Shaedes of Gray: A Shaede Assassin Novel

by amanda bonilla

  He led and I followed. We had eyes only for each other and couldn’t bother ourselves to watch where we were going. Stumbling as we went, our hands and mouths greedy for the other’s flesh, it took just a few awkward steps before we made it to the foot of my bed. Fingers shaking, I grappled with the button on his jeans, while he cupped my breasts, teasing my nipples with his thumbs, his teeth grazing the flesh at my neck. I jerked his pants down and he maneuvered them to his ankles, kicked them off, and tackled me in one fluid motion. I fell to the downy surface, and he kissed me with a starved passion, his tongue intertwining with mine. He pulled back and unfastened my pants, pulled them off with my underwear, and threw them behind him. His eyes raked me from head to toe, and a jolt of excitement coursed through my body, settling and throbbing between my legs.

  Tyler’s chest rose and fell with his breath as he continued to stare at my naked body. “I’ve walked the earth for thousands of years and I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as you,” he said before kneeling where my legs dangled over the edge of the bed. I ran my fingers through the silky strands of his hair as it brushed my thighs, and I couldn’t suppress a shudder when his mouth latched on to me, tongue flicking out, caressing the most sensitive part of me. I gasped at the sensation, the coolness of his mouth where it met my heat. There wasn’t a single inch of me his mouth didn’t explore, and I arched my back, hips pressing me against his mouth. I couldn’t get enough, starved for the pleasure he gave me, and by the time he made it back up to my lips, I was crazy with desire for him.

  “Ty,” I said breathlessly. “Oh, God, Tyler. Please . . .”

  He braced his arms on either side of me and I reached down, stroking the hard, satin-smooth length of him. Wow. A low moan was all the encouragement I needed from him—it almost sent me over the edge—and I guided him into me.

  Tyler lowered himself, wrapping me in a tight embrace. “Darian!” he breathed close to my ear. The sensation of his breath mixed with the scent of me on his lips sent another hot electric rush through every nerve ending, and I met the movements of his body with an insistence that he matched with enthusiastic fervor. My nails dug into the skin at his shoulders and I wrapped my legs around him, urging him deeper inside me. Why had I fought this moment for so long? It felt so right, so perfect. We moved together, one body, one breath, joined together in a way I’d never known. Tension built within me as I ground my hips hard into Tyler. I cried out as, deep in my core, the pleasure exploded in myriad lights and tingling sensations. I arched against him, swept up in the pulsing waves that went on and on until Tyler’s entire body shuddered as he pressed deep into me. An incomprehensible sound escaped his mouth, and he relaxed against my body, placing languid kisses along my neck, up my jaw, and ending at my mouth.

  I lay still, enjoying the pulsing aftershocks that continued to rock my core, while Tyler slowly moved against me. I held on to him, keeping him right where he was so he wouldn’t pull away. He stayed, allowing me to enjoy the feeling of his full weight against my chest as I took in shallow gulps of breath.

  We lay wrapped together for another moment or two before I finally let him roll away. He gathered me up in his arms, and I rested my cheek against his chest.

  When I turned onto my back, Tyler shifted to his side and began tracing lazy patterns with a finger around my belly button. My body trembled and his deep, throaty laugh stirred the glowing embers of passion that hadn’t yet cooled.

  “Leave with me,” he murmured. “It’s not safe here. Things are getting worse.”

  “You know I can’t do that,” I said.

  “War is just around the corner.” He rose to plant a kiss on my stomach. “This isn’t just about some bullshit job. Azriel is the least of Xander’s problems. It’s something worse. Something altogether bigger than a feud over his crown.”

  “I know that,” I said.

  Tyler looked up from his trail of kisses, an intense expression on his face. “What do you know?” he asked.

  I proceeded to recount the events of the previous night, starting with the discussion I’d had with Raif and ending with the point of my sword exiting through the poor, screaming Sylph’s back. He listened with interest, offering comments when it seemed pertinent. It appeared that he knew what I knew—the Enphigmalé might be a bigger threat than we’d thought, and though he hadn’t outwardly admitted it, Azriel was involved in whatever it was they had planned.

  “What do you think she meant?” I asked, referring to the Sylph’s strange proclamation.

  “I don’t know.” Tyler sighed. “But I don’t like the sound of it.”

  “Me either.” Admitting it to Tyler felt strange, but for the first time, I realized that the idea of being anyone’s sacrifice scared the shit out of me.

  “I guess as long as you’re not staying for him,” Tyler said, running a hand along my thigh, “I can live with any other reason.”

  I didn’t say anything right away. In a sense, I was staying for Xander. I’d made a deal; money had been exchanged. I had my pride and professional reputation to consider. And what I’d told Tyler earlier was true: Xander connected me to my own kind. He’d rescued me from obscurity. But there was also Raif. I felt a strange allegiance to him, and I’d promised to avenge Delilah. I would never back down from a fight, sacrifice or not. But I wondered, as Tyler nuzzled my neck, Could I leave even if I wanted to? In too deep already, I’d been sucked into a world that might not let me go. After hiding out under everyone’s noses for decades, I’d been found. It was too late. I wasn’t going anywhere.

  “You . . . aren’t staying for him, are you?” Tyler asked.

  “Xander?” I asked. “No.”

  “You paused,” Tyler said, sitting up beside me.

  “So?”

  “So . . . you paused. That means you had to think about it.”

  What happened to you don’t have to love me back? Just having a moment of personal thought evidently made me suspect in his book. I sat up beside him. “Listen, Ty.” I stared right at him to get my point across. “I thought we understood each other. Whatever my reasons for staying, they’re my reasons. That should be enough.”

  Tyler looked away.

  I ran my fingers up along his arm and around his shoulder. I paused just below his shoulder blade and caressed the muscles there. “Ty, this wouldn’t have happened if I were staying for him.”

  He lifted his head and a lopsided grin made a welcome appearance. “I meant what I said. You don’t have to love me back. But you will eventually.” He looked so confident as he leaned over and kissed me. “You’d think things like jealousy wouldn’t matter after so many centuries of existence. I’m sorry.” He kissed me again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin a perfect moment.”

  “You didn’t ruin anything,” I said, feeling a little more mushy than usual.

  “So you agree it was perfect?” he asked, smiling as bright as the midday sun.

  “Well,” I drawled, reaching down to caress him. His body responded immediately, tensing and hardening in all the right places. I licked my lips, the thought of tasting him rekindling my own desires. “I can think of one thing that would make it even more perfect.”

  “What’s that?” he practically growled.

  “A repeat performance,” I said, tracing his lips with the tip of my finger.

  Wrapping his arms around my waist, he spun, settling me on top of him. I moaned as his fingers and mouth searched and teased. If it were possible, he was better the second time around.

  Tyler never disappoints.

  I woke before sunrise. Tyler lay next to me, snoring softly. I didn’t want to wake him, so I dissolved into the welcoming darkness. I drifted, enjoying the feeling of being free of my corporeal form, and within moments stood on the roof of my building. I remained a shadow. I didn’t think the world needed to see a naked woman on top of a building, and, besides, it protected me from the late-winter breeze drifting across the city.

  Somewhere, Azriel was r
aising an army of Lyhtan warriors.

  Somewhere, the Enphigmalé made their secret plans.

  In the midst of it all, the Shaede Nation, a society in and of itself, waited for attack from all sides.

  And then there was me, sitting in the eye of the storm.

  A voice whispered on the wind, and I strained to hear the words that ran together like a sigh. “Why don’t you show yourself, cousin?” it asked.

  “You first,” I said.

  The breeze increased in force to stormy wind and finally to gale. The gale transformed into a funnel cloud—not large; a few feet or more—and as it died away to again become a gentle breeze, the Sylph appeared.

  “Your turn,” the girl said.

  “Not to be rude, cousin,” I said, “but I’d rather not. I’m a little on the naked side. So are we actually related, or are you just being nice?”

  The Sylph giggled. “Our kind can be traced to the beginning of your lineage. Our ancestor and yours coupled and created the Shaede from that union.”

  Lyhtans. Sylphs. Talk about your strange relations. I wondered what that family reunion might look like.

  The Sylph shrugged and smiled—I supposed at my thoughts, as if to say she hadn’t thought about that. “You killed my sister,” she said.

  Not the best conversation starter. She didn’t mince words, though, so I owed her a likewise frank response. “Yes.”

  “It was the only way,” she said in a high and trilling voice that reminded me of wind chimes. “We hold no grudge.”

  I remained silent. What was I supposed to say? Wow, that’s a load off my mind?

  “If the Enphigmalé get you, the world as we know it will end.”

  “What makes you think I’m the one they’re looking for?”

  “You are marked,” she said.

  “You know that for a fact?” This all seemed too orchestrated. “Oracles are supposed to be the future seers, not Sylphs.”

  She laughed, and a breeze kicked up around me. “We are not the future seers, but sometimes prophecy is whispered on the wind. And you have been chosen.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Sybil,” she said in her wind-chime voice.

  “Well, Sybil . . . I checked every square inch of my body and there’s not one mark. No tattoos, no moles, scars, birthmarks. I don’t even have a pimple. So maybe you guys have your facts wrong.”

  “Not wrong,” she said. “You’re the one. The Enphigmalé are dark and dangerous, and you will free them from centuries of imprisonment.”

  Hmm. Cheery. “How do you know I’m what they’re looking for?”

  Sybil laughed and the wind gusted, increasing in force with her laughter to once again become the swirling funnel cloud. It broke apart and Sybil was gone, dissipating in the air.

  Shit.

  Chapter 23

  “Where are you going?” Tyler asked sleepily, leaning up on an elbow.

  “I need to talk to Raif,” I said, strapping the katana to my back.

  I didn’t ask him if he was disappointed, or even if he cared. His opinion was not a requirement. He knew the rules and he knew my mind.

  “I’ll come with you,” he offered, scooting to the edge of the bed.

  “Nope. No way. No how.” I couldn’t risk the resulting friction if I showed up with him following behind. Especially if what he said about Xander was true. I cared about Ty, and I refused to bring him onto the king’s home turf. He’d be outnumbered, and we couldn’t afford another fight. My romantic life—if I had one—had to take a backseat for now. “Ty, stay here for a while. Sleep. You’ve been up with Delilah and you’ve got to be exhausted. I just need to talk to Raif and I won’t be in any danger. Okay?”

  “It’s almost dawn,” Tyler argued. “What about the Lyhtans?”

  “Well, that’s what this is for,” I said, brandishing the bottle of Raif’s shadow-sludge I’d finally had the good sense to arm myself with.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Lyhtan mace,” I said, beaming. I hustled toward the lift, out of earshot, before Tyler could get a word in edgewise. “I’ll call if anything comes up. Otherwise, I’ll be back soon.”

  “Darian.” My name on his lips implored me to stay.

  “I wish Tyler would stay in my apartment through the rest of the day,” I whispered.

  Whether or not he tried to protest, I don’t know. Because I passed into shadow and left.

  Though I wanted to relay the events of the prior night to Raif, I took a few detours on the way. I became corporeal before the sun rose in a glorious blue sky, casting shadows on the sidewalk where weeds pushed and strained through the cracks. Traffic zoomed by in the morning rush, and I suddenly envied the humans I’d studied like lab rats over the years. Why couldn’t I be so blissfully unaware? Then again, I might’ve been if I hadn’t spent the better part of a century dealing out death for a buck. Not exactly lying low. As I retraced my steps to The Pit, I thought again about Azriel’s visit. He’d always been one for dramatics. And his appearance was a carrot dangled in front of my nose. Meeting resistance when I pulled at the door, I looked up to find a sign that read: CLOSED FOR REPAIRS. “If by repairs, they mean ‘blood cleanup,’” I muttered. I’d been looking for Levi and a little more information, but that angle had officially become a dead end.

  I whiled away the morning, dissecting the dead Sylph’s riddle and her sister’s warnings. But I didn’t know enough about myself, let alone the rest of the preternatural world, to make any headway. What the hell made me so special? Marked how? And chosen for what? As morning gave way to afternoon, I made the trek to Xander’s house, a sense of unease growing with each impatient step.

  “It’s about time.” Raif met me at the door as if he’d been waiting for me all night. “Where have you been? I was just about to go out looking for you.”

  Oh, hell, I thought. He had been waiting for me all night. All day too. In all the excitement, I’d overlooked the fact that I’d been AWOL for the past twenty-four hours. I’d have to work on not becoming so easily sidetracked.

  He dragged me through the threshold by the elbow and kept right on dragging me through the house. Down into the bowels of the mansion we went—Raif silent and serious as ever, and me tripping on my own feet to keep up. “You should know that the Oracle left sometime after Tyler yesterday,” he said as we walked. “She slipped out when no one was watching, and we have no idea where she is.”

  Wonderful. There wasn’t room for another thing on my plate. I couldn’t worry about Delilah right then. I had Azriel and my own neck to think about, and I had to assume she’d left of her own volition and on her own two feet. Maybe she’d called Tyler. Maybe she’d run far from this war that I wished I could run from as well. “I have something to tell you,” I said as I negotiated the stairs. “I killed a Sylph last night, and another came to visit me just before dawn.”

  Raif grunted in response, and didn’t even turn to acknowledge me.

  “She said—the one I killed, I mean—she said something to me. It was a riddle. When night becomes day and day becomes night, the nine will come to claim their right. When darkest soul meets lightest love, her blood will play creator’s role, and from stone release their souls. And then she said something about being a creator but no one’s maker. And something else about being marked and not having a mother or a father.”

  Raif stopped dead in his tracks and I ran straight into his back. “What did you say?”

  I repeated the Sylph’s strange prophecy, but Raif had already turned around and resumed dragging me down the long hallway to Xander’s council room with increased speed. “What do you think it means?” I asked.

  “The plot thickens,” Raif said with a sarcastic edge as he stepped into the room.

  Seated at Xander’s council table was a Lyhtan, and by the way it was bound, I had a distinct feeling it wasn’t an invited guest. The cords securing the creature to its chair looked strangely familiar, and I stuck
a hand in my coat pocket, instinctively gripping the bottle of shadows. Black and inky, liquid in quality, the ropes marred the Lyhtan’s skin at its wrists and ankles. I had a sudden mental image of Raif blowing gently on our guest’s wrists, and shuddered. It thrashed about and spit at us as we entered, and I had to jump away to avoid being struck with a rather large gob of gooey, green spit.

  After the dramatic display, the Lyhtan paused and looked me over from head to toe. It screeched and cackled wildly before saying, “You are marked! The Enphigmalé will see to the end of your kind!”

  Lovely. That sentence must have been the equivalent of a Lyhtan secret handshake.

  “We’ve been questioning him for the last few hours,” Raif said.

  I wondered how Raif knew he was a he. Maybe he lifted the tuft of fur dangling from its belly and checked.

  “What has he told you?” I asked.

  Raif gave me the gravest of looks before pushing me back out the door.

  “You are marked, Shaede! You will free them, and you will all die!”

  The door closed, effectively blocking out the seething sound of the Lyhtan’s laughter and cackling proclamation. I wish I could have blocked it from my mind just as easily.

  Raif led the way to a small office down the hall and slumped in one of the high-backed chairs. He looked me dead in the eye. I wasn’t going to like what was coming.

  “I checked,” I said, trying to curb the path Raif’s mind had assuredly taken. “I looked over every inch of my body. No marks. He’s wrong.”

  “No,” Raif said. “He’s not.”

  Panic welled up in me, threatening to bubble right out of my mouth. I swallowed against the bile in my throat and focused on keeping a calm facade. Inside, I was screaming.

  “No,” I said. “No marks. I swear. Raif . . .”

  “I should have made the connection sooner.”