Dark Flight (The Shadow Slayers)

by Cassi Carver

  “Now back to shields…” Mazeki straightened the sleeves of his robe. “You seemed to be enjoying the slapping game—and I know I was—so let’s pick up where we left off on that one.”

  “My hands are tied,” Julian protested.

  “Oh.” Mazeki frowned. “Good point. It seems they are. You know, flashing is the most blessed gift, but when someone binds that ability, what are you to do?” And then he hauled back and planted his rock-hard fist into the left side of Julian’s face. “Minus one for you.”

  Julian literally saw stars. Bright splotches of white bobbed in his vision, but he didn’t move or even slump. He couldn’t. He was completely anchored in place.

  “Shields.” Mazeki’s voice was a sing-song, grating sound like one might hear in a preschool room. He walked to his weapons wall and gathered three items—a club, a mace and a katana. Then he returned to where Julian was seated, his gaze running over Julian’s bound hands.

  “This is fun, Julian. I really mean it. But I have a new book waiting that was just released this week. It’s the last in the series, and my servant had to stand in line for three hours to get me a signed copy. Would you mind if we moved this along?”

  Julian was going to kill this man. He might not have the strength to do it today, but if he learned how to send Brakken to the Abyss, this bastard was next. Any man who threatened Kara didn’t deserve to exist.

  “You will have three chances to improve your shields. And I’m growing bored with taking it easy on you, my boy. It’s time to show me your A-game. Ready?”

  Mazeki raised the wooden club and swung. Julian flung his shield out just as the lacquered wood connected with the side of his bubble. Mazeki grimaced and put his palm flat on the clear surface. Julian clenched his teeth, fighting the sensation of his will being taken from him. He started to sweat and tremble, daring a glance at his adversary. Mazeki looked displeased, and with a grunt and a final thrust, he tore Julian’s shield out of existence and followed with an all-out assault on Julian’s head.

  When Mazeki and his club were finished, Julian couldn’t even see through the blood streaming into his vision. He wasn’t sure that his skull was still completely intact. Somewhere, through all the pain, things felt loose in all the wrong places. “Enough,” he whispered through the remaining fragments of his teeth.

  Mazeki dropped to one knee before Julian and sneered. “It’s not nearly enough. You are the most pathetic excuse for a Son of the Sky that I have ever laid eyes on. Are you on the surface, Julian?”

  “What?” he rasped. “The surface?”

  “Are you on the surface, and am I in some dream? Because I could understand being bound and beaten to a bloody pulp on the surface. After all, it is a reality outside our own. But here? You are…wretched. Pitiful. I will be doing Kara a favor, no doubt, when I show her how a true Aniliáre takes a woman. Our females do regenerate, after all.”

  The sound of Mazeki’s laughter filtered through Julian’s torn eardrums and made his blood heat to molten lava. “I will kill you before you ever lay a finger on her.”

  Mazeki stood and retrieved the mace. Its metal-studded head looked ominous. If the club could bash Julian’s head in, what would the spikes do? Lift away chunks of his skull? The thought made him physically ill, but he pushed it down. This wasn’t about him. This was about protecting Kara. He could do whatever it took to protect Kara.

  This time, when Mazeki swung, Julian focused everything in his being on holding the shield. When his body trembled and blood oozed down his cheeks, he smiled. I am not bound to flesh and bone. I am born of spirit.

  As Mazeki beat the spiked mace into the shield, Julian attempted to relax his muscles and visualize his bones, his skin, his every cell weaving back together in perfect order. As the pain subsided, he breathed deep. And as he exhaled, he stopped breathing altogether. He was not flesh and bone needing to draw breath. He was spirit.

  When Mazeki ceased pounding on the shield and put his hand to it, Julian relaxed his wrists and watched them stretch, thinning like putty when he pulled them from the tight knot of rope.

  The other black-wing grunted, his hand at the transparent boundary beginning to glow blue with effort. His will cascaded over the shield, picking and pulling at the threads of Julian’s power. Julian closed his eyes, casting aside his fear of physical pain, simply becoming.

  Strange visions hovered at the edge of his awareness. Gavin using a claw to tear through fabric and pull a drunk and bloody Aiden from the inside of a tent… Kara bending to help Julian retrieve a wrapped bar of soap from the hall… He wasn’t sure what it all meant, so he let it recede in his mind as he focused on the here and now. And when he opened his eyes again, Mazeki was almost misty everywhere but where his hand met Julian’s shield.

  Smiling, Julian stood and raised his own hand, setting it over Mazeki’s. He reached out with his mind and his will, probing the other man’s power, learning to map it and understand it.

  A second later, Mazeki dropped his hand from the barrier and whirled. He grasped the katana and with no warning, swung it at the base of Julian’s head. At first, when it hit the barrier, Julian thought he’d instinctively raised another shield around himself. But then he realized what he was seeing and began to laugh in earnest.

  Mazeki bared his fangs and hacked at the clear wall, but it was no use. Julian had completely encased him in a perfect, round bubble.

  When the older black-wing finally tired, he flung the sword to the ground. “Very nice,” he said. “Your defensive strategies seem to be improving. Now is probably a good time to mention that I was only teasing about Kara being mine. So who wants to learn how to travel to the surface?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Kara stirred, feeling something soft trail over her forehead. She blinked, trying to adjust her eyes, but it was darker out now than when she’d gone to bed. “Gavin?”

  His smiling face and the outline of his forearm came into focus as his hand stroked her hair. He knelt beside the bed, already dressed.

  “Good morning, Kara.” Staring into her eyes, he leaned in and kissed her, his lips claiming hers in a way that left no doubt that last night had really happened and that he was immensely pleased by that fact. “How did you sleep?”

  Her eyelids fluttered as she processed the perfection of his kiss. “All right. How about you?”

  He grinned ear to ear. “I haven’t slept so well in a hundred years.”

  Kara laughed. “You know that just makes me want to ask what happened a hundred years ago, right? What was her name?”

  He ruffled Kara’s already wild hair. “Her name was Regeneration. That was the last time I had to be interred, though it only lasted a week. I much prefer the Kara Reed method.”

  “Me, too.” She rolled toward him and buried her face in his neck. She couldn’t get enough of his scent or the feel of his muscle under her fingertips. “And this is when you tell me where you’re going?”

  “Back to Nefren’s land. I need to find the next map stop.”

  “I was thinking about that. Doesn’t it make sense that if the Mount of Truth is never in the same place twice and you have to be pure of heart or whatever Mazeki said, that it’s kind of like my quest? I’m not sure that map will work for you.”

  Gavin exhaled deeply through his nose. “Unfortunately, I think you’re probably right. I was just going to take a peek and make sure the coast was clear.”

  “Okay, well if you don’t mind traveling to the Shadowland twice in one morning—cause that’s everyone’s idea of a great time—then why don’t you go scope it out while I shower and change?”

  “Beautiful plan. If I hurry, you might still be in the shower when I return.” His smile was different now—more possessive, hungrier—than it had been even the morning before. He leaned forward and kissed her again, then stood to flash. “Yes…this shouldn’t take long.”

  “Give me five minutes to clean my important parts…” She hooked a hand behind his knee and
squeezed gently. “Then come find me.”

  His gaze ran the length of her body, over the folds of the sheets that cocooned her. “It may take a little longer than that, but anything that still needs scrubbing by the time I return will get the full service. I promise.”

  The heat in his eyes was palpable, and her heart skipped a beat. “Then I’ll save a couple of places for you to service.”

  “I will take that as a solemn vow.” He smiled and then winked out of existence.

  Kara unwrapped herself from the pile of bed sheets and scampered into the bathroom. She wanted to be at least a little fresh by the time he joined her. It seemed that now they’d crossed that line in their relationship, Gavin was more than willing to provide the good in Kara’s “good morning”.

  She inspected his shower, but it was so different from what she was used to. In her small apartment, her shower was encased by a flimsy shower curtain. Gavin’s shower didn’t even have a door. It was so huge, it didn’t need one, because the spray from the three different shower heads didn’t make it to the end of the tile. One wall was glass and the others, including the floor, were a beautiful cream-colored stone.

  Here on the island, they didn’t have many simple hygiene products that she could pick up and instantly know what they were. She had to pour three different liquids from their glass bottles onto her palm before she found one that got sudsy like shampoo.

  As she lathered, her mind spun in circles, flitting over her amazing night with Gavin and then coming back round to Julian and how she was going to deal with him. When she thought of Julian, she didn’t feel guilty, exactly, but if she was being honest, she wasn’t even close to over him. She was mad as hell, yes. But she still loved him.

  Was it possible to love two men at once? It must have been because here she was, head over heels for Gavin and yet still connected to Julian by some invisible thread tethered to her heart.

  “Excuse me,” said a male voice.

  “Gavin?” Kara sputtered but just as quickly realized it wasn’t Gavin’s voice. She rinsed her eyes and glanced out through the glass, but she was still alone in the bathroom. “Wha— Yeah? Uh…I’m doing fine in here, thanks. I don’t need anything. Got a towel on the stool and everything.”

  “First of all, let me apologize. This is super awkward. I didn’t want to do this while you were in the shower, but I don’t really have a choice. And I’m not going to come in or anything. I’ll just wait over here, so no worries.”

  What the fuck? Why was he still talking, and why didn’t he sound like one of the older warriors? “Who the hell am I talking to?”

  “Oh, yeah. Good question. I can’t answer that.”

  Kara quickly rinsed, then she threw a towel around her, stalked to the other side of the bathroom and peeked around the corner. “Donald! You’re the guy from the bar—Ailexon’s scout!”

  “Oh! Hey!” The young brown-haired man squinted and thrust his hands out, as if to block his view of Kara and her towel-wrapped body. “Careful, there. Don’t want anything falling out.”

  She gripped the towel tighter, and just stared, too shocked to do much else.

  “And I am not Ailexon’s scout, by the way. But yeah, I live there.”

  “Then who the hell are you, and why are you following me? What kind of weirdo pops in on a woman’s shower?”

  Her hand came to her neck and the pendants she wore. Would it work if she called everyone she knew at once?

  “Okay,” the young man said, his hand out in supplication and his eyes locked on the charms around Kara’s neck. “Seriously…can you please just give me a minute here? The wards on this island were a total pain in the ass to get through, and you haven’t been home much lately in the Gaslamp.”

  “So you admit you were spying on me!”

  “Well, yeah. That would be pretty stupid to show up here and try to deny it.”

  “This is your last chance to tell me what’s going on. The only reason three hundred warriors aren’t flooding into this room right now is because I figure whatever you have to say must be a doozy.”

  “Stay cool. Just be calm. I’m obviously here to talk to you, but I really don’t want to rush it. That’s not how I imagined this.”

  “Okay, that’s it.” She momentarily thought about taking this guy down herself, but if she was stupid enough to touch him, he could instantly transport her to anywhere on the planet. Hell—anywhere in any realm!

  She grasped her charms hard and sent her thoughts screaming. “Code red! There’s a crazy man in my bathroom!”

  “Shit!” he exclaimed. “You just called them, didn’t you? One day, you’re going to look back on this and feel really bad.”

  “You have about three more seconds before the Mercury Lords turn your life upside down, little man.”

  “Little man? Yeah, I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Dane. I’m your brother.”

  Closer to seven seconds later, Jaxon, Aiden and Gavin found Kara sitting sprawled out on the cold bathroom tile. Her towel wasn’t even completely covering her, but she didn’t care.

  Jaxon and Gavin were immediately on their knees on either side of her, while Aiden spun to inspect the room. Jaxon was in shorts and his skin was hot, like maybe the weather back home hadn’t cooled off for the night yet.

  Gavin squeezed her hand. “Kara? What happened? Are you hurt? Did you say there was a man in here with you?”

  Kara nodded, still in shock.

  “Did he hurt you?” Jaxon demanded.

  “N-no,” Kara stammered. “I-I think I could have taken him, but I didn’t want to take the chance that he might flash me somewhere if I got too close.”

  Gavin surprised them all when he grabbed Kara and kissed her hard. His breath was still coming fast and his heart raced as though he couldn’t believe she was okay. “Praise the Maker that he blessed you with such a quick, quick mind.”

  Aiden popped his head around the corner. “Did you recognize him? Do you know who he was?”

  She glanced to Gavin as he grasped her hand. “You know the guy from last night?”

  His lips thinned, and he looked like he was going to kill someone. “The scout?”

  “Yeah. That’s Dane.” A burst of insane laughter bubbled from her lips. “My brother.”

  Aiden’s bowled-over, you’ve-got-to-be-shitting-me expression almost made it worth sitting there on the cold tile with only the very corner of a bath towel as the last line of defense between the world and Kara’s well-groomed pubes.

  “Teras wasn’t known for having many offspring. You were his first daughter, and I don’t recognize that boy as one of his sons,” Gavin said.

  “My mom’s side, maybe?”

  “No,” Aiden answered. “Deanna was my father’s wife, and she was only fifty when she died. You were her first and only child.”

  “That boy lives on Ailexon’s land, Aiden,” Gavin ground out. “It’s your father—and your opportunity to help.”

  Aiden’s mouth dropped open. “I’m not going to seek an audience with Ailexon for the first time in twenty-seven years, if that’s what you’re hinting at. Every day I wake up alive and not decapitated at the hand of one of his assassins, I count it a good day. I won’t seek out a problem just to satisfy Kara’s curiosity.”

  “You are a lord of this clan!” Jaxon argued, pushing to his feet. “All of our ladies deserve your best effort. Don’t take out your petty grievances on Kara just because she won’t spread her legs for you!”

  Aiden growled and shot forward, but Gavin thrust his palms between the two men. “Stop.”

  “Who are you to comment on my clan?” Aiden sneered. “You’ve chosen to be a witch’s plaything and turn your back on your own people. You are nothing to this clan.”

  If there was anything on the planet that could snap Kara out of her stupor, it was her friends being attacked. She jumped up, throwing one stabilizing arm around her wet towel. “Shut up, Aiden! You are such a frickin’ ass!”

/>   Gavin attempted to maneuver his body between the three of them. “Stop,” he repeated. Kara stood at Jaxon’s back on her tiptoes, glaring over his shoulder at Aiden, and Jaxon made to move forward. “I said stop!” Gavin bellowed.

  And when Gavin bellowed—people stopped.

  “This is not helping.” Gavin grasped a cord around his neck, quickly feeling for the right charm. “Liel! Come! Bring your men.”

  A few seconds later, at least a dozen silver-wings flashed into the room, surrounding them, and a few seconds after that, dozens more—wingless demi-breeds probably—pounded up the stairs.

  “Yes, my lord?” Liel asked, his sword already drawn and his body in a fighting stance. The other men were back-to-back, swords at the ready, looking around the room as if a giant’s boot were about to smash through the ceiling.

  “Just be here, and be ready,” Gavin told him. “I’m not sure what in the hell is going on, but our ward was breached by one of Ailexon’s scouts. He was in the bloody room with Kara while she was bathing.”

  The warriors looked pissed, and Kara was kind of grateful that these men of the clan cared about her enough to be concerned. Then again, maybe it was breaching the ward that got their buckskins in a bunch.

  “Gavin,” Kara said quietly. “I’m okay, really. Think about it. If that guy was gifted enough to get through the wards, then he could have grabbed me and taken me with him. The fact that I’m standing here and he never even took a step in my direction must mean he doesn’t want to hurt me.” And what if, she thought. What if he really was her brother?

  “Why now?” Gavin growled. “Why must this happen now? We’re days or hours away from the birth. That son of a human whore couldn’t have picked a worse time to hound you.”

  Kara sucked in a breath. “Take that back! He is not the son of a whore! He might be my brother, after all.” Holy mother-lovin’ crap! She might actually have a brother!

  Gavin’s lips twitched and the expression on his face was so warm, she knew everyone in the room could see that something between them had changed. “Forgive me, Kara. That unidentified scout who claims to be your brother couldn’t have picked a worse time to make your acquaintance.”