Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles 1)

Everything started long before that, with a pair of gardening shears stuck halfway through an Incubus’ chest. There were blood debts to be paid—though this time it wasn’t up to a Caster or a Mortal to pay them.

Ethan and Lena? Liv and John? Macon and Marian? Whatever. This wasn’t about them anymore.

This was about us.

I should’ve known we wouldn’t get off easy. No Caster goes down without a fight, even when you think the fight is over. No Caster lets you ride off into the sunset on some lame white unicorn or in your boyfriend’s beat-up excuse for a car.

What’s a Caster fairy-tale ending?

I don’t know, because Casters don’t get to have fairy tales—especially not Dark Casters. Forget the sunset. I’ll tell you how the whole castle burned to the ground, taking Prince Charming down with it.

I’ll tell you how to turn that prince into a frog and spin a little gold into straw—just in time for the Seven Dwarfs to go all ninja and drop-kick your butt straight out of the kingdom.

That’s what a Dark Caster fairy tale looks like.

What can I say? Payback’s a bitch.

But here’s the thing:

So am I.

A Sneak Peek of Icons

PROLOGUE

THE DAY

One tiny gray dot, no bigger than a freckle, marks the inside of the baby’s chubby arm. It slips in and out of view as she cries, waving her yellow rubber duck back and forth.

Her mother holds her over the old ceramic bathtub. The little feet kick harder, twisting above the water. “You can complain all you want, Doloria, but you’re still taking a bath. It will make you feel better.”

She slides her daughter into the warm tub. The baby kicks again, splashing the blue patterned wallpaper above the tiles. The water surprises her, and she quiets.

“That’s it. You can’t feel sad in the water. There is no sadness there.” She kisses Doloria’s cheek. “I love you, mi corazón. I love you and your brothers today and tomorrow and every day until the day after heaven.”

The baby stops crying. She does not cry as she is scrubbed and sung to, pink and clean. She does not cry as she is kissed and swaddled in blankets. She does not cry as she is tickled and tucked into her crib.

The mother smiles, wiping a damp strand of hair from her child’s warm forehead. “Dream well, Doloria. Que sueñes con los angelitos.” She reaches for the light, but the room floods with darkness before she can touch the switch. Across the hall, the radio is silenced midsentence, as if on cue. Over in the kitchen, the television fades to sudden black, to a dot the size of a pinprick, then to nothing.

The mother calls up the stairs. “The power’s gone off again, querido! Check the fuse box.” She turns back, tucking the blanket corner snugly beneath Doloria. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing your papi can’t fix.”

The baby sucks on her fist, five small fingers the size of tiny wriggling earthworms, as the walls start to shake and bits of plaster swirl in the air like fireworks, like confetti.

She blinks as the windows shatter and the ceiling fan hits the carpet and the shouting begins.

She yawns as her father rolls down the staircase like a funny rag doll that never stands up.

She closes her eyes as the falling birds patter against the roof like rain.

She starts to dream as her mother’s heart stops beating.

I start to dream as my mother’s heart stops beating.

1

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

“Dol? Are you okay?”