Twin flame, p.1
Twin Flame, page 1
A. Briar
Twin Flame
Copyright © 2022 by A. Briar
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
A. Briar asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
First edition
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To those who dare to love fiercely…
“I’d stand in the shadows of your heart and tell you I’m not afraid of your dark.”
—A. J. Daniels
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgement
Blurb
Warning
Playlist
1. Violet
2. Christian
3. Violet
4. Christian
5. Violet
6. Violet
7. Christian
8. Violet
9. Christian
10. Violet
11. Violet
12. Christian
13. Violet
About the Author
Foreword
Dear Reader
This is my explanation as to why I decided to write a Taboo themed book.
Before reading any further, I should make myself clear in the fact that I did not write Twin Flame to glorify Incest. This book is not an erotic romance, although I graphically describe the sexual tension and scenes.
You have every right to turn away from this, but I would like you to stay so I will be very pleased if you can.
When I got the idea for Twin Flame, I think it appealed to me so much because it’s set in such a dark, gothic academia atmosphere.
I have several reasons for wanting to tell Christians and Violet’s story and the first one being that it was very sad to me. These children were brought into the world by parents that were physically, mentally and sexually abusive. Which is what made Violet grow do attached to her brother. They were abused to the point where they began developing demons of their own.
The second reason was the idea that the Osborn family was wicked and did not confirm to the norms of society. They have always had this disturbing darkness and I wanted to show how very real this could be in our world. I don’t doubt that there are many families like this out there. Christians character was amazing to delve into. The fact that he suffered abuse from his father had played a role in him developing ASPD which is something I’ve explore before In The Within Trilogy. Except in this book my MMC is completely unhinged. I also talk about my love for the Victorian Era. Because this book is set in a dark academia world, I’ve scattered bits and pieces of info from the Victorian Era. I hope you enjoy the book!
Acknowledgement
I’d like to thank Camille, Njabulo for being amazing bookish friends. I appreciate you both so much and I am so glad that we have met!
I’d also love to thank my sisters for always being so supporting and always being there for me.
Blurb
Five years after their family was torn apart by tragedy, 18-year-old, Violet Osborn, finds herself reuniting with her twin brother, Christian, with whom she shares a special, almost haunting bond.
Now that he’s back home, Christian discovers that his sister isn’t the same as she was. Determined to find out what’s wrong, Christian reveals a thirst for blood that he’s been hiding for far too long.
A dark twisted tale of love, murder, lust and obsession.
Warning
This book explores dark themes. Please note that this is a work of fiction for adults who enjoy reading these kinds of dark and disturbing books. Although I use the term beauty and beast throughout the book, it is not a retelling of any kind. It just terms that seemed fitting for the story.
• Extremely Taboo
• Twincest
• Dark Academia Vibe
• Gothic Elements
• Violence
• Murder
• Gore
• Obsessive H and h
• Flashback of SA (Not by H)
• Disturbing Childhood Memories
• Non/Con
• Dub/Con
• Soulmates/ Twin Flame
• Mentions of Self-harm
• Undiagnosed Bipolar Disorder
• Blood Play
• Graphic Sex
•HEA
If you need any more information, please contact the author on her email, where she will likely respond.
authorabriar@gmail.com
Playlist
INITIATION - The Crosses
Cry Little Sister - Marilyn Manson
Bitches Brew - Crosses
Seven Devils - Florence+The Machine
Desire - Meg Myers
You Belong To Me - Catherine Pierce
PROTECTION - Crosses
Dance Macabre - Camille Saint-Saens
Dead In The Water - Spelles
telepathy - Crosses
Adagio For Strings - Samuel Barber
Beggin For Thread - Banks
Wild Heart - Spelles
1
Violet
I was thirteen when Mother killed herself. I’ve thought about it almost every day, but today I thought about it more intensely. The memories that I had desperately suppressed had resurfaced for some reason and I was forced to remember the vivid details. The strong, chlorine smell of bleach that she had drank from the detergent bottle and her dead blue eyes. I found her on the basement floor alone. Dead. Cold. I remember the feel of her deathly skin when I sat beside her, tucking her matted hair behind her ear. The lamp above flickered and I felt something warm and sticky on my fingers. When I pulled them back, they were stained with crimson. I don’t know where the blood came from, but she’d had a dark patch of dried blood on her forehead and at the back of her head. Maybe she fell. I don’t remember a lot about that day. I just remember finding her.
Crossing my legs, I sucked in a deep breath. It was Autumn and the first of many storms to come had already covered Columbus with its deathly scent. The hundreds of acres of grass on the Osborn Estate were strewn with soaked cornflower blue blooms. It was both a beautiful and depressing sight. The smell of fresh rain. I loved the lingering smell of the air after a storm. It was clean and cold. I spent most of my days outside or in the woods where I felt like I could be myself, lost under the canopy of pine that rose high into the sky, their prickly pine needles scraping against my arms.
Storms frightened people. It frightened me too, especially when my tormentor would came into my room. He loved to wait for the nights when it stormed because then no one could hear my screams. The screams he loved to hear as he defiled me in horrendous ways.
But I’ve grown to find a calmness in the serenity after the menacing claps of thunder and howling winds that reminded me of ghosts travelling the plains, searching for human flesh to drag back to hell.
“Violet!”
Turning my head, I glanced up the hill to see Aunt Judith standing there in her yellow raincoat. She lived in it almost every day because she hated the cold and the rain. Of course, she hated it. It wasn’t like she wanted to live here by choice. This place held a terrible memory in almost every single corner and crevice you could find. People at school mocked me a lot about The Osborn Estate and our family. That we were weird and fucked up in the head. It might have been true. When they shoved me into lavatory stalls to kick me in my stomach or write things like whore with a permanent marker on my arms, I often thought about gouging out their eyes or smashing their windpipes to end their mocking laughter.
Death didn’t scare me. Not as much as it would have before. But when you’ve been tortured for years and you finally accept death as your only escape out of this dreaded world, you become fearless. I touched the scars on my wrist. Some new, some old, but they’re all cut with a blade.
My family owned half of the town, and all my eighteen years, I’ve never known anything else beyond it. Running away wasn’t an option. Besides, where would I go? Most of our extended family were either dead or had changed their names completely, not wanting anything to do with the family name any more.
The grounds which had belonged to my family since the mid-17th century sprawled out hundreds of acres, with the dark foreboding forest surrounding the estate. Generations and generations of Osborns before us, all with their own dark, twisted lives. They were all buried right here on our grounds in our family’s marble mausoleum. I’ll probably be buried here too one day. It was family tradition.
The house itself—a perfect example of gothic, Greek revival style,was refurbished three times. It had sixteen bedrooms—only ten were fully restored—and four different wings with a labyrinth of halls and storerooms and hidden rooms.
“Violet!” She shouted again as if I hadn’t heard her clearly the first time.
I glanced down at my Oxfords and dug them deep into the soft black mud, before standing up and running a hand down my black plaid dress. I stared at the silvery wall of mist that rose above the wildflowers in the acres of fields ahead, as it continued
Aunt Judith had a scowl plastered across her face
as I climbed the hill and got closer to where she stood. God forbid if she ever woke up one morning without a fucking scowl. I would be surprised if she offered me any other look. She was nothing like my father with her hanging pink cheeks, round eyes, and a thin mouth. Nothing was outstanding about her. Married three times and widowed twice. She didn’t have anything that resembled an Osborn. Not our inky black hair, pale skin, or sunken blue eyes, not even our perfect aquiline noses and slender cheekbones. She wasn’t a very beautiful woman, nor did she have a sparkling personality. I hated her.
“Your brother is here,” was all she said before she turned around and trudged back up to the house.
A soft gasp escaped my lips. My heart hammered at her words and for the first time in years, I felt something inside of me other than dead. He was here. Christian. My heart lurched. Aunt Judith said it so lackadaisically, but she didn’t understand. No one could possibly understand the bond twins shared. The bond we’d shared growing up had made us inseparable. That was before everything was ruined and our family was broken forever. Before I knew what was happening, my feet were moving forward and then I broke out into a full run, sucking in gulps of cold air as I climbed up the hill as fast as my feet could go. Christian. His name filled my thoughts. It was the only thing I could think of.
I clutched the blue flower that I’d been holding for the past half-hour in my hand so tightly that when I reached the back door of the mansion, I looked down and saw my palm stained with its blue pigment.
I let the flower fall to the ground and walked into the house through the tall, dark wood-stained doors that were wide open. My hands shook a little as I released a nervous breath.
The black oak floors creaked as I hurried through the dining area. Aunt Judith would kill me for leaving muddy tracks behind me, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care because he was here.
Breathing hard, I stepped into the foyer, smoothing down my long black hair that I hadn’t brushed in ages. I felt a sharp twig in my thick locks, so I pulled it out and kept it in my palm.
Aunt Judith hovered by the ajar giant, dark green door, but she stepped away as I neared her. My throat suddenly felt very dry and there was an odd fluttering in my chest. He was here—
It was almost unreal.
“Violet,” Aunt Judith was speaking to me, but I couldn’t hear her any more as I drowned out the world around me.
I caught sight of his left hand first. Long pale fingers with purple, bruises on them. Gradually, I drew my gaze along his tall frame, until I was staring directly into his left eye. The other half of his body was hidden by the door. Gripping the door tightly, I swung it open, my impatience getting the better of me. My other half.
“Christian,” I barely whispered.
His beautiful bruise-blue eyes had shadows underneath them as if he hadn’t slept in ages like me. My eyes roamed over his changed features. Five years. Except it didn’t quite feel like five years to me, it felt like centuries had passed.
What was once full cheeks were now mountainous cheekbones, with an aquiline nose and aristocratic jawline. His sculpted, rosy lips were pulled into a tight line.
He stepped forward, towering over me with his tall frame as he enveloped me in his embrace. His white shirt was completely soaked from the rain as I slipped my arms through his coat and around his narrow waist and hugged him back. He smelled of rain, woods, and fire, exactly like he did five years ago. His essence was branded on my mind.
“Violet,” he whispered in my hair, breathing life back into me as I took another deep breath. “I’m sorry I took so long, but I’m back and I’m never leaving you again.”
The feel of his powerful arms around me again after five long years. Tears broke free as I curled my fingers around the hair at the base of his neck.
“I missed you so much,” I whispered against his neck, my body trembling from the shock that he was standing here in our doorway. Some part of me couldn’t accept it, yet he was here in my arms.
He was not the same fragile, broken boy with a swollen left eye and split bottom lip that was dragged away for protecting me.
“I know,” he said, pulling back and staring deeply into my eyes. “I’m missed you a lot too. But I’m not going anywhere ever again.”
His words held a promise and the Christian I knew would keep that promise even if he had to sacrifice himself to protect it. “I’m back for good, Violet.”
2
Christian
My body trembled as she wrapped herself in my embrace. She smelled of rain and bitter roses. It was like breathing in the past. I’d been waiting for this moment ever since they dragged me away to that fucking shithole.
Violet. Oh Violet.
I’d kept it a secret that I would be coming back home in a few weeks, because I wasn’t sure how she’d react.
She’d clearly changed from the last time I’d seen her. Her black hair was longer and her vivid blue eyes had dark circles underneath them. The little pumps she used to wear were now replaced with high black heels. I drew my gaze up her long exposed legs. Her dresses were also shorter. Yet, there was also something vastly different about her that I couldn’t put my finger on. I could see it when she pulled back and tucked her small arms around her waist. I locked my gaze on hers, searching for something, but she averted my eyes and glanced at the ground instead and I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. It wasn’t hard for me to read her, but maybe I’ve been gone for too long. Violet never hid herself from me. I was the only one who understood her.
“We should have a feast tonight,” she said, reaching out and grabbing my hand with her cool fingers.
I noticed that she still wore the silver band on her index finger. The same as the one on my index finger. When we were younger, we were in the attic, which was one of our few favourite places to hang out when we found the rings in an old, dusty box.
We put them on and swore never to take them off ever again. It was our secret and something that bonded our connection forever.
“We’re celebrating what exactly?” Judith asked.
Our aunt. I didn’t even know she fucking existed until Violet wrote to me about her coming to stay on the estate five years ago. She was our only legal guardian.
I’m not even sure why she was here. Violet and I were both already eighteen and according to my grandfather’s will, if anything ever happened to our parents, then the estate would be transferred to Violet and me with immediate effect when we were both of legal age.
Well, I certainly hoped Judith enjoyed the last of her stay here because from what Violet’s been telling me, the woman is a torturous bitch.
I watched as the smile fell from Violet’s face, but I squeezed her hand and she glanced up at me once again. A small smile forming on her lips. There was something inside me—something monstrous—that hated—loathed—to see my sister in pain. I swore I’d never let her ever get hurt again. Even if it meant me doing something terrible.
If anyone was to cause Violet pain, I should’ve be the only one who had the power to do so.
“Well, I’m celebrating my brother’s return,” she said, jerking me into the foyer of the house.
The last time I’d been in here—a shiver ran down my spine as I remembered Violet’s haunting screams as I was being dragged out through the doorway, by men twice my size in white coats.
“You’ve missed so much,” Violet breathed. I watched as the rosy colour returned to her pale cheeks. Like when we were little and she’d get flustered from talking. “Do you want to go up to your room? You must be very tired.”
