Shadow Caster: The Nightwatch Academy book 1

by Cassidy, Debbie

  My instinct was to jump into defensive mode, but I took a breath and mulled over his words. “First two, agreed. I didn’t want to be here, and like fuck was I going to pay attention to shit that I found boring. But I did not influence your sister. Now that I think of it, she influenced me.” I smiled. “If not for her, I don’t think I’d have gone to any lessons.”

  He was silent for a long beat. “Point taken. But you do understand my reservations, right? You have a reputation for not giving a fuck.”

  Ouch, that hurt. More than it should have, because hadn’t I gone out of my way to cultivate this exact image? I should be pleased I’d succeeded, but for some reason, the fact that he saw me that way pissed me off.

  “I give a fuck when I want to. Nightwatch wasn’t my choice. I was coerced and manipulated into being here. Not a great motivator.”

  “And outside? The fights? The living in the slums and rubbing your family’s nose in it?”

  “Wow, someone’s done their research.”

  “Trust me, there was no research required. You were all they talked about at every social gathering. You know they call you the Fallen Justice.”

  Another bite into my ego. No wonder my father had been eager to frame me for murder. He wanted to get me under control—not for me but for the family reputation.

  “Nice. Real nice. I might adopt that.”

  “No.” He stopped and turned to face me. “Don’t. That isn’t who you are. Not anymore. I don’t know what motivated you to be that person, but it’s not the person I see.”

  My throat pinched. “What do you see?”

  His icy-blue eyes warmed. “I see a woman that gives a damn. I see a woman with heart. I see a fucking shadow knight in the making.”

  Damn him, and his words that had me all choked up, and when I got choked up, the defensive mechanism kicked in. Hard.

  “Nope.” I brushed past him and continued toward base.

  “Nope?” He jogged and caught up. “What do you mean, nope? I just complimented you.”

  “You’re not supposed to compliment me. You’re supposed to be an arsehole. Faraday, the stick-in-the-mud.”

  He chuckled. “Is that what you think of me?”

  “That is what we call you behind your back.”

  “We?”

  “Oh, yes, in my social circles.” I flicked my gaze to his face then back to the mist.

  A smile flirted on his lips.

  Flirted.

  Was this flirting?

  The back of my neck grew warm. Fuck this fluttery feeling. “Hey, Faraday. Last one back to base cooks supper.”

  And I was off.

  Twenty-Three

  “What you thinking, Justice?” Carlo asked. “You thinking how you’re gonna lose?”

  I held my cards close to my chest. “Nah, just how I’ll enjoy watching you cry when you lose.”

  Thomas laid his cards on the table. “You can both cry, bitches.”

  Damn, he had a straight flush.

  Lloyd pouted and studied Thomas’s hand. “Nice. But not good enough.” He laid down a royal flush. “I win. Again.”

  “This would be more fun if we were playing for money,” Carlo said.

  He tugged on a lock of his sandy hair and then raked his hand through it and slumped back in his seat.

  We’d pulled a table from the whiteboard room and set chairs around it. No one liked sitting at the bench table. This way, the guys could sit with their legs splayed and let their balls breathe.

  The door to the kitchen opened, and the twins Aidan and Devon ambled in half naked and scratching the backs of their heads. Devon was wide and powerfully built—all muscle—and Aidan was slimmer, but every inch of his torso was toned, hard muscle that rippled when he moved.

  Whoa. Was it getting hot in here? I fixed my eyes on my cards even though the game was over.

  “Guys, ever heard of T-shirts?” Carlo asked.

  “And deny Justice the view?” Aidan winked at me good-naturedly.

  Devon mumbled something and headed for the coffee pot.

  Brady entered the room next, dressed but barefoot. He didn’t speak, didn’t even look at anyone, but headed straight to the coffee pot where Devon was ready with a steaming mug of coffee.

  Brady took it and glugged it down and then held it out for a refill.

  Yep. This troop was a well-oiled machine.

  “What did we miss?” Harmon asked as he joined us. He looked freshly showered, but his eyes were bloodshot. “Anything on the monitors?”

  Like me, Harmon had thrown himself into every shadow cadet task. It was a distraction from the fact that his sister no longer knew him. He made a point of seeking her out, of spending time with her, but every time he returned, he looked like he’d been punched in the gut. It was obvious things weren’t going too well.

  “Just patrols,” Lloyd said. “Standard shit.” He pushed back his seat, stood, and stretched. “Brady, you okay to take point?”

  Brady grunted.

  That obviously meant yes.

  “In that case, I’m going to lie down for a couple of hours.” Lloyd looked to the other nightbloods. “You guys can get some shut-eye too if you want.”

  Thomas gave Harmon a questioning look, but the moonkissed’s attention was on his java.

  Things had been strained between those two. I’d stayed out of it, but the look of pain that flitted across Thomas’s face at Harmon’s disinterest made my heart ache for him. If they’d been regular Nightwatch cadets, then I’d have said best to nip this in the bud—there was no future for them outside of here. But they were shadow cadets. If we survived, this would be our home for the next twenty years. There was no reason for them not to be together.

  “I guess I’ll grab some rest,” Thomas finally said. He glanced at Harmon one more time, but the moonkissed merely nodded and sipped his coffee.

  Ouch.

  Thomas headed to the dorm.

  Carlo stretched. “Yep. I’ll take that lie-down. What about you, Justice? Want to come snuggle?” He wiggled his eyebrows.

  I smiled sweetly and fluttered my lashes. “I can snuggle my fist in your face?”

  He let out a bark of laughter. “She loves O neg. She curses like a dude, and she doesn’t take my shit. I’ve found my perfect nightblood, and she’s totally friend zoned me.”

  I resisted the urge to muss up his blond hair. He was brash and loud, but he was fucking adorable. But like hell would I tell him I thought that. He blew me a kiss and headed out of the room.

  Brady fixed his dark eyes on me. “If you’re staying up, take control room duty with Harmon.” He drained his mug. “Devon and Aidan, do a run.”

  Devon stretched, leaning his head from side to side to loosen his muscles. “I could do with a run.”

  It took a moment to click that they meant in wolf form. I hadn’t seen their wolves before. Harmon looked torn, like he wanted to join them.

  “I can handle the control room solo.” I shrugged.

  Brady ran a hand over his tight curls. “Harmon, go run.”

  Harmon’s shoulders relaxed. The three moonkissed headed for the armor room, and the exit to the mist.

  And then it dawned on me that Brady and I were alone. He set his mug in the sink and stood with his back to me. He was broad, and the shirt clung to him in all the right places, making it easy to see how built the guy was.

  His shoulders rose and fell, and as he turned to face me, his hand went to the scar at his neck and rubbed it in a gesture I’d caught many times. I doubted he even realized he was doing it.

  “Want some company in the control room?” he asked.

  If I were clumsy and inept, I probably would have choked on my tongue because Brady was offering to hang out with me.

  Brady, who spoke no more words than necessary, wanted to sit in a room with me … voluntarily.

  Keep it cool, Justice. “Sure.”

  * * *

  Hanging with Brady was simple. No need to spea
k. No need to make polite chitchat. There was just the beep of the monitors, a book, and two mugs of java.

  Out of Lloyd’s troop, he was now my second favorite hang-out buddy. Brady time was quiet time but with company. It was kinda perfect, and I felt my muscles unknotting and the tension leaving my body, and then my mind began to wander.

  What kind of feyblood was he? He wasn’t legacy, I knew that much. And he had a temper. Devon and Aidan were Opal pack, and Carlo was a Hartwood, but Brady kept his cards close to his chest. I studied him surreptitiously. His dark, bronzed skin, his harsh, bold features, and those dark eyes like a vast night sky. What could his heritage be?

  “Stop thinking so hard.” Brady’s voice was a gruff rumble. “You got questions, then ask.”

  “That easy, huh?”

  He turned the page of his book. “Yup.”

  “What kind of feyblood are you?”

  “The angry kind.”

  O-kay. “And that would be?”

  He closed his book and raised his dark eyes to mine. “I—” The beeping intensified, and Brady’s gaze flew to the sector map. “Fuck.”

  One of the posts was blipping red.

  I stood. “I’ll get it.”

  He arched a brow. “Let me wake one of the guys to go with you.”

  “I can handle it by myself. Devon and Aidan are already out there. I won’t be alone. I want to do this. Please.”

  “You sure?”

  I smirked down at him. “Have you seen my maintenance record?”

  Brady looked speculative but then nodded. “Okay. Radio up, and keep in touch.”

  Excitement bubbled up inside me. I was going to fix an AM post. I was going into the mist. And I was going alone.

  * * *

  The mist was fey-made and housed goodness knows what kind of monsters, but a part of me craved being in it. It wrapped around me soothingly, blocking out the world for a little while.

  Just me and a task.

  High up on the post, the mist was thicker, but I’d worked the sim so many times my muscle memory for the task was excellent. One of three things could stop a post working. I ran through the requisite checks, and it took less than three minutes to get the post functioning again. The posts didn’t have a battery pack because they siphoned energy directly from the air. The problem was usually the snap component, which acted as a convertor. We had plenty of replacements. I popped out the defective piece and slotted in a fresh one. The post hummed to life.

  Done.

  I was halfway down when I caught the shift of shadow in the mist to the far left of me. A figure. One of the guys maybe? No. It was too small … and was that the flap of a cloak?

  “Hey!” I scrambled down the post. “Wait!” I fumbled for my radio. “Brady, you there?”

  “Yup.”

  “There’s someone out here.”

  Silence. “Not the guys?”

  “No.”

  “Get back to base. Now.”

  “But shouldn’t I investigate?”

  “No. Justice, get back to base. You hear me?”

  Another shadow to my right. Not cloaked this time. Not the same figure—this one was bigger. Shit.

  “Justice.” The radio crackled and then died.

  What? How the heck did that just happen? It was feytech, which meant it drew energy from the air.

  A low moaning sound drifted through the mist … a horn? The hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention. Time to get the fuck out of there.

  I turned and ran. My inner compass clicked into action, and my feet steered me in the right direction. The sound of horns grew louder. They were behind me. They were in pursuit.

  Who the fuck were they? I put on a burst of speed, ready to slip into blur mode, when the air behind me grew still, and then something landed on my back. The weight knocked me forward. My face slammed into the ground.

  Something pressed to the back of my neck, a nose. Sniffing. Oh, fuck.

  Softly whispered words were in my ear in a language I didn’t understand. Then a hand gripped the back of my head, lifted it off the ground, and slammed it into the earth.

  The world went black.

  I came to with a jolt. My body was already in fight mode, lashing out. Hands grabbed me, and the weight of a body pinned me down.

  No! “Get off me.” I bucked, trying to get free of the unrelenting weight.

  “Stop. Please. Not hurt you. Save you.”

  The guttural words filtered through my panic. I stopped thrashing and intelligent violet eyes surrounded by gray hardened clay peered down at me. The face beneath the mask was lean and chiseled. Not what I expected of a fomorian.

  “Not hurt you,” he said again. “Save you.”

  Save me? “You knocked me out and took me.”

  His gaze clouded. “Save you.” He frowned as if searching for a word. “Danger.”

  “I don’t understand …”

  The distant sound of a horn drifted into the cave. Cave … we were in the mouth of a cave. The catacombs? Was that where he’d taken me? I could get back from here. I knew the way home.

  But then his grip on me tightened. He yanked on my arm, pinning me while pressing it to the ground.

  “No. What are you doing.”

  “Save you,” he said again. “Please.”

  There was something in his eyes, a desperation, a kindness that sucked the fight out of me.

  I nodded.

  He lifted my sleeve and pulled a slender dagger from a sheath at his thigh. His naked thigh covered in clay.

  My brain made connections even as the knife registered. A naked fomorian with a dagger was holding a knife to my skin. Icy fear trickled through my veins.

  I shrank from him. “Wait, what are you—”

  His fingers on my arm tightened. “Save you. Please.”

  The panic that should have accompanied this situation was absent, and my gut was calm. Serene.

  I nodded.

  He pressed the blade to my skin, and then there was a sharp sting, a burning heat. He’d cut me, but it was over so fast I barely felt it, and now there was a weird symbol on my arm. Like an S trapped in an oval shape.

  He released me and sat back.

  “What did you do?”

  “Gave you the ability to understand me.” His voice was warm and no longer sounded guttural. In fact, it was almost melodic.

  My gaze snapped to his. “You can speak my language?”

  “Not well enough, but now that you have the scribe’s mark, you can understand me. You’re in danger. If they find you, they’ll kill you.”

  “Who.”

  “The fir bolg. They wish to bring down your poison posts and will kill any fomori-touched they come across.”

  Fomori-touched? He must mean the shadow marked. “And you? Why are you here? Why did you save me?”

  He sighed, looking almost weary. “I search for salvation, the blood that will free us.” He frowned. “But instead, fate led me to you. To save you. No woman has found her way into the poison lands before, not that it would matter to the fir bolg. They would take you for sport.” His lip curled in disgust at the thought before his expression cleared. “Why would the fomori-touched allow a woman into the poison lands?” He canted his head as if pondering his own question.

  He didn’t realize I was a shadow cadet—one of the fomori-touched. I guess the fact I was wearing a uniform didn’t matter. Probably best to keep it that way.

  Ignoring his question, which had seemed more reflective anyway, I looked to the mouth of the cave. “I need to get back. They’ll be searching for me.”

  “Fomori-touched will be looking for you?” There was a calculated look on his face then. One that sent chills up my spine.

  I shuffled away from him. “Look, I appreciate you saving me from these fir bolg creatures, but I need to go now. Okay.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but a hacking cough emerged instead. He said something I didn’t understand, but it had the inflecti
on of a curse word.

  His hand went to his chest. “Out of time.”

  The mist was affecting him. “You better get out of here.” I stood and backed away from him, and he looked torn. “You’ll die if you don’t.”

  He clenched his teeth and shook his head. “The fir bolg can last longer. If they catch you—” He broke into a cough again.

  He was one of them, a fomorian, but he’d saved me. “Will you be all right?”

  There was sadness in his eyes. “I—"

  The sound of a horn drifted in through the mouth of the cave again.

  His jaw hardened, and he pulled himself up. Fuck, he was tall. A giant. “Fomori do not harm women, but fir bolg revel in it. I will lead them away. When the sound of horns retreats, run.”

  And then he was the one running—out of the cave and into the mists. The sound of horns rose in the air louder, excited, and then they began to drift away.

  They had him. They were chasing him.

  Dammit. None of this made sense. He was supposed to be the bad guy. Wasn’t he? I needed to get back to the barracks and warn the others. There had to be an explanation for all this.

  The world had gone silent as I ducked out of the cave and into the mist. I ran south, toward the barracks, checking my compass and wishing to hell that I’d brought my axes with me.

  Not far now. Probably a quarter of a mile out. It looked like the fomorian had carried me almost half a mile.

  A howl to my left was followed by boot falls behind me.

  My chest tightened then relaxed as the boot owner’s scent hit me.

  Brady. I slowed my pace, relief expanding in my chest.

  “Justice.” Brady grabbed my arm and turned me to face him, his concerned gaze raking over me. “Fuck. Where are they?”

  Two wolves appeared out of the mist. Dark and shaggy, their heads as high as my shoulder.

  Devon and Aidan sniffed me and growled. They could smell the fomorian on me.

  “Justice, where did they go?” Brady asked again.

  Shit. “Um, north.”

  I pointed in the direction the fomorian and the fir bolg had run. Devon and Aidan bounded off before I could stop them.