Shadowbound

by Dianne Sylvan

  They stared at each other for a minute. Jonathan lowered his eyes first, staring off into the cold fireplace with a slow shake of his head, and the anger Deven could feel radiating from him faded back into worry, then sadness.

  The emotion reverberating down the bond between them was more painful than a stab wound could ever be. He crossed the room and knelt in front of his Consort’s chair, taking his hands and kissing them softly. Their eyes met again, apology written in both hazel and lavender.

  Deven smiled up at him. “That makes, what, five hundred times we’ve had that argument?”

  It took Jonathan a breath to smile back. “At least.”

  “It’s as silly now as it was in 1952.”

  “Yes . . . but I’m still right.”

  Deven rested his head on Jonathan’s knee for a moment. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

  “I want you to want to live,” he replied.

  Deven was about to reply when his phone chimed, and one of the Elite said, “Sire, your presence has been requested by the Weaver . . . somewhat urgently.”

  The Pair frowned at each other. “I’m on my way,” Deven said. He stood, squeezing Jonathan’s hands as he did so, and said, “I wonder what’s wrong.”

  Jonathan leaned back, looking defeated. “I’m sure whatever it is, you can solve it by taking your clothes off.”

  Deven froze, eyes narrowing. “What?”

  Chagrin. “Nothing, baby, I’m just in a bad mood.” At Deven’s raised eyebrow, he added, “I mean it. That was a cheap shot, and I’m sorry.” He held on to Deven’s hands for a second, looking down at them and then up into his eyes. “I love you just as you are,” Jonathan said. “The worst of you and the best. I just wish you could see what I see in you . . . how amazing you are.”

  Deven looked away, suddenly aching. “I don’t deserve you.”

  Now, Jonathan grinned. “Probably not. But neither I nor the Elf deserves you either.”

  He looked back at his Consort with a sigh. “Jonathan, nothing is going to happen between us. I don’t want it to. Sure, I’m attracted to him, but who wouldn’t be? But it’s nothing . . . I mean it.”

  Jonathan’s grin turned into a laugh. “Oh, darling, you’re adorable when you’re stupid. Now go see what’s going on . . . I’ll be here whenever you get back.”

  Despite Jonathan’s return to his upbeat manner, as Deven walked down the hall toward Nico’s room, he found himself deeply troubled by the entire conversation. It wasn’t the argument, really—as he’d said, they’d had the same one many times before, and it was never going to be resolved. When they’d first Paired, it had been bitter and lengthy; by now they had it down to less than two minutes. Most of the time Jonathan supported his Prime’s methods, but once in a while he lost patience with Deven’s arrogance and recklessness. Deven didn’t blame him.

  No . . . this was something else. Ever since the Elf had come into their lives . . . no, now that he thought about it, it had started before that, right at the same time Deven had begun to break down after he murdered Eladra.

  Was it possible that Jonathan was breaking down, too, thanks to the bond? That the dissolution of Deven’s life force had seeped along the bond to Jonathan and was still damaging him even though Deven himself was better? Perhaps Nico could help him, too, if that was the case. If he didn’t, eventually the problem would echo back to Deven again, an endless feedback loop that destroyed them both piece by piece.

  Or perhaps that wasn’t it either. The imbalance in Jonathan’s behavior reminded Deven very strongly of how the Consort had acted after he foresaw the events that led up to the Awakening . . . and also when he’d Seen, years ago, that the flame-haired woman who had burned her way into David’s heart would be swallowed by dark water. However those visions had ended up, Jonathan had suffered from that knowledge, and it seemed he was suffering again. He hadn’t said anything about a precog episode, but it wouldn’t be the first time he kept one to himself.

  “Good God,” Deven muttered. “What’s going to go wrong now?”

  He reached the guest suite, where the Elite who had called him still stood guard and opened the door for him as he approached.

  He felt uncharacteristically nervous as he stepped across the threshold. He had no idea what the Elf wanted, but since that night on the balcony Deven had stayed away from him as much as possible, coming into contact only during their healing sessions. That was all the intimacy he could bear.

  “Nico?” Deven walked through the suite, and though the light in the bedroom was on, the Elf was nowhere to be found. The door to the terrace stood ajar, and he went to it and stepped outside, calling again.

  The Elf stood facing away, silhouetted against the shadows below and the starlit night above. He didn’t answer.

  “You called,” Deven said. “Is everything all right?”

  Nico turned toward him, and Deven took a step back—fury, pure and smoldering, was written in every line of the Elf’s body. “What did I tell you?”

  Bewildered, Deven just gaped at him. He’d never seen Nico angry; in fact he’d only ever seen him implacably calm, except that one moment when they had nearly kissed. Wrath shone from his dark eyes, and it was as attractive as it was disturbing. “I don’t understand,” Deven managed.

  “I told you that the work I had done was still fragile,” Nico said. “I told you not to exert yourself physically or emotionally because it could undo everything I had done and send you back into the abyss. And what did you do tonight?”

  “How did you know—”

  “I felt it.” He cut Deven off. “We are still connected. I felt you seek out violence—and do not tell me the enemy came after you. I know you went into the city looking for a fight. I felt your bloodlust, satisfaction at the kill, over and over. And then that lust heightened when you took the renewed strength I had given you and used it to torture a man to death.”

  “I wasn’t aware that your help came with strings attached,” Deven said icily. “I thought you were here to help me, not what you could make me into. You and Jonathan both think you can tame me like some unruly horse and teach me to canter on command. You’re both wrong. I will do my job as I see fit, and neither of you will raise a hand to stop me.”

  “Oh?” Nico crossed his arms and moved closer, anger turning to steel both in his voice and in his eyes. “And if I do, what then? Will you torture me, too?”

  Deven glared up into his eyes, knowing his own had gone silver. His teeth extended slightly and he forced them back up, but not before Nico saw them and paled a shade. “Was that a dare?” Deven asked in a cold, quiet voice.

  A moment passed where the only sounds were the forest beyond and the hard, angry breathing of vampire and Elf. The world hung suspended for a few seconds, the night around them waiting.

  Then Nico seized him by the shoulders and hauled Deven against him, his mouth covering the Prime’s with such intensity that Deven was, momentarily, too stunned to respond. Between one heartbeat and the next his paralysis broke, and he grabbed the front of Nico’s shirt and kissed back until they were both completely breathless, practically clawing at each other in the frantic need to touch.

  This time, Nico was the one to push away; he released Deven with a gasp and backed up to the balcony wall. “I am sorry,” he panted. “I should not have done that.”

  “Not your fault,” Deven said weakly. “I make everybody angry.”

  There was anguish in the Elf’s dark eyes. “I am not angry,” he replied. “I am afraid.”

  “I scare a lot of people, too.” Deven smiled, though his heart felt sick and shaky. “What . . . what are you afraid of?”

  Nico turned out toward the forest and said nothing for a minute, seeming to draw strength from the view. His long-fingered hands, pressed flat on the wall, clenched for a moment and then fell helplessly to his sides. He searched for words a while before answering.

  “I am afraid of you,” he admitted, sounding relieved to get the w
ords out. “Afraid of what I feel when I am near you. Afraid to leave this place without telling you the truth.” He met Deven’s eyes and said very quietly, “I ask nothing of you—I only want to know you, in whatever way you will allow. I will happily accept friendship, if you would accept mine . . . but with the work we have done together I cannot lie to you . . . I love you. I am terrified of what you are, of what may come, but I love you all the same.”

  The world spun. In all his long life he’d heard only a handful of men say those words. Jonathan had first said it in wonder, only a few hours after they’d met; David had said it almost shyly, then again and again, the first night they lay together. Both times Deven’s heart had reeled from it, and from the realization that he loved them, too, though in both cases he’d waited to say it back until they’d been together long enough that he was no longer so scared of losing them.

  He knew the Elf was waiting for him to say something, anything. It was such an overwhelming, confusing barrage of feelings, he sagged back against the wall, unable to entirely comprehend it: He loves me. I am loved . . . by yet another, when I don’t deserve any of it. Why do they keep loving me? Why don’t they see what I really am?

  Nico was watching him, and asked softly, “Is it so difficult to believe?”

  The question opened a great chasm of sorrow in his chest, and he said, barely at a whisper, “Yes.”

  That seemed to decide something for the Elf, who came to him silently. Arms wrapped slowly around him; Nico kissed him gently on the lips, then leaned so that their foreheads touched. In that moment Deven felt something so rare and precious his eyes burned: peace.

  Oh, how he wanted to stay . . . to let the Elf lead him by the hand into the cool dark of his room, and let him prove his words over and over again all day . . . but another part of him, just as adamant, refused.

  With a reluctant sigh, he drew away. Nico smiled a little wistfully but let him go without complaint.

  “Tomorrow,” the Weaver said. “We shall have one last session—by then you will be as healed as you can be. I will stay a few days after that to ensure the matrix is stable.”

  Deven nodded. “Very well.”

  They stared at each other for another minute; then Nico said, “Your Consort is a lucky man, to have such loyalty.”

  It started as a laugh but ended up sounding strangled. “Jonathan deserves better,” he said as he turned to walk away. “So do you.”

  Five

  “Tell me the truth,” Miranda said, her eyes on the shadowy shapes passing by the car window. The glass had a new special coating David had created that enabled them to leave the house in the last hours of daylight without the massive headaches they got from sunlight through normal UV-blocking tint. “Please. Why won’t he talk to me? Did I do something? Is it too weird to be close to me with David back?”

  Jonathan chuckled. “No, sweetheart, that’s not it at all—it has nothing to do with you. And I would love nothing more than to tell you everything, but I can’t—not without talking to him first.”

  The Queen sighed. His assertion didn’t make her feel any better. “Yeah, okay.”

  “I can tell you this much . . . it was bad. Very bad. I wasn’t entirely sure he was going to make it.”

  “What?” She sat up straight. “Not make it as in die? What the hell, Jonathan? How could you not ask for help?”

  “We did, just . . . not you. Someone came to help us, and I think it worked.”

  “Someone . . .” Miranda gripped the phone tightly. “That’s all you can say.”

  “Well . . . okay, do you remember what he told David about finding someone to help rebond you two?”

  “Right, something about a magic stone and calling people with Elven blood, like a really badass Witch.” She raised an eyebrow. “You found a badass Witch?”

  “Heavy on the badass, not so much a Witch. He calls himself a Weaver—it’s a pretty specialized craft.”

  “Is this guy . . . are you sure he’s on our side? There’s nothing weird about him?”

  Jonathan laughed outright. “Oh, darling, you have no idea. But trust me, whatever our side is, he’s on it.”

  Miranda heard something in his words that he probably hadn’t intended. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “It’s nothing, really . . . I’m pretty sure he’s in love with Deven, is all.”

  “That’s nothing? You sound awfully calm about it.”

  “Why shouldn’t I be?” A note of exasperation entered the Consort’s voice. “Why does everyone think I’m lying when I say I don’t mind him having lovers?”

  “Because we’re not talking about a shag-for-sport, if there’s love involved. It upset you when he slept with David, even though you knew that was coming. This time it’s not even someone he has a long history with.”

  He sighed. “I want him to be happy.”

  “That wasn’t an answer, Jonathan.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be an answer, Miranda.” He paused, then said, “It doesn’t bother me.”

  “You sound bothered.”

  “I said it doesn’t bother me—I didn’t say I wasn’t bothered. Right now, it doesn’t matter—Dev’s fighting it, trying to do the right thing by me, and I’m trying to think of it as sweet rather than ridiculous. You know him—his answer for everything is either denial or bloodshed. But there are things that could happen, events that might unfold. I don’t know exactly what.” He spoke over the question she was already forming. “I don’t know whether it’s going to turn out to be good or bad. But I know that whatever it is, this is how it starts. I can’t say I’m all that enthusiastic about the possibilities. You know the kinds of things I see . . . they’re almost never good, at least, not at the outset.”

  She leaned back in her seat, biting her lip, feeling a sudden urge to cry for no real reason. Jonathan was right—his precognitive visions had foretold terrible things, even though at least one, her own death, had ended well for her. “Are you sure you can’t tell me what you saw?”

  “I would if I could.”

  Miranda closed her eyes and forced herself to say, “Okay. If you get any more details, let me know. After everything we’ve all been through together I really don’t like being kept in the dark.”

  She could hear him smile. “You’ll be the first to hear about it. Be careful tonight. The only thing worse than vampire drama is family drama.”

  “I’ll do my best. I’ll talk to you later.”

  After she hung up, she took a deep breath, wiping impatiently at her eyes. What the hell did Jonathan think he was doing? He should have known better . . . but she wasn’t sure whether it was the fact that he had flat-out lied to her, or the thought of him carrying the weight of whatever was coming, that brought tears to her eyes.

  She knew perfectly well he’d seen more than he said. They all knew that Jonathan’s precog gift was startlingly clear. Sometimes what he saw had a different meaning than it appeared to at first, and sometimes the images were jumbled, but he always saw in detail.

  Miranda started to call David, but even as her finger pulled up his number, Minh said from the front seat, “Rio Verde, my Lady. We’ll be at the address you gave me in five minutes.”

  “Oh, hell,” she muttered, then louder, “Thank you.”

  It would have to wait a couple of hours. She wasn’t sure which she wanted to deal with less—her sister or Jonathan’s doomsday predictions. Both made her stomach hurt and her heart feel heavy. Neither promised a good day’s sleep nor any sort of satisfaction.

  She took another deep breath to try to ground out some of her anxiety. This at least would be over with soon. By morning she’d be home again, in Austin where she belonged.

  • • •

  Miranda got out of the car and stood in the driveway for a minute, staring at the house, feeling . . . she wasn’t sure what.

  The house looked the same, and not. The property was a little shabbier overall, though the lawn was still perfectly manicur
ed. The same black mailbox she had run to every afternoon to grab the bills and circulars for her mother was still on its brick pedestal by the road. Even the house numbers still hung where they always had, though they had rusted: 2219.

  Minh and Stuart disembarked behind her and waited for her orders. She gestured for them to follow—she intended to have them wait outside but knew David would have a coronary if she left them in the car altogether. With everything they’d been through, she was a lot less likely to dismiss his concerns for her safety than she would have been in the past.

  She had two knives under her coat, just in case. She hadn’t wanted to wear Shadowflame into such close quarters where there would, no doubt, be awkward questions, but hell if she was going anywhere unarmed. If she did, David and Deven would both have coronaries.

  Rio Verde hadn’t stood the test of time very well. The town was in a slow and steady decline since Paragon Petroleum had closed up shop and withdrawn to Houston. Young people didn’t move here anymore . . . except for her sister.

  She rang the bell; no answer. She frowned and tried again. Still no answer. They knew she was coming; she’d gotten an e-mail from Marianne that very morning verifying the time.

  Miranda was just about to take out her phone when she heard the deadbolt shoot back and, a second later, a pale face peered out at her.

  They stared at each other: the prodigal daughter, the good daughter. Marianne looked like she had aged a hundred years—she was thin and worn-looking, with dark circles under her eyes and a dullness in both her eyes and hair. Marianne hadn’t inherited their mother’s coloring; she had their father’s olive skin, brown eyes, and brown hair. Still, once upon a time Stephen Grey had been a handsome man, and Marianne had a sort of classic beauty Miranda had envied throughout their teenage years. Now, though . . .

  “Oh, you’re here,” Marianne said vaguely. “Come in.”