Shadow Reign (Shadow Puppeteer Book 2) (16 page)

The shuffle of footsteps beyond the door drew my interest. I kicked away from the wall and noticed that even in human form, my senses were stronger. I smelt strawberries and wolf. I opened the door before Morae could knock. She smiled at me, looking just as tired as her brother and alpha.

“Mom is making a pre-morning snack,” she offered.

I followed her out into the hall. “Sounds good, I’m starving.”

After breakfast, I was definitely leaving. I’d have to give Brede an I.O.U. on this one.

Morae changed into a white tank top that showed off her refined muscle. Her hips sported nice size guns and clips. I wondered what I looked like with all my weapons. I still haven’t seen a mirror and at this point, I wasn’t sure I’d like what I’d see, anyway. It bothered me to think I lost everything remotely human about myself. Worst of all, was I still pretty enough to love?

“How’s your eye?” Morae asked.

I stopped fiddling with my eye patch, unaware my fingers found their way to my face. “Changing helped my wound. I guess I hoped the same for my eye.”

Morae made a sound that could’ve passed for sympathy, but said nothing about it. “War leaves a lot of scars. Sometimes the mental ones are far worse than the physical ones.”

I lowered my shields and felt the familiar strings of pain in her that resided in Brede. Did they lose the same person? There was room to press, so I did.

“Can all alphas do what Brede did?”

Morae chuckled. “It’s not usual. Brede went looking for his lover and found vampires and faeries instead. He gave a lot and came back altered. You’re the second person he’s helped.”

“The first?” I asked.

Morae sighed. “My brother was the first. He hadn’t changed into a wolf for a decade, which is long for us when the moon is a driving force.”

“Brede’s in love with your brother.” It went without saying. They were pack. They shared the burden of loss. I knew that from what Rex went through.

Morae gave a non-committed grunt. “We did what we had to do and we’ll do it again. We were just a pack thirty years ago. Now we’re warriors.”

I lowered my shields just enough to feel the curve of her energy. She had the familiar heat that followed the werewolves, but her spirit felt different, much like Brede’s. I raised my shields the moment I felt the pull of her sadness. It was sticky strands that attached to my spirit, wanting entry. As much as I wanted to ease her sadness, I couldn’t go into battle with a foggy head.

“So everyone in the pack—”

“Most of the pack did what Brede did,” she said. Again, the sadness was heavy. “Very few of the pack members who remained untouched by all this, stuck around.”

Did their relationship with the vampires and faeries change their genetic makeup? I was grasping to understanding, now that Brede showed me who I was. I shouldn’t be so desperate to jump into a family that I’d make anything work. I didn’t see a long future ahead of me.

“That would make you almost forty. I don’t understand. You look like you’re barely in your twenties.”

“That’s the age I was when I drank the blood. It slowed our aging, but who wants to live forever like this, always waiting for World Congress to come? We’re not immortal; we just have a few assets that come in handy.”

“Morae, I have something for you to look at,” a large man met us down the hallway. His head nearly brushed the ceiling and his broad shoulders took up a great deal of space. He didn’t have the same presence as Morae. He wasn’t a werewolf.

Morae turned to me. “If you keep going straight, you’ll get to the kitchen. This area is like a maze, so try not to get lost.”

She didn’t wait for me to respond before leaving with the guy. I walked down the hall following the familiar scent of bacon. It didn’t take long to understand what Morae was talking about. All the hallways looked the same and the scent of bacon, though strong, was coming from two directions. She said keep straight and that’s what I planned to do until I passed a hall and caught a lithe figure with long blue hair.

I backtracked. Bliss wasn’t wearing his hat with the blue feather, but I’d know him anywhere. The sith said he was the Unseelie Queen’s best guard. I wanted to take a look at his aura, but with my patch on, that wasn’t possible.

Brede was against the wall and Bliss was a few steps from evading his space. The faerie wiped a hand over his mouth while Brede lowered his shirt sleeve, but not before I caught the broken skin on his wrist. Bliss drank blood? There was a lot I didn’t know about faeries.

“What did you learn?” Brede asked. Even up against the wall, he maintained the alpha air about him.

Something keen of caution crawled through me and I stepped back behind the wall. They could smell me, or hear my heart. Anything could give me away, but maybe the smell of bacon was too strong. In the moment of silence that followed, boisterous laughter rolled down their corridor. It sounded like a place I wouldn’t mind being.

“I found someone who hears the summoning music,” Bliss said.

His shoes clicked on the tile floor and I prayed they weren’t heading this way, but a second pair of shoes didn’t follow. I glanced down my hall for a quick hiding spot just in case. There were a few doors, but I didn’t trust that they lead to empty rooms.

“You say someone, but not him?” Brede asked.

“It’s not promising. A female answered the call and she’s the right age. I’m sorry Brede, I think I have Nelek’s daughter and if that’s the case…”

“Then she didn’t drown,” Brede finished the thought.

My legs went weak as I sunk to the floor. They were talking about the same thing Kelaino said to me. What were the chances that I’d find the exact werewolf pack that wanted me dead? The laughter bubbled in my head and I squeezed it down. Was it me or was it Khaos?

If it was true, their lost wolf was my father and Brede’s companion. Nelek, it was a name I repeated a few times. I wanted parents my entire life. I dreamt about it, but this was overwhelming. Just because I heard the music, didn’t mean I was related. I had to keep those thoughts at a distance.

“I have to meet her. Where is she?” Brede asked.

Was a pack family like a human family, making him my uncle? Again, I had to stop those thoughts as I pulled to my feet. The minute Bliss let the news slip about me, Brede would be coming this way. I inched down the hall.

“Once we find Nelek, you’re going to have to kill her. It’s the only way he’ll survive,” Bliss said.

Yeah, I wore my welcome out. I needed to get going, yet I went as far as I dared. It was hard to hear from this distance. They weren’t talking very loud.

Silence followed, so I assumed he nodded in agreement. There was a rustle of paper and I stepped back further. It didn’t matter what they said, because Brede was coming. There was too much force within him to fight without the spirits help and I didn’t want to kill him.

I caught the first door I came to and almost pinched my fingers in the nook, trying to keep it from slamming. My hands were shaking as I dumped salt into my palm and nearly dropped the prism in the process. I flung the salt and whispered a warding spell Zephyr taught me. It kept the evil spirits at bay, but would it keep a teleporting faerie out of the room? I couldn’t take that chance.

I needed a death door to get back to the mountain. Zephyr never taught me how to direct it, so I hoped visualizing a location worked. Another problem loomed as I pulled the small vile of blood from the second pouch. Zephyr said the only way to channel a death door was by standing in a spot death had occurred. This room had no bad vibes, but I did.

My energy stayed contained within my shields so I lowered my only line of defense. I could feel the werewolves just beyond the door. The bacon wouldn’t cover my entire scent, just like it didn’t cover their entire scent. They’d find me soon.

Zephyr also said I was half dead. There was no reason I couldn’t try opening the door with my presence. That meant the spell had to be altered to my essence. I stuck the vile back in the pouch in case all else failed. If it didn’t fail, I’d deal with the implications later. I wasn’t ready to think about them right now.

I didn’t have much time to get the doorway open and all this uncertainty left me crippled. “Katrina, I could really use your help.”

The energy changed as shadows danced at the edge of my vision. None of them were Katrina. It didn’t matter. I had to make this work. There were no second chances if Brede decided I was too dangerous to live.

The pressure in the room built, though there wasn’t enough time to make it a full ritual. I tried to capture that energy, but it was nearly impossible.

“Spirits help me open a death door to the Reincarta,” I whispered.

It wasn’t poetic, and it didn’t feel very ritualistic. I didn’t have the candles or the burning incense, but I refused to let that draw doubt. I came back from the dead. I brought people back from the dead. I could open a stupid door without all that stuff.

At least I really hoped I could.

“Come on,” I begged under my breath.

Someone tapped their knuckles on the door. Wolf and cedar; Brede. “Belen, come out.”

I wondered if they could hear my heart thumping. I squeezed my eyes shut and kept my mumbling low. “Open. Open. Open.”

“This is your only warning. I’ll break this door down to get to you,” he said.

There were other wolves with him now. With my shields down, their energy stretched to me. I wondered if that caused them discomfort.

He banged his open hand on the door and the hinges rocked with force. After what we went through earlier tonight, I knew he was holding back.

“Open this door right now!”

No reason to hide it now. “Open the portal. Open the death door. Take me to the Reincarta.”

And please don’t drop me in their dining hall while they’re eating.

“I’m going to break it down,” Brede told his crew.

It was now or never. If they got in, I had a feeling they’d be inclined to shoot now and ask questions later. Brede didn’t call out again. The wood rattled hard from the force of his kick.

The spirits wanted blood. I pulled a blade and held it hesitantly against my skin. I didn’t know if it was a wolf blade. My weapons had to come from Utan, and he didn’t like me.

The door rocked so hard that splinters sprayed outward. One well-placed kick and they’d be in. Guns clicked on the other side. So that’s how they wanted to play.

I shoved the blade over my palm and though it hurt, I was relieved it didn’t have the bite the wolf blade had. The blood pooled in my hand before running between my fingers. The minute it touched the ground the tiles moaned. The portal was opening. I focused hard on Kelaino’s cave, including the scents burned into my sensory. It was a smell that would haunt me for a long time.

The energy pressed at my back like a giant balloon filling with air. The minute I realized it was pushing me towards the door, I leaned back into it, trying to get inside. If the energy left without me, nothing would matter. I’d be a prisoner to the wolves, maybe even killed, which would leave Rex dead and D out there alone.

The door swung forward with force and I got a glimpse of the wolf pack and their guns trained on me.

“I have a few questions for you,” Brede said.

I put my hands up, grateful they didn’t start shooting. Their nostrils flared and Brede’s eyes went to my bleeding palm. He opened his mouth to say something, but I never heard it. The energy snapped. I was sucked into the black haze. It felt familiar here, with the dark currents pulling me along.

It wasn’t a graceful landing when the haze pulled back leaving me in a life sustaining realm. With the will-o-wasps soft light and the scent of rot, I knew I was in the right location. Kelaino, flanked by a number of sith, sat up in her chair. Her mouth moved, but I heard nothing.

The Prism of Shadow felt heavy against my side. What disorder would follow if the prism was open? It made my heart heavy, handing it over to her. She leaned back in her chair, and motioned to her sith. Rex was dragged out of a tunnel, his lower face covered by a heavy iron contraption. His eyes were wide and I wanted to reach out to him. I wanted to know that I hadn’t lost him. I could bring the dead back to life, but I wasn’t feeling confident about making a man sane again.

I didn’t want to make a decision between the prism and Rex. I didn’t owe the world anything, but the chaos could affect me just the same. The sith pulled Rex to a group and their hands immediately fell on him. He didn’t fight when teeth pierced into his skin. I couldn’t allow this.

I took a step forward, finding that my hands weren’t the only part of my body that felt heavy. My feet barely wanted to move. “I have your stupid prism, now give me Rex.”

Her brows furrowed as she turned and spoke to one of her sith. Again, I couldn’t hear the conversation so I took another step forward. That’s when I felt it. The energy was still here. It snapped and I was shoved back into the foggy gray halls of the death tunnel.

Not yet
, a voice whispered in my head. There was a hint of laughter in its words. Khaos.

I
nstead of being dropped, I was shoved out of the realm. Luckily, I landed on my feet with my blades drawn. My palm ached from the cut I’d made, but it was a small ach, easy to ignore. As an afterthought, I realized the guns would’ve been a better call.

I hated popping in like this. It left me disoriented. My surrounding didn’t immediately register. I had to name objects for my brain to realize I wasn’t still floating through the tunnel. The metallic stench of blood made my stomach growl. I wasn’t about to try and make sense of that, but I really hoped it was primal and had nothing to do with what I really was.

The monitor on my wrist gave a high pitched beep before falling silent. I glanced at the screen, relieved that there was still a wave following Rex’s heartbeat. God, Rex! I left him there.

“Praise the dark lord, for he sent us another sign.”

The words were repeated by the nice size mass gathered in pews. A man stood on the dais in a black robe. Before him was a long table with a black cloth covering it and a figure dressed in white. The victim didn’t move, but the smell of blood was strong here. It was safe to bet, he was probably already dead.