Realm Book Two - Shadow Slave

by K. A. M'Lady

  Yet another lesson learned the hard way. It seemed to be my year for them.

  When we got back to the house and everyone had changed back to their human forms, I found myself sedately exhausted, my body tired, but pleasantly so.

  “You need to rest now, Rihker,” Jade said as we entered the living room. “The more you change and become accustom to your Wolf, the easier it will be. But for now, your body needs the rest.”

  “What about you? Why don’t you look tired?” I asked as I glanced from him to his brothers who were lethargically heading for the back bedroom that they had taken as their own. Jade took my arm and ushered me towards my bedroom. “I, like you, am Alpha,” he whispered. “The Change doesn’t affect me as it does the others. Once you become accustomed to the Change, it will be the same for you. You will be able to Change back and forth at random with little loss of stamina.”

  “When are you going to tell them, Jade?” I asked as I climbed beneath the covers of my bed, sleep already pulling at me.

  “I don’t know.” He climbed in bed beside me.

  “You might want to make it soon,” I said. “Before circumstance, fate or the Prophets themselves choose for you.”

  I fell asleep with the deep sound of his breathing wafting in my ear; the warmth and security of his body curled around me. It was strangely both comforting and a bit unsettling.

  I’d had so many things happen to my in the last few days that as my eyes closed and the darkness of sleep pulled me under my mind became filled with a plethora of macabre green images. At first it was of the forest, dark and green and full of life, beckoning me. The swaying of the wind through the high-top branches whispering against the vines. Shimmying and shushing through the underbrush, stirring up the leaves in the bracken. Pulling me along with their tiny tendrils; cool and crisp in the midnight darkness.

  Then I stood alone in a glen, the great green world around me my cloak and my cover; my she-Wolf beside me, offering her strength. And I knew I was not alone

  From deep within the forest proper there was a light; a small glowing spark amidst the darkest fauna. Hidden, at first, beyond the great dark oak. Past the standing stones of the One’s Before Us, and beyond the Hill of the Clans. Glistening. Glowing ever-so brighter. Calling out to me in the darkness. Begging me to come forth in the night. Calling me—calling out my name. Pleading for salvation.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I am ashamed of the violence of my own love,

  In this ruined house how I had hoped to be a builder!

  From Twilight in Delhi by Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib

  Translated from the Urdu by R. Parthasarathy

  I’m not sure how long I had slept; it didn’t seem very long for the shadows that were cast on the walls in my living room were long since gone; the sun beyond the tree line and on its downward descent. The others would be rising soon, Kieran among them. But I had so many questions I needed answers to. I needed the counsel of my Wise One. I needed Gimlit.

  I found him in my kitchen, a hot steaming cup of coffee in his over-large hand, extended and waiting for me as I entered my kitchen. His never questioning or judgmental turquoise eyes were calm and reassuring as always as I met them.

  “Sit, Mistress,” he stated, pulling out a chair for me. “We’ve much to talk about this evening—you and I.”

  How Gimlit always knew that I needed him, knew when I needed his calming Zen, I’ll never know. But I was so thankful for it. He’d never failed me. All these years that he’d cared for me, and never once failed me. I would never be able to express how grateful I was to him for his love and protection.

  “Your eyes speak what your heart says. There is no need for these words between us,” he said, taking my hand in his large one and laying the barest of kisses across my knuckles.

  “Gim. What is going to become of me?” I asked the one question that had been plaguing me ever since I had met that damned Wanderling and my whole world had been turned upside down. All of this Chosen shit was beginning to wear heavy on me, and I didn’t think I was up to bearing it. What if they were wrong? What if they picked the wrong girl—the wrong Halfling? I grunted at that.

  I’m not even a half-breed anymore—I’m just a mixed bag of Other World tricks.

  “The Prophets know who and what they have chosen, Rihker. You are Pixie and now, you are more. It matters not the blood. What matters is what you do with it.”

  I could only stare at him. Him and all of his prophetic wisdom. His mind reading. His ability to see into the deepest reaches of my soul and pick out that which is the root of the problem and then say the right thing to soothe me. He’d always been able to do that.

  Some would say it had something to do with the crystal he carries in his heart. A spell that carries some of my powers, a spell that binds him to me.

  I think it’s just Gimlit. He just knows me that well.

  I am told that the more powers I gain, the less Gimlit is bound to me. That when I finally reach the point where I’ve gained all of the powers that he holds, the spell will be broken and Gimlit will then be set free.

  I’ve never been told why this spell was placed upon him, or who placed it there. I’ve never had the courage to ask—I don’t really want to know. Because truly, I’m afraid of the day that the spell is broken. Afraid that when the time comes, he will be free and will choose to walk away. It is a thought I cannot bear.

  My thoughts must have wandered a little further than I had intended and Gimlit must have picked up on them, for he said, “We will see what that day brings us, Mistress. Together.”

  I didn’t want to talk about it. The possible pain wasn’t something I wanted to deal with at this particular moment. I had far too much shit on my plate, and there was no sense in adding anymore.

  “I had a dream last night, Gim.”

  He cocked his pale grey head and looked at me, interest in his pale turquoise eyes. “Tell me.”

  “Something. No, someone was calling me from the forest. Someone filled with such glorious Light. I’ve never seen the likes of it before.”

  “It was not a trick of the Darkness?” he asked, worry writ on his brow as he considered my tale.

  “No. But the strange thing is that the forest itself was filled with an immense Darkness. I could feel it just skimming the edges of my dream, lurking in the shadows and the underbrush. Creeping its way along every living thing. But the voice that was calling out to me, it was pleading with me to save it. And the Light; the Light was, well, it was only a glimmer at first,” I said, lost in the memory of my dream, the vividness of my vision so real to me I could still see it playing out before me as though it were happening again. “The closer I got to it, the brighter it became and the more radiant it made me feel.”

  “Then you must find this Light,” he said. “Do you know where it was calling you from?”

  I looked at him sheepishly, shrugged and looked into my coffee cup. I knew, but he wasn’t going to like it. Hell, I wasn’t going to like it. It was never a good place for me to be.

  “Tell me, Rihker.”

  “It was calling me from The Hill of the Clans.” I whispered the words so fast I wasn’t even certain he heard me.

  “What!” No. Absolutely not!” he roared.

  “Gim. It won’t be that bad. You can go with me.”

  “Do you have any idea what your mother will do if you just show up there?” he ranted. I could see the cold fury in his eyes. Not at me, but at the prospect of my going home. We’d already delayed one appointment with my Queen and she was pretty pissed off about it. But now, to show up for no reason other than something was calling me from the Darkness of a dream. A bright, brilliant Light, no less, pleading for me to save it. Oh, yeah, pissed off wasn’t even going to cover it.

  “Then I guess we’d better come up with a reason. Besides, you know what Maebe said: ‘Seek your answers by a mother’s light; beyond the secret brother’s door. If that dream wasn’t a sign from the Prophet
s, I don’t know what the hell it was.”

  “What of the Queen’s anger with you, Rihker? What of the reckoning you have coming for my involvement with you? What are we to do to keep her from taking you over while you are in her home—the place of her power? How am I to keep you safe from that?” For the first time I saw real concern in Gimlit’s eyes, and it wasn’t something I liked. Quite frankly, it pissed me off. He was supposed to be my Guardian—not the other way around. And once again, it was my mother, my fucking dysfunctional family taking something from me. Well, I was not about to stand for it.

  “Don’t worry, Gim,” I said, reaching out to take his hand. “ I’ll figure something out.”

  “She seems to have a knack for figuring out the difficult. It must be another one of her gifts.”

  I turned to see Kieran standing in the doorway of the kitchen, his long black hair hanging in waves just past his shoulders, his dark amethyst eyes smoldering in the coming twilight. I hadn’t been certain that he’d even come home last night. Nor that it had grown late enough for him to rise again if he did.

  Just seeing him made my body ache with want of things that I knew I could have—if only I asked. Hot, wet, delicious things to make you cry out with blissful delight.

  “I will leave you for now, Mistress.” Gimlit rose from the table. He stopped beside me long enough to lay his hand on my shoulder, relaying a message of support. I’m not sure if it was for me and our conversation, or for what was about to happen with the Death Stalker who had wandered to the other room.

  With a deep sigh, I got up from the kitchen table and went to find Kieran. He was pissed at me. I couldn’t blame him. But it wasn’t necessarily my fault. We tried to contact him. To call him several times, in fact. It was he who never came.

  What the hell was I supposed to do? I didn’t ask to go all furry. I didn’t ask to take Jade as a mate. He should have been there for me. The fact that he wasn’t only pissed me off more.

  He was standing by the front door, his departure apparent. His avoidance of me even more apparent.

  “Where is it you go at night when you first awaken?” I asked, grinding the stake in just that little bit more. The question hung suspended in the air between us like a dead thing, mutilated and vile. Repulsive, a thing that we didn’t wish to touch.

  “Now is not the time, Rihker.”

  “Why, Kieran? I’ve a lot to say to you. Like where the hell were you when I needed you? You can be pissed about the whole Jade thing, but had you answered you damn phone—or even answered the summons of your own people—maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation. So what?” I asked, not even pausing to let him answer. “You get to be pissed and we get nothing? Bullshit. And now you’re leaving again? Where are you going, Kieran? What if something else happens? What then?”

  Looking back at me, he sighed and I could feel the sorrow span the distance between us. I could see it lingering in the dark shadows of his amethyst eyes.

  “Do not ask of me things you do not wish to truly know the answers to, Rihker.”

  “How do you know I don’t want the answers?” I asked, my words clipped, not understanding his response. God! Did he think that just because he’d been dead for a thousand years and more that he knew everything?

  He knew nothing! Least of all, me.

  “You are not ready,” he replied, his own voice a soft whisper in the darkness of my soul as he turned to walk away.

  In that instant I knew of only one place he could possibly go that he wouldn’t answer. One person who had enough power over him to keep him from answering our call.

  “If you walk out that door, Kieran—if you’re going to her—don’t bother coming back,” I told him, anger filling my words like a slap.

  I hoped it hurt, too. Because that is how his leaving me to go to that white bitch made me feel. How could he? After all she’d done to him—to us? For Prophets sake! What the hell was he thinking?

  Suddenly he was on me; the stir of the curtains marking his movement and I hadn’t even heard him cross the room.

  “Do you know what it is to hunger, Rihker?” he growled as his fingers tightened around my arms, pinning me to the wall.

  “Do you know what it is to truly hunger for a life and a freedom that you know you will never see again?” His sanity was slipping into a dark void of pain.

  I had no words with which to respond to him as I looked into the endless well of suffering that marked his existence. I’d pulled this demon’s tail, and I was going to have to suffer the consequences.

  “Do you know what it is to live a thousand years with an ache so deep in your belly; a wound clawing its way from a soul that you no longer own but you feel it like a shadow in your mind, brushing against your bones, against your very flesh; and you swear you feel it every night of your life just upon waking as that first hint of breath and life rushes into your pores exploding like a million points of light.”

  “Do you?” he growled, the grip on my arms tightening in his anger.

  “It is a surge of power so miraculous that you’re certain it is what the memory of dawn must feel like. But you know as the cold sludge of Darkness fills you up and gives you breath, you’ll never know the warmth of its beauty again.”

  His voice had grown so angry and cold; the chill of it seeping into my bones. I could feel his emptiness like a black void in the far reaches of my memory; filling me up, then tearing me down until nothing remained but a sad, lonely ache inside of me.

  “Do you know what it’s like to walk this earth knowing that you’ve lived a thousand years; waking, walking, and feeding while you’ve failed all of those who have turned to dust in their grave a millennium before you? Those who swore their allegiance to you, spilled their blood for you, gave their very lives and souls for you? Those who loved you—called you brother, husband, and friend?” he gasped, his eyes fading to black, filling with blood-red tears that I knew he would not shed.

  “The deaths of those I loved will walk with me as long as I walk this earth—and she did that to me. She did that, Rihker.”

  My throat was a knot of tension. I wanted to speak, but his anger was all encompassing, his pain so deep, so real there were no words that could ease such tremendous heartache.

  “They are now the shadows that live in this empty husk that has no soul,” he groaned as he clutched me to him. His voice hollow, dark with hatred as he continued, “Believe me when I tell you I have no love for Jirvel.”

  “Kieran, I’m sorry,” I whispered, ashamed that I’d made him confess so much when I knew it hurt him so deeply. I knew that it cost him to reveal so much of himself to me. His past was not something we spoke of. It was a wound that he still bore so deeply, and I had made him pick at the scab of it.

  With a sigh of regret, he took my face gently into his hands and laid the barest of kisses upon my lips, not allowing me to speak further.

  “Regardless of my hatred for her, Rihker,” he said, pressing his forehead to mine, “regardless that she brings the Darkness to all that she touches, she is still my maker—the maker of my shadows—and I am still her slave.”

  “But why do you have to go to her?” I asked, still unsure of what he was doing. Of why he was leaving me to go to her.

  “Because I must,” he said with a heartfelt sigh of despair. “For now, she calls and I must answer. Don’t you see, she has taken over my home, Rihker. Killed my people. It is she who holds the power in this game.”

  “So how do we take the power back?” I asked, deadly serious. I’d be damned if I’d have that white bitch pulling Kieran’s strings like some puppet master. Pulling any of our strings for that matter.

  “This is not a game you are ready to play, lass. But I do appreciate your bravado. In my time, you would have made one hell of a man,” he said with a small smile. “But Jirvel is a master’s master. She holds great power.”

  It was a sideways compliment if ever I’d heard one and I wasn’t sure exactly how to take it, so instead
I said, “But you walked away from her once.”

  “Aye, once. And she is making certain that I am reminded of my folly. But it is not just Jirvel who is the problem. She has with her Le Note as well as Blaen and the Wolves that run in his pack. There is something more. Some dark power surrounding her. Something I can not place.”

  “I thought we killed most of Blaen’s flunkies,” I stated, my brain trying to figure out who exactly we needed to kill and the most expeditious way to go about it. Probably not the most legal form of thinking for a Hunter. But the means of Court laws weren’t always the same as the human laws. We tended to clean up our own messes.

  Plus, with a Death Stalker uprising stirring up the pot, I could always blame it on that. And who’s to say that Jirvel and her little band of miscreants weren’t part of that problem anyway.

  “We did,” he said, catching what must have been a gleam of mischief in my eye. “What are you thinking, Rihker? I can see the wheels turning just behind those beautiful silvery-red eyes of yours.”

  “When did the information about the Vampire uprising start?”

  “I am not certain. There have been whispers here and there for some months. Why?”

  “Don’t you find it a little strange that Jirvel decides, out of nowhere, to come and seek you out? To take over your home and slaughter the majority of your enforcers?”

  Kieran stepped away from me, his eyes beginning to lose their luster of purple as his anger once again began to build. “Go on,” he said as he paced a few steps away.

  “Well, who’s to say that she’s not somehow involved with this uprising? Didn’t Xavier say that you are either to be destroyed or are set to rule? At this point, your position is very precarious. That is why he ordered you under house arrest with me. So that I can protect you. To have you running off to what I’d consider the enemy camp, alone—well, that could very well cost you your life.”