The Shadows

by J. R. Ward

  Glancing over at the archway he'd come through, she found herself wishing he would hand-deliver that application back.

  Who was he--

  "Paradise?"

  She jumped. And focused on her father, who'd come out of nowhere. "Yes?" Realizing her voice sounded too close to normal, and she was supposed to still be angry at him, she cleared her throat. "What may I do for you?"

  Like he was simply another person she was taking care of.

  "I just wanted to inquire how you were doing?"

  His affect was nothing aggressive. Instead, he seemed so worried--damn it. She wanted to keep being angry at him.

  She sighed. "I'm fine, Father."

  "You're doing such a marvelous job. Truly. Everything is running so smoothly. The King is so pleased--I am so proud."

  See, this was just like him. It was impossible to be pissy when you were confronted by this . . . this earnest, his-version-of-an-apology stuff.

  "May I bring you something to eat or drink?"

  "You're not a doggen, Father."

  "Perhaps you need a break?"

  "No." She rolled her eyes. Got to her feet. Walked around to him. "You drive me nuts."

  She gave him a hug because that was what he was looking for. Then she stepped back. "Oster, son of Sanye, is next."

  As she indicated the gentlemale in question, and the civilian got to his feet, her father gave her hand a squeeze and then reassumed his official duties.

  Following his example, she sat down again. Looked at the computer in front of her. And still felt caged.

  But what was she going to do? Even though he technically couldn't stop her--she was of age, and there had been no specification on the application that a female had to get a male elder to approve the submission--she nonetheless found herself paralyzed.

  It was hard to rebel against your parents when there was only one left.

  And he was all you had in this world.

  *

  Selena hated pretty much everything about the exam, the blood draw, the X-ray process. And she felt bad about that. It wasn't that Doc Jane was anything less than perfectly gentle and very kind. But to be in one of those hospital johnnies, getting poked and prodded, twisted and pictured, was like having the countdown to some kind of detonation happen right in front of you.

  Plus, she hated the fake-lemon antiseptic they had to use on everything.

  And the fact that she was cold even after they put a blanket over her legs.

  And then there was that bright light hanging over her head.

  Mostly, though, it wasn't the external environment that was hard to put up with. It was the internal screaming that she found she had to hold in through force of will.

  "Okay, I think that's our last X-ray," Doc Jane said from over by the desk.

  On the computer screen, a ghostly image of Selena's knee was front and center, but she refused to look at it.

  She had to stay lying down until Doc Jane came back over and moved the X-ray arm out of the way. And as she sat up, the doctor took the plate from underneath her leg and put it aside.

  "So . . . what now?" Selena asked.

  She was numb. She was cold. She was sweaty.

  But mostly she was feeling stiff. And not just in her hands.

  "Let me take a good look at the X-rays with Manny. And then we'll come talk to you."

  Selena shifted her legs off and looked over the lip of the table at her feet. She flexed one and then the other, her brain going into a tailspin of Better? Worse? The same?

  "When?" she said roughly.

  "Why don't we meet around dawn? Trez could come down here with you if you like--"

  The crash came from outside of the room, and both of them looked to the door across the way. When the sound repeated itself, Doc Jane raced over--and so did Selena.

  After all, she wasn't frozen stiff yet, and it seemed like a good time to remind herself of that fact.

  The pair of them rushed out into the corridor and listened. The training center was otherwise silent, what with the Brothers getting their workouts in the field, and there being, fortunately, no one with injuries in the clinic rooms--

  The clatter came again, and they took off, heading two doors down.

  Doc Jane opened things wide.

  The healer had to duck as something came flying out of the room. A tray. It was a meal tray, and it skipped along the concrete floor like the thing was really glad to be free of there--and looking to put a little extra distance in.

  Inside, Luchas was out of control on the bed. Half of him appeared to be tied down, but one hand and arm were free and he was using them to destroy anything he could reach--he'd knocked over some monitoring equipment along with his IV pole, did the same duty with the rolling table that had had some sort of meal on it--and was now reaching for the back of the headboard like he wanted to tear the bed apart.

  "Luchas," Doc Jane said, with admirable calmness. "What's going--"

  "Fuck you!"

  Selena recoiled. She'd been here to feed Qhuinn's brother over the last several months, and he'd always been nothing short of a gentlemale.

  "Luchas--"

  "Fuck this!" He gave up on the headboard and grabbed onto the side table, shoving it so hard the thing went down, its drawers exploding out like that was its way to bleed. "Fuck you!"

  Doc Jane backed out and muttered, "I've got to go get a sedative. Don't go in there."

  As the doctor took off at a run, Selena stayed in the doorway.

  "What are you looking at?" he screamed at her. "What the fuck do you want!"

  There was a red stain on the bed. The sheeting, on one side, a little more than halfway down, was stained--he was bleeding. From some kind of wound--

  "Your leg," she breathed, well aware of the infection that had been plaguing him. "Be careful of your leg--"

  "I wanted to die!" he spat. "I was trying to die!"

  His face was a twisted facsimile of the features she knew well, his too-white skin stretched nearly to the breaking point over a bone structure that had no doubt been enviable before he'd been tortured by the Lessening Society.

  "They took my fucking leg to save me!" He pulled the sheets off. "To save me!"

  The stump was wrapped carefully in layers of surgical gauze, but underneath wasn't doing well--blood was seeping out, everywhere.

  He started to claw for what was left and that was when she had to get involved.

  Marching across the room, she grabbed his flailing hands and pinned them to the bed by his head.

  Luchas. Went. Wild.

  Screaming, twisting, cursing at her.

  All she did was shake her head and let him exhaust himself--which didn't take long at all.

  When he stopped fighting, she said, "You are so lucky. So damned lucky."

  That shut him up. Probably in a way that a direct confrontation wouldn't have.

  "What?" he stammered.

  "I'm dying," she said plainly. "And if someone could take part of my leg to save me? So I could stay here to be with the person I love? I'd do it in a heartbeat. So, yeah, I think you're very lucky."

  He was still breathing hard, but the tension in his body left him. "Dying?"

  "'Fraid so." She released her hold and stepped back. "Don't waste this time you have. I know you're hurting, and I don't doubt you're angry at where you are. But personally, I'd trade places with you in a heartbeat."

  Doc Jane came back--and stopped when she saw that the place wasn't on fire or something.

  "I'm going to go get dressed," Selena said as she headed for the door. "I'm cold in this gown. Do you need help cleaning up?"

  Doc Jane looked back and forth between them, clearly wondering what had been said or done to turn things around. "Ah, no, let me take care of it."

  "Okay." Selena nodded at the doctor, and then glanced back at Luchas. "Take care of yourself."

  She could feel his eyes on her as she stepped out into the corridor. Could feel them still as she wen
t back to change.

  When she reentered the tunnel, she began to get paranoid that she'd have an attack halfway back to the main house, and get stuck dying under the fluorescent lights. Or maybe if it happened on the stairwell up to the foyer . . . or--

  Okay, she'd better stop this.

  She had enough to worry about without looking for more trouble.

  FIFTY-SIX

  He couldn't stop looking at her.

  As iAm lay naked in front of the dying fire, his body was entwined with maichen's, their legs one among another, their hips still locked together, their sexes close, but no longer joined. She had her head on her folded arm; his was propped up.

  "I want to see you again," he whispered.

  He wanted to tell her how much he needed more of this special time, this complete break from all the shit he couldn't shift and couldn't make a difference with back in Caldwell. In coming here, it was as if he had briefly stepped to the side, changed his track, taken a breather. It wasn't a permanent relocation, and he didn't want it to be--there was no way he was abandoning his brother.

  But it was enough to give him a second wind.

  "It is hard for me to get away." She kissed his fingertips. "I have only a few more days when it will be this easy. After the mourning, it will be more difficult."

  "Tomorrow night, then. Midnight."

  maichen nodded. "I will be here."

  He glanced around at the decrepit cabin. "No, come to Caldwell. Meet me in town."

  As she hesitated, he said, "I have a place there. It's private. No one will know--and I can make you more comfortable."

  He wanted her in a bed. In the shower. Maybe on the kitchen counter.

  In order to persuade her, iAm dipped down and took her mouth, stroking her lips with his own, licking his way inside. "Follow the signal of my blood and you'll find me."

  The sound she made in the back of her throat was all about surrender--and before he knew it, he was rolling her onto her back and mounting her again. The fact that they had actually had sex was so monumental that he couldn't think about it while he was with her now.

  It was just too huge a milestone.

  Guiding himself in, he groaned and ducked his head into her neck. With great arching surges, he rode her, finding that rhythm, driving harder and harder. His body knew exactly what to do, and it was a shock, as he orgasmed, to find that he was glad he had waited for this one particular female.

  It was also crazy to think that a part of him was starting to plan a way to get her free of the s'Hisbe.

  So now he had two on that list.

  Her nails bit into his back, and her thighs squeezed around his hips as she found her own release, the subtle milking on him kicking off another sharp spear of pleasure as he came again.

  Afterward, he collapsed against her.

  "Sorry," he mumbled, trying to find the strength to do anything but breathe. "Heavy."

  "No, I like the weight." She stroked over his skin. "You feel as powerful as you are."

  "I don't want to go."

  "Neither do I."

  Eventually, he was in no-choice land. For one, the fire had died and it was getting cold, but more importantly, he didn't want her to get in trouble for missing her duties.

  At least he didn't have to worry about her and the approaching dawn.

  He'd be psychotic.

  Pushing free of her, he slipped out of her sex and realized, shit, she was covered in his scent.

  "What's wrong?" she asked, those peridot eyes staring up at him.

  "We should wash you." But the damn cabin had no running water. "Next time, we do this in Caldwell."

  "I'll be careful. There is a hot spring on the edge of the Territory. I can wash there."

  "What about your robing?" As he handed the load of fabric to her, he cursed. The shit was wrinkled. Ripped. Smudged with dust. "Damn it."

  He should have hung her things up. What the hell had he been thinking?

  Getting to his feet, he helped her get dressed, arranging the under-robe, clipping the top layer with that brass fastener, shaking out her hood and mesh.

  "Let me do this," he said as he went to cover her hair and face up.

  He hated masking her, his stomach rolling, his mouth going dry: It made the fact that he was sending her back to the Territory unprotected all the more stark. And then he took a step back and looked at what had been so pressed and pristine when she had arrived--and was now a hot mess.

  He kind of felt as though he'd taken something that was not his to own, and ruined her in the process.

  "I should go back with you," he said. "Make sure you--"

  "That will be harder for me. I shall be all right. I've become quite facile at hiding myself after all these years."

  And then there was nothing much else to say, no combination of words that could be spoken that would make him feel better about any of this.

  With a curse, iAm took her arm and escorted her to the door. "Be careful. That is a dangerous place."

  "I will."

  When she went to bow to him, he stopped her. "No. Don't do that. We're equal, you and I."

  For a moment, she just stared at him. He could feel it through the mesh that hid her eyes. "We are not," she said. "Sadly, we are not."

  With that, she was out the door and gone before he could stop her. And as the cold air racked his naked body, he hurt all over--but it wasn't physical.

  After pulling his clothes back on, he went to check that the fire was totally extinguished and then he left the cabin. As he closed things up and stepped away, he thought it was completely bizarre how so much of his life had happened in this one random place: finding his brother, meeting Rehv . . . now tonight.

  Dematerializing, he returned in a scramble to the Brotherhood mansion, resuming form in the courtyard. As he stared up at the great stone manse, with its Gothic gargoyles perched on turrets, and its diamond-paned windows, and all the shadows that lurked in the corners, he realized he was testing it out for security and defensible position.

  So, yeah, he was thinking of bringing maichen here.

  Except what kind of life would she have? He was still all up in his head about Trez and Selena. And what was going to happen if the only way to keep his brother free from the s'Hisbe was the pair of them disappearing around the globe, never to light in one place for any length of time again?

  Was she going to be into that life of a fugitive? And what if the s'Hisbe found her with them?

  She'd be dead faster than a breath.

  And yet he wanted her, to distraction . . .

  Another no-win situation.

  Just what he needed.

  *

  Rhage's ass was numb.

  Then again, he'd been sitting on a rock, staring through the forest into Assail's glass house for how long? Hours. And all the guy had been doing was masturbating a bunch of paperwork on his desk.

  At least that drug dealer had a nice chair to sit in.

  Rhage checked his watch. Dawn was going to come sooner rather than later. "Running out of time here, people."

  Just as he was about to front-and-center his phone, and find out how V was doing tracking the dealer's two cousins, the Brother materialized next to him--and the Range Rover the pair of dealers had left in came down the peninsula's drive to the house.

  "Where'd they go?" Rhage asked.

  "Downtown. They went to this boathouse down on the river. No one showed up to meet them as far as I saw. It's entirely possible one of them dematerialized out of there for a short period of time and went somewhere else. I don't fucking know."

  As V rubbed his eyes like they were full of sand, Rhage asked, "My brother, when was the last time you slept?"

  V dropped his arm and got thought up, like he was solving pi to a thousand decimals. "It was . . . ah . . . I mean, yeah, it was . . ."

  Rhage glanced back at the garage door, which was trundling shut. "They're in for the day. Let's ghost."

  "What did Assail d
o?"

  "Other than a lot of blow?"

  "He didn't leave, then."

  "Nope. Other than playing with his papers, and making two phone calls that lasted no longer than thirty seconds apiece, he had his thumb up his ass." He clapped V on the shoulder. "We'll get 'em tomorrow night."

  V was still cursing as they took off and traveled home through the cold night air. As they arrived at the courtyard in front of the mansion, they found iAm staring up at the house's facade like he was expecting Godzilla to clubfoot it over the roof and do a clean sweep with that barbed tail.

  "Hey, man, you okay?" Rhage asked.

  iAm jumped. "Oh, shit."

  As the wind changed direction and carried the male's scent over, Rhage popped his brows. The Shadow was covered with the smell of a female--and not as in store-bought perfume.

  Oh, shit was right.

  In all the time they'd known the guy, iAm had never paid any particular attention to the females. Or the males. Personally, Rhage had always thought the poor bastard was suffering from Phury Syndrome--a condition whereupon one brother was so fucked-up that the other fell into a black hole trying to save him.

  Unfortunately, it didn't look like Trez was going to come out of his tailspin anytime soon. But clearly, iAm had done something for himself.

  By doing someone else.

  Good for him, Rhage thought. About time the male had a break.

  "So," V drawled as he lit up a handrolled. "How was your night, Shadow."

  Clearly, he'd noticed the scent, too.

  "Fine," iAm said.

  "Mm-hmm." V exhaled. "Do anything in particular?"

  "No. You?"

  "Nada," Rhage replied as the three of them started for the vestibule. "Business as use."

  Actually, the night with Assail had been straight-up frustrating, but more than that, he'd kept waiting for word from his Mary about the female who'd been taken to Havers's in a coma. Nothing. He'd heard nothing. Was she alive? Dead?

  Goddamn, he'd met that mahmen only once--on the horrific night when they'd rescued her and her young from that abusive male. But the situation was bothering his Mary, weighing on her--and that meant it was really on his radar, too.

  Plus, his shellan hadn't been home now in two nights.

  And he was beginning to get desperate.

  Cell phones were no substitute for contact.

  Not the kind he needed from her, at any rate.