“You’re welcome,” I say. “That’s an improvement. Seth doesn’t like perfection.”
When my vision clears, she’s across the room holding her face. Her nose is contorted to the right, and with a crunch, she shoves it back into place. Then cries out in pain.
“Oh, you big baby. I thought you trained hard with the StormSeeds,” I say, recalling a half understood conversation from the kitchens.
“I do,” she growls, blood running into her mouth and between her teeth.
She waves a hand in my direction. The floor underneath me turns to liquid and begins to suck me into it.
I roll out of the way, gasping at the pain that radiates through me with every movement – my arm in agony – just as much as the fear of being buried alive.
“Not yet, sister, Logan wants –”
“Screw Logan, I want her dead.”
“After,” Thom persists.
I roll into the wall underneath one of the benches. The floor over here is solid, but my stomach is turning from even that weak effort to escape. Getting up and running would be a better idea at this point.
If my attackers hadn’t already closed in around me.
Thom lifts a boot and slams it into my middle, a blow lessened by the fact that my legs are curled up pretty tightly and legs can take more of a beating than stomachs.
Or arms, apparently arms are pretty fragile.
“You’re a bastard,” I hiss.
He kicks me again, which I anticipated. Generally, when people are giving you a beating, they’re pretty predictable.
“Thank you, Lord Martin, for teaching me how to take a beating,” I mumble.
It strikes me as odd that I’m not making more pain noises. Apparently, pain noises don’t originate as thoughts; and it’s also obvious that my thoughts can get distracted even when my life is on the line.
There’s a thump at the arena door, which everyone looks at momentarily, then it goes quiet out there.
Locked. Everything is locked.
Thom squats down, gripping the table above my head and using it for balance. Effectively blocking most of the room from view. I’m on my right side, with my right arm tucked around my stomach, my knees up close to my chest and my left arm raised to protect my face.
“Face punch next,” I groan.
“Questions next,” the guy corrects. “Then I’m going to let one of these guys make you bleed for my sister. Any preference on where?”
“Little toe.”
“We could cut it off,” one of the other guys says.
My heart’s already hammering, but the rest of me is mustering more nerve than is safe.
“Sure, why not? Do we even use our little toes?”
And for that I earn a punch to the face, some of which I manage to block with my raised arm.
“You said questions next,” I say through a combination of gasping and adrenalin.
“I lied. I can. I’m not wearing a sigil on my forehead. Why do the Elorsins want you?”
“Oh, goodie. I can play this game,” I say, rushing to get my next sentence out before the thought that telling the truth has nothing to do with my particular sigil. I can say anything, so long as that’s the thing I’m thinking about. “They think I’m sexy.”
“I know. You smell like they’ve all had you,” he says.
Somewhere in the background Asanta growls and thumps something – hard. Which sends a flurry of amusement up through my chest. I like it when she’s pissed off.
“How do I smell like that?”
“They’ve claimed you. Marked you with their magic.”
“Nope, not that kind of sexy. I’m sexy at doing the dishes. They like to watch me clean things,” I blurt out. “In particular, things with bubbles.”
Thom’s brow creases, but another, harder, thump at the arena door steals his attention.
“I should kick you,” I say, because my treacherous mouth wants to ruin my chances of trying to defend myself. “Like in your ugly face or your tiny balls.”
Thom starts punching, and all three of the other Sabers are laughing. I bring both my arms up to protect my face and manage to block any from landing, but the pain in my arm makes me squeal and writhe, until he stands – gasping – and moves back.
Another guy fills my vision, leaner, with a narrow face and round eyes.
“Ugly much?” I blurt. “Crap!” Saying shit like that is going to get me killed. Okay, killed quicker. “I have to turn this sigil off. I have to turn this sigil off,” I fill my mind with that thought, which means it tumbles off my lips as incoherent muttering. Over and over again. Screaming it at myself.
The new guy leans in and grabs my hair in the same instant as I register the small, narrow blade in his other hand. He yanks me partly out of the nook, pulling my head back, and down, to display the full length of my neck.
“I’d like to do two things to you,” he says, his voice dripping with a kind of pleasure that makes me want to vomit. “Hear you answer my commander’s questions, and then watch the blood drain from your body.”
“I have to turn this sigil off,” I gasp.
Asanta squats down beside the man, on the other side of my head, sucking the end of her finger in a slow, taunting movement. The guy with the knife watches her with a hungry look in his eyes. Then she draws a line with the moisture across my throat. Leaving a cold trail like a marking for the blade to trace.
“Just. Like. That,” she sing-songs, sticking her finger back in her mouth to chew the tip of her nail.
She looks more than excited. She looks evil.
The thumping at the door, which had become background noise, stops. I try to swallow, but that’s nearly impossible at his angle.
Escape is impossible.
“Ask me your question,” I say, doing what I should have done all along.
Submitting is survival.
Suddenly, the door’s blasted off its hinges. All of my attackers get thrown into the wall on the far side. I get thrown around, but half of me is still inside a nook so I slam into the cupboard that I was already kind of pressed against. It doesn’t lessen the blow though, and I’m gasping for air like something new was just broken in my chest.
At the same time as I rub hard at the lingering sensation of Asanta’s finger on my throat.
It only mildly helps.
Four practically naked and angry-as-chuck Sabers storm into the room.
My four Sabers.
“Asanta,” Seth shouts.
He has her in his grip before she can move, and he looks furious. He’s a freaking huge guy, which is easy to forget because he moves so lightly, but he pushes her against the door like she weighs nothing, and holds her there.
I remind myself that the women and men consider themselves warriors here – equals – and that I hate Asanta. But that’s not enough to make me want to see Seth smash her face in. Not Sweet Seth.
He doesn’t raise his fist to her and it takes me a second to realize why she’s so scared. Her hands are being drawn together. Palm to palm. Like she can’t resist. They press hard, the skin looking like it’s melting as she screams, the sound lost amongst Killian tossing two of the guys toward the arena and Pax grabbing Thom by the hair. All of them shouting and yelling.
As her skin’s dissolving.
Yep, her hands are melting together.
Fingers and knuckles and everything down to her wrists becoming encased in one smooth layer of skin. Impossible to pull apart.
Still gripping her shirt in one hand, Seth grabs the doorknob in the other and crushes the thing to metal dust. My eyes drift closed in exhaustion, and when I open them, he’s pushed Asanta into the hallway outside and turned to launch himself toward the arena and the other Sabers.
“I challenge you to tournament,” Pax declares, throwing Thom onto the sands. “Right now.”
Followed by screams of pain – not coming from me, which is nice.
Someone cups my face and rolls me onto my back. I st
iffen, waiting for the blow, until my eyes find Roarke’s deep black pools. Calm. Still. Quiet.
I stare into them as he makes hushing noises and wipes the strands of hair from my forehead. Smoothing his palm over my cheek, where Asanta had left a trail of blood.
I’m quite proud of that.
Then he expertly runs his hands over my body, feeling, searching.
“Her arm and her ribs,” Killian says, and I swear his voice makes the room feel colder.
He uses a knife to cut the leather sheaths off himself, and lets them fall to the ground. Not even caring about his nakedness, or his braies, or his shirt, he pulls on his pants and comes over to kneel next to me.
Seth is the next to come back inside, and he’s white, sweating, and shaking.
“Seth?” I manage.
“He just expended too much power pulling that stunt on Asanta, he’ll recover,” Roarke says.
Though I’m not convinced until Seth offers me a weak smile.
“Should have thrown her into the arena,” Killian grunts.
Most of the room is hazy, most of him is hazy, but I can make out the sheen of sweat across his brow, and the way he cocks his head a little, as if trying to work out what he’s seeing.
“We need an assignment, and we won’t get one if we’re locked in the cells,” Seth gasps, leaning on the bench for support.
Killian offers a grunt that could mean, ‘you’re right’ or it could mean, ‘still worth it.’ But then he says, “Her sigil’s dissolving.”
“It’s not sunset yet,” Roarke says, running his fingers across my forehead.
Even if ten sigils had been burned in there, the pain of them would still be less than the pain in other parts of me.
Killian slides his arms underneath me and begins to pull me out and cradle me. His touch is like ice, and I must be delirious because living, dancing shadows look like they’re hugging close to his skin.
“Watch it, Darkness, rein it in,” Roarke orders from somewhere nearby.
“Pain,” I mumble.
Then, with one touch from Roarke, it’s gone. All of it gone, replaced with white spots and weird sparkles.
All the tension, the fear, the searing agony, the tightness through my chest, it all dissolves.
When I open my eyes I’m in a bed, in a dark room so heavy with the sense of power that for several long breaths I can’t move.
I just breathe; slow, hesitant, laced with the promise of pain that is currently at bay.
Details start to come into clarity. A four poster bed. A thick blanket over me, and someone else’s arm wrapped gently around my waist. I’m on my left side, my right arm stretched out on an extra pillow and bandaged securely. Not just bandaged, but immobilised with two lengths of metal that I swear look like someone snapped the handles off serving spoons.
But all of this means moving to see who is in bed with me – and they’d better be fully dressed too – is going to bloody hurt.
“Shhh,” Roarke says. “I can feel your pulse going up.”
Roarke. Makes sense because clearly I’m in his room, in his bed…
Comfortably in his arms.
“This is the only way you’d sleep. I can’t take your pain if I’m not touching you.”
“Thank you,” I say, my voice the kind of raspy that’s left after doing a lot of screaming.
“You can get up if you want. I’ll help you.”
I shake my head and feel the promise of pain there too.
“What?” I ask.
“What time is it?” he asks, trying to guess my question. “You slept through the night. The others are at the first class of the morning.”
“It’s morning?”
“Almost lunch time.”
He chuckles softly. Propping himself up on one elbow to peer down at my face, his hair cascading in a mess of sleepy waves. I don’t look back up at him, the time wasn’t really what I was after, and keeping my eyes open is proving a little exhausting.
“What’s the damage?” I ask.
“Bruised ribs, not broken. You’ve got a bruise above your eyebrow, and enough down your arms that I suspect you deflected a lot of the damage aimed at you. Your arm will take weeks to heal. Killian said the bone’s snapped, and mortals are poor healers.”
“Not too bad then,” I say. “Just broken.”
He frowns at me. “I wouldn’t say that.”
Roarke is sweet, I realize. His power is scary, but he’s not. So I gather up some courage to ask a really important question.
“Why aren’t you allowed women in your room?”
“Men either, actually,” he says softly.
Oh, is all I can think, but I wait – hoping he’ll actually answer the question.
“The problem with having desire as a large component of one’s power is that we all desire things that aren’t good for us. Too much wine and you make yourself sick, too much wine night after night and you make yourself a useless, babbling, idiot. I require an incredible amount of self control and something happened to make me lose that. Something I’m not willing to share just yet, okay, Kitten?”
I sigh, offering a slight nod and regretting the movement.
“And do you have self-control now?” My voice almost a whisper.
“That part of my power is locked down tight,” he says, pressing his lips to my temple.
Then he starts to move, but I manage to catch his hand as it slides past mine.
“Wait,” I say, taking one more relatively pain free breath before letting him go. “Okay.”
“Let me come around and help you up,” he says, slipping out of his side of the bed.
The pain settles into place. An ache in my arm that’s bearable, sharp pains down my ribs with every movement and some throbbing at the back of my mind.
He appears in front of me, fully clothed and holding a sash or scarf of some sort.
“Have you broken anything before?”
I shake my head, slowly, letting him pull me into a sitting position while I cradle my arm.
“I have, lots. Seth was trying for a record when we were kids. Broke my arm six times one year.”
“Why?”
“Because Seth is Seth, and that particular year he discovered a new purpose for rope traps.”
As he talks, he fastens the sash around my arm and up behind my neck, taking the weight of my arm and cradling it securely.
“Thank you.”
He hesitates in his crouch, balancing on the balls of his feet – just looking at me.
“How does it feel?”
He’s not touching me, meaning what I’m feeling now is the full force of my injuries.
A door opens somewhere in the suite, and I jump out of my skin. The sound makes my heart race, even though it wasn’t loud or aggressive.
Just a door opening.
“Shh,” Roarke says, resting his hand on my knee and sucking the pain away again.
I blink against the white spots and sparkles, eyes intent on the door into this room. It opens a crack, letting the bright light of day flood in, and Seth’s head appears in the gap.
I swallow hard. Seth.
Roarke looks from me to his brother.
“No one else can get into these rooms,” Roarke says.
“I thought that about the last room I was in, too. Besides, servants come in here all the time.”
“Not without permission, the ward is too strong,” Seth says. “Killian said you were awake, and I figured you’d probably need a bathroom chaperone.”
“You figured right,” I say, accepting Roarke’s help up and leaving the room in a Seth-me-Roarke sandwich.
Pax is standing by the window, looking out on the world and rubbing his chin with a thoughtful thumb and forefinger. He turns, glancing over me like a rider inspecting a horse before auction. I run my good hand through my hair and search out Killian. He’s not here.
“We need to talk,” Pax says, inclining his head toward the nearest lounge.
“Can she shower first?” Roarke asks.
For half a second I’m conflicted, until Seth makes me jump by opening the damned front door. I swallow hard, giving the thing an evil look. Me and doors are going to have to have words about this, because I’m not going to be scared every time someone opens one for the rest of my life.
And on that note Killian laughs, opening his own door and joining us. His door, the sound of a handle turning, the air moving, the hinges working – no matter how softly – is what gets my attention first.
Get over it. Doors open all the time, I tell myself.
Killian nods like he’s approving of something I’m thinking, or feeling, then waves me away toward Seth.
If my bladder wasn’t about to burst, I might press him on what. The fact that doors now scare me or the fact that, in my head, I was planning the best way to come to a peace treaty with an inanimate wooden object.
But I do have to pee.
And shower.
And get new clothes as soon as possible, because someone at some point ripped the sleeve off this shirt.
Awkwardly I achieve my wash, then dress back into my old clothes and emerge from the bathroom to find Seth standing in the hallway, blocking the door and having a conversation with six waiting Sabers.
“And the double knife-hand back-strike you did!” one of them says.
“Do you give lessons?” another asks.
Seth chuckles, funneling me down the hall to the suite.
“You couldn’t afford me,” he says, leaving a hum of conversation behind him.
“What was that about?”
“Just wait, Puppet.”
We find Pax still by the window, Roarke with a bandage in his hands, and Killian shirtless.
Shirtless and sporting an angry red burn down his left arm – shoulder to elbow.
“What the fuck?!” I exclaim.
Loud enough to make all of them spin and face me – haven’t they heard me actually swear before? Because this is a serious swearing moment.
“Who did that?”
My good fist is balled, at odds with my wide-eyed shock. Like part of me can’t believe what I’m seeing, and the other part is ready to make someone pay for this. He doesn’t have an ‘oops, I spilled hot water,’ burn. His arm looks like someone held him down in a roaring fire.
Shadows and Shade Box Set Page 29