Shadow Lands Page 22
“Welcome to the Shadow Lands, Chosen,” Emery said. “You have passed all the trials.”
* * *
Four grueling hours later, as night fell to cover the loss and destruction caused by the biggest battle the Shadow had ever seen, Shanti followed Sonson down a wide corridor in the building where guests of the city were housed. This was a different area than that used for visitors and traders with enough money to house themselves. They were not visiting; they were family coming home for a stay.
It was a small building. It seemed the Shadow didn’t invite many into their fold.
Cayan and Rohnan followed directly behind Shanti, close to exhaustion but still standing tall. Everyone had fought hard that day, and everyone had lost friends and loved ones—details that needed to be looked after before rest. It was what was right.
“Chosen…zzz.” Sonson summoned up a small smile below his ragged face and dull eyes. Blood had been scrubbed away, but the memory would linger for the rest of his life, Shanti had no doubt. “Chosens.” He opened a door leading into a wide living area. “These are your quarters.”
Shanti glanced back at Cayan. Her middle tingled, but wariness encroached. She was too tired to think of how things would change between them. So she shuffled out of the way and mimicked Sonson’s gesture. “Go ahead, Cayan. I’ll just stay with Rohnan.”
“Are you not…?” Sonson let the words drift away, but the confusion showed in his furrowed eyebrows.
“Yes we are, but she hasn’t admitted it yet it seems,” Cayan said. Humor and determination danced in his words and sparked in his mind.
Shanti ignored both.
“Ah.” Sonson waited for Cayan to enter the room, and walked down the hall. He stopped at the next door and glanced at Rohnan. “The Chosen…zzz—I need to get used to having two. The Chosens have earned their status as family. You, however, are kin, however remote. Even without rings and golden charms, you look just like my brother. Obviously your people were as selective in breeding as mine. The origins stayed pure.” Sonson laughed and opened the door. “You are welcome here, anytime.”
Rohnan offered a bow. “I am honored,” Rohnan said in the native dialect. “It’s been a long road. You have no idea what it means to finally reach this place and have the door opened to us.” Rohnan shook his head. His eyes glossed over and he entered the room, saying no more.
“He’s sensitive,” Shanti said, trying to conjure a smile but not quite able. “He’ll probably be a puddle of tears in a minute.”
Sonson nodded. “I can’t imagine what you two have been through. But I have a feeling I will soon. We will follow you to the mainland, and then into Death’s playground—I do like that expression. We have a score to settle, just like you.”
“It won’t be easy, I’ll tell you that much. I was so close!” A memory of Xandre’s wave as he drifted away materialized in her mind. “So close.”
“He is scared. He must be. He outnumbered us in both mental-workers and warriors… and he ran. He is scared, and we will ram that fear down his throat when next we meet.”
A hard edge had crept into Sonson’s eyes and voice. “Until then, we will assemble, we will prepare, and we will follow you to battle. We have much to do yet, but we will all do it together, and we will succeed.”
Shanti watched him walk away, his mind as full of fire as the sweep of hair around his head. He was a worthy ally.
Shanti trudged into Rohnan’s quarters. He sat on the couch with his head leaned back and his eyes closed. When she closed the door he asked, “Will he get you your own residence?”
Shanti shrugged, even though he couldn’t see it with his eyes closed. “He didn’t say. Doesn’t matter, though. You have plenty of space. You’ll share and you’ll like it.”
A grin drifted up Rohnan’s face. “Yes. I’ve never been worried about having family close. What of the animals?”
Shanti thought of the small cats. She wished she could’ve brought them to these quarters with her, but they were dehydrated, tired, and no doubt feeling lost. “The Shadow have animal keepers—not just for horses. They have a plethora of exotic creatures it seems. The cats are being looked after.”
“They won’t be put back into the wild?”
Shanti took a plush chair made of fabric and soft stuffing. It wasn’t even remotely as comfortable as Cayan’s leather couches. Unexpectedly, her heart pinched. She felt his expectant relaxation from down the hall. The distance between them was nothing. Their Gift still mingled and mixed, sharing their bodies as though they were one.
Distracting herself, she crossed an ankle over her knee and thought about a bath. She desperately needed one.
Remembering Rohnan’s question, she answered, “No. They’d be killed by other predators, and they don’t have a mother to teach them. Killing the mother killed whatever chance the cubs had.”
“So what will be done with them?”
Shanti grimaced. “Coming with us, I guess. It’ll take a few months to get the first group of Shadow mobile. We’ll head back to Cayan’s land then and await the rest. But in a few months they should be able to travel with us. The beasts will be coming, too—though how the Shadow plan to get those huge monsters across the sea is beyond me. And what we’ll do with them in Cayan’s city…”
“You are excited about going back.”
Shanti felt the swirl of expectation at the thought of heading back to Cayan’s city, with the calm certainty that it was home; the only place she’d felt comfortable since she left her birth place. She longed for just that tiny bit of stability.
But Rohnan didn’t need to know that, the nosy bastard.
“I’ve asked the Shadow Lord to send a message,” Shanti said, then watched as Rohnan’s eyes opened gradually. His head tipped forward. His gaze came to rest on hers, blazing with hope. “The message will instruct our survivors to get to Cayan’s city without raising any eyebrows. It is time for our people to come out of hiding.”
Rohnan’s eyes filled with tears again. Shanti rolled her eyes and pushed herself off the chair. “Compared to you, I hardly ever cry at all.”
Shanti wandered through the spacious interior of the living space and into one of the two bedrooms. Beside them was a room with a large tub, empty of water. Sonson had assured them someone would be there soon with hot water for a bath.
Shanti took the smaller of the two rooms since these weren’t her quarters, and stared at the empty bed, still big enough for two. She thought of trekking through the wild. Of sharing small spaces with the large body of Cayan behind her, his big arm wrapped around her protectively. She’d become used to it. In a few short days, she’d grown accustomed to his presence being just that bit closer. Going from being on the other side of the fire, as he had been through the journey, to being next to her, then to sleeping beside her. The gradual closeness had become the norm, and now she felt lonely without it.
She wandered back into the living room.
“There is one thing that bothers me,” Rohnan said softly, his head leaned back and eyes closed again.
“What’s that?” Shanti asked, wandering toward the walls to examine the art. She felt unsettled, like she couldn’t relax.
“The Hunter wouldn’t have given up, but he wasn’t there today. You would’ve felt him, or I would’ve. We recognize his mind now. So… where was he?”
Shanti stopped and turned to Rohnan, thinking. He wasn’t dead—she’d seen him struggling to get up after their battle, and Rohnan was right. She was sure he hadn’t been on the island.
“Maybe he knows he’ll be punished for his failure and ran?” Shanti tried.
“Likely. But where would he go? He’s been trained to the point that he has no free thoughts.”
Shanti shifted, putting her weight on one hip. “You think he’ll try to complete his mission…”
“What else would he do? If he secured you and Burson, he’d be forgiven.”
“So you think he’s lying in wait somewhere?
”
Uncertainty and wariness drifted from Rohnan’s mind. “If I had to guess… yes.”
Shanti shook her head and turned to look at some art decorating the wall. “It changes nothing. On our way back to Cayan’s city, we’ll face a great many dangers lying in wait. He’s no different.”
Shanti felt the spark of uncertainty. That statement had only been partially true. The Hunter was the next largest threat to her life besides Xandre. Xandre would be licking his wounds and planning his next step, but the Hunter was mostly exiled at the moment. His determination would not only double, an edge of desperation would creep in. He’d be twice as deadly.
A knock sounded at the door. Shanti’s heart gave a violent lurch. With butterflies, she opened the door. A tall man with a bronze bucket of steaming water waited, a line of water bearers behind him.
She smiled, sighing through the strange nervousness, and stepped aside for him to enter. Then waited with the door open, looking down the empty corridor after they’d passed. Another group of water bearers entered the hall, stopping at Cayan’s door, bringing back Shanti’s butterflies.
“Go, Chosen,” Rohnan said with fatigue in his voice. “I want to take a bath first anyway, and don’t feel like fighting you for it. You and he can share.”
Shanti scowled, but her gaze drifted back down the hall. As the water bearers passed again, headed to get more water, she followed, closing the door behind her. She knocked softly at Cayan’s door, her heart in her throat.
“Come in,” came his muffled voice through the door.
She entered with a sudden bout of embarrassment, not really sure what to say. He glanced up from the couch. His shirt was draped across the top of the chair, showing off his perfectly defined and cut chest. Dimples heightened the attractiveness of his face as he smiled knowingly. “I told them not to fill the tub as much, since there’ll be two bodies in it. They have one more trip, they said, and it’ll be ready for us.”
Shanti flushed. “How’d you know?”
His smile burned brighter. “Your first impulse is to run. But I know that you’ll eventually find your way back if I’m patient. The time it takes for you to return gets shorter and shorter, and soon you’ll stop running.”
Shanti felt a flash of anger, and then a rush of something else. Something infinitely deeper. Something terrifying that she’d have to deal with, because she was tied with him now. Together, uniting forces and power, they could beat Xandre. Together, they could claim justice.
She closed the door and started toward him. He was right: whatever came, they’d face it together.
* * *
The End
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Sasha has grown up with one surety: she’s not normal.
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As I met his black eyes, his puzzled expression deepened. “You’re human…”
“We established that, yes. What I want to know is, if I am human, what does that make you? And why do I notice you when others usually don’t?”
His head cocked to the side. His easy balance, his lethal edge; he was like a blade resting on billowing silk. “Very few humans are able to withstand our pheromones. Fewer still to break a Kolma once it has been placed. You’ve not been trained, that’s obvious; so how is this possible when you’re definitely human? Do you possess the blood of another species?”
I could barely think past the pounding ache of my body, begging to touch him. I needed to get a grip! He was revealing some very interesting factoids I needed to jot down in my mental notebook.
His nostrils flared. “Charles was right; your arousal is a unique scent. Like a spicy, warm drink on a mid-winter’s night. It rises above other smells, ent
rancing the mind.”
“Umm,” charged with questions, determination, anger, and demands, I thrust forward, “Listen, what did you mean about withstanding the…pher-thing? Or breaking the other thing? How can you trap someone’s head with pleasure? Because I’m pretty sure—not positive, but pretty sure—that Jared is straight. And also, I really think we should circle back to what the hell you are, and why nobody knows that you exist? Because this whole people scattering thing is not normal, and I think an explanation is probably in order.”
He stepped closer, not hearing me, or not caring that I spoke. His eyes looked at me like I was a life-sized riddle. They delved, searching. He took another step, forcing me to retreat two steps to keep distance between our bodies. Another step back had my back to the wall.
A small smile curved his lips. “I exude pleasure, you run. I exude fear, you come calling. You want me, I can smell it. I can feel it, almost like a palpable thing. Give in to it. Yield to me.”
Oh God I wanted to. His body was mere inches from mine, his intense eyes looking down into my soul from a face out of a Renaissance painting. The power of him, the sheer strength, had strange, primal fantasies running amok through my head. My core tingled, my chest surged, and my nipples were so hard they could cut this stone wall.
Why had I come here, again?
~*~*~*~
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