“Maybe there are bogs and forests in sector three?” Devon suggested from behind us.
It hit me then that none of us knew what sector three was like. We were used to barren terrain, but maybe sector three was different? Only the knights knew. Only Hyde knew, but he hadn’t had contact with us for almost a week. Better that way. Best to have some space to just breathe.
The mist thickened. Something was off with this whole situation. Why take the course into the mist? Unless we weren’t meant to go this way?
“Maybe we should turn back,” a cadet said from behind us.
Unease pricked my scalp. Maybe he was right.
“Shouldn’t be long now,” Lloyd said. “I bet the finish line is through here. We cut through, veer left, and we’ll link with the others.”
Unless the bog was meant to finish us off. Unless it had been the finish line. That same sense of wrongness assaulted me as well.
“Indigo, what is it?” Brady asked.
Did he feel it too? Or was he picking up on my unease?
I stopped cutting the vines. “Lloyd, I think we should retreat.”
Lloyd pushed forward. “Trust me, we’re almost through, I can fe—Argh!”
Lloyd was sucked through the vines and out of sight.
I froze, sword raised, heart pounding, and then my paralysis broke. “Lloyd!” I took a step forward, but Carlo snagged me around the waist.
“Easy, tiger,” he said, lips close to my ear.
I struggled in his grip, but he was surprisingly strong for such a wiry guy. “What the fuck, Carlo? Lloyd’s … Fuck, where’d he go?”
“Exactly,” Carlo said. “We need to tread carefully.”
Brady crouched to study the ground. He straightened, and his gaze swept upward to scan the vines where Lloyd had stood a moment ago. The vines that were knit tight once more as if they’d never been disturbed.
“Drag marks,” Brady said.
Carlo released me. “A trap?”
“Yeah, looks like.”
What? “The knights set traps?”
Brady’s jaw ticked. “There could be more.”
A low moan drifted through the vines, and then the scent of blood hit the back of my throat.
“Fuck,” Carlo gasped. “Lloyd’s hurt.”
The urge to rush through the vines was almost overwhelming, but Brady was right, there could be more traps. We needed a way to push the vines aside and scan the terrain ahead. Shit, we needed to get to Lloyd.
Darkness writhed at the periphery of my vision—shadows creeping closer as if drawn to me. No, as if called to me.
Back in Lunar Creek, shadows had wrapped around the sucker’s throat and snapped its neck. They’d been able to touch and do damage. Could I use them now?
The shadows rose up, like a mist of their own, and hovered as if waiting for something. Permission maybe?
“Um, Justice,” Carlo said. “Tell me those shadows belong to you.”
“I think they do.” They rushed toward me, wrapping around me in a momentarily claustrophobic hug.
Brady cried out in alarm.
“I’m fine.” I raised an arm wreathed in shadow. “They won’t hurt me.”
They … As if they were live entities. And maybe they were. They knew what I wanted and stretched out in thick tendrils, like extensions of myself, to grip the vines and force them apart.
“Indie, be careful,” Brady warned.
“Fucking A,” Carlo said.
And then I was through, stepping into a clearing shrouded in a veil of thin mist. My shadows thickened, bulking up as if in response to a threat.
“Lloyd?”
The shadows nudged me to turn slightly, then tugged me forward. They were guiding me. I spotted Lloyd hanging upside down. He was limp and still, his body making a slow circle as his blood dripped and painted the ground.
Metallic jaws were buried deep into his ankle.
“Lloyd, fuck.” I rushed forward, turned him to face me, and cupped his face.
His eyelids fluttered open. “Justice …”
“I got you.”
“Indie?” Brady’s voice floated through the vines, distant but solid.
“I’m okay. I’ve got him.”
The shadows slid up Lloyd’s body and set to work on the jaws. Pressure built in my hands, and there was a sensation of metal pressed against my fingers. It was as if I was pulling the jaws open, even though there was no way my hands could reach them.
Hold on.
The words were a whisper in my mind, but I grabbed hold of Lloyd just as he came free of the trap. I staggered, taking his weight, and then the shadows were cradling him and lowering him to the ground.
He was still bleeding, even though the claws were out of his skin. Fuck, he should be healing by now. Why wasn’t he healing? I needed to get him back to the fortress to the med wing.
The shadows drew me to the vines, and then they were parting them, allowing me through with Lloyd’s unconscious body.
I caught sight of Brady’s shocked face, and Carlo’s impressed one, and then the shadows were retreating, slipping off me like silk.
I sagged and dropped to one knee, suddenly exhausted. Head rush. This hadn’t happened in Lunar Creek. Darkness edged my vision as Devon gently pried Lloyd from my grip, but then the spot at my solar plexus began to heat, and energy slowly trickled through my veins.
The weave.
It was replenishing me.
“He’s bleeding out fast,” Carlo said.
“Go, get him back to base,” Brady ordered Devon.
“Wait.” I stood. “I can get him back quicker.”
“She’s right,” Carlo said. “She’s even faster than me in blur mode.”
Brady studied me for a second, then nodded. “Do it.”
Devon passed Lloyd back to me. I grit my teeth against the scent of his blood, closed my eyes, visualized the terrain, and then set off, pushing into blur mode.
“Hold on, Lloyd, just hold on.”
Twenty-One
“What do you mean you don’t have the equipment to do a transfusion?”
The knight in charge of the med bay plastered an herbal paste onto Lloyd’s bleeding ankle. “I mean, we don’t have the equipment.”
“Lloyd.” I tapped his cheek. “Come on.” He was too far gone to feed and take the blood he needed.
“The bleeding won’t stop,” the knight said.
Carlo burst into the room. “What’s happening, why’s he not on a drip to transfuse?”
“Because they don’t have one.”
“Fuck this shit.” Carlo began opening and closing drawers and pulling out equipment.
“What are you doing?” the knight asked.
“Saving my friend’s life,” Carlo snapped. “Justice, I need bagged blood, lots of it.”
I turned to the medic. “Where do you keep your bagged blood?”
“We don’t use bagged blood at the fortress,” the knight said. “You should know that, cadet.”
Fucking hell. “But you send shipments to the barracks when we run out. So, where is it stored?”
He looked surprised, as if he honestly had no clue. What was he? Feyblood by the scent of him. It was obvious he had nothing to do with the shipments or storage.
“Justice. There’s no time,” Carlo said.
I stripped off the breastplate and rolled up the sleeve to my feytech skin. “Take it from me.”
Carlo nodded. “We’ll take it in turns.” He pulled a chair toward the bed Lloyd was laid on. “Sit.”
It took seconds for him to stab me with a needle and set the transfusion in motion, and then Carlo was examining Lloyd’s leg.
“What’s stopping him from healing?”
“I don’t know,” the medic said.
Did they just slap a medic badge onto anyone in this place?
Anger raged through me. “Bullshit, you don’t. The course was set up by Henrich and the knights. The trap that got him was put there by the knights
. Like hell you don’t know what toxin it was coated in.”
The knight bristled. “I’d watch your tone, cadet.”
“Fuck this.” Carlo shoved the medic aside. “Purple swelling. Need to draw the poison out before healing the wound,” he muttered to himself. He grabbed a washcloth and wiped off the paste the knight had lathered on and started barking orders.
The medic looked like he wanted to argue.
I glared at him. “If Lloyd dies, it’ll be on you.”
The medic sighed and set to work. I focused on Lloyd, ignoring the weakness in my limbs as my blood was siphoned into his body.
Was there a spot of color on his pale cheeks? Yes.
I blinked back the black spots dancing in my vision.
“Justice, you good?” Carlo asked from his spot by Lloyd’s ankle.
“I’m okay.”
“She isn’t,” the medic said.
The words fuck you were on the tip of my tongue, but then Brady was striding into the room with Devon and Aidan in tow.
He swept the room with his dark gaze, taking in the scene. “Carlo, Justice’s too pale.”
“Aidan, wrap this wound,” Carlo said.
Aidan didn’t question but took over from Carlo.
Shit, I felt tired. “Yeah, I think I’m done.”
I slumped in my seat, but Brady caught me. The needle slid out of my skin, and then I was hauled up into Brady’s arms.
“Feed,” he ordered.
Damn, I’d hoped to do this later, in our bedchamber, alone and sexy.
“Whoa, TMI, Justice,” Aidan said.
Wait, had I said that out loud?
“It’s okay,” Brady said. “Just feed.”
I didn’t need telling a third time. My fangs sank gratefully into his jugular, and his sweet, delicious blood filled my mouth. Damn, he tasted good. Potent.
“Sit,” Carlo snapped.
Brady lowered himself onto a chair with me on his lap. I held him tight, sucking hard as he let out an involuntarily groan.
“Man.” Devon’s tone was gruff. “You guys need to give me something to do. Now.”
“You can give me a hand with this wound.” Aidan’s tone was thick too.
“Holy pheromones, Batman,” Carlo drawled.
Brady’s chest rumbled in warning, and irritation flared in the pit of my stomach. Not my emotions. Brady’s.
Looked like ogres didn’t like an audience. I retracted my fangs and laved the wound to seal it before pulling back.
“Thank you.” I kissed his jaw.
He rubbed my back and pressed a kiss to my temple.
I climbed off my mate’s lap, and there was a collective sigh of relief from the other guys in the room. Even the medic looked relieved.
Lloyd groaned and opened his eyes, and suddenly everyone’s attention was on the injured nightblood.
Carlo sat up straighter. “Hey, man. How you feeling?”
“Like I got hit by a truck.” Lloyd ran a hand over his face. “What happened? Shit. The trap.” He looked down at his ankle, all neatly bandaged. “Damn, they could have warned us they’d set traps.”
“Fucking overkill,” Devon growled.
“You could have died,” Aidan added in a softer tone. “If Justice hadn’t busted out her shadows …” His hazel gaze flicked my way. “I thought you could shadow hop, but that … how did you do that?”
“I don’t know.”
Lloyd was lucky. Damn lucky. If not for my new shadow ability, he would have bled out before we could get to him.
Hold on. The voice … what had that been? No time to stress about it right now.
“He could have died.” It was a brutal fact that brought heat surging through my veins.
I strode to the door.
“Indie …” Brady warned.
I whirled in the doorway and shook my head. “No. He fucking needs to explain this.”
“Oh, fuck,” Brady said. He stood, and his intention was clear. “Stand down, cadet.”
It was an order from a senior cadet. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
I blurred out of the room before he could stop me.
I had a Shadow Master to speak to.
Twenty-Two
I slammed into Henrich’s office, chest heaving, tongue burning with the need to curse and lash out.
Henrich looked up calmly from his desk. “Ah, Justice. No Stonewall to hold you back today?”
I had minutes, if that, before Brady caught up to me, so there was no beating around the bush.
“You bastard, you almost killed a cadet with your little trap trick. And to top it off, you didn’t even inform your medic to keep blood bags on hand or an antidote to the toxin you coated the trap with.”
He stared at me blankly, uncomprehending, and realization slowly prickled across my mind.
He had no clue what the fuck I was talking about.
A little wind seeped from my sails. “You didn’t set traps in the southeast edge of the forest, on the cusp of the mist?”
His jaw tensed. “No, Justice. We did not.” He rang a bell on his desk, one that made no sound that I could hear, but a knight came running into the room regardless. “Gentry, grab a troop and scout the southeast edge of the forest. Look for traps.” His gaze flicked to me. “What kind?”
“Metal jaws.”
“Go.”
Gentry ducked out of the room.
Henrich fixed his gaze on me. “Will the cadet who was hurt live?”
“Yes. No thanks to you.”
“I thought we established I didn’t know about the traps.”
“But you set up a dumb obstacle course, and you made us run it just for sport. You could have checked the terrain.”
“Why?”
“Excuse me?”
“This is our territory, we didn’t set any traps, so there would be no need to check for any.” His expression was stony. “Traps mean the enemy has reached our borders. It means they’ve found a way to circumvent the traps we have set at the cusp of sector three and entered our fortress grounds to leave traps of their own.”
“You know the threat is growing. You’ve known for weeks. You could have prevented it. There was no need for the obstacle course or the trials. We should have moved straight to aggressive defensive maneuvers. We should all be out there patrolling right now.”
A flash of rage crossed his features. “You think it’s that simple. You think anyone can be a knight?”
My hands curled into fists. “I think we’ve proven ourselves already.”
“You have no idea what lies in sector three. You have no idea the perils the landscape itself presents.”
His words pricked my bubble of rage, letting out some of the heat. The obstacle course … “The course was a taste of the terrain?”
“Forestland, bogs, uneven ground, and something on your tail. Yes. Just a tiny taste. This is no easy task. Only the strongest of body and mind can enter sector three and survive. We can take only the best, no matter what the circumstances. We cannot afford to lower our standards or cut corners. As we speak, dozens of knights are sweeping sector three to ensure it’s clear of fomorian threat, our barriers are being tested, and the terrain is being prepared for the trial because sector three bridges both worlds. Half lies on our side of the veil and the other on fomorian soil.”
Damn. “I didn’t know.”
“It isn’t something we advertise. But you’d have found out soon enough.”
So, the traps weren’t his, and the course had a purpose, but … “Keeping information from us doesn’t help us. When do you intend to tell everyone about what happened to Harmon? When are you going to tell us what the green shit inside his veins was?”
Henrich froze, and then his eyes narrowed. “You saw him.”
Fuck. I lifted my chin. “I did.”
His shoulders sagged. “Then you understand why I had to lie to you. Mr. Black is no longer himself.”
His words took a beat to register. �
�Wait … Harmon’s alive?”
Henrich’s mouth parted slightly as he realized his faux pas, and then he pressed his lips together to cut off a muttered curse.
“You saw him before I told you he was dead.” His hand curled into a fist on his desk.
“He’s alive?” Oh, God. My heart was going ten to the dozen as hope filled me. “He’s alive.”
“Don’t, Justice. Cut it off. Now.” His tone was sharp as he issued the order.
I took a shuddering breath. “I have to see him. Please.”
“Of course you do.” He stood slowly. “But I’m afraid you’re not going to like what you find.”
* * *
The chamber where Harmon had been kept the last time I’d come down here was empty. Henrich led me through the door at the back. What if this was a trap? What if he meant to lock me down here?
I faltered as he unlocked the door. “Brady and the troop know I’m with you. And Carlo and Devon know about Harmon and the dungeons, so don’t try anything funny.”
He sighed. “I understand your reservations, but I plan to speak to the knights about the severity of the threat as soon as the trials are over. You’re simply getting a preview.”
He pushed the door open and stepped through first, leaving me to follow. The room beyond lit up as we entered. Body sensors?
Wait a second. There were actual lightbulbs in this room. They had electricity.
“We have a small generator,” Henrich said in response to my unspoken question. “A security measure for this part of our dungeons.”
A lab was set up to the right. A huge glass box with pipes coming in and out of it was built against the back wall, and to the left was a large metal box with a round window on it. It looked like a mini-submarine parked in the room. Metal piping was attached to the top and traveled up into the ceiling. The seams of the box had massive bolts attached to them.
“He’s in there, isn’t he?”
Henrich nodded. “It’s a safe, comfortable containment unit. The material is impregnable and spelled by weavers to keep any alternate energy from seeping into our world.”
I stepped closer, pulse pounding in my throat until I was peering into the window. The inside was dimly lit. I made out a bed, a desk bolted to the wall, several books, and the hulking figure up against the far wall.
Shadow Warrior: The Nightwatch Academy book 3 Page 13