Her Shadow Warrior

by McKenna Chase

  “I don’t think that would be a wise idea.”

  “Why not? I feel safe with you.”

  He hesitated.

  “Dariun?”

  He stepped over to the window to peer out. “Because a shadow guard is not permitted to have feelings for their human assignment.”

  Hope flickered to life inside her. He had feelings for her? “Even if that human returns those feelings?”

  He sighed and turned to face her. “You are human, Elena. I’m an immortal. We are of two different realms.”

  She stepped up to him, meeting his troubled gaze. “Then make me immortal, too.”

  His eyes widened in shock. “What?”

  “Take my life force, Dariun. I want to be with you.”

  “I can’t do that. I’m sworn to protect you. My deliberately taking your life force for my own need is against Shadow law.”

  “What about my need?” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Does that matter at all?”

  “Elena,” he said, gathering her in his arms. “Don’t make this any harder than it already is.” It wasn’t an order, it was a plea.

  “Then before you leave me, love me one last time.”

  “One last time.”

  Her pulse quickened as he swept her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom.

  “My brave one,” he said, tracing her lips.

  “I ran away. That wasn’t brave.”

  “But you came back,” he said, brushing his mouth lightly over hers. “Thank you for trusting me.”

  “And if I hadn’t?”

  “Brakkar would have used your loss of faith in me to take your life force.” He set her on her feet by the bed and tugged the tie-dye tank up over her head.

  She closed her eyes as his hands returned to skim up over her ribs to her awaiting breasts, trying to lock the memory of his touch in her mind. Because soon that would be all she had of Dariun.

  He lowered his head. “I’ll never forget your scent. Sweet with a hint of wild.” His hands skimmed up her ribs to tease her tightly puckered nipples.

  Elena moaned softly.

  He lowered his head to taste the swollen peak, taking it into his mouth.

  She clutched at his shoulders, her body becoming liquid heat with every play of his tongue.

  His hands moved down to the button on her shorts, flicking it open. He shoved them down over the curve of her hips until they fell to the floor at her feet. Then his fingers edged their way beneath the elastic waist of her lace panties to slip between the slick folds of her sex.

  “Dariun,” she whimpered as he stroked her.

  His teeth nipped playfully at her neck. “Bossy, aren’t we?”

  “You must be rubbing off on me,” she said with a moan as his thumb joined his finger in pleasuring her. She kicked free of her shorts and panties, wanting nothing between her body and his.

  “Lie back across the bed and spread your legs for me,” he said in a voice husky with desire.

  She did it without hesitation, eager for the pleasure she knew he could give her.

  A needy gasp passed her lips as his mouth centered itself where she was most sensitive, his tongue delving into her heat. She clutched at the edge of the mattress as he lifted her legs over his broad shoulders.

  Her body trembled as he brought her closer and closer to release. She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. Could only feel at that point.

  “So sweet,” he groaned.

  Her head dropped back onto the mattress. “Dariun, please...”

  “Oh, I have every intention of pleasing you, Elena.”

  Suddenly his mouth was gone and she was being lifted and moved further back on the mattress. Then Dariun was there, between her legs, thrusting into her.

  This was what she wanted. Needed. His cock filling her, moving in and out of her body in eager thrusts. Pushed over the edge, she cried out, shuddering as another Dariun induced orgasm washed over her.

  His thrusts grew more urgent, more demanding. His groans of pleasure filled the room, mixing with her own.

  Elena locked her legs around his waist and lifted her hips, drawing him in deeper, meeting his urgent rhythm.

  To her surprise, he took her mouth in a passionate kiss as his body continued its maddening pace. Thrusting deeper. Pumping harder.

  Suddenly, Dariun threw his head back with a growl, his body following hers into a shuddering release. Her passionate shadow lover.

  * * *

  “Elena.” Her whispered name awoke her from a peaceful sleep.

  She stirred and opened her eyes. A slow smile drew her lips upward. “Hello.”

  He reached out to caress her cheek. “It is time.”

  Her smile faded and her heart grew heavy. “So soon?”

  “I have already stayed longer than I should have. I must report back to my commander and find your shadow replacement.”

  She had convinced him to spend the night, which he had with very little resistance, making love to her over and over. How could she ever be intimate with a mere mortal male ever again after having experienced the sensual surrender she had with Dariun?

  He leaned over, brushing his lips over hers. “I will never forget you.”

  Tears blurred her vision and a sob caught in her throat. “And I will never forget you.” Though she would. Dariun had told her so. All the memories of his being there would fade away to nothing once her new shadow was in place.

  He stepped away from the bed, a second later his solid black form became a dark mist and then he was gone.

  She had promised to be strong, but even that couldn’t hold her tears at bay. “I love you, Dariun,” she whispered, words she wished now that she had told him.

  She slipped from bed and walked over to the window. The sun shone brightly in the cloudless sky while white-capped waves danced across the ocean. A couple with two small children played along the shore. Life was as it had been, yet nothing was the same.

  Turning away from the window, she crawled back into her bed. Dariun had kept his word. She no longer feared having her life force stolen by some crazed rogue shadow. At least until the next Blue Moon came. What she did fear was the loneliness she would return to.

  Another rush of hot tears filled her eyes as she thought of her shadow lover. Closing her eyes, she pressed a hand to her breasts over her aching heart.

  “Oh, Dariun,” she said in broken sob.

  “Who the hell is Dariun?”

  Her head snapped up, an icy chill moving through her. “Ryan,” she gasped in horror as she stared up into the hateful eyes of her ex-husband. Eyes almost as cold as Brakkar’s had been.

  He stalked towards her. “Thought I wouldn’t find you, didn’t you?”

  “You have no right to be here,” she exclaimed as she scrambled across the bed away from him. “We’re divorced now.”

  He laughed. “That piece of paper doesn’t mean shit to me. I told you before I would never let you go, Elena, and I meant it.” He lunged across the mattress.

  Elena pulled back, his hand just missing her. Slipping off the mattress, she skirted the bed and ran from the room, her heart racing.

  Heavy booted footsteps pounded the tile floor behind her. A second later, her ex grabbed onto a handful of her hair, yanking her backwards.

  She cried out in pain as her neck snapped back. The captured strands threatened to pull away from her scalp any second. “Ryan, stop!”

  “Stop?” He dragged her over to the sofa and threw her down onto it. “Stupid bitch. Do you know how long I’ve been searching for you?”

  She kicked to get free, but his hold was unrelenting. “It’s over between us, Ryan. I have a restraining order−”

  He yanked again. “I don’t give a damn about any restraining order. Our marriage is over when I say it’s over,” he announced, his expression crazed. His eyes held the same look they had the night he’d pushed her down the stairs.

  “Ryan, please don’t do this,” she begged,
desperately trying to reason with him.

  But he was past reasoning. Reaching behind his back, he pulled a knife from the worn leather sheath strapped to his belt. The long, deadly blade gleamed beneath the overhead light.

  “Guess what, Elena,” he sneered. “You’re going to get your wish. It’s over.”

  She felt the cold bite of the blade as it sank into her flesh. Then, she felt nothing at all.

  * * *

  “You’ve done well, Lethos,” his commander acknowledged with a nod. “We shall soon defeat all rogue shadows. “Per unitatem vis.” Through unity, strength.

  Dariun nodded in agreement.

  “You can deliver Brakkar to the containment room before you move on to your next assignment.”

  “Already done,” he replied.

  “Then why are you here?”

  “To ask a favor of you.”

  “And that would be?”

  “To release me from my next assignment so I can go in search of my brother and Treynor.”

  “That would mean crossing over into the rogue shadow realm.”

  “I know the risk.”

  “I’m sure you do. But do you think this is a wise move? We’ve already lost two of our best guards this past week.”

  “They would do the same for me.”

  His commander sighed, no doubt knowing that trying to convince Dariun not to go in search of his brother and good friend would be futile.

  “Do as you must,” his commander said with a sigh. “But I command you to return safely with both shadows. Your services are needed by the force.”

  “I will do my best.” He just prayed that Tebolt and Treynor would be able to be rescued. “There is one more thing.”

  “And that would be?”

  “I want to choose Elena’s shadow replacement.”

  The commander’s dark brow arched. “This is a first. I’ve never known you to concern yourself with that task.”

  Dariun nodded. “Elena is...” his words trailed off.

  “Special to you?” He studied Dariun’s response.

  “You could say that.”

  “You’ve fallen for the human?”

  “It matters not. I know that we are of two different realms. There is no future for us. But I will see to it that she is well protected when I’m gone. I have given her my word.”

  “Then you must not go against it. You may choose.”

  “I choose Lakis.” Lakis was another of his closest friends. He was still training to become a shadow guard which meant he was still given shadow duties on occasion. “I trust him to take care of Elena.”

  The commander turned and called for Lakis who appeared in the council room seconds later.

  “Commander,” he said, bowing his head.

  “Brakkar has been vanquished.”

  Lakis looked to Dariun with a grin. “Well done.”

  “Dariun has requested that you be assigned to his human now that the Blue Moon cycle has ended. As you know, Treynor, Elena Ricci’s birth shadow was recently vanquished by Brakkar, leaving her without a permanent shadow.”

  “I know she will be well looked after with you as her shadow,” Dariun said, trying not to show the emotion he felt for her.

  Lakis met his gaze. “I will not let you down, my friend.”

  “Very well,” the commander said. “Take him to the human.”

  Together, Dariun and Lakis traveled from the Shadow Realm back to Elena’s beach house.

  “Thank you for doing this for me,” Dariun said, feeling heavyhearted. He hated the thought of leaving her. Hated the possibility he might never see her again. But it was what must be.

  “She must mean a lot to you, Dariun, to concern yourself with finding her shadow replacement.”

  “More than you know.”

  No more words needed to be spoken between them.

  Dariun turned from his friend and looked around the bedroom. “Elena?” he called out.

  Nothing.

  The beach house was quiet, oddly so. He called out to her again only to be greeted by more silence. Something wasn’t right.

  A soft moan from the living room drew both men’s troubled gazes that direction.

  “Elena!” Dariun raced past his friend and out of the bedroom, his heart pounding. He stopped dead in his tracks the second his gaze touched upon the crimson streaks across the ceramic tiles. More blood was spattered across the pale green sofa.

  “No!” he bellowed as he raced toward Elena’s fallen form.

  She was curled up on the floor between the coffee table and the sofa.

  He muttered her name over and over as he gathered her bloodied form up in his arms. Her sun-kissed flesh was pale and cold and she was shivering violently. “What happened?”

  “R...Ryan found me.”

  He cursed so loud it shook the walls.

  “Dariun,” Lakis said, his hand clamped over his friend’s shoulder. His expression said what Dariun already knew. Elena was dying.

  “I shouldn’t have left her.”

  “You had no way of knowing,” his friend pointed out, but that made his guilt no less. “You had to deliver Brakkar to council.”

  “This isn’t your fault,” she said weakly. “He would have found me sooner or later.”

  “I can’t let you go,” he said, emotion thick in his throat.

  “You don’t have a choice.” She winced as she reached for his hand.

  “No!” he cried out as he cradled her head.

  “I was lucky enough to have g...gotten a second chance,” she said with a shudder. “Otherwise I would never have met you. It’s just my time to go.”

  He squeezed her cold hand. “I will find him! I will make him pay for what he’s done.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “The police will have enough evidence against him this time to make Ryan pay for what he’s done to me. Let him suffer in a dark cell for the rest of his life.”

  “She’s right,” Lakis said with a nod. “You cannot take another human’s life.”

  He knew that. But damn it he didn’t have to like it. “Leave us, Lakis.”

  His friend hesitated, his dark brows furrowed in concern.

  “I need time alone with Elena.” Time to say good bye to the only woman he’d ever cared about.

  Lakis nodded in understanding then backed away, fading into nothingness.

  “Dariun...”

  He looked down at her. “I’m here.”

  “I...I love you.”

  Dariun buried his face in her hair. “I love you, too, my sweet Elena. I don’t want to lose you.”

  “You’ll always have me,” she said with a weak smile.

  He could always have her. There was a way. “Your life force.”

  “What about it?”

  “I’m going to take it.”

  But it’s forbidden,” she argued as she gasped for air.

  It was the only way. “Whatever the cost, Elena, I will not lose you. Not like this.” He brushed the hair back from her face. “Trust me.”

  “I do.”

  He lowered his mouth to hers, drawing the life that remained from her body and storing it for the new form she would take once they returned to the Shadow Realm. In doing so, he risked the possibility of having to give up his rank as a shadow guard, but that mattered naught for he would forever be Elena’s shadow warrior.

  About the Author

  Award-winning author McKenna Chase attributes her passion for penning hot, sexy romances to her husband of over twenty years. Having found her very own hero, she sets out to give her heroines their very own happily ever after as well. And the journey to get there promises to be filled with lust, laughter and longing.