Nocticadia: A Dark Academia Gothic Romance by Keri Lake

Author:Keri Lake [Lake, Keri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

I awoke with a start and jolted upright. At the restriction of my arm, I looked down through the dim light to see it tethered by a handcuff to the steel frame of a bed.

My gaze shifted to the dress I wore, which carried small flecks of … food?

Confusion settled over me, my head throbbing with the task of trying to catch up to my eyeballs.

Piano music. Moths. Dinner. Spencer. Bramwell. The masked man.

A gurgling nausea churned in my gut as I slowly trailed my gaze over the surrounding room. My vision wobbled with the ache in my brain.

The darkness. The stone walls chipped with age and covered in moss. A gravelly floor. The air, so cold, it felt like I’d been cast into a tomb. The heavy, damp scent of earth and decay invading my sinuses. And the bars. Not a room. It was a cell. A prison.

No. No!

He’d captured me. The man in the mask.

My pulse raced as I thought about all those sick, serial killer movies, where the victim ended up chained in a basement. The horror of that goaded my escape, and I tugged at the cuffs, trying to slip my hand through it. Skin raw and burning, I shook with the effort, folding my hand to make it as small as I could.

The ache in my skull intensified with my stress, and I abandoned my escape to rub my throbbing temples.

“You could just ask for a key.”

At the sound of the deep voice, I sucked in a sharp breath, and the shadows to my right shifted as a form came into view. A strange current snaked over my skin, devouring my fear, as I took in the sight of him.

Black slacks. White, button-down shirt. Devastatingly handsome face. The pressure in the room seemed to change, as his presence pervaded the space like a dark storm.

Professor Bramwell?

My head spun with a million possibilities, nothing springing forth a familiar memory of what had happened the night before. My professor kidnapping me?

I thought back on the way he’d defended me at dinner. No way.

Still, tension wound in my stomach, as he strode toward me, my fight or flight buzzing with the urge to do one, or the other. Light glinted off a metal key as he held it up for me to see. The sleek, black, leather gloves he wore had me questioning things. Perhaps I’d watched too many crime shows, but there was only one reason that came to mind for why someone would wear black gloves. He knelt down beside me, and at the click of the handcuff, I yanked my hand free and backed myself to the headboard, away from him.

“You cuffed me?”

“You apparently sleepwalk.” He pushed up from the floor and, hands tucked in his pockets, made his way toward the cell door, which he pushed open as if to let me know I was free to leave.

“And the prison?”

“I couldn’t exactly take you to my office. Or your dorm. These cells are connected to my lab.

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