Shadows and Shade Box Set

by Amanda Cashure

  “Wait,” I say, catching his hand again. “You haven’t read me your page.”

  “I was never planning to,” he says, snapping the book shut but leaving it in my lap.

  Then he gets up and walks away. I feel the need to throw something at him, except that would make me the ass here. The guy just cut his chest open and left his emotions bare for me, he really does have a right to walk away – at least that’s what I’m trying to tell myself.

  I flip the book open and let the pages flutter by. What would the lines for Allure look like? As the pages flutter I spot a gap, a place where a page has been roughly torn free. I glare at Roarke as he begins to saddle his horse. What’s so scary about his Seed that he’d damage a book to keep a girl who can’t read from finding out?

  Seth ambles toward the camp, Killian patting him on the shoulder and smiling about something. Killian’s eyes are a happy, clear emerald – that color they only go when he can completely let his guard down.

  Even though he was just getting thrown around, Seth looks refreshed, in a remotely clean set of beige linen pants with the waist fastened by a crisscrossing string. I think I could make those tight enough to fit my hips – note to self, steal those pants.

  He has a water flask in his hands but doesn’t even take a sip before passing it down to me.

  I drink greedily from the small leather bottle, then hold it in the air for him to take back.

  “It’s yours,” he says, smiling as he walks over to his horse.

  He begins to fish around in his bags with his back to me.

  “What do you mean it’s mine?” I demand.

  I don’t own anything. Except for a few sets of clothes, which technically Pax arranged for me, and so technically they still belong to him. And two books. I now own two books. The idea makes me feel a little giddy with the luxury.

  Seth tosses an empty set of leather saddle bags in my direction. They hit the ground with a thump and slide to a stop next to my hand. The brown lamb-hide is so soft under my fingertips that for half a beat I just sit stroking the thing. They’re finer than anything that should be wasted on bags that tie to a horse’s ass. Each side is fitted with two shiny black buckles, and a design of five arrowheads in a row has been burned onto each pocket.

  I’m too stunned to get answers.

  And I totally don’t care that I have nothing to put inside them. Just a water bottle.

  My water bottle.

  And two books. My books.

  Then Roarke tosses a cloak, the black fabric swirling in mid-flight before being snatched from the air by Seth. The guy wraps it around his shoulders and smiles across at his brother.

  “Does it suit me, brother?” Seth asks, fluttering his eyelashes.

  His shoulders are too broad, and the hem doesn’t even make it past his ass. I burst out laughing.

  Seth turns toward the other two. “What do you think? Is it my style?”

  While Pax and Seth debate whether the fabric matches his hair color, Killian squats down beside me and motions for me to hand over the blades and darts.

  He slips them into their sheaths – short curved sheaths for the odd curved blades. The thin, twisted darts slide into a bracelet type guard for his wrist, and the darts with red-ribbons go into the type of case that would fasten to his belt.

  But then he holds them out for me.

  “Yours,” he says.

  I point to them, leaving them in his grip and resting my finger on the rough brushed leather of the sheaths.

  “No, they’re not,” I say.

  He grunts, but he’s almost smiling. A happy-grunt?

  “Take them in their sheaths, or I’ll embed them in your body, and you’ll have no choice,” he says.

  I snatch them from him, pressing them flush against my chest, so he can’t get them back again.

  Pax shoves my cloak down his shirt, and I groan. They all ignore me.

  Yay, armpit cloak.

  Seth tosses a small waxed canvas duffle on top of the saddle bags, followed by my gravy-clothes, jam-clothes, and just plain dirty clothes.

  “I would have picked up some boots if I had known you would be needing new ones,” Seth says.

  “I’m good,” I say, before realizing how rude that must have sounded. “No, sorry. Thank you.”

  I snatch the stuff up before they can take it away from me.

  Seth laughs. Killian takes his turn getting his scent all over my new cloak, and Roarke bends down to help me stow the books in the saddle bags, then unzip my new duffle and stow my clothes away – wet and dirty clothes. No wonder Seth wanted me to get a bag of my own. I have to do some washing as soon as possible, and I might need to wash some of Seth’s stuff too.

  When everything is in and secured I stand up, the straps of the duffle in my hand, the bag hanging limply at my side – because I only have one hand and can’t possibly gather everything up at once.

  “Let me get this straight. While I was trying to gather information, like we were all ordered to do, you lot were shopping?” I ask.

  Pax and Roarke look amused, trying to pull their smiles down from filling their faces. Seth gives me a wicked grin.

  “What made you think we don’t enjoy shopping? We’re in the top ten richest families in Silva – yes, we like shopping,” he says.

  My brow creases. That just doesn’t make sense.

  Seth points at himself then his brothers. “Third generation princes. We may have lost the title, but we haven’t lost the estates. Money isn’t a problem.”

  My eyes widen, and my jaw drops. I knew they were the old Crown’s sons. I was told that early on in my life as a kidnappee, as well as the fact that Crowns are voted into this realm, and their family was usurped. That the new Crown, Lithael, is still trying to destroy them and a good portion of the population is on Lithael’s side because of some really dirty political tricks.

  “Then why are we sleeping on the ground?” I ask.

  “Builds character,” Killian says as he walks toward me.

  I ignore him, looking at Roarke for an answer.

  “Our estates are on the lower southern side of the realm, and our safe houses are all within the major cities. We are currently trying to keep out of Lithael’s sights, so we’re safest if we stay out of the towns as much as possible,” he answers.

  Killian swoops in to take the bag from my fingers, and for a second I jerk it out of his reach… before realizing that that’s a pretty silly reaction. I let him take it, and he sets about strapping it to the back of my saddle. Saddle bags first, duffle on top.

  Knives, cloak, bags, water bottle, book. Way to make a girl feel like she owes you something.

  “You need a belt,” Killian says, waving the blades in the air and making a show of putting one in each side of the saddle bag. “Make sure you can always reach these.”

  I nod dumbly.

  Then he turns to me and motions toward my leg.

  “Give me your foot.”

  “Chuck, no.”

  His brow creases. What did he think my reaction would be?

  Kneeling down, he holds the thin-twisted darts in their bracelet-like sheath out.

  “Dragon darts. I’ll teach you how to poison them.” As he talks, he pats his knee. “It’d be better on your wrist, but you won’t be able to draw them one-handed.”

  I put my bare foot on his knee. He lifts the ankle of my pants, and my whole body rushes with warmth at his touch. Even though his touch is cold. Like ice. Like the guy just climbed out of the river again – and yet my body responds with warmth – it shouldn’t.

  His touch stops on my calf. Pauses.

  “You’re not in shock,” he mutters.

  Damn, am I glad for that distraction.

  “I feel fine,” I say, lifting my fingers and showing him that even the lightning has settled to an almost unnoticeable few lines.

  He grunts. Grabs my calf hard, and practically slaps the sheath against my leg.

  I wobble, reachi
ng out for something to stop me from falling over, and end up grabbing a handful of his black hair.

  “What are you doing?” he demands.

  “Getting revenge for the sting in my leg, I guess,” I tell him.

  “Pain doesn’t worry me,” he says, tightening the bracelet cord with sharp movements.

  “I know,” I say.

  “Then why are you still holding my hair?”

  “Because you’re still almost knocking me over.”

  He makes a little thinking noise, his hands gentling a little. With a final knot he pushes my foot off his knee and stands up so quickly I’m not sure how my hand doesn’t come away full of hair.

  “Done,” he says.

  “Fine,” I snap.

  “Don’t take it off.”

  “I won't.”

  He grunts, turning away.

  I groan.

  “Are we good?” Pax asks Killian.

  He nods.

  I want to smack him on the back of the head. No, we’re not good.

  “Mount up,” Pax says, looking specifically at me.

  Is that a, ‘let it go’ look?

  I clench my teeth and fold my one arm over my chest. If I knew what, exactly, would get an explanation out of Killian, I would do it. But until I can kick his ass, I’m never going to have the ability to make the guy tell me what he’s thinking.

  Roarke leads the gelding over. The one with the creamy mane and beautiful almost black coat.

  “Did I steal this horse?” I ask.

  The others are checking their gear and climbing onto their horses around me and they all chuckle – except Seth. His brow lifts in genuine excitement.

  “Are we graduating to horse rustling? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  “I’m serious. This wasn’t my horse. I just climbed on when everything started exploding.”

  “Pax purchased him,” Roarke says, wrapping my cloak around my shoulders and fastening the buttons for me.

  One-armed buttoning skills are way beyond me.

  “The pony you were on couldn’t keep up,” Pax calls back.

  “Yeah, you need all the help you can get, Vexy,” Seth adds.

  “Sethy, that hurts,” I say, copying the hand over heart motion that he used on Pax at the bandit cave.

  He laughs.

  I purse my lips, my mind full of the ideas for retaliation lining up and begging for attention.

  “What would happen if I put sulfur in your boots – then set them alight?” I ask sweetly.

  But I’m not looking at him. I’m concentrating on my next task – getting into this saddle. I run my fingers down the length of the stirrup leather, trying to straighten it.

  Roarke leans in next to my ear.

  “You know what sulfur does?” he asks, disbelieving.

  I shrug, balancing on one foot and sticking my other in the stirrup. “Maybe.”

  He doesn’t back off, his hair falling forward against my shoulder. His dark eyes seeking mine.

  Of course I know what sulfur does. The families on the far east of Lord Martin’s estate mined it in secret. They took small amounts to the markets in Drayden, in secret, to trade for food. Sometimes it was the only thing that kept them alive.

  I’m not sure if I’m annoyed that Roarke thought I was too dumb to know what the stuff is, or just annoyed because he’s standing so close I can’t get on my horse.

  He smiles, taking the edge off that feeling.

  “That’s,” he begins, stepping back and running his thumb and forefinger over his mustache-beard combo. “Interesting.”

  I bend my knee, ready to spring into the saddle when Killian grunts, “Wrong foot.”

  “Huh?” I eye the saddle and my leg, accusingly. “How do you know?” I demand, but I pull my foot out and turn around.

  “Roarke, if you’re not helping, leave her to fail on her own,” Killian mutters.

  “No, don’t leave me to fail.”

  Now I’m facing the horse’s ass and this just isn’t going to work. I chew the corner of my lip for a second, then walk around to the other side of the horse. Killian grunt-chuckles while Roarke takes the horse’s reins, and I struggle with the stirrup again.

  Struggle to get my foot in, struggle to get my ass up, struggle to settle into the saddle.

  But win. Me and this saddle have got to get over our differences.

  Roarke guides the reins into my hands.

  “Please put sulfur in his boots, and please let me watch,” he says, his eyes bright.

  So he wasn’t surprised by my knowledge, he was surprised by the theories for its application? Whatever was going through his mind, I simply can’t resist that lopsided smile.

  “Do you think we could dip his boot laces in sulfur?” I ask. “Crush it and mix it with water, then soak his laces overnight, and light them while he’s wearing them? I could crawl under the table during dinner.”

  “You can’t out-Chaos Chaos,” Seth says, nudging his horse in line with mine.

  “Is that a challenge?” I ask.

  Seth looks a little hurt. The corners of his lips turned down, almost pouting.

  “Oh, don’t worry, Sethy,” I add. “I’ll help you get revenge on Roarke. Not me, you’re not allowed to play pranks on me. But we can both play pranks on Roarke.”

  “Traitor,” Roarke calls back.

  Pax makes a clicking sound, and his horse ambles to the head of the line. We follow him up river. Pax, Roarke, Seth beside me, and Killian behind me. The silence is comfortable as the sun lights up the land, and the animals and birds come alive. A light breeze rustles over the treetops, pulling at Roarke’s loose hair until the guy decides to wrestle it into a knot on the top of his head.

  I play with the reins in my hand, one hand. Everyone else has two hands, and I have one. Even if I had three hands, I’d still feel unbalanced and vulnerable. I can’t even ride, and now I have no way of holding on for dear life if something goes wrong.

  When something goes wrong.

  With me, and these guys, something always goes wrong.

  We find a road, then a bridge, then an intersection with a narrow single-file track leading off it. The thing’s overgrown, like something that the cattle trample through once a year, being mustered back to the sale yards. Only I haven’t seen any cattle in Silva.

  We stop, and Pax nods at Roarke before guiding his horse over to me. The look in his golden eyes hints that I’m not going to like what he’s about to say – or maybe he’s not going to like it.

  “Ride with Roarke to Eydis. They’ll work out how to remove this bubble.”

  He can’t possibly be suggesting this? What happened to the Elorsin brothers sticking together? We can’t go a day without getting into a bloody battle. I’m going to get Roarke killed!

  My mouth doesn’t open, can’t find the right words. His gaze narrows on me, waiting. For a split second I see the wolf inside.

  “You can’t go where I’m going,” he says. “Roarke’s the only one that can get you to Eydis alone. It’ll take most of the day, but once you’re there, Eydis’s domain is protected. She’s powerful, Shade. Her power will help balance out Roarke’s.”

  “I’m worried about him,” I say, pointing at Roarke, because any potential side effects from Roarke’s Allure were not even on my mind.

  “I’m not,” Pax snaps.

  I try again. “I’m going to get him killed. Haven’t you noticed that since we left the White Castle, something bad has happened every day?”

  “Twice a day, actually,” Seth corrects.

  Pax’s expression softens. Whatever he thought he knew – it wasn’t this.

  “Still not worried. Go with him,” he says.

  I manage to nod my head even though I’d rather argue and convince him that this is a stupid idea.

  “We’ll ride hard and be at Eydis’ home before dark,” Roarke says, his tone trying to reassure me.

  I twist in my saddle to get a good look at his expression
– because that makes no sense. He looks a little resigned. I can see the way his lips are pulled even though he’s trying to cover it with half a forced smile.

  Some Potion Master that I’ve never met before is not a comforting addition to this problem.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “You and Roarke are riding to Eydis’,” Pax repeats.

  “Oh no, there’s more to it than that. You’re going to hunt that BeastSeed, aren’t you?”

  “No, we’re not actually,” Seth says, which is annoying because Seth is actually the only one in this particular conversation that I trust.

  “Then why are we splitting up?”

  “The BeastSeed is still hunting us,” Killian rumbles.

  “Then we should stick together. You guys are stronger together, and you said there are worse things than Daryan in Tanakan,” I argue, wanting to add that Pax is the last person who should be playing cat-and-mouse with a person powerful enough to make him vulnerable, but I don’t.

  Because I make him vulnerable too, and keeping Roarke with them means keeping me with them.

  “That’s why we’re not taking you there,” Roarke says.

  This is a horrible idea, but obviously it’s worth the risk of separating if it means the benefit of not having me…

  And I’m going to stop myself right there.

  Whatever their reasons, and I don’t doubt they include me as a lead weight, I just can’t bring myself to care more about my own feelings than I do about their safety. This is a chuckin’ bad idea.

  Pax’s horse steps sideways until my leg is crushed against the animal, and for a second I’m not sure if he’s going to say something or kiss me. All he does is scan over me, from my hair to my bare toes, then clicks loudly and races off. Killian is right behind him.

  “Behave,” Seth says, looking directly at me before he whoops and his horse full-gallops to catch up to the others.

  Um…

  That’s all I’ve got. What just happened?

  I stare after them. Seth shoots me a few glances over his shoulder, almost riding his horse off the road. Pax doesn’t look back – his shoulders stiff and his muscles shimmering. I swear I can almost see the wolf shifting under his skin.

  Killian looks back for a heartbeat. Two heartbeats. Three.

  He looks strained, and I try smiling reassuringly at him. The way his features relax in response sends a thrill rushing through me.