Shadow Weaver: The Nightwatch Academy book 2

by Cassidy, Debbie

  The cadets hurried into barracks six, and I followed, fear thrumming in my veins, because if Venerick and Harmon weren’t here, there was only one place they could be.

  With the fomorians.

  They were the cargo.

  * * *

  The cadets were gathered in the lounge, ones I recognized and ones I didn’t. There was silence as we all absorbed the consequences of a missing cadet and a missing shadow knight.

  I sat on a plastic chair, knee jiggling nervously. Why was Hyde taking so long? I’d filled him in on what I’d heard and my theory that the violet-eyed fomorian may have been trying to stop the fir bolg, and he’d passed on the intel.

  The knights had to intercept the fomorians and get Harmon and Venerick back.

  Hyde entered the room a moment later. His expression was grim. “The knights have done a sweep. No sign of the raiders or our missing people.” He took a deep breath. “Henrich has issued new orders. We’ll be tightening security here at barracks six and into sector three. All second years will be reallocated to new positions. First years will be manning barracks three and four under my supervision. The tunnels there will be shut down soon, so they won’t be considered a red zone any longer.”

  Wait. “What about Harmon and Venerick? They’ve taken them beyond the mist, so we need to go after them. We need to get them back.”

  “No one is going beyond the mist,” Hyde snapped. “We have our orders.”

  “But—”

  “Justice!” His eyes blazed with wrath.

  I snapped my mouth closed, impotent rage simmering in my veins.

  I looked over at Brady for support, but the hulking ogre-tainted’s expression was neutral, his attention on Hyde. He was a cadet following orders. But it sounded like they’d given up on Harmon and Venerick. This was wrong.

  “Has this happened before?” Aidan asked. “Knights being taken?”

  Hyde’s jaw ticked. “No. This is new. And we will figure it out. We always do. In the meantime, everyone must play their part. Brady, your troop will man this barracks. I’ll send the others to you once I get back to four. Henrich will send further instruction via radio shortly.” His gaze fell on me. “First years, grab your weapons and come with me.”

  I looked at Brady, and this time, he met my eyes. He inclined his head and mouthed, You got this.

  I grabbed my holster and weapon and followed Hyde from the room.

  * * *

  Thomas sat on his bunk, head bowed, hands clasped. “I should have gone. I should have gone with you.”

  I took the spot beside him. “It was chaos. Your being there may not have made a difference.”

  “Yes, it would have.” He looked up at me fiercely. “I always have Harmon in my sights. I always know where he is. I would have seen. I would have stopped them from taking him.” His eyes filled with tears, and he squeezed them tight and then wiped his sleeve across them. “Fuck it. We can’t just sit here doing nothing. We need to be out there looking.”

  “The knights are on it. They’re not about to let fomorians get away with taking our people.”

  But even as I said the words, I heard the lack of conviction in my tone. They’d done a sweep. They’d come up empty. Hours had passed, and the chance of finding them on this side of the mist was dropping fast. We needed to go beyond, but that wasn’t happening. So … What now? My throat tightened. I’d lost Minnie and found Harmon, and now he’d been taken, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  Thomas shook his head. “Who am I kidding? They probably took tunnels back through the mist back to their side. Tunnels we haven’t found yet. We’re fucked. They can come and go as they please.”

  I put my arm around his shoulders and pulled him in for a sideways hug. “Not for long. They’re gonna blow the tunnels. They have an expert coming in. It’s all connected down there, and the knights are going to shut it down.”

  He looked up at me with glittering eyes. “And what if Harmon’s down there? Eh? What if they have him down there when they blow it up?”

  My chest tightened in apprehension. Fuck. “I need to speak to Hyde.”

  * * *

  I found Hyde in the watchtower staring out into the mist.

  “Lloyd’s troop is fixing the AM posts,” he said. “First years will stick to a tight perimeter for the next few days.”

  “What if Venerick and Harmon are being held in the tunnels?”

  Hyde tucked in his chin. “Then it would be unfortunate.”

  Anger and apprehension mingled to make my chest burn. “What? That’s it?” How could he be so cold about this? “Those are our people. Harmon is my friend.”

  He turned to me, his mouth a grim line. “And Venerick is mine. This is war, Justice. The lives of a few to save the many. It’s always been this way. Venerick understands this.”

  “And what about Harmon?” I stepped closer, my hands balled into fists. “Did anyone tell him that he’d be abandoned? Huh? This is wrong, and you know it.” I glanced down at his leg. “I can’t believe you of all people could be okay with this decision. After what they did to you?”

  His smile was wry. “This?” He looked down at his leg. “This was a blessing. My only gripe is that they didn’t completely relieve me of duty.”

  His words knocked the wind out of my sails. “How can you say that?”

  He shrugged. “Not everyone wants power and fame, Justice. Some of us just want to get through the day. Some of us simply want the sentence to be over.”

  He didn’t want to be here … “But … I thought you loved being a shadow knight.”

  He snorted. “And what gave you that idea?”

  “You were a legend.”

  “Being good, being great at something doesn’t make it the right thing for you.” He looked back out into the mist. “Being a shadow knight was never my dream. It’s rarely any Hyde’s dream. It’s just what we’re bred for. The gene is strong within us, and the council pays our bloodline well to keep training the next generation of knights. Our path is chosen at birth.” He glanced at my wrists. “At least your cuffs are tangible things. Mine are in my name.”

  I took another step toward him. “What would you have done? If you could have chosen?”

  His lips curved in a soft smile. “I loved to paint. I would have been an artist. I used to paint in secret.” He held up his hands and flexed his fingers. “Then my father found out and broke every one of my fingers.” He sighed, then shrugged. “He broke them every week for a month until I agreed never to wield a brush again.”

  Oh, God. “How old were you?”

  “Eleven.”

  My hands curled into fists. I wanted to break his father’s arms and legs and watch him rolling around on the ground trying to get away. Bastard.

  “Deana nursed me through the pain,” Hyde continued. “She was … is one of my closest friends.”

  A pit opened inside me—a chasm that separated us by time, space, and circumstance.

  “She seems really nice.” The words left my lips numb. “I should go check on Thomas.” I turned to go, and he moved lightning fast to block my path.

  I gasped and looked up at him, my mouth parting at the intensity in his eyes. “I want you to know that what happened between us, the attraction … It was real, and I’m sorry. I should have been stronger. I should never have acted on it.”

  My eyes pricked with heat. “Yeah. Shit happens. Don’t sweat it.” I brushed past him, inhaling his scent greedily and then breathing it out again.

  He wasn’t mine to covet, and even though it hurt, the thought of Brady took the edge off the pain.

  Fourteen

  Payne had wrangled a couple of cushy chairs and a table for the lab. He said he’d been meaning to get them anyway, but I knew he was doing this for me. For our pre-weaver class chats. They’d become a thing now, and it was obvious he enjoyed these meetings as much as I did.

  Almost two weeks had passed since Harmon and Venerick had been taken, and
the so-called explosives expert had been working on marking the tunnels for days. I missed my friend. I missed his gruff voice and his hugs, but dwelling brought rage and impulsive thoughts, so I shut them down and told myself he had to be okay. He had to be alive. Not understanding why the fomorians had taken him made it worse.

  Thomas had gone into auto mode, but I heard him crying when his shift ended. Sobbing quietly into his pillow. I’d moved beds to sleep beside him. To hold his hand until he drifted off. Nightbloods didn’t need to sleep often, but we did need to sleep, and he’d gone four days straight without shutting down after Harmon was taken. In the end, I’d crawled into his bed and hugged him until he drifted off.

  The impotence was the worst. Not being able to do any fucking thing about it was killing me. Harmon was a hollow space in my heart, one that ached every day. I needed him to be okay. I needed him to be alive.

  “So, they start detonation today?” Payne asked.

  I nodded. “They found stashes of weapons too.” I picked at my cucumber sandwich, unsurprisingly uninterested in food today. “The theory is that the fomorians developed a way to put the critters to sleep and adapted their burrows to get about beneath the mist.”

  “It’s how they got to sector one.”

  “Yes.”

  We’d discovered I could talk to him about this stuff, and Payne had concluded it must be because he had the shadow gene. The oath didn’t prohibit me from telling him stuff. It felt good to be able to share the shadow cadet world with him. To listen to his advice.

  “I worry when you’re out there,” he said. “I know I shouldn’t, you can take care of yourself, but I do.” He poured more coffee into our mugs from his flask. “I guess this is what being a parent feels like. The constant anxiety.” He smiled warmly at me. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  This feeling of comfort and safety was addictive. Being around Payne was addictive, and my brain was slowly coming around to calling him Dad, but only in my head. I wasn’t ready to say it out loud. Not yet.

  The man that had raised me hadn’t even bothered getting in touch, and no doubt the news of my heritage would have made it to his ears by now. I wonder if I’d been cut off yet. I wondered if my mother had been cut off, but these were fleeting thoughts. Not stuff I cared about.

  “How is the troop treating you?” Payne asked. “I spoke to Hyde briefly a week ago, and he mentioned you were integrating well.”

  Hyde’s name brought heat to my face. “Yeah. They’re good. Things are good.”

  Payne frowned. “Are you blushing?” His brows shot up. “Ah, I see. There’s someone you like in the troop.”

  Harmon had been my go-to guy for matters of the heart. My eyes pricked and heated.

  “Indigo?” Payne leaned forward and placed a hand on my knee. “Look at me.”

  Fuck. I blinked away the tears and met his eyes. “I’m fine. I can handle it.”

  “This isn’t just about Harmon, is it?”

  I blew out a breath. “No. I seem to have gotten myself into a situation.”

  “Go on,” he prompted.

  Shit, how to say this? Should I even be talking about this?

  “Indigo, you can tell me anything,” Payne said. “I would never judge you.”

  I blew out a sharp breath. “I have feelings for two guys.”

  “Oh.” He sat back and studied me.

  I winced and ran a hand over my face. “Yeah, it’s a pickle.”

  “And do they have feelings for you?”

  “Yes. No. I mean, it’s complicated.”

  He chuckled softly. “Relationships tend to be.”

  “Especially when you can’t pick who it is you want more. Especially when you’re a nightblood and the guys you have feelings for aren’t.”

  “But you’re not a nightblood,” Payne said. “And you’re not a weaver. You’re something new. Those rules don’t apply to you. At least they shouldn’t.” He leaned in. “So, why choose?”

  It sounded so easy when he put it that way, but … “Because that’s how it’s done.”

  His eyes crinkled in amusement. “I suppose it will come as a shock to you to know that the female to male ratio in the weaver community is one to three. Female weavers have been taking three or more lovers for decades.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. The weaver bloodlines are all about the next generation, and the women tend to be very fertile. The males not so much, and then you have the defectives, like me.” He said it good-naturedly, but there was no missing the flash of pain in his eyes. “We’re prohibited from entering into any relationships within the weaver community at the risk of passing on the defective gene.”

  The weaver community kept to themselves. They had their own little ecosystem, even here at the Academy, so this was all news to me.

  Payne shrugged. “You make your own rules, Indigo. Love who you want as long as they’re happy to share your love.”

  I snorted. “A novel idea, but I doubt either of these guys is the sharing type.”

  He sipped his coffee. “Their loss then. The problem most of the younger generation of supernaturals today have is that they watch way too many human shows. They’re mimicking human cultural norms. Nightbloods may take a mate, but they are liberal in their sexual activities. Moonkissed often take more than one mate, and I’ve already explained how weavers work.”

  The turmoil in my chest eased a little. “And what about the feybloods?”

  “Most feybloods are pretty liberal when it comes to relationships, but they are sticklers for commitment.”

  “And the Tuatha descendants?” I ducked my head and toyed with my empty cup, waiting for his insight on the issue.

  There was silence, and then, “If one of the men you have feelings for is Orion descended, then you need to steer clear.” His tone was serious. “Tuatha descendants will play with you, but they will never commit, not unless you’re a Hyde or a Bourne. It’s Orion’s law, and those families that keep it are granted boons. These families are ruthless when it comes to protecting their income, and Orion’s law isn’t something that’s well known outside of Tuatha circles.”

  “Then how do you know this stuff?”

  His smile was sad. “I had a friend who fell in love with a Bourne. He was a feyblood, but not from Orion’s bloodlines. He met with an unfortunate accident the day before they planned to run away together. I did some digging after that and learned enough to back off, immediately.”

  “Shit.”

  Payne frowned. “I won’t intrude and ask you who it is you have feelings for, I don’t presume to have that right. But … please, be careful. I’ve only just found you, and I don’t want to lose you.”

  Was this why Hyde was pushing me away? Deana was Henrich’s niece. Henrich Bourne. She was a Bourne. Knowing why Hyde was resisting our attraction should have made me feel better, but it didn’t.

  My gaze snapped to the clock on the wall behind Payne. “Shit, I got to get to class.”

  Fifteen

  My mind was reeling with the information Payne had passed down to me, so I almost missed the murmur of voices coming from the utility closet around the corner from the port archway as I passed. The door was slightly ajar, but there was only darkness beyond.

  “Do it,” Fiona said.

  I was running late for class, but the sound of her sugary voice had me going into stealth mode and then switching into earwigging mode.

  “No. This isn’t part of our deal,” Kash said.

  “It is if I say it is.” Fiona’s tone was hard. “I’ve waited long enough. I want you, and you owe me. So, touch me. Do it. Feel how wet I am.”

  Urgh.

  “Fiona, please …” Kash sounded tormented.

  I didn’t blame him.

  “I won’t tell,” Fiona crooned. “I promise you. Just make me feel good. I can make you feel good too.” The soft sound of a zipper being undone. “Do you like that?”

  A low moan.

&nbs
p; “Yeah, you like it. I can feel you like it.”

  “Fucking hell, Fiona.” His voice was hoarse and ragged. “What the fuck do you expect when I haven’t been touched by a woman in over a year?”

  “And you won’t,” she snapped. “Unless that woman is me. So … do you want it?” Her tone dropped to sultry again. “You want this?”

  The rustle of fabric followed, and then there was the slap of flesh on flesh, and Kash’s carnal moans.

  I backed away, neck crawling with heat. Urgh.

  What the fuck was up with those two? Dysfunctional psychos. I needed to scrub my brain clean of everything I’d just heard. I headed quickly to class and didn’t even think about the pain as I ported in. All I could hear were Kash’s moans.

  * * *

  We were three weavers down, and the rest looked like they needed a nap. Stat.

  Joti took the desk beside me with a yawn. Her clothes looked rumpled, her hair, although brushed, wasn’t as groomed as usual.

  I peered at her. “Are you okay?”

  “Urgh. Fucking knackered.” She yawned again.

  “Did you not get any sleep?”

  “Ten hours.” She unzipped her bag and pulled out her notepad and textbook. “Doesn’t feel like it, though. I swear, I could sleep for a week.” She illustrated her exhaustion by laying her head on the desk and closing her eyes.

  Fiona chose that moment to enter the room, smiling like the cat that got the cream.

  Kash’s cream, no doubt.

  Urgh.

  Speaking of Kash … He walked in behind her, but his body was tense, jaw clenched, and dark smudges sat under his eyes. This wasn’t the face of someone who’d just enjoyed a good fuck. He looked like he was under a storm cloud.

  Fiona took her seat, and Kash slipped into his usual spot at the desk beside her.

  The air rippled, and Madam Latrou appeared at the front of the class. She scanned faces, and her mouth turned down.