“Thank you,” I say.
He chuckles as I shimmy into the light wrapping. Then short female braies. I don’t bother looking at the clothes, my mind a mix between dealing with the dull ache and trying to imagine what’s going on outside. Plus, I’m pretty sure that I’m about to run back out into the rain anyway.
I throw the garment over my head, hunt out armholes, and tug it into place. I’m already moving towards the door when I realize the sleeves have fallen back off my shoulders, and there’s a chance I’ve put the stupid Silvari dress-tunic thingy on wrong.
“Wait,” Seth calls, only just realizing that I’m leaving and rushing to catch up to me on the stairs.
I move with my good arm up in a block in front of my face – not sure where I’ll find my wall. The front door is to the left of the stairs and wide open. I don’t even stop to consider the ward might bounce me onto my ass without Roarke. I’m one step outside when Seth’s arm goes around my waist, and he lifts me up off the ground. The ward wasn’t a problem, maybe it's gone, but Seth is.
“Let me go, Seth.”
“No, it’s still raining, and you’ve taken enough hits already.”
“I haven’t taken any hits,” I protest, trying to wriggle free.
The guy just holds me up, my legs swinging in the air, and turns to carry me back inside. “Yes, you have. I’m pretty sure mortals shouldn’t get too wet; you dissolve or something. And you definitely shouldn’t be needing Roarke as your painkiller.”
I grab the doorframe with my good hand, forcing him to stop.
“Seth, put me down. I can get dry clothes again – but you’ll never have dry clothes for the rest of your chuckin’ long life if you don’t let go of me!”
Across the clearing, the other three have turned to look at us. Whatever they were discussing was serious, and it’s left them frowning.
I don’t like that look on them; it knots my stomach up.
“Guys,” Seth calls into the pelting rain.
As I approach Pax, half a step in front of Killian and half a beat faster than I would normally walk, I notice two things. That the cold sting of the rain is driven back by my fear for Kitten, and that Pax is in turmoil.
Something went wrong at Tanakan.
“What did you find?” I call out, not waiting until I’m standing next to my brother.
“Nothing,” Pax growls – then Thane adds, “Not a single Seed.”
The man turns to face me, his eyes glowing gold and the wolf clearly in control of the movement. They swallow hard, struggling with their balance, or something they’re about to say – or both.
“What?” I demand.
“There was one last Hyll,” Killian says.
My stomach drops, hard enough to make me want to vomit.
I searched their estate. I looked at each body that Thane had torn to pieces. Mostly, they were unrecognizable. So, logic is, the Cataclysm who removed Pax’s child from existence could have been alive all this time.
Possible, but not likely. Thane hunted for years, and it’s been decades since.
“In Tanakan?” I ask to check that I’m drawing conclusions from the right facts.
Because if she was locked away, then that would explain why we haven’t seen or heard of her since Thane slipped deep into Pax’s darkness and left the man to clean up the mess.
“And Lithael put her there?”
He’s the only person I can think of who would hide someone in a prison.
Killian nods in agreement.
“She’s hunting Kitten?” I ask, the words torn with a whole new kind of fear.
Thane roars in anger, but neither he nor Pax moves. They don’t shift. Don’t break stuff in a maddened rage. Nothing.
“How did you manage to drag him back here?” I ask Killian.
Pax pulls his shirt across to reveal a sigil on his chest, but it’s Thane who rumbles, “Leash.”
A circle, a cross, six slashes, two dots, and what should be a half swirl of a moon phase – but it’s eaten at the edge. Everything to do with Silvari magic is fluid, so something that should last one moon phase can be burned through in a day. I just hope this sigil is stronger than Pax.
I hold my hand out and both of them stare down at it.
“Give one to me.”
“We only had one,” Thane growls.
Just one? I don’t know where or when they got it – but they can’t have acquired just one! “You don’t understand – I can’t keep being around this woman. She’s going to get herself killed, and I’m going to be the one left holding the body.”
Thane retreats, taking the golden glow of Pax’s eyes with him, leaving Pax wide-eyed with shock.
Oh, shit – that’s what that look is saying.
“I should have,” he says, running a tired hand through his hair. “Should have purchased every one that the guy had made. Should have purchased him and brought him with us.”
Pax looks at me properly for the first time since I walked out here, his brow furrowing at my lack of clothing.
“He was in bed with her,” Killian says.
Pax’s jaw clenches, ready to bite.
“She’s unharmed,” Killian adds.
At exactly the same moment I blurt out, “Nothing sexual happened – I need a damn sigil – why do you think I’m worried?”
“She’s unharmed?” Pax repeats, hearing our brother’s words, but clearly not what I just said.
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?” Pax demands.
Killian just nods.
I want to say that I didn’t harm her, but that’s not entirely true. I want to explain that it wasn’t my fault, but that, too, is not what I’d call accurate.
Pax rubs the back of his neck. He looks tired. We all are. Drained and at the end of our limits. His jaw relaxes, and his sharp breaths grow longer and less aggressive. The sigil’s at work, and it’s impressive.
Thane’s gaze pulls past me and settles beyond the cottage, on the giant sequoia. There are only six of those trees in the kingdom, and based on size alone, I should have spotted all of them before. I’ve ridden nearly every part of this realm. But I’ve only seen one other, at the Veil Spring. Before the Potion Master there threw our grieving asses out of his domain.
“You should go into town,” he finally says. “You need a tumble in the sheets. You’ve had your power locked down for too long.”
Killian grunts, nods, and adjusts his weight.
“And you’re volunteering to go with me?” I ask him, in the kind of shock that makes my eyes go wide.
Killian nods.
“You can’t fight who you are. If it keeps Shade safe…” Pax trails off.
I rub the back of my neck. What they’re proposing is murder – given the chance of an Elite Saber just wandering through the nearest town is slim-to-nothing, and anything short of a bloody powerful Elite Saber is going to die in bed with me. Doesn’t make them any less beautiful or desirable, and my power has latched on to every level of Saber and Silvari in the past. I’ve lived for a very long time. Just makes my actions murder and my soul black with bloodstain over bloodstain.
Is this what I need to do to keep her safe? Exhaust my power somewhere far away?
“Cinnamon and roses,” Killian says. “Your threads are alive with it.”
“Anything else?” I press.
Just cinnamon and roses? Neither of those are precursors to someone dying in my hands.
Killian looks across to Pax. “Nothing is burning.”
“I want to tumble in the sheets. Tumble in the bloody mud – I don’t care. But I want that with her. My power isn’t flaring to life at the idea of anyone else. Even Teegan…” And Teegan always satisfies me for a few hours, sometimes even a few weeks. I sag under the weight of having to tell them everything, and start with my power knocking her to the floor in the attic, then retreating and letting me kiss her. Then, after filling in all the blanks, I finish with, “I have no idea what my power is doin
g, but it only wants to do it with her.”
We hold each other’s gazes, each of us in our own mess of assumptions and poorly-formed conclusions.
“Focus,” Pax says, clearly to Thane. “If you don’t stop thinking about pinning her to a wall and kissing the fuck out of her, I’m going to start concentrating really, really, hard on every memory I have of horses shitting – in slow motion.”
Silence, then the smug smile on Pax’s lips says he won.
“Why were you tempting your power, then?” Pax asks, pointing at my braies.
“Oh, that. Well, other stuff has happened while you were gone. Specifically, a mortal mage named Leon managed to get through the border and confront us.”
“And you let him live?” Killian growls.
“Fighting him would have let him get far too close to Kitten.”
“Should have ended him,” Thane adds.
“How? There was no one else here, and she’s stuck in a bubble,” I yell.
A bubble that’s shrinking, but I only want to explain that one time, once everyone is in the same room.
“She wasn’t happy standing behind me, though, and she was throwing my power at him…” I scrub a hand down my face, realizing how badly my instincts took over. I’m not used to having instincts that don’t involve intimacy and passion. “Kitten used my power to force information out of him. It knocked her out because Allure doesn’t work like that. I think my power is hijacking her desires, but I’m not sure if maybe she’s hijacking my power too. It’s impossible, but that just means Kitten’s the first one I’ve ever heard of doing it. I’ve been too busy –” I trail off.
Too busy trying to keep her alive. Too busy trying to keep my distance. Too busy with all the things I’m avoiding, things I don’t want to think about – but have to.
“She used your Allure?” Pax asks.
I nod, deliberately slow so there’s no confusion.
“She pushed it to its limit. To her limit. Wouldn’t let go of the mage until he promised to hold the border. If the border goes down, the mages will hold it for as long as they can.”
“Beautiful had control of a mortal mage?” Pax asks.
I nod.
With the mortal mage, she forced my power through her body and did enough damage to knock herself unconscious. Has she hurt herself every time she’s used my power?
I turn to Killian, “You saw her in there. She was using my power, wasn’t she?”
He nods.
“But she’s not absorbing it like a Saber, is she?”
Killian shakes his head, his lips pulling to a thin, strained line.
“But I was still absorbing her energy?”
“I could see your Allure,” he says, “I could see her pulling at it, but I had to look hard. Like she’s a thief using sleight of hand. But she’s definitely not absorbing it, just using it, and we are all still tapping into her energy, the same way all Silvari tap into each other.”
“It doesn’t feel like that. I enjoy pulling energy from others – that moment when they let their guard down with you, and you can take what you want. I know what it feels like, how it settles inside of me. I can’t feel that with her. She feels so fragile and yet so strong. She used Allure on me, and I obeyed,” I begin, watching what was excitement and awe in me come out as barely-bottled anger in Killian. “Something in her is connecting with us, but it’s all a one-way exchange. Maybe there’s a magical blockage, or somehow her power has been severed, like she can’t connect with it anymore.”
“Shadow is mortal,” Killian growls.
“Mortal,” Pax echoes.
“Not entirely, and she is using my power,” I argue.
Killian looks ready to kill something, his jaw ticking and his eyes piercing right into me. Pax isn’t moving, but I’m pretty sure that’s because of the sigil and not his personal level of self-control.
Yelling is getting us nowhere, so I try to calm my voice as I drop the next bomb.
“Eydis was the one who put Shade in the spring. Shade’s two hundred and seventy years old. She’s more Silvari than we thought. Whatever Eydis did, it has locked her completely into a mortal existence for all this time – and whatever we’re doing to her now is breaking down those walls.”
“She’s Silvari?” Pax demands, but once again the guy can’t move.
Killian has stilled too, drawing in a deep breath. “Mortal,” he corrects.
He doesn’t care about her genetic makeup. About how many years she has lived, or where she was born. Killian only cares for her threads – for what power makes up who she is right now.
And I agree, who she is right now is far more mortal than Saber – that doesn’t mean that she should be or that she has to be. “She has to be strong. She’s still alive.”
Killian shakes his head sharply. “Not strong. Blocked or cut off.”
Shit. He’s right. The thing that’s keeping her from accessing any kind of power of her own could also be the one thing stopping me, or any one of us, from ripping her soul right out of her chest. Like a stopper on a bottle of Silvari wine – you want to put it in before you lay the bottle on the shelf. Once the wine is spilled, there’s no putting it back in.
Shade shouts into the storm, and we all turn toward the commotion at the door.
“Guys,” Seth hollers.
Twelve Paces
Pax moves first, cutting between Killian and Roarke and stalking toward Seth and me. My heart does a double thump as the rings around his pupils glow for the barest second, all of his intensity is alight and piercing – and it’s not on Seth. In the background, Killian and Roarke split off toward the horses.
“Put her down,” Pax orders, and Seth drops me to my feet.
Pax has his intimidating face on. Dripping wet, with his dark hair clinging to his head and his cream-colored shirt almost see-through. “Get inside.”
My legs are doing what they’re told before my mind has a chance to process his words.
Pax follows me, his soggy boots squelching just as much as they are thumping. He takes a long, slow inhale. I know that look – that’s the you’re-wearing-someone-else’s-clothes look.
“You antagonized a mortal mage?” he growls, taking me off guard, and for a moment my surprise evaporates every hope I had of forming words.
“Well,” Seth says, clearing his throat. “I’m going to help with the horses.”
He rushes out into the rain, jumping clean from the top of the stairs down into the puddle at the bottom and striding away.
“You antagonized a mortal mage and you used Allure?!”
I take a step back and find myself flush against the wall. The stairs on my right and the door on my left. Two exits.
Pax kicks the door shut.
One exit.
“I didn’t antagonize anyone.” My mouth starts running, but my mind is busy calculating. Measuring Pax’s level of pissed-off, my body working on maintaining the status-quo.
Him – master.
Me – soot-servant.
A low growl vibrates through his chest and seems to sink into mine. My body responds – my core purring. Which is all kinds of chuckin’ weird. Thank the gods he can’t hear it!
“Don’t. Talk. To. Mortals,” he says.
He leans forward, resting his hand on the wall to my right.
No exits.
Vanilla. His lips taste of it, sweet and delicious, but why can I smell vanilla? I add that puzzle to the purring.
I’ve had a lot of practice being in aggressive situations. Compartmentalizing is one of my few skills. So I tuck away my wandering thoughts, as my body remains frozen in ‘oh-shit’ mode, and my hands begin to wring through the front of my borrowed top.
“I’m a mortal,” I finally say.
Pax wraps his free hand around mine to stop my fidgeting. I scowl at him, completely trapped.
“You’re different. You’re mine.”
I consider headbutting him in the nose, but thankfully my mouth get
s in first.
“Not your property,” I snap. “Not your soot-servant or your slav –”
His lips press to mine, cutting off my last word.
Cutting off my everything. Thoughts. Ideas. My ability to stand on my own two legs. He lets go of my hands and grips my hips, pulling me into him, even as he begins to pull away.
Desperately, I chase his kiss, keeping our lips together.
He lets out a low moan, gripping my lip between his teeth. Teeth that sharpen.
Pressure becomes pain. One canine nicks the soft inside of my lower lip – drawing blood.
I might have been going to gasp at the shock, but the noise is more like a whimpering-sigh. If there is such a thing. There is now, I make up new shit all the time. A whigh.
The paper-thin cut leaves a tang on my tongue that’s quickly lost as his canines withdraw and his very human mouth presses into mine again.
We topple back against the wall, the weight of him almost knocking the wind out of me, and the rush of his kiss almost making it impossible to draw in another breath. He grips my ass, lifting me off the ground, and I wrap my legs around his hips.
Static rips through me, my muscles spasming and my back arching. I lose sight of Pax, forced to look up at the ceiling until his power settles over my skin.
I drag my head forward, looking first for his eyes, which are showing the barest amount of control, then for his lips.
Damn. Those lips. Not soft. Not sweet.
Demanding. Controlling. Owning.
Mine.
I move to kiss him again, but he grips my hair and stops me.
“Don’t talk to mortals, and don’t use that word,” he growls – or tries to growl. His voice is lost in the rush of both our breathing and a crack of thunder rolling across the border.
I don’t manage to answer before he’s growling, “That's an order.”
“I’m not your puppet.”
“No, but you are mine. You’re my Saber, I am your commander, and you’re my mate.”
Shadows and Shade Box Set Page 76