The Shadow King (5 page)

A very hard place.

A pleasant smell wafted over her. It reminded her of something that she also couldn’t pin down. Waves of warmth were pulsing through her now, her body betraying her to danger, infusing her with a burgeoning desire in the midst of life-threatening fear.

“Don’t come down here again, acorn. There may not be anyone around to save you a second time.”

She felt something brush through her hair, felt a terrible rush of adrenaline-laced lust, and then the darkness around her lifted away, like a smothering blanket being pulled aside.

The lights along the hall flickered back to dim light. Her unsteady breathing filled the silence.

And she was alone in the Seattle Underground.

Chapter Five

Violet’s gaze narrowed. She chewed on the inside of her cheek a moment. Poppy sat across from her at the same coffee shop they’d visited the day before. The temperatures had dropped back down into normal Seattle early fall weather, and Poppy was contentedly sipping on a Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte. It was a flavor Violet personally hated, as pumpkins were beautiful and fun, but revolting to eat in her opinion. However, she loved it when it came out, just like Poppy did, because Starbucks’ release of the Pumpkin Spice Latte symbolized the beginning of the holiday season.

Violet shifted in her seat. She wasn’t having much luck paying attention to what Poppy was telling her. To say that she was distracted would have been a gross understatement.

Her skin still tingled from her encounter in the Underground.

She had no idea what to make of it.

After he’d gone and she’d found herself alone in the hallway, she’d hightailed it out of the sub-level passageways and stumbled out into the dark Seattle streets. Once there, she’d half-run, half-walked on wobbly, weakened legs to the apartment she kept in the mortal world. And there, she’d seated herself on her couch and stared straight ahead into the darkness and wondered what the hell she was going to do next.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw
his
. Or what she’d been able to see of his eyes, anyway. Those mirrors beneath that hood, those sparkling, mysterious, hypnotic….

Crap
.

I’m for shit
, she thought. If she couldn’t even make it to the portal to the Shadow Kingdom, how the heck was she supposed to make it clear to the Dark? It wasn’t just the stranger. It was the others, too. The ones he’d saved her from. Or, at least, that was what it had seemed like. Things could be so much different from what they seemed, though. Especially in the dark.

What she couldn’t decide was whether she should tell Poppy. Telling her would mean telling her about the tall, dark stranger who’d compared her to an oak tree. And that would mean admitting things she wasn’t sure she was ready to admit, even to her best friend. It would also mean that Poppy would now
really
insist on going with her, to the point that Poppy would probably just head out to go alone and then flippantly remark over her shoulder, “If you’re coming with me, you’d better keep up!” Or something to that effect.

But
not
telling Poppy would mean continuing to feel like she already felt, and keeping the reasons for her major distraction under wraps, which she frankly sucked at. She was just a terrible, terrible liar.

Plus, Dahlia was still out there, still stuck in the Dark. And if Violet
did
try to go back without telling Poppy about the encounter in the Underground, she would ultimately have to go alone. Again.

Lalura said I should
, a voice whispered in her mind.

She scowled at the inner voice – and that was when she noticed the silence.

She looked up and found herself caught in the hard, knowing gaze of two ice blue eyes.

“You weren’t listening to me at all, were you?” Poppy shook her head and reached across the table to pick up Violet’s coffee cup. It was completely full. She sighed. “Okay, what gives? Are you even really here? Or did you cast some spell I don’t know about that lets you be in two places at once?”

Violet took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m just distracted.”

Poppy studied her for a moment. “Is it your sister?” she asked, all hint of teasing gone from her tone.

Violet came to a decision. Knowing Poppy, the girl would figure it out eventually anyway. “Well, yes it is. But also there’s –” She cut herself off as someone approached their corner table. It was a young man, probably somewhere in his early twenties, with the remnants of acne from his earlier years, and brown hair shaved a little too close to his head. Violet had never liked haircuts like that. They were lazy haircuts, devoid of any character whatsoever, and there was nothing there for a woman to hold on to during sex. As a Tuath, she regularly thought of sex, even if she didn’t want to. It was the only way for a Tuath fae to recharge his or her powers – to share that particular pleasure with someone just as powerful, if not more so.

He wore a polo shirt in salmon, which to her was probably the least attractive piece of clothing ever designed, aside from basketball shorts. His jeans were designer, and a tattoo of Greek letters on the inside of his left wrist designated him as a frat boy.

As if every single other thing about him hadn’t done that already.

He opened his mouth to say something – but Poppy cut him off. She turned in her chair, placed her hands on her knees, and looked him straight in the eyes.

“Dude – we were
talking
. And we’re absolutely not interested,” she said slowly and clearly. “Not in any way, shape or form. Not in you or any of your frat boy friends.”

The young man’s eyes grew wide, and color drained from his face.

Poppy’s eyebrows arched. “I’m sorry, you’re
surprised
by this?” She laughed, exchanging glances with Violet. Then she turned back to the young man. “Really? You honestly think it’s odd that woman might not be interested in a boy who thinks polo shirts are sexy, and whose entire college education, not to mention, his pickup, is paid for by his daddy?”

She waited a beat, then continued. “You’re shocked a girl might not be attracted to a guy whose idea of a romantic first date is chicken wings at a sports bar while he barely realizes she’s alive because he’s more interested in the game going on through the television screen over her shoulder but then thinks he’s entitled to a blow job from her?”

Now he simply stared at her, eyes popping, lips parted, body frozen as she stripped him down mentally and revealed him for everything that he was. And wasn’t.

Poppy leaned forward conspiratorially, and her voice dropped into a very loud whisper as if she were imparting something secret. “You know, women don’t actually enjoy giving guys blow jobs at all. Yeah, shocking, huh?” She nodded, tilting her head and leaning further in. “The truth is, we actually hate sticking dicks in our mouths. It’s not only foul in both taste and smell, but your penises actually make us feel like throwing up when they touch the backs of our throats. So, yeah – what probably turns you on to no end literally makes us want to vomit. It’s hard to enjoy sex that makes you nauseated. Of course, looking at the rest of you, I somehow doubt it would take giving you a blow job for that to happen.”

She smiled sweetly and blinked. Just waiting.

Several long, silent seconds followed, and Violet peered surreptitiously around the room to find that everyone was watching them, despite the faux whisper Poppy had used to dismantle the young man.

Finally, he shuffled his feet a bit, straightened, and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Whatever,” he said, shrugging as if he didn’t really care. “Fuck you, bitch.” He turned, strode to the front doors of the coffee shop, and shoved through them with unnecessary force.

“You were positively brutal,” Violet whispered.

“Bullshit. He deserved it, trust me. Now what were you going to finally divulge before we were so rudely interrupted?”

Violet tried to center herself, tried to focus. But now both the encounter Underground
and
Poppy were distracting her. “I… well, I mean –”

Another person approached, and a shadow fell over their table.

Poppy spun in her chair. “Jesus!” she exclaimed in another loud whisper. “What is the effing
deal
? Can’t you people see that we’re –” But she cut
herself
off this time, and blanched a little. It was an old man who had approached. A
very
old man. Dressed in a tuxedo.

Violet could feel waves of magic rolling off him that were stronger than almost anything she’d ever felt. Only Lalura Chantelle had magic that felt like that.

And also the man she’d met last night in the darkness.

“I apologize for my intrusion, ladies,” the man said in the most proper, gentlemanly manner possible. It was beyond obvious that he’d had years and years –
and years
– of practice honing his etiquette. His tone was schooled, and his words precisely pronounced. He spoke softly, yet sounded clear as a bell. “I have a delivery for Miss Violet Kellen.”

He looked at Violet, and powerful eyes pinned her down. She swallowed hard, felt strange, and said, “I’m Violet.”

He smiled knowingly, but in a friendly way, and gracefully held out a small box wrapped in black paper. It was tied with a black satin bow.

Violet took it gently from his hands and nodded. “Thank you. Who is it from?” There was no card and no note. The box was blank, and though it was meticulously, perfectly wrapped, there was no indication of what it was or who it was from.

“I am not at liberty to share this information, I’m afraid. However, I assure you, it is harmless, and the sender’s identity will become clear in short order.” He smiled, bowed slightly at the waist, and turned around to leave. Violet watched him exit the coffee shop, tall and painfully skinny, with magic trailing thickly after him.

“What… the… hay?” asked Poppy, as she turned back around and looked from the box to Violet. Her eyes narrowed, and her lips pursed. “This has to do with that thing you aren’t telling me about, doesn’t it?”

Violet didn’t answer. Instead, she shrugged and pulled the satin ribbon loose. It fluttered to the table top. She unwrapped the box next, revealing another black box within it, this time the plush velvet that was so obviously a jewelry box.

“Holy shit, girl. Jewelry.”

“Hush,” Violet hissed. She popped the top open and gazed down at the pendant that lay shimmering on the black satin pillow. “Crap.”

Poppy leaned forward. “What is it? What’s wrong?” She none-too-gently turned Violet’s hand so that she could get a look at what lay inside the box. “Whoa!” It was an understandable reaction. But, a moment later, her expression also became confused. “But… an
acorn
?”

The small, perfectly formed acorn was clearly composed of pure diamond. It shimmered with impossible dimension where it rested at the end of a shimmering platinum chain.

“Yes,” she said numbly, as her mind tumbled end-over-end down a one-way hall that was deep and dark and filled with inexplicable desire. “An acorn.”

Chapter Six

I am anything and everything in the shadows.

Keeran Pitch lifted his chin, reading the line over. He hadn’t meant to write it. His thoughts were simply flowing, and sometimes when they did, what he was thinking automatically materialized on the screen of his computer.

He took a deep breath, clicked his mouse, and erased the line. Then he logged off the game he was testing, looked up from his screen, and pushed out his chair before moving to the bookshelves at the right side of the room.

The bookends were wolf heads, black with emeralds for eyes. He glanced at them, curled his fingers over the marble edges of the shelves, and braced himself as he leaned in, dropping his head. “Focus,” he told himself softly.

Focusing isn’t the issue
, his inner voice responded.
You’ve been focusing plenty. Just on the wrong thing.

The room behind him was taller in height than it was wide, and three of the four walls sported marble book shelves. They contained a selection of books that ranged in the thousands. It was something none of the millions of people who played his games would ever have guessed about him.

He straightened from the shelves and looked up and around, his gunmetal eyes reflecting the light of the chandelier overhead as he scanned the books lining the walls. The titles on their spines reflected journeys he’d taken over the many, many years. The turns-of-phrase encased within their covers were the words he’d used to escape the darkness of his own mind and enter the colors of another’s. This familiar trek that freed the soul from the bonds of reality, this letter-laden path that walked it into unfamiliar fantasy – it was his only friend.

Except…

Keeran closed his eyes, and the moment he did, he saw
hers
. He’d only ever seen eyes like that once before in his long existence. On some level, they were like his own, but only in so far as gray reminded of gray, the way fog was like steel. Where hers were silver and purple and deep charcoal, multi-faceted beyond imagination and prismatic like smoky diamonds, his were closed off, like mirrors that reflected a searching gaze back at a stranger and never let anyone in. His were the eyes of an animal at midnight, caught by the light of the moon.