She jumped out of bed and rushed toward the door and pulled it open. The hallway was still and cold. Swallowing, she suddenly remembered the shadows from the night before. Had that really just been delusions brought on by whatever was happening to her?
Taking a guess that he would exit the cottage through the kitchen, she turned right to go out the door. Once again she wished she had clothes and not the meager T-shirt she’d been in since the morning. And she desperately needed a shower.
But she couldn’t leave things with Hadrian like that. She felt like the worst kind of shrew.
“He didn’t come this way, my lady.”
Hadley nearly jumped out of her skin, and pushed herself against the back wall.
“Who’s there?” Her heart pounded so hard she could hear it in her ears.
“We haven’t met yet but I was called to come and take a look at you, so look I shall.” A man stepped out of the shadows who looked as if he could have been a part of the darkness himself.
“Who are you?”
There was something about this man that was familiar to her. He seemed somehow like Hadrian. Was it his height or something else? She hoped she wasn’t making the comparison based solely on his dark hair. As he approached, she became more convinced that he was completely different from Hadrian. His eyes, even though she could barely make them out in the darkness, looked cruel and distant. Even when he attempted to be mean, Hadrian didn’t look like that.
The man bowed slightly from the neck. “My name is Dragon, Madame, and I have the dubious distinction of being Hadrian’s older brother.” Her voice shook as she laughed at his bad joke.
He stood inches from her, his face looming over her. “What is funny?”
“I thought… I mean when I first saw you, I knew you looked like him.”
He shook his head. “With the exception of the dark hair, there are no similarities between us.”
A trickle of sweat formed on her neck. Wow, Dragon really made her uncomfortable.
“Why don’t we go and find Hadrian together? I’m sure he’ll want to know you’re home.” She tried and failed to smile as she wished she could back even farther into the wall.
Dragon’s nostrils flared. “Are you sleeping with him? Is that why he’s kept you here, hidden you away from your family and your rightful place in Haven? What is his real agenda?”
“I’ve been sick.” Her hands started to shake and she felt a headache starting.
Pushing against Dragon’s shoulders, she tried to get him to budge from his position so she could get some air.
“I’m not moving until you tell me what’s going on.”
Her head throbbed hard and heat fumed within her body. As the hall started to blur, she realized she might faint. God, did she not want that. Calling on every ounce of strength and willpower she possessed, she tried desperately to regain focus and at least make it back it to the bed before she fell over. Dragon’s stubbornness greatly hindered her plan.
The shadows on the wall began parading again. They danced in strange movements that she could only compare to the arrangements of marionette dolls. Closer and closer they approached until one nearly touched Dragon’s back.
His eyes widened. “Are you unwell, Madame?”
She nodded. “Can’t you see them? Can’t anyone else see them?” Her words came out as a sob. They were going to get her, potentially harm everything in their way, and she was the only one who could make them out.
“Hadley.” Hadrian’s voice was hard as he stormed down the hall and into her line of vision. But it was too late. The shadows jerked and jumped. Nothing felt solid or real. “What have you done, Dragon?”
Hadrian shoved his brother away and pulled Hadley into his arms. He felt like tissue paper. Solid but unsteady. Or maybe it was she who wasn’t quite solid. She couldn’t tell anymore.
“I was merely trying to test her, to see if what was happening to her was real. I intimidated her a little bit.”
“Does she look as if she needs to be harmed? Hadley, can you hear me? What is happening to her?”
Dragon stepped forward again. “Her eyes, they’re glowing.”
“I can see that. What I don’t understand is why.”
Dragon grabbed her cheeks roughly in his hands and Hadrian snarled at him.
“Keep your possessiveness in check. Something very bad is happening here and I can’t attest to what it is, which is what disturbs me the most.”
Hadley saw Hadrian rub her forehead, although she couldn’t actually say whether or not she felt the sensation. It was bizarre, as if she were aware of things happening around her but unable to connect with them.
She tried one more time. “Can’t you see them? Can’t either of you?” The shadow creature in front of her reached out its hand as if she was to grasp it. She hissed in her breath. No way would she go with that thing voluntarily. It would have to come and take her by force.
“See what?” Dragon frowned.
Hadrian shook his head. “It’s delusions from the fever brought on by the healing. Last night she kept going on and on about the shadows.”
Dragon took a step back into the shadow behind him and the creature that only Hadley could see made a sigh that sounded like nothing more than a door creaking. It was now directly in front of her.
Turning in a circle, Dragon examined the walls. When he turned back to her, his whole body glowed with a warm white light. “Hell, Hadrian, I thought she was half Earthling.”
“She is. Can you help her or not?”
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken, brother. All of our Seers are wrong. Not only is she one of us completely, she is possibly the most talented of our kind to be born in over a century.”
Hadrian’s grip on her tightened until his knuckles turned white. “Not possible.”
“Things finally make sense to me, but there isn’t time for explanation. She is indeed in terrible danger and I suspect she can see the shadows moving even if I can’t. And the fact that they approach her is very bad indeed. Cover her eyes. We mustn’t let them take her.”
Without question, Hadrian placed his hand over her eyes and pushed his body in front of hers to block out more light.
“Lightning.” Dragon’s voice sounded, hard and louder than before, and the hallway lit up as if a nuclear bomb had gone off. The shadows screamed, a ghostly, agonized screech, and the sound was deafening in her head.
Tears sprung from Hadley’s eyes as the agony of a million creatures being pushed into unnatural light filled her soul. Gripping Hadrian even though she could not feel his touch, she lost consciousness.
Chapter Twelve
Hadrian grabbed Hadley as she collapsed, and scooped her up. Furious, he stormed into his bedroom and placed her gently on the bed. Assuring himself that she was still breathing, he bore down on his brother.
“What the hell is going on? I want an answer right now.”
Dragon sighed. “I came here, despite my intentions not to, to assess for myself and report to the king exactly what I thought was happening to Hadley and to figure out if your story regarding her health and need of training was true.”
Hadrian’s blood surged. He stalked over to his brother, invading his space. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“Please.” Dragon rolled his eyes. “Can you spare me the Warrior theatrics? I endured them enough as a child and I won’t put up with them now.”
But Hadrian wasn’t letting this go. “Do you have reason to doubt my word?”
“I have reason to mistrust everything said by a Warrior. I know better than most in just how little regard you hold the truth when your own agenda is involved.”
If Dragon wasn’t careful, Hadrian was going to punch him in the face. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Other than your so-called loyalty to the royal family, the Warriors are by nature completely uninterested in the needs or desires of anyone else in this dimension.”
Hadrian raised his fist an
d lowered it again. “If you weren’t my brother, I would kill you for that remark. Throughout the history of our people, no one has done more for this dimension than the Warriors. We sacrificed everything time and again for the needs of our people.”
Dragon shook his head. “Only when it fit your own agenda.”
Hadrian roared and Hadley whimpered on the bed. He strode over to her and stroked her hair. “It’s okay, darling, all will be well.”
“That is the second time you have called her ‘darling’ in my presence. What is this newfound affection, Hadrian? Don’t you remember? Warriors throw their women aside daily for self-improvement and honor.”
Dragon had a point. In their dimension, that was precisely what Warriors did to their mates, which was why it required a particular kind of self-involved, tough woman to handle them. Usually a woman from a Warrior family married a Warrior man.
But Hadrian had just come from Earth. He’d seen love over the course of two and a half centuries. Sometimes it lasted, sometimes it didn’t, but he’d be damned if he didn’t want it for himself. He’d touched on it with Annabelle but his recent feelings for Hadley dwarfed any he’d known before.
“When I want your opinion on how I address this woman, I will ask for it. Now explain yourself before I show you just how little I think of Mystics by using my Warrior skills. You said Hadley was not half-Earthling.”
Dragon nodded and paced to the window. “She’s not. I read her aura while we stood in the hall. She is clearly one of us. One hundred percent. This tells me that something has gone awry here. Tell me what happened when you arrived on Earth. Start from the beginning.”
Hadrian sighed and sat down on the bed next to Hadley. He’d expected to have to explain the events that led up to Zamara’s troubles but he hadn’t anticipated having to do it with Dragon.
The king bothered him less than his brother.
He reached over and took a water glass from the cedar table next to his bed. Glad to see he hadn’t finished the whole thing that morning, he took a sip before he started.
Placing the glass back down, he began.
“We’d traveled three dimensions. The first one was a water dimension. I hated it—I prefer to fly—but Zamara was enchanted by the sea-life, albeit surprised she didn’t see any Great Ones around. We moved on. The next one was a red dimension. By the end of it, Stone was sunburned and we were all hoping she was through. The truth is that neither of the first two dimensions took more than a week. It was as if she was pretending to put in the time to travel, explore and learn because she had to.”
Dragon shook his head. “Only a week in each. You would have been home in three months. What was she thinking? The king would never have accepted that as a true lifetime trip. I don’t remember Zamara being so foolish.”
“You’re right. When we were children, in our studies no one was more dedicated than Zamara to perfection. I joked with the men that if the average lifetime trip took one century, Zamara would complete hers precisely one week before the century mark and then make us wait the week just to be on time.”
Dragon sat down in the chair across the room and stretched his legs out straight. Hadrian glanced down at Hadley. He sighed—he felt sick about what was happening to her.
Dragon stared at Hadley, a remote look in his dark eyes. “She’ll be okay, I assure you. I’m nearly one hundred percent sure I know what happened. I just need to hear the whole story.”
“At the end of the second dimension, Zamara was extremely agitated, desperate to move on, and insisted it had to be the Earth dimension although it wasn’t on our agenda.”
Hadrian shrugged. “But I remembered that Dad told us the king switched trip plans three times on their journey, so I adjusted the coordinates and we moved on to Earth.”
“A blue planet. You must have hated it, all that ocean.”
“At first, but then it grew on me. With the exception of Pettigrew, the people are okay.”
“Pettigrew isn’t from Earth. But continue, I’ll explain.”
“Almost immediately upon arriving, Zamara made the acquaintance of this nothing of a man. Or at least he initially seemed that way. Within days she declared herself in love with him and began a torrid affair.”
Hadrian closed his eyes for a moment against the images that assaulted his memory. It had been hell standing outside the door listening to the carnal acts going on inside Zacharias’ bedroom, wondering what the hell Zamara was doing with such an average, unremarkable person. But she hadn’t broken any rules—she could take any lovers she wanted. At that point he had not foreseen her getting into any danger. He assumed she’d rid herself of the man before they left the dimension.
“It continued for longer than I suspected it would, but it was her trip and if she wanted to spend the majority of it on Earth sleeping with that person, I had nothing to say on the matter as long as her safety was unaffected. Then one night the strangest thing happened while we guarded her.”
Dragon sat up in his seat. “You fell asleep.”
Hadrian raised one eyebrow. “How the hell could you know that?”
“Because Zacharias is from here and he learned that in the Shadow Dimension. I promise I’ll explain why I know this, I just need you to continue.”
Hadrian worried that his eyes might fall out of their sockets. The Shadow Dimension? The one place the royals never went for fear of the enormous power there? By all that was holy, the one thing the Mystics spent more time on than any other was guarding the dimension from the Shadows. A Shadow hadn’t been on Haven for ten generations.
He continued. “When we awoke, she seemed different. Not so strange that I noticed initially but it became more noticeable over time. Her eyes glazed over, she stopped having opinions and she was no longer interested in leaving. Soon after, she became pregnant. At that point she stopped speaking altogether. We tried several rescue attempts but every time we did, we’d hit a barrier of Zamara’s own creation. It was as if a literal wall would form around her. We couldn’t get through.”
“And nine months later her baby was born.”
“Yes.” He swallowed. “Annabelle.”
Dragon raised an eyebrow. “More to tell there, huh?”
Hadrian shook his head. “I’m not going to discuss her. I don’t think she’s relevant.”
“Maybe she was why you were distracted for the next thirty years?”
Hadrian rose from his seat and crossed to the window. Distracted was the right word for how he had been. “It doesn’t matter. Pettigrew poisons them so they die at thirty if they don’t hold enough of their mother’s powers.”
“Who told you that?”
It had been a long time since he’d had that conversation but as he’d stood silently and watched Clarice die, he hadn’t been able to stand it anymore and had demanded an answer from Pettigrew, even if he wasn’t important enough to be entitled to one. “The monster himself.”
“He lied.”
“I watched them all die, Dragon. I’m not so dense that I can’t tell when someone has passed away.”
“No, Hadrian.” Dragon walked over to the window next to Hadrian. His eyes, for once, actually looked kind. “What you saw was them being taken to the shadows. It looks like a death.”
“Like in the old legends and the fairy tales we tell children to get them to behave. Grandma used to tell them to me.”
Dragon grinned. “Learn your lessons, practice your skills or you won’t be able to defend yourselves when the Shadows come. They can’t get you if you’re strong.”
Hadrian nodded, rubbing his chin. “Those are the ones.”
“I don’t know about you, but I used to lie awake in my bed staring at shadows wondering if they were staring back at me.”
“I don’t remember ever being afraid of them.”
Dragon rolled his eyes. “Of course you weren’t. You were a born Warrior. Our parents should have known when I actually had nightmares that something was terribly wrong.”
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“There was never anything wrong with you. You just weren’t a Warrior. You’re a hugely respected, extremely talented Mystic. In most circles that’s better.”
Dragon shrugged. “But not here.”
“I can’t have this conversation with you again. Not now. You’re telling me the shadow people are real, Pettigrew somehow gives his daughters to them and Hadley is in danger from them now. How can you possibly know all this?”
“Because I looked through Hadley’s eyes and I saw them too.”
Hadrian sucked in his breath. “You can do that? You’re that powerful?”
Hell. He’d always been in awe of his brother, but now there really was reason to fear him. Very few people—the stuff of legends, really—reached that level of Mystical perfection. Hadrian had only read about it in books. Warriors were only encouraged to go so far in their Mystical training. Their purpose in life was not to delve too far into the Mystics but to protect those who did.
Dragon merely nodded as if reaching that state of power was an everyday occurrence.
“How could Zacharias Pettigrew be one of us and how in heavens could he have cut a deal with the shadow people to give them his children?”
“Because his real name is Xander and he is the only man in the last two millennia to be banned from Haven for conducting secret, dangerous experiments in the hope of combining our dimension with that of the Shadow People. I don’t know how he got to Earth and I had no idea he’d gone so far as to actually contact them, but it looks as if he has everything he wants now.”
“This is one of those stories kept quiet from the general population, isn’t it?”
“For their protection.”
“And for whatever reason he’s always wanted a royal princess?”
Dragon drummed his hand on the wall. “He felt it was imperative that his bloodline be combined with a royal’s. Here, royals and Royal Guardians are the only ones who can create a portal for interdimensional travel. Pettigrew thought he could create a race of people who could travel without aid in and out of dimensions.”
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