From The Shadows: Book 2 in the Mortisalian Saga

by Stock, L. J.

  “Stop frightening everyone, Gori. You should have made your wakefulness known.” Shannon sighed lazily, popping a stalk of celery into her mouth and grinning at him.

  Grigori chuckled from his cocoon of blankets, sounding much better than he had when we'd arrived. He'd only been asleep for a couple of hours, but I was sure we hadn't helped, gossiping like mother hens around him. I gave Melody a reassuring smile and reached for her hand, tugging her back onto the edge of the bed. She didn't fight me, but she stayed close. Whether to jump into action to protect me or hide behind me was anyone's guess.

  “My apologies.”

  “None needed,” I replied, patting where his foot was. “I have a feeling our conversation didn't give you much chance of a restful sleep.”

  “On the contrary. The talking kept me calm.”

  Shannon gave me a bemused smile from the table, as she picked at the vegetables. She started throwing various foods onto one of the plates that had the coat of arms painted onto it, and brought it across the room to the bed. She and I helped Grigori sit so he could eat before we made a plate for ourselves. I hadn't realized how hungry I was until I had slipped a slice of ham into my mouth. My stomach seemed to growl in anger and had me piling the plate high with more food than I could ever physically eat.

  I lounged across one of the high backed chairs and hung my feet over the arm, ignoring the dull thud of the ache in my ankle. We all ate in silence with only the quiet crackle of the fire to keep us company. Melody excused herself with a small curtsy and left the four of us alone again.

  It was odd being with these people in this situation now we were safe. It felt like I'd been in that cell for an eternity. Looking around the room and watching them eat heartily was a stark contrast to the last meal we'd shared together. I was just glad we'd all made it out alive and well. I couldn't imagine losing one of them now We were survivors, members of a very exclusive club.

  When we'd eaten our fill, I was beginning to feel somewhat human again. I piled all of my dishes back onto the table as neatly as I could, and helped Grigori with his. He gave me a warm smile, but his good eye was taking slow blinks and I knew I had to leave him to rest. Shannon seemed to think the same.

  “Gori, we will leave you to sleep. I am next door if you need me. I believe Cass is across the hall,” Shannon cooed, helping him back down into the bed and brushing his cheek with her lips.

  “I am,” I confirmed. “I'll check on you in a couple of hours.”

  “You are very kind, but that is not something a princess should have to do,” he said lazily, slumping into his pillows.

  “No, but it's something a friend would do,” I countered with a grin.

  The three of us headed to the door, a train wreck of aches, pains and limps. We must have looked ridiculous as we moved together. I could feel the dull thud that started in my follicles and ended in my toes. Before I could exit, Grigori called out to me, his voice low as though it caused him effort to do it.

  “Cassandra?”

  “Yes?” I replied, turning to look at him. His open brown eye was filled with hesitance.

  “May I speak with you alone?”

  I looked to both Rasmus and Shannon who were stood on in the hall and gave them a nod to continue before pushing the door closed and meandering back to the bed. He held out his hand for me to take and I didn't hesitate in accepting it. Too much had passed between us all to go back to the stuffy formalities we'd once held between us.

  I crawled onto the bed and sat cross-legged with my aching ankle on top, and faced him as he gathered his thoughts. His hand was warm around mine, and his fingers, swollen and bloodied from his battle with Harker, seemed to tangle with mine idly. I hated seeing the blossoming purple that was still progressing there. It just seemed to stir my frustration again.

  “You had such anger in the dungeon,” he finally said, his eye on our fingers. “I never expected you to react that way. I knew you would be upset by their actions because you're good-natured, but you surprised even me. I didn't think you had the ability to shout quite that loudly.”

  “You're my friend, Grigori. I owe you my life, and my sanity. What they did down there was...”

  “Smart,” he finished for me. “They saw me for what I am and knew they had to protect you.”

  “It's not smart,” I said, tilting my head to the side and shaking it sadly. “Smart would have been to imprison you until they talked to me. It made me so angry. If it hadn't been for you, Rasmus would have died in Dullhurt and there's no telling what would have happened to me.”

  “Something tells me you would have been fine alone.” He chuckled, which ended in a slight cough and him gripping his ribs. I let him regain his composure before responding. He looked exhausted.

  It seemed as though he no idea just how much he'd done for me. How much he'd given me while we'd been imprisoned. If it hadn't been for him, I would have died there, alone and scared, and unable to do a damn thing about it. He'd given me so much more than my life. He'd given me hope and a friendship I would always cherish.

  “Doubtful.” I smiled. “You have no idea how much your kindness helped me make it through being stuck in that cell. I would have gone crazy without your company.”

  “You wouldn't have been in there at all if it hadn't been for me.”

  “We could do this back and forth thing all day, but you need your rest,” I said, squeezing his hand gently.

  “The man down there in the dungeon,” he finally said, his eye meeting mine. The sadness there was easy to see. “You love him?”

  I took a deep breath, but never broke the contact between our eyes. I owed him the truth. I had never meant to hurt him, but then I'd never reciprocated his advances either. I'd known this would come up eventually, but I hadn't imagined it would be this soon. Selfishly, I hoped that he would forgive me.

  “With everything I am, but I am so angry with him for what he was doing to you.”

  “Forgive him, Cassandra. The way he looked at you as though you were the only being in existence when you entered the room should tell you all you need to know. Life is too short to be angry with him for long. I can understand how devastated he must have been when he thought he'd lost you. When he entered the room where we landed, his first inclination was to hold you in his arms. I knew then that he loved you beyond anything else. He wouldn't let anyone else touch you. He begged for you to wake up so he could see your eyes. You know how close you came to losing him while you were a prisoner. I beg of you not to let this come between you. I have great affection for you, but I am happy with your friendship. My mother told me of the prophecy. I prepared myself for that when I started feeling... something for you.”

  “Grigori...”

  “Ti takaya krasivaya,” he said gently, reaching out and touching my cheek.

  “I don't know what that means.”

  He gave me a gentle smile before falling deeper into his pillows with a sigh. I wasn't sure what to say anymore.

  “I will always be here to protect you. That is all you need to know. Now go to him.”

  I could feel the tears building up. My throat was thick and heavy, and my eyes stung. Any woman would be lucky to have this man, but we both knew my heart lay somewhere else. I just hoped that one day he would find his someone. I hated myself for letting him feel something for me, for bringing all of this on his shoulders.

  I leaned forward and brushed my lips on his forehead. He was sending me to the man I loved and asking me to forgive him. I wasn't sure I was ready for that, but I would give him anything he asked of me, even though I felt it was impossible.

  “I'll be back in a couple of hours to check on you. Try to sleep.”

  He gave me a nod as shuffled further down under the covers. Both of his eyes were closed as I pulled the door closed quietly behind myself. I let my forehead rest on the cool wood and tried to catch my breath.

  “Do you love him?” Damon asked from behind me, making me jump as he stepped nearer.<
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  He was so close his breath rolled over my skin in warm bands that made me shudder before I could even think about the fact that I’d reacted at all. Anger seeped from me, leaving me open and vulnerable. I'd missed him so much that I ached to turn around, fall into his arms and kiss him with everything I had in me, but it was the hostility in his voice that stopped me.

  “You're not asking the right question,” I whispered, drawing in a long breath and finally turning around to face him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  My words hung between Damon and I like a lead weight, heavy and sinuous as it wound its way around my heart.

  As I looked up at him, I could see the doubt in his hazel eyes. I wasn't sure which hurt more now, the fact that he'd tortured Grigori, or how easily he could doubt me. I'd always thought he knew how deep my love for him ran. All of that time when we hadn't known who he was, and I'd ached for him every minute of every day. He knew how hard that had been for me, how much conviction I'd had in my love for him. Yet, in this one second, he seemed to have forgotten it all. All that pain and longing and he thought I could let him go without a second thought. Of course I knew I wasn't helping the situation by throwing his question back at him, but I needed him to figure it out for himself. I was angry, mad as hell at what I’d seen in the dungeon, but I'd never once questioned my devotion to him.

  Even Grigori had figured out that I’d never doubted my love for Damon. I’d just needed to cool off and process my anger. Yet here Damon was, only inches from me, my body already gravitating toward him while he was questioning my loyalty to him.

  “What do you want me to say?” he asked. The longing in his voice was heartbreaking but I stood my ground, needing him to see what he'd so obviously missed. My fingers itched to reach out and caress his jaw as I had so many times before, but this wasn't the moment for affection. I was trying to find what we’d had before I reacted and screwed everything up.

  “I want you to say what's in here,” I said, lifting my arm and resting my hand over his heart.

  His hand covered mine without thought and his eyes slid closed, cutting me off from the raw emotion that had been easy for me to read in the depths of his eyes. I watched as his lashes dusted across his cheeks with the subtle movement of his eyes. As close as I was, I could see every thin line of veins in his eyelids. I willed him to understand, to know what I really needed to hear from him.

  “You want to know what's in my heart?”

  “Yes,” I whispered in response. My own heart was thundering in my chest. I needed to hear the words. I needed reaffirmation. It was so selfish to expect that after the time we'd spent apart and the anger I’d aimed at him down in that dungeon, but he'd been all I could think about. Needing verbal reassurance and a deeper understanding from him wasn't too much to ask for.

  “You’re in my heart, Cass. My heart belongs to you. It always has,” he said gently, his eyes flickering open to meet mine.

  With his words now hanging between us, I felt like I could finally breathe. I sucked in the air around me and organized my thoughts, my eyes never once leaving his.

  “Then how can you ask me if I love him anywhere near the way I love you? Do you honestly think I would be that careless with your heart, Damon? I have spent so much time thinking about you and only you. I was confined to a cell and every time I closed my eyes, there you were. Some days the thought of seeing you again was the only thing that kept me going. I always thought you understood how I feel about you.”

  Guilt passed behind his eyes as he read the truth of my words in my expression. Tears burned and pooled in my eyes but I blinked them back, unwilling to let them speak for me. This hadn't been easy on him either. I could see it in the furrowing of his brow and glassiness of his eyes. He'd been to hell and back with me.

  I finally let myself reach out to cup his cheek, my fingers reveling in the scratch of his day old stubble, and Damon leaned into my touch, once again cutting me off from his emotions as his eyes slid closed. He took a deep, healing breath and I felt his chest expand under the hand that was still lying over his pounding heart.

  “I thought I'd lost you again,” he choked out, his voice cracking slightly.

  “Never. I am yours, Damon.”

  “You were so angry.”

  I took a deep breath and let my thumb brush the thin membrane of skin under his eyes. I wanted to tell him how I was feeling, what was going through my mind, but this moment between us was so raw, so real, that I was reluctant to break it. The truth was if he was ever going to understand, I needed to be honest with him. I needed him to understand my actions.

  “I still am,” I whispered, and his eyes flickered open again. “You have to understand what happened to me to realize why I'm so indebted to the man in that room. You didn't wait for me to explain. You took matters into your own hands and tortured the man responsible for keeping me alive and bringing me back to you. You won't understand until I can tell you the whole story, and you will hear it, but I’m only going to tell it once, so I need all of you to be there.”

  “Anything you want,” he whispered.

  “Anything?” I asked, finally allowing a small smile to play on my lips.

  Damon tipped his head to the side and let his eyes drink in my expression. His gaze flickered to my lips and I felt the heat stirring in my belly. He knew me so well. Unfortunately, I was sure I hadn't had a bath since I'd landed back in my bathroom after the translocation. It didn't stop the raw, intrinsic emotion we had for one another from crackling in the air between us, however.

  “Yes, I would love a kiss.” I grinned, but stopped him playfully with my hand over his mouth. “But first, I need a shower and a toothbrush. I feel disgusting.”

  “Well,” he mumbled behind my hand. I rolled my eyes and removed it. “I can certainly appreciate that. You do smell pretty bad.” I slapped him on the arm, making him laugh. “There's two problems, though.”

  “Which are?” I asked, feigning a sigh while trying not to breathe in his face now I was good and self-conscious about not brushing my teeth for over a month.

  “First, I don't want to be that far away from you again so soon. The second... The bath in your room is, uh, gone.”

  I'd forgotten, yet again, that I had wielded the bath into a sword. I still wasn't sure how to even begin explaining that either. Especially when I hadn't explained anything about what had happened during my incarceration. I could feel Damon watching me as though waiting for some explanation, but I couldn't without going through everything else.

  “I'll explain that later. Let me ask Shannon if I can use her tub. You can sit in the bathroom with me if you're not willing to let me out of your sight. I want to shower in the farmhouse.”

  “Shannon?”

  “The red head.”

  “You mean Rasmus'...”

  “You may not want to let her hear you call her his lady friend.” I snorted, finally dropping my hand and taking his. “She's pretty independent and feisty to boot. You're going to love her, but you may want to apologize for torturing her nephew.”

  “Her nephew?” he asked, surprised, as I limped toward the next door down.

  “Acantha's my grandmother, and you're surprised Shannon is an aunt?” I asked, bemused.

  “It's not that,” he said, wrapping his arm around my waist to take the weight off my bad ankle. “I just didn't think that the nymphs taken hostage were allowed access to their children and certainly not an aunt allowed access to her nephew.”

  “Technically they're not, but it's all part of the story so you're just going to have to trust me.”

  “I do. I always have,” he said quietly, his hand squeezing my hip. “I just needed to be sure.”

  As we approached the closed door, I found myself nervous about going inside. I hadn't had a chance to talk to Shannon about Damon, and I wasn't certain how she would react. As an underworld nymph, her anger was volatile. It wasn't something I'd seen much of considering we'd been in a cell where our
gifts were suppressed. I tried to gather myself in case I needed to deflect her initial reaction.

  I knocked gently and waited as the shuffling came from deep within the room. When the door opened and I met the blue eyes of Shannon, I offered her a smile. Her eyes moved between Damon and I, and I was relieved to see the resignation behind her eyes. She'd realized the same thing Grigori had, and as mad as she was at what he'd done to her family, she stepped aside and let us enter.

  “Shannon,” Damon started, bowing slightly at his waist. “I would like to apologize for my behavior. I now realize I made a grave error in judgment, and I intend to make amends to you and your nephew for my behavior. I acted irrationally.”

  Shannon sized him up as she pushed the door closed with a measured shove behind us. I could see Rasmus standing with one leg barely touching the floor by the bed, his grin wide. He'd always got along well with Damon. Their relationship had been one of teasing, and I could see he was reveling in watching him having to apologize.

  “You are lucky I like your Cass so very much,” she said, planting her hands on her hips. “But I am really not the one you should be apologizing to.”

  “I fully intend to speak with your nephew as soon as he's lucid,” Damon replied, his arm tightening around me in his discomfort. “It's no excuse, but I let my emotions get the better of me, and made assumptions that I should have confirmed before acting upon them.”

  “Then let this be a lesson to you. It seems to me that Cass doesn't do anything without a reason, and you doubted her in favor of your need for vengeance. You would do well to remember this in the future.”

  “Believe me, I have learned my lesson.”

  When he bowed again, Shannon flashed me a smile. She liked him, even after he'd done what he'd done. I knew she understood the reasoning behind it, and she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for now.

  “Oh, stop with the bowing, man.” She laughed pleasantly and offered him her hand. “We all make mistakes, and had it been any veneficus other than my nephew, I would be commending you.”