Shadowborn (8 page)

“I said Nix.” I turned to Gallagher. “Do it.”

Gallagher tried and failed to hide his amusement behind his hand.

Nix grinned, his gaze all for Liam. “Fine with me.”

Gallagher positioned Nix and me facing one another. “Intertwine your fingers with Nix’s, Lila. Do not let go until I say.”

“You make it sound as if we’re about to get on a ride,” I said, elbowing Nix as he snickered.

“Wait.” I cleared my throat. “How long will this connection last?” I didn’t need another permanent bond to deal with.

Liam cocked his head, mouth agape. I feigned nonchalance and smiled at Nix as if I’d been asking something entirely different.

“You may end it at any time,” Gallagher said.

Perfect
. I frowned to make Liam think the answer disappointed me. “Okay. Do it.”

The ride didn’t last long, but it reminded me of the sickening free fall when I’d jumped from the top of the Grand Canyon—the portal location for the Black City. My head spun, and light exploded behind my retinas, bright enough it blotted out my vision and stung my eyes. When my sight returned, Nix stared in a daze, his pupils dilated to eclipsed moons.

“Can you hear me, Li?”
He asked through our new link.

“Yeah, you?”
I shivered as his thoughts brushed against my insides like a hand inside a velvet glove.

“Loud and clear.”

“Perfect. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
I took a step, but his hand gripped my shoulder.

“Why didn’t you tell me how bad it was?”

Confused, I glared at him. “
How bad what was?”

“The rage. The loneliness. The ache over him.”
Nix’s gaze darted to Liam and back to me. Disdain leaked into his mental tone.
“How are you existing this way?”

I gripped his hand harder before ducking out of his grasp, unable to meet his hard stare. “
You get used to it.”
Remembering what Gallagher had said about Nix’s little adventure outside of Dun Bray, I did a little prodding of my own.

Nix went rigid and shut me out like a shockwave slamming into my brain. “Don’t,” he said aloud and strode a few feet away.

Wow.
That was new. Although I wanted to demand he tell me, it wasn’t the right time for that little showdown.

Donovan led us through the woods to a dirt road. Liam’s gaze pressed on my back as he walked behind me, but he remained silent—probably sulking. The farther I could distance myself from him, the better off I’d be, my aching body be damned.

When a sedan came into view, I stopped. “You know I hate cars, Gallagher.” Every time I climbed in one, I lost all connection to the Goddess, and my body grew weak.

“We are not permitted to use a gateway to enter their realm,” Donovan said. “It isn’t far, and Liam in owl form can’t carry us all. Besides, this vehicle is made of a different alloy that doesn’t affect the fae as iron does.”

“I can take Lila on my back, and the rest of you can go in the car.” Liam sidled up close to me, running his fingers along the front of his shirt as if to draw my attention to the playground that lay beneath. Although I tore my gaze away, my belly tingled, the effect carrying lower.

“No,” Nix and I said in unison.

Liam’s obvious act of enticement ceased, but I didn’t study his face to revel in whatever expression his failure had erected.

“The car will be fine.” I strode past Donovan and climbed into the front seat of the black sedan. If I’d realized Liam would be driving, I would have gotten in the back instead of the front.

After a thirty-minute drive in silence, we pulled into an open field.

Liam shut down the car, gripped the steering wheel and turned to me. “He told you.”

The back doors opened. Three fae scrambled into the darkness as if chased by hell hounds and shut the doors behind them.

I slid and leaned against the window and crossed my arms over my chest.

“He did. He fucking told you.” Liam slammed his palm against the steering wheel, flung the door open and launched himself out.

I climbed out and rounded the car to where he paced with a hand over the back of his neck. “Really? You’re blaming Nix? Well, for your information, I ordered him to tell me. Do you really think I’m so stupid that I wouldn’t have found out?” Tears threatened, but I cleared my throat to force them away. “You were going to go off, get hitched, fuck your wife and come back and suck face with me without a word? Is that it?”

“The only one who would have a problem with that is you.”

I laughed, a sharp, frantic sound. “You. Are. Un-freaking-believable.”

“Wait!” His arms flew around his head in frustration. “That didn’t come out right. I didn’t mean—you don’t understand why I’m doing this. Let me—”

“I know why, and even though it tears my heart out, I understand why you think you have to produce an heir. But you lied to me.
Again.
I only have so much forgiveness in me, and you’ve been running a deficit since the day I met you.”

“Please.” He reached for me, but I backed away and put a hand up.

“Don’t.” With some effort, I unclenched my jaw. “I have enough to deal with these days without pining over you. I’m better off alone, like I’ve always been.”

“Don’t do this. I love you. She means nothing to me.”

“Then that makes me sad, considering you’ll be married to her for the rest of your life. Will the ancestors mate her to you, too?”

He gave a frantic shake of his head, but his eyes reflected a glint of fear. “I won’t allow it.”

Hurting everywhere, I faced the dark woods. “It’s none of my business. I’m done talking about this. Don’t come to Dun Bray anymore unless there’s official fae business.”
I can’t bear it.

I swallowed my emotion like a barbed pill and glanced over my shoulder. A tear crawled down his face, sparkling in the moonlight. My heart shattered into a million shards of agony. The whirlwind of pain in my chest became unbearable. I brought my hand to my constricted throat as I walked toward the others waiting at the edge of the forest.

Each step punctuated my isolation, my loneliness—a growing rift standing between me and all I’d ever wanted.
Liam.

Sudden silence halted me. Chafed against my raw nerves. I listened and wiped a stray tear from my cheek, concentrating on the landscape. Not a sound came from the surrounding trees as if every living thing for miles had fled.

Goddess, lend me your sight.

Flashes of trees and fields filled my mind, all silent and still. Moonlight cast an eerie silver glow over everything. I looked down from above as if I’d hijacked the eyes of some winged creature flying overhead.

A tiny movement drew me back to the edge of a forest, shadow moving within shadow.

I drew in a breath. “Bring your Light!” I screamed. “Now!” Mine flared to life, driving back the darkness in a twenty-foot radius. Guttural protests rose in a ruckus around me.

The others approached from the far side of the field, and Liam’s footsteps came from behind me, their combined Light turning night to midday brightness.

In the distance, a low, hoarse voice said, “Are you afraid of the dark, Lila Gray?”

“A little cliché, don’t you think? I’m made of Light, shithead. So that would be a big, fat no.”

Hissing laughter faded away. “Your soul is marked, faerie queen.”

Nix and Liam reached me together, followed shortly after by a huffing Gallagher and Donovan.

“What is it?” Nix asked, his brow drawn down.

“I know who the Shadowborn were hired to kill.”

Liam wiped a hand down his face. “Let me guess. Us?”

“More specifically, me. I guess I’m pissing everybody off today.” I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t. My rage needed somewhere to go, a purpose to draw it away from the ones I cared about. The shadow freaks would fit the bill just fine.

“Wait.” Gallagher shook a finger at nothing in particular. “How do you know this?”

“I sort of saw one.” I pranced in place, expelling some energy.

Four faces paled. Donovan shut his eyes, muttering, “No. No, no, no.”

When Gallagher gathered his chin off the ground, he invaded my space, staring nose to nose with me. “That is not possible. If you speak the truth, then you should be lost to us.”

I poked a finger into his sternum and forced him back a step. “I used my Sight when I noticed the silence and saw shadows moving along the ground. Then one of them spoke in a hoarse language, sort of like the Sluagh, and said my soul had been marked.”

“Oh, dear, merciful Goddess.” Gallagher faced the heavens.

“What now?” Nix asked.

“We go meet the elves, that’s what.” I poured more energy into my skin, lighting the path in front of me as I sped toward the woods. When nobody followed, I turned to them. “What?”

Gallagher set his glower on me. “I don’t think you’ve grasped the seriousness of what just occurred, Lila. Nobody sees or speaks to the Shadowborn and walks away with his soul. They live for the hunt. For you to survive their attack, they will now view you as the ultimate prey. They are impossible to track and incessant when it comes to something they want. Once their target has been set, they will not stop until your soul is in their possession.”

I made a yeah-yeah gesture with my hand. “I get it, Gallagher. A bunch of invisible guys coming to kill me, blah, blah, blah. What the fuck else is new. Can we go now?”

“We need to return to Dun Bray and make plans.”
Worry deepened the creases on Gallagher’s forehead. If they went any deeper, they’d press on his brain.

My father came to stand beside me. “I agree. This is a grave situation. We had anticipated they would annihilate the humans or possibly one of the smaller races, but not you.” A shudder traveled the length of him. “Goddess, not you.”

“Planning when we know nothing is pointless,” I said. “What’s the number one rule when dealing with a hired gun?”

“Take out the money,” Nix said. “Kill the one who hired them, and the hit goes away.”

I smiled at him, glad he’d returned to his happy, focused self. “The cute one gets the prize.”

Liam grunted a curse. “Were you listening to Gallagher? Because of your little encounter just now, you just became irresistible to them. Do you really think Alastair cares about anything other than hunting you at the moment, whether someone is willing to give up another soul to them or not?”

Good point. Damn.
I shrugged, unwilling to give him an inch. “Either way, we need to know who hired them and why. We proceed with caution,” I said in hopes of appeasing the others. “Keep the Light burning at all times until we get into the realm of the elves.” And hope to hell I didn’t inadvertently start a war with them, too.

8

The instant we stepped into the woods, my vision wavered. The sounds of the Goddess’s creatures became tinny and distant as if we’d fallen into a void between our world and another.

“Why do you greet us armed?” a mellow voice said. I rubbed my ears, uncertain where the voice came from; it drifted from every direction at once, as if the forest itself spoke.

“Everyone extinguish your Light,” Gallagher said. “Forgive us, master elf, but our queen was just attacked by the Shadowborn. We mean you nor your forest any harm.”

“If that is true, then how does she stand before us now?”

Us?
How many were out there? One by one, we all reabsorbed our energy, leaving us in a complete white-out. Not snow or fog but … nothing.
Creepy
.

“The Goddess lends me her sight.” I scanned the woods but couldn’t have seen a troll wearing blaze orange if it stood two feet away. “I saw the shadow coming for me.”

Silence stretched on long enough that I turned and looked at Donovan. He gave me a raise of his shoulders with a hell-if-I-know expression.

“Elder Alogason is most anxious to meet this Lila Gray. None has survived a Shadowborn hunt.” A whisper of fabric marked the elf’s movement, but white nothingness still dominated my sight. “You will find your medallions farther along the trail. Put them on and wait for us.”

“Why does he always say us?” I squinted at the white mist gathering around my sneakers.

“The elf tribes think of themselves as one with the forest, one unit with multiple minds,” Gallagher said. “Like the Sluagh, only far more sophisticated.”

“Insult one and you insult all, right?”

“That would be correct.”

“Perfect.”

Moonlight blinked over us again, and the mist evaporated. The five of us trooped down the passage that opened before us in the trees as if they’d stepped aside to let us by. The remaining forest sounds ceased all together. Our footsteps were the only noise above the heavy silence.

Instead of hanging from a tree or offered by a hand as I’d expected, the medallions floated midair in front of us. Each had a leather rope with a dull gray metal pendant hanging from it. A different symbol adorned each one, etched into the surface of the charm.

I turned to Gallagher, avoiding Liam’s stare. “They want us to wear iron?”

“It’s for their own protection. This was part of our bargain. The elves don’t meet with other races lightly.”

“And what about our protection?” I smacked a hand to my chest to punctuate my frustration. “We’ll be helpless little mice while in the realm of a bunch of powerful strangers. How do we know they aren’t the ones who hired the shadow guys?”

Gallagher opened his mouth and raised his finger, paused, then cleared his throat.

“Please, don’t tell me the thought never occurred to you.”

“The elves have never had issues with the fae, Lila.” My father stroked a hand over his goatee. “We need to trust someone.”

I finally met Liam’s glare so he’d know my comment encompassed him. “I don’t trust anyone, Donovan, you know that.”

Tugging at the collar of his black T-shirt, Liam turned away, the tendons in his arms standing out like ropes pulled too tight beneath his skin.

“I won’t let them hurt you, Li,” Nix said. He pulled up the sleeves of his shirt to expose knife sheaths strapped to his forearms. “Even if I can’t use my Light, we still have weapons if we need them.”