Shadowflame

by Dianne Sylvan

  David tore his eyes away and sat up, feeling the air in the room cold on his bare, sweaty skin. He wasn’t sure what was worse: lying there entwined with his transgressions or pulling himself away.

  Strong, warm hands touched his shoulders, and he felt Dev lean against him and kiss the back of his neck. “It’s all right,” Deven whispered.

  “No, it’s not,” David said back, barely able to summon words. “It’s so very not all right.”

  “I mean . . . this isn’t your fault. I accept the blame.”

  Tempting as the idea was, David couldn’t let it happen. “No. I started it. I could have stopped at any moment, but . . .”

  “You didn’t, and neither did I.” He ran his hands down over David’s biceps, and for a moment, just a moment, David let himself forget what existed outside the room and almost relaxed into the embrace. They had shattered the world beyond the door, but if it would just stay closed a few more minutes . . .

  It was Deven who broke the silence, sounding achingly young and sad when he asked softly, “How are we going to tell them?”

  “Her,” came a voice.

  Both their heads snapped up at once.

  Jonathan had entered the room without making a sound and shut the door behind him; he was standing just inside the threshold, watching them.

  They were both frozen in place, unable to pull away from each other, as if it would have made a difference in what the Consort knew. But Jonathan didn’t look shocked or angry; his expression was one of resignation.

  “You knew this would happen,” Deven said.

  Jonathan smiled with an uncharacteristic edge of bitterness. “Of course I did.”

  “You didn’t try to stop us.”

  The Consort tipped his head to one side, making a noise something like a laugh. “Who can stop the earth from quaking?”

  “We could have,” David said, carefully moving away from Deven and pulling the sheet up around himself, acutely ashamed, like Adam in the Garden. “No one forced us to do this—not fate, not anything. Either one of us could have said no.”

  Now Jonathan looked amused; he often did when David tried to argue with his assertions of destiny. “You’re not helping your case any here.”

  “I’m not trying to.” David couldn’t look at Deven, and he couldn’t meet Jonathan’s eyes, but he spoke as certainly as he could, given the aftershocks in his mind. “I’m not asking for a pardon . . . if you’re going to be angry at someone, let it be me. Don’t take it out on Deven.”

  “I’m not angry.”

  “How can you not be?”

  “I told you, I already knew. I knew before we even came here. There was a ghost between you that had to be exorcised.” He fixed his Prime with a steady glare. “And you haven’t violated the terms of our relationship by any means. What’s fair is fair. I’m not really the one you need to worry about.”

  Deven didn’t say anything. For the first time since the night they had met, Deven looked utterly lost . . . and David understood that when it came down to it, Deven would do whatever Jonathan asked, would abandon David again, would sever all ties with the South if Jonathan wanted him to . . . because in the end, David wasn’t the one he was bound to. They could love each other until the stars burned out, but they weren’t, and had never been, mated in soul. They would never live together, nor die together.

  David closed his eyes against the denial that rose up rebellious in his heart, but it was the truth. This had been a stolen moment. He couldn’t have Deven . . . not ever. He’d wanted closure, and in a way he had it . . . but there was no resolving this, not really.

  And now things were so much worse.

  “Well now,” Jonathan said. “I smell like a barnyard, so I’m going to have a shower. Close the door behind you, please, David, on your way out—oh, and Deven, if it wouldn’t be too much of a bother, change the fucking sheets before I come back.”

  The last sentence was hissed, with so much anger in it that both Primes were taken aback, but Jonathan didn’t say anything else until he had reached the bathroom door.

  He looked over at David. His voice was perfectly even again, perfectly factual. “Incidentally, you’re not going to have to tell Miranda either. You haven’t had time to learn this, but when you have a bond like ours, you can feel when your husband has an orgasm . . . no matter who it’s with.”

  The Consort closed and locked the bathroom door.

  “Oh, God . . .” David put his head in his hands. “Miranda. How am I going to face her?”

  Deven almost said something sarcastic—David knew the look on his face—but at the last second the spark drained out of him and he said only, “Honestly.”

  “She’ll never forgive me. Three months and I broke faith with her . . . there’s nothing I can say to make this right.”

  Again, Deven sounded drained . . . no, defeated. All of his arrogance and self-possession were gone. “You made a mistake, David. She will forgive you.”

  David looked at him. “A mistake?”

  He sighed. “Yes. A beautiful, terrible mistake that can never happen again. Now we’ll go home to the West, and you’ll go back to your Queen, and we’ll all do the best we can to act as though it never happened. And we’ll maintain good relations in Council, and talk on the phone when we need to, but we’ll probably never be alone together again.”

  “Deven—”

  “Go, David. Please. Just go.”

  There was nothing else David could say. He gathered his discarded clothes and put them on with numb hands, aware of Deven’s eyes on him.

  He left the room without looking back, afraid that if he did he would fall apart. He avoided the faces of the guards as well; they belonged to California, not him, so what they thought didn’t matter, but once down the hall, approaching the nearest Elite post, he found that he couldn’t make himself walk past them . . . and so, risking exhaustion to save face, he Misted, holding the image of his suite tightly in his mind and pulling it toward him, passing through space at a thought.

  He reappeared just inside the door . . . where Miranda was waiting for him.

  “Is this the part where I storm out and leave you?” she asked very, very calmly.

  David was staring at her as if he expected her to do far worse than that; keeping an eye on her, he approached the fireplace and took his chair, each movement deliberate, the way he did when one of the horses got spooked and he didn’t want to get kicked in the head.

  “Seriously, you need to tell me,” she went on. Her voice was so even she might have been discussing the weather. “I’ve never been cheated on before. I’m not sure what my job is here. Do I yell? Do I cry? Throw things? Kill you? Oh, wait . . . I can’t do that.”

  He still didn’t speak. She could feel the guilt, and the shame, radiating off him, poisonous. Worse, she could smell it . . . sweat, and sex, and him.

  “I could kill you,” she reasoned. “I’d only live for about two minutes, but they’d be a very satisfying two minutes.”

  Nothing.

  “I hope it was worth it,” she went on. The pitch of her voice rose just a tiny bit. She couldn’t stop it. “It felt like it was pretty fantastic. I was lying in bed feeling almost well enough to get up and go to the music room, not thinking about my best friend who almost died because of me, and wham! Suddenly I was so turned on I couldn’t stand it . . . but it wasn’t me. Was it good, baby?” Her hands gripped the arms of her chair so hard they were white. “You smell like a good hard fuck. Is it better with a guy? You never did tell me. Do my breasts get in the way? I know I’m pretty good, but did you scream louder for him?”

  He shrank back further into himself with her every word, staring at her, eyes wide and fearful. She was starting to sound slightly hysterical, but again, she couldn’t seem to help it, and besides, she didn’t care. She had been waiting for him for more than an hour, feeling vicarious waves of pleasure and pain, her own body responding traitorously even though there were no hands touching h
er, no tongue against her thigh. She tasted blood in her mouth—not David’s, and not hers.

  Bile rose in her throat, and she stood up. “Was it worth it? Tell me, David. Was it?”

  He couldn’t look at her. “No.”

  “Am I supposed to just sit around barefoot like a good little wife, keep the home fires burning, while you’re out sucking off your boyfriend?”

  He looked up at her. “It was a mistake,” he said. “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

  “You didn’t mean for it to happen? What does that even mean? You lay down on the ground and he tripped and fell on your dick?”

  “Beloved, please . . .”

  The quaint term of endearment had always made her smile, but now it brought a thunderous wave of rage through her body, and she hit him.

  He didn’t fall back, but his head snapped around, and when he faced her again blood oozed from the corner of his mouth.

  Her vision went scarlet. She hit him again.

  “Get up, you bastard!” she all but screamed. “If it’s so fucking easy to hurt me, do it right! Get up!”

  He stayed where he was, bleeding, and she punched him again, and again, cursing him, each time her voice rising until she lost her hold on the English language and simply wailed, throwing her betrayal at him the only way she knew how.

  She heard glass shattering; the force of her emotions was seeping into the room and causing things to fall off shelves. She didn’t care. All she could do was scream until her voice gave out and she sobbed incoherently, collapsing on the floor, unable to hurt him badly enough, to make him bleed enough, to match the way she was bleeding.

  He pushed himself off the chair and came to her, folding her into his arms; at first she tried to fight him off, but he wouldn’t let her go, and at last they both wept, clinging to each other like children on a battlefield.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered brokenly, over and over again.

  “God, I wish I could hate you,” she moaned, striking his shoulder with a halfhearted fist. “Why did you bring me into this life and then do this to me?”

  Shaking, he reached up to his throat and pulled the Signet from it, pressing it into her hands. “Here,” he said, face wet with tears. “Break it. Break it, Miranda.”

  She drew a tremulous breath, not comprehending. “Why?”

  “Kill one of us and we both die. Break one stone and its wearer dies. It’s the only way to sever the bond—otherwise you’re trapped here with me forever.”

  She stared down at the amulet in her hand. “Just like that?”

  “It’s something everyone knows but no one has ever done. I don’t know what would happen to you afterward. You might not survive long, but at least . . . at least you’d be free.”

  She was still crying, but she shook her head. “No.” She lifted the stone and fastened it back around his neck. Her voice was barely a whisper. “You don’t get off that easy, baby.”

  She left one hand on his Signet and moved the other hand to cover her own. “I’m not going to let you run away at the first test,” she went on. “I’ll stay with you . . . but you have to stay with me.”

  “Anything,” he said. “I would do anything for you.”

  “Okay,” she replied, touching her forehead to his. “The first thing you can do is take a shower.”

  “Yes . . .” He wiped his eyes, seeming bewildered by the display of emotion that had escaped his habitual walls, and got to his feet.

  She felt so hollow inside, and still weak; she hadn’t been ready for this. She tried to stand, too, and couldn’t. David saw her struggling and reached down to lift her.

  Miranda stood, hands on his arms. “Let me help you to bed,” he said.

  “Not yet. First, I’m going with you.” She fixed a stony, but not angry, stare into his eyes. “I want to do it myself.”

  He didn’t fully understand, but didn’t argue, and helped her to the bathroom, then stepped back to see what she had been talking about.

  She took a deep breath. “Turn the water on. Hot.”

  He obeyed.

  Miranda nodded and came over to him, unbuttoning his shirt without touching his skin; she couldn’t touch him, not yet. He let her without protest or comment.

  Fighting her weariness, she unzipped his jeans, and finished stripping him slowly and clinically, taking each item of clothing and dropping it in the trash.

  Then she removed her own, her tank top and yoga pants going into a pile on the floor. When they were both naked, she nudged him toward the shower.

  The steam made her dizzy, but she was too intent on her task to give in to her body’s desire to curl up and sleep. She pushed him into the water spray, for once not pausing to enjoy the sight of hot water cascading down over his body; instead, she took washcloth and soap and, with deliberate slowness, washed him from head to foot, scrubbing some places hard enough to leave the skin raw.

  There had been a few bruises lingering on his flesh, but by the time she was finished they were gone, as was the faint black eye that she had given him. He stood perfectly still, moving only when instructed, until she was satisfied that nothing of Deven remained on his body, and every last inch of him was clean.

  “Get out and dry off,” she told him. “Then go to bed.”

  He had questions but didn’t ask them. He only did what he was told.

  She gave herself the same treatment, only robotically, her body numb to her own touch and the slickness of the soap. It was her favorite scent, but she couldn’t smell it. As she washed, tears streamed from her eyes again, another surge of impotent anger and agony hitting her. She sagged back against the shower wall, washcloth still in her hand, and folded up on herself, sinking to her knees with the water hitting her in the head, dragging her hair into her face as she cried, and shook, until the wave had passed.

  She took her time drying and putting on clean clothes. She returned to the bedroom, where he was waiting in bed, lying on his side facing her without making eye contact.

  She considered sleeping on the couch, or making him do it, but something inside her started keening at the thought and she was too wrung out from tears to make herself face the morning in an empty bed. Wordlessly, she climbed in on her side, pulling the covers up around her. David waited for her to indicate it was okay to touch her, but she ignored him and rolled over to face the wall. Couch or no couch, she might as well have been across the ocean.

  Neither of them slept.

  Only Faith showed up the next night at midnight to officially bid the West farewell. She was surprised, and made deeply uneasy, by the way the Prime had ordered her to see them off, with no explanation; he didn’t sound like himself at all, and it wasn’t like him to command her without giving her reasons.

  When she saw Deven and Jonathan, she knew exactly what was going on.

  Deven emerged from the Haven first, by himself, which was also weird; he nodded to her without smiling and got in the car, not even saying good-bye. He looked normal, for Deven, in leather coat and studs, a bit more casual this time with fingerless gloves against the chill, his nails freshly painted. He was as stoic as always, but something was missing that she couldn’t quite put her finger on . . . until Jonathan came outside.

  He wasn’t smiling either. In fact, he glanced in Deven’s direction and the almost undetectable flicker in his eyes gave it away, as did the way he looked back at the Haven as if he’d rather be staked and quartered than ever set foot inside again.

  “Jonathan,” Faith said, unable to keep to protocol any longer, “are you all right?”

  He paused and gave her a smile that was lacking in its usual good humor. “Not particularly, Faith. But don’t worry about us. We’ll make it, I promise.” He lifted his eyes to the Haven again. “Worry about your own house instead.”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “You don’t mean . . .”

  “They’re going to need you more than ever,” he replied. “Promise me, Faith, that you’ll do what you can to help them
work things out. They could come through this stronger than before . . . and then, perhaps everything won’t have gone to waste.”

  “You know I will,” she said. “I promise.”

  “Good. Time to go home now . . . I hope we’ll see you again someday.”

  With that Jonathan got in the car, and one of their Elite shut the door.

  She watched the car pull away, unsure what to feel, but pretty sure she wanted to go kick David in the balls, then find Miranda and hug her—to hell with protocol and professionalism. What must the Queen be going through, if what Faith suspected was true? Miranda wasn’t as jaded as the rest of them yet. She couldn’t have seen it coming like Faith had. Half the Elite had been taking bets, since that evening in the training room when the two Primes had fought each other into a trance, on how long it would take them to wind up in bed together. But Miranda . . . she was so young, and had been a vampire and Queen for only a few months . . . and, from what Faith remembered, she didn’t have much of a history with love. Faith had to check on her.

  She went back into the building, intent on heading for the Pair’s wing to see if she could find Miranda without making it too obvious that she was looking, but one of the other Elite caught sight of her and hurried over to her side.

  “Lali,” Faith said. “You’re off shift, aren’t you? Why are you still in uniform?”

  Lali was holding a familiar-looking metal case. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said. “The Prime sent me to town just after sunset to pick something up from Hunter Development. Doctor Novotny, the human researcher, had something for him—I mean, this. He said the results are inside on a thumb drive, and that I must deliver them only to you or the Pair, in person. But no one seems to know where the Prime is tonight, so I came to you.”

  “Thank you, Lali—I’ll take it from here.”

  The bodyguard bowed and went her own way, no doubt to get out of uniform and relax with her violin.

  Faith took the case with her to the Signet wing, but to her consternation neither Prime nor Queen were to be found in their suite, the music room, David’s workroom, or any of their other usual haunts. She would have been alerted if they’d gone to town, so it stood to reason they were somewhere around the Haven, and given what was going on, chances were they weren’t together.