The Shadows

by Cheyenne McCray

  She looked at him with her turquoise eyes and through his blurring vision her features seemed more Elvish than before. At least what he imagined Elvin features would be like.

  Cassia’s hair looked like gentle gold waves and her skin was so smooth, perfect.

  Perfect…

  While she helped him out of his Kevlar vest, he was certain he was hallucinating as he imagined himself holding her, kissing her—

  His mind spun and he knew he was definitely losing it.

  Images of Kat drifted through his mind and he found himself comparing her to Cassia. Kat was all hard edges, direct, and as black and white as you could get.

  Cassia was soft, like blurred lines instead of rough corners. She was intuitive, mysterious. If he tried, what kind of mysteries would he uncover when it came to the half-Elvin witch?

  As the rambling questions traveled through his mind, his head felt as if it were floating from his body.

  He blinked at his strange thoughts and concentrated on not passing out as Cassia examined the wound. Her touch sent odd electrical feelings through his arm. He wondered if anyone else had felt the same thing when she touched them.

  “Hold this lodestone,” Cassia said as she pressed a bumpy odd-shaped stone into his hand. It gave him a little instant relief. Not a second later, rays of electricity traveled through his arm again when Cassia touched him, this time even more powerful.

  When he met her eyes, her expression seemed to reflect something like wonder, maybe even fear, before changing back to neutral. “I think you’re going to want to be asleep for this,” she said. This time her voice had a husky quality to it that he’d never noticed before.

  Jake nodded. He wasn’t an idiot. That arrowhead was buried so deep in muscle it was going to be a bitch to get out.

  “Hit me with your best shot,” he said, sounding and feeling almost drunk from pain and loss of blood.

  Alyssa arrived at his other side. The strong scents of herbs swept over him as she held up a small dark vial. “Open your mouth.”

  He obeyed and she tipped the bottle and put a couple of drops on his tongue. He grimaced when he closed his mouth. Nasty crap.

  His whole body instantly relaxed, every muscle going limp. Voices in the room faded and his arm went numb. The spinning in his head slowed until he slipped into darkness.

  29

  Darkwolf had to give Elizabeth-Junga some respect. Despite the power he now commanded, she didn’t cower before him. She maintained her proud, former Queen of the Fomorii demeanor, even in the face of possible death at his hands.

  The urge to kill was nearly overwhelming. He imagined wrapping his hands around her throat, snapping it with one quick twist.

  Once again Elizabeth’s gaze traveled over his now seven-foot height and she pursed her lips as she studied his muscles that had bulged so tightly his old shirt and jeans had shredded. Like the fucking Incredible Hulk, without the green skin. And he still looked damned good.

  After having taken advantage of his new power to travel to a big and tall men’s clothing store, they had used transference again to take them to an empty President’s suite at the Hilton. Screw Balor finding him now. Darkwolf would use the power of the former eye anytime he wanted to.

  Elizabeth tilted her head at a regal angle as she studied his chest—as if she could see the eye’s power encompassing his heart. “What do you plan to do now?”

  “Find Ceithlenn.” His voice had developed into a low, coarse growl. “After I take you.”

  Her eyes widened and her pupils dilated as her gaze dropped to the massive outline behind his jeans. His cock had grown as big around as his fist and double the length. Not to mention he was so horny he could take on a roomful of women.

  Maybe he would.

  Darkwolf reached up and grasped the collar of her T-shirt with his large hands and shredded it with one small movement. It took little strength for something so small as this. Elizabeth gasped as he forced her down on the floor. Her jeans went next, the thick material tearing like silk.

  His thoughts twisted and churned, his vision going from gray to red to Technicolor, but the pain in his head was gone. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he felt no pain. Just power. Pure power.

  Right now all he cared about was being inside a woman, any woman, and this one would do. For as long as he let her live.

  Taking care not to ruin his own clothing, Darkwolf unbuttoned and unzipped his pants. Elizabeth’s eyes grew wider when she saw the size of him up close and personal. Without giving her time to speak, he moved his broad hips between her thighs and drove inside her.

  Despite the blind power ripping through him so hard he felt like his skin would split, he didn’t truly want to kill her.

  Just hurt her.

  As Darkwolf drove in and out of Elizabeth, he imagined taking Ceithlenn down the same way and repaying her for what she’d done to him. Only he’d kill her.

  Shit, it felt incredible taking Elizabeth so hard and fast, her core tight around him. She whimpered, but it only drove him on until his vision began to redden, almost as red as the eye had been when it swung from the chain at his throat.

  But he was free of that now and the power was his.

  Elizabeth climaxed first, her body convulsing, the contractions in her core clamping down on him harder than they ever had before.

  The intensity he felt in his groin and from his oncoming orgasm made stars flash before his eyes. He thrust several times more before he climaxed.

  When he came he shouted, his baritone reverberating off the walls. He released Elizabeth’s neck and braced his hands to either side of her tiny waist as he pressed his groin against hers.

  Pulse after pulse of him and the doubled, tripled, quadrupled pleasure he felt made him almost blind.

  He felt something over his heart, digging into his flesh, and Elizabeth came into view, her arm outstretched and her hand transformed into her Fomorii claws.

  The shock of feeling her jagged nails in his flesh made his vision clear.

  “I could have killed you.” No fear was in her eyes as she slid her claws from his flesh. “Your heart would have been in my palm and I could have eaten it before you realized what had happened. Then the power would have been mine.”

  His mind still spun and he glanced down to see tears in his bloody flesh healing through the rips in the T-shirt.

  When his stunned gaze met hers she smiled. “Don’t think for a moment that Ceithlenn won’t find a weakness in you, too.”

  The fact that Elizabeth could have killed him so easily was like ice in his veins.

  Better now, though, to find out he had weaknesses, that he wasn’t as entirely invincible as he’d felt. It also told him that the god and goddess surely had weaknesses that would make them easy kills. Once he knew what those weaknesses were.

  The feel of Elizabeth’s nails scraping down his chest through his T-shirt brought his attention back to her. Why hadn’t she killed him? What made her allow him to live?

  She met his gaze, her eyes dark with desire. “Now take me again.”

  30

  “We will choose a date.” Ceithlenn brushed back the short, punk-red hair she wore in her human form—that of the warlock Sara, whom Ceithlenn had shoved to the very back of her consciousness. “Every Fomorii will meet at the piers where the human tourists gather in large numbers.”

  Since she’d had martial law lifted by the demons she had placed in the government and military, the city would again pick up its pace, giving her and her demons greater numbers of humans to slaughter.

  Tryok, the demon who served as the leader over all her legions, prostrated himself on the floor of the apartment, bowing to her greatness. “As you will it, my goddess.” The demon’s voice sounded odd coming from the body of the great general he currently inhabited. She almost laughed at the balding, well-fed, highly decorated general practically lying on his belly.

  Ceithlenn picked up a figurine of what her huma
n host called a Swarovski ballerina. A stupid statue, really. A statue of a weak, insipid creature—as all humans were.

  Ceithlenn clenched her fist around the crystal and it shattered in her powerful grip, pieces flying and tinkling as they scattered across the burgundy carpeting. Broken crystal sliced her human palm. She held back a wince and a growl from the burning pain and opened her hand. It healed at once, small shards of crystal purging from her flesh and onto her palm where only traces of blood remained.

  She brushed the crystal and blood from her hand onto the thigh of her leather catsuit, her mind turning to important matters.

  Her gaze scraped the demon-man still on the floor. “Rise, Tryok.”

  “Yes, my goddess.” The demon obeyed at once, scooping up his general’s cap as he rose. He positioned the hat on his head, his jowls wobbling like gelatin with his motions.

  Too bad she had chosen the body of such a fat, ugly human for Tryok. Right now she could use good, hard sex. With Balor missing and Darkwolf gone, she hadn’t had sex in far too long. She would have to take two or three of the better-looking men inhabited by demons and screw them all, one after another.

  At least until she was reunited with Balor.

  A scowl twisted her features as her thoughts turned to Darkwolf. Where was the bastard?

  She needed to attempt scrying again, a skill of the warlock, Sara.

  “Inform all of our legion members that we will attack two nights from now.” Crystal crunched under her boots as she walked up to Tryok, who trembled in her presence. “Arrange for the demons to hide in the waters off the shore until my arrival and my signal.”

  The smell of human fear and sweat met her as Tryok bowed. His general’s cap slipped off but he caught it before the cap landed on the floor. “Yes, my goddess.”

  “Leave.” She watched as he backed up, turned and strode toward the apartment door, his polished shoes making soft sounds on the carpeting as he followed her instructions.

  When he had closed the door behind him, she headed toward the kitchen. No more sickening odors of human cooking hung in the air. She’d had her demons clean out every piece of human food and dispose of it.

  Her stomach grumbled at the thought of food. The demon men and women she had stationed in various parts of the apartment would need to bring more humans to dine on, giving her additional souls to absorb.

  Ignoring the rumbling in her belly, she searched the cabinets in the kitchen until she came across a large metal bowl. It wasn’t a cauldron or other bewitched container, but with her powers it would do.

  After filling it with tap water, she set the bowl on the glass-topped table in the kitchen nook. Sunlight filtered through the flimsy sheer curtains, muted light gleaming on the table’s surface.

  Ceithlenn braced her hands on the glass to either side of the bowl and looked into the bowl’s depths. The warlock’s, Sara’s, reflection stared back, her human eyes ever shifting from blue to green to brown to gray. Her short punk-red hair fell across her cheeks, and Ceithlenn pushed it behind both ears.

  Gradually she slipped into a state of neither-here-nor-there and she felt as if she barely held on to the human body by a thread. Her eyes became unfocused.

  Images began to play out on the surface of the water and her human heart thumped against her breastbone. She dug her long fingernails into the glass to either side of the bowl. Sharp cracking sounds met her ears as her nails penetrated the glass tabletop.

  Darkwolf. Balor’s eye infusing him with such great power that his body glowed with it. The eye had apparently buried itself in his skin, becoming part of his heart.

  The muscles of his already fit body bulged with strength and his mind expanded with mastery over the weak, human part of himself. He now nearly had the strength of a god. The strength of Balor.

  “No!” Ceithlenn screamed and slapped the side of the bowl with such vicious intensity that it flew across the room and shattered a window, continued through the break, and sailed outside.

  Water had splattered over the table’s surface and on her face. “No!” she screamed again.

  She lifted the glass table and slammed it against the wall, causing shards to explode across the kitchen and slice into her cheeks and the bared parts of her breasts.

  This time when she shrieked she erupted into her goddess form, her fangs dropping, her hands lengthening into claws, her hair aflame and her wings spreading wide. She slammed her fist into what was left of the window, obliterating it before she pushed her way out and took to the skies.

  Ceithlenn didn’t give a damn if humans saw her in the daylight. Darkwolf had taken the power of the eye for himself. She would find the bastard and rip his heart from his chest.

  31

  After the arrowhead had been removed from Jake’s arm, Hannah and the other witches used magical herbs and potions to treat the wound.

  The Drow diamond arrowhead glittered on the tabletop in the sunlight. Hannah shook her head. The damned thing that could have killed Jake was worth a small fortune.

  Hannah breathed out a sigh of relief that he was okay as she brought her hand to her moon and crescent armband and stroked it with her fingers.

  Jake was one of the best men she knew and the thought of him coming close to getting killed created another knot in her belly. Banshee rested on her shoulder and tugged at strands of her hair as if agreeing with her.

  The kitchen smelled of the tea tree oil used as an antiseptic, herb Robert to stop the bleeding, and comfrey ointment to speed the healing of the wound. All of these had been infused with magic to speed the healing and to take away as much pain as possible.

  By the time Cassia finished binding Jake’s arm with spelled cloth, he started coming around. He blinked, his sleepy blue eyes slowly becoming more alert. The man was built like a football player and dwarfed the kitchen chair.

  Hannah sat in a chair next to him and put her hand on his knee. She used her magic to draw him further into the present and to help eliminate the fog in his mind. Banshee gave a soft cry as he leant her some of his own magic.

  Jake shook his head twice, like he was trying to shake off the remnants of the potion. Then he looked up and his eyes appeared clear of any pain, cloudiness, or confusion.

  Hannah drew her hand away, releasing the magical bond she’d used on him.

  “We’ve got to talk.” Jake’s gaze moved from Hannah’s to Rhiannon’s. “If anything’s been said while I’ve been out, fill me in.”

  “Nothing.” Rhiannon pushed her hand through her hair and ignored Keir’s protective stance and thunderous expression as he glowered over her. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Good.” Jake glanced at his bandaged arm then to Cassia and his features seemed unusually wary. “Thanks for patching me up.”

  Cassia just smiled her mysterious smile and turned to start throwing ingredients into a bowl. She was always cooking something, even though the D’Danann had found the legendary Cauldron of Dagda.

  Unlike the kitchen at their now closed shop, Enchantments, this kitchen was large and roomy, and could accommodate five of the D’Danann, all eight D’Anu, Jake, and one of his officers.

  Hannah’s thoughts rested on Garran for a moment. He should be here.

  “Shoot.” Jake directed his command to speak at Hannah, and she sat straighter in her chair and met his stare head-on.

  Automatically she wanted to close up because she never let anyone tell her what to do. Instead, she started telling everyone present about her and Rhiannon’s journey to the Drow realm.

  Just about every man had his arms folded across his chest, a fierce expression on his face. Hannah’s body heated. Who were they to judge her choices? The witches’ expressions varied from concerned to unhappy to angry.

  Well, she knew just where they could put their thoughts. She wasn’t an idiot. She did and she would continue to do whatever she had to in order to fight this war against Ceithlenn and keep everyone safe.

  When Hannah finished
telling everyone in the kitchen about the visions, Keir clenched the hilt of his sword. “Drow lies. They tricked you with their dark magic.”

  Rhiannon got in her husband’s face. “You listen, and you listen good. When I have one, my visions don’t fail me and that was as clear a vision as I’ve ever had.”

  She turned and swept her gaze from one person to the next. Her anger was apparent from the stiffness of her body, and the redness of her face that caused her Fomorii scars to stand out. “The Great Guardian is responsible for Garran’s power, and he has used it to help us with this war.”

  Hannah tried to speak without lashing out at the prejudiced people in the room. “He has endangered his life.” Her next words were harder to say, as if a great weight pressed on her chest. “If he uses that power one more time, he’ll probably die. We can’t let him do that.”

  “What about the Drow who attacked and killed so many of our people last night?” Hawk asked, his arms still crossed over his chest.

  “Hannah already told you.” Rhiannon’s scars seemed even whiter and her eyes flashed a deeper emerald color. “They acted on their own. Their leader is some guy named Vidar and he went against Garran’s decision and his promise to us. Their other leaders didn’t even know anything about what Vidar had done.”

  “Then where are the leaders, this Directorate?” Hawk braced one arm on the refrigerator. “Why have they not come?” Rhiannon rolled her eyes and pointed to the windows where light streamed in through the fog. “Duh? The sunlight? They don’t have a special gift from the Great Guardian to let them walk in daytime.”

  The room was silent for a moment before Silver rubbed the small pooch of her pregnant belly and said, “We have to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s been out cold, so there’s no way he could have ordered that attack.”

  “Unless he did it ahead of time.” Jake grimaced as he moved his arm and shifted in his chair, probably from the pain that magic couldn’t completely take away. “He might have given his men a date and time and didn’t know he’d be flat on his back.” Jake brought his hand up to his bandaged arm. “He probably didn’t know ahead of time about the attack on Hannah at Coit Tower, I’ll give him that.” With a frown, Jake added, “But he could have worked out this Drow attack with Darkwolf. After all, the Dark Elves did help Darkwolf open the door to Underworld.”