Shadow Reaper

by Debbie Cassidy

  “No.”

  Cal inclined his head, and Coralee executed a strange spider bow before laying the garment almost reverently at my feet.

  I reached for it but stopped short of touching the fabric. It was too beautiful. I looked up at her, not seeing a monster anymore, but an artist.

  “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

  All her eyes widened and then I think she smiled.

  We left the forest and I expected Cal to drop me off at my quarters, but he took me back up to the floor where Avery’s office was. Instead of taking the turn that would lead to the office, he strode past room after room. Some were open; others were barred. I caught glimpses of opulent décor, and in one case, the back of a blonde female head, the flash of jade eyes in a looking glass. We kept moving. When I was beginning to think we would never reach our destination, he came to a halt outside a closed door—pure white and edged in gold.

  I caressed the wood, marvelling at its smoothness.

  Cal reached around me, twisted the cut glass handle and walked in. I followed.

  “Wow!” I turned on the spot, taking in the thick royal blue drapes, the midnight blue duvet thrown on the huge oval bed and the long, deep tub that stood on curved legs by the far wall. There was an ornate mantle over a fireplace, unlit but still gorgeous. I wondered what it would look like all lit up and crackling. I imagined sitting by it with a mug of hot chocolate; a girl from a picture in a story book.

  Cal strode back toward the door.

  I made to follow, but he shot me a glance that froze my feet. “You stay here,” he said. “This is your room now.”

  “What?”

  “You will live here from now on. These are your new quarters. Hang up the garment that Coralee gave you in the wardrobe. You’ll find boots to match inside. There won’t be any need for you to take shifts any longer, or mingle with the other humans. You’re one of us now. You’ll be sent for in the morning.”

  Huh? What the hell had just happened? I stared at him as I processed. I’d agreed to help them rid the Shadowlands of the shadows, which I kinda assumed wouldn’t be a one day job. I planned on bringing Bernie back here with me while I kept up my end of the bargain but I was no one’s bitch. “What if I don’t want to be one of you?”

  Cal’s stony features cracked into a frown.

  I took a step toward him and planted my hands on my slender hips. “What if I want to take shifts and hang out with the other humans?”

  Cal’s frown deepened. “You have privilege now. You belong to the Dream Eaters. No one can harm you, you will have their protection.”

  “But not free will.”

  “You will be taken care of for the rest of your mortal life.”

  Oh, Mother, didn’t he realise that every word that was coming out his mouth was pissing me off more and more? And then panic set in as his words sank in - the rest of my mortal life? What had I unwittingly agreed to? I could feel my head swelling with the need to yell, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. He was made of stone, for goodness sake. From the tone of his voice he was more confused than anything with my behaviour. He just didn’t understand.

  “I want to speak to Avery,” I said. I needed to clear this shit up.

  Cal glanced to the wall on my left. I followed his gaze and blinked in horror as a door opened up and Avery stepped through.

  A connecting door? Seriously? Deep breaths, calm down, Ash, you can sort this out like a mature, reasonable adult.

  “Ashling, welcome to your new quarters. You see, there is no need to go on your foolish quest. You can have everything your heart desires right here.” He held out his arms and my resolve took a flying leap off a very high cliff.

  “What the fuck are you on?”

  He flinched.

  “No, seriously? What the hell makes you think I want to belong to anyone? The only person I will ever belong to is me! You can shove your privilege where the sun don’t shine, mate! I like working for what’s mine. I like working full stop, and if I decide to help you it’ll be on my own terms. I do not belong to anyone, and I am going to Inferna. We had a deal, so don’t even try and wriggle out of it. And just to clarify, I’ll be staying as long as it takes to get rid of these shadows and then I’m done with you guys.

  A strangled cough echoed through the room. I glanced over my shoulder at Cal who had his hand over his mouth.

  Was he laughing?

  I turned back to Avery, who pinned me with his sharp gaze. “Let me break this down for you, Ashling. The only reason you’re alive is because I allowed it. I could have given you to Treagor, but I let you stay here. I gave you shelter, food, clothes, and now I’m offering to take you as mine.” He moved closer and I heard the door close softly behind me. I glanced over my shoulder. Cal had left. Avery stopped so close, I could feel his breath on my face; sweet and enticing. “You can have every comfort, anything your heart desires. All you have to do is work for me indefinitely.” He reached out and ran a finger down the side of my face, sending a shiver down my spine. “Work and play, Ash, a delectable combination.”

  I stared at him. Who the hell was this guy? Did he really think I was that stupid? That I was ruled by my vagina? Man, he had another thing coming if he thought I’d drop my mission for a little cock, no matter how out of this world it might prove to be.

  I smiled sweetly, reached up, and ran my finger down the side of his face and watched as his eyes lit up in triumph.

  “I’ll take my old quarters, my shifts, and my interaction with the humans over this,” I waved my arm to encompass the room, “any day. The price for the comforts you offer is too high. I agreed to work with you not for you. If you can’t get that straight, then the deal’s off. I’ll go to Inferna alone if I have to. I’ll find a way. I’m determined like that.” I injected hardness into my smile, into my eyes, and watched the triumph bleed from his.

  He stepped away, ducking his head and opening up his arms. “Very well, we shall agree to your terms for now, but please, keep the quarters. It would be a shame to let them go to waste.” He moved toward the door he’d entered through and turned the knob. Just before he slipped out, he glanced back and said, “I’ll be next door if you need me for . . . anything.” Then he was gone, leaving me gaping and annoyed that he’d gotten the last word.

  ASH

  There was no lock on that damned door, and I spent most of the night staring at it, thinking he was going to sneak in and . . . I don’t know, put a bloody spell on me or something. I barely slept a wink, and before I knew it, Cal was knocking on the door telling me it was time.

  The suit Coralee had made was bundled up neatly and placed in a backpack with a few supplies: food, a canteen of water, and a jar of green gunk that Cal explained would heal minor wounds. He gave me strict instructions to don the suit when I grew close to Inferna. “It will protect your fragile human body and hide you in plain sight.”

  I asked him how I’d know I was close.

  He told me I’d know.

  Great.

  I guess Daemon would tell me.

  Cal left me at the doors to Apocalypse with a curt nod and a warning. “Do no piss Daemon off.”

  Great! How the hell was I going to not piss someone off when I didn’t know what could or could not piss him off? Some more information would have been nice.

  I sighed and stepped outside. There was no one on the door, maybe a gap in rotation, or maybe deliberate oversight to allow Daemon and I to leave. After all, no one had seen him before. What better time for him to make an exit than when it was completely dead in the bar and at the door.

  As I waited for him to appear, I paced the dirt directly in front of the doorway. My eyes kept straying to the entrance, expecting something huge and scary and mean to come barrelling out at any moment.

  The fear was back, churning in my guts.

  A roar cut through the air to my left. I spun round, my body going into fight or flight mode, leaning heavily on the flight—I wasn’t an idiot—as a
monster came careening toward me. Huge, black, and shiny.

  It was a vehicle, a motorbike, but unlike anything I’d ever seen, with wheels half the height of me and almost twice the width. It was a novel beast but the beast that rode it was even more arresting. The short, terrified glimpse that I’d had of him had done him little justice, and now that I saw him properly, I couldn’t help but recall that this specimen had, not so long ago, lain on top of me, wanted me.

  My mouth was suddenly dry, and I licked my lips. “Daemon?” I don’t know why I turned his name into a question. It was obvious who he was. His black hair was pulled back from his face and fastened at the nape. His skin was darker that Avery’s—bronze and smooth and perfect—but his eyes were what captured my attention: pinpricks of darkness in a sea of silver. They stood out from his dusky face like shimmering pools of moonlight.

  Wow, he was turning me all poetic.

  I didn’t understand why he didn’t want anyone seeing him, he was . . . magnificent. I wasn’t sure how tall he was, but his legs were long, muscular, clad in tight black trousers, and his torso, what I could see of it over the front of the bike was wide-shouldered and powerful. Yeah, I could imagine him breaking someone in two.

  He kept his gaze fixed ahead while I drank him. Then he jerked his head. “Hurry, human. We have a long ride ahead.” Shit, that voice, not as echoey or rumbly as the other night, but still, it went straight to my core.

  “You want me to get on?”

  He sighed. “They didn’t tell me you were stupid.”

  I bristled. “That’s because I’m not!”

  “Then why are you still standing there looking stupid?”

  I clenched my jaw and strode over. “I was just checking.” I came abreast of the bike and looked up at him. Man, he was even bigger up close. The ledge to hoist myself up onto the bike was really high. I waited for him to offer me a hand, but all he did was sigh again. Fuck it! I wasn’t gonna wait around to be called stupid again. I placed my right foot on the ledge and my right hand on his thigh and hoisted myself up and over so I was straddling the bike. His thigh flexed under my hand and then he grabbed it with a huge mitt of his own. A low rumble vibrated through him as he ran the pad of his thumb over the ink on my fingers. I didn’t know what to do so I let him touch me, ignoring the warmth that the contact sent travelling up my arm. I closed my eyes and recalled the feel of his taut skin under my fingers. It had been so smooth and silky and—

  He released my hand.

  The engine revved.

  “Hold on,” he said and then we were moving. My body jerked and my arms flailed. I took his advice and wrapped my arms around his waist as far as they would go, buried my face into his back and took the ride.

  Wind whistled in my ear, my butt slowly went numb, and I’m pretty sure my hair was a rat’s nest of wind-swept tangles. When we finally stopped for a rest, it was on wobbly, grateful legs that I slid off the bike and hit the dirt.

  I wish I could say what the landscape we had driven through had looked like, but I’d been too busy holding on for dear life to appreciate anything much. I kissed earth for a while, waiting for my jelly legs to solidify. I could hear him moving around, his boots hitting the dirt beside me and the fear was back.

  I was alone in the middle of nowhere with a huge beastly man who seemed to have a sex drive to rival a . . . I don’t know what, something that had a high sex drive.

  It’s okay, he’s sated, remember?

  Clay’s voice again, reassuring me, lending me the strength I needed to lift my chin and look up at my guide.

  His shadow loomed over me, huge and menacing, and those glowing eyes looked down on the spot over my head. He was even bigger than I had thought. No longer hidden behind the bike, his upper body was muscled, shoulders wide, hips slim. His legs were long and encased in heavy boots that looked like they could easily crush my skull.

  “Follow me,” he said to the dirt behind me.

  I frowned. Did he not like looking at me or something?

  He turned away, reached for his bike, grasped the handlebars and began to wheel it away. I got up, dusted myself off, and followed.

  All around us was shadowy, hulking, rocky terrain. We were on the flatlands part of it, there were no house skeletons in sight. Maybe this was where the Shadowlands had completely swallowed my world.

  Daemon led me toward a large rock formation. The closer we got, the darker it got, until we were shrouded completely in shadow. Daemon stopped, lifted his chin, and swung his head from side to side.

  “Come.” He began to move again, right toward the rock face.

  I reached out to stop him, to say something, but at the last moment, he swerved to the left and vanished.

  What the hell? I stood staring at the spot he’d just been.

  His head appeared, those silver eyes fixed on my neck. “Come.”

  Come. Come. Talk about being over economical with your words. Was this what they meant when they said ‘strong silent type?’ I swallowed a giggle and stepped forward in the direction he’d vanished. I found myself inside a fire-lit cave. Daemon was already seated by the fire, which crackled and spat, casting strange shapes on the rock walls, but he wasn’t alone. There was a skeletal-looking man sitting opposite him, nursing a long stick that had some kind of meat stuck to the end of it. He held it over the fire, turning it this way and that, and the smell that came off it made my stomach rumble.

  Daemon lifted his chin and tilted his head. “Human, come warm yourself. The night will grow chilly soon. Gundar has offered us a share of his meal in exchange for my protection.”

  “Protection?”

  Daemon’s lips curled in a humourless smile. “Do not presume we are the only creatures on a journey. This respite is open to all and not everyone is interested in sharing it.”

  Gundar held out the stick with the meat stuck to it in Daemon’s direction. But I was staring at Daemon because he’d actually offered me a lengthy sentence.

  Daemon inhaled, his eyes drifted closed and then he reached for the meat, plucked it from the stick and tore it in two. It was steaming hot, I could see that, but he didn’t even flinch.

  “Here.” He held half the meat in my direction. It smelled so bloody good. I moved over to the fire, slipping past the huge bike which he had parked inside the hidden entrance to the cave, plucked the meat from his fingers, and took a seat beside him.

  “What is it?” I asked, shifting the meat from hand to hand and blowing on it to cool it.

  “It’s food. That’s all you need to know.”

  I considered pressing him for an answer, but my stomach protested. It wanted this food and if my brain knew what it was then it might deny me the pleasure of eating it. I ripped into it with my teeth and sighed as flavour exploded on my tongue.

  “Good?” Gundar said, his eyes huge in his emaciated head.

  I nodded, too busy chewing to talk. I wanted to ask what he was. He looked like a walking skeleton with skin stretched over his bones.

  I finished my meat and reached for my backpack to pull out my canteen of water. I took a couple of gulps to sate my thirst and then held it out to Daemon. He tensed, his gaze fixed on the fire, and then he turned his head slightly in my direction. “Not thirsty.”

  I shrugged, recapped the canteen and shoved it into my backpack. A yawn stretched my jaw. It clicked and I snapped it shut in embarrassment.

  “Sleep now,” Daemon said.

  I glanced about. “Where?”

  He patted the ground beside him.

  Well, at least it was close to the fire. I lay down, using my backpack as a pillow. It wasn’t as if I’d never slept on the open ground before. There had been many times when I was a child that we’d squatted in some dilapidated building or other—mum, dad, Clay, and me. But that had been long ago and my body had gotten soft, used to the comfort of a mattress and the warm weight of a blanket or, in the case of Apocalypse, a duvet. Yeah, I’d been spoiled, weakened.

  I
watched the flames flicker and sway. Gundar threw another piece of wood into the fire, and it roared, tearing at the bark hungrily, spitting angry little red sparks that floated about in a strange, hypnotic dance.

  My eyes grew heavy, and I allowed my lids to close, slowly slipping into slumber.

  ***

  I awoke to smouldering embers and a bone-aching chill. My teeth knocked together in my head, and I couldn’t feel my fingers. I reached for Daemon, but he was gone. I sat up, straining to see beyond the shadows of the cave. I made out the unconscious, sleeping form of Gundar. Like me, he had fallen asleep by the fire, and now the fire was almost out. Daemon had been right, the night was cold. Pulling my jacket closer about me, I got to my knees and shuffled closer to Gundar, searching the ground around him for some wood. My fingers grazed something hard and rough.

  Wood.

  I grasped it and put it on the embers. Now for some kindling. I found a pile of dried leaves and bracken and carefully arranged them on the dying embers, blowing softly until flames began to lick at the wood and the fire rose back up into the air. I held my hands out to the flames.

  Where was Daemon? I scanned the cave again, now with the aid of firelight, and found him lying by the entrance, by his beast of a bike.

  His back was to me, his front facing the entrance. Was he keeping watch? Shit, he must be freezing his bollocks off!

  I stood and moved toward him, was almost at his back when I spoke. “Daemon?”

  He didn’t stir.

  Asleep, then.

  I was about to turn back to the flames when I realised I wasn’t cold anymore. I stood still and assessed the situation, held out my arms and felt the warm and cosy air. I stepped closer to Daemon and sighed in pleasure as heat rippled over my skin, chasing away the last vestiges of the chill.

  How was this possible? How come it was warm so far from the fire? I dropped to my knees and reached for his shoulder, the heat intensified and I had my answer.

  The heat was coming from him.

  It felt so good. I wanted, no, needed to stay close. I glanced back at the fire which was beginning to ebb again. I’d never been good with building fires and I was bone weary. The heat here was too pleasant to pass up, and I really didn’t need to be pressed up against him to feel it. My body made the decision for me by lying down a foot away from him, his back to my front. Even the ground was warm. So warm. So nice.