Shadows of the Night (Kingdom Key Book 2)

by TylerRose.

  “In fact I do.”

  “She’s told you?”

  “My nose tells me,” Shestna informed him. “The only sex on her has been herself.”

  “Only because phantoms do not have an aroma. She has not been alone every night. She may not be your wife anymore, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be her lover. Displace him before she is too enslaved and he begins to intrude on her daily life. Do it tonight—right now—so I can be ready to deal with him,” Julian said, and teleported.

  “Him? Who him?” Shestna asked the air.

  Frustrated with Julian’s recent tendency toward cryptic answers, he knocked on the bedroom door and waited for her to answer.

  “What phantom is this that Julian says I should displace?”

  “Displace? Why?!” she demanded in return, a little too angrily.

  “He seems to think it’s becoming a dangerous situation for you. Is it? Is this phantom beginning to intrude on your life?” he rephrased, coming into the room and shutting the door.

  “I don’t think so. I like to go to bed early now. I sleep straight through the night. Is that so bad?”

  “Is that why you have declined to dine with me so many times? Because you want to go to your phantom lover?”

  She said nothing, confirming his question with her silence.

  “So he already does intrude on your waking life. Who is he?” he asked.

  Her jaw clamped tight.

  “Do you not see, Femina? He is already intruding on your life. If he makes you want to leave this real world to be with him, then it intrudes. If he makes you want to be with him rather than with me for even a single hour, he intrudes. Who is he?”

  “The one who died on Earth,” she said.

  “Nails?”

  She nodded, stepping back to sit on the edge of the bed. “He’s been coming to me some nights in my dreams, asserting himself. I can’t say I mind. He was always a fantastic lover. He still is.”

  “He is not being not fair to you, continuing to hold you in this manner. Can you call him to you when you want him? Now?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve just imagined him here and there he was when I fell asleep,” she said. “I do want to be with him. He’s the one man who has never broken my heart.”

  “I think that is something of an exaggeration. I have never hurt you in that manner and you know it. Neither did your K’Tran lovers. Either of them. It is always you who does the leaving. Not them. Get yourself ready for bed. I will stay with you tonight. I will make him go away.”

  “I didn’t say I want him to go away, Sta.”

  The expression in her eyes spoke to her love, though he was dead.

  “No, you did not; but he must. He is dead and you are alive. You must live your life and he must move on,” Shestna insisted.

  “It’s not for you to decide,” she protested.

  “I did not. Julian did. I trust my friend’s judgment. He is right and I agree with him. So should you trust his judgment. Are you ready for sleep now?”

  “Why are you railroading me?”

  “What do that mean?” he asked.

  “Not considering what I think and feel. Making the decision and forcing me to live with it,” she explained, anger rising hot and fast.

  “Do you honestly not understand why you cannot have a future with a man who is already dead?” he asked in return. “Do you not see how he is interfering rather than helping?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Tyler—“ he halted himself with an exasperated breath. “You are a living, breathing person. He is none of those things anymore. He has to let you go. You have to let him go.”

  “Why can’t he be part of it? We don’t know. Maybe one of them is supposed to be in spirit form.”

  “That is reaching for a false hope. Do you know the phrase ‘all life returns to the Source’?” he asked.

  “Chinese philosophy of the Tao. When a living thing dies, its essence goes back to where it came from,” she remembered Chen’s teaching.

  “Nails has not done that. He is refusing to go. He is keeping you his hostage just as much as Solomon ever has. He’s taking advantage of your love for him to stop himself from returning to the Source. If he returns, he will likely be reincarnated. You may find him again in the future. He may be part of your surrounding team yet. Now is not the time. As an energy entity is not the how.”

  She was wavering. He was asking a nearly impossible thing of her, to give up for the last time someone she loved more deeply than any other person.

  “I cannot say I am sorry, Femina. You must put your trust in me and in Julian, that we are going to do what is best for you. We are going to do what is in your best interest. Nails is not. He is acting out of selfish motivations. Will you please finish your bedtime routine?”

  She went in silence. When she came out of the bathroom, he was in her bed. She paused, not sure how to feel about someone being in Kevin’s spot.

  “Come along. No second thoughts,” he prompted.

  She needed a few seconds to get over it. Lying together in bed, Shestna did nothing more than spoon in behind her and hold her close.

  “I have missed this,” he said.

  Silence. He thought she wasn’t going to say anything.

  “Me too.”

  Said in so small a voice he almost didn’t hear.

  “Share your falling asleep with me like you shared our sex play. Do whatever it is that brings him to you.”

  All she had to do was imagine that it was Nails holding her, his breath in her hair. No sooner did she fall asleep than he was there, smiling at her and in position.

  [No] Shestna intervened, making himself known in this dream space.

  Rather like an oasis in the middle of a nebula, with distant points in the sky. Here was the proof that she was the Immaculate – she was already creating her own galaxy.

  [You are dead and she is mine] Shestna told him, moving him bodily off the female who would not —could not—fight against her first Master.

  Shestna realized, when the gargoyle-like figure did not strike him, that there could be no violence between them in this place.

  [She is mine. Marked in her soul by Hades himself.]

  [You looked after her for a long time. I know it is hard to let her go but you must. Let her live her own life. She cannot be with you like this. Do you not see how unfair you are being to her? Holding her prisoner here as much as Solomon ever did?]

  [The difference is that she loves me and knows she is safe with me. She wants to be with me] Hades said.

  [That may be. Were our places reversed and you were the living, you would take her from me just as I must take her from you. She has much work to do yet. She cannot be who she is to become if you keep her here with you. You are keeping her from her ultimate goal. Leave her be. Leave her to me.]

  Hades stared at him, furious but unable to strike. He leapt to fly away.

  Shestna turned Tyler’s chin toward him, [If you need comforting in the night or are lonely, call to me.]

  No sooner was Hades out of Tyler’s realm than Julian had him and thrust his energy into a small block of crystal the size of a golf ball.

  “Sanctuary!”

  A flash and explosion and Julian was on his knees on a circle of cement, fighting off waves of nausea.

  “Julian? Why are you here?”

  He held up the crystal. Jiogaard took it, saw and felt the pulsating energy within.

  “Hades?” he said, recognizing the energy signature.

  “A very angry Hades,” Julian confirmed.

  “Well…When was he ever not?”

  “How could he be there on Voran with her?” Julian asked, on his feet and accepting a glass of cold water from an attendant.

  “Many millions died during those three days of hell on Earth. Many thousands more since through abortion, suicide, battle wounds. It was enough to secure his redemption. He ferried every one of them. We had no choice but to release him from h
is penance.”

  “Can my father be taken yet?”

  “There is no proof he has committed crimes,” Jiogaard told him. “Being a bad person and manipulating others for his own gain are not crimes. There must be proof he hired someone to kill another person. There must be proof he interfered with events in time to end a life that should not have ended.”

  “The proof Tyler said she would find,” Julian nodded to himself. “What about sending her back in time to keep her away from Earth when it was attacked by Adamantine?”

  “He put her aside. He did not try to kill her.”

  “He altered events by sending her back and Hades died. Doesn’t that satisfy the criteria?”

  “Hades’ life ended in a great many timelines, whether Tyler was there or not,” Jiogaard replied in his seemingly infinite patience. “Now it is time for you to go.”

  Flash of light and Julian was in his own apartment on Sistair, in need of a huge serving of whiskey. A message was flashing. His new lover asking to spend time together.

  “I am not good company tonight,” he left in a return message, and turned all the audible alerts off.

  Chapter Six

  The ice broken between them, Tyler and Shestna had meals together much more frequently. Mariah entertained herself in the market and started to attend the theater by herself.

  “Haven’t you wanted to go to a Rovan Den?” a voice asked.

  She looked up to see a tall man with sandy brown hair. “I was warned to stay away from them. That they’re dangerous.”

  “So they are. That doesn’t mean you can’t go take a look.”

  “You’re not Voranian. Where are you from?” she asked.

  “I’m from Deek’Trai. My name is Qiresh. I’m visiting Voran as part of a diplomatic summit. It’s all very hush-hush, so don’t tell anyone you saw me. We’re not supposed to leave the embassy.”

  “That would be boring.”

  “Yes, it most assuredly is,” he smiled a toothy smile. “You have your own place here?”

  “No. I live with a friend,” Mariah pointed to the brooch.

  “What does it say? I don’t read Voranian.”

  “It says I am protected by the First Daughter of the Emperor and Empress. Her name is Tyler.”

  “Ah. I see. I’m going to continue on my secret outing and go see a Rovan Den. I’m told the orgies inside are quite the spectacle since so few Voranian women actually like sex. You’re welcome to come get into trouble with me. We can be each other’s alibi when we get caught.”

  He sat on a motorbike, winked at her. She jumped on behind him and they started off toward the mountains behind the Principality. Only five minutes on the road and they parked with other vehicles. They walked up the path, taking two switchbacks to reach the mouth of the cave. Inside, the corridor took them some hundred feet into the mountain.

  Qiresh paid for them both and took her by the hand through the arch that split off into three separate dens. A single line of lights guided them through another fifty feet.

  The close corridor opened to a wide cavern of many levels. Every plateau held another set of people smoking from shared water pipes and engaging in every sex act known. Mouths at work, entire hands disappearing into orifices, the cavern was a writhing, moaning mass of naked and copulating Voranians. Here and there another species dotted the room, mostly Sistarians.

  He took her down the steps and around a walkway to a bed shelf that had a sofa and a chair and only one other couple. They were smoking from a water pipe with six individual tubes coming off it.

  “Is that Rovan?” he asked.

  “What else would it be?” the female answered, and toked long and slow.

  “Two non-dosed whiskies,” Solomon ordered when the waitress approached the platform.

  When they arrived, he ordered two more. He drank down the first with her. The second arrived and she drank. He put the full glass down and pretended he’d consumed from the empty. A while of watching, the smoke in the air getting to her head, he gave her the third. Within half an hour of arriving in the den, she was too inebriated to say no when the pipe tip was put into her hand. She smoked, enjoying the instant intensification of her intoxication.

  Solomon sat back and watched as she took her clothes off and engaged in numerous sex acts with any man or woman who approached. He did not touch her, but he did stop anyone who thought to strike or bite her.

  “No marks,” he said when a mouth opened to bare teeth.

  “Is she your female?” the male about to bite asked.

  “She is a friend who does not want any marks.”

  So she had none. He waited until she passed out. Holding her hand, he activated his stolen teleport booster. Arriving on the walk up to the house, he moved her to the doorstep. A press of the bell and he smiled at the little servant who opened the door and held out an envelope.

  “Mariah had too much to drink. Give this to your Mistress.”

  He teleported to his ship, giving he order to make best speed to his next meeting site.

  “Mistress! Come quick to Miss Mariah!”

  Tyler bolted awake with the Neverseen’s panic, running with her across the courtyard into the last room on the opposite side. Another Neverseen was with her, holding her hair back while Mariah vomited a profuse amount into the toilet.

  “She smells of the Rovan, Mistress.”

  A sweet, sickly aroma of smoke.

  “Is inhaling the smoke enough to make someone an addict? Even if she did not directly smoke it?”

  “I do not know, Mistress.”

  “Go get Prince Shestna.”

  Mariah had stopped vomiting. She was as white as the porcelain of the sink and shaking so hard she could barely stand. Tyler carried her with psychokinesis instead, got her sitting up against duplicated pillows. A hand to her face and Tyler was more worried. Mariah was ice cold.

  “Femina!” shouted through the courtyard. His energy filled the room. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Tyler replied. “She smells like a Rovan Den though.”

  “The man said to give you this,” the male Neverseen said, holding out a small envelope.

  Tyler took it, opening while Shestna looked over Mariah. He pushed her eyelids open to look sideways across her eyes.

  “Clouded. She has the allergy on top of the dose itself.” He scooped her up, standing beside the bed. “Take us to the Congress, Tyler. She needs medical intervention.”

  Tyler teleported them directly to the infirmary. Shestna explained while she finally got the paper out to read.

  Tyler, my pearl

  A reminder that I am never far.

  She consented to everything.

  Solomon Qiresh

  So that was his last name. Prick.

  “Check her for sexual activity,” she said, following them into an examination room.

  Dr. Dheez pressed buttons in rapid succession, reading screens as they flashed to life.

  “Voranian moonshine. Her blood alcohol level is 1.37 and dropping. Looks like she inhaled Rovan smoke directly at least once. Semen deposits from…” He pointed to count down the lines. “Eight Voranians.”

  “Did any Deek’Traiians touch her?” Tyler asked.

  “No. If you will step out, we’ll get her stabilized and into a room. She did not overdose on the Rovan but we must address the allergy. She will be addicted all the same.”

  Tyler and Shestna went out. She leaned against the wall and read the note again.

  “What is the paper?” he asked.

  She handed it to him, letting him read for himself.

  “I swear I will find him and kill him with my bare hands. She did not deserve this,” he ground out between clenched teeth.

  “It’s not about what she deserves, Sta. It’s about his game. All he did was push a pawn.”

  “Come again?” he asked, not understanding the reference.

  “It’s a phrase from Earth chess. When in doubt, push a pawn.
That’s what he’s done. He wants a reaction from me.”

  “He’ll get one from me instead.”

  “For what?” she asked. “Is it illegal to take someone to a Rovan Den? No. She’s of age. Is it illegal to let a person drink a few shots of whiskey? No. It’s not illegal to let them fuck eight guys either.”

  “Legalities are irrelevant. He manipulated this,” Shestna declared, waving the note in the air. “He will pay for it.”

  “Yes, he will. In my way. When I’m ready to do it. Not provoked by him like this. It’s the reaction he wants. He’s told me before that it’s my violent reactions that turn him on. Well…not this time. We take care of Mariah and ignore him. That’s all.”

  “You are much more calm than you were when he showed up at my home.”

  “All those nights I spent with Nails? You called it interference, remember. He calmed me down. A lot. We didn’t just lie there and fuck, you know. He helped me a great deal. I needed that time with him. I miss him just as much now as when he first died.”

  “Now is not the time to discuss him, Femina.”

  “What can I do to help Mariah?” she asked.

  “Don’t let her be alone. Ever,” he replied. “The addiction is permanent. She will always crave the Rovan. There will be times when she will not be in her right mind.”

  “She shouldn’t be in my home anymore, should she? Being so close to the Rovan Dens.”

  “She can. She cannot be alone is all. Not for a single moment. Your Neverseens can help with that. They can be there without her knowing they are there. Until she tries something, that is. They can intervene long enough for someone else to arrive.”

  “Tries what?” Tyler asked.

  “One of a hundred things. She could try to sneak out to obtain the drug. Could try to kill herself if she becomes too desperate. You must know, Tyler. The addiction is almost invariably fatal in non-Voranians. She could die from the pains that will come or the insanity of addiction that follows. You are not equipped to deal with this.”

  “Then hire for me someone who is. I don’t care the cost. I can pay for a full time nurse until she’s functional enough we can go back to work. Keeping her occupied will help, and that I can do.”