The Shadow City (The Demon-Born Trilogy Book 2)

by L. C. Hibbett

  I unwrapped the towel from my head, letting damp waves tumble over the thin straps of the nightdress, and dabbed my burning cheeks with the wet towel. I should have just said something to Aza, but I hadn’t been brave enough to tell her I wanted to share with Megan instead of Sam. Or maybe that’s not what I wanted.

  My fingers itched to pull out the cosmetics case Cat had packed in my bag, but I resisted and yanked the door of the bathroom open before I could give in to my nerves and cover every inch of my face in a thick layer of make-up.

  Sam was standing in front of the open closet, still naked from his shower except for the towel wrapped around his waist. A pile of discarded clothes lay on the large bed. He spun around to face me at the sound of the bathroom door opening, turning his scarred back to the wall. I tried not to let my eyes wander down the defined lines of his stomach or linger on the deep V of his hip bones. I hugged my backpack against my chest and scurried across the room with my eyes trained on the polished floorboards. The sheets felt incredible against my tired skin. I pulled the bedspread right up under my armpits and began to examine the photographs on the bedside table.

  “Sorry. There’s nothing in this house that’s going to fit Cain or me. Lizzie threw our clothes in the laundry so we’d have something to wear tomorrow, but until then…” I could tell by the tone of his voice that Sam knew exactly the effect his bare torso was having on me.

  “You should probably get a dry towel if that’s what you’re sleeping in for the night, you’ll get a chill from the damp cotton otherwise.” I didn’t lift my eyes from the faded image that I was pretending to examine as he crossed the room and replaced the wet towel with a dry one, but what I could see out of the corner of my eye was enough to make me blush.

  Sam took a spare blanket and draped it over his back like a cape before coming to sit on the end of the bed. I turned the photo frame so that he could see it. “I wonder when this was taken? Niamh looks so happy.” I looked up and met Sam’s gaze. “It’s strange, isn’t it? To be sleeping in her bed.”

  “In her negligee.” The dimple in Sam’s right cheek winked at me, and my face began to flush.

  “It’s not a negligee, and I just meant because she could be home any minute. Maybe we should tell Aza we’ll sleep on the couches downstairs? It’s too awkward, with Niamh, I mean.” I went to roll out of bed, and Sam grabbed my hand.

  “Aza said this is what Niamh wanted, Grace. She wants us to be rested and relaxed for tomorrow…” Sam’s voice trailed off. I felt anything but relaxed.

  I grabbed another frame off the locker. “Hey, have you seen these? I didn’t realize Niamh had done all this stuff. I thought Demons were just money hungry, at least the really powerful ones.” I ran my thumb over the glass to remove a layer of dust. Niamh’s face smiled up at me. Her skinned was tanned, and she had her arms wrapped around a group of grinning children. A red cross was emblazoned on the flag in the background, and a guy stood behind Niamh’s shoulder. His eyes were fixed on her face. “Who do you think this is? He’s is nearly all the photos. I saw him in pictures downstairs too.”

  Sam scooted further up the bed and leaned over to examine the image. I made a conscious effort not to hold my breath when his bare stomach pressed against my arm. “I guess it must be that Demon she was with. The one with the diary— Jonah.”

  “Jonah?” I stared down at his face. “Niamh and Jonah were…”

  “Lovers?” Sam cocked an eyebrow, and I rolled my eyes.

  “I thought he was missing for hundreds of years. Isn’t that why Gabriel thought the diary was going to help us?” I took a sip of water from the glass beside the bed.

  “Nah, he only went missing about forty years ago, but his diary had been stolen a few decades before that. Jabol told me that the Demons said he was always a bit of a loose cannon, King of the conspiracy theories, but when his library was raided, it sent him spinning into an obsessive hunt for some hidden enemy. Jabol said it broke Niamh when he vanished. There were only four of the Original Demons left. Guess it’s just three now— Lizzie, Mathas, and Niamh.” Sam lay back on the comforter with his hands tucked behind his head.

  I reached down and pulled my rucksack onto my lap, averting my eyes completely from the display of toned flesh. I unearthed the leather-bound tome from the bottom of the bag, where I had hidden it. In retrospect, leaving behind my pajamas so I could fit the book might not have been the smartest idea. I pulled open the journal and glanced at the guy in the photograph. Sam nudged the book with his knuckles. “Seeing anything new?”

  The neat, sloping script swam in front of my eyes as I tried to create a film of my magic over the words —a charmed lens to reveal the secrets Gabriel was convinced were hidden in its pages, but it was useless. Any concealed truths scurried away from me like a beetle retreating under a rock. I slammed the book closed and shoved it down to the end of the bed with my foot. “Nothing. As usual.”

  Sam’s gaze ran over my bare leg and slid up to my face. I pulled the comforter so that it covered my thigh and threw a pillow at his head. Sam grinned and lay back onto the bed and stretched his arms. The towel wrapped around his waist dropped a little lower as his body extended. I shivered as a burst of heat exploded through my body.

  “Did you miss us. When the cell was split.” Sam pulled himself into a seated position, every muscle in his abdomen rippling as he moved.

  “Did you miss me?” I was still too raw to answer first.

  Sam's eyes darkened. “Too much. More than anyone should miss another person. It scared the crap out of me, Grace.”

  I tugged the sheet up to my chin, shaken by the intensity of his stare. “This is weird—talking to you in somebody else’s bed.”

  “You want me to leave?” Sam’s whisper was raw. Like magnetism, I was drawn closer to him.

  “Only if you want to leave?” I bit my lip, and Sam shook his head violently, slipping his hand around my waist. My legs curled under me until I was kneeling on the bed with one hand on Sam’s shoulder and the other buried in his hair. Sam slid his right hand against my neck and pressed my throat against his lips. His kisses trailed over my skin and along my jaw line until they reached my mouth. He paused for a moment, with his lips barely touching mine, a mere whisper of a kiss.

  Energy pulsed between our bodies with such ferocity that it was almost painful. I couldn’t bear it anymore. I crushed my lips against his, drinking in his irresistible combination of power, rage, and vulnerability. Sam mumbled something into my mouth, but it was lost in the intensity of the moment. He ran his fingers down my neck and over my shoulder, pushing the strap down onto my arm. I slipped my hand over his chest and traced the lines of his abdomen with my fingertips, following the curve around the side and onto his back.

  In an instant, the energy transformed from blistering heat into the type of cold that could stop a heart and blacken skin. Sam vaulted over the cast iron bed end and yanked the towel over his shoulders again so that his back was hidden. His glare burned my flesh like a branding iron. “Don’t touch me.”

  I dropped my eyes to my hands and shuffled back to the head of the bed, grabbing Jonah’s discarded journal as I scurried under the bedcovers. The skin above my lips prickled and I swallowed hard to try and dislodge the nauseating combination of hurt and embarrassment that was threatening to explode from my lips in a sob. My jaws ached from being clenched together.

  I whipped the book open to the first page and began to read it again, forcing myself to block out everything else but the markings on the page. The words swam in front of my eyes, and I blinked back a frustrated torrent of self-loathing. I flung the book out of the bed and buried my face in the p
illow.

  It hit the wall with a clunk and slid across the smooth floorboards. I squeezed my eyes shut against the soft cotton of the pillowcase as the sound of Sam padding across the floor and retrieving the diary hit my ears. The mattress beside my feet dipped as he settled himself at the end of the bed.

  “I never hated them until I met you. My scars.” I held my breath, afraid that even the slightest movement would seal Sam’s lips shut again. “Sometimes I used to make excuses to take my shirt off during training just so people could see how ugly I was. I wanted them to know that nothing they could do to me would ever be able to match what I had already survived. I didn’t give a damn when Elijah broke my nose. I was glad. I wanted the world to see what I was. But with you… I don’t want to be a monster.”

  My arms ached to pull him down beside me but fear held them still. I propped myself up on my elbows, pressing my stomach into the soft mattress, but I kept my eyes fixed on my pillow and my back to Sam. “You’re not a monster, Sam. You were never a monster.”

  His voiced was loaded with pain. “You don’t know the things I’ve done, Grace. You don’t know what I was before the Shadow Children took me.”

  I twisted around to face him, unable to resist the pull of his energy for a second longer. His head was buried in his hands, and his hair hid his broken profile from my stare. “You were a kid, Sam. You were a baby. And they tortured you. They tried to break you because they knew you were special. They’re the monsters, not you. You’re a good person, you’re—”

  “I murdered someone.” My mouth snapped shut, and I blinked. “More than one person.”

  I edged my hand closer to his on the comforter. “Sam, if this is about Moscow—nobody blames you, things go wrong on missions. That doesn’t make you a murderer. If you just tell me what happened—”

  Sam’s face contorted. “Stop talking about Moscow! All you’ve wanted to talk about for weeks is Moscow. You know nothing about it, Grace. It’s none of your business. How would you know whose fault it was? Even if you were there, you hardly know the first thing about active duty. If you didn’t have a gift, you’d still be restricted to the cell headquarters like all the other novices.”

  “Stop it!” I lashed out with my power and the wind whipped against the windows outside, rattling the glass in its frame. “Can you hear yourself? It kills me that you insist on tearing yourself to shreds, but I refuse to be used as another instrument for you to torture yourself with. You say we need to talk, but you never do, Sam. You just push me away. Maybe Hollywood has the right idea.”

  My fist reached out and smashed the switch on the wall so that the room fell into darkness. I turned onto my side and wrapped the comforter around me like a cocoon, covering myself from head to toes. I shoved the blanket against my face so that the sound of my tears would be swallowed by the layers of cotton and feathers.

  After a moment, Sam slid off the bed and settled himself on the hard floor. When the gray morning light filtering through the blinds woke me, he had already gone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Emily strode ahead down the wide corridor that led from the main entrance to the University building. Her footsteps echoed, bouncing from the marble floors up to the high vaulted ceiling. Megan was pressed against my left arm, and Brandon had his fingers threaded around my right wrist. I didn’t even glance in Sam’s direction.

  Emily’s dark-haired assistant followed closely behind her, with his eyes fixed on her muscular buttocks. Brandon raised his eyebrows, and I made a heaving sound under my breath. Brandon grinned. His face still glowed with the rush of yesterday’s win over the Angelic students, but the memory of our victory barely tempered the feeling of dread sitting at the base of my stomach.

  Emily stopped abruptly at the end of the corridor and whirled around to face us. “This is the Angelic High Courtroom. It is where the High Council convene, it is where we hold trials of great significance,” she pursed her lips, “and it is a place which is deserving of due respect. Treat it as such. To be granted an audience with the High Council is a privilege, even for upstanding members of the Angelic community, so for people like you—I hope you appreciate it.”

  She swung the door open and marched through it with her assistant at her heels. It slammed shut in my face before I could follow her through. Emmanuel exhaled and muttered to himself as he pushed the door open and held it so that the rest of us could pass through. Emmanuel’s face was drawn. Lizzie said himself, Gabriel, and Niamh hadn’t returned from meeting with the High Guardian until the early hours of the morning. “Emily’s manners have not improved since his student days.”

  My mouth twitched at the sound of the Master’s dry tone, but my smile became a gape as I took in the sheer scale of the room we had entered. The main portion of the hall was set out in a manner that reminded me of the cathedrals I had visited with Eve as a child. There was seating arranged in pews, stretching as far as I could see, enough to seat several thousand people. At the top of the room, there was a raised platform with a long narrow table. There were nine chairs on the opposite side of the table so that they faced down into the Hall. Looking down at their public.

  But that wasn’t what caught my eye. Directly in front of the platform, there was a glass casket. It lay at an angle so that its contents could be seen even from a distance. I dug my teeth into my bottom lip, wanting to examine is more closely and to shrink away at the same time.

  Emily’s voice reached my ear from her seat on the platform. “Move closer, Shadow Children, I can see that you’re curious. Move closer and see your ancestor.”

  Despite myself, I followed her directions and found myself moving across the floor toward the glass case. It was a man with long dark hair and a beard. His light brown skin was smooth, but the creases of age were beginning to show around the corners of his closed eyes and above his strong eyebrows.

  “What is this?” My whisper sounded like a shout in the cavernous hall. Emily leaned forward to answer, but the High Guardian silenced her with a flick of his wrist. Emily’s self-satisfied smirk soured into a sneer.

  “That’s Matthew, he is the ninth member of the Elder Council. The Halfborn representative.” The High Guardian’s voice was level, but his eyes were sharp as he studied my reaction.

  I clenched my teeth to suppress the urge to tuck my hand inside the safety of Sam’s. “The Elders. I thought they stayed in a sanctuary, some protected space, and only two of them could come out once.”

  The High Guardian’s gaze flickered from my face to Emmanuel’s, and back again. “This is true, for the other eight Guardians. It’s a necessary precaution to safeguard the Veil. After the Spirit War had been ended through the Great Sacrifice, it was deemed wise for the single remaining Halfborn to remain under the watch of the Angelic Council. For the safety of the Veil. One Elder alone would not have the power to destroy the Veil, but he could rupture its integrity. Leave it vulnerable.”

  “But it wasn’t his fault. The Halflings didn’t draw the Spirit Demons intentionally, why would you punish him?” I reached my fingers out toward the glass case, but Niamh slapped my hands down against my side.

  “He isn’t suffering. The great sleep doesn’t cause him pain. Now is not the time to discuss these matters.” I opened my mouth to argue that it was an injustice to steal a person’s life and imprison them in a glass box for millennia. They had turned this man into an exhibit— a glass coated cautionary tale. Niamh’s glare froze the words on my lips, and I dropped my glare to the floor.

  She raised her chin and spoke directly to the Council. “High Guardian Adam, members of the High Council, assistants—we offer our gratitude for this unprecedented meeting of minds.”

  The sid
e of Emily’s mouth curled up, spoiling the sweetness of her pretty cupids bow lips. “Meeting of minds is a bit of a stretch, Ambassador.”

  Niamh stared straight ahead as if Emily hadn’t spoken. “High Guardian, I wish to request permission to share the information I have gathered with the Council. Due to the Council’s consistent unwillingness to accept the warnings I have offered over the past decades, I feel it would be most beneficial if I were to project the information directly into the minds of those present, with your grace.”

  The High Guardian pressed his fingers against his temple and made eye contact with an elderly gentleman sitting at the far end of the table. The man gave a nod. A strand of silver hair fell forward onto his lined forehead. The High Guardian clasped his hands together. “I grant you permission, Ambassador Niamh, to use your gift to share knowledge with us.”

  Emily and a blonde middle-aged man began to protest, but the High Guardian silenced them with his outstretched palm. “Those who do not wish to partake are free to leave, but know that if you do, you forfeit your right to vote on any matters arising from the information offered.”

  Emily leaned forward across the table and ran her glare over each of the Council members. “That it, then? We’ve become pirates. Take me to your Captain, I demand a parlay.”

  “I remember a time when one of your ancestors was indeed brought before the High Council for abusing his Angelic gifts and robbing Human merchants on the high seas, Emily of Maidengate. I have no great desire to connect my mind with yours, so if you are leaving us…” Niamh swept her arm in the direction of the door. Emily slunk back into her chair with her arms crossed and her lips pinched tightly together. Niamh’s lips curved upward ever so slightly. “Then we’ll begin.”