Queen of Skye and Shadow complete box set : Queen of Skye and Shadow Omnibus books 1-3

by Thea Atkinson

I recognized the gaping hole in the middle of the gauged-out building where the foundation had fallen into one of the tunnels the golem had made. Rusted girders crisscrossed the chamber where there had been multiple floors above me. Indeed, in some places, I could make out remnants of walkways. Puddles of water that looked to be inches deep were scattered throughout every lit place and could be a straight fall into what might be an aged parking lot below.

  Rotted clothing hung from racks here and there. Lacy and frilly things clung to the bits of fabric with tenacious fingers. Beyond that point, I'd never dared venture. I always stopped at the boundary where the building was dark and cluttered and made dripping sounds that indicated further down, there might be lakes of water waiting to claim a foolish foot. Saplings young and old stained in through doorways and display windows.

  A sound just beyond that curtain of ragged fabric caught my attention. It wasn't dripping water or gravity claiming a rotten bit of iron. It was laughter. Soft and intentional.

  My heart rate sped up. Everything in my body tensed.

  I ducked behind the hanging door and reached behind my back for my sword. When my hand met empty air I all but groaned out loud. At least I knew why I'd been able to run like the devil was on my heels. I'd left my sword and my cache of looted books outside the library.

  Right next to the dead man.

  I held my breath as I peered around the door to steal a peek at whoever was coming for me. Was there a weapon anywhere nearby?

  And that's when I caught sight of the person pushing his way through the weeds and hacking at them with a machete. There was only one man I knew with a weapon like that and dreadlocks long enough to tie into two pigtails.

  Dallas King grinned when he caught my eye and I stepped out from behind the door to meet him.

  "Thank God it's you," I said and sagged against the wall from the release of too much adrenaline.

  He was a gorgeous man with mocha skin that would have been equally gorgeous if not marred by scars that I knew were from burns he'd suffered as a kid. He wasn't the least bit embarrassed by the way he looked. In fact, he used his appearance to take the measure of a person.

  He had a way of waiting, Dallas did. Waiting for you to talk, waiting for you to show yourself, your intentions. He studied your eyes when he first met you, expecting them to drift over his scars. He watched the set of your shoulders, the tenseness of your spine as you took him in.

  But if your gaze fell to his chin where the worst of the scars were, if it fell and pinned itself there and you weren't afraid to let it linger and showed no embarrassment or discomfort at the fact that half his chin looked like it had been set alight by pure flame, then he just might give you more than three minutes before his street rats ran you out of the vicinity.

  Dallas took me in now with quiet study, all five feet eight inches of me. His gaze traveled over the scar that split my forehead in two and that I painted with woad and red ochre to help myself blend in when I took shortcuts through the woods.

  I faced down his stare without reservation the same as I had when I'd first met him years earlier. Except this time my body language must have alerted him to the receding fear that had driven me in from the street.

  "What's wrong?" he said.

  Now that he was standing in front of me, it was easy to think I'd imagined it all.

  I waved my hand over the air between us.

  "Nothing. You scared me, is all."

  "Scared you?" he said, his jaw hitching back in disbelief. "That's rich coming from a chick who faced down my nastiest street rat."

  I winced inwardly. I knew the man he spoke about, and he had been nasty. He was also lucky. I'd opted to talk him down from his rage instead of killing him.

  Not that I would have killed him, but he didn't know that.

  "You washed," I said, jerking my chin at his face and collar, both rubbed to near pink beneath the dusky pallor.

  He blinked and let a thread of a smile tug at his mouth. One dreadlock slipped over his shoulder. He smelled of pine cones and daisies and strong lye.

  "Had my weekly bath this morning," he said.

  "Calling your state of grooming a weekly bath is a bit generous," I said.

  He looked like he wanted to smile but he didn't. "Been looking for you."

  "So you washed up in case you ran into me?"

  I knew meeting up with me was no accident. He knew my routine as well as I did. A man like him liked to know folks' whereabouts, especially when those folks might be referred to at best as a mercenary. Folks like me were useful to him.

  "So?" I said when he didn't answer.

  "Maybe I just wanted to look good for Queenie."

  I rolled my eyes and yanked at a bar of stainless steel tangled in a long tendril of weed that had drifted in from the open ceiling and taken root in the filth. The bar might come in handy if we met up with a stray dire wolf. Or if the dead man decided to send his spirit on the howl. Or whatever the hell had chased me decided to return.

  "Not that," I said. "Why are you here?"

  I ignored his reference to Queenie, knowing full well he wasn't referring to me but to his machete.

  "Did Queenie need a breath of fresh air and a stroll through the garden?"

  "Now you're just being ridiculous," he said with a huff.

  "It's ridiculous that you name that thing," I said.

  "I read a book once that said a weapon should be named," he said, canting his head to the side as though he was looking for something in my attire. "I'd name it God's Vengeance except that would take too long to say."

  I sucked the back of my teeth. "That's boats that are named," I said. "Besides, the only thing you read is the weather and the only thing you worship is the insides of a stranger's pocket."

  "What can I say, Skye," he said. "I'm a simple man."

  He watched me struggling to pull the bar free.

  "Well," I demanded. "If you're going to keep me in suspense about why in the Hell you followed me here, then you could at least help me with this."

  "You make it sound like I stalk you," he said. "And whatever you're doing with that hunk of old steel looks like your business, not mine."

  Even so, he stepped over a pile of rusted girders to grab at an end of the steel bar I was working at. He wrenched it free of my grip with a twist and with an equally forceful jerk in the other direction, had the thing liberated.

  I cursed at the ease with which it responded to his strength.

  "I loosened it for you," I told him and yanked the length of steel along with me to a bare patch of floor. Tested its weight in my hands. Swung it once to test its arc. It'd do.

  "I guess a gal can't complain about help when it comes," I said. "And as usual, your timing is impeccable. I need your help."

  I didn't mention that his timing was always impeccable because he watched me a little too closely. He thought I didn't know he watched me.

  "Do I look like the kind of guy who goes around doing charitable acts?"

  The dreadlocks and the shabby clothes not withstanding, I wasn't going to answer that. We both knew he and his streetrats took rather than gave.

  "Just follow me, will ya? I want to go back to the library and I don't want to go alone."

  His lifted eyebrow indicated his surprise better than the way he stumbled backward, hand on his heart in feigned shock.

  I didn't wait for him to follow me. I knew better than to prod him. He'd tell me why he was looking for when he was good and ready. In the meantime, I'd avail of his considerable muscle and frame to help me hoist the dead guy to a less inconvenient spot than the doorstep of my favorite haunt.

  Now that I wasn't alone, I felt a bit ridiculous at being spooked in the first place. Dire wolves and fae and nymphs might be creeping back into the world, but I'd not yet seen or heard of a zombie.

  It seemed to take forever to get back to the library. Full panicked sprints like the one that I'd fled the scene with ate up time like a starved man gorging on steak
, so walking back was a more leisurely if not sedate trip than the headlong rush from the library.

  Dallas seemed preoccupied so I let him be until the library came into view.

  I halted. Something didn't look right about the shapes lying in front of the door. I squinted into the sun as I tried to make out the shadows on the ground of the courtyard. It took me a full three seconds to realize exactly what looked wrong.

  There was only one hunching pile of fabric.

  And that was a small knapsack full of books. My knapsack of books.

  Swallowing down a tight knot, I crept forward, Dallas on my heels. My sword was exactly where I'd dropped it.

  "He's gone," I muttered, confusion numbing any other reaction.

  "Gone?" he said and headed to where I'd left my knapsack and sword in my haste to flee. "Who's gone?"

  I pointed to the place where the stranger had been. There was no sign of the music box or earbuds either.

  He'd been dead. I knew he'd been dead. I did not imagine it.

  The back of my neck crawled but I stooped over to tug the knapsack onto my back and pointed at the empty space where the man had been.

  "There was a man right here. Right next to my books."

  I skirted the area but couldn't keep my eyes from the exposed concrete that just moments ago cradled a dead man. Dead. I had to repeat it to myself. The dead didn't just get up and walk away.

  The sense I'd had earlier of being followed as I ran came back with a rush. Maybe he'd been behind me after all. My heart raced just thinking about it.

  I adjusted the shoulder strap of the knapsack and strode toward the street. No way was I sticking around now. I was getting out of there.

  "You're leaving because some vagrant decided to do the smart thing and get out of the city?" he said from behind me. He did not sound impressed. "What about dragging me all over creation to give you a hand?"

  I looked over my shoulder at him.

  "Sorry," I said. "I just felt like company."

  He crossed his arms over his chest. "Company." He didn't sound convinced. "You."

  "Yeah, sure. I got what I came for. And I guess I can manage it back to Gentry's hobble. I thought my bag might be heavier."

  I made a big show of hefting the weight over my shoulder, blinked at him innocently.

  "Unless you want to give me a ride."

  It creeped me out that the guy was gone, but I decided it was best I not make a deal out of it. Showing weakness, even to an ally wasn't something I was good at.

  Dallas's narrowed gaze demanded further information.

  I shrugged and one of the books, the romance one, fell out and hit the ground with a splat. Next, came a heavy hardback of The Once and Future King.

  I grazed him with a surreptitious look, waiting for the inevitable tease.

  His mouth twitched as his gaze flitted from the book's cover to my face.

  "You came back for books?" he said.

  I nodded. "What else?"

  "Maybe your sword?"

  Right. My sword. I really must have been spooked to forget it. It lay there still, right where I dropped it.

  My gaze skated from him to the sword as I tried to formulate a reason for forgetting it. It might have been a god-awful excuse for a weapon, but I wasn't known to disparage any sort of blade, and certainly not abandon one in favour of a cache of books.

  Not in this world.

  I really had been spooked. And I didn't spook for no reason. I'd always followed my intuition and it had never led me astray. Dallas toed the chunks of asphalt.

  I trusted him, didn't I? He'd not yet done anything to make me doubt him. But something was off. Dead men did not rise and walk. Dallas never came out here to Old Denver.

  I narrowed my gaze at him. "Why were you following me again?"

  "I wasn't following you. I was looking for you."

  "You don't look for me," I said cautiously. It was true. He watched me, looked out for me in his way, but he didn't go looking specifically for me.

  He bent over to retrieve my sword and slipped it into its scabbard, which he looped over my back, buckling it around my waist as I watched him.

  "Well," I said.

  His eyes met mine.

  "Colton Musk has been asking around for you," he said. "He's making it known that you've been summoned."

  Colton Musk was the mayor of New Denver, an upstart who in the days before the EMP went off and robbed the world of technology, would have found a way to upsell himself from a used goods salesman into the presidency. I had no doubt he'd have found a way to parlay that into something else again if given the chance.

  Now, he thought he could create an entire, thriving economy based on his shadowy methods.

  "Don't care," I said. "He probably just wants me to ride to New Colorado Springs. There's some sort of newspaper starting up there touting the notion of freedom from tyranny and he probably wants me to threaten them or worse barter that ridiculous pile of scrap metal he has in return for column space."

  I'd been doing small errands for Musk off and on as a way to earn a bit of barter. I didn't need much but sometimes a few extra eggs from the widow outside town could turn into a child-sized cotton shirt from the tailor. And neither of them had any idea they were helping each other out because they'd been at odds since her chickens had scratched up his flax field. Both needed things and neither would speak to the other. I played mediator without them knowing and kept a few eggs for my breakfast. And both of them smiled at me now when I passed instead of scowling.

  But Musk had begun to think of me as his lackey and that didn't sit well.

  I swung on my heel and made for the street, throwing the words over my shoulder as I went.

  "If you see Musk, tell him to go pound sand."

  I chuckled at that. It was an insult that meant nothing but I enjoyed using it because it was something my grandmother used to say.

  Dallas's voice drifted toward me. It held a note of danger that I didn't quite get until I processed all of his words.

  "Seems Hunter Wolfe is on his way."

  That stopped me. I said the name out loud before I realized I planned to speak at all.

  "Hunter."

  I tried to keep the anxiety from making my voice shake as I processed the name. After my mom died, I'd left New Denver behind and was pretty vagrant and mercenary, stealing from the Pony Post when they crossed my path and used those items to barter food and lodging.

  Neither of those things happened often.

  Hunter had found me and taken me in.

  I'd been grateful at first.

  But the judges he'd set up throughout the country in the vacuum created when the old government had gone into hiding were nothing short of terrifying. With the world leaders cowering in bunkers all over the world, rumored to be enjoying technology when the rest of the world suffered a blackout of all things electrical, the Ruby Skulls went uncontested.

  At first, I'd believed in them. I'd believed in Hunter.

  I'd thought him a messiah of sorts.

  Trouble was, he'd thought himself one too.

  The last time I'd had any contact with him, it had been on a Ruby Skulls judgment mission.

  "How long do I have?" I asked.

  Dallas shrugged. "I'm told he'll arrive in a few days."

  He avoided my eye when he said it, and I knew he was fully aware, the same as I was, of why Hunter was in town.

  "I have time, then," I said, mentally rounding up my horse and a saddlebag full of food and what barter items I'd collected over the months.

  He nodded. Dallas didn't know much about me, no one really did, but he knew the truth of why Hunter Wolfe was coming to New Denver.

  He'd found out I was here.

  And he was after me.

  -3-

  It was a long journey to the hogbacks and I sighed heavily. The books had to stay. At least for now. I unbuckled my sword scabbard as well and passed it to Dallas.

  "It's dull a
nyway," I said. "Unremarkable steel. Can't bring it to edge at all."

  He lifted his smoky brows. "You've been hacking at too many trees with it," he said.

  I shrugged. It was true. I'd bartered my axe to pay for a bushel of apples that I forgot on the step of a young mother whose three kids had begun to show signs of rickets. I didn't regret one moment of splitting kindling with my sword when I noticed apples in their cheeks a few weeks later or when one of the kids traversed the hill and booby-trapped path to bring me a piece of pie.

  "It might not have enough edge to run you through, you damned brigand," I said with an affected English accent. "But I could knock you unconscious with it."

  He rapped the side of his head with his knuckles. "Not this head," he said. "Far too hard."

  Neither of us laughed. We both knew this was goodbye.

  "You be careful, right?" he said. "Get in, get your stuff, and get out."

  I nodded. No worries there. I didn't have much stuff to get, but I would need a few days' food and some blankets. I could just leave right now, but if I had time, I preferred to collect what I could and then leave.

  "You sure you can't give me a ride?" I said. I had no idea where he stashed his own horse but I knew he had one.

  Dallas and his crew didn't live in New Denver, that was just their favorite grifting haunt. I wasn't exactly sure where they all holed up, and I wasn't sure anybody knew. So it was fair to assume he came by mount and not on foot. It was also fair to assume he wouldn't want me to know where it was.

  Most times, he was like steam. He trained every single one of his street rats to be the same. Now you see them. Now you didn't. I knew he would evaporate once I turned my back.

  He took the sword and scabbard and tucked it beneath his elbow.

  I strode away, leaving him to shout at my back.

  "Be careful," he said.

  "Careful is for pussies," I yelled back without so much as bothering to turn around. There would be no point. Looking at someone when you spoke to them was for someone you expected to be there.

  And I didn't expect Dallas to be there any longer. No doubt he was gone the moment his words died on the air.

  In the end, I knew he wouldn't need to worry about anyone, dead or alive. Dallas was a survivor. Much like I was.