Shadowborn (18 page)

My hands went to my ears. Tears streamed down my face in hot ribbons. “This isn’t real. You would never say that!”
Would she?

I fell to the ground on my hands and knees, the pounding of my heart growing louder by the second, punctuated by their laughter. They were laughing at me, and I deserved it. I’d failed them all. Garret was dead because I wasn’t strong enough. Mother was dead simply because I’d been born. The Seelie would never accept me as queen, and I didn’t know how to change it.

The worst of it, part of me still lusted after Parthalan’s power, the ecstasy that stole me away to someplace higher when he touched me—no matter how much the thought of it made my skin crawl. Maybe that was why I held back from Liam.

My fingers dug into the dirt floor as I lifted my face to the ceiling and screamed my frustration into the void. Agony radiated out from my heart.

“Lila!”

Something shook my arm, but my eyes wouldn’t open. “No more. Please. I know what I am. Horrible. I’m horrible and sick. I’m evil.” My hands hurt, but I didn’t know why.

“Lila, it’s me, Liam. Let go of the knob, damn it.” Liam grunted and tugged at my wrists.

I allowed my eyes to open a slit. Both my hands clasped a silver knob in the shape of a sun, the one I’d used to enter the place of my nightmares. Gasping, I pushed away from it and tumbled into Liam, who caught me under my arms.

“What’s happening?” I spoke through panted breaths. “How did I get out here?”

Liam turned me to face him, a deep groove of concern marring his brow. “You didn’t go anywhere. You touched the knob, and a second later you started screaming and saying … well … I didn’t understand what you were saying.”

“You better not be messing with me, Liam. I was in there for at least five minutes. Everyone was …” I stopped at the shaking of Liam’s head.

Laerni and Alogason appeared beside us wearing little more than bands of cloth around their unmentionables.

I lurched and bumped into Liam, knocking an exhalation from him. Cold prickles invaded my face.

“We had to know what keeps you from your full potential, Lila Gray,” Alogason said with a frown tugging at his dainty features. His pale fingers snapped, and Galati appeared on our other side, but I managed to keep my girly freak-out internal. “Please, make the Unseelie king comfortable. We must speak to Lila Gray without hindrance.”

Liam drew me hard against his chest. “After whatever you did to her, you’re insane if you think I’m leaving her alone with you.”

A few mental slaps put me back on my feet. “Go, Liam. I’ll be fine.” I stepped away and crossed my arms, both to appear decisive and to comfort myself.

His eyes beseeching, he reached toward me. “Li—”

“Go.” I barked the word at him. “It’s okay. The sooner I hear what they have to say, the sooner we can get out of this place.” Although I continued to glare, he didn’t move. “Please.”

His rage-colored face turned to the two elves. “I’m not done talking to you about this.”

Galati, her slender body even more perfect than the last time, offered her hand to Liam, but he stormed past her and headed for the fountain of light. Petty, but a little twinge of glee caught me in the chest. If he’d offended any of them with his lack of clothing, none of them let on.

Along with him went my fear, replaced by an ocean’s worth of fury. If I hadn’t been wearing iron, my Light would have been nearly black. Pissing off the elves would gain me nothing, so I took a few moments to let Gallagher’s concentration techniques work their way out of my internal cursing storm.

Reigning in my tone, I met their inquisitive looks with what I hoped to be a blank stare. “You want to tell me what that was all about?” I flicked fingers toward the chrome sun on the door, stifling a shudder at the truths that still crashed around my head.

They shared a look I couldn’t decipher before Laerni stepped forward, her large purple eyes exuding something I took as motherly concern. “We needed to know what haunts your complex mind, Lila Gray. Please, know we did this not to shame you, for you have seen horrors most of us can’t imagine, but as a tool to guide you forward. Before you will be able to embrace the power you need to defeat Alastair, you must first win the battle within yourself.”

My gaze ping-ponged between the two elves, and I cocked a brow to go along with the loud buzzing in my head. “I need to … what?”

“We’ll start with your role as queen.” Alogason’s white skin seemed somehow paler than the last time I’d seen him. “You have not yet embraced that part of yourself.”

I strode away and propped one hand against a black tree the size of the Empire State Building—when it still stood, anyway—taking care to angle my body so as not to give them my back. Better than punching one of the tree folk in the face. Through clenched teeth, I said, “I have embraced my people, and they do nothing but whine and hate me no matter what I do.”

“
Have
you embraced them?” Laerni maneuvered her slim body as close to me as she could without actually touching. Her white hair trickled over my shoulder. She towered over me, though despite her height, she didn’t intimidate me. The stink of fear clinging to her might have had something to do with it. “You stand on the dais before them and bark orders. Yes, you would give your life for them, but have you truly gotten to know your people?”

I craned my head to stare at the elf mistress. “Tell me you’re not suggesting I play politician? Kiss their babies and help them wash their hair or some crap.”

She bobbed her head. “Not exactly that but something personal. You must let them know you. Show them your demons, so they’ll show you theirs. Every ounce of effort and kindness you give them will be returned to you tenfold.”

My forehead nodded forward to rest on my outstretched arm. “Duly noted. What else?” Not that I wanted to know. I got the feeling she started off with the easiest task, and it would only go downhill from there.

“You must forgive yourself for the death of your family. Acknowledge the truth of it—that Parthalan journeyed away from the Light and destroyed them for his own personal gain. Nothing you could have done would have stopped him.”

Yeah, I’ll get right on that.
“What else?”

“Your aggression suggests you do not believe what we say.” Alogason stood on my other side. “It is most important you take this to heart. These obstacles will make certain you fail in this task.”

“Look, I need time to absorb all of this.” I put my back against the tree and let it support me. “Tell me what else I need to do and let me go so I can think this through.”

Another glance between the two had me squirming. “The last will be difficult, Lila Gray.” Laerni placed her long, thin fingers on my shoulder, and even though I ached to jerk away from her touch, I didn’t. I had no desire to have her song incapacitate me again.

My soul understood what they would say. I wanted to run badly enough my legs jittered.
Don’t say it. Please, don’t say it.

“You suffer deep strife over your bonded mate.”

“He’s not my mate!” A few strides took me away from their sympathetic expressions. My fingers jammed into my hair as if that would stop the tornado of pain and thought spinning in my head. “He killed them. He would have used me to destroy the human race. I want nothing to do with him!”

Alogason approached, arms wide, expression calm. “You must resolve this conflict, Lila Gray. You must face him and find a way to end this mating, or to accept it. Either way, you must make peace with the darkness inside, or you will never make room enough in your heart to live, let alone draw the kind of power needed to defeat the Shadowborn.”

My whole body shook as I rushed toward the fountain, the brightest source of light in the whole damn world. “I have to leave now. Liam!” The desire to run claimed me, sent me sprinting in the direction Liam had gone. “I-I can’t … I need time.”

He burst out of one of the doors. “Lila, what’s happening?”

I tumbled into a blur of moonlight, dark forest and a face full of frosted pine needles.

The moment I reoriented myself to our own plane, I bent over and retched several times, expelling what little remained in my stomach. Liam held my hair and stroked my back. My sickness wasn’t caused by the ride that time, but from the one task I didn’t think I had it in me to do—face my worst nightmare in the flesh instead of in some twisted mind game.

No wonder Brígh had freaked out.

15

Before I lost my nerve, I leapt away from Liam, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and sped toward the edge of the woods.

Liam’s footfalls pounded after me. “Are you going to tell me what happened back there? Why were you screaming?”

I shook my head, unwilling to relive it. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t ….” He launched a few curses in my direction. “Did they at least tell you how to kill Alastair?”

“No.”

He stopped. I didn’t. “No? Just, no?”

“They said—they said I’m not ready yet.” It wasn’t a lie.

“Lila, please! You’re scaring the hell out of me.”

A sound of frustration heaved out of me as I halted and looked at his nude splendor over my shoulder. “There are things I need to do before they’ll teach me, things I don’t want to talk about right now, okay?”

He came up behind me, close, but not touching. His heat licked up my back and tempted me to melt into it, but I needed to stay focused to complete my homework.

“Tell me what to do,” he said, his tone low and soothing. “I’ll do anything for you.”

I swallowed and considered how to go about my task. Going to the Black City alone wasn’t such a good idea, not when the Unseelie still hated my kind as much as the Seelie hated them. “What if the Sluagh didn’t hire the Shadowborn?”

Silence fell for a few moments before Liam said, “Then my money would be on the Magi, not that I know shit about them even after all the effort I put into finding them.”

“We need to know for sure if Bain’s people are involved. We need to get into Cargun.” Bile rose in my throat again, but I choked it back. “Tonight. Just you and me.”

“The two of us can’t take on Bain and his minions. And how do you suppose we’ll get inside?” Liam swung around in front of me, still close, nailing me down under a heavy gaze. “I’ve tried slipping through whatever barrier they’ve erected by using The Place Between, but I run into an invisible wall. One of my guards can teleport, and he can’t get through, either. I’ve had Donovan ask every witch who’ll speak to us, but none has been able to breech their city.”

The answer jumped into my head as I remembered the last time I’d been at the Black City. “If the shifters could tunnel me into the Unseelie castle, why not into Cargun? There must be some on the Sluagh side of the city. And we won’t engage the Sluagh. We’ll just do a little reconnaissance for now.”

The tightness around his eyes eased, and he smiled. “Nobody could ever accuse you of being a dumb blonde.”

My grunted disapproval earned me a smirk. “Nice.” I rolled my eyes. “Don’t get too excited. We don’t even know if it’s going to work, yet.”

He slid his large hand against mine and intertwined our fingers. “Can I ask why only you and me?”

I squeezed down on his hand and stared at my sneakers.

His nod, out of the corner of my eye, let me know he’d figured it out, or at least what I wanted him to figure out. He had to know I was afraid of running into Parthalan and wouldn’t want any other witnesses to my cowardice. Although it was a partial truth, I had to let him believe that was all of it. I internalized the giant cloud of terror that had swallowed me whole. I didn’t need any more questions from him.

I only hoped he’d forgive me for ditching him to confront Parthalan.

Warmth filled my body as I summoned my Light and let it flare around both of us as we exited the safety of the elf-protected wood and stepped into the open field beyond. Liam did the same, though his energy glowed a whitish-blue. Hand in hand, we hadn’t gone more than a few yards when the itch along my spine suggested we weren’t alone. It didn’t take a whole lot of thinking to figure out who it would be.

“He’s here.” I emitted an extra burst of energy to extend our protection.

“Who is?” Liam drew me closer, the muscles in his forearm cording with tension.

“Alastair.”

Sinister laughter came from all around us, all his, as if he’d somehow projected it from every corner of the field. A scan of our surroundings showed nothing other than spruce and barren, spindly arms of deciduous trees around the perimeter. One lone pine stood in the center of the clearing in front of us, the silver moon casting a dark shadow on the frosted ground. Out of the triangular shape, a form rose. At first it appeared to be a trick of the eye, a dark spot passing across my vision, but it solidified into a silhouette of a tall, willowy man.

“Well, well. If it isn’t my favorite faerie queen and her lap dog,” Alastair said in a low, malicious tone resembling the hiss of a pissed-off snake.

Liam lurched forward, but I jumped in front of him and pressed both hands against his hard chest, the muscles within flexing, readying to launch a beating on the two dimensional piece of shit.

“Don’t let him bait you.” I kept my voice low. “Shift and get us out of here. We’re not ready for this fight.” That was the understatement of the century. A simple touch and we’d be Shadowborn fodder. The question still remained, how could I fight something intangible that had a mind I could sense but not penetrate like others? My rational side said I couldn’t, but my stubborn side didn’t buy it.

“Tug that leash, Lila.” More chuckling from Alastair. “Good dog.”

The first rumblings of a snarl vibrated up my arms from Liam’s chest. “This dog will rip your leg off and beat you to death with it,” Liam said.

That would have been a good plan if Alastair had a physical leg to use for said beating. Liam seemed to realize the futility of his threat and backed down, though his teeth still showed through his grimace.

The shadow man sauntered toward us to the edge of his moon-given darkness, beads of morphing colors in the place where his eyes should have been. The effect nudged my temperature into the cold zone.