I returned the katana to its mahogany case, though it pained me to do so. Next to the sword, I placed the envelopes of money Tyler had given me. Returning the money wasn’t as big as giving back the sword, but I did what I had to do. I couldn’t spend eternity being Xander’s ignorant strong arm. So I returned to the warehouse in the harsh light of day. I set the case inside the door, certain the right person would find it and return it to the king.
I expected to receive a visit from the High King himself. The sun sank into the western horizon, but he didn’t come. Night came on the heels of twilight, and still my threshold remained uncrossed. Tyler stayed away as well. I was almost positive he’d make an appearance. He didn’t.
Pensive, and maybe even a little insulted, I sulked around my own space. Where the hell was everyone? Xander obviously didn’t give a shit that I wasn’t interested in serving him, and Ty must have snapped out of puppy-love mode. I should have been relieved. Somehow, I wasn’t.
After resigning myself to sleep, I lay in bed, tossing and turning and tossing some more. I wasn’t used to staying in at night. I guess I didn’t go out because I expected company. Since no one cared enough to stop by, I wasn’t about to go looking for either one of them. After a few more angry tosses, I finally found a forced sleep that had about as much to do with rest as knitting had to do with swimming.
Something startled me awake. I lay unmoving to better listen, smell, feel the air for any distinct changes. Besides the scurrying sound of an insect across my floor, nothing betrayed who—or what—stirred me from slumber. The sound persisted; it must have been one hell of a busy bug. My eyes began to slide shut, and I allowed them to close all the way, thinking any danger was beyond me.
The sound of voices drifted to my ears sometime later. The strangest thing was not the voices, but the fact that they were all facets of the same voice. An echo of sorts, it called out to me in different tones, but spoke as if from one mouth, one throat, and one being. I would have thought I was dreaming if I hadn’t felt its breath on my face.
“Darian.”
The moment brought to mind Tyler stretched out beside me in bed, whispering my name while he stroked my hair. His words had been spoken tenderly, though, and the voice speaking my name now seethed with menace.
“Darian.”
My eyes were closed, but my senses were as sharp as the katana I wished I still had. A suffocating pressure, like being trapped under a fallen log, pressed all around me. Since my night at the warehouse, I’d come to realize that in the presence of a Shaede the air becomes palpable, dense. I felt this other creature, just as I had my newfound brethren, though the sensations were like night and day. Aside from that, I didn’t know who—or what—it was.
“Darian.” Again, my name floated to my ears, carried by myriad tiny voices melded into one. I shivered at the whispering sound and wrinkled my nose in distaste as a foul smell reached me.
“Who’s there?” I asked stupidly. I mean, it wasn’t like the disembodied voice was going to answer, Oh, sorry. I should have introduced myself. I’m George . . .
The voice didn’t answer—what a shocker—and I slowly inched the covers from my body, readying to defend myself if the need arose. The flutter of something touching my face sent my heart hammering against my rib cage. Like the kiss of sunlight or the stirring of air, I felt the microscopic hairs on my cheek move, sending a tingle deep into my flesh.
“I’d like nothing more than to suck your innards out through your nose. I bet you taste as sweet as honey.” The words, whispered from the many-faceted voice, stretched my nerves taut, leaving a hollow ache I was desperate to escape.
“You can try,” I said, cranking up the bravado. “But maybe I’ll surprise you and make you sorry you ever stepped foot in here.” The pounding inside my chest intensified. “If you’re so goddamned tough, why don’t you show yourself?”
“Perhaps after the eclipse,” the voices sighed. “I wonder, will it change the way you taste? No harm is to come to you until then. Doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun with you in the meantime.”
Invisible claws, like shards of broken glass, scraped me from head to toe. I clamped my teeth together and pushed my tongue against them, determined not to cry out. I squeezed my eyes tight, feeling the moisture escape from my lids as I lay as still as possible.
The encounter lasted only seconds, though it felt like agonizing hours. By slow degrees, I unclenched my jaw, fingers and toes relaxing, followed by arms and legs, and finally my core. Again, I heard the scurrying, like mouse scratches in the wall, fading into silence. Alone. No one here but me, my heavy breathing, and pain. Lots of pain.
Early-morning sun shone in through the skylights, casting a lemon yellow glow on the white coverings of my bed. My pulse picked up its beat once again. What nature of creature could have come to me invisibly in the light of day? I wasn’t going to burst into flames if I walked outside at high noon, but I was confined to my solid self. This creature didn’t seem to share my restraints. No Shaede, that was for sure. And talk about creepy. What the hell . . . Eating my innards? Eclipse? Whatever it was, it had its Vincent Price impression down pat.
I plucked my phone from the table beside the bed. In a moment of uncharacteristic weakness, I dialed.
“Ty, can you please come over?” I said.
“Give me ten minutes,” he said, and hung up.
Tyler never disappoints.
I don’t know if it was the lingering fear that kept me marooned on the mattress, or some other, simpler reason. Weak and wary, I hadn’t an ounce of energy I could devote to leaving the bed. The adrenaline rush had taken everything out of me.
“Darian,” Ty called out. His footsteps echoed on the hardwood floor. Quiet steps, not his usual elephant stomps. I didn’t answer him. Sick with shame and fear, I stayed immobile, huddled beneath the blankets.
He touched my cheek. Remnants of fear coated my mouth, and the words came thick. “Someone was here.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Not like me. Sun was already up. The thing was in the air, Ty.”
He sat down beside me. I didn’t turn to look at him; my sudden frailty was a disgrace to my nature. Embarrassment kept me from meeting his eyes.
“What happened?” His gentle voice soothed me, assuring me it was okay to be scared without having to say it out loud.
“The voice, I can’t describe it. Like nothing I’ve ever heard before. It touched me, and it wasn’t any tickle either.”
Tyler tugged at the covers burying my body. I resisted at first, unsure of what his next move would be. Insistent, he pulled harder, and I finally relented, too shaken up to do anything about it. As he peeled back the blankets, he examined the skin that my tank top and shorts didn’t cover. He rolled me gently from my side to my back. My eyes met his. The hazel orbs grew wide, and he sucked his breath in sharply. An angry frown marred his features.
“Welts,” he murmured.
“What?”
“Your skin is welted,” he explained, tracing a fingertip over the raised marks.
I have to say the news came as a relief. I half expected my skin to be ripped open. “I didn’t see anything; only felt a presence.” Fear was washed away by confusion. Anger approached on its heels. “When I find the creature that did this, I’m going to slice it into a million bloody pieces.”
Expressing my anger felt good, as if I were reclaiming a bit of my flagging nerve. I put my palms down on the bed, pushed myself to a sitting position, and drew my knees up a little. Closer to eye level with Tyler, I read both worry and fury in his expression. His normally cool body temperature seemed to drop by a few degrees.
“They’re only welts, right? I’ve healed from worse.”
“Yeah.” He ran his hands over the miniature roadways of raised flesh along my arm. “Do you think it has anything to do with this job you’re training for?”
He stopped stroking my arm, and though his gaze didn’t detach from min
e, his hands continued with their exploration of the marks on my skin. He moved a palm under my calf, cupping the flesh before traveling up and over my shin. I shivered.
“I don’t think so,” I answered honestly. “If Xander had a creature like that in his service, he sure as hell wouldn’t need me. I quit that job, anyway. It’s a non-thing.”
“What do you mean, you quit?” His fingers traced each one of my toes. “You never quit anything.”
“I quit this,” I said. “I was starting to feel like a possession, and I don’t like that. And I still don’t know who the mark is.” I looked away, distracted by the warm, masculine scent that was one hundred percent Tyler.
Reluctantly, I met his face again. His soft, greenish eyes held a lustful hunger, and something sparked inside me. Teasing fingers stroked my bare skin, traveling from my toes, across my ankles, and up my shins. I tried to look away, but Tyler’s gaze held me in place.
“Darian, I wish you’d let me protect you.”
Good Lord, did he even know me?
From my knees, his hands spread out across my thighs, over and around, his fingertips grazing my butt at the hem of my shorts.
My voice caught in my throat. “How do you propose to do that, human?” It’s not like I didn’t appreciate the offer. But I didn’t need to be taken care of. Strong, independent, not to mention indestructible, I wasn’t exactly the damsel in distress. He squeezed my flesh—Oh, dear God!—gently but just hard enough. A-maz-ing!
“I might surprise you,” he said in a calm, unsettling way. Inch by inch, he scooted closer, rising on his knees until our noses almost touched. “Bring it on.” His voice, gruff and full of innuendo, sent a pulsing thrill straight through my core. “I can handle anything standing in my way. You’d be safe.”
I snorted. Maybe he should stand against Raif sometime. That’d be interesting. I’d be picking up little pieces of Tyler from one end of the warehouse to the other. The mental image made me cringe.
Tyler graced me with a confident smile, abandoned my thigh, and worked his way up my waist. He knew how to use his fingers. A series of rippling chills traveled from my toes to the top of my head and back down. He grazed the sensitive skin exposed where my tank top had ridden up, and my eyes involuntarily drifted shut.
“Don’t presume you know all about me.” His fingers traveled upward, tracing my rib cage. Oh, man, it felt good. I’d almost forgotten the scare I’d had earlier. He kneaded my flesh with his strong hand. I did moan this time. I couldn’t help it.
“I’ll keep you safe.”
“Tyler—”
Before I could pull away, his mouth found mine. Soft, searching, but full of purpose, his lips caressed mine, and I responded, unable to form a coherent thought with my senses full of Tyler. His thumbs brushed my nipples on the outside of my tank top and they rose to stiff peaks, wanting more than a passing caress. He opened his mouth, kissing me deeper, and I leaned in toward him instead of away, like I’d intended. Without considering the consequences, I reached out, dragging my hands down over his chest, enjoying the feel of his muscles through his T-shirt. Lower, my hands acted on their own, brushing the waist of his jeans and then his fly and the hard bulge that made my breath catch in my chest. Tyler moaned, and my heart sped to an unnatural rhythm. Just a pull here and a tug there and he’d be bare to my touch. I wanted to feel him, full in my hand, my mouth—
His proximity and swaying tactics had easily broken down my defenses. I forced my hands back up his chest, balling them into fists, forbidding myself from taking what I wanted. I tried to ignore his smell, his touch, his reassuring words, and gently pushed him away. It took more effort than I thought I could manage, because what I really wanted to do was pull him a hell of a lot closer.
“Tyler,” I whispered. I had to stop this. Now. Before either of us was tempted to take it further, I steered his focus to the matter at hand. “I appreciate that you want to protect me, but there’s nothing you can do. I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself.”
“I know you think so,” he said. He leaned forward and kissed me again, long and languid.
My body attempted mutiny, responding to waves of pleasure I knew I shouldn’t want to feel. The moment ended all too soon, and when he pulled back, I opened my eyes. He smiled in a very self-satisfied sort of way that made me want to slap the expression right off his face. But since that might encourage him, I said, “Did it ever occur to you that I’m protecting you by keeping you at a safe distance from all of this nonhuman stuff?”
He moved in again, but I backed away. I sure as hell didn’t trust myself to be a good girl. “Tyler, I can’t do this. I have to keep my head on straight. Until things cool down, I’m still in way too deep. I have to think of your safety.”
“Darian, I don’t need protecting.” He actually laughed, though his eyes shone with disappointment. “I’m more than capable.”
My brain didn’t have its usual get-up-and-go, so I ignored that little statement. He stood up, giving me a much needed moment to take control of my raging sex drive. I lowered my gaze and banished from my mind the thought of his scent and cool fingers. Shit.
“Ty, what do you know about the others?” Changing the subject would be best for both of us, or our clothes would be on the floor in a matter of seconds. “Am I the only one you’ve ever known?”
Backing away, he passed his hands through his hair and expelled a deep breath. He seemed to seriously contemplate my questions before answering, as if divulging too much would risk spilling a secret. “I know of other nonhuman beings.”
Oh, wow, Ty. Thanks for the Encyclopaedia Britannica answer. I couldn’t believe I’d been so turned on a moment ago, when all I wanted now was to throw something at him. “Do you know of anything that could have come into my apartment this morning? Something invisible, with a mean streak?”
“Meaner than you?” Tyler’s frustrated smile drew a momentary twinge of guilt from the back of my ragged emotions. “Let me see what I can find out. I’ll meet you back here later tonight.”
“No!” I said with enough oomph to blow him across the room. I did not want to spend the evening deciding if clothes on or off was the best way to play with him. “Meet me at The Pit.”
His face fell a little. Well, too bad. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll meet you there around eleven or twelve.”
Eleven or twelve? Tyler was nothing if not punctual. Everything was changing.
Chapter 9
I never made it to The Pit. Strong arms, fast and stealthy, took me from the sidewalk, blindfolding me before I knew what was going on. I kicked and screamed and fought like hell, but I’d been bound by something that kept me nice and secure. The air around me became dense and fragrant as I recognized the presence of my kidnappers. Shaedes. Two of them. And from the tone of their voices, I got the impression that neither one of them was particularly fond of me at the moment.
“We should kill her now and do Alexander a favor.” Anya flat-out hated my guts for some reason, so I guess her role in my kidnapping wasn’t so surprising.
“Quiet, Anya. You’re not here to pass judgment.”
Raif? Seriously? I’d thought we’d grown closer during our nights of training. Since discovering I wasn’t an endangered species, I’d considered the possibility of connecting with someone. Raif had become that someone. He got me. And aside from Tyler, I didn’t have anyone else in my life. If he was party to this, I must’ve pissed him off, and that hurt. Returning the katana and disrespecting his king had clearly pushed his buttons just a little.
I couldn’t move, which was yet another new thing for me. New experiences just didn’t hold the appeal they used to. A length of cord bound me, the material of which I couldn’t identify. Soft like silk, and at the same time almost rubbery. No matter how I fought, I couldn’t wrench my wrists free. I focused on letting go of my corporeal form and becoming one with the shadows, but somehow the bindings kept me locked within my skin and restrained my unnatural str
ength. The cords had to have been woven with some sort of magic. They moved with even the slightest shift like elastic bands, yet were unyielding to my struggling wrists. They rendered me as helpless as a human bound with plastic zip ties or metal cuffs. Perish the thought.
I lay on the cold metal floor of what I assumed to be a van. Unable to see, I had only my senses of hearing and smell to aid me. The sweet scent of Shaede hovered around me, and it didn’t take long to discover that Raif and Anya weren’t the only ones there with me. Several scents I couldn’t place, though they were unmistakably of my own kind. I’d learned since being exposed to these Shaedes that each of us has a unique signature, and I knew Raif’s and Anya’s. I heard virtually nothing. My captors grew quiet as doors closed me in and the vehicle pulled out into traffic. The only sounds were the hum of the engine and the vibrations of each tire as they rolled over the road.
I had no doubt they were taking me to Xander. I assumed he’d been a little fired up by my dismissal, but all-out kidnapping hadn’t topped my list of possible retaliations. As we drove to who knows where, I tried to prepare myself for whatever punishments would be meted out. If Xander was mad enough—and I suspected he was—I could expect a severe ass kicking from Raif or Anya or both. I didn’t think an encounter with either one of them would leave me feeling like we’d bonded from the experience.
My thoughts drifted unbidden to Tyler. I wondered if he was waiting for me at The Pit. I wondered how long he’d stay before he went looking for me at the studio, and how long after that before he’d start scouring the city. Ty would go looking for me. I wasn’t wrong. Something had developed between us whether I wanted to acknowledge it or not, and he would track me down like a hound on the hunt. I just wished I didn’t have to worry about him losing his fool head in the process.
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