Born in the Shadows (In the Shadows Series Book 1)

by Courtney McPhail

  Gabe stood there, at least having the decency to look ashamed but it did nothing to quell her anger. How could he do this to her? He had not only broken a promise to her, he had put himself in danger coming here without anyone to watch out for him.

  She looked at him with disgust and disappointment. “What exactly were you planning on doing out here?”

  “I was going to sneak in the back door,” he said, shrugging his shoulders casually, as if all of this was no big deal. “I figured I could watch over you without being seen.”

  He had completely lost all good sense. That or he deluded himself into believing that he was untouchable.

  “Do you have a hole in your head? Did you forget what happened the last time you were in this place?”

  He threw his shoulders back and lifted his chin with bravado. “It would have been different this time. I know what I’m dealing with, I would have been fine.”

  “You would have gotten yourself spotted in a second. Then one of us would have had to step in and our cover would have been blown. What we are doing here is important. We can’t afford to have it screwed up because you want to play the hero.”

  “It’s not about playing the hero. God, stop treating me like I’m fucking useless,” he cried out, his voice filled with as much anger and frustration as her own. “I’m not useless. I laid out Sampson when he harassed you.”

  “Yeah and that ended up getting me killed!”

  His head snapped back as if she had slapped him and his eyes darkened. She knew it was a low blow and part of her wanted to take it back the second it came out but she was too damn mad to listen.

  “Don’t you fucking dare,” he said, his voice vibrating with rage as he glared at her. “That wasn’t my fault. I don’t care how pissed off you are, I won’t let you blame me for what Sampson did.”

  Her hands scrubbed over her face as she let out a hiss of frustration. He was right. Fighting dirty wasn’t going to help with anything. But he needed to understand that she was hurt he would lie to her.

  He had said he understood why she had to come here and why she needed him to stay away. Instead, he thought he knew better than her and told her what she wanted to hear. It broke her heart to find out he thought so little of her.

  She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself so that she could be rational when she spoke to him.

  “Gabe, you broke a promise to me.”

  “No I didn’t. You never actually made me promise to stay away. You just assumed I would.”

  “Really? You are going to argue semantics. Unbelievable,” she rolled her eyes in disgust, unable to stifle a bitter laugh. “The point is you lied to me. You said you understood why I didn’t want you here but you obviously don’t or you wouldn’t be here. This isn’t a game, this is real and it’s dangerous.”

  “You keep saying that I don’t get how serious this is, Cordy, but trust me, I get it. It’s heavy shit, the kind of shit where people get hurt bad, even people like you. It’s times like these where you get to ignore what people want in favour of what will keep them safe. I lied to you because it was the only way I could come here and watch over you. It was the only way to be sure you would stay safe. It nearly killed me the first time you died and now, after everything that has happened, if anything happens to you it will kill me.”

  “And you think it wouldn’t kill me to lose you?” she said, her voice cracking as a sob bubbled up in her throat.

  “I know it would. I know that you feel the same as I do. That’s why I know that deep down you get why I came here tonight. If the situation was reversed, you’d do the same thing.”

  She shook her head in frustration because she knew he was right. If he were being sent out as bait, she’d move heaven and earth and screw over God to be there to protect him. But the difference was that she was near indestructible with the advantage of preternatural strength and speed.

  She knew that pointing out that fact would just prolong the fight and she was done with fighting. Instead, she took a deep breath and tried to speak with as much calmness as she could muster.

  “And if I did the same then you would have every right to be angry at me. What I would or wouldn’t do does not make it right for you to have come here tonight.”

  “I love you. I belong wherever you are,” he said, his voice hard as steel.

  “No, you belong where you are safe,” she replied, her voice just as hard. She wasn’t going to budge, not on this. “You need to leave right now. I’m going to call Mary and she’ll take you back to the manor.”

  “I’m not a child you can just order around.”

  “Compared to our kind, you are practically an infant.”

  Cordelia recognized the icy voice immediately. A shiver ran up her spine as her stomach bottomed out when she turned to see Armand standing in the alley.

  “It’s sad to see you already fighting with each other. If you two can’t make it, what hope is there for the rest of us?”

  Before Cordelia could put herself between Armand and Gabe, two males were on either side of her, each one grabbing one of her arms and hoisting her off the ground. Despite her violent struggles, she couldn’t get herself loose from their grip.

  She looked over to see that Gabe was in a similar position. A beefy Shadow Walker was holding him, one hand clamped over his mouth, the other holding Gabe tight to his chest. Gabe fought hard against the hold but his struggling left the male completely unfazed.

  “Fitting, isn’t it?” Armand said, commanding her attention as he closed the distance between them. He walked over to stand in front of Gabe, eyeing him up and down while Gabe glared daggers at him.

  “Here the two of us are, facing off in this alley, your boy’s life hanging in the balance once again.”

  She felt panic take hold as Armand wrapped his hand around Gabe’s neck. They were at his mercy and she needed help.

  …Armand is in the back alley, I need help NOW…

  She could feel the charge of energy from the others as they went into action after hearing her call. Armand must have sensed it as well, his eyes flicking to her for a moment before smiling.

  He moved with lightning speed, her eyes barely able to register the movement before his fangs tore Gabe’s throat wide open. Blood sprayed high into the air and coursed down his chest as it flowed faster than Armand could drink.

  She howled in rage, a spitting mess as she fought to free herself from her captors. She had to save Gabe. He wasn’t going to die. She wouldn’t let that happen.

  The door of the club banged open at the same moment that Demetri and Isaac appeared at the mouth of the alley. Armand pulled away from Gabe and the male holding him dropped him. As Gabe crumpled to the ground in a heap, the males holding her let go.

  The sounds of fighting filled the alley but she barely registered it. She scrambled to Gabe’s side, terrified at the sight of so much blood. His eyes were wide with panic and his face was pale as a ghost. She pressed a hand against the large gash in his throat but blood spilled between her fingers and she knew it was useless. No amount of pressure was going to staunch the bleeding, the wound was too deep. Gabe sputtered as he choked on the blood, trying to say something.

  “Shh, don’t speak, okay? It’ll just make things worse,” she whispered. They needed to get him to Anne. She could fix him. The woman worked miracles. Hell, she had almost cured cancer with Shadow Walker blood.

  Anne’s work gave her an idea and she didn’t hesitate to bite open her wrist. She held it over his mouth and let her blood flow onto his tongue.

  “Gabe, I need you to swallow this. It will help,” she whispered in his ear, pressing her wrist tight to his lips. It was a struggle for him to swallow but he did as she asked.

  The smashing of glass echoed off the brick walls and the alley was plunged into darkness as the streetlights went out. She heard the shouts of the others and the wild winds rushing through the alley but she didn’t look back. She kept her eyes on Gabe’s, making sure there
was still life there, terrified that if she looked away for even a moment, he would slip away.

  Demetri dropped to her side, assessing Gabe’s injuries before turning back to bark orders at the others. “We’ve got to get him back to the manor. I’ll shadow walk him back. Mary you take Cordelia back.”

  “No!” Cordelia yelled when Mary tried to pull her away from Gabe. “I can’t let him go, he needs my blood.”

  “It’s okay, Cordy. You’ve given him enough for now. We need to get him back to Anne. It will only take a second, I promise he’ll be okay,” Mary said.

  She grasped her arm and pulled it away from Gabe. The moment she lost contact with him, he and Demetri disappeared as the wind kicked up around them.

  The wind continued to swirl around her as the world went black and then reappeared again in the form of the wooded area on the edge of the manor property. Demetri was already gone with Gabe and she and Mary set off at a dead run for the manor, reaching it in a few seconds. They were inside and down to the basement in a few more.

  Cordelia could hear Anne’s frantic voice barking out orders to Demetri from inside one of the examination rooms of the subterranean medical lab. She followed the sound and looked through the window in the door to see Gabe laid out on a gurney, his skin as white as the sheet he was on.

  He looked like he was already dead but heart monitor over him beeped slowly but surely. As long as he had a pulse, she could save him.

  She moved to stand next to the gurney, Demetri the only one pausing in his actions to register her arrival. Anne continued to hook Gabe up to another monitor, watching the results that were displayed on the digital screens.

  “I can change him.”

  That got Anne’s attention and she shook her head.

  “He doesn’t have enough blood left, Cordy. You have to take in his blood first for the change to happen.”

  “I’ve been feeding from him for over a week. I must still have some of his blood in me,” she offered. There had to be some way for this to work. Losing him was not an option.

  “I’m sorry Cordy but it’s not enough. It’s a delicate ritual and sometimes even under the perfect conditions it won’t work.”

  She felt sick at Anne’s words and she refused to believe them. She would prove her wrong. “I don’t care, I’m still going to try it.”

  “Cordelia, no,” Mary said, grabbing her elbow and holding her in place. “When someone is this close to death, trying to change them will only cause them immense pain. It will do nothing to stop death.”

  “Then fix him!” she screamed at Anne.

  “I’m trying,” Anne replied calmly, completely unaffected by Cordelia’s tone, ever the dutiful physician. “I’ve set him up with a transfusion and I’m going to close the wound on his neck.”

  Cordelia looked at the half-full IV bag that Demetri was squeezing, forcing the blood into Gabe’s veins as fast as possible. Even with the transfusion, Gabe was turning a sickly shade of grey. His chest barely rose with his shallow breaths and there was significant pause between each beep of the heart monitor. The spectre of death was hovering over him and there was nothing she could do to fight it off.

  She took his hand in her own, squeezing it tightly as she watched him struggle to breathe. Anne brought out a surgical tray and sat down on Gabe’s other side, ready to stitch him up. Cordelia kept her eyes on Gabe’s face as Anne went to work, reaching out to his mind with her own, wanting to find him and speak to him.

  As hard as she tried, she couldn’t get a solid fix on him, his mind a chaotic mess of emotions and sensations as it fought off death.

  …Please Gabe, keep fighting it. Stay with me…

  “Shit.”

  Anne’s unprecedented curse knocked her back into her body in time to hear all the monitors in the room start going off. She looked over to see fresh blood gushing from Gabe’s wound and Anne trying to stop it.

  “His pressure is dropping,” Demetri called out to Anne.

  “The arterial clamp slipped,” Anne said gravely, as she struggled to get the clamp back on. “Just keep pushing the blood in.”

  Cordelia felt her throat close as the two of them worked and she sat there unable to help. God, if only he had listened to her. If only she had been faster or stronger. If only she had been smart enough to call the others sooner.

  There were a hell of a lot if onlys she could go through but none of them would change what was happening. She was going to lose him.

  As if on cue, the heart monitor went silent for a moment before the readout flat lined and a solid long beep pierced the air. Cordelia felt as if her heart had been ripped out as she stared at the flat green line that scrolled across the screen.

  He was gone.

  ***

  The silence in the front room was shattered with the arrival of his captors. Despite the sorry state of his body and mind, Remy’s preternatural hearing still worked just fine and their words were clear as day through the thick log walls.

  “I can’t believe how easy it was,” Armand crowed, his voice jubilant. “They practically walked into my arms, begging me to destroy them.”

  Dread curled in his belly at Armand’s words. What had he done and whom had he done it to?

  “You killed both of them?” the sycophantic toady asked. God, Remy despised him. Despite all the torture he had suffered at the hands of Armand and his minions, it was Matthew that he had truly come to fear.

  Armand was psychotic and lashed out randomly with little organization. Matthew was cool and calculated in his actions and words, his face never betraying what was going on in his head. Remy could deal with psychos but the nothingness that was inside Matthew unsettled him.

  “The boy is dead. You should have seen her face! If she doesn’t have a complete mental breakdown, I’ll eat my hat.”

  The chains creaked as Remy dropped his chin to his chest, his shoulders wanting to slump in defeat but the muscles had long since lost all feeling. He was devastated for the sister he didn’t know. To lose someone she cared about was tragic; to have that someone taken away at the hands of Armand was an abomination.

  “We need to gather our followers so that I can tell them about my success.”

  “Where do you want to meet them?”

  “We’ll bring them here and we’ll kill the prisoner. Another blow to the clan tonight could destroy them all.”

  The hazy veil that surrounded him was beginning to recede as the drugs coursing through his system wore off. Which meant Armand would come through that door at any moment, syringe in hand and he’d stick Remy and the world would disappear for a while.

  Since this ordeal had begun, he had not been completely lucid, moving from complete unconsciousness to dazed and everywhere in between. All he wanted was one moment of complete clarity; if he had that, he knew he could figure a way out of his prison.

  His one good eye on the door, he waited for Armand to come in. Instead, he listened as they alerted the rest of their followers, no one making a move to come in the room.

  Here was the advantage he had been waiting for. It wouldn’t take long for the drugs to wear off completely, even in his weakened state. With a clear mind, he knew he could figure out a way to escape his chains. Then he would show Armand what pain truly was.

  He was going to take his time with him. After all, they had been so kind to provide an excellent torture chamber for him to use. And what delicious irony to have Armand suffer in the same place he had caused so much suffering.

  Remy was going to make it hurt in ways even a sick fuck like Armand couldn’t imagine. He would avenge what had been done to his new sister. And most of all, he would avenge what had been done to him.

  Chapter 19

  The door to the exam room slammed back against the wall, the glass in the window shattering from the force of it and Cordelia stormed through the doorway. The air around her crackled with energy as she stalked away from the infirmary and headed for the stairs.

  Mary fol
lowed close on her heels, the dangerous vibes she was throwing out doing nothing to deter her from reaching out and grabbing her arm.

  “Cordelia, stop.”

  She shook her off and kept going. She wasn’t ever going to stop, not as long as Armand was alive and Gabe wasn’t. When she had torn him limb from limb, when he bled his last drop of blood, that was when she would stop.

  This time when Mary grabbed her she wasn’t gentle, slamming her face first into the wall and jerking her arm back and up until pain lanced through her.

  “I said, stop! Now you need to take a second to calm down.”

  “He’s dead, Mary. How am I supposed to fucking calm down?”

  “Because if you don’t you are going to end up dead too.”

  “I don’t care!” she screamed, wrestling against Mary’s grip, not caring about the pain. It meant as little to her as her own life. All that mattered now was vengeance.

  “Well I do care. Look, you want to kill Armand, fine by me. Hell, I’ll even give you the stake and hold him down for you. But to do that we need to find him and that means we need to take a second to think about where he could be.”

  Mary’s rational words did nothing to calm the storm of emotions raging inside of her. Every animalistic instinct that had come alive in her when she became a Shadow Walker was now roaring for vengeance. Gabe was hers and it was her duty to destroy the one who had taken him from her. It was her fight, not theirs.

  The door at the top of the stairs opened and Nicky came down the steps slowly, each movement deliberate as he kept cautious eyes on them.

  “Please Cordelia, Mary is right. Let us help you,” he said his voice calm and reassuring as if he was approaching a spooked animal.

  She knew it was a lost cause to fight them. They would not let up on her until she agreed to do as they wanted or Nicky compelled her. If he did that, she was screwed.