In her peripheral mind, a void opened, reaching out with foggy arms, promising eternal peace…
“She’s fading.” Echo’s worried voice followed her into the dark. “This rapid weight loss isn’t good. She needs something more than healing.”
I need Nik.
Gentle fingers swept back her hair, and Shadow reluctantly opened her eyes, meeting Kira’s warm smile and troubled stare. “You must have this, the Oracle insists.” With determination, she helped Shadow up and held a glass of the thick herbal drink to her lips to consume once again.
With no fight in her, Shadow tasted nothing as she swallowed the glop, then she lay down again, curling into herself.
A low whine reached her again.
“It’s that creature,” Echo whispered. “He’s out there again. He’s come every night for the past two weeks and destroys the gardens before he leaves.”
“Sheesh, of course!” Kira burst out. “Give me a minute.” Her voice lowered, “Hey, Heds, could you come up here, please? I need your help.”
Shadow shut them out, willing herself back to sleep, so she could pass out.
A door opened.
Whispers of conversation.
“I don’t think it’s wise, Kira,” Hedori said.
“But the warriors told us what it did. It protected her. Think about it? That’s a dark creature from the demon world. Shadow explained what she needed…”
More murmurs, and Shadow stopped listening. Her mind looped back to the only place she wanted to be right now, remembering Nik’s warm body next to hers. His smile when she woke up. No matter the time, he was always up before her. Memories flooded her…
Her eyes opened. A smile tugged her mouth. “Stop staring.”
“Why?” he asked in a sleep-husky voice, pale eyes tender. “I like watching you awaken. Your smile is my favorite thing in the morning…and all day long. I thank whichever Fate brought you into my life.”
His words seared her mind, melting her frozen emotions, causing the dry well inside her to squeeze out more tears, and she buried her face in her pillow.
“Shadow?” Kira gently stroked her shoulder. “You have a visitor.”
I don’t want to see anyone. She didn’t want to see the pity in their eyes. Then the mattress disappeared as someone picked her up. She gasped, her eyelids flying open, to encounter gentle, orange-green eyes.
Hedori smiled as he carried her, covers and all, like an invalid.
“Wh-what are you doing?” she rasped, her voice scratchy from the lack of use.
“Taking you downstairs.”
“No…” All she wanted was to sleep. “Please…”
“This will be good for you, Shadow,” he said so softly, like the whisper of snowflakes falling in winter.
Shadow shut her eyes, exhaustion taking hold, the gnawing in her chest competing with the pain in her fragmented heart.
Moments later, a cool breeze swept over her clammy skin. She opened heavy eyelids to find herself outside on a low-lit terrace she didn’t recognize. Hedori deposited her on a padded lounger. Kira draped another throw over her, adding to the covers that Hedori carried her with.
Night concealed the forest in the distance, but the LED lights underscored parts of the gardens and the rolling lawn.
Shadow sighed. Now what?
A low growl had her frowning. An enormous obscure shape prowled out of the darkness and into the light, taking form.
For the first time in what seemed to be forever, a faint feeling of lightness to see someone sneaked into Shadow’s heart. Everyone called this being a monster, but it had helped her in a moment when nobody ever could. If nothing else, it caused a glimmer of warmth in her chest.
She held out a shaky hand. “Pithius, veni,” she whispered.
The truck size hellhound leaped up the few steps and onto the terrace. The girls and Hedori hastily stepped back.
The hound sat on its haunches, mere inches away, and still so much taller than her.
She reached out and gently ran her fingertips through the fur on its chest. Pithius whined. As soon as she opened her palms and touched him properly, her symbionts latched on. And like a jolt of adrenaline, they greedily drew on the dark energy, powering her up—
Images flashed through her mind, and she reared back, staring into the hellhound’s burning coal-red eyes… A gloomy night. A dark figure. Mammon flung out his hand, power glimmered in a netlike form, trapping a snarling dark shape. Pithius.
But Shadow already knew Mammon had somehow compelled Pithius to attack her. “It’s all right. I don’t blame you. I never did.”
He whined and gently nudged her face with his big, wet snout.
Moments later, her symbionts satiated and quiet for now, she dropped her hands. A low rumble formed in the hound’s chest, sounding like distant thunder. He lowered to the terrace, stretching out and resting his giant-sized head on her lap.
She scratched his hot muzzle. “Why did you come after us in the mountains?”
Old soulssss. Warrior…return.
“You mean Nik?” she asked.
Tartarusss.
And tears blurred her eyes. “H-he doesn’t have them anymore. I do—I mean I did. I fed off them. Like I do with you…I needed them to survive.”
Silence.
Pithius lifted his enormous head toward the forest.
“Why now after all these millennia?” she asked.
Time…different.
Time moves differently. Okay. Got it. “And you have to go back?”
A low whine rolled out as he gently batted her arm again, and she caressed his muzzle once more. “I’m always here for you.”
With a low chuff, Pithius rose and faded like fog into the darkness.
“Wow.” Kira hurried outside, Echo and Jaden at her side. “That was incredible.” They pulled chairs around Shadow and sat.
“That beast is like a cuddly Chihuahua with you,” Echo said, looking at the spot where the hellhound had vanished.
“He’s still perilous, a creature of the dark,” Jaden added softly.
Shadow glanced at the Oracle. The times when the woman had come to check on her, Shadow had been in her own dark place, not interested in waking up and talking to anyone. The way Jaden watched her, Shadow expelled a weary sigh. She didn’t want to hear whatever it was.
“Where’s Liam,” she asked instead, stalling.
“Hedori will fetch him from The Shelter in an hour.”
She nodded and rested her head against the backrest, shutting her eyes.
“Kira, Echo, would you give us a moment?” Jaden asked them.
“Of course,” Kira responded. The chairs dragged across the tiles, forcing Shadow to open her eyes again. “I’ll go get you something to eat. You must be hungry.” Kira headed indoors.
“And I have Lore coming for my lesson now, but I’ll see you later, okay?” Echo gave her a warm smile and followed Kira.
“How do you feel?” Jaden asked once they were alone.
At the compassion in her soft gaze, Shadow lashed out. “How do you think I feel? I lost the man I love. But he didn’t want me with him, he-he broke our bond.”
And suddenly, she was so angry at Nik for leaving her behind, leaving her alone, after his promise to her—
A strange warmth coasted through her, as if relentless in its pursuit to soothe her. Frowning, Shadow’s flat gaze fell on Jaden’s hand warm on her arm. She pulled free.
“I’m truly sorry, and I do understand what you’re going through,” Jaden said quietly. “The wounds never quite heal. However, you have something to live for.”
Shadow cast a listless look around her. She didn’t want to hear about time healing and all that crap, or about someone else appearing in her life. So, she remained silent.
“You have a part of him now.”
“I have nothing—”
Jaden gently laid her palm on Shadow’s stomach. “You carry a babe of your heart.”
Sh
adow blinked, her mind not connecting with what Jaden was saying.
“You’re pregnant, Shadow.”
She looked down at herself, then up at the Oracle…and then what she said crashed through her mind like a shattering bullet.
“No!” She jumped up, the covers falling to her feet. It was as if she’d been stabbed in the heart again.
Jaden rose. “Shadow—”
“No!” She pivoted and raced back indoors, bypassing a startled Kira.
“Shadow?” she called out.
Shadow shook her head and bolted up the back stairs to her room. Her lungs burning for air, she slammed the door shut and wrapped her arms around her waist. She looked around, searching for something, anything to anchor her, to help her understand why.
When she’d been ill with her defective heart, she never thought much about the future, let alone a family. After her attack and otherworldly blood transfusion, she’d changed, and she knew she would never have a normal life. Then Nik strode right in, crashing through her walls, and hope bloomed, only for her to be kicked in the gut and for Fate to snatch away her happiness—snatch the one person who was her very heartbeat.
And now this?
All that the Fates did was show her a glimpse of happiness then brutally rip it away.
A knock sounded.
Unable to face anyone, she hurried to the dressing room—and faltered to a stop. She usually avoided this place unless necessary because everything here reminded her of Nik. His smell, his clothes, the swords on the wall near his weapons closet.
The stacks of folded black t-shirts on the shelves drew her focus again. Then her feet were moving, and she picked up his shirt. His scent of stormy nights and cedar flooded her nose as she pressed her face into the fabric, and a harsh, racking sob broke free. She sank to the floor, knees raised, face buried in them.
Someone sat next to her, and arms came around her.
Shadow leaned her head on her friend’s shoulder and wept for a life she’d never have with the man she loved, and for the child she now carried who’d never know its father.
When the tears dried up, and only dry heaves wracked her chest, she met Kira’s wet eyes. “I…I’m pregnant.”
Chapter 34
Pale thread-like filaments wrapped around the body lying in stasis on the stone slab in the gloomy cavern.
Cobwebs? It sure looked like it.
Lit, stumpy white candles set in the wall, on the floor, and in the small alcoves on the rugged walls cast a dim light over the corpse.
Who was that down there? Where the hell was he?
Frowning, Nik coasted closer.
“You know who it is,” a soft, soothing, feminine voice murmured.
Nik hovered above the still form then coasted around the shrouded body. Too large to be a woman…
“Me?” he demanded of the female who spoke in an otherworldly voice. “How can that be? I’m here with you.”
“Your soul is. That’s your corporeal body.”
“Why?”
“You were mortally wounded. I brought you back.”
“You make no sense. I’m immortal. One would need to get hold of one the very few weapons in existence to end me,” he growled then frowned, something nagging at his mind. “Someone did.”
The ghostly form morphed to a tall, willowy female and hovered next to the corpse.
It seemed as if the sun shone from her—no, it was her hair that glowed so brightly. Like sunlight, it framed her dusky face, cascading down to her knees. Eyes like spring buds, soft and green, studied his physical body, the same leaf-green color forming tattooed vines around her brow and down her cheeks.
The ancient goddess.
He’d last seen this Being when he swore his fealty to her eons ago.
“My lady, Gaia.” He would have bowed if he had a body.
She inclined her head at his greeting, her hair flowing like sunbeams.
“How did I end up down here?” he asked.
“You are all tied to me by the very oaths you pledged as my Guardians, as are the weapons I bestowed you. Your corporeal form was in peril. Your sword alerted me. I brought both your soul and your body to me before they could wing their way to the afterlife in Elysium.”
He died?
Try as he might, Nik couldn’t quite grasp what had happened or see his death.
A soft brush against his mind startled him, then pixelated shots drew him into a bloody battle in the rain. Emotions swelled… desperation clawed at him to save someone…pain ripped his chest…an eerie, glowing black-edge silver sword struck him across his neck. Intense pain exploded…a smirking red-haired demon wielding the weapon—
“Nik!” a woman screamed.
At the sheer terror in her dark eyes, her immense agony his own, Nik rubbed his chest or tried to, but he had no body, had no way to ease the torment. He was a mere thought in the ether right now—or so it felt. And then the images flowed faster…
A burning sensation along his neck…knees caving…the sobbing woman holding him in her arms, tears streaming down her beautiful face.
“Hold on, Nik, hold on…don’t leave me.” Her anguish speared his heart.
He tried to speak her name, reassure her, but words wouldn’t come. A coppery taste flooded his mouth. He was dying…he could sense the mystical threads of his soul holding onto hers, pulling her with him into death. No-no, she couldn’t die.
His mate. She had to live—
Nik reared back from the images. “Shadow,” he rasped, something inside his soul cracking apart.
“She lives,” the ancient goddess murmured, “because you severed your mating bond.”
“I have to go to her. She needs me. The fucking demon—”
“You cannot, filius. She is not of this world.”
Anger consumed him, but he couldn’t move. Couldn’t take a step.
“You are without form. Your physical self needs to heal and regenerate.”
“How long?”
“I cannot say. The mystical healing of this place works in different ways.” Aware of his agitation, she said quietly, “Watch.”
More images flickered through him…demons and trees flying up from the ground as if caught in a tornado. Swirling—merging—in one horrendous distortion. A small figure stopped at the verge of the open field—a ragged cry tore out of her, and she flung out her arms. A dull explosion ricocheted, and everything rained down in wet clumps…
Nik blinked in shock at the power radiating out of her, but his chest hurt too fucking bad to enjoy it. He wanted to hold her, tell her he lived, just not with her for now.
The images changed. Familiar dank tunnels…more fighting…her old basement. Her tears and pain gutted him…tunnels again…the redhead demon with that damn hellhound at his side. Her immense rage consumed Nik. She plunged her dagger into the demon…the hellhound leaping, his jaw clamping down on her—
“No!” he cried out.
The images cut off, and Nik stared blankly, feeling as if someone had yanked out his lungs, his heart.
“Where is she?” He scrambled to find the images again. “Show me!”
“No. Rest, filius,” Gaia whispered, a soothing touch seeping into his soul. The immense agony dissipated, and the memories faded as a peaceful haze drew him back to oblivion…
Chapter 35
Shadow tucked strands of her hair behind her ear, her gaze fixed on the lit paper lantern the fall breeze carried upward into the darkening sky. Her tribute to her lost love glowed like a star as it rose higher and higher.
In the passing months, she’d come every evening to the beach to light a lantern.
Wherever you are, my love, I hope you see this…and find your way back to me. She swallowed the lump in her throat at the impossibility of what she yearned for. Or at least know you’re always in my heart…I miss you.
The sea undulated gently as if sensing her despair, and she wrapped her arms around her still flat stomach.
Every
morning she forced herself to get out of bed, breathe and take one step, then another, and another…because she had a new life to worry about now. But nothing stirred her from her melancholy or pulled her out of this unrelenting emptiness—this silence inside her.
The warriors had held a memorial of sorts for Nik in the training arena months ago, but she’d been too broken to say anything.
Exhaling roughly, she rubbed her sternum, dully aware of the gnawing sensation there that had started days ago. She needed to feed, but Pithius hadn’t visited in over a week. She supposed she could summon him, but listlessness had her pushing it aside once more.
A stone disrupted the calm water, sending out ripples.
She glanced back. Liam rose from the pebbly shore where he’d hunkered down, slingshot in hand, his weapon of choice in protecting her, and it made her smile. Other boys liked daggers or swords; her brother was the slingshot king ever since he’d been a little boy.
He was about to head off to university tonight, and two weeks late.
“I can postpone my studies, take a gap year until the baby comes.”
She forced a smile and joined him. “No. I’ll miss you. But you need to go, live your life.”
He sighed, tunneling his fingers through his newly trimmed brown hair.
“Besides, no one knows how long I’ll be pregnant. With me not being a hundred percent human, a-and Nik…” She swallowed, finding it hard to say his name out loud. “…was a deity.”
Liam’s lean features tightened. “I’m so sorry, Gem.” He put an arm around her. “I only knew Nik for a short while, but I saw how happy you were with him.”
There were no words, so she simply nodded, blinking her dry eyes.
“No matter what, I’ll be here when the baby comes.”
And he would.
He whirled his Y shaped weapon on one finger as they left the beach behind and strolled through the darkening forest, heading toward the castle. “My nephew’s gonna be one big, tough warrior. I’m gonna keep this slingshot for him.”
Shattered Dawn (Fallen Guardians Book 5) Page 36
