Shadowed Blade (Colbana Files Book 6)

by J. C. Daniels

  I hated having to be reasonable.

  But I gritted my teeth—mentally—and managed to give Whitmore a level look. “The bottom line is I often end up on jobs that go sideways. I often end up deciding to take backup and if I hadn’t, I would be dead. I’d think you’d be pleased with that.”

  “Of course I’m glad you’re not dead.”

  Another play on the truth there…was he lying or prevaricating? I couldn’t tell.

  There was no time to question further though because a flurry of pounding erupted on the door, causing me to jerk my head around in surprise. Somebody flew inside—nobody ever did that in Damon’s chambers.

  “I’ll have to get back to you, sir. Emergency!” I cut him off before he could say anything. An odd buzzing rippled through my skull and I felt a pang at the base of my head where those weird headaches always originated. The buzzing only got worse as I turned to the door and in the split second it took for me to do that, hell broke loose.

  Hell took the form of Damon shifting to his half form, over seven feet tall, his muscled pelt covered in a golden pelt and spotted. His clothes fell in shreds around him as he launched himself at Scott.

  My mind denied what it was seeing.

  Scott flung up a hand and Damon flew to the far side of the room while Scott leaped toward me. I whipped up my sword, my mind furiously trying catch up with what was going on. “Stay back,” I warned.

  A grin—one that seemed both insanely out of place and strangely familiar—twisted Scott’s lips.

  “Now, now, Kit…is that any way to say hello to an old friend?”

  The voice—oh, shit.

  Those words had no sooner left his lips than a growl ripped out of the shifters who’d burst into the room like their lives depended on it.

  And one of them was…Scott.

  Damon was off the floor and moving again.

  Instinct screamed.

  Move now—think later.

  I swore as I dove for Damon and the Scott-lookalike. “I’m going to kill you,” I told the man who’d somehow managed to sneak into the Lair. Of all places.

  He chuckled, his visage starting to waver. “You won’t be saying that in a minute. I’m here for a reason…you know that.”

  He leaped up and in a movement that defied physics—and the human body—as he flipped and sailed through the air, placing his body behind mine.

  Damon made a deep, deep noise, one that spoke of fury—and I heard something else, too.

  Perhaps Chang would recognize it, but I doubted anybody else would.

  It was fear.

  He saw only some unknown enemy and the man was now at my back.

  I held up a hand. “Stop…Damon…stop. He’s not…” I heaved out a breath before I said the one thing that might keep the man in front of me from trying to kill the man behind me. “He’s a friend. He’s saved my life twice now.”

  Damon slowed for a split second, but nothing changed the animalistic set to his features.

  Behind me, there was a faint whisper. “You’d think I’d remember how sharp their noses are, wouldn’t you?”

  “I hope you enjoyed yourself,” Damon said, his voice a predatory growl. “Every man should have a little fun before he dies.”

  “Oh, I don’t do this for fun, son. Trust me, this is a pain in the ass.”

  “Don’t be a more of a moron than you already are,” I snapped over my shoulder.

  Chang was staring at the man behind me with eyes that promised death. This was going to be ugly. The man had breached their home—their safehold. Unless he had a good reason for doing that...

  Damon made another move toward me, green-gold eyes locked on the intruder.

  “Damon…I know him.” I reached back, daring to risk one quick glance—my eyes connected with eyes of pure white—all white. No pupil, no discernible iris and whiter than any mortal eye should be.

  And Nova, for all intents and purposes, was mortal.

  A freakishly powerful mortal with psychic skills that weren’t supposed to exist, but still, he was mortal.

  “Hello, Nova.”

  He looked at me and grinned. “Kit.”

  Damon took a step forward.

  Chang placed a hand on his shoulder and they shared a look. The subtle nod Damon gave the other man unsettled me and I pondered ripping my hair out when Chang was the one to move forward to meet Nova.

  I wouldn’t call Damon the more reasonable one of the two, but there were times I could get Damon to listen to me. If Chang made up his mind...

  Nova slid to the side, shifting so that he faced all of us, although he was clearly keeping his focus on the shifters. “Come on, boys…let’s all take a deep breath and calm down.” He shot them what was considered his…less crazy smile. “I’ve been here three times today and I’ve called five asking, then demanding then begging to speak to Kit. It’s urgent, I said. It’s life or death, I said. And I’m told to leave a message at her office.”

  He snorted and shot me a sidelong look. “Kit, how often do you check messages at your office?”

  “Get to the point, Nova.”

  He hitched up a shoulder. “I’m trying to be polite and explain why I felt the need to take drastic measures, Kit. In a minute, you’ll be just as pissed as I am. The third time I came to the gate and said I absolutely had to see you…” The whites of his eyes started to glow.

  Oh, fuck…

  “See, I was told, We don’t listen to urgent messages from the likes of you, meat. Get out.” Nova’s smile went cold. “The guards you have at the door really should show more courtesy—I could have turned them into meat. But I showed restraint.”

  Chang made no response, just took another slow step toward Nova.

  “You really should have left a message at her office,” Damon said.

  “Kit sucks at checking her messages. I thought this kind of thing—the lives of some friends and all—was a bit more important.” Nova cocked his head. “But if not…well, we can get downright nasty in here.”

  Lives of some friends…?

  “Nova?” I whispered.

  Scott—the real one—had circled around. I whipped my gun out and leveled it at his knee. “Don’t. I like you, Scott, but if you even think of trying to move me out of the way…I’ll put you on the ground.”

  Nova chuckled. “Now it gets fun.”

  I fought the urge to turn and punch him in the nose. “One of these days, I’ll find a way to thank Justin properly for introducing us, Nova.”

  “You can do that by saving his life, Kit. Now...”

  I spun to stare at him, the gun falling limp to my side. I was the one to lunge for Nova. And he didn’t try to stop me. “What?”

  “Now…ask me why I’m here,” he said gently.

  “Nova.”

  “Somebody grabbed Colleen and Justin, Kit.”

  Chapter Eleven

  My hands tightened on his shirt.

  “When?” I demanded, my voice ragged, my knees temporarily trying to go weak under me. It lasted only a split second and Nova casually bolstered me with a mental nudge, not even touching me.

  He flicked a look past me.

  I didn’t even bother. I could feel Damon and the others drawing nearer.

  In a flat voice, I said, “He’s a friend of mine, he came trying to talk to me and he was turned away. Is this my home or not?”

  There was no answer. But I knew they backed off—a bit. There would be a reckoning over this, but some of the tension eased from Nova’s body and he reached up, gently tugged my hands from his shirt, holding my wrists in a way that made it clear he was offering support as much as anything else.

  Nova and I had what one might call an uneasy friendship—in truth, he went from freaking me out to scaring me shitless, but that wasn’t through any fault of his own.

  He was just a dangerous piece of work—Justin had once said he was a walking time bomb. The only comfort was that Nova knew when he’d explode and his goal was to t
ake out pieces of shit when he went, not friends.

  “Come on, Kit,” Nova said, a grin tilting up one corner of his mouth. “You know me. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think I could help. So…take a deep breath, then we can talk. Friendly-like.”

  Nova had a deep, lazy drawl, pure Southern charm and if one didn’t know any better, it might be easy to get suckered in by the slow rhythm of his speech. I knew better. Still, I knew panicking wasn’t going to do shit.

  “I’m breathing, Nova. You need to be talking. When?”

  He angled his chin toward the table. “Maybe we can all sit down and talk. Like I said…friendly-like.”

  “Fine.” I chewed the word off, feeling like it was nothing but broken glass in my throat, but in the calm, logical part of my mind, I understood. Nova didn’t know the shifters. He felt like he had to keep his eye on them for his sake—and mine. He’d feel better if he had a birds-eye view of everything, and if I didn’t have my back to them.

  I wasn’t worried about having my back to them. What I was worried—no, pissed about was finding out who’d turned Nova away.

  I gestured to the table, angling my body as I did so. Damon and I had a brief stare down before he finally looked at the men who’d torn into his chambers. “Scott, Bayou. Go back to your posts.”

  I almost called out to Scott—demanded to know who in the hell had turned a friend of mine away. But I held my tongue. I wasn’t going to countermand an order from the Alpha in front of his men—he might not be my Alpha, but there were certain courtesies to be followed. I’d follow them—then bust balls later.

  Once the door closed silently behind Scott, Damon—staring at Nova unblinking—slid seamlessly into his human form, leaving behind the upright, powerful half-form that was more monster than anything else. He stood there nude, hands at his side, unperturbed by the fact that he wore nothing but his skin.

  Nova didn’t blink.

  It took quite a bit to throw Nova.

  But I was too pissed to point that out.

  Knowing that the stare down could last forever, I swore and turned away, stalking over to the chest of clothes and grabbing some jeans for Damon. “Either get something on your ass so we can talk or Nova and I will go to my office—I’m sure he’ll be happy to talk to me there.”

  Damon’s gray eyes cut to mine, fury lighting the darkness there. I could see the response trembling on his tongue.

  But he simply pulled the jeans on and strode over to the table. His tone was pure, silken death when he spoke. “After you…Nova.”

  Chang didn’t sit, simply taking up position at Damon’s shoulder. Such a good little soldier.

  I was so pissed, I couldn’t see straight.

  I was so scared, I couldn’t think.

  Once Nova sat down, I focused on him, ignoring the cats. They were no threat to me.

  Nova didn’t block them out, but he seemed to finally get that I was here because I wanted to be. Once more, I felt that weird buzzing in my brain and I sighed in pained resignation, realizing what it was.

  Nova.

  He’d done that earlier, just before everything went to hell. He’d been ‘knocking’ of sorts. Letting me know he was around.

  My shields weren’t like a psychic’s or a witch’s and I was close enough to human that he could read me, but it was…different, he told me. Like translating from a learned language to your native language. Different.

  And he tried not to intrude. He could power through my shields in a heartbeat, but that would be painful.

  Right now, I was wishing he’d powered through—a lot earlier.

  Are you safe here, Kit?

  Passing a hand in front of my face, I said wearily, “Nova…I’m fine. Just, please…what’s up with Justin and Colleen?”

  His mouth tightened slightly and I realized he would prefer that I keep his ability to speak to me mentally quiet, but oh well. Leaning forward, I jabbed a finger at him. “Talk.”

  “Yes,” Chang said from his position at Damon’s shoulder. “By all means, talk. The Alpha and I are very…interested in what he has to say.”

  “Shut the fuck up!” I shouted.

  The outburst had Chang slanting a look at me.

  Damon never once turned his eyes from Nova.

  I was going to explode. I could feel it.

  That pulsing ache at the base of my skull, the worry in my gut. All of it. I was going to explode.

  Nova leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the table. Out of everybody in the room, he was the one who saw how close I was to the edge. “They were almost to Colleen’s, Kit, as near as I can tell. I tracked them as far as the city edge and then I decided it would be best to have somebody other than me on hand.”

  “If you’re strong enough to turn some of Damon’s men into…meat,” Chang offered a cool smile, “why didn’t you stop whoever took Justin and Colleen?”

  Nova turned his head slowly. It was eerie how he did it. Nova was human. At least under that mad power, he was. But the human part was almost…superficial. It was like somebody had decided to shove a crazy amount of pure, volatile energy into a casement of human skin. Nothing about him seemed human, not the way he acted, carried himself, not the way he fought, lived, breathed.

  And the way he turned his head was almost alien, more like a predator sighting its prey from a far-off distance.

  Chang recognized it, too.

  The cat in the slim, elegant man stirred. I saw Chang’s eyes flash gold in eerie warning…or perhaps awareness.

  “Perhaps I would have,” Nova said, his voice deep and echoing, resonating throughout the large chamber. “Had I actually been there when the abduction went down. As it happens, I was approximately twelve hours and six minutes too late.”

  “Twelve hours and six minutes,” Damon said, deadpan.

  “And thirteen seconds. If we’re going by the time the abduction started. The whole process took under three minutes.” Nova cocked his head. “If you’d like the time from when it ended?”

  “You seem to have your times rather…pinpointed.” Chang’s eyes were all gold now in his face.

  “A knack of mine. Just as I can tell that you have…” Nova’s lids drooped and then he smiled. “Eight shifters lined up in the hall just outside this door. You’ve yet to decide if you’ll need them, because you believe you can handle me yourself. One of them is the young blond that Kit is fond of. You believe you’ll use him as a distraction, should you need him—should Kit prove to be…intractable.”

  I closed my eyes.

  This was already going very badly. I thought very hard toward Nova, knowing he’d pick it up as clearly as if I was speaking to him aloud. We have to get them to focus, now.

  That was going to take something…unsettling.

  There was only one way to get through to Damon—at least if I wanted to do it fast.

  He slanted his head toward me. Really. His voice, as clear in my head as if he’d spoken out loud, sounded terribly amused. If that’s the way you want to handle this. Your cat will not like it, sweetheart.

  At the same time, Nova smiled at Chang. “The more interesting question is just how did such an undertaking occur on the Alpha’s territory? After all, all of East Orlando is his territory…is it not?”

  Damon rose slowly, one hand slamming down on the table. It hit with enough force that I felt the reverberation clear up into my arms. The threat in his eyes promised death, blood, and very bad things.

  That’s it. I pushed my thoughts toward Nova, felt his understanding echo back.

  “Enough.” I stood up, making sure all eyes were on me. “I’m tired of the dick-wagging.”

  Without blinking, I drew the Glock from my hip.

  In quick succession, I fired off four rounds.

  One at Nova.

  One at Chang.

  One at Damon.

  One at the underside of my chin…from a few inches away.

  I was staring straight in Damon’s eyes the whole time.


  The flickering of emotion was…surreal. Amusement. Stunned shock. Betrayal. Blankness…followed by denial.

  And each emotion played over and over and over, none of them ever having the chance to fully manifest, because not a single round hit its target.

  Each one spun lazily in the air before drifting over to Nova. He kept them spinning until they came to rest in his palm, clinking against each other. “For the record, it’s got nothing to do with metal.” His smile was grim and humorless as he angled his chin across the room.

  I glanced over, unable to help myself, and saw that the mattress was hovering several feet in the air, bed hangings and all.

  That wasn’t the only thing.

  Water began to run in the bathroom. Within seconds, it came out of the bathroom, in a narrow stream. In mid-air.

  It splintered in four separate rivulets and each one went to a different person. I lifted a finger and touched the water that spun in a lazy circle around me. Not a drop fell to the ground. If Damon had still been in his half-form, his fur would be on end. But while Chang was staring at the dancing water slipping and spinning around us like some strange ballet, Damon only had eyes for me.

  After a full sixty seconds, Nova folded the stream of water back in on itself, turning the faucet off in the bathroom.

  “There’s no mess,” he said to Damon. “I try not to be rude when I’m in another’s home.”

  For the first time since I’d pulled my weapon, Damon’s gaze left my face. “So appreciated,” he said, his lips barely moved.

  Nova shrugged as if Damon had paid him a huge compliment.

  “Now that I have your attention,” I said, my voice low and furious. “Will the two of you jackasses listen?”

  Nova stepped forward and lifted his hand. In a steady stream, each round fell from his cupped fist, striking the table with a force that seemed far, far too loud.