Dragon stopped walking. “I didn’t mean to imply you were stupid.”
“That’s exactly what you meant.” Hawk pulled him up by his shirt. “I’m only going to say this once because we don’t have time. You weren’t the only one destroyed by what happened to you in our childhood. You were my big brother. I worshiped you and I’ve lived guilt-ridden my whole damn life because I was born with abilities you don’t have. Seems to me you have plenty of your own. But right now everything has to be about Hadley. You chose to come on this journey. Stop bitching.”
“Sir,” Bistronus caught his attention. “We have arrived.”
The countryside had altered slightly during their walk. Flatter with slightly more living vegetation, Hawk saw what looked like a makeshift military operation filled with large green tents that looked like they had seen better days.
“Spread out, open every tent until you find her. Collect the other women. If they want to leave, take them with us. My extraordinarily talented brother is going to find a way to save all of them.”
Hawk crossed to the first tent he reached. Sword drawn in case of danger, he stepped into the tent and came face-to-face with someone he’d never thought to see again. He sucked in his breath. Hadley was nowhere to be found, but standing in front of him, alive and well, was Annabelle.
“Hello, Hawk. I’ve been expecting you.”
Chapter Seventeen
Had she slept at all? She must have because when she’d woken up, she’d not been where she fell asleep. It had taken her ten minutes to figure that out and now after another five she was still not prepared for what she next learned. The Shadow King had stolen her. He paced the room of what she assumed was his palace.
He finally stopped his endless walking and turned to face her. His skin, pale like the whitest snow, held a slight flush in his cheeks that she imagined was from the exertion it must have taken to teleport himself into her tent, grab her, and transport out. Other than informing her he was the Shadow King and he’d teleported her here to his palace, he hadn’t said anything else.
Tired of being stared at, she finally spoke. “Why am I here? Have you ‘claimed’ me?”
Her sisters hadn’t told her exactly how that worked, so she supposed this could be the protocol. He pulled his long blonde hair from its ponytail holder, pulling on the long strands in nervousness. He was the only man she’d seen here who wasn’t as dark as midnight.
“I am not claiming you. Although if I thought it would solve my problem, I would do so in a minute.”
“You have a problem?” She was having a whole bunch of them herself. If she didn’t believe in self-preservation and the hope that she’d once again get to see Hawk, she’d let him know just how she felt about his adding to the ever growing long list of issues.
“My people are being attacked, my mines are being raided, and my women are being taken from me. All of this is because of you.” He shouted the last two words which might have previously made her cringe. But since she’d gotten so good lately at handling Hawk’s bad moods, she didn’t find it to be that difficult to endure. Men screamed, they ranted and raved, but she didn’t have to respond to it.
“Excuse me, your Shadow majesty, but I don’t see how any of this could possibly be my fault. I didn’t ask to be brought here against my will, dragged around, or threatened. Not to mention I couldn’t even begin to figure out how the fact that people are being attacked could have anything to do with me.”
“Does the name Hawk mean anything to you?”
Hadley’s heart skipped a beat. “Should it?” She wasn’t going to give this man any information about Hawk. Nothing that might compromise him.
The Shadow King bent over until his face practically touched hers. “Oh, I think it should. I just finished communicating with your father and he tells me you are quite familiar with Hawk. So I can only assume he is here with thirteen Haven Warriors because of you.”
“There are some words I’d like to have with my father too.”
“You still have not answered my question.”
Hadley raised an eyebrow. “Do I know Hawk?”
“Yes, woman, that question.”
“Well, I suppose if my father says I know him, then I must know him.”
“You aren’t going to help me at all, are you?”
“Ooh! You’re a bright one!”
The King picked her up and shoved her against the wall. His hands pressed hard into her arms and she cried out. “Is that supposed to be sarcasm?”
“I suppose so. Is this supposed to be frightening?” Her words were strained as the pain in her arms worsened.
“If I wanted to, I could keep you here until your body on Haven dies. It won’t take much longer. Soon you’ll be nothing but a rotten corpse like your sisters.” His pupils were huge, and Hadley had to admit she was scared. But she’d be damned if she let him know. She squirmed and tried to pull out of his clutches but he was too strong. “Stop struggling.”
“No.” If Hawk was somewhere in this dimension, he’d find her. She’d never saw herself as needing someone to get her out of tough situations but right at this moment, she would gladly take rescue.
“I can see it in your eyes that you still have hope. That is a dangerous thing. Very few people in your position would have dared to still hold onto such a ridiculous notion.”
Hadley shook her head. “Is it? It seems to me you must want something from me. You’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to bring me here to your castle. Why don’t you tell me what you really need from me and I’ll decide if I feel like negotiating with you.” She took a big chance, if she was wrong she was in more trouble than she cared to admit.
With a plop, she collided with the floor as he dropped her. “You’re right. I do want something from you.” His eyes traced her body and she shivered with dread. That wasn’t what she’d expected him to desire. He smiled, a glint of satisfaction in his eyes.
“Tempting, but I’m afraid I have more pressing matters.” He crossed the room to a tall, black desk and opened the top left drawer. Pulling out a small vial, he closed the drawer and shut the top of the desk so that it now resembled a giant safe. Obviously, whatever he kept in there he didn’t want people getting to.
Stomping his feet, he walked to where she sat on the floor. He towered over her but she wouldn’t blink or flinch from his hard gaze.
“In this small vial, I have something called Breathless.”
“I don’t want endless life,” Hadley spat.
“Not like father, like daughter, eh?” The King laughed, a hard, cold, sound. “I actually didn’t think so. Breathless, if consumed daily, will keep you alive as long as you drink it every day. But the second you stop taking it, normal aging begins again. On Haven, your body is in rapid decline. Even now I can see Leopard working constantly to keep down a fever from an infection she cannot find. Eventually, she will lose her battle. Everyone does.”
“You have the gift of Sight.” It wasn’t a question. The man could obviously see things beyond what happened around him.
“Only to those who are members of my Kingdom.”
Hadley shot to her feet. “I am not a member of your Kingdom.”
“You were given to us when you were born in return for thirty years worth of Breathless.”
“I wasn’t available to be given, nor were my sisters.” Hadley blinked rapidly. She couldn’t remember ever being so angry, but she needed to keep her control.
The King raised an eyebrow. “I rather agree.” He did? “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t take them—and you—anyway because desperation has caused me to do things I would not do otherwise.”
Hadley swallowed, her mouth felt dry. “And what makes you desperate?”
“My people are dying. We haven’t produced a female of our own in two centuries. A terrible virus, nothing more than a flu, overwhelmed us. Everyone got sick. When the fever had cleared, all the women were dead. Since then, even mating with off-worlders, we hav
e not been able to have female children of our own. The men grow more withdrawn, less civilized as time goes on. They spend increasing amounts of time in the mines going deeper into the grounds where we never explored and I fear for what they will find there.”
Hadley couldn’t help but be moved by what he said. Whatever else he was, on this, he was sincere. A lump formed in her throat. “Your majesty…”
He laughed, the same humorless sound. “Leon. My name is Leon. As you have pointed out, you are not actually my subject.”
“Leon, tell me what it is that I can do for you? I feel pain for your plight but I’m just a woman, raised on Earth, who recently found out I am actually something quite different than I imagined. I’m ill-equipped for any of this.”
“You’re a healer, as your mother is a healer. I cannot get to her; she is blocked by some sort of unbreakable wall and your sisters are pale comparisons. Each one of them might have metaphysical talent if trained but I have neither the time nor the resources to devote to that. But you, when I look towards you in my third-eye, I see what you already can do and have done on Haven.” He pounded on the wall with his fist. “Do it here. Heal us.”
Hadley paced to the window where Leon stood so she could have eye contact with him. “It’s not that I don’t care for your problems, I do.”
“But?”
“I cannot travel from dimension to dimension fixing the problems of the world and I will not be used as a pawn.” She sighed. “I’d rather be dead.”
“Which is what you will be if I don’t let you have one sip of this,” he held up the vial. “A day. Just one sip.”
Hadley’s arms tingled. This close to Leon, and not being physically threatened, her newfound abilities surged through her with a desire to heal his wounds, especially the emotional ones. Who might he have been if he’d been dealt different cards?
Hawk’s words traveled back to her. She wasn’t to try to heal the emotional baggage of everyone she came into contact with. It was too risky a problem.
“If I’m supposed to die then I will die.” Wow, in her life she’d never felt so fatalistic.
“And are you prepared to die like this? Your body is put in the ground and yet here you remain, broodmare to the most disgusting, repulsive Shadow man I can find for you?”
Turning her head slightly to the left, she examined his hard profile. Another woman would call him handsome, but all she could see were the currents of misery that filled his days and tainted his soul. “Your burdens have killed off any kindness you ever had, haven’t they?”
“Long ago, I learned to distinguish between ends and means. I will do whatever I have to do to whomever I have to do them to. Especially you.”
Hadley threw her hands in the hair. “There is nothing I can do for you. I can’t control my gift, it nearly kills me every time I use it and it’s usually more of a subconscious thing anyway.”
“I can’t get to Hawk. I’m afraid he would best me if I tried, but I can hurt him, more than you can imagine. He’s already lost Annabelle—unless of course he’s found her again.” Hadley tried not to flinch as the image of Annabelle and Hawk lost in each other’s embrace filled her with aching loneliness. “I can’t fathom the pain he would feel to fail again, to lose you, which is what will happen if you don’t drink your Breathless.”
“And the only way you’ll give me the drug is if I heal your people. All of you?” He nodded and she swallowed hard. She wasn’t ready to give up on Hawk. Just hours earlier she’d thought to sacrifice her happiness for Annabelle’s, but now something had shifted inside of her. He was hers. Right or wrong, she would fight for him.
To do that she would have to live. Hawk had traveled here with an army to rescue her, the least she could do would be to not give up hope and to fight for both of them.
“What if I can’t do it? If I try, and I’m unable to succeed?”
“If you fail, there will be no Breathless.”
Hadley groaned. “So I won’t even get it for good measure?”
“If you fail, two-thirds of my people will be dead with no hope of renewal. I will accept nothing from you but absolute success.”
“You don’t think you’re being a little unfair here?”
Leon shrugged. “I know I’m being unfair.”
“If I agree to this, what assurances do I have that you will keep your word?”
Leon face split an angry grin. “You think because I am a creature of the shadows, I am not to be trusted?”
Now he’d pissed her off. “Don’t you dare treat me like I’m some kind of bigot. You’ve done nothing but abuse me for days. And now you want me to just accept your word as if you actually have some honor.”
She realized she was shouting but she wanted some kind of reassurance or she would halt this all right now and find another way out of this mess. Not that any ideas presented themselves to her at the moment.
“Contract.”
Hadley was confused—what had he just meant? One moment later, a paper appeared before her eyes. It floated in the air in front of her. She reached out and grabbed it.
“This is a contract with my soul attached to it. As soon as you’ve looked at it, I will send it to the Shadow People Hall of Chambers. There it will be filed. If I do not live up to my end of the bargain, this contract will activate and I will be sent immediately from here to the pits of the mines of Brenta where I will remain the rest of my days, soulless and alone.”
Well, that sounded fair. Hadley nodded and passed the contract to him. He seemed to blink and the paper vanished presumably sent to the so-called Hall of Chambers.
“I’m going to do this. I have one request.”
He raised an eyebrow. “A request?”
“Whenever I’ve tried to do this in the past, or rather whenever it has happened to me without my consent, I’ve nearly died from it. This is larger than anything I’ve done thus far. Please, if I die, tell Hawk that I loved him. I never said it when we were together. I felt like everything was too soon, too fast, and I doubted myself… But I know that I do love him … and I want him to know it too.”
One tear slipped from her eye and she wiped it away. It was the only tear she would shed.
She walked to the window and pressed both palms against it. Having no idea if she was doing any of this right, but going on instinct alone, she closed her eyes and let her mind wander.
At first, nothing happened and she blew out an exasperated breath. She didn’t wonder where Leon was; she could still feel his presence on the other side of the room. Hawk. She wanted it to be Hawk standing there, supporting her as she undertook this way-too-large experience.
Thinking of him gave her a feeling of strength. Her arms and legs started to tingle. She could feel the sickness that still lived inside of these people. It had killed the women and slowly but surely it was destroying the men.
Leon had been right. She could fix this and now that she knew it, she had to do it. Call it a compulsion; she knew she had no choice. They needed her. She fell to her knees and pushed her power outward. Whoever needed it could have it; after all, it was hers to give.
Chapter Eighteen
It hadn’t even occurred to him that he would see her. Obviously, it should have once he’d heard about the Shadow People and their role in this mess. Annabelle, as alive as he was, standing in front of him, looking a lot less surprised to see him than he was to see her.
He reached out and cupped the side of her face just to make sure she was real and not some advanced state of delusion brought on by too much dimensional travel. She grinned but took a step back out of his reach.
“How are you, Hawk?”
The way she said his name made his stomach clench. Annabelle had never been able to pronounce the aw in his name without it sounding nasally. In any one else it would have driven him crazy, but in her he had found it endearing.
“I’m very surprised to see you. Glad that you are alive. I’m really not sure what to say. As Hadley woul
d put it, I’m not sure what the protocol for this is.” His heart wrenched as he spoke of Hadley.
“Ah.” Annabelle nodded her head. “Then it is as I suspected and you two are in love.”
Two things surprised Hawk about that last sentence. The first was that the guilt he would have guessed he would have felt at those words did not surface, and the second was that Annabelle didn’t sound at all accusatory or upset by her statement.
“How did you know?” There was no point in sugar-coating it or trying to spare her feelings. This Annabelle he didn’t know. Poised, she stood a distance from him as if they were old friends running into each other at the park instead of lovers wrenched apart by death and dimensional distance.
“Once I realized she knew you, I recognized right away that you were her type. She was sure she’d find a way out of here. Even though it was remote, it occurred to me that she must have something to get back to that was very important. I’m glad to see my suspicions were not untrue and that you are in love with each other.” She paused, turning her head to the side. “Also, she turned three shades whiter when she met me—like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar.”
Hawk’s heart raced and he noticed he was covered in a cool sweat. He really needed to find Hadley. “Do you know where she is?”
Annabelle shrugged, crossing to the center of the room to fold what looked like very bare and basic sleeping equipment. “I imagine she is wherever she is meant to be.”
Hawk felt like his eyes might cross from that answer. “What does that mean, Annabelle?”
“It means that when answers are not forthcoming, one has to make do with accepting the unknowable.”
This wasn’t the Annabelle he had known. She certainly hadn’t been spouting out nonsense guised in spiritual rhetoric or he would have been done with her before they’d ever gotten started.
He moved to her and grabbed her arm. She felt cold to his touch, like chicken when you first pulled it out of the refrigerator before you’d warmed it up. The sensation was disconcerting and he dropped her arm.
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