Shadow Angel: Book One

by Leia Stone

  Gage glanced over his shoulder and caught me rubbing my arm. “Did it need stitches?” he asked gruffly, but there was a glint of softness in his gaze before he fixed his eyes forward and continued climbing.

  “Not exactly,” I hedged, suddenly wishing I’d had the forethought to throw on a hoody before racing out of Lumen Academy. I didn’t have answers about my healing, and I wasn’t sure it was something I wanted to share with him.

  Gage half turned so I could only see his profile. His eyebrows pinched at my non-answer, but he let it drop.

  Shade Academy had entirely too many floors. The more we climbed, the more fearful I got that Gage was going to make me hike all the way to the top floor.

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked after we huffed it up eight flights of stairs without talking.

  Gage didn’t answer. He was probably still stewing that I’d forced his help, but after two more flights he finally stopped when we reached the landing on the tenth floor. Gingerly, he pushed the door open and checked the hall to make sure it was clear before letting me pass.

  “Where are we going?” I asked again.

  “My room,” he simply said.

  “Excuse me? Your room? Why are—?”

  Spinning, Gage jerked my body close and slipped a hand over my mouth to stop my shrill question. “I’m trying not to wake the entire place and alert them to your presence,” he growled.

  I licked his hand, and with a grimace, he dropped it.

  “Cut it out,” I demanded on a harsh whisper. “I don’t like being manhandled.”

  “Noted… Tate,” he said and then continued down the hall.

  I knew he was calling me Tate just to get under my skin, so I almost yelled after him, “It’s Tatum,” just to be loud and piss him off too.

  When we reached his room, Gage punched a code into the keypad next to the handle and then shoved it open. I followed him inside, noting the room looked exactly how I remembered, which shouldn’t surprise me seeing I’d woken up in it only yesterday morning.

  Gage went to his dresser and started scrounging around in it for clothes.

  I planted my hands on my hips. “Can you tell me now what the big deal is about people knowing I’m here? It’s going to happen eventually. It might take me a day or two to find Arthur’s talisman.”

  Gage huffed out a humorless laugh and shook his head. “The big deal is that I need to know your plan before we go rushing into anything. If I’m going to help you, and that’s a big if, we need to get our stories straight and have a rock-solid strategy. Otherwise, we’ll both end up dead. You might have a death wish, but I certainly don’t.”

  Right. My plan. My big, elaborate, well-thought-out plan.

  I dropped my hands from my hips and some of the blood drained from my face, but Gage didn’t notice because he was still opening and shutting drawers, taking out his frustration on his dresser while he searched for something. I started to chew my lip.

  With a bundle of clothes clenched in his hand, Gage finally walked back toward me. “So, let’s hear it,” he snapped. “What’s your master plan for this talisman heist? What scheme have you thought up to steal my father’s most treasured and highly secured item, and then make it out of Shade Academy alive?”

  “Well,” I said, and then cleared my throat before going on. “My plan was to get back into Shade Academy so I could search for the talisman.”

  “And…?” he prompted.

  “And to enlist your help in stealing it.”

  Gage blinked back at me, waiting for me to go on, but that was as far as I’d thought ahead. “That’s it? That’s the entirety of your plan?”

  “Well…” I splayed my hands wide to indicate the room around us and then him. “I’m in Shade Academy and you’re helping me. Everything is going well so far.” I lifted my chin, daring him to contradict me.

  Swiping his free hand down his face, Gage grumbled under his breath something that sounded an awful lot like, “She’s going to be the death of me.”

  I opened my mouth to shoot off a pithy remark, but then stopped myself. The reality that I was putting Gage in real danger finally sank in. From what I knew about Shades so far, they did not mess around. Arthur was willing to murder my gran to get what he wanted, so what would he do to his son if he ever found out Gage helped me thwart him?

  Something bad, that’s what.

  My stomach decided that was the moment it wanted to vocalize its displeasure and growled loudly. I laid a hand on it, my face reddening.

  “That was a tad embarrassing.”

  Gage sighed. “When was the last time you ate?”

  I shrugged. “Dinner… last night.”

  It had been a long twenty-four hours.

  Setting the dark bundle of clothes on his bed, Gage disappeared into the bathroom. A moment later he reappeared with a fluffy white towel and shoved it at me.

  “I’ll go grab some food downstairs. Get cleaned up.” He eyed the crusted blood on my clothes. “You’re a mess.”

  Looking down at myself, I scrunched my nose. He wasn’t wrong. I was covered in dried sweat and blood, and my clothes were ripped. I didn’t even want to know what my hair looked like.

  Reaching forward, he lifted my arm. “There’s a waterproof dressing for your wound in—” Gage stopped talking. It wasn’t until his eyes widened that I realized what he was doing and snatched it back.

  “What happened to the gash on your arm?” he asked, pointing to the spot where it should have been.

  “Er, I don’t know. It just… healed,” I finished lamely. That was the only answer I had for it. I didn’t know what happened any more than he did.

  His fingers dusted over my face as lightly as butterfly wings as he took note of all the other places I was injured. His gaze swept me from head to toe and back up again. The intensity of his inspection caused a warm feeling to settle in my gut.

  “You just… healed?” There was a touch of awe in Gage’s tone that made me want to squirm.

  “Yep.” I popped the “p” and took a step back, wanting to break the sudden tension that hung in the air between us.

  “That’s not possible,” he said.

  “So I’ve been told.” I was a little disappointed. A small part of me had hoped that even though Drea hadn’t known why I healed so quickly, that Gage would have an idea. But he looked just as confused as she had.

  Pressing his lips together, Gage shook his head lightly, clearly not knowing what to do about this particular anomaly.

  “Shower. I’ll get food so you don’t pass out,” he finally said. “You can borrow those.” He pointed toward the lump on the bed. “We’ll talk about your lack of a master plan when I get back.”

  “Looking forward to it,” I said with a cheeky grin.

  “I’m not,” he grunted, and then left.

  When the door clicked shut, I wasted no time grabbing the extra clothes and heading toward the bathroom. Of course it was immaculate, and as lavish as I expected: white marble everywhere; a walk-in shower and separate clawfoot tub; a fancy toilet with buttons that did who-knows-what; even a squatty bidet. It was a bathroom fit for a king, or maybe in this case, a Shade prince.

  I shook my head. What a stark contrast to the shared showers and bathrooms at Lumen Academy. I supposed if you were trying to sway Watchers to the dark side, a luxury bathroom wasn’t a bad place to start.

  Stripping off my clothes, I left them folded in a pile on the ground and set the temperature in the shower to scalding, just how I liked it. I found girlie hair products under the sink and tried not to think about why he had the stash as I scrubbed the filth off me.

  I would have preferred to spend an hour or two under the six-jetted shower, but there wasn’t a lock on Gage’s bathroom door, and I was paranoid about him coming back while I was naked. After I was pretty sure I’d scrubbed off a few layers of skin and smelled like a perfume store, I hopped out of the shower.

  I quickly dried off, dressed, and then to
wel dried my hair. The clothes Gage left me were a pair of basketball shorts and a soft black t-shirt. The tee hung almost to my knees and the shorts more than halfway down my calves, but I couldn’t deny they were comfy and smelled great. Shade Academy definitely sprang for the fancy detergent, something I’d always passed on in favor of the cheap generic off-brand.

  I was about to head back into the bedroom when something buzzed from my mound of dirty clothes. Reaching down, I rooted through them and pulled out my phone. Now only the top third of the display screen still worked, so I couldn’t see who was calling. I hit the answer button anyway.

  “Hello?” I asked, holding the device to my ear as I walked out of the bathroom.

  “Tell me you didn’t return to Shade Academy,” Drea barked on the other end of the line.

  I winced and pulled the phone away from my ear. It was stuck on speaker, and with the display not working, I couldn’t do anything about it.

  “Okay. I didn’t return to Shade Academy.”

  Her sigh of relief was audible. “Thank goodness. Tell me where you are, and I’ll come pick you up.”

  “I’m at Shade Academy,” I said, and then braced for the fallout.

  “You just told me you weren’t there!” she shouted.

  “I only said that because you told me to.”

  “Tatum, you can’t be there.” There was genuine concern in Drea’s voice that made me feel instantly guilty for not at least saying goodbye before I bolted. “I thought you were visiting with your gran, but I ran into my mom, and she told me what happened. I know what you’re doing there, and it’s dangerous. You need to come back to Lumen Academy.”

  “I agree with her,” Gage said from over my shoulder. Yipping in surprise, I spun to face him. He carried a tray stacked with food; my mouth instantly started to water. Did I smell bacon?

  Yum.

  “Who is that?” Drea asked. “Gage, is that you? If you let anything happen to her, I’m going to rip your guts out through your nose. Do you hear me?”

  Wow, that was colorful. Drea certainly had a creative imagination. I should’ve probably been disturbed by her reaction, but instead I was strangely touched she’d threaten someone’s life on my behalf. I never had a friend willing to commit premeditated murder for me before. It actually gave me the warm fuzzies.

  I looked between my phone and Gage, waiting to see how he’d react to Drea’s threat, but he only smirked and set the tray of food down on one of the nightstands.

  “I’m fairly certain that’s an impossible task,” he finally responded.

  “I knew it was you,” Drea accused. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I mean it. I will find the most painful ways to pull you apart piece by piece if Tatum gets hurt.”

  “Is that so?” Gage’s smile only kicked up a notch as Drea’s temper flared.

  It was time to step in. “I’m going to be fine, Drea. I promise. Gage has agreed to help me.” Both of them snorted, and I shot Gage a look that promised death if he contradicted me. “I’m only going to be here as long as it takes to find Arthur’s talisman. Then I’m headed back to Lumen Academy. Promise.”

  The line was silent for long enough that I started to worry that she’d hung up. “Tatum, please come back. We’ll find another way to help your gran.”

  “Your mother said that they couldn’t reverse the curse unless they had Arthur’s talisman. You and the other Lumens can’t even enter Shade Academy to search for it, but I can. There is no other way.”

  Drea sighed. “One of us will be close to Shade Academy at all times. If you need us, just call.”

  “I will. Thanks for understanding how important this is.”

  “Family is everything. Lumens understand that.” When Drea put extra emphasis on Lumens, heavily insinuating family wasn’t important to Shades, Gage just rolled his eyes.

  “Gage, you take care of our girl. If not—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know.” He waved a hand in the air. “Dismemberment, disembowelment, and then death if anything happens to Tate.” Reaching over me, he hit the “end call” button, cutting off whatever Drea would have said next. “Little does she know that if we get caught, there won’t be anything left of me for her to torture,” he said with a chuckle. “Shades are very thorough when it comes to destroying all the evidence.”

  I bit my lip. I’m pretty sure that was a joke… but then again, maybe it wasn’t.

  “Your father wouldn’t really hurt you, right?”

  A dark look crossed Gage’s face. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking that being my father’s son will afford me any leniency. If anything, I’ll be punished twice as hard because of who I am.”

  I’d noticed there wasn’t a strong bond between the two of them when I’d met Arthur, but I wouldn’t have guessed Arthur would actually hurt his own son. I wondered if that contributed to Gage’s frosty personality. This made the stakes of this heist even higher. I needed Gage’s help to pull this off, but could I live with the consequences?

  While I was lost in my thoughts, Gage grabbed a glass filled with some sort of green substance and handed it to me, and a sliver of the brown cuff he seemed to always wear on his right wrist peeked from under his sleeve. “Green smoothie.”

  The corner of my mouth twitched. Maybe he was over the whole blackmail incident? “You made me a smoothie?”

  “Don’t get too excited. They come out of a machine in the cafeteria.”

  I tilted my head to see around him. “Do I smell bacon?”

  “Sure do, have at it. I’m going to shower.”

  He headed toward the bathroom, pulling his shirt over his head as he went, not bothering to wait to start undressing until he reached privacy. I started to look away, but my gaze caught on the three red slashes that ran across his back.

  “What happened?” I gasped.

  Gage glanced over his shoulder, his mouth pulling down in a frown. “Punishment for killing that demon at the diner the other day.”

  “Arthur did that?” I wasn’t an expert, but it look like he’d been whipped. The skin wasn’t broken, but it was raised and bruised.

  “He doesn’t tolerate disappointment well,” he said flippantly.

  Bile churned in my gut, dampening my hunger. Whatever happened, I could not let Arthur find out about Gage’s involvement in this heist. If Arthur whipped him for killing a demon, what would he do to him if he learned Gage helped me steal his talisman? It was a chilling thought.

  Gage turned to look at me by the bathroom door. “If you fall asleep before I get out, just make sure not to sleep on the left. That’s my side of the bed.”

  I choked a little on the smoothie I’d just taken a sip of.

  “You’re kidding, right? We’re not both sleeping in there.” I pointed to the extra-large bed that would probably fit four people comfortably. Since he’d slept on the floor the last time, I just assumed he would again.

  Rather than answer, Gage lifted an eyebrow and smirked before shutting the door.

  I pushed the sleeping arrangements out of my mind as I dug into the pile of food Gage scavenged for me. I found I wasn’t simply hungry, but ravenous. Running from demons really worked up an appetite. Or maybe the self-healing thing burned a crazy amount of calories? Whatever the case, I had the whole mountain of food polished off before Gage even finished his shower.

  Drowsiness set in quickly—food coma mixed with running from a giant scary demon knocked me out. This had to be the longest day of my life.

  I lay down on top of the bedding, promising myself I was only going to rest my eyes until Gage returned. We had too much planning to do for me to sleep now, but the lull of oblivion was too strong, and I was out in seconds.

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  Bang, bang, bang.

  “Just five more minutes, Gran,” I yelled as I grabbed a pillow and shoved it over my head.

  Bang, bang, bang.

  The pillow did little to muffle the noise of Gran knocking o
n my bedroom door. She was persistent this morning.

  Wait. I didn’t have a bedroom anymore, I slept on the couch—and the soft mattress below me was definitely not a lumpy couch cushion.

  I threw the pillow off my head and tried to sit up, only to find a large bare arm thrown across my stomach, pinning me to the bed. Turning my head, I came face to face with slitted green eyes.

  “You slept on my side,” Gage grumped, his words slow and deep from sleep.

  “Get off me,” I squawked as I slapped at his hand.

  Removing his arm from me, he stretched both of them high above his head, giving me an eyeful of naked man chest.

  Bang, bang, bang.

  “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, I’m coming,” Gage shouted, and then slid out of the bed. He walked to the door in low-riding sweatpants, the brown leather cuff on his wrist, and nothing else.

  Yikes.

  My heart rate spiked, and I had difficulty tearing my eyes from his broad shoulders and muscled biceps. The magnificence of his form wasn’t diminished by the red marks that crisscrossed his back, although the slashes made me feel a little bad for ogling him. He’d earned those stripes for helping me.

  I shook off those thoughts and tried to make sense of what had happened. I fell asleep on top of the bedding last night, which meant Gage must have moved me under the covers. Why didn’t he wake me up when he got out of the bathroom? Maybe he tried and I was too knocked out? It was possible. Even now, I felt like I could sleep ten more hours.

  Gage threw the door open and then slouched against the jamb.

  “Is the building on fire?” he asked in a bored tone.

  I was horrified to see Arthur over Gage’s shoulder. With a squeak, I pulled the covers up to hide the fact that I was in one of Gage’s t-shirts—as if lying in his now-rumpled bed wasn’t damning enough.

  “I was notified by security that you slipped in the side entrance with Ms. Powers last night. Is that true?”

  Rather than answer, Gage just opened the door wider so Arthur had a clear shot of me.