The Shadow Stealer

by Melissa Giorgio

  “That’s what you said two months ago,” Rafe interrupted, his words short and clipped. We stared at him in surprise. Whatever good mood Rafe had entered the store with had vanished. “Guess you’re wrong.”

  “Rafe,” I said gently. “It’s not his fault. It’s not fair to blame Kain. You know that. He’s the one who saved you, remember?”

  Rafe blinked, and some of the anger left his face. “Right. You’re right.” He shook his head. “Sorry, Kain.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Kain said, studying Rafe carefully. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and took a step away from us. “I’m going to see what Philip is up to. What should we have for dinner?”

  “Pizza!” My enthusiasm was forced, but neither of them called me out on it. Kain walked away, leaving me alone with Rafe, who was currently staring at his shoes. My heart clenched painfully. “Rafe?”

  Pulling off his baseball cap, he ran a hand through his hair and grimaced. “Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t apologize,” I said fiercely. “If your stupid coach is treating you unfairly, then I’m going to march down to your school and yell at him. You’re the best player on the team, he can’t do that to you—”

  “Was,” Rafe corrected with a sad smile. “Not anymore. Not since…”

  “Not since you almost died saving me.” My words hung in the air between us, heavy and ugly, and Rafe made no effort to deny them. How could he? It was the truth. Fully convinced I was a demon, Nina had tried to kill me. Rafe had been so concerned with my well-being that he hadn’t managed to stop Nina from stabbing him with an evil, horrible, parasite-like spell. If Kain and Evan hadn’t been there to stop the spell, Rafe would have died. “You risked your life for me, and I couldn’t even help you.” I waved my useless hands in his direction, hands that should have healed his wounds, instead of someone else’s. “If I knew what the hell I was doing, I would fix this and you wouldn’t still feel pain in your side, two months later—”

  “Hey.” Rafe’s hands circled around my wrists, halting my frantic waving. “Stop. Gabi, you brought Alex back. She’s walking and talking thanks to you. I can handle a little bit of pain. It’s a fair trade, believe me.”

  My eyes stung with unshed tears. “But you love playing baseball and now—”

  “I can still play,” Rafe said gently. One of my tears managed to escape and he let go of one of my wrists to brush it aside with his thumb. “Maybe I’m not as good as I was before, but at least I’m here, right?”

  I shuddered, remembering how he’d looked in the hospital room, hooked up to all sorts of machines, his skin ice cold. I never wanted to see him like that ever again. Blowing out a long breath, I gave him a shaky laugh. “Boy, this evening has turned into a real downer, hasn’t it?”

  “My fault.” After a furtive glance at Bernard’s office, Rafe pulled me into his arms. “The whole reason I rushed here straight after practice was to improve my mood, not ruin everyone else’s.”

  Determined to save the evening, I teased, “Aww, are you saying I improve your mood?”

  He gave me a quick peck on the nose. “Of course you do!”

  “Even though I’m making you take us all out for pizza tonight?”

  Rafe rolled his eyes. “Good thing I won that money from Conner,” he said, referring to one of his teammates. And by “won” he meant “stole,” although considering Conner had organized a bet with a couple of other players on the baseball team involving me and Rafe getting naked as we video chatted, I didn’t feel bad for Conner at all. “I still don’t know why Kain can’t ever pay. He’s the one who’s always bragging about how much money he has.”

  “Because I’m your guest!” Kain called from the other side of the store.

  “Eavesdropping isn’t very polite, Kain!” I yelled back.

  Rafe chuckled, and I was delighted to hear that sound. Not giving a damn that the whole store was probably spying on us, I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him soundly on the lips.

  And I didn’t even pull away when Bernard started yelling at me over the loudspeaker again.

  Chapter Three

  I slid into the booth next to Rafe, snuggling against his side as I reached for my soda and took a sip. He kissed my cheek before attacking his slice of pizza and I smiled fondly, relieved that his appetite, at least, hadn’t been affected by all the craziness in his life.

  Once my shift had ended, the four of us crossed the street to visit the small pizzeria-slash-Italian bakery that was one of my favorite places in the world. (They sold pizza and dessert. Did it get any better than that? No, I didn’t think so.) Kain was busy entertaining us with a story about his life in London, Philip hanging onto his every word as he all but ignored his slice of pizza, but I tuned him out, instead focusing on what had happened earlier in the Corral with Rafe. It wasn’t like him to lash out at Kain like that, which led me to believe he was in even more pain than he was letting on. Rafe knew I blamed myself for not healing him that night, and obviously he was trying to spare me from feeling any further grief by keeping this to himself. But I could see how much this was affecting him, and how it was spilling over into his everyday life despite his best efforts to hide it from me.

  I wished… I bit my lip. There were a few things I wished for, actually. To wave my hands and take away his physical pain. To lock him in a room with everyone and just make him talk to us. Ever since that day in the hospital, when I’d told him about Silver Moon murdering his parents, Rafe had been avoiding the topic completely. It was almost like he didn’t want to know.

  And I got that, I did. Keep the pain and misery in the past, where it belonged. But that was the thing. The pain and misery were still around, and I felt like it would continue to exist until Rafe got the closure he deserved. He’d been blaming himself for his parents’ deaths since he was twelve. Now we knew he wasn’t to blame, but…

  There was still so much we didn’t know. Charles had promised to keep digging, but Rafe hadn’t shown any sort of interest, perfectly content with throwing himself into school, baseball, and hunting.

  Except he was still hurting, physically, which made playing baseball hard, and hunting demons nearly impossible.

  I said Philip and Kain came to watch over me, but they were here for Rafe just as much. Maybe even more. As I watched Kain say something that made Philip blush and Rafe laugh, I felt a warm rush of gratitude for the both of them. What would have I done without them? What would have happened to Rafe? Evan hadn’t shown his face since we’d parted ways at the hospital, which meant Rafe went home to an empty apartment every night. I called him, spent hours on the phone talking with him, but I knew it wasn’t enough. Evan had been his best friend forever. And then he’d betrayed us, and while I’d forgiven him, I knew Rafe hadn’t. Fixing things between the two of them was on my long list of things to do.

  In the meantime, I would support Rafe and hopefully, hopefully his side would eventually stop hurting, he’d hear back from the colleges he’d applied to (although the thought of him going off to college while I still had another year left of high school made me want to hide under my covers and cry for a solid week), and Charles would figure out this Silver Moon mess. Until then, I needed to make sure he just hung on by being the supportive girlfriend who improved his mood.

  “Are you feeling okay?” Rafe asked. “You’ve barely touched your pizza.”

  I blinked, realizing he was right. I’d been so busy thinking about him that I’d forgotten about my food, which to Rafe was a sure sign I wasn’t feeling good. Plastering a huge grin on my face, I said, “I’m saving room for the dessert you’re going to buy us, of course.”

  Kain cheered at the sound of more free food. Shaking his head, Rafe pulled out his wallet and counted the bills inside. “Chocolate cake?”

  “Rafe, I can’t believe you’re even asking. Of course I want chocolate cake!”

  As Rafe left the booth to get the cake, Philip groaned. “Don’t you eat anything else?” Be
fore I could answer, he leaned over and stole my uneaten slice of pizza, taking a huge bite while ignoring my protests.

  “I was going to eat that, you jerk!”

  “No, you were just going to stare at your boyfriend all night and let it grow cold.”

  “Um, that’s what you were doing,” I pointed out. “Kain was telling his story and you were drooling into your dish. I saw you!”

  Philip nearly choked on the pizza. “I was not!”

  “Yes, you were!”

  “Oh, yeah?” Philip gestured to his empty dish. “Then why is my slice gone and yours still here?” He waved the half-eaten slice in the air and Kain ducked to avoid getting a face full of mozzarella and sauce.

  “You two, I swear,” Kain said. “You sound just like my sisters, with all the bickering you do.”

  Philip glared at him. “Are you calling me a girl?”

  “Oh no.” Kain grinned lewdly. “I would never. I know for a fact that you’re a boy, Philip. You prove that to me every single night.”

  I had just taken a sip of soda and I swore the liquid almost came out of my nose as I half-choked, half-laughed at what Kain had just said. It didn’t help matters that Philip was bright red and looked like he was two seconds away from murdering Kain. Rafe returned at that moment with a tray of chocolate cake and stared at each one of us in turn. “Do I even want to know?”

  None of us could answer, because we were either too busy laughing, choking, or sputtering.

  Rafe shook his head. “Yeah, I guess not.” He was smiling when he said it, and I caught Kain’s eye and nodded my thanks. Kain responded with a wink, letting me know he was doing this for Rafe’s sake. As I dug into my cake, Rafe’s arm around my shoulders and a smile still on his face, I felt content for the first time in a long, long time.

  I just hoped the feeling would last.

  ***

  Rafe pulled up in front of my house and turned his car off before pointing at my empty driveway. “Your dad’s still at the lodge.”

  “And Chloe’s staying over at her friend’s house tonight. Do you know what that means?”

  His voice was wary when he asked, “What?”

  I picked up my purse and opened the door, grinning wickedly. “It means you can come in for a little bit!”

  “Is that such a good idea?” A bit of a smile tugged at Rafe’s lips.

  Instead of responding, I climbed out of the car, shut the door behind me, stepped over a pile of slushy, gray snow that had been pushed to the curb, and walked to the front door. Turning my key in the lock, I heard Rafe’s footsteps behind me on the porch. As soon as we made it inside, I pushed him up against the door (mindful of his injury, of course) and kissed him hard on the lips.

  Rafe’s arms curled around my waist, lifting me to him. I made an approving sound as he deepened the kiss and I ran my fingers through his hair. We took a couple of stumbling steps into the front sitting room, where I promptly tripped on the rug and went flying. Rafe caught me before I crash-landed onto the floor, setting me down on the stairs with a chuckle. “Why are you always trying to hurt yourself?”

  “Less talking,” I grunted, grabbing him by the front of his jacket and pulling him to me. “More kissing.”

  Always happy to oblige, Rafe settled on the step below me, between my legs, and rested a hand on my knee as I wrapped my arms around his neck. His other hand found its way under my multiple layers, touching bare skin, and I arched into his touch, hissing with pleasure as he ignited a fire within me. My fingers closed around the zipper on his jacket, and I yanked it down, none-too-gently, startling him.

  Rafe laughed against the side of my neck as he nuzzled me there. “You do realize your dad is going to walk in any moment, right?”

  “Why are you talking?” I whined, trying to get his jacket off.

  “Because,” he said, wincing when, after I managed to get the sleeve caught around his shoulder, I started tugging violently to get his jacket loose, “I’ve already been banned from the second floor. If your dad walks in and sees us undressing on the stairs, I won’t be allowed to be in the same state as you.”

  “Crap, you’re right.” I stilled, my hands still gripping the soft fabric of his jacket. “Damn you, Rafe. Why does your brain still function in the middle of all of this?” I gestured to him sitting between my legs, with his hand up my shirt (okay, it wasn’t up that far, but still). “Are you actually a robot?”

  “Yes,” Rafe answered dryly. “That’s exactly what I am. I just waited to tell you because I didn’t want you to get mad.”

  “Guess what, C-3PO, I am mad, so you better—” I trailed off when Rafe’s pants started vibrating. Raising my eyebrows, I said, “Hmm, either your parts are malfunctioning, or you’re really excited all of a sudden—”

  “Gabi!” It was too dark to see if he was blushing, but I knew my Rafe. He was probably beet-red. Sliding onto the step next to me, he fished his phone out of his pocket. The bright screen illuminated us and I winced against the harsh light.

  Even half-blind I could still see the name on the screen, and my heart skipped a beat. “Does that say Alex?”

  Chapter Four

  Rafe pressed the ignore button and shoved the phone back into his pocket without answering.

  “Rafe—”

  “Yes, she’s been calling me.” He hunched forward, hiding his face from me. His phone had ruined my night vision, and I wanted to turn on one of the lights, but I was afraid of what would happen if I moved. Rafe’s voice had gone brittle, and warning bells rang in my head, telling me to tread lightly.

  “You could have answered, you know.” I put a hand on his arm, squeezing his bicep. “I’m not going to fly into a rage and smash your phone like a psychotic, jealous girlfriend. Promise.”

  “I know,” he said. “That’s not why I didn’t answer.”

  “Then why?”

  Rafe was quiet for so long that I thought he wasn’t going to answer me. Finally, he sighed and shifted slightly, so he could rest his head against my shoulder. “Because I’m trying to forget what happened in December.”

  “But…” I hesitated, weighing my words carefully before speaking. “Maybe forgetting isn’t the right thing to do?”

  He peered up at me, and my eyes had adjusted to the dark enough to allow me to see the pain on his face. Please don’t let him get mad, I thought, watching as he clenched and unclenched his jaw a few times.

  He looked away first, laughing bitterly. “Charles said the same thing, you know. That I deserved to know the truth, not only for Mom and Dad’s sake, but for my own, too. But what does it matter, Gabi? What’s it going to change? Even if I do find out Silver Moon betrayed us, killing them while trying to test me, what’s the difference? It’s not going to bring them back!”

  He was right. Even if we did find out who had ordered the test and the cover up, what then? We lock them in HQ and set the building on fire?

  But still. Closure.

  “I’m not a murderer,” Rafe mumbled, rubbing his face. “I’m not going to kill everyone in Silver Moon to avenge my parents. My dad is probably watching me right now, cursing me out for being such a coward, but it’s the truth. I just want to keep doing what I’ve been doing since I moved up here. Hunting for Silver Moon, but from a distance.” Rafe shook his head. “But that’s right. I can’t even do that now, can I? How pathetic am I?”

  “Okay, that’s enough,” I growled, pulling away from him and stomping down the stairs. After flipping on the lights, I returned to the foot of the stairs, my arms crossed over my chest as I glared up at him. Rafe watched me warily, his eyebrows raised in surprise. Even I was shocked at the tone of my voice. So much for treading lightly.

  “I want you to listen to me very carefully, Rafe Fitzgerald,” I said. “First of all, you are not pathetic. You nearly died back in December. As in, two months ago. I’m sorry if you expected to leap out of bed and behead an army of demons the moment you woke up, but that’s not how it works. You
need time to recover and get your strength back. It’s not going to happen overnight, either. How many times has Kain told you it’s going to take time? Why don’t you do yourself a favor and listen to him, okay? I know he’s annoying, but he’s also wickedly smart when it comes to magic and spells. If he says you need time, then you need time.”

  I paused, in case he wanted to interject, but he just gave me a half-nod, looking slightly dumbstruck. Pressing forward, I said, “If you don’t want to find out what really happened that day with your parents, then fine. That’s your choice, and I will honor it. But you know that’s not going to stop Charles, right? Your dad was his best friend, and I know for a fact that he will destroy all of Silver Moon to avenge your parents.” This time Rafe tried to interrupt me, but I held up my hand. “We don’t have to help him, though. I’ll call him up right now and tell him to leave you out of this, and you know what? He will. He’s the one who warned me to break this to you gently; he’s the one who was worried about how you’d react to it. We both agreed you deserved to know the truth, but I didn’t realize it was going to break you.” My voice cracked, and I had to take a couple of deep breaths to push aside a sudden wave of tears. I wasn’t going to cry, not if I wanted to get through this speech that was two months in the making.

  “I thought you were unconscious,” I told him for the first time, watching as his green eyes widened slightly. “When I went to see you the first time, I was so upset that I just started rambling, telling you everything. You didn’t react at all, even when I was crying, so when I told you about your parents, I never expected—” I tugged at a lock of my hair, cursing quietly. “You were awake, and I couldn’t take the words back, no matter how much I wanted to. And now you’re hurting, and it’s my fault, and you’re not even angry with me, and I don’t understand why. I don’t get why you keep blaming yourself and hating yourself and hurting yourself and it’s killing me because you should be blaming me—”