Shadowed Lies

by Clara Hartley

  She shook her head. “I have not a clue as to why that’s happening.” She promised herself she’d tell him about the mate bond tomorrow. She had been delaying the truth for so long that it made it too difficult to spill. Plus, when his doubts about her were so high, she couldn’t tell him what happened. It’d just push him away and make him second-guess even more.

  Rayse stared at her with an intensity that made her numb. “If you’re being targeted, go somewhere safe and let me handle this.”

  “I’m not going to leave you to this alone,” she said.

  “I won’t be.”

  “Let’s go question those men. They might finally give us a lead.”

  “You have the most expertise in spells in this clan. If anyone can solve this, it’s you. But I ask myself if I’m being selfish for dragging you into this.”

  “You’re not dragging me into anything.”

  “It feels that way. Letting you stay here might be a mistake. I don’t want to force you to do something against your will and make you leave, but I don’t want to regret this either.” He closed his eyes and exhaled.

  “Have confidence in me, Rayse.” He needed to, because she didn’t have enough faith in herself. She wrapped her fingers over his large, masculine hands and led him toward the outside.

  “You said that to me once. And you almost died for it.”

  She swallowed nervously.

  Chapter 4

  I’ve decided Marzia will be staying with us for the time being,” Constance said, as she and Rayse trekked toward the infirmary. The air was colder than normal today. She borrowed some of her mate’s heat by keeping close. How warm he could be always fascinated her.

  “For how long?” he asked.

  “Until Fraser comes back.”

  “And what if he doesn’t?” His shoulders stiffened.

  “Then she’ll continue to stay with us.”

  His nostrils flared smoke.

  “You’re upset about this idea.”

  “No, I’m not.” He shook his head.

  “You don’t want Marzia to stay with us, do you?” She crossed her arms. “Rayse, please… Your house is gigantic. It can fit up to four families comfortably.”

  He growled. His eyes shifted briefly from yellow to black again. “You forget we’re part animal. I don’t like sharing my space. Dragons are territorial. The more people you don’t know surrounding you, the more trouble. What if we can’t trust her?”

  The snow felt soft beneath her feet. “I’ve known Marzia my entire life. She’s not someone to suspect.”

  “You have. I know little of that dragon wife. I am not fond of sharing you, either.”

  She wrapped her hand around his, trying to simmer down his irritation. He accepted her gesture and intertwined their fingers. His touch was so warm, like the heat of a crackling fireplace.

  I am not property for you to share, she thought.

  She didn’t bother to open her mouth and complain, however. Rayse understood her thoughts and wasn’t overly controlling. He wouldn’t ever be able to suppress his dragon side. If he wanted to stake his claim, it wouldn’t hurt to let him utter those words. Plus, his possessiveness and jealousy did seem endearing at times, as long as he didn’t go overboard with it.

  “I’m not saying she can’t stay,” Rayse said. “But I can’t lie to you and pretend I am ecstatic about it.” A short pause, then he continued, “My dragon is not excited about your plan. I can’t claim you wherever I want to.”

  Heat lit up her cheeks. She surveyed her surroundings. She wasn’t comfortable talking about such intimate details out loud, as much as her mate didn’t care. What if other men listened to her and cast leery gazes their direction? She brushed that thought from her mind and reminded herself that the men at those brothels were the few and not the many.

  She cleared her throat. “Well, yes. We might have to quiet down a bit, now that we aren’t the sole occupants of the house.” Of course, Nanili still lived there, but mishram didn’t count, since they didn’t care about what happened around them. They were perfect, blank-faced servants. It didn’t matter if you had an hour-long round of romping in front of them. They would stand there just like a lantern would, as creepy as that was.

  “I have half a mind to say kick Marzia out,” Rayse said.

  “You can’t be that cruel. She just lost her mate.”

  “I’m not the same with others, little fire.” He tightened his hold on her hand.

  Poor Marzia. Constance couldn’t even begin to guess how her friend was feeling. She looked up at Rayse’s face and the harsh, grumpy lines that were meandering through it. “Please, Rayse?”

  He nodded, though still wearing his sour expression.

  “Are you still thinking about sending me away?”

  “The idea has never left my mind. Anyone else, I could send away with an order. Not you.”

  “What kind of person would I be if I ran away while my other half was in danger? Would you leave if you were me? Feeding me to whatever this magic is?”

  “I am Rayse, the Black Menace. You wouldn’t be ‘feeding’ me to anything at all.”

  “I have a feeling what’s happening isn’t something to be trivialized. It’s greater than us. Greater than the clan. I’m the femriahl. Love, you’re not supposed to have to manage things on your own anymore. You have me now.”

  He glanced down at her, understanding and tenderness in his midnight eyes. Rayse was the perfect specimen of a man. His black, silky hair framed his angled face. But there was sadness and uncertainty in those eyes.

  She didn’t want to make him feel worse. “If you’re so worried,” she said, “stay with me more. Leave the duties to your subjects. You can help me sift through the books. This way, you can make sure nothing happens, and we might be able to get to the bottom of this quicker.” Rayse was busy most of the time. Her suggestion was selfish. But she’d remembered the way the clan had treated him at the last challenge. They didn’t deserve his attention.

  The self-centered nature of that thought sounded an alarm in her. Was she really this person? Sometimes she saw darkness in her soul. She dared not reach toward it, for it lingered in her. The pool of darkness could be as shallow as a puddle, but it could also stretch down as deep as the ocean.

  He ran a hand down his face. “That’s what I’m worried about.”

  She peered up at him quizzically. “Where else would I be safer?”

  “Away from me. I’m not sure what’s going on. My instincts have been acting up since our visit to Karona, and my dragon keeps telling me to get rid of the threat. But it feels like the threat is me.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “None of this does. I never thought having a mate would make me this…”

  “…annoyed?” she finished for him as the end of his sentence dragged on.

  “Vulnerable,” he said. “You’re the only woman in Gaia who can make a mess out of me.”

  She wrapped her arms around him. “I’m sorry,” she said. They stopped walking, embracing in the empty, rocky street. Before her arrival, Rayse had been living well as the strongest dragon in the region. Ever since they’d met, he’d faced problems. First with the mating, now with his constant worrying about what to do to protect her. “Do you sometimes wish we hadn’t fallen in love?”

  “Never,” he said. “Why would you say such a thing? I can’t fathom how I managed living without you before. My days were dark. I let myself revel in the power, but doing everything alone left me empty. And then I found you.”

  “But I was afraid of you. And you got so terribly injured. And…”

  The secret continued to hang between them. She licked her dry lips. She just had to summon the courage to let him know. But she was afraid the intense look he gave her would turn into one of displeasure and anger.

  He pried her arms away from his waist and turned around. He picked her up with one arm so their faces were level and nuzzled his nose against hers.
“Listen, Constance. In that situation, so many women would have given up. After facing your past, others might just let fate take them. But you, a human, dared to face the immortal goddess head-on. The clan members talk, and they respect you for your strength. Finally, I’ve found someone to rule this clan with me. I need that fire in you. You make me stronger, not weaker, love.”

  She couldn’t believe him. That he saw something in an urchin like her. She never understood why he loved her.

  “I’ll be useful,” she said. “I promise.”

  “You already are.” His lips fell on hers. She breathed in his smoky scent and wondered how he managed to smell both sweet and hot. Need rose in her.

  She shouldn’t be daydreaming about Rayse. She had important matters to attend to.

  She imagined his hands exploring her body. Their tongues would fight for dominance, and sometimes he’d let her win—

  Concentrate, Constance, she thought. You’ve just gotten a lead to Eduard’s death, and lives are at stake.

  She shook herself out of her nonsensical thoughts, letting go of Rayse’s arm to anchor herself to the tasks that demanded more attention.

  She released herself from his grasp and tugged on his hand. “We should go. I’m not sure if Fraser’s companions have much time left.”

  The cliffs were as steep as ever, but her legs didn’t ache as they did before whenever she trekked around the clan. Her muscles had gotten used to the steepness. She didn’t rely on Rayse as support to meander through the rocky slopes as much as before. These days, she held his hands only because she liked the way his fingers felt around hers.

  “What are you hiding from me, little fire?”

  She took a nervous gulp. “It’s not that important. I’m being silly.”

  “You can tell me anything.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll get mad again, like you did the last time.”

  “The last time?”

  “It’s about the bond.”

  “Then you don’t have to worry about it. You said so yourself. What we have is real. It can’t possibly be faked.”

  She had to summon her courage to let him in on her secret, but she settled for a soft “Yes.”

  He looked so happy about his statement that she didn’t want to shatter his perceptions. They reached the clinic and she used it as a distraction. She scampered up to it and redirected her attention to an emergency. Along with her nurses, Greta tended to the injured males. Constance pulled herself away from Rayse to attend to them.

  “How is it?” she asked Greta, peering over the old woman’s shoulder.

  “Countless lacerations all over their bodies,” Greta replied.

  “Sounds like Eduard’s corpse,” Constance murmured, more to herself than to her mentor.

  Bandages covered the victims. There were three of them, lying side by side in the clinic’s beds, all of them covered with similarly horrendous inflictions. “They’re taking longer to heal than usual,” Greta explained. “I’ve managed to stop the bleeding, but only through using common human herbs. The magic-imbued concoctions aren’t doing anything for them. The wounds are rejecting the soul magic.”

  “Rejecting it?” Constance cocked her head and leaned in. “I have some spells which might work.”

  “Do you think I’m stupid, pumpkin? It’s not that the spells I’m using aren’t strong enough. I’ve tried many variations.” Greta sighed and fitted her glasses over her eyes. “There seems to be some kind of corruption in their wounds. They’re healing even more slowly than humans.”

  “Greta, I don’t think that”—Constance shared a look with her mentor—“that’s possible.” But it was true. Humans would have at least gained some color in their skin by now. These dragons’ bandages were soaked with red. All three of them were ghostly pale, reminding her of the bluish mishram.

  “Have you given them blood transfusions?” she asked.

  “What do you take me for? A dragonling without a brain? Of course I have.”

  “Soul transfusions? From mammals?”

  “Like I said, they’re not reacting to magic. Something is mucking with their bodies.” Greta sniffed and ran a hand over her nose.

  Wanting to test out Greta’s observations for herself, Constance bent down and took out a soul bead. There weren’t that many souls in it. She had barely enough time to harvest and store them. But it was enough to test out what Greta had said.

  Constance drew the magic out and whispered a healing spell. It was the first time she’d summoned a soul from a bead. It came out more naturally than she had expected. It was like breathing, or moving an arm. Wielding the magic came instinctively, without need for thought.

  As she whispered the spell and coaxed the magic to heal the men, she sensed resistance. A strange force prevented the wounds from healing.

  The souls dispersed. “That’s odd,” she said.

  “Told you,” Greta said, rubbing her temple. “You didn’t have to waste those souls. Are you doubting my words? Also, pretty object you have there. Soul beads from the water witches?”

  “I wanted to see for myself.” Constance placed the beads back into her belt pocket. “Rayse got these for me.”

  The men’s breathing was so shallow that no movement showed on their chests. Their faces were so white that a passerby would mistake them for corpses.

  Her stomach strained. She had been excited that these men had faced what they did. She couldn’t help herself. She finally had a lead after all these months of searching. Yet she didn’t know if she could make anything out of what had happened here.

  The soul magic she drew from the world had a familiarity to it. It came from the gentler sides of nature. The magic blocking her, however, felt foreign. It pushed against her. Meeting it sent sickness straight through her head and down to her toes. The pushback from the magic festered, like a plague trying to infect her.

  “This is… It’s black magic,” Constance said.

  “I had the same suspicions,” Greta responded, and clicked her tongue against her teeth. “It makes me nauseated, that stuff. Thought I’d give it a shot to bring my dear dragon back, but I nearly died trying to harvest it the one time. It’s a thought… I might try it again. I think I might succeed the next time if I push a little harder.”

  “It’s murder—you’ll have to take the soul of a dragon or a human.”

  “I know that, pumpkin. Dragons eat humans all the time. I’m referring to before Rayse came in and decided to be bossy. I just need to find someone bastardly enough to deserve death.”

  Constance tried not to judge her mentor. “Why would someone use this against Eduard?” she muttered to herself.

  “He was killed by the same thing?”

  “Yes. I initially suspected the dark art, but I brushed it aside. It’s so expensive, and you have to be an unimaginably powerful witch to command it. Eduard doesn’t have beef with anyone like that.”

  “Rayse and you might.”

  Her insides coiled—was Eduard’s death because of her? “Not that I can think of… The water witches are all the way in Ocharia.”

  “They are the strongest tribe, but there are talents lying in other areas.”

  “I haven’t come across any of them.”

  She hadn’t been sure before, but she was almost certain now that she was facing black magic. There weren’t many books about it in the library, although all witches knew how it worked. To execute black magic, witches had to draw the souls of higher beings—humans and dragons, specifically.

  “Barely any users who can command dark magic exist anymore,” Constance said. “That’s why there isn’t much information on it.”

  Greta fiddled with her scarves. “There’s an outlier or two every generation. Desperation can help one endure a ludicrous amount of pain.”

  Constance only had a few books related to the dark art, and she had already glanced through them. She needed to give them another look. The last time she’d perused those texts was months back. Sh
e hadn’t given them a proper study, thinking it was a waste of time. Deciphering the archaic and convoluted language of those books was time-consuming.

  “Were they like this when they arrived?” Constance asked. Marzia had mentioned these patients describing the black smoke earlier. Now, hours later, they didn’t look like they were in any condition to speak.

  Greta shook her head. “I’ve never seen any disease progress this rapidly. It’s only been two hours since they got here. They could gesture with their hands and mutter some words before. Now… they’re simply fit for vegetable stew.”

  “But you said you could stop the bleeding.”

  “Yes, that’s what’s strange. They shouldn’t be getting worse. They ought to be getting better. Must be me going crazy.”

  Curious, Constance reached for their souls, just enough to touch them and not actually draw any out. A cold, icy sensation, like that of a sharp winter spike, shot through her. “Their physical bodies are fine, but there is something within them, eating them up. The black magic is working its way through their souls.”

  “Are you certain it’s that? You might be jumping about your knickers over there.”

  “Almost certain.”

  Greta pursed her lips. “These are good men. I’d hate to see them go. Oh well, world’s gotta be a dragon in the ass sometimes. Their wives must be sad peaches.”

  “They have wives?”

  “Well, one of them has to, right? You must have a way to save them. Seeing as you’re so smart and all, asking me questions like I’ve got a screw loose.”

  Was Greta mad? Constance didn’t realize that Greta could be so petty. “I’m not smart, Greta. I’m not sure how I came across it. This power is beyond me.” She glanced at her mate, helpless. She couldn’t do anything, right after promising she’d be a deserving femriahl.