Riven

by Kait Nolan

  “You’re not.”

  When he would have paced away, she stepped into his path. One hand curled tight around his bag to keep from reaching for her.

  “You’re not,” Marley repeated. “You told me to look at your actions when deciding whether to trust you again. Look at them yourself. A monster would not have gone out of his way to save my life, destroying his career to do it. A monster would not have pushed himself to the brink of starvation rather than feed on me. I’m guessing your kind has some kind of mad mind skills to make people compliant. Scarlett asked if I was in thrall and you looked like you wanted to take her head off for even suggesting it. You haven’t used your mojo on me except to try to force me to save myself, which I appreciate, by the way, given I know I haven’t made this whole process easy on you. The fact is, Ian, you’ve done nothing but take care of me since you walked through my apartment door. You told me most of the Mirus people weren’t monsters, and you’re living proof of that.”

  Something hot and tight lodged in his chest. “How can you trust me when I don’t trust myself? I lied to you, Marley. I’m not human.”

  She took a breath, blew it out slowly. “As it turns out, neither am I.”

  ~*~

  Ian blinked at her, his face a controlled mask she couldn’t read. “How is that possible?”

  “My father wasn’t human. I don’t know exactly what that makes me, but I won’t let it make me a hypocrite.”

  Surprise and acceptance flickered over his face. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

  “I didn’t quite trust my memory and…” She trailed off.

  He nodded. “And didn’t quite trust me. I get it.”

  His expression didn’t change, but Marley had a sense that she’d hurt him. She was sorry for it. “Look, Ian, I’ve been an ungrateful brat about all of this. I was all caught up in feeling sorry for myself, and I didn’t think about you. What you’ve done, what you’ve lost, because of me… I can’t even—I don’t know how to tell you what that makes me feel. Nobody’s ever cared enough to put me first.”

  She stepped into him, laid both hands on his cheeks. Ian flinched and started to pull back, but she didn’t let him. “You’re conscious. You’re in control. You won’t hurt me.” She focused on projecting that feeling of confidence and safety. “I can’t change what’s been done, but I can tell you that I trust you like I’ve never trusted anyone, ever. I just needed you to know that.”

  Worry still carved lines around his mouth, but he didn’t pull away. “I need to check…to make sure…”

  “Go ahead.”

  The hand Ian lifted to her nape was anything but clinical. His fingers slid beneath the fall of her hair, and Marley trembled. She hoped he could sense it wasn’t in fear. She held herself motionless, still cradling his face as his fingers warmed a path down her spine. His eyes shifted to that unearthly silver. It should’ve been frightening. Marley found it beautiful.

  His focus was a physical thing. A touch she felt on every inch of her skin, though his eyes didn’t leave hers. For those long minutes, she felt as if she was the center of his world.

  Ian dropped his temple to hers and let out a slow breath she took to mean relief. “I don’t understand it. You shouldn’t be fine.”

  “Gift horse,” she murmured.

  She expected him to step away. But Ian stayed where he was, his free hand drifting up to curve around her hip.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured.

  “For what?” Her voice sounded breathless to her own ears, her skin still humming from his touch on her back, from the feel of his fingers at her hip.

  “For letting myself get that bad, to the point I couldn’t protect you. For putting you in a position to have to risk yourself for me. For not properly thanking you for the gift you’ve given me. For taking advantage of you when you were only trying to help. Pick one.”

  “I’ll take your apology for all but the last. On that score, I’d say the taking advantage was fairly mutual. In case you missed it, I was a very willing participant.”

  “I was rough.” So was his voice.

  “I wasn’t complaining,” she whispered.

  He lifted a hand back to her nape, tipping her forward to close the small distance between them. His lips brushed hers in a soft, drugging kiss. Marley sank into him, sliding her fingers into his hair. His body shuddered against her, but he kept his mouth easy, his hold gentle, as if she were fragile, precious. The effect was all the more potent, knowing the hunger he held in check. Marley felt something inside her crack open and yearn toward him, fresh heat kindling low in her belly.

  Ian eased back, his breath unsteady.

  “Which was that?” she asked. “The thank you or the apology?”

  He laughed a little. “Maybe some of both.”

  “Then you’re welcome and apology accepted.”

  The corners of his mouth curved, a slow smile to match the deep molasses shade of his eyes. She’d wondered once, how he’d look if he ever truly smiled, and now she could safely say it was another form of weapon, as dangerous as his other gifts. An irresistible invitation to join him in the fun. Or in bed. The sight cut her legs straight out from under her.

  “I’ve been around a long time.” He threaded his hand in her hair. “With all I’ve seen, all I’ve done, almost nothing surprises me anymore. But you do.”

  “Is that a good thing?” she asked.

  “A very good thing. Deciding to rescue you was the best dumb decision I’ve ever made.”

  “Deciding to let you might be mine.”

  She wanted to bask in this unexpected connection. But there was no time. He needed to know the rest. Easing away from him, she reached for her sketchbook and a pencil.

  “Before Matthias left, he gave me these coordinates. Whatever’s there relates to the truth about who I am. He said he was repaying a debt, but I don’t see how he fits into all of this.”

  Ian frowned. “He was following you that night.”

  “What?”

  “The night before you saw the Nix, I caught him tailing you. He played it off, said he was looking for me, which, given I was also tailing you, made more sense.”

  Surprise had her staring. “You were tailing me?”

  “Are you going to get angry if I say yes?”

  “No more lies, Ian.”

  He sighed. “Yeah. Every day home from work after the attack. To make sure you got home okay.”

  All those times she’d wished he were there to walk with her, he actually had been—just out of sight. “I can’t decide if that’s sweet or creepy.”

  He winced. “I meant well. But I have no idea why Matthias would be following you.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He’s my former ops commander. Whatever debt he owes, it’s not to me.”

  “Could he be setting up some kind of trap?”

  “He could, but it’s not likely. He had both of us completely at his mercy while I was unconscious. He could’ve just as easily killed you and hauled me in for execution. I don’t understand why he didn’t. He’ll take flack for my desertion.”

  Marley felt another stab of remorse. He’d lost just as much as she had. More, even.

  Ian cupped her cheek. “I don’t regret it. I don’t regret any of it.” With another quick kiss, he let her go. “We need to get moving. Get your things and change into the warmest clothes you’ve got. Layer up. It’s cold where we’re going.”

  “Are you sure it’s safe?”

  “No. But if Matthias is somehow involved and whoever’s waiting there knows something about who you are, that someone might be able to prove your parentage.”

  “Being half Mirus would stay the execution?”

  “It’s worth finding out.”

  What if whoever they were meeting knew her father? Her body knotted with a mix of apprehension and hope, but she fought it back. She knew better than to hope, to wish, for something so huge. No matter what she remembered, in the end, he’d
left her behind. There was no guarantee he’d want or claim her, even if they managed to track him down. But maybe, at the very least, she’d finally get some answers.

  Ian linked his hand with hers. “I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

  Nodding, she hoped it was a promise he could keep.

  “We’ll travel by shadow. They’ll be able to track it, but it’ll get us out of here fast. We’ll pick up some other mode of transport on the other side.”

  She paused, hoodie in hand. “I’m sorry, we’ll travel by what?”

  “Shadow. It’s what Shadow Walkers do.”

  A hundred questions sprang to Marley’s mind about the physics they’d be breaking, about their plan on the other side. But she voiced none of them, zeroing in instead on another point of confusion. “I thought you were a wraith.”

  “Wraith is my race. Shadow Walker is my job.” He paused. “Or it was. Think of the Shadow Walkers as the special ops of the Mirus world. A cross between your Navy SEALS and the CIA.”

  “So you were in some kind of military,” she said, latching on to the part she understood.

  Ian nodded. “I went to work for the Council after my people were freed. They gave me purpose, a means to feed that didn’t involve the innocent. They saved my sanity. I’ve not been on active service in a year, but I didn’t lose my abilities. And the Council knows it. Which is why it isn’t just any team of Hunters being sent. It will probably be my old squad.”

  “That’s pretty cold-blooded.”

  “It’s what I’d do in their position. The Council will bank on them knowing how I think, what moves I’m likely to make. We got this far because the Hunter didn’t know I was part of the equation. Now we’ve lost that edge. So let’s move. Go change.”

  It took mere minutes. Meeting him in the living room, she took in his black t-shirt and cargo pants. “You’re not dressed very warmly.”

  “The cold won’t affect me the same way. Are you ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be, I guess. I don’t know what to expect.”

  “This…won’t be pleasant. Shadow walking is a fairly rare ability. I can take you with me, but your body really isn’t meant to do what it’s about to do. It’s going to be rough on your system.”

  Marley frowned. “Rough how?”

  “I’m not sure exactly. I’ve never taken a human—part or otherwise—into shadow before.”

  She didn’t ask if it was safe. They had no choice. “Let’s do it.”

  Ian stepped into her, wrapping strong arms around her. “Whatever happens, don’t let go.”

  Marley nodded, linking her arms around his waist.

  Then the bottom fell out of her world.

  She was blind, lost in darkness and a screaming silence as her brain and stomach pitched with vertigo. She was a human pinball ricocheting off forces unseen, first one way, then another. She pressed her face into Ian’s chest and clung to him, her only anchor in the chaos. He hadn’t lied about the cold. The chill soaked into her bones, and ice crystals formed on her lashes. The fingers she had linked behind his back were going numb.

  Whatever happens, don’t let go. His words echoed through her mind, and she struggled to tighten her grip as her feet whipped away from him, their bodies spun with some new centrifugal force. Ian’s arms slid up hers, gripping her shoulders. Marley’s fingers began to slip, the muscles too cramped with cold to tighten further. She tried to cry out, but her voice made no sound as one hand pulled free of the other. The cold rushed in, flooding the space between their bodies.

  Marley was a rag doll at the mercy of unseen currents. Ian’s hand shot out, clamping around her wrist in a bruising grip. But the ice crystals had spread along her limbs, down her hands, and his fingers lost purchase.

  Unable to scream or even breathe, she was lost to the tumbling darkness.

  Chapter 10

  Ian fought the current of darkness, though every instinct shrieked in protest. He threw himself out of shadow and braced to roll. It was like jumping from a bullet train, his body full of too much momentum. His surroundings blurred as he slammed into the ground, rolled, and came to a stop with a raucous metallic crash. Whatever he hit slid a foot and wobbled before settling again with a thump. Seconds passed with agonizing slowness as his body filled back out to three-dimensional space. Even before his lungs had properly re-inflated, he shoved the pain aside and opened his senses wide, scanning. There was no sign of Marley.

  She’d trusted him to protect her and he’d lost her, let her slip from his hands when they hit an unexpected patch of turbulence. He had no idea how much farther he’d made it before dropping out of the stream himself. She could be miles away from here. He didn’t even know where the hell here was.

  Ian staggered to his feet, initially unable to make sense of the acres of derelict cars, some stacked in towers like an automotive Stonehenge. The sun, a molten red ball on the horizon, cast long shadows in the aisles between them. He spied a crane sitting like a silent sentinel a hundred yards away.

  A salvage yard.

  Ian forced himself to calm, to slow his breathing and think. There was no easy way to back track. She wasn’t fully Mirus, so she had no race specific signature he could detect, even if he’d known what her father was. But she was the last person he’d fed upon. If she wasn’t too far out of range, he could track her that way. Closing his eyes, Ian exhaled, shoving his panic aside to focus on abilities he’d spent the better part of his life ignoring. There. A faint tug beneath his skin. An echo in his blood. He could still feel her.

  Homing in on Marley’s signal, Ian dematerialized due east. He didn’t have to go far. Reforming in the lea of a rambling, ramshackle barn, he slipped inside. People filled the interior. Dozens of them, all sparking with greed, excitement and varying shades of aggression. The taste of all that emotion coated the back of his throat, mingling with scents of dirt, stale manure, and unwashed bodies. On the periphery, men lingered around wire cages housing roosters, taking bets, talking the merits of this bird or that, but the bulk gathered in groups around a central ring. Some held money or fliers in their fists.

  Cock fighting, Ian thought with disgust as he moved, unnoticed, through the crowd. Something had stopped the fight in progress. A knot of people were arguing.

  “We can’t call an ambulance. None of us are supposed to be here!”

  “Somebody can drive her into town.”

  “And tell them what exactly? This strange woman fell through the roof and looks like she got dumped out of a deep freeze?”

  Ian’s blood ran cold. His gaze shot up to the hole in the roof, where he could just make out the deepening shades of twilight. At least twenty feet. Christ, a fall like that could break her. He shoved forward, elbowing the men out of the way.

  “We can’t just do nothing. Look at her!”

  A black shape hunched over a body in the center. A shape that no one but Ian could see because it didn’t belong outside the shadow plane. A shade. Suddenly the turbulence of the jump made sense. The thing had known Marley didn’t belong and used her to hitch a ride into this realm. And it was latched onto the back of her neck, feeding.

  His instincts roared to life. With no thought to subtlety or finesse, Ian grabbed hold of every mind in the place. Drawing on the worst fears of the crowd, he pushed in a show of sheer, brute power. Doors splintered around them, holes were blown in the barn walls as more than a dozen armored men with guns rushed into the space.

  “Police! Put your hands in the air!”

  Pandemonium erupted. People began to run and shout, scrambling for the exits.

  I’ll give you something to feed on, you bastard. As Ian fought his way through the panicked mob, he drew out the frenzy, punched it up until the crowd of men were all but rioting to escape. And still the shade didn’t let go of Marley.

  Hatred and fury surged through Ian as he pulled on the darkest part of his nature and drove his hand into the creature. His fingers froze, cramping with cold as he
gripped the shadow and wrenched. It screamed, an ear-splitting, animalistic rage that even his illusion couldn’t mask. The demon released Marley and tried to latch on to Ian, but its suckers couldn’t adhere. Like couldn’t feed on like.

  Realizing what lived beneath Ian’s skin, the shade began to flail, struggling to escape. Ian wished, viciously, for a neck he could snap, a heart he could stop. But there was no killing the thing. It had no substance to damage. The best he could do was haul it back to its own plane and keep it from feeding on anyone else. On a curse Ian yanked them both back into shadow. Part of him wanted to linger, to cause the demon pain, but there was no time. He flung it away from him, phasing back into the light even as the thing shrieked in outrage.

  Ian knelt beside Marley. Ice crystals coated her long lashes and her lips were blue. He laid a hand on her throat, found her pulse thready.

  Her lashes fluttered, eyes cracking open. “Ian?”

  “I’m here. It’s going to be all right.” Something vised hard around his chest, making it hard to breathe. He checked quickly for broken bones, abrasions. It was a fucking miracle she hadn’t broken her back in the fall.

  “S…so…c…c…cold.”

  Ian moved fast, aware that if he didn’t get Marley’s body temperature up and stabilized soon, she wouldn’t make it. Scooping her up, Ian insulated them from the illusion and left the barn at a limping run. The phony raid had chased the throng into the surrounding woods, so no one was around to see him head for a nearby outbuilding. He kicked in the door.

  Marley’s head lolled against his chest as he carried her inside. “C’mon, love, work with me here. Stay awake.”

  “You’re so…big…on…that,” she chattered.

  Ian struggled to keep his voice light, to hide his fear. “I promise when all this is over, you can sleep for a week. In a hammock somewhere with white sandy beaches and drinks with little paper umbrellas.”

  “Pro…promise?”