Pamela walked to my side and slipped her arm around my waist. “I can feel it in the air, things are changing, aren’t they?”
I draped an arm across her shoulders, as my mind once more saw the prophecies as if stamped inside my brain. “Yeah … yeah, I think they are.”
Chapter 5
If you’d asked me to guess who was at the door and had given me ten tries, I still would have gotten it wrong. I assumed it would be Agent Valley (who still hadn’t given up on me joining his agency), maybe Deanna or even Will.
Nope. None of those.
I think my jaw might have actually unhinged as the punk rocker-esque Daywalker strode into the kitchen. Jack muttered under his breath as he trailed behind his newest houseguest.
Doran strode right up to me and kissed me on the cheek, dark green eyes all lit up with happiness, as if seeing me had just made his fucking day. His white blond hair was still tipped in black, the silver piercings above his eyebrow and in the side of his lip still glinted at me, teasing little winks. All of it was the same. Except that he was here, in London, instead of in New Mexico where he should have been.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I blurted out, shoving him away from me, wanting space between us. If he was here, something was wrong. And the last thing I needed was more wrong in my life.
With a smooth fluid grace he lifted himself to sit on the counter, right next to the cookies. He took one, broke it in half and then took a bite.
“Oh my gods, these are fantastic. Surely you didn’t make them, did you, Rylee? If you tell me you can bake as well as kick ass with the best of them, I may have to make an exception to my ‘no marrying’ rule.” He smiled around the bite of cookie in his mouth.
“I made them,” Pamela said, her voice coming from the other side of the kitchen where she stood pressed against the industrial fridge. Her blue eyes were narrowed to slits. Her past experience with a fanged supernatural hadn’t gone too well. No, not too well at all. Her hands twitched, no doubt prepping a spell.
Alex climbed up onto the counter to sit awkwardly next to Doran. “Alex sits too.”
“Get off the counter, Alex.” I pointed to the floor. He slid off like a boneless Gumby doll, until he was splayed out on the floor flat on his belly.
“No fairs.”
I had only my bowie knife and my whip on me, stupidly having put my sword back in my bedroom. Not enough if I had to fight Doran. Shit. Of course, that was assuming he was here to cause problems. Again, I had to think he was. To come all this way for tea and cookies? Nope, that just didn’t fit.
“I will ask you only one more time and then things are going to get nasty.” I fingered the whip’s handle. “What are you doing here?”
Doran leaned back, popped the last of the cookie into his mouth and dusted his fingers on his black leather pants. His eyes had an odd glint in them and they flicked quickly around the room. A single bead of sweat budded on the left side of his face. Yeah, something was wrong. Shit, I hated being right.
“May I speak with you in private, Rylee? Somewhere your new witch and the old Tracker won’t hear us?”
I tipped my head toward the door and he slid off the counter, following me. Jack lifted an eyebrow and I pointed at Alex and Pamela. “Keep them with you.”
I would deal with Doran on my own, it was better that way. My skin twitched as I walked; I could feel the Daywalker’s eyes on me, feel the desire he had to pierce my skin with his fangs. Fuck, and I still owed him a kiss. I fought the urge to groan. Had he come all this way for a kiss? Shit, I was good, but I wasn’t that good. No, it had to be something else. Something I wouldn’t want to hear. Or something he wanted from me.
I led him to the library. Seeing as the door was busted, there was no hiding behind it now.
Doran took a step in, turned and shut the doors. “No lock?” He fingered the clean slice of the deadbolt, and then grabbed a chair and slid it under the doorknobs for extra security. Or an extra precaution to keep me in the room with him? What the fuck was going on with him?
“No need for us to be interrupted.” His voice was soft, but carried across the room easily. Shit, something was seriously off with the Daywalker. For all his quirks, and the few times we’d spent together, this was not like him.
Without any hesitation, I pulled the bowie knife out and un-looped the whip from my belt. When Doran turned, his mouth opened and his step toward me stopped in mid-air.
“I’m not here for that kind of a visit, as much as I wouldn’t mind sparring with you. Though I’d prefer we did it naked.” He gave me a wink, but I didn’t lower my weapons. I was learning that supernaturals with fangs just couldn’t seem to help themselves, no matter what they said, they would always want what they couldn’t have. Blood, sex, power, one or all three of those options, whatever they could get.
“I think I’m good as I stand now.”
“Have I not been helpful to you, Rylee?” He stepped toward the big table, ran his fingers along the top of it.
“Yes, sort of.”
“Have I not sent you gifts that have aided you?”
I thought about the pendant he’d sent for Giselle, how it had helped on the last salvage. “Perhaps.”
He smiled, maybe hearing the hesitation in my voice.
His eyes flicked up to mine. “Have I not drawn a demon’s poison from you? And in doing so, saved your life?”
“You all did that, you and the other Shamans.”
Laughing, he shook his head, the piercings catching the light and flickering against his skin. “I didn’t need them, I could have done it myself.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Ah, well, I was under orders. Sorry about that.” Again, he winked, but his eyes were strained, like his mask was finally cracking. I had a feeling that whether I liked it or not, I was about to see another side of Doran.
“Orders?”
He ran a finger along his lips, a second bead of sweat joining the first. “Can’t tell you anything else.”
Fuck, this was getting irritating. “Why the hell are you here, Doran?”
With a hop, he sat on the edge of the table and leaned back, spreading his arms out, fingertips stretched. He let out a heavy sigh.
This was weird behavior, even for him, and my gut told me I needed to move, get out of there. The thing was, if O’Shea was lost to the wolf he carried now, I would need help to bring him back. And Doran was a powerful Shaman.
“I am here because … .” His hands waved loosely in the air above him.
I waited, but never lowered my weapons. He remained silent, so I asked him the question that burned the back of my throat with its intensity.
“O’Shea is lost to the wolf in him. Can you bring him back?”
Doran tipped his head up so he could see me and blinked, as if seeing me for the first time. “Bring him back? Maybe. Perhaps. But it won’t be easy, even if it would work. Worse than what you went through with the Hoarfrost demon, I think. Perhaps. Maybe not. Possibly.”
The knot that had tied itself around my gut when Milly had told me O’Shea was lost loosened. A chance, that was all I asked for, a chance to save him.
Before I could ask another question, Doran sat up and scrubbed a hand through his short hair, grabbing at it as if he would try to yank it out. “Rylee, I’ll tell you why I’m here, but you’re not going to like it. I’ve been compelled to come. However, I thought that once I was here I could keep myself in check, but it’s proving harder than I expected. Perhaps I should have tried harder to stay away.” He was rambling, which was totally unlike him. “I told her I would help you; so I helped in the beginning, because it’s what she wanted. But—”
I cut him off. “Spit it out, Doran.”
He swallowed hard. “I don’t want to hurt you.” He took a big gulping breath, his pain-filled green eyes flicking up to mine. “She wants me to kill your little witch.”
I licked my lips, heart thumping hard with adrenaline.
Fuck, I did not want to fight Doran. “Who wants you to hurt me? Who wants to kill Pamela?”
“The Child Empress, the one that would rule the vampire nation. She is a power in her own right and she isn’t even fully fanged yet. Because she carries the memories of her parents, she has all their strengths as well as her own.”
Oh fuck, wasn’t it bad enough that I was already dealing with Faris? Did I really have to deal with this Child Empress too? And what the hell did she have against Pamela?
The thing was, I didn’t know what to do. Killing, or trying to kill, Doran would lose me a powerful ally. And while I might not always trust him, the same could be said for many of my allies. Not to mention that Doran hadn’t gone after Pamela when he had the chance. He could have attacked her there in the kitchen, but he hadn’t, he’d held himself back somehow. Add in the fact that he’d just told me he could possibly help me bring back O’Shea if he was lost to the wolf as Milly said.
“Why would she send you to me, why not one of her vampires who could have cleaned my clock and be-spelled Pamela in a heartbeat?”
I wanted to move, to pace or prep for a fight, but at the same time, I needed him to keep talking. If I was forced to kill him, then I needed all the information I could get out of him ahead of time. Brutal, cold, but no less the truth for all that.
“You let me right in, didn’t you?” His dark green eyes were full of sorrow, but he couldn’t seem to sit still. His hands jumped and twitched as he talked. “I walked right up, kissed you on the cheek and you didn’t even lift a weapon. The Child Empress knew that. I can get close to you; it’s what she’s wanted all along. But I can’t stop her from commanding me, the binding goes too deep.”
“Fine.” I rolled my shoulders, loosening my muscles. “Then how the fuck do we unbind you from her, stop her from compelling you?”
“We don’t.” He lunged at me, and I barely got the bowie knife up between us. He stopped, his eyes wild, mouth open as he panted for air. His muscles twitched, as he lowered himself to the ground, face down, neck exposed to me.
“Kill me swiftly, that’s all I ask.” His body jerked and jumped as if tied to strings I couldn’t see. Like the puppet he was. Fuck it all to hell and back.
“There has to be a way to unbind you from her.” I held the knife above him, poised on the edge of slicing it into his neck, holding off the inevitable.
“I would have to bind myself to another, someone else. There is not time; I can barely think straight with her in my head—”
His hands snaked out and grabbed me by the ankles, jerking me to the floor. I hit hard, but stayed on my back so I could see him. He crawled up my body, fangs bared, his eyes wide with fear.
“Kill me. You must.”
“I never did like doing things the easy way,” I said, as I flipped us over so I was on top and his back was to the floor. Even though he tried not to fight me, his body struggled to obey his mistress.
“Rylee, you have no ability to bind me. And she is pushing me hard. If you don’t kill me, I will go after Pamela.” He groaned, his body bucking underneath mine.
I balanced my knees on his arms, but I knew that he could throw me off if he wanted to. What the hell was I going to do with him? I couldn’t kill him, not if I was going to bring O’Shea back, but how did I let him live with Pamela’s life on the line?
A tentative knock came on the door, then the sound of a cane rapping against the wood.
“Go away!” I yelled, glancing over my shoulder. Doran threw me off him, pushing me straight up into the air. My head brushed the fifteen-foot ceiling before gravity took over, yanking me back to the floor. I landed in a crouch, eyeing up the Daywalker who had plastered himself against the far wall of books.
“Rylee, I can’t hold on much longer. Send her away, I can smell her on the other side of the door.” He said, sliding to the floor, books falling around him as he went.
From outside the door came a resounding curse and then the wooden panels were blasted open. Jack strode in, a snarl on his lips, eyes flashing with anger.
“This is my fucking house, and I don’t give a shit.” He came to a stop as he rounded the table and Doran came into view for him.
I put myself between Doran and Jack. “Fuck, Jack, this is why I didn’t want you in here, I knew something was wrong.”
Pamela stepped into the room and lifted her hand. With an ease that belied her experience, she pinned Doran down, and his face relaxed. “Should have asked the witch along. Always ask the witch along. That’s advice you need to start taking.”
“Shut up, Doran,” I snapped, knowing he was right. The struggle was using Pamela to help me, but not getting her killed. A fine line in our world. One I didn’t like walking.
Jack made his way to his recliner and slumped into it. “Who has you bound?”
Doran rolled his head toward the old Tracker. “The Child Empress. I know of no way to break the binding; Rylee must kill me or I will attack her, kill Pamela, and make a general mess of things for all of you.”
Jack snorted and leaned back in the chair, putting his feet up. “All these things you know, and yet so bloody fucking much you don’t, Daywalker. And you’ve been around for what, three hundred years?”
Doran gave a grunt. “Close enough.”
I felt my eyes widen, couldn’t stop them. Three hundred years? Seriously?
Jack pointed at me with his cane. “She can break the binding, but are you ready to be free of the Child Empress, to stand with Rylee instead?”
Okay, now I was confused. “I can’t break any binding, Jack. I have no magic.”
“The magic is in your blood. In mine too, but I don’t have any extra to spare.”
Doran and I were talking over each other, but I shushed him with my hand. “Doran has drunk my blood before. So your theory falls short.”
“Straight from the vein, or out of a cup?” Jack tipped his head back, and closed his eyes.
Doran’s eyes met mine and I saw the confusion in him—and the fear.
“From a cup,” I said.
“From any major artery, or from the last of your life, the magic in your blood will act like the catalyst it is. It is a driving force in the most powerful of spells, and will break the bond between him and the Child Empress.” Jack let out a jaw cracking yawn, as if all this were just the every day for him, as if he didn’t really care about the outcome.
Doran shook his head. “I don’t think this is a good idea. If I bite you, she could have a connection to you through me. I’m not sure I won’t rip you open if she commands it of me.”
“I need your help, which means we are doing this.” I walked toward him, rubbed my wrist. This was going to hurt like a son of a bitch.
“Think big artery, Rylee. I’d say neck or inner thigh if you want to be sure it will work,” Jack said, stopping me in my tracks.
Fuck, this was just getting better and better, wasn’t it? Neck it was.
Doran couldn’t move, held as he was by Pamela’s spell. I turned to face her. “You let him go when I tell you to, okay?”
“Are you sure?” Her fingers clutched Alex’s collar, the werewolf having crept in without me noticing. Both of them had eyes the size of silver dollars. Children, I had children for allies. Fuck, I needed Doran to snap out of this binding he was under so I had at least one able-bodied adult backing me up.
I was in front of Doran, our bodies maybe an inch apart. He was still shaking his head. “Rylee, this is a bad, bad idea.”
“So is killing you, so is killing Pamela. There are no good choices here. If this will break the tie, we are doing it. So stop your fucking whining.” I closed the distance between us and did my best to ignore the thundering race of my heart. I closed my eyes and pressed my neck against his closed mouth. “Do it.”
He groaned, his lips brushing against my skin, tongue darting out to taste. I shivered and my heart sped up even more, sweat beading up along my spine. He whispered my name, kissed my neck,
and I pulled back to glare at him.
“None of that shit. Just bite me, damn it.”
Doran gave me a smile. “Can’t blame me for trying.”
I leaned back in, pressed my neck hard against his mouth, and this time he wasted no breath. His fangs popped through my skin, and I stiffened at the sharp piercing. He groaned and I lifted a hand. “Let him go, Pamela.”
The second her spell left him, his arms snaked around me, holding me against him as he drew my blood into his mouth. For most people, it would have been a sensual, sexual moment, and by the way Doran’s lower half felt, he was definitely in the mood. But he hadn’t be-spelled me, so his bite wasn’t doing a thing for me. The bite hurt, and his hard-on dug into me with the unpleasantness of a drunken come on. Overall, not an experience I’d want to write home about.
I felt a distant twang on my senses and the Child Empress’s attention focused on me. I could feel her gaze through Doran. Shit, this was a bad idea.
“Jack, how long?” I tried to look to the old Tracker, but one of Doran’s hands snaked up to cup the back of my head.
Jack had the nerve to laugh. “The first drop of blood would have done it, he’s just getting off now.”
I slid two fingers between Doran’s mouth and my neck and popped him off like I would a leech; the connection that had started up between me and the Child Empress cut off. Thank the gods.
The Daywalker reeled back, stumbled across the floor and ended up flat on his back, a trickle of my blood leaking down the edge of his mouth.
“Sweet mother of the dark goddess, Rylee. That is the most amazing blood I’ve ever tasted.” He giggled, sounding drunk. “And the binding is gone. I can’t feel her in my head. You are a goddess, a queen, a sweet aphrodisiac that I will never grow tired of.”
I put a hand to my neck, the bite tender, though I could tell he’d not dug in as he could have. I had a bite on my lower back from a pissed off Daywalker—I knew how bad it could have been if Doran hadn’t been holding back.
“Great. The binding is gone. You can behave now. Pamela” —I strode across to her— “come with me.”
Shadowed Threads Page 4
