to do.”

  She often glossed over the way in which I would get there. I guess she didn’t know either. We were both kids. Something about being good, but that didn’t ring true to me anymore. No one we knew was good.

  I knew that you were sad when other people went to Heaven, which was pretty much a contradiction. If it
was a place you wanted to go, then you should be happy that someone actually got there.

  I told Heather Heaven would be warm. It was much better than those freezing nights when the cold bit into your bones as sharp as a knife and there was nowhere warm you could go, no one you could turn to because that would get you into trouble—bad, bad trouble.

  Something wrapped around my arm and was pulled tight, pinching my skin. There was a sting in the crook of my elbow. Ice through my veins.

  “Wake up.” Warm breath enveloped my ear. The voice was gentle and insistent. Nice. But I didn’t want to listen to it.

  I shook my head. A mistake. Pain seared somewhere in the middle of my brain. My stomach recoiled. I wanted to sink into the black again. I liked it there. The ice was taking me away from it.

  My heart raced. A force pulsed through my veins, pushing through arteries that opened wide and greedy, waking every pore, every cell back to life. Like I was born all over again, and it was hell.

  My mouth opened and sucked in air in a coarse, noisy gasp. My back arched upward and lifted my body high. My arms flopped outward like a sacrifice, opening ribs, expanding lungs. Pain sliced into every sinew. I didn’t want to breathe. Didn’t want to move. Why couldn’t I just stay dead? It was nice there.

  Someone uttered, “Holy shit. She’s alive.” There was silence, except for the noise my lungs made when I sucked in a struggling breath. But my body was too heavy. I gagged, choking for air now. Suffocating. My body not responding. Why the hell wake me when I was perfectly happy being dead in the abyss? I dove back down.

  “We’re losing her.”

  “Give her another shot.”

  More ice flowed into my arm. The blackness gave way to gray shadows. This wasn’t what I wanted. No warmth now. I was cold. Freezing. I hated the cold. My body ached, heavy, limbs were useless. I couldn’t move. My head throbbed.

  Snow White didn’t wake up this way. Heather had always said I looked like Snow White. Raven dark hair, white skin, blue eyes. She used to say she liked the way I looked, but Heather was romantic. Why didn’t I live like Snow White? Where was my prince?

  “That’s a girl. Wake up,” The soothing voice was back in my ear.

  A wave of anger shattered the black into a thousand splinters. I wanted to go back, and he wasn’t letting me. The least he could have done was ask me if I wanted to wake up. I would have told him no, leave me alone. I liked being left alone.

  I was sick of the chasing. The hiding. Nowhere to go. No one to turn to. No friends. No Heather. Gone. Years ago now, but the pain was still raw. Then Victor caught me. After years of hiding, he’d found me. A rage, strong and deep, tore through my mind. He caught me, and I didn’t want to be caught. Fucking bastard.

  I screamed in my mind and then realized that I was screaming out loud.

  “You gave her too much.”

  “No. It seems she went to sleep like this, and she’s waking up the same way. That happens with anesthesia patients sometimes.”

  “She’s angry.”

  Asshole. I’m more than fucking angry.

  I opened my eyes. Brilliant light seared painfully. Everything was blurry, muddled and bright, way too bright. I breathed like I had run a mile in a second, in and out of my nostrils. I clenched my teeth so I could stop the screaming, stop them chattering because of the cold. I hated people hearing me scream. I’d learned not to. It only goaded them on.

  A face came into my vision, unfocused. I made out tanned skin, brown hair, brightness for the eyes, dark for the mouth. I wanted to punch him, but my arm disobeyed my order and stayed limp by my side.

  “Congratulations. You’re alive,” the voice said, as though it were a good thing. It was the same voice that had kept me from the abyss I sought. The soft, gentle voice.

  “I didn’t want to come back.” My voice came out like an old toad’s croak. My throat hurt when I spoke. Did everything have to hurt so much?

  “We couldn’t leave you like this.”

  I knew I wasn’t in Heaven. I was still caught in the nightmare. I closed my eyes. “Get fucked.”

  Chapter Two

  I was lying on something hard, moving, gliding, but there wasn’t any sound. I could hear the footsteps of people surrounding me in a huddled group. I felt their presence surrounding me. How the hell did I get here? The last thing I remembered was ...

  Fire. Heat. A firestorm. Bushfire. I’d unleashed the thought-energy. I’d passed out in the middle of a firestorm. Then ... nothing. My mind kept throwing me out, as though staying with the memory of the fire wasn’t good. As much as I tried, I couldn’t push beyond the solid blank wall inside my mind.

  The weakness got to me. I couldn’t move. I didn’t have the strength to lift my hand, let alone use my only weapon: my mind. It was a defenselessness I couldn’t afford. These people could do anything to me, and I wouldn’t be able to stop them. Each time I managed to open my eyes, my vision fishtailed and swam in and out of focus. Dark shadows merged and blurred into indistinguishable alien shapes.

  I could see vague shadows of people surrounding me, a head tilting, a body turning. I could see someone bending down to me, touching me. They were all business. Mostly, it hurt. You’d think I’d be used to it, used to the pain. I didn’t know where I was, who they were, and I was vulnerable.

  Strips of light flew over my head so bright it made me feel like I was going to be sick. I shut my eyes and concentrated on the feeling to pass. It didn’t. It got worse, like my gut was going to fly out of my mouth. My throat tightened.

  “I’m going to be sick,” I whispered hoarsely. My stomach exploded like it had been punched by a steel arm. I retched, my body convulsed. Nothing came out, but I retched again. The walls of my gut were imploding. The hot lick of perspiration dripped from my forehead. I was going to take out the asshole that brought me back to life. At least in the blackness, I couldn’t feel anything.

  “The feeling will pass. It’s the effects of the drugs I gave you.” It was the calm, softly spoken, masculine voice in my ear. On another day, it might have soothed me. Not this day, though.

  “You can take your drugs and ...” I couldn’t finish the sentence as another retch took control of my body.

  “We’re nearly there. I’ll give you something for the nausea. It’s just the muscles pulling. They haven’t been used for a long time. There’s nothing in your stomach to bring up.”

  I wrapped my arms around my waist trying to stop the kick-in-the-guts feeling that wracked my insides. I gritted my teeth so tight a dull pain started in my jaw. I closed my eyes and wished I could disappear, but I knew I wouldn’t be that lucky. The gliding stopped, or rather, I felt the absence of movement. It was all I could do to lie on my side, grit my teeth, and squeeze my eyes shut. I hated being like this.

  “I’m going to have to prick you with a needle. Just a little sting, and it will settle your stomach.” The voice sounded almost apologetic.

  The nausea stopped. My breath hitched in my throat. How could a drug work so fast? “You could have given that to me sooner.”

  I wasn’t sure if anyone had heard it. I didn’t even have the energy to speak with any volume. Maybe I just said it in my mind. I didn’t know.

  “This will help you recover.”

  There was a pressure on my arm, and then a relaxed feeling warmed my body, taking with it the edge from the pain until all that was left was the stiffness. I dragged in a shaky breath and made myself open my eyes. I blinked several times to get them to work properly, but the world was still blurry.

  A face hovered above me. “Feeling better?” I wished I could see if his voice matched his face. I tried to answer, but my throat closed over. The sides seemed to stick together.

  “Here, sip this,” he said. A hand slipped beneath my head, a glass was held to my lips, and I let the fluid into my mouth, scouring the dryness away.

  I tested my limbs and noted on a scale from one to ten how well I could move. I didn’t even reach two.
Being pathetically weak was a position that didn’t sit well with me. Control was what I needed, and this was so far on the other side of the scale it wasn’t funny.

  “Where am I?” I asked.

  “In a hospital.”

  “Which one?” I asked.

  “One of the largest. And the best.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Julius Freeman. Doctor Julius Freeman,” he said, then, “Can you remember who you are?”

  Did I? My life poured through my mind, as unwanted as dirty water. I remembered who I was, where I came from and ... what I was. It was the “what” that cursed me. The “what” that kept me from being normal.

  My childhood, if you could call it that, drifted through my mind. Bouts of horrendous sickness, horrific medicine that would send me to bed for weeks. I had no friends. I did have a mother. Once. But I barely remembered her. There was only my father. Victor. He had to give me the medicine to try to cure what I had. Or that’s what he told me when I was little.

  Then I got wise. I tried running away so many times, but he never let me go. There was always more medicine. Making me different. Changing me. Then came the tests. More and more until they all blurred together. I lost perspective, not knowing if it was hell on earth or just hell in my mind. The only thing that stayed constant was the need to get away.

  Months later, I had a chance to get away for real. I met Heather. My one and only true friend. I will never forget those years and how good they were. I’d lived as a normal person. Had learned how real people lived. It took Victor eight years to find me. And I didn’t perform for him again. No matter how much he tried to make me. Force turned to torture and still I didn’t succumb.