Rising Darkness (A GAME OF SHADOWS NOVEL)

by Thea Harrison

  “There you are,” she said in a blurred voice to the radiant silhouette. “I’ve missed you so. I had the strangest dream. . . .”

  Déjà vu swept over her, and her half-conscious mind groped after the feeling. Hadn’t she said this before? Hadn’t she said it many times as a small child, as she blinked up at her mother’s bewildered, frightened face?

  Mommy, I had the strangest dream.

  I dreamed I was—

  She slammed awake for real. The brilliant radiance faded.

  An unknown man knelt over her, silhouetted against the headlights of a car. She looked from the strange man to the ring of watching wolves and knocked away the hands that rested on her torso. Quick as a cobra, he grabbed her wrists and pinned her to the ground. She strained against the restraint, her heels scrabbling for purchase on the loose rocks.

  The man shook her once, then again, harder, as she continued to struggle. “Stop it,” he ordered. His voice sounded harsh and rough as the rocks upon which she lay.

  She was bewildered at the strange tricks her own mind played on her. She didn’t recognize this man. She had never seen him before in her life.

  He was not Spring Jacket or Sport Coat. He was someone different. Someone new, bigger. Stronger, more deadly.

  She made a terrified sound, bent her head and tried to sink her teeth into one of those iron hands shackling her wrists.

  With an agile twist the man avoided her bite. The world pitched as he heaved her body up and around. He was so strong and fast, panic surged all over again at how easily he manipulated her weight.

  She kicked and clawed for his eyes but somehow ended up sitting between long, powerful jeans-clad legs, crushed back against the man’s hard chest, her arms crossed in front of her while he held her wrists. She tried to butt her head back into his nose. He hugged her tight and buried his face in her neck.

  She recognized the position. It was a safe restraint hold, and it was as effective as a straitjacket. The whiskery skin covering the man’s jaw abraded her neck, but no matter how she yanked or struggled, she couldn’t budge his long, tough body.

  Finally, defeated, she stilled. Her blood pounded in her ears, her breathing serrated in the cold quiet night. Her captor’s breathing was unruffled. Gradually she became aware of the wolves’ sharp animal interest in the fight. She stared. The wolves, while a quieter presence, were as much of a bizarre image as the attacking hawks had been.

  Hardly aware that she spoke aloud, she whispered, “I don’t understand.”

  “Maybe now we can get somewhere,” the man said. His voice was rough velvet in her ear, the proximity mimicking a loverlike intimacy.

  She shrank as far away as his tight hold would allow. The sense of profound recognition still beat at her, along with an upsurge of revulsion at his unwelcome nearness. She knew that she had never heard his voice before. The contradictory impulses were so strong, she felt like she was going insane.

  “If you fight me or try to get away, I will tie you up,” the man said. “If you promise not to, I will let you go. If you break your promise, I tie you up and you stay tied up. No second chances.”

  If he tied her up she was helpless and as good as dead. If she was free at least she had choices, and a chance to get away. Of course she said, “I promise.”

  “Right,” he grunted. She knew he didn’t believe her, but he let her go anyway. She took the opportunity to scramble away from him, her shoes digging into the gravel until he warned her with three soft-spoken words. “That’s far enough.”

  She’d only managed to get a couple of yards away, while her nerves screamed a chaotic, contradictory nonsense. She was still too close and needed to scramble farther away. But at the same time, she was too far away and needed to fling herself forward, into his arms.

  And just as she had known about his voice, she knew that she had never seen his face before in her life.

  INSANE INSANE INSANE.

  The screaming in her head cut off abruptly as he raised himself up on one knee to strip off a battered jean jacket. He wore a gun in a shoulder holster. She froze.

  [We’ll kill everybody. Not that we’d mind. We like to kill.]

  Her breathing sawed at the air. Nails ripped as her fingers dug into the gravel. She clutched handfuls of the rock, ready to throw them while her gaze darted around the edges of his body.

  She could see no sign of the smudged black that had surrounded Spring Jacket and Sport Coat.

  But she didn’t even know what that meant.

  The man flung his jacket at her. It settled over her head and shoulders. She dropped gravel to yank it off her head. A huge wolf padded over to her and sat down nearby. She froze and tried to control her jagged breathing. Her gaze slid sideways to the wolf then back at the man. The man was watching her with an intent gaze.

  The harsh flood of light threw a mask of crags and hollows onto his face. Underneath the mask he was neither handsome nor ugly. He was not a young man, although he was still in his prime. His hair, cut military-short, was so dark it seemed black in the harsh light, and his eyes were colorless like moonstones.

  She might have passed him on a busy street without a second glance, except for the lithe bulk of muscles that strained against his dark T-shirt and the taut material of his jeans, the piercing intelligence in those light eyes and the razor’s edge of toughness he wore as comfortably as a second skin. He bore himself with a soldier’s competent assurance.

  He knelt on one knee as he faced her, the lines of his body strung as taut as a bow. Her gaze fell to the clenched fist resting on the upraised knee where broad scarred knuckles shone white. He looked ready to spring at her at the slightest provocation. Whoever he was, and whatever his motivations, this man was a whole different kind of danger than Spring Jacket and Sport Coat.

  And he had that gun.

  Her gaze left him again and traveled back to the wolf. The man and the wolf seemed to have something in common. At first she couldn’t pinpoint what. Then she realized what it was. They were both looking at her with the same expression.

  She became aware she was shivering only when the man gestured at the jacket she held and said, “Put it on.”

  Her shivering increased until uncontrollable tremors racketed through her body. She felt as hollow as a reed. After a frozen moment she shrugged into the jacket.

  The material still held warmth from his body. It smelled like him, which set off the cacophony in her head again. Some part of her that felt horrifically starved wanted to bury her face in the material and inhale that clean, fresh male scent. At the same time, she wanted to tear it off and throw it screaming back in his face.

  She struggled to find the soft calm voice she used to de-escalate violent situations in the ER. The only thing was, she wasn’t sure which one of them needed to de-escalate. She managed to say, “Thank you.”

  He tilted his head, eyes narrowing. Then he rose with a light, fluid movement that made her recoil as her heart kicked. He must have decided that she was a pathetic flight risk, for he only moved to her car. He returned a moment later, the plastic bag from the convenience store held in one hand as he pocketed her keys with the other. After rummaging through the contents of the bag, he took one of the sandwiches then handed the bag to her.

  She clutched the shopping bag then sat frozen. Shit, he took her keys.

  He knelt near her again, tore open the wrapper on the sandwich and ate it in quick, strong bites. She watched every move he made out of the corner of her eye, her face half averted.

  He nodded to the bag. “Eat something.”

  She said, “I’d rather not.”

  He frowned and shot a glance down her huddled figure. “Do it anyway. You need the calories, and it will help you warm up.”

  Stung by his critical look, resentful that he was right and mindful of his greater strength and the gun, she dug out the second sandwich, opened the wrapping and snapped off a bite. As she tasted tuna, her stomach threatened to revolt. Then it set
tled and she managed to eat most of the sandwich until she caught sight of the wolf again.

  She turned to look at the strong, powerfully muscled animal. The wolf’s yellow impassive gaze regarded her. Obeying a half-formed impulse, she took the last corner of her sandwich and placed it with care on the ground between them.

  He held her gaze for a long moment. Then with slow deliberation and a remarkable delicacy, he bent his head and ate the offering. The strange man watched the interaction with an unreadable expression.

  “Huh,” she grunted. She bent her head and knuckled her eyes. Sharp points from the gravel dug into her ass. Her body started to ache again in places where she had forgotten she had been hurt.

  She must have pulled onto private property. The wolves had to be trained. Maybe they were wolf-shepherd hybrids. They must belong to the man. They would probably run her down if she tried to get away

  Her flimsy attempt at logic crumbled. She spoke to the alpha wolf in the same way she spoke to her daemon. I had a dream about you. You said you had answered my call for help. You said you’re here to protect me?

  Silence unfurled in the clearing. She felt like a fool.

  Then the wolf said, Yes.

  The simple word came into her head from a place outside of herself. Her lips parted. This was far beyond her daemon, which could, after all, be explained away as a construct of her own mind. She reached out to the wolf but didn’t quite dare touch him. I am . . . very grateful. Thank you.

  Sister, the wolf said.

  Beyond trying to make her experiences fit into any logical scientific framework, she thought of the hawks that had fought off her attackers, and rapid words burst out of her. I don’t understand what’s going on. Please don’t let this man hurt me—

  The wolf lowered its head. We can only protect, he said. We cannot heal. The warrior can help you more than we can. You must let him.

  But—but—Her gaze went back to the man who watched her with hard, expressionless eyes.

  He had pinned her down. He scared her.

  He pinned her after she woke and started fighting him. She had tried to bite him too.

  But he didn’t have to pin her down. Why didn’t he just back away? He threatened to tie her up, and no amount of rationalizing could make that okay.

  The man remained silent, as if knowing better than she the kind of thoughts that raced through her mind.

  She said aloud, again, “I don’t understand. Who are you? What do you want?” An avalanche of questions piled up behind those two. She had to bite her lips to keep from shrieking them.

  The man said, “You can call me Michael. What I want is irrelevant.”

  He reached out a hand. The panic hit her low and hard, slamming into her gut. She cringed from the hand and scrambled away. She didn’t stop until she had put several feet between them.

  Only then did she realize that he hadn’t moved. She huddled into the overlarge jacket, head down, and dared to look sideways at him.

  He knelt frozen, his hand outstretched to her, palm up. Nothing moved in the clearing, not even the wind through the trees. The stoic expression in his hard face and blank eyes never changed. He looked prepared to take any blow and not budge.

  It took a moment before she realized he was silently asking for her plastic bag of food. She hesitated then inched forward to offer it to him, holding the bag as far away from her body as she could.

  Moving only his hand, slow and easy, he took the bag from her. He pulled out a packet of trail mix, tore it open and shook some into his hand as he said, “I hear you were attacked and some people were killed. Where did this happen?”

  She pulled his jacket tighter around her torso. “How did you hear that?”

  His colorless gaze lifted to her. “A wind spirit. Hawks.”

  “My daemon talked to you?” She lifted her head but couldn’t sense any ethereal presence hovering nearby. “Where is it? You didn’t hurt it, did you?”

  His glance admonished her for the question. “I sent it to someone, with news.” He chucked the handful of mix into his mouth.

  She felt a sharp pang of loss. “You had no business doing that. It can’t leave me—I needed it. It was going to show me how to get somewhere.” Part of her found room for amazement. She laughed. “Listen to us. We sound like lunatics. We’re talking about something that can’t exist. The two of us are the same kind of crazy.”

  “I’m not crazy,” the man named Michael said. He shook more mix into his mouth. He didn’t look crazy either. He looked like a tired man after a long, hard day. His gaze speared her. “But I figure you’ve got to be pretty close to it. I’m just trying to decide how close you really are.”

  A fresh thrill of fear jangled along her nerve ends. She reached for her tattered dignity. “Whether I’m crazy or not has nothing to do with you.” She added bitterly, “And you had no right to send my daemon away.”

  The man continued to study her. “What’s your name?”

  “That’s none of your business either.” She hugged her knees, her muscles in knots.

  His lack of expression was chilling. “Listen to me carefully,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of time to debate this at length. You can’t afford to take weeks or months to decide whether or not you’re going to like or trust me. I can either help you or I can kill you. There is no middle choice. I will not let you go.”

  His words echoed in her head.

  I can kill you.

  He actually said those words to her.

  She sucked air. “So what am I now, some kind of hostage?” she hissed.

  “I didn’t say that, did I?”

  She shook her head hard. “You want me to tell you things but you don’t tell me anything, is that it?”

  “I didn’t say that either. All I said was that what I want is irrelevant, and it is.” He paused then added in an abrupt clipped tone, “You are mixed up in something far greater and older than you can understand at present. Right now you’re a danger to yourself and to others. You’re a danger to me. And you are dying, unless we can get you help from someone that I know.”

  Even her daemon had said she was dying, yet she had no visible wound. She panted as if she had been running hard, but she couldn’t get enough air in her lungs. Her composure broke. She flung both arms over her head, and rocked back and forth. “I don’t understand!”

  The man named Michael rubbed his face, his mouth held in a tense line. He said, “You don’t understand. I have answers. You’re in danger. I’m a fighter, a good one. You’re dying. I know someone who can heal you. This is not rocket science. Are you going to cooperate or not?”

  She stopped rocking, lowered her arms and looked at him with eyes hollow from trauma and weariness. “Or you’ll kill me.”

  His light, colorless gaze seared her. “No. Or I tie you up and take you with me. I’ll only kill you if you’re not salvageable, and we’re a long way from determining that. And I’ll kill us both before allowing us to be taken by the other creatures who are hunting you. Death is preferable to being at their mercy. But we have a greater chance of surviving if you cooperate.”

  “Well isn’t that a goddamn comfort.” Her voice sounded like the rest of her, stretched too thin.

  He stood. “Are you going to come willingly or not?”

  “You’re not giving me much of a choice, are you?”

  “No.”

  She looked at the Toyota. First she lost her sanity, then her home, and now her car. Soon she would end up with nothing. “What are we going to do, just abandon my car?”

  “Yes. With any luck, ditching it will slow the hunters down. It could buy us some time.” He didn’t sound like he had much hope for that to happen. He walked over and held out his hand.

  She ignored it and forced her aching body upright. His hand fell to his side. He had a good foot on her in height. She came just to his shoulder and had to tilt her head back to look him in the face. She said cautiously, “I was supposed to go north to a gra
ndmother.”

  “I know where you’re supposed to go,” he said. “That’s where we’re headed.”

  He knew? The lure of that pulled her more than anything else.

  She was going to cooperate with a man who stood ready to kill her because—he said—the alternative was worse. Shuddering as the wind swept through the tangle of strange forest, she felt more lost than ever before. She longed to see a safe and friendly face, someone who genuinely wished her well. Someone who was not an enigma.

  She told him, “I want my purse.”

  “I’ll get it.”

  She glanced at his gun. “I also have a first aid kit in the trunk. I want that too.”

  “I have a first aid kit.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Are you a doctor?”

  His tough, expressionless stoicism shattered. He looked stricken, as if she had knifed him without warning. She watched, uncomprehending, as his throat muscles worked. He whispered, “No I’m not.”

  “Then I’m guessing mine’s better.”

  A muscle in his jaw bunched. He gave her a short nod. He walked away to retrieve her purse and the canvas bag that held her first aid supplies.

  Then he strode toward her. Even though his large body was heavy with thick muscles, he was so light on his feet he was a symphony of graceful movement.

  Something about the fluidity of his body reminded her of the abundant golden river from earlier. His hands had rested flat on her torso as the shining stream had poured into her.

  “Wait,” she said, instinct driving her words. “When I woke up you were trying to help me in some way. Weren’t you?”

  He held the purse out to her, his gaze steady on hers. “I did help you. I bought you some time. But I can’t heal you. That’s beyond my abilities.”

  Their eyes met. She experienced a moment of light-headedness at the intensity of the connection.

  She almost said, I do know you. Don’t I?

  But her gaze dropped to the gun in his holster, and she didn’t. Instead, silently, she took her purse.