The Shadow Reader ml-1

by Sandy Williams

  I wrap my hands around the straps of my backpack and scan the road again, wondering how much traffic it gets on any given day, when, finally, God throws me a bone. To my left, no more than twenty yards away, an empty BMW is parked half obscured by an outcropping of trees. As an added bonus, I can get to it without crossing the field. I’m sure it belongs to the vigilantes. Hopefully, I can get to it before they return. If the fae leave any of them alive to return.

  The rainwater drenching my hair and clothes weighs me down as I pick my way along the edge of the forest. With each step, I pray the humans left the keys in the car. I don’t know what I’ll do if they haven’t—I can’t hot-wire the thing—but as I draw near, I hear the engine purring beneath the sound of the falling rain. They’ve left it idling.

  Taking my backpack off, I hurry to the driver’s-side door, open it, and fall inside. Sosch squeaks when I swing the bag into the passenger’s seat, but there’s no time to see if he’s okay. This seems all too convenient to go off without a hitch, but I’m already committed. I shift the car into reverse, then slam down the pedal. Too hard. The BMW fishtails in the wet grass before its tires catch. I curse and ram the gearshift into drive.

  The back windows explode the next instant. Glass rains through the air. I duck behind the wheel, blindly steering as bullets thunk against the car’s sides. I accelerate over uneven ground, away from the attackers and toward where the road should be, before risking a quick peek over the dash.

  Aren’s there. I slam on the brake as he cuts down a vigilante who had a gun aimed at me. He fissures, reappears behind another armed man, and strikes again. Three more vigilantes replace that one.

  This time, Aren moves more slowly when he attacks. Two of the newcomers get shots off. Aren stumbles back. He loses his footing, slips, and lands hard on his back.

  Maybe I could have driven away if he hadn’t caught my eye just then. I freeze, one foot hovering over the accelerator. The vigilantes will kill him. I shouldn’t care. I should let him die—he’s killed hundreds of fae—but leaving him here is too close to murder. I can’t do that, not when I’m in a position to help.

  Cursing my conscience, I slam down the accelerator. I ram into the two humans, hard enough to knock them off their feet. Before they have a chance to recover, I pull up beside Aren and shove open the passenger door. “Get in.”

  TEN

  “YOU OKAY?” I ask, even though I don’t care. Really, I don’t. I’m fulfilling my humanitarian obligation by giving Aren a lift. After we put a few more miles of asphalt between us and the vigilantes, I’m kicking him to the curb and he’s on his own.

  I glance at him. His right hand is wrapped around the pommel of his sword and he’s huddled against the car door as far away from the radio and air controls as he can get. His edarratae flash erratically, and he’s noticeably uncomfortable. When tech messes with a fae’s magic, it disorients them. Not much, at first, and they can ignore the dizziness for a while, but Aren’s weak and he’s injured. His cuirass is mottled with dents, and aside from his other scrapes and bruises, there’s that hole in his shoulder from the vigilantes’ first assault on the inn. His armor covers it up right now, but blood trickles down his left arm, dripping off his elbow and staining the seat’s upholstery.

  Carefully, he begins to loosen the cuirass’s laces. I tighten my grip on the steering wheel so I don’t give in to the urge to help him struggle out of it. It takes a while, but he finally manages to get the armor off and shoved to the back of the car. The effort takes its toll. His chest heaves as he leans back against the seat and closes his eyes.

  Great. I can’t kick him out when he’s hurt this badly.

  Well, he can stay in the car for all I care. Once we reach some type of civilization, I’m out of here.

  “Turn the heat off?” he asks.

  I’m already cold with the back windows blown out, and we’re both still soaking wet, but a deep frown creases Aren’s forehead.

  I sigh and kill the heater.

  “Your edarratae don’t look that bad,” I tell him as the last of the warm air vanishes. It’s only a half lie. The tech is obviously screwing with his lightning, but I’ve seen worse reactions.

  “That’s because I’m not operating the vehicle.” There’s a soft squeak when he shifts in his seat. He frowns down at the floorboard.

  Oh, no. Sosch.

  “Is he okay?” I ask as Aren bends down to retrieve the kimki from my backpack. Sosch is alive, at least. He chirps when Aren holds him to his chest, but Aren doesn’t answer for a long time. Maybe Sosch would have been better off if I left him at the inn.

  “You saved him,” Aren says.

  His tone draws my gaze. The raw gratitude in his expression makes him seem all too human. That’s not good. It makes it hard to remember he’s a killer.

  “I didn’t do it for you,” I snap, staring out the windshield again. Don’t they have road signs in this country? I haven’t seen a single one, and we’ve only passed one car. That was too close to where we started out, though, and I didn’t blink my lights or try to flag it down because I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a vigilante. Plus, I know more Fae words than I do German. Communication with the locals might not be so easy.

  I glance at Aren, wondering just how badly the tech is affecting his magic.

  “Can you fissure out?”

  He hesitates before answering. “Yes.”

  “Good. Do it.”

  The way he looks at me causes a jolt of something to flutter through my stomach. Apprehension, I tell myself, because there’s regret in his eyes. He’s going to say something I don’t like.

  “I still can’t let you go.”

  Yep, there it is. I don’t like that at all. “You don’t have a choice. I’m driving, you’re the passenger, and I just saved your ass. Fissure out.”

  He runs his hand over Sosch’s back, and a small smile tugs at his lip. “That doesn’t make us even.”

  “I’m factoring in the fact that you kidnapped me.”

  The bastard actually laughs. “Come on. It hasn’t been that bad an experience, has it?”

  He’s got to be kidding. “I just got shot at.”

  “I took care of you.”

  Something clenches in my stomach again. I stare at the road so I don’t have to see the way he’s looking at me. There’s no desire inside of me. None. Zilch. Zero. And I am not thinking about what sex with the fae and their edarratae would be like. Hell, I haven’t had sex with a human. I probably couldn’t handle it with—

  I shake my head and grip the steering wheel. Why the hell did I invite him into this car? He’s my kidnapper. I should be trying to kill him, not help him, but even now, I’m concerned about his injuries. That shoulder wound doesn’t look good, and even though he’s trying to hide it, I can tell he’s hurting. He needs a doctor or, rather, a fae healer.

  Damn it. Why the hell do I care?

  “Do you know where you’re going?” he asks.

  “I’m following the road,” I answer tersely.

  “Can the humans follow this car?”

  I check the rearview mirror. “There’s no one behind us.”

  “No,” he says. “With tech. Can they track us using tech?”

  Oh. I study the panel of gauges behind the wheel. How can you tell if a car’s rigged with OnStar or something?

  “There’s a second gate to the north of the inn,” Aren says. “Sosch can help us find it.”

  He must not know exactly where it is. Without Sosch, we could walk right past it.

  Wait. We? What the hell am I thinking? I need to ditch this fae. I’m about to insist he fissure out again when he pushes Sosch into the backseat, then takes off his shirt.

  “What are you doing?” I swivel my eyes away from him and stare at the road, trying not to remember the way his body looked when his torso was covered in nothing but silver dust.

  “Bleeding,” he responds. He tears the shirt down its center.

  I give in
to temptation and glance over when he tears the shirt again. He wraps the strips of cloth around his injured shoulder. His abs clench when he pulls the bandage tight. Damn.

  I focus on driving. He’s not attractive. He can’t be, not when he’s covered in blood and bruises. And not all the blood is his, I remind myself. I don’t know how many humans he’s killed. That alone should make me want to get rid of him as soon as possible. The thing is, I’m comfortable with him sitting beside me. It’s insane, but he makes me feel almost as safe as Kyol always has.

  I frown, thinking about that. Then suddenly, it all makes sense.

  “Stockholm syndrome,” I whisper, my knuckles turning white on the steering wheel.

  Aren looks at me. “What?”

  The Stockholm syndrome. It explains everything. I’m identifying with my kidnapper, forming some type of sick, emotional bond with him. That’s why I saved him and why I’m concerned about his well-being now. It’s probably the reason I’m feeling drawn to him. My mind magnifies every little kindness he shows me, making me believe he cares for me when he really doesn’t.

  “You okay?” Aren asks.

  “No,” I snap. “I’m not. I’m psychologically impaired.”

  He lifts an eyebrow.

  “Fissure out.”

  “McKenzie,” he says, sounding as if he’s disappointed in me.

  “Now, damn it.” I swing my arm at him, hit his shoulder.

  He grunts. “I can’t go anywhere while we’re moving.”

  I slam on the brake, shove the gearshift into park, and then wait, but he doesn’t budge. He just sits there staring at me. “I’m not kidding, Aren. Fissure. Out.”

  He sighs and I think he’s finally going to comply when he says, “I’m very sorry about this.”

  “Sorry about wha—”

  His hand darts out, grabs the keys, and pulls them from the ignition.

  I lunge across the center console, reaching for them. I’m screwed if I don’t get them back, but Aren fends me off.

  “I can’t let you go,” he says.

  “Give me the fucking keys!” I make a second attempt to grab them. He holds them away and bats my hands down. I manage to catch his wrist, but my momentum and a small jerk from him causes me to half fall into his lap. A smile starts to appear on his lips, so I slam my fist into his injured shoulder.

  “Nom Sidhe,” he groans, squeezing his eyes shut. When the keys fall to the floorboard, I reach between his legs to grab them. Before I straighten, he wraps an arm around my waist and then kicks open his door.

  I throw an elbow toward his gut. He blocks it, pulls me across his lap, and nearly throws me out of the car. I drop the keys to grab the oh-shit handle above the door with both hands as Aren rises out of the car, keeping his arm around me.

  “Let go of the handle.”

  “Let go of me!” I yell back. He pulls harder, lifting my feet off the ground. The handle is my only anchor to the car, but my grip is weakening. I kick, but he’s holding both my legs now.

  “McKenzie.” He gives a final jerk and my hands slip. My teeth slice through my bottom lip when I land face-first on the damp roadside.

  Aren flips me over and pins me to the ground. I buck and twist and try to shimmy out from under him.

  “Relax,” he orders.

  My left arm slips free. He recaptures it.

  “Enough, McKenzie. Enough!”

  I let my body go limp beneath him and force myself not to react when edarratae scramble from his hands into my arms. I fail miserably in the no-reaction department. I don’t move, but chaos lusters pulse under my skin, and the longer he touches me, the hotter they become. They’re not painful; they’re stirring and addictive.

  “I hate you,” I whisper. His silver eyes follow a luster as it tickles over my shoulder, up my neck, and across my cheek.

  “You’re bleeding,” he says, and then he gently presses his thumb to my bottom lip. I suck in a breath when he flares his magic to heal the small cut there, and it feels as if a thousand chaos lusters crash together in my stomach.

  I fight back my frustration, turning my head to the side so I don’t have to look at him. “Will you let me up now?”

  “Will you try to run?” When I don’t respond, he breathes out a warm sigh on my neck. “Stupid question. Of course you’ll try.”

  Aren rises and pulls me to my feet. When he turns to open the car’s back door, I swoop down, grab the keys lying forgotten on the ground, and shove them into my pocket.

  He searches the backseat a moment and then straightens. “This is a . . .”

  I peek around his shoulder at the metal box in his hand. “It’s a first-aid kit.”

  He nods, opens it up, and stares at its contents.

  “You can’t heal yourself, can you?” I ask.

  “No.” He sits on the edge of the seat, facing me. “Do you sew?”

  I still, and a hint of nausea churns in my stomach. “No. I don’t.”

  “My shoulder needs to be cleaned and closed.”

  “No.” I look away, into the forest. He’s hurt, but I don’t think I can outrun him. Maybe he’ll grow weaker on the way to the gate? Then I can sprint back here and escape.

  “McKenzie,” Aren says, a plea in his voice.

  “I’m not sticking a needle into you,” I say, refocusing on him. Stitching a wound shut is a little too much for me. I can clean it, though. I look into the open kit on his lap. The vigilantes must have brought it with them. Everything is labeled in English. I spot a few butterfly bandages and pick them up. “I can use these to hold the wound together.”

  “I’m bleeding too much for that.”

  “Well, it’s that or nothing.”

  His expression hardens. “Is this your new escape strategy? To let me bleed to death?”

  “It’s not a bad idea.” In fact, that’ll be my backup plan if I can’t lure him away from the car.

  “Fine.” He peers into the kit. “Which one of these will disinfect the wound?”

  “The antiseptic wipes.”

  “Which ones?” He takes off the ripped-up shirt he wrapped around himself no more than ten minutes ago. It’s dyed completely red now.

  “They’re on the left.”

  He tosses the shirt to the ground and pins me with a frustrated glare. “I can speak your language, McKenzie, but I can’t read it.”

  I huff out a breath and grab one of the white packets. “It’s this one.” I rip the top off and take out the wipe. “You’re going to need more of these than we have.” He’s covered with dirt, sweat, and blood.

  “Just clean it as well as you can.”

  I run the towelette across the hole in his shoulder and down over his incredibly firm chest. God, he’s in shape. He’s thinner than Kyol, but has the same mouthwateringly toned physique. I try to ignore the hard muscles beneath my hand as I clean his wound. Mostly, the towelettes only smear the blood around. This isn’t going to prevent an infection. “You need a doctor.”

  “I’ll be fine once we rejoin the others.”

  “So fissure out. We’re not driving anymore. You can send someone back to this location in two minutes.” Two minutes would be enough time for me to jump into the driver’s seat and speed off.

  He shakes his head. “I’ll be fine.”

  I stop cleaning his shoulder to frown suspiciously into his eyes. “You can’t fissure, can you?”

  “I can.” His jaw clenches. “I just can’t fissure very far, right now. The tech’s poison will fade by the time we reach the gate.”

  “In your condition, you won’t make it to the gate.”

  “It’s not far.”

  “You can’t judge distances when you’re in a car.” Kyol can’t, at least. “We might be miles away from the river.”

  “I’ll make it.”

  “You’ll bleed to death.”

  A smile breaks through his fatigued expression, and damn it if those chaos lusters don’t spring to life again in my stomach. You�
�d think my awareness of the whole Stockholm syndrome thing would make me immune to its effects, but no. It’s worse than ever.

  “Your concern for my well-being is heartwarming,” he says. He oomphs when I slap a new wet wipe against his wound.

  Sosch drapes himself across the ledge behind the backseat. His blue eyes blink, watching me work. I clean Aren off as well as I can, but don’t feel like I’m making any progress. Every time I put pressure on his shoulder, a new river of blood pours out. When I’m down to my last two towelettes, I decide it’s time to do what I can for the exit wound. The exit wound’s on his back, though, and short of sitting in his lap, there’s no easy way to get to it.

  “Get out of the car.” I move so he can stand.

  He grips the edge of the BMW’s roof, hefts himself to his feet, then turns and leans his forearms on the trunk. Damn, he has a beautiful back—minus the bullet wound and blood, of course. His shoulders are broad and the muscles to either side of his spine ripple when he adjusts his position. A chaos luster zigzags down his right rib cage and disappears beneath the waistband of his pants. The urge to trace its path with my hands is despicably strong, but I force myself to focus on the hole in his shoulder.

  When I toss the last blood-soaked wipe into the backseat, Aren dips back into the car. He rummages through the first-aid kit for a needle and a spindle of something that looks more like floss than thread. He holds both up to me.

  “I didn’t volunteer for that,” I say, keeping my eyes on his face.

  He watches me a moment, then says softly, “You didn’t volunteer for any of this, did you?” He strings the thread through the needle himself, then, without hesitation, sticks it through the flesh beside his bullet wound. I grimace and look away.

  “You’re not what I expected,” he says.

  I keep my eyes on the dirt under my feet. He’s not what I expected either, but I won’t admit to that.

  “I thought you’d be heartless,” he continues. “Cold, like Sword-master Taltrayn. You’re not.”

  “The sword-master isn’t cold,” I say before I think better of it.

  He pauses with the needle sticking through his skin. “Do you ever get tired of defending the Court?”