Shadow Hunted: an Urban Fantasy Novel (Shadows of Salem Book 3)

by Jasmine Walt

  “I-I-I-I’m c-c-c-cold,” I chattered, my body shaking. What the hell? Cold never affected me. But an icy chill was spreading through my body, making my limbs heavy and stiff. What was happening to me?

  “Yer going to shock,” Maddock said, lifting me into his arms. He carried me over to the hole in the ground and placed me next to it. “Ye’ve used up too much magic. We have to get more power into ye.”

  “W-what about Darun?” I managed, trying to lift my head to see where my wolfish companion was. But I couldn’t manage it—I was just too weak.

  “He’ll live.” Maddock placed his hands over the hole in the ground, and a faint glow began to emanate from his palms.

  Suddenly, I could feel the power running beneath the earth. The channel hadn’t disappeared—it had just shut itself down. “The witches managed to force open the channel again, but only partially,” Maddock explained as though he’d read my thoughts. “It collapsed under the strain of them trying to take too much power too quickly. But there’s still some lingering here that I can pull into you.”

  As he spoke, his hands gradually grew brighter and brighter, until I was forced to squeeze my eyes shut and look away. His big hands wrapped around mine, and I gasped as hot power flowed into my body, filling up the empty cavity inside. It spread swiftly, banishing the cold that had sank into my limbs, and making my nerves tingle as they were brought back to life.

  It took a few minutes, but the power slowly ebbed into a mere trickle, then faded away completely. As life returned to me, the worst of the chill gone, I opened my eyes to see Maddock. He gazed down at me with a fierce concern I’d never seen before, his cheeks flushed

  “I’m okay,” I said, squeezing his hand. He hadn’t replenished my battery, not by a long shot, but he’d given me enough juice to keep me from dying. Again.

  “Good.” He tugged me up into a sitting position, then wrapped his arms around me and crushed his lips against mine.

  I kissed him back, a different kind of heat flooding through my body. Suddenly, I was in his lap, his hands in my hair, his tongue in my mouth, and I was drowning in the taste of him, in his addictive scent, in the power and heat rolling off him in waves. He kissed me with a ferocity that was overwhelming, that left no room for me to do anything but cling to him and ride the wave of passion that overcame us. But it wasn’t just passion—it was relief…it was gratitude…it was…

  A low growl interrupted us, and I pulled back, startled. Darun was still lying on his side, watching us through slitted eyes.

  “Are you two done?” he demanded. “There’s still work to do.”

  My cheeks flushed guiltily. Of course. We still had to close the channel. How could I be sitting here necking with Maddock, while Darun was lying hurt on the ground?

  “We should do what we came here to do,” I said, scrambling to my feet. My whole body was on fire, and I wished I could just sink into the hole and straight back down into Faerie. Anything would be better than facing Maddock’s gaze.

  But Maddock merely got to his feet and stood next to me. “You’re right,” he said gruffly. “Let’s finish this.”

  He reached for my hand, then rolled his eyes as I made to pull away. “Stop acting so childish,” he said. “I need yer help for the spell.”

  “Oh.” Face still burning, I took his hand and tried to ignore the way my heart leapt at his touch. “Okay, so what do we do now?”

  Power flooded into me, and I gasped—this was Maddock’s power, not the channel’s. “A little extra boost,” he said, “so ye can un-shade this blasted thing. I need all interference removed so I can cast the spell properly.”

  “Right.” Closing my eyes, I focused my attention on the channel and stripped the layer of shadow magic hiding it from the rest of the world. As soon as I did, a flash of light burst from the hole, and Maddock and I stumbled back, worried we were about to get blasted. But the light faded away, leaving only a moderate glow emanating from the small crater in the ground.

  “There it is,” I murmured, slowly approaching it.

  I leaned forward to look down into the channel. It was a cloudy, swirling white vortex, just as I’d seen in my vision, and I knew if I jumped into it, I could ride those swirling currents of power straight into Faerie.

  I also knew my shadow instincts would never be able to resist that much power; they would latch onto it instantly. Jumping would be extremely dangerous for someone like me.

  Another memory flashed into my mind, faintly, and I gasped as another realization hit me.

  “What is it?” Maddock asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “I remember how I found this place,” I said, my voice faint, as if it were coming from the other side of a long tunnel. “I was searching for an entrance that would take me to the Seelie realm when I came across it, not too long after I stole your power from you. I ended up finding this, and the warlock who’d created it, instead. He was drawing crazy amounts of power out of it, and I had to drain it out of him and kill him. I was able to use the power I took from him to seal off the channel, but I had to use some of your power, too.” I gave him a crooked smile. “Your Earth magic came in real handy, but I ended up using too much. I didn’t have enough to maintain my Seelie disguise, so when I finally got in, that’s how they caught me.”

  Maddock had stilled, his eyes locked on mine. “Ye had to have known ye didna have enough magic,” he said softly, “and yet ye went into the Seelie lands anyway. What was so important that ye risked yer life like that?”

  I opened my mouth to tell him, then shook my head. “We can talk about that later. Right now, we should finish what we started.”

  Maddock’s eyes narrowed. “Keeping secrets, Detective?” he asked softly, staring at me for a tense minute. But the moment passed, and to my relief, he turned back to the hole in the ground and continued the spell. Placing a hand on his shoulder, I fed him as much magic as I could—I knew this was gonna take a hell of a lot of juice.

  It’s better this way, I told myself as the earth began to shake and tremble. Hopefully Maddock would forget what I’d said and move on. Because I couldn’t tell him my theory about the Seelie Queen—that I strongly suspected she had something to do with the Unseelie’s sharply dropping fertility rates. He was ultimately loyal to her, and the last thing I needed was for him to tell her that I was onto her again, and that this time, I wasn’t going to give up.

  The tremors increased as the vortex collapsed in on itself, streaks of green and orange bleeding into the pure white tunnel of power. It spun around with dizzying speed, growing smaller and smaller, then finally winked out of existence with one last pulse of magic that threw Maddock and me back from the hole.

  Panting, I tried to push up onto my elbows, but it was no use. I was exhausted. Maddock turned his head to look at me, a tired smile crossing his face. Reaching out, he took my hand in his.

  “It is done,” he said in a ragged voice. “We’ve destroyed the channel. Faerie is safe once more.”

  Then his eyes rolled back into his head, and he succumbed to unconsciousness.

  Chapter 27

  Somehow, I found the strength to pull out my cell phone and call the club. A few of Maddock’s troll guards came to collect us, and Darun and I were taken back to ENVY to be treated and put on bed rest. I’d thought Maddock would be taken to his own home to recuperate, but he was brought the club and put in another one of the rooms. He hadn’t stirred once since collapsing, and I guessed the guards didn’t want to leave him alone.

  It rattled me to see Maddock in such a vulnerable state, but I tried not to worry too much. After all, he’d just used a tremendous amount of power to close that channel. Honestly, I was more worried about Darun than Maddock—he’d been wounded physically. But Maddock kept a fae healer on the premises, and even though Darun didn’t like the idea of being touched by a Seelie, he eventually relented. I was incredibly relieved when she managed to heal him, and as soon as he climbed into bed with me, I wrapped my arms around
him and slipped into a deep sleep.

  “Are ye going to sleep all week, Detective?”

  My eyes blinked open at the sound of Maddock’s voice. He was sitting in a wooden chair next to my bed, looking healthy and whole and dressed in one of his suits again. I frowned at the sight of a bouquet of lavender and peonies in his big hand.

  “Are those for me?” I asked groggily, sitting up.

  Maddock shrugged. “It’s customary to send a patient flowers, no?” He handed them to me. “Ye’ve been in bed two days now.”

  “I’m not an invalid—” I began, then paused as the rest of his words sank in. “Two days? How the hell is that possible?”

  “Ye overtaxed yerself,” Maddock said. “It happens. I myself had to sleep most of an entire day to recover.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair,” I grumbled, gathering the bouquet close. I sniffed it, and the sweet scent of lavender instantly cleared some of the cobwebs from my head, soothing me. “These are nice, though.”

  “I thought the lavender matched yer eyes,” Maddock said softly. Our eyes met, and my stomach fluttered at the gentleness in his gaze. “Ye did very well, Brooke. Much better than I would have thought, considering how new ye still are to this.”

  I swallowed against the sudden dryness in my mouth. “In the end, you were the star of the show,” I said. “I wouldn’t have been able to destroy that channel on my own.”

  He shook his head. “Neither would I. Those witches had sucked too much power from the channel—they would have overwhelmed me before I had the chance.” A worried look crossed his face. “I will have to check in with the queen at some point and find out how much damage was done to the fae lands. It is very unlikely that Faerie escaped unscathed, considering how much power was taken.”

  My heart sank at that. “Do you think the Unseelie lands would have been damaged?” I asked. I hoped Darun’s clan was okay. They were close to the border between Seelie and Unseelie, though I had no idea if that made any difference. “Does the magic draw from random places, or from a specific point in Faerie?”

  “I’m not certain,” Maddock admitted. “The last time, an entire colony of wisps living in the southern Seelie lands was decimated. The time before that, it was the Selkies on our western ocean. It has only happened twice, which is not long enough to determine a pattern.”

  I sighed, sincerely hoping my father’s lands hadn’t been affected. He’d let me go in order to prevent this from happening, and if his lands or people were hurt, he would worry that something had happened to me. I would have to get him a message soon and tell him I was okay. And Oscar, too, for that matter.

  I showered and dressed, and Maddock took me out for a huge brunch in Salem. Like the last time I went out to eat, we were followed by stares, but this time, it didn’t bother me. Despite my worries about possible damage done to Unseelie lands, I was still proud at what I’d managed to accomplish. I’d beaten back those witches, and Maddock and I had finally closed the channel for good. We’d worked together as a team, and for once, I finally felt as if we were on even footing.

  “I have to admit,” Maddock said later as we walked together in the Salem Common, “that even though ye had a harrowing experience in Faerie, it seems to have done ye a lot of good. It would have taken years for me to get ye to the level ye are now, if ye’d stayed on Earth.”

  “And if we hadn’t killed each other first,” I added dryly. Maddock chuckled, and I found myself grinning as well. “It’s still a little weird, you know, that you’re being nice to me. I keep waiting for you to shut me out again.”

  Maddock was silent for a moment. “I’ll never be able to tell ye everything,” he finally said. “Nothing will change the fact that my loyalty is to the Seelie Queen and my people, and yer father is an Unseelie chieftain who was once a king. But I cannae help thinking that we make a good team. We managed to collect the artifacts despite our squabbling, and we shut down the channel. There is much we could accomplish if we continued working together.”

  I bit back a sigh. “I agree…I’m just not sure if we’re working toward the same goals. Like you said, we’re on two opposite sides of the fence. What happens if the Seelie Queen asks you to mount an attack against the Unseelie? Do you expect me to work with you then?”

  Maddock shrugged. “The Seelie Queen hasn’t made any acts of aggression against the Unseelie for centuries, and I dinnae see any reason for that to change. It’s the Unseelie who keep attacking us,” he said, his voice tightening a little. “Ye saw that phoukas in my living room, Detective. They keep going after us.”

  “Maybe there’s a reason for that,” I snapped before I could bite my tongue.

  Maddock barked a laugh. “A reason? Of course there is—” he began, then cut himself off. “No. I dinnae want to argue about this. Yes, Detective, our heritage could be a problem somewhere down the road, should our races ever decide to truly go to war again. But in the meantime, I think we both want the same thing—to protect the Faerie realm, and to ensure that other supernaturals are not overstepping their bounds in the human world.”

  I frowned. “So what—do you want me to work for you again, in exchange for training? Because I don’t really want to be beholden to you, and I Oscar can teach me now—”

  Maddock pushed me up against a large tree, and I gasped. “I dinnae give a damn about Oscar,” he growled, and I shivered as his hot breath caressed my ear. “And no, I dinnae want ye to work ‘for’ me. I want ye to work ‘with’ me.” He nipped at my earlobe. “Ye’ve proven yerself more than capable of holding yer own, when ye took on those witches without my help. And no matter how much I try to push ye out of my life, we always seem to find a way back to each other. I am beginning to think that continuing to fight this is a waste of time, and we’d be better served figuring out how to make this work.”

  Warmth flooded me at Maddock’s words, and I gripped his shoulders tight as his mouth blazed a hot path down the side of my neck.

  “We’re in public, you know,” I murmured as his teeth scraped my collarbone. My knees trembled, and it was all I could do not to sink into him and let him take me down to the grass.

  “Ye know quite well I can change that in an instant,” he said. He lifted his gaze, and the lust burning in those gorgeous eyes stole my breath. “Just say the word, and we’re gone.”

  I was so tempted. So. Fucking. Tempted. That sinful mouth on my skin, those skilled hands on my body…I knew from past-life experience that Maddock was an incredible lover. He’d play my body like a fiddle, make me scream with pleasure as he took me over and over, until I was exhausted satisfied, and never wanted to leave his bed again…

  Until I did. Because I wouldn’t be able to stay here forever. Not if I wanted to finish what I’d started in my past life. Not if I wanted to save the Unseelie race from extinction.

  “I…I can’t.” Tears stung my eyes as I pushed him away, and I blinked them back as fast as I could. “We can’t do this, Maddock.”

  His brow furrowed. “Why the hell not?”

  “Because…” I tried to come up with a good excuse, one we hadn’t already used before, because it was clear Maddock didn’t care about our previous restrictions. “It’s just that I’m not ready for this. We were ready to kill each other a few months ago. How can I be sure we won’t be at each other’s throats again?” He opened his mouth to speak, but I continued resolutely. “We haven’t even really proven to each other that we can get along, Maddock. Until I know that you and I can actually work together consistently as a good team, I can’t commit myself to more.”

  For a minute, Maddock looked like he was going to argue. But he only shrugged, like my words were water rolling off a duck’s back. “Ye have a point,” he said. “Besides, ye have that hearing coming up to prepare for.”

  “Right.” With all the commotion, I’d totally forgotten about it. A cold wind whipped around us, and I hugged myself, suddenly feeling exposed. I was days away from standing before a judge who wou
ld determine if I could walk free or if I was going to be dragged before a grand jury and publicly scrutinized for a crime I didn’t commit. My relationship with Maddock was the last thing I needed to be worrying about. Keeping him at arm’s length was the right thing to do.

  I just wished I didn’t feel so totally shitty about it.

  Chapter 28

  I spent the next few days replacing credit cards, sorting through my belongings, surfing real estate websites for places in Boston and Salem, and pondering my future in general. I still hadn’t completely decided where I was going to go if I was acquitted at the hearing, but since I’d agreed to continue working with Maddock, it was probably easier to live here.

  Besides, New England was starting to grow on me. Even Boston, which was a much larger city than Salem, had a lot more of that old-world charm than Chicago. I could really get used to living out here.

  When I wasn’t thinking and planning my uncertain future, I spent a lot of time meditating to keep myself calm. Even so, I couldn’t help worry about the upcoming hearing. Would Thelia show up, or did she skip town? Maddock figured it was a fifty-fifty chance—she’d either show in a last-ditch attempt to drive that final nail in my coffin, or she’d hightail it and leave my fate up to the judge. Either one wasn’t particularly good—if Thelia disappeared, it would only cast more suspicion on me. But if she did appear, we were going to have to fight to have her testimony thrown out.

  The morning of the hearing, I woke early and spent two hours getting ready. I was determined to look my best for court—I wasn’t going in there with my tail tucked between my legs or looking like some scruffy criminal who’d been hiding out under a rock for the past few weeks. I showered, shaved, and exfoliated myself to within an inch of my life, then spent a good thirty minutes trying on and discarding various outfits.

  In the end, I decided on a white skirt suit with nude pumps. White was supposed to be a symbol of innocence, after all, and besides, I looked damn good in it. I paired it with a simple gold necklace and earrings, styled my silver locks into loose curls, and put on my makeup. It took effort to leave my 1911 in the small cabinet safe instead of putting it in my white purse, but there was no point in bringing it if I had to check it with security.