Touch of Shadow (The Shadow Sorceress Book 5)

by Bilinda Sheehan

  "I see," he said, the tension inside the small space of the ambulance suddenly dialling up to eleven.

  "This isn't the place for this conversation," I said, tilting my head in the direction of the paramedic that had stayed with us and was at that moment feigning extreme interest in the workings of a blood pressure machine.

  As though in answer, Nic settled back in the uncomfortable plastic seat and folded his arms across his chest as he rested his head against the headrest. He shut his eyes, effectively blocking me out.

  I gave up after a couple of minutes and caught sight of the paramedic as he watched me from the corner of his eyes. Wonderful … as though the journey couldn't get any more awkward.

  18

  A million X-rays, doctors, and stitches later, and I was left sitting on the side of a hospital bed with a diagnosis of concussion, ruptured eardrums, sprained wrist, torn muscles and ligaments in my shoulder, and thirty-five stitches in the stab wound Jasper had given me during our fight.

  I'd heard talk of possible hair line fractures in my arm, too, but I'd quickly disabused them of that idea. I'd had my arm broken once before, after a vamp attack, and the pain had been more than a little intense. This was more an irritation than anything else. Nothing that some painkillers couldn't sort out.

  They wanted me to stay in for observation because of the concussion, but I'd gotten dressed the moment they stepped out of my hospital room. Hospital and rest just didn't go hand in hand for me. Most people would call it stupid and reckless, but then, most people didn't have to stop the likes of Jasper. I'd had a chance to stop him and I'd failed; if he killed again, it would be on my head, and there was only so much I could guilt I could carry around with me for the rest of my life.

  And anyway, I was bound to find something in the box of cure-alls I'd taken from my mother's house that I could use to accelerate my healing abilities.

  The door swung open and Nic stepped into the room. The unhappy glare he gave me as soon as he took in my fully-dressed state almost made me smile.

  "What were you expecting, a damsel who needed saving?" I asked.

  "I'd settle for common sense," he quipped back. He sounded so much like the Nic I'd fallen for that my breath caught in the back of my throat as he spoke.

  We stared at one another, the seconds ticking by slowly.

  "Why are you here?" I asked, breaking the silence that stretched out between us.

  "We need to talk."

  "And you think now is the time?"

  "It's as good as any, Amber..." he said, stepping further into the room as he let the door swing shut behind him.

  Digging my fingers into the edge of the bed, I tried to keep my expression as neutral as possible. "Then talk," I said, as my heart hammered in my chest.

  "This isn't easy," he said, finally.

  "And you think it's easy for me? You disappeared.... I haven't seen or even heard from you in weeks. You just vanished.” My voice cracking over the last word, and I hated myself for the show of weakness.

  "But you got over me pretty damn fast," he said, bitterness evident in every word.

  "Got over you?"

  "I've seen you with my brother, Amber. You looked at me like that, once, before everything went to shit," he bit back.

  "Don't be so goddamn immature, Nic. Jason was there when you weren't, but...." I trailed off as he crossed the room, his speed causing my breath to catch in the back of my throat.

  "Don't mention his name," he said, halting in front of me.

  "We're friends, nothing more," I said, my heart rate kicking up a notch as he towered over me. Nic had never frightened me … and even now, it wasn't fear I felt as I stared up into his face. He could kill me—I'd felt his power—but God help me, I still loved him, and it was that love that prevented me from feeling afraid.

  "You said you didn't trust me," he said, his voice dropping low. He lifted his hand toward my face, toward the stray strand of hair that had fallen across my eyes. It was a gesture he had done a thousand times in the past, but before his fingers could brush against my cheek, he paused.

  "You tried to kill me, Nic. I bring out the worst in you.... We both know it," I said, fighting the urge to move in towards his touch. Bloody stupid heart, always betraying me. The last thing I needed was to snuggle up to a man who would see me dead.

  "But I love you," he said. "I came back for you. I couldn't do what they wanted, I couldn't go through with it...." He spoke so softly, it took me a moment to register what he had actually said.

  "What did they want you to do?" I was almost afraid to ask the question, but I needed to know the answer.

  "They know there's another shadow sorceress in King City. They wanted your name and I wouldn't give it.... I wasn't going to leave you to their mercy. I know what their mercy looks like."

  "And what will they do to you?"

  He stared at me for a moment before answering, "Nothing. And anyway, it doesn't matter, Amber … it'll be worth it, if it keeps you safe."

  My heart sank. He didn't need to tell me. I'd felt the power the Saga Venatione could wield—there was no way they would just let him go, not without consequences. And I could already imagine what those might be. As ironic as it seemed, the Saga Venatione weren't exactly the forgiving type.

  I wanted to touch him, to close the gap between us and crush my body against the hard, reassuring strength of his chest.

  "It doesn't change anything, Nic; I can't trust you. I am a shadow sorceress, and whether you like it or not, you're a Saga Venatione. We're like oil and water...."

  Before I could finish speaking he closed the distance between us, his fingers brushing against my cheek before he pushed his hand up into my hair and tilted my head back. His lips found mine, the kiss hard, desperate, and filled with the same painful longing I'd been feeling in my chest the whole time he'd been gone. His tongue tasted me, parting my lips as the kiss deepened and I moved into him.

  Without thinking about it, my arms slipped around his waist and slid up his back, drawing him closer. Every ache in my body melted away; the only thought in my head was that I needed more. I needed him. In his arms, I found safety; in his arms, I was home. And after everything that had happened, the simple realisation that he was home was enough to undo me.

  Pushing him away, I struggled to catch my breath. Every instinct in my body told me I was making a mistake. Why push away the one and only good thing I had? I loved him—what more did I need? I'd lost everything and now I would lose him, too.

  "Amber, please, I love you..." he said, reaching out to me.

  "It's not enough. I know you love me and I love you, Nic, but when you nearly killed me in the cemetery today, where was your love for me then? You're dangerous, your power is unpredictable.... What happens when you kill me? You won't mean it, but it will happen ... and I can't live my life worrying about when that time bomb is going to go off, no matter how much I might want to pretend there won't be consequences."

  My heart ached, and it took all of my will not to take it all back and kiss him again. But no matter how much I loved him, I didn't want to die, and certainly not by his hand. It would destroy him and I wouldn't be responsible for that.

  "What happened in the cemetery was different. I wasn't doing it to hurt you, I was trying to stop Jasper. Soon as I realised how it was hurting you, I stopped...." He trailed off. "Amber, please, tell me what I'm supposed to do."

  "Nothing. You're supposed to do nothing.... This is something I have to do," I said. I didn't want to say it to him—I didn't want to turn him away, and the thought of not being able to kiss him again was crippling.

  He stared at me, his eyes searching mine. "I know you don't want this," he said quietly.

  "I don't, but what choice do I have?" I asked, pushing up from the edge of the bed with an exasperated sigh. "Please don't make it harder than it already is."

  He studied me and finally let his shoulders drop, his breath escaping him with a whoosh. "I came to give y
ou this," he said, holding a small vial out to me.

  "What is it?" The liquid within the vial was a pearly grey colour that seemed to glimmer in the half light.

  "Drink it and get some sleep. When you wake up ... well, you'll be healed."

  Tentatively, I took the vial from him and stared at the contents within. It looked like barely enough to fill a teaspoon, never mind heal my injuries. Glancing back up, I opened my mouth to thank him, but he was gone, the door slowly swinging shut.

  Grabbing my leather jacket from the end of the bed, I headed for the door and stepped out into the hall. I let my gaze wander up and down the hall, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  "Miss, you need to return to bed," the nurse said, appearing out of one of the rooms further down the corridor.

  "Nope, I'm going home. So if you've got papers you need me to sign, can we do it so I can get out of here?"

  She glared at me, her lips settling into a thin line. Clearly getting out of there wasn't going to be as easy as getting in. "We can discuss your discharge with Dr Minz in the morning, but you need to get back into bed … your concussion is quite severe."

  "Look, it’s been a really long day, and I don't mean to be rude, but I'm leaving whether you give me the papers to sign or not."

  "Fine," she said, turning on her heel and moving away at a rapid pace down the hall toward the nurse’s station.

  She was irritated, but at least she'd decided to go with it rather than continue to argue with me. Clearly, things were looking up.

  I'd been wrong. Things had not been looking up. Unfortunately for me, I hadn't realised that until I'd seen Dr Minz making his way down the ward toward me. Two hours later and at least five hundred forms, all requiring my signature to absolve the hospital of any responsibility should my injuries prove fatal after my discharge, and I was finally outside my apartment door.

  Pushing it open, I stepped inside and let the door flop shut after me. Closing my eyes, I rested against the wall, letting the silence wash over me.

  I wanted to cry. To scream, to rage against the universe for conspiring against me once more, for taking the one good thing to have come out of the mess I'd made of my life since I'd discovered my powers.

  Instead, I pushed away from the wall and headed for the bedroom. It wasn't just my body that was weary, but my soul, too. Dropping onto the edge of the bed, I fished the vial of pearlescent liquid from my jacket pocket. Swirls of grey and silver darted through the centre of it as I stared down at it.

  I'd told him I didn't trust him. So could I trust this? The thought of Nic choosing to poison me seemed utterly unlikely. His magic killing me when he was utterly overcome, I could understand. But poison.... It smacked of cowardice, and if there was one thing Nic was not, it was a coward.

  Pulling out the cork, I lifted the vial to my lips, the sweet scent of its contents enticing me to drink. I tilted my head and the liquid flowed out onto my tongue and spread through my mouth before I even had the chance to swallow it. The feeling of it absorbing into my tongue left me with goosebumps running along the backs of my arms.

  I was suddenly left with a vaguely sweet taste in my mouth and nothing else. Well, nothing but the overwhelming exhaustion that washed over me, making my eyelids feel as though tiny weights were holding them down.

  Crawling up further onto the bed, I curled into a ball, my mind conjuring the memories of Nic's touch, his kiss, the feel of his body against mine. And as I drifted into sleep, my longing for Nic returned ten-fold, and the knowledge that I would never have him broke my heart all over again.

  19

  The air was thin.

  Or was it thick?

  No, I was underwater, the pressure crushing me beneath the surface.

  The dream I was having slowly gave way to reality and I wriggled my toes beneath the duvet as I struggled to get comfortable, but the dream lingered.

  Drawing a deep breath, pressure built in my chest as the air refused to travel down my throat. My lungs burned, and again I tried to suck in a deep breath but failed.

  My sleep addled brain refused to put the pieces of the puzzle together, and despite opening my eyes, everything remained in darkness.

  I squirmed in the darkness, but my hands remained pinned down by my sides, the weight on my chest and arms pressing me further into the mattress.

  Pain ripped through my shoulder, searing into my brain and casting the remaining sleep cobwebs to the four corners.

  I bucked beneath the weight holding me down on the bed but it refused to move, causing panic I hadn't known since I was a child to flood my body with adrenaline. Opening my mouth, I choked out a scream as something bit my shoulder again, its teeth worrying at the wound. The pain subsided into discomfort and the darkness was filled with the sounds of something ... someone lapping at the wound they'd created.

  The weight on my chest increased and the grip on my throat—cutting off my air supply—intensified; grey mist danced in around the edges of the darkness that cloaked my eyes.

  I cried out again, but it was soundless this time, the air in my lungs spent as whoever was holding me down dug their tongue into the wound, causing it to bleed faster. I braced my body for the agony as their teeth grazed my skin and sank into my shoulder once more. The wet sounds of my own flesh being torn away filled my ears, but grey motes filled my field of vision. I knew I was on the verge of passing out. If I did that, then whoever or whatever was holding me down would be free to eat me alive.

  The weight disappeared as the sound of a gunshot ripped through the silence; plaster and paint chips rained down over my head and with my now-free hands, I ripped the black cloth from my face and sat bolt-upright in bed.

  Nic stood in the doorway, framed by the light from the hall; in his arms, he held a Benelli SuperNova. With one smooth motion, he pumped the fore-end, expelling the spent shell. It skittered across the floor.

  His gaze was trained on something just out of sight and I turned my head in time to see Tess dematerialise against the bedroom wall.

  "Are you all right?" Nic asked, crossing the room and dumping the shotgun across the rumpled blankets on the end of the bed.

  I didn't move as his hand brushed my arm, but the hairs on the back of my neck standing to attention was enough of a warning. Without thinking about it, I launched my body forward across the bed for the gun.

  Steadying it to my shoulder and aiming for the apparition, the pain brought tears to my eyes, but I kept the barrel steady as Nic ducked out of the way and I pulled the trigger.

  The sound was deafening echoing in the small space. But the gun did its job, and the shot tore through Tess, who had rematerialised behind Nic when he'd dropped the gun. Her scream sent a shiver of fear running down my spine, but whatever Nic had loaded in his shells was enough to make her disappear in a cloud of sparks and smoke.

  Nic raised his head above the edge of the bed, his eyes frantically searching my face. I kept the gun against my shoulder, despite the pain, until finally I let my gaze drop to Nic.

  "Put the gun down," he said.

  "I—" I started to speak before I realised the tension that was running through my body, my finger still poised on the trigger. I had ejected the spent cartridge without realising it.

  Letting out a long breath, I gently released the trigger and let the gun slide down into my lap.

  "You're hurt," he said, brushing my hair back from my shoulder with one hand.

  I didn't answer him. Instead, I glanced down at the wound, the sight of the indentations from Tess's teeth sending another shiver of fear racing down my spine. Why did they always attack at night, when I was sleeping?

  It was a stupid question, and one I had the answer to, but I still couldn't stop it from popping into my head. Monsters used the night to create fear; they were predators, and as such, had all the hallmarks of predators. The dark wasn't dark for them; it may as well have been daylight … they could certainly see just as well in it. And it was what made children afraid of
the dark, kept the humans in line. How could we fight what we couldn't see? How could we hope to compete with the creatures built to eat us?

  What made it all even more stupid was that, despite my being one of the most powerful beings to walk the Earth in several hundred years, I still hadn't figured out a way to defend myself in my own house. That was going to have to change, and fast.

  Nic got up from the bed and disappeared out into the kitchen, reappearing a moment later with an empty glass in one hand and a dry cloth in the other. He handed the cloth to me. "Use it to keep pressure on the wound," he said, his voice had taken on its clipped, business-like tone once more.

  Without argument, I took the cloth and pressed it to my shoulder. The wound didn't hurt, despite the fact that I was pretty sure I'd gotten a glimpse at the bone beneath my skin. Everything felt very far away, as though nothing could touch me.

  Was I in shock?

  Staring down at my arm, I noticed the blood that coated my upper arm and was pooling in the crook of my elbow now that I had my arm bent across my body. I hadn't noticed it before, which suggested I was definitely in shock. Now that I'd seen the blood, I could see it everywhere—the bedsheets and pillows were covered in it.

  Shit. How much blood had I lost?

  If it was taking me this long to think of the important questions, then I was in way more trouble than I'd realised.

  Nic took his place on the edge of the bed once more and gripped the glass between his knees. He pulled a small dagger from beneath his black jacket and pressed it against his wrist as he held it over the glass.

  When he closed his eyes, I could feel his magic fill the room.

  How utterly hypocritical it all felt. The Saga Venatione had the cheek to persecute me for magic and yet they had a power all of their own, but that was fine?

  The power crawled on my skin like ants marching to war, but there was a pop and then nothing. Dragging my gaze back from where I'd been staring at the blood on the sheets, I realised Nic had done something. The dagger was gone and something silvery poured from his wrist.