I run my tongue over a sting still on the inside of my lip. He can’t kiss me like that, then in the next breath become my lord.
What am I talking about? This is Pax, of course he can.
His gaze traces down to where I’ve begun chewing on my lip.
“Beautiful,” he growls.
“Pax,” I echo.
“I can’t keep you safe if you’re not following the rules.”
“You didn’t have a rule against talking to mortals, but there is one about kissing,” I say – which isn’t the whole truth.
The rule is about sex, but every now and then my mouth likes to play with fire.
“I was thinking about doing that from the moment we separated. Seems there is a loophole,” he says.
“A what?”
Which he ignores, pulling his fingers free from my hair. They snag on the mess and tangles, making me wince, but he ignores that too.
“Why is your hair full of mud?” he asks, lowering me back to my feet.
I shrug. “I like the feeling. It’s great for your skin.”
“You need a shower,” he says, letting go of me. “Unless you’re in this house, you’re to be next to one of us at all times.”
“Pax, I’m stuck in a bubble – I can’t not be next to one of you,” I joke.
His eyes glow, sudden and hot. “That’s an order!”
And we’re back to this. In true servant fashion, I freeze and eyeball the damn exit again.
He hooks a finger under my chin, turning my gaze back to meet his. “Promise. No mortals, and stay where we can protect you.”
“Protect me from what?” I ask. “Is there something worse than the BeastSeeds hunting us?”
“He’s been dealt with.”
“Then what? What did you find at Tanakan prison?”
“It’s what we didn’t find,” he grumbles. “Promise.”
I nod, managing to say, “I like being protected.”
It’s true, but it’s not a promise. I really don’t like making promises when I don’t have all the facts. But that seems to be enough – he doesn’t hesitate, opening the door and walking straight out into the rain.
“Wait,” I shout, rushing after him.
What is it with these Elorsins and not caring if it’s cold and raining? Me getting to Pax was one thing, but now they should all come inside where it’s nice and warm and dry before continuing whatever they were talking about.
He reaches the bottom of the stairs, stalking toward Killian and Seth, who are returning loaded up with bags and saddles. I hesitate on the line where the rain is flooding down off the veranda roof. One more step and I get wet.
Pax kicks into a jog, and I open my mouth to object when a force whacks into my back.
I’m propelled off the veranda. The world rushes past, and I curl into a ball. Bracing for impact. The ground hits hard, knocking the wind from my lungs and slipping mud into new places.
“Shouldn’t have hesitated,” I groan.
I also need to learn to count; I would have sworn I had more room.
For a second my wall pushes me along, dragging me behind Pax.
“Pax,” Seth shouts, and the wall stops.
I can’t really see them, mostly because I’m too busy being a ball, but four sets of feet rush over to me. The rain leaves clean tracks through the mud on my arms.
I manage to kneel, ready to stand, but Killian beats me to it. Gripping the back of my shirt, he tugs me to my feet.
“What just happened?” Seth asks.
“What do you mean?” I grumble, trying to wriggle free from Killian.
“Explain?” Killian demands.
I run my hand along my arm, brushing a thick clump off my elbow before looking up and setting my gaze on them.
“The bubble’s shrinking.”
Pissed Pax hadn’t really left, and this news sparks a new level of glow in his eyes. “Everyone, inside now,” he growls.
Killian lets me go, motioning for me to walk ahead of him.
“Ah, no. You first,” I mutter, wrapping my arms around myself.
Yay, once again I’m wet and muddy.
Killian grunts, which I translate to mean ‘stupid’, or maybe ‘you’re being stupid’ when he wraps an arm around me and pulls me toward the cottage ahead of Pax. I’d call this move the poker-faced headlock. Definitely not for comfort. Nope. This is to stop any kind of movement that puts me out of Killian’s reach. But no amount of knowing his motives can dampen how much I like this. My muscles leaning into his, my heart rate slowing.
Everything about Killian makes me feel safe, and I may be the only person who’s not an Elorsin to feel this way in the entire world.
The two of them dump their gear bags and saddles just inside the door. Killian releases my neck and nudges me towards the couch before beelining for the single-seater.
“No way,” I say, and he stops, his eyes narrowed in confusion.
“If we’re staying here, then you’re not sitting down soaking wet. Get changed first,” I say.
Order. That was definitely an order.
He looks at himself like he hadn’t even realized he was wet.
“I’m not kidding,” I tell him. “You don’t have a team of servants here.”
He cracks a slight smile, then grabs his bag and vanishes up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
I point at Pax. “You too.”
“Not until you’re washed clean, dry, and dressed in something better than that,” he says, waving a hand at me. “And Roarke tells me everything about your bubble.”
I look down for the first time and take in exactly what it is I’m wearing. Getting to Pax was more important – and so was kissing him.
It’s a dress; I’d worked that out already. The top half falls in layers that ruffle over my curves. Some parts reach my knees, and others are shorter. It was mostly white with silver stitching, now it’s mostly brown and dripping. There’s no sleeves, just long lengths of fabric from my shoulders that fall at odd angles. I twist, trying to see what the back of me looks like.
“Yeah, it’s on back-to-front,” Seth says.
Thanks, Seth!
“You were so busy trying to get to Pax that I didn’t have a chance to tell you,” he says.
Streaks of light fill the sky in the exact same instant as the thunder booms. The house shakes, and the glass in the windows rattles as if the static that pinches at me is pinching at everything else too. I rub my hand up and down my arm, trying to ease the electric sensation from my skin.
Killian pads down the stairs, stopping to drape his wet clothes over the winding banister.
“Do you have any more clothes?” Pax asks me. “Never mind,” he adds before I can answer.
He leans down, grabs his bag, and yanks it from the ground like the thing has somehow offended him. Then heads for the stairs.
“Where’s the food?” Seth asks, heading for the kitchen.
“There’s not much; Eydis lived a simple life,” Roarke says, resting against the arm of the couch.
“No, nope. Not happening, guys,” I say, jumping in front of Seth before he can traipse more water through the place than already has been. “Both of you need to get dry first. You might not care about the wet and the cold, but I do. Once I’m dry, I don’t want to be sitting on a wet couch or walking on a wet floor.”
They look at me, a little too amused for my liking, possibly helped by the way my teeth chattering is muffling my words.
“Killian, you still feel like hitting something – right?” I ask the big guy behind me.
He grunts in reply. An ‘of course’ sound.
Seth and Roarke give in, resignation and perhaps annoyance pinching their expressions. It’s almost cute. Roarke has a little pout when he’s being told what to do. Seth gives me a sidelong glance that promises mischief.
“Beautiful,” Pax calls down the stairs. “I don’t know where your wall is anymore.”
He’s already at
the second story. I can only just see his feet through the gaps in the stairs, hidden by the sharp twisting design.
“You’re already too far,” I call up. “Fifteen steps.”
My stomach turns at the fact. Just a fact. Nothing I can do about it. Might be squished to death by an invisible shrinking bubble any day now. No point dwelling on it.
Killian rumbles an almost-laugh sound, most likely at my shift in emotions. I seem to do that a lot: start a thought feeling one way, then something smartass occurs to me and makes me feel entirely different. It amuses Killian – or maybe he can just read minds. I’m undecided.
But he’s frowning now. “She’s not serious?”
I nod, long slow motions, as Pax thunders back down the stairs demanding, “Show me – now.”
I want to argue. After all of my ordering them not to walk through the house wet, he’s asking me, the most wet and muddy out of the lot of us, to do it. But the look on his face, drawn with fear that’s barely masked under the anger, ends that idea. I glance around the room, because I’m not going back out into the rain, and decide to pace across to the furthest corner with my arm in front of me to save my nose and counting.
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve –” Wall.
I turn in a circle, shock punching me in the chest.
“No, it was fifteen,” I stammer.
Pax’s fist is already clenched, and he turns sharply to punch the solid beam beside him. The whole damn house shakes. He stares at his fist and breathes heavily, as if something has him frozen.
Roarke paces across to me, his brow drawn and one finger tapping the corner of his lip as he silently counts the same steps. Then turns and counts them back. He doesn’t say anything.
“You had twenty-two,” Seth says, pointing at the space between us in disbelief.
A shiver rakes over me, and I hug myself tighter. I had twenty-two. Then seventeen, then fifteen, then twelve. There’s no logic!
Killian turns side on and points sharply, almost viciously, up the stairs.
“She’s cold,” he snaps.
Agreed. Very cold.
Pax takes the stairs two at a time before I can even get to him, which leaves me at the bottom of them with Killian.
“Too far?” Killian asks, his voice low enough to be a whisper, only on him, it’s more like a grisper.
Oh, I like that one. Grunt-whisper. Grisper.
I nod, and he paces the first three steps with me. “Thank you.”
His and Pax’s walls overlap, and I take my opportunity to move from Killian’s space into Pax’s.
I hadn’t thought of it as their spaces before, but as I step from one to the other, I can feel the difference. The shift from Killian’s sense of safety to Pax’s sense of strength. Pax waits until I’ve joined him before he moves into the bedroom and looks around.
“No doors,” he comments.
“I’m sorry,” I begin, but he sets his full attention on me before I can finish and the words vanish in my throat.
He dumps his bag on the floor and crosses the room, wrapping his arms around me. “I hate it when you use that word.”
I hug him back, though all of my hugs are really half-hugs because I really only have half use of my arms.
“Sorry.” The word slips out before I can check myself.
He chuckles, soft and slowly relaxing. “Shower, then we’ll make a plan.”
And that’s when my hug ends. He leaves me, grabs his bag, and drops it onto the foot of the bed.
“Pax, it’s wet!”
He sets his gaze on me, part disbelieving and part mocking, while he tugs one strap and lets the thing fall back to the floor.
“Drama queen,” I mutter, turning to the clothes rack behind me and resisting the urge to tackle him and rub mud into all kinds of places.
Which I’m rather successful at.
He begins to pull out two piles of clothes – clean and dirty, but there’s not much left in the way of clean clothes – while I flick through the collection of Eydis’ things. Several long white robes, and a few more dress-tunic-type things, but towards the back she has plain black cotton pants and tops. The tops have long, loose sleeves, but the fabric across the chest is designed to be form-fitting. Which could make them useless to me, because the woman was paper-thin…
Thinking of it that way makes me realize these clothes don’t look her size at all. I dig deeper. Five sets in total stashed right at the back. All in grays, blacks, and blues. All completely different from her other choices.
I guess I owe it to the woman to try them on – even if I am being completely big-headed in thinking that she acquired these specifically for me.
I pluck a fresh breastband and braies from her drawer, because life is just more comfortable in a breastband, even if they do belong to a dead woman. And to be honest, I’m looking forward to wearing something feminine. The cotton is soft, the cuts are as good as a mortal noble would wear, and the colors are never-been-worn vibrant. I move a deep blue top to the front, then turn to find Pax already has his shirt off. The wet fabric is in his hand, almost forgotten as he watches me.
“What?” I ask.
I trace his gaze over my shoulder to the clothes I just found.
His nostrils flare, looking wolfish and disgusted. I sigh heavily.
“If you need to pass these around and get your scents all over them, can you do it quickly? I’m getting cold.” I rub at the goosebumps on my arm to prove my point. “How was Roarke walking around out there in his braies!”
Pax moans, covering the distance between us before the deliciously low sound has evaporated.
“Mortal,” he says.
“Part-mortal,” I correct.
Obviously, super-elite-pains-in-my-ass-Sabers don’t get cold the same way I do. I grind my teeth, trying to decide if he’s insulting me or just stating a fact.
“The only thing going through my mind right now is how much I want to put my scent on you. Damn the clothes.”
My stomach does a low, hard flip.
“Mortal,” he whispers, like he’s trying to remind himself.
“Cold,” I say, stabbing my finger at my chest.
He cracks a half-smile.
“Clothes,” I say, pointing over my shoulder and get a full smile in response.
I run my fingers through my hair. My wet and sticky hair. My hand comes away covered in mud, and before he can object, I pat him on the cheek.
“Mud,” I say, jumping back and running for the shower.
He snatches me up in his arms and deposits me in the small corner where a showerhead is protruding from the wall. No cubicle. No door.
“Not fair. You can’t go using your Saber skills on me.”
He stops for a very long moment. I want him to kiss me again – but it’s like something is stopping him.
“Shower. Now,” he finally says.
He lets go of me and crosses to where he abandoned his own clothes. For the first time in my whole life, I’m sinking in my own inexperience. Okay, honestly, I spend most of my time not knowing how…
How to fight. How to ride a horse. How to read.
But this is so much worse.
How to deal with wanting him.
Let’s entertain a few variations of reality here. Let’s say he’s mortal. He’s right there, unclipping his belt. Back toned and arms sculpted and pants sitting so low on his hips I almost see ass…
I turn and inspect the single tap underneath the showerhead – because without the rush of something crazy going on, I’m just me. Me likes a nice buffer of space, and I respect that space for others.
My head, body, and mouth are all silent, all realizing that approaching Pax is not a skill I possess. I’ve seen the women, the wives on the estate with their husbands, the Silvari with their partners, the ladies in Drayden Tavern. Seen them sauntering up to men. Making a guy smile. Making him follow her with his eyes, then his body. Fluttering her lashes
and drawing him closer with a soft touch or a sweetly spoken word.
That’s not me.
Me – falls into Killian, tries to kiss him, and the guy pushes me back. Me – thinks about jumping on Roarke, and the guy knocks me to the ground with his power. Me – needs to learn to keep my hands to myself; things work out better that way.
I flick the shower on – and squeal. “It’s chuckin’ cold!”
Heavy feet boom through the house, thundering up the stairs, as Pax leans across me, wearing dry pants but still no shirt. He adjusts the tap, turning it sharply to the left, and slowly the water warms.
“You’re still dressed,” he says softly, almost but not quite questioningly.
I nod, my teeth chattering too intensely for words. I wasn’t intending on showering in my clothes. The tap just happens to be in a spot that required me to get under the showerhead to reach the thing. The dress I’m wearing begins to absorb the warm water. The cold that had soaked my clothes runs down my body, mixing with an endless amount of mud, then off down a drain built along the wall.
Slowly, my clothes fill with delicious warmth.
The other three run into the room. All of them dry and looking comfortable. Killian takes one look at me, then grunts.
Seth laughs.
Roarke, in the process of tying his hair back, just smiles.
“Can’t a girl get some privacy?” I shout.
He shakes his head, snapping the band into place as he moves across the room to the bed. He picks up the king-sized cover. Killian nods knowingly at me, then grabs the other side, and the two of them ignore Pax to move across the room and hold it in place like a wall. A blanket-wall. Blall? Waet? Nope – just blanket-wall.
Pax smiles at me over the top of the thing, before his brothers lift it a little higher, tucking the corners around and pressing the edges to the walls.
Privacy.
When Shade’s finished in the shower, we retreat. Pax, Killian, and I move up the stairs into Eydis’ attic potion lab, leaving Seth on the stairs to wait as Shade gets dressed.
The attic is cozy, with a shallow ceiling that Killian almost bumps his head on in places; in others, he has to stoop. The window is barely letting any light in, and the storm outside is not helping. The rain has settled to a drizzle, but the sky is still rolling, dark and sparking with fury. Outside, Eydis’ domain is struggling back to life. The grass is brown, the crops withered to nothing. Domains don’t live long if their masters aren’t here to fan the magic. Our presence must be enough to breathe some life into the place.
Shadows and Shade Box Set Page 77