by Shona Husk
“Not sale.”
“A simple suggestion.” He lifted his hand to stop Roan’s argument. “I’m paying top price.” But it still wouldn’t be his for another month. Settlement took longer these days; there was more than just the exchange of money involved. And it was more complicated than he’d first thought.
“With your soul.”
“No. My soul is mine. Fixed Realm magic has no price.” Not for the things he was doing anyway. And Birch hadn’t bothered him again so he was pretty confident he was sliding under their magical radar. All he had to do was convince them to give back his books, even just some of them—he didn’t need the ones for black magic and curses anymore, and he’d be set.
“There’s always a price.” Roan’s voice didn’t hide the scars of how close he’d come to losing his soul to the curse because of his use of Shadowlands magic.
“You would have me stop?”
“I can’t make you stop. But as you urged me, use caution. Do you not think there is a reason Birch still holds your books?”
They were just examining them. That’s what they said—the headache spread and slithered down his spine like a snake made of ice. “What do you mean?”
“How many people do you see using magic? When was the last time you saw real magic in the Fixed Realm? Two hundred, three hundred years ago?”
“You think they are deliberately withholding my books?” Anger rose and increased the throbbing in his brain. They were his. Amassed over centuries, they were the world’s biggest occult library.
“I don’t know. There is a lot they don’t say. Just look closely at the world. We have to fit.” Roan fixed him with a stare that would have made a loyal subject squirm. He’d seen it too many times for it to have an effect.
“We don’t fit.” Well, maybe Roan did. He didn’t.
Roan scrubbed his hand over his short hair like he was looking for a familiar dreadlock, but his fingers came away empty. “We have to try.”
“I don’t know how. Maybe I’m not even human? Maybe I’m something else that shouldn’t be here.” He was too tired to talk about it.
“You belong here. You need to find something to ground you and occupy your time.”
“Someone,” Dai corrected. He knew exactly what his brother was thinking, he’d had similar thoughts, but he didn’t need a lover to break a curse.
Roan nodded. “Without Eliza I’d be adrift.”
“Without her you’d be goblin.”
Roan got up. “I know what I was, but I also know who I want to be. Do you?”
Dai had no idea. In part because he had no idea who he was; a Decangli prince, then a slave to the general, finally a prisoner of the curse. He’d become scholar by default, a monk out of necessity, and a mage by accident. He’d learned to control his body and now, with a bit of practice, he would be able to control the world. But none of that was him; they were roles he’d been either born into or forced to play.
Dai didn’t answer. He didn’t have one Roan would like.
Roan looked away as if he were interested in the floor. “I’ll bring you a pillow and blanket.”
“Thanks.” Not that he cared. If he’d had the strength left, he would have dragged his ass home and slept on the floor there.
“Just be careful tonight. I don’t want to try explaining to Amanda why the lights come on randomly.” Roan got up and left.
Amanda? She was still here? Dai lay back down on the floor. The sight of Amanda sleeping remained. She was upstairs, so close, yet so far away. He allowed himself a weak smile. Maybe he’d see her tomorrow.
The door pushed open, and Roan tossed a collection of blankets and two pillows at him. “What are you grinning for?”
The blankets landed on top of him.
“Nothing.” Dai gave his head a small shake that he immediately regretted as his brain bounced against his skull. He started pulling the blankets around him.
Roan watched like he wanted to say something but didn’t know what.
Dai tucked a pillow under his head and hoped Roan would get the hint before his head shattered and sent shards of skull flying around the room.
“We’ll talk in the morning.” Roan closed the door and the room was thrown into darkness.
For the moment, Dai didn’t care. He closed his eyes, but the headache followed, hunting him like a wounded beast. He’d overdone it, pushed himself too hard, and reveled in the new skill. Like learning to throw knives, once he’d grasped the concept, he’d practiced until his arm ached, then he’d used his other hand until he was deadly with both. He was never going to be a victim again. But tonight, magic had got the best of him. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
His dreams were a tangled mess of lust and fear and panic. Amanda’s long, tanned legs drew him. Instead of waking and screaming at his presence in her room, she beckoned him closer and into her bed. And he went to her without a second thought, his skin craving to be touched by hands that wouldn’t hurt. Their lips met. Her fingers traced the scars on his body. He tasted the sweetness of her skin. But before he could lie with her, the eagle of Rome appeared and dragged him away, tearing him from her embrace and dropping him onto the gray, flat, endless plain of the Shadowlands.
***
The eagle soared through the twilight, hunting him while goblins crept through the twisted trees. Dai swung the sword that appeared in his hand, loosening his wrist, ready to fight. In his other hand he held a knife, ready for throwing at the first thing that rushed him. The goblins for his gold and then his flesh. Claudius for his flesh and then his submission.
He didn’t want to be there. He wanted to be back in Amanda’s warm bed. But the nightmare wouldn’t release him. He couldn’t escape; he never did. But he wouldn’t surrender either, not this time. So he stood and waited for the attack to begin—last man standing to the bloody end. He’d kill the nightmare—and everything in it to get back to Amanda.
His heart pounded in his ears. Battle calm was a myth. He’d never found peace before a fight. Thoughts of death and vengeance kept him on edge. Who would reach him first tonight?
The goblins?
He could fight them. He’d done it for years. They weren’t smart. They fought for greed, but there were always more climbing over the bodies of their fallen comrades to fight him until he got too tired to lift his arms. Then they would swarm over him like ants on honey, stripping off weapons and gold and then skin. He always woke before he died.
But it was easier to fight the goblins than Claudius. Claudius knew him too well…and the general never tried to kill him. That would be too easy. Too painless. There were worse things to do to a man, and Claudius knew all of them. Unfortunately, so did he. Even in his dreams there was no escape. How did he fight a memory of his own creation when the Shadowlands fed on fear and gave it life?
He turned slowly, one eye on the eagle above, waiting for it to land and become the general, the other on the creeping shadows sliding between what passed for trees. There were only two. One following the other. His eyes narrowed. One of the goblins didn’t seem right. Something was wrong with this dream.
The eagle screamed and swooped, then dropped to the ground. Dai threw the knife hoping to skewer the bird, but the blade glanced off the gleaming bronze armor of the man. Claudius drew his sword and marched forward, a smile on his face like he already knew the outcome. He did. They’d had the fight too many times. Every time the end was the same.
Dai cut the air in front of him. The sword was light in his hand as he hoped he could finish what he’d started centuries ago.
Vengeance and freedom.
He drew another knife and this time aimed more carefully. He needed the knives he’d made from goblin bones. The dark magic in them always ensured their flight was true. Maybe it would take Shadowlands magic to defeat a nightmare.
Claudius laughed, knowing he couldn’t be defeated. “You’ll never be a man until you have a woman.”
Chapter 8
Dai woke wit
h desire corroding his veins and hardening his flesh. Revulsion at his own weakness crawled under his skin like the poisonous legs of a hundred centipedes. Immediately he tried to smother the lust with the monk’s chant, but he stopped after the first few words, the echo of his Roman master’s taunt ringing in his ears.
The longing for Amanda had woken him. But no woman would want him—not once they saw what was under his clothes.
White scars and black ink. Neither of which he could readily explain.
But that didn’t stop him from wanting Amanda. He let the thought expand, reliving every touch they’d shared. Their hands linked, her palm warm on his thigh. She’d wanted to touch him and had expected nothing in return. The idea of taking it further, of caressing her skin and tasting her lips grew without giving rise to the old fear.
The talons wrapped around his ribs moved, running nails over the bones as if trying to keep hold. Dai grunted and rubbed the center of his chest to ease the persistent ache. The talons hadn’t let go, but they’d shifted. Were they less invasive now? He tried plucking at them again, one fiber at a time, to see if he could remove the hateful grip of Rome. But they tightened as if his old master was still unwilling to release him.
Unwilling but not unable.
If they fed on hate, then the easy solution was to stop feeding them with the bitterness he’d brewed over too many years. But even for him, it was too much to ask. No. He would find another solution, a way to pry them from his body be truly free of Claudius.
Dai unrolled himself from the blanket. He couldn’t lie there all morning, not if he wanted to get out of the house before anyone else woke. Would Amanda be up? He hesitated, torn between wanting to see her and being unsure about what to do next…that and he’d accidently been in her room. He glanced out the window to see the sky was still gray. Not Shadowlands gray; the sky there had too much depth and too much color variation.
He folded the blankets and placed them on the desk with the pillows. Even though he’d slept most of the night through—which almost counted as a miracle even though it was brought on by beer, magic, and painkillers—he didn’t feel up to traveling by magic. At the thought of magic his brain slid to the base of his skull like it was trying to escape. He massaged the back of his neck as if the slight throbbing was simple tension and not a lingering magic-induced hangover.
Maybe some tea and a couple more painkillers, but he’d go before Roan insisted on driving him home. Just because his brother was learning to drive didn’t mean Dai had to suffer along with Eliza’s car.
He padded out to the kitchen, his bare feet silent on the tiles. Around him, the house was quiet. It was a different type of quiet knowing there were people around, sleeping, than being alone. He frowned. Had he ever actually spent a night on his own? Not as a child, certainly not as a slave, or in the Shadowlands. Huh. No wonder the idea appealed.
In Eliza’s jar of assorted tea bags he rummaged around until he found peppermint. Automatically he went to flick the kettle on, but he paused with his fingers resting on the switch. The kettle was noisy…he glanced at the tap. He’d only promised Roan no magic during the night. Dai shrugged and filled his cup from the tap. It was technically morning since the sun was on its way up.
He let his vision shift so he could examine the water. In the Shadowlands he and Roan had been able to purify the black liquid that had passed for water with a thought. It had taken time to learn—but the Shadowlands was always true; it responded to fear. Fearing the water was polluted made it so. Believing it to be pure, and holding no fear in his heart as he drank, turned the water from black to clear. Easier said than done when thirst was riding him ragged.
But in the Fixed Realm, water was different. Reality had a different construct. While he wasn’t up to attempting any big magic, he was willing to try something tiny. He wrapped his hands around the cup and concentrated on heat and friction. Bubbles formed as the threads became active. He stopped before the water began boiling hard. No ill-effect followed. He had to master the little things, and then the big ones would follow. He knew that, but practicing it was hard.
With his cup of magically boiled tea in hand he wandered back to the living room. He looked at the sofa where Roan and Eliza had cuddled up and changed his mind; instead he grabbed the blanket off the study table, because he didn’t have a coat, and went outside wearing his makeshift cloak.
Dew glistened on the grass and steam rose off his cup. In some ways the world hadn’t changed too much. In the tree birds were waking, snails were creeping over the path leaving silver in their wake. If not for the faint rumble of cars, he could’ve been the only person in existence. He eased back into the chair of the outdoor dining set to enjoy the peace of the living world.
The tension in his shoulders eased, and he sighed. In the yard the tree with the plaque attached shook in the light breeze. The leaves whispered as if he was intruding on the morning when people should be sleeping. In his time, people would’ve been up, breakfast would’ve been cooking, kids would have been playing. He could almost hear the sounds of the tribe waking.
The door opened behind him and a gray dog bounded out. Dai sat up straight. That was the same dog that had been by Amanda’s bed. The dog stopped and looked at him as if recognizing him, then took off, with a shake of its head, to the grass to relive itself. Where the dog was, Amanda was. He turned a little more in his chair, shadows dancing in the corner of his vision.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here.” Amanda stood in the doorway, as if unsure whether she wanted to come out and join him at the table.
He wasn’t sure if he wanted her to join him. It was one thing to dream of her, another to see her in the flesh—even if she was bundled up in a jacket against the cold. The memory of her bare legs lingered, something he shouldn’t have seen without invitation.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you either.” So much for being gone before anyone arose.
The dog ran back and sniffed Dai’s toes and up his leg. Dai offered his hand to the dog’s wet nose. The dog snuffled and licked and it was disgusting. He kept his face neutral, since Amanda was watching with a faint smile on her lips, and he hoped he passed the dog test. He never had as a goblin, since dogs would attack him—hell, everything had attacked him, a creature born of shadows and misery.
“He won’t bite.” Amanda snapped her fingers and the dog trotted to her side and lay down.
Dai wiped his hand on his jeans. It wasn’t the dog he was worried about. It was the woman who’d slipped into his dreams, and made him question the vow of chastity he’d taken over a thousand years before, who was now within touching distance. His fingertips whitened on the cup. Gods help him, he wanted to touch her. While he was sure the god who had taken his vow would release him, he didn’t know if he was ready to release himself. He wasn’t sure he knew what to do anymore. Was he ever?
Amanda sat so they faced each other across a corner. “So, you’re staying here still?”
How to explain? The truth was probably not the best option. He took a sip of his tea as he thought of an answer.
“I stopped by late last night to pick up a few things, then crashed.” More literally than she needed to know, but he wanted to tell her. He watched as an arrow of birds flew over the garden. How could he ever be honest with Amanda when there was so much he couldn’t say?
It didn’t seem fair to either of them. While he knew life wasn’t fair, love should be.
He glanced at her bare finger, where the gold band should’ve been. “Do you miss him?”
Amanda’s answer rolled off her tongue before she had time to think.
“Yes.” It was her automatic response, and today it was empty and tasted like a lie after the thoughts she’d been having about Dai.
She looked at her hands instead of at him. “I think I do.” Then she sighed and glanced back up at Dai. “I don’t know anymore. That sounds bad. After Brigit was born everything was different, and while I tried to put Matt in our lives
…he was never really there.” It had always been just her and Brigit. “I sound horrible, don’t I?”
Dai shook his head. “Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.”
Maybe he shouldn’t have, but Amanda was glad he did. If he’d hadn’t appeared in her life she’d have never noticed that her life was passing her by while she told her daughter stories about the man she’d once loved and lost before they really had a chance.
“I’d rather talk about it, have it in the open. I don’t want you thinking…” God, what did she want him thinking? This was a very dangerous line of conversation after her dreams of him. Her dreams should’ve kept her warm for days. Skin on skin, hungry lips, greedy hands wanting more. She woke with a tightening in her belly she wasn’t able to ignore, yet unable to satisfy. She hadn’t had those kinds of dreams for years. But dreams were no longer enough to keep her happy. She wanted more out of life than imaginings of what it could’ve been like. He watched her with those dark eyes, and heat crept up her cheeks like she’d told him exactly what they did in her dream.
“I haven’t dated anyone since Matt. Most men aren’t interested when they realize I have a daughter…then if they are, I wonder why.”
Amanda held her breath; she didn’t know what she wanted him to say. Only that she hoped he wouldn’t prove himself unworthy somehow.
Dai sipped his tea, then calmly said, “Brigit reminds me of my sister.”
He’d opened a door she wasn’t ready to look through. And now that it was open she was tempted. She was tempted every time she saw him, but instead of doing something, they both circled as if waiting for the other to act. There was so much she didn’t know about him. But none of it mattered when all she wanted was to feel his hands on her skin.
“Eliza mentioned you had a sister.”
For a second his features tightened as if he were in pain. Then it was gone, but he was too well composed. “She’s dead.”
Those two words said more about her death than he realized. Whatever happened wasn’t easy. She doubted it was natural either. What was he seeing when he looked at Brigit? Did being around her daughter make him uncomfortable? She began uncovering more reasons why seeing Dai was a bad idea, and yet she didn’t want to listen to any of them.