The last dish dried, I collapse in a heap on the floor, trying to rest my back against the cupboard behind me as I polish off the last half of a leftover roll, but I soon slip into more of a sitting up ball.
“Finished?” Four asks, followed by a plate-against-plate clattering sound.
“We need an assignment. Until this all blows over and that girl disappears into the servants’ ranks, we need to get out of here,” Pax says.
If my heart had the energy to skip a beat, it would. I’m not going to settle in, and Seth’s not going anywhere until he walks me through that forest and back onto Desayer Realm’s soil.
Not Lord Martin’s lands. Someone else’s. I can walk until my legs won’t carry me and beg to work for food and board. If I get far enough away, they won’t know where I’m from. Days and days away. Almost dead from the journey away.
Which is better than almost dead from a race of people I didn’t even know existed treating me like their toy/pet/property in a palace full of rules that I really don’t understand.
“We need to lay low and hope Lithael doesn’t call us in for an audience,” Pax says.
“He will,” Roarke says.
A chair scrapes, followed by three others, and footsteps begin to move away from me.
“Get the dishes done,” I mutter to myself.
But I don’t move… until an invisible wall presses up against my butt and starts sliding me across the floor. I push back against it, which is stupid because of course the thing is relentless and no amount of pushing is going to make it stop. Before I can get to my feet, I’m pressed flat against the door.
A door that should swing open, but doesn’t because I wedged a knife in it.
My face moshes against the timber and pain begins to prickle along my skin. I reach for the handle of the blade, brushing the metal with my fingers. Brushing but not gripping.
It’s too high, I can’t move.
The pain intensifies on both sides of me. The wall feels like a bolt of lightning, and the door feels like I’m being punched everywhere all at once. I cry out, but the air is being forced out of my lungs, and my voice is strangled in my throat.
With the twang of metal, the knife breaks, the door gives, and I hurtle into the room. The blade’s handle clatters to the ground behind me and the sharp end flings up before gravity pulls it down. Down toward me before I even have time to consider moving. It slices through the back of my wrist on its way to the ground.
I scream, clutching the already red stain on the white fabric.
The wall doesn’t give a shit. I stumble forward at its mercy, trip over a chair, get pushed face down across the timber floor, then finally manage to get back on my feet.
I should be worried about my arm, the pain is enough to draw my attention to it, but the approaching wall is more scary, and the idea that I might be pressed up against that if I don’t get my legs working and out that doorway first, takes over the possible life-threatening cut on my arm.
Probably not life threatening, I tell myself. It’s on the back of my arm, there’s nothing vital there. Just blood. Droplets of it leaving a trail behind me.
I don’t watch where I’m going exactly, just run guided by impulse and touch. When I turn down a hall that ends with a window and no other options, my heart sinks. The window will probably break with enough pressure, but I’m three stories in the air and the fall is going to kill me.
I reach the glass and stop, resting my head on the cool surface and watching my breath form a little fog circle in front of my mouth.
There’s an arena down there, stadium seats, sandy colored ground, and obstacles scattered within. People are trying to do damage to each other with swords and bare hands. It almost looks like a fair sport compared to an invisible wall trying to kill you.
The wall doesn’t come. I don’t get crushed against the glass, and after a few moments I turn to take in my surroundings.
I’m in a Saber hallway – one of many. There’s a door a few steps down the hall and I feel with my feet toward it, while still holding tight to the cut on my arm.
The lettering looks familiar.
Commander Pax familiar.
Of course it is, I moan inwardly.
Which means I’m not hanging around here – now that these walls are gone. I move down the corridor, up to a narrow closet type door and smack straight into a very solid nothing.
Yay, I’m stuck right outside the Elorsin brothers’ rooms, and the minute one of them walks out here I’m going to need to run – but I’m not going to be able to go anywhere.
There are three doors in this corridor. The Elorsins, the closet right beside me, and the third way down next to the corner.
That far door opens sharply, slamming into the wall and letting out a cloud of steam. I catch a glimpse of a hairy male chest with a white towel wrapped around his waist, before barging my way into the narrow door beside me.
Into the pitch black.
I lean back against the wall, making the shelf rattle with the sounds of supplies before something falls and smashes at my feet.
Crap! I think and jump away.
Slamming straight into the shelf opposite and causing something else to crash to the ground. This time it’s something metal that bounces and clatters way too loudly. Kneeling, I feel around for it, trying to smother the noise, as light explodes into the room. I spin around, still low to the ground, to see Pax practically filling the doorway and blocking out any escape option.
It’s a narrow door.
My heart, which I thought was out of the energy needed to race, starts to hammer again as he steps into the room.
Only one detail is on my mind – his clenched fists.
I scamper backwards across the floor, not caring that I’ve let go of my bleeding arm or that I’ve pushed glass into my palm. My other hand wraps around something metal; I don’t even bother to look at it.
The guy leans down to me, opens his mouth to say something, then just lets out a growl.
His hand darts toward me and I raise the metal thing in defense – the metal thing which is some kind of circle with holes in it.
Yep – I’m going to get my face broken because this is the worst weapon ever.
With my eyes pinched shut and my body curled back in a ball I don’t see, but feel him grip the front of my shirt, then yank me to my feet and out of the cupboard. In an efficient march, with myself going backward and him walking forward, we move toward his rooms.
I gulp, trying to find words, but decide they’re probably going to get me into more trouble.
If there is such a thing.
He presses my back to the wall beside the door. The rapid pounding of my heart against his fist catches his attention.
Looking me up and down, his steely expression adjusts from just plain rage into rage-and-impending-lecture.
“I’m not going to hit you,” he says.
“I don’t believe you,” I manage to gasp out.
“I can see that,” he grumbles, gripping his door handle and throwing the door open before continuing to walk me in – backwards, again.
He shoves me away from him, and I hit the ground near the lounges.
“Fix her up,” he says, throwing the order into the room, to someone behind me.
I grab at my arm, pressing my palm against the knife cut. Or gash – I’d call it a gash. Sure, Cook’s wrapped a few scrapes and washed more than a few whip welts, but bleeding freely is new to me.
It’s Four that moves to fill the space in front of me.
I shuffle back, but he grabs my ankle so I can’t move.
“Stay,” he says.
I make the mistake of twitching my head in a little ‘no’ shake and end up with his knee pinning my leg painfully in place.
“Okay, okay,” I gasp. “I won’t move.”
He smiles, amused – asshole.
He lifts his weight from my leg and settles in on the floor.
Seth drops a bag next to me and I look at him acc
usingly.
“Seth?” Pax asks, as if reading my mind.
“I left her hiding behind a desk and in one piece. I didn’t leave her bleeding.”
“The Potions Master’s desk?” Roarke asks. “You used her to play a prank on Logan?”
Roarke laughs, and Seth throws himself down on the couch to my left, all casual and relaxed.
“He was supposed to see a false future,” Seth says. “Not mess with Rycian’s locked ingredients and then start throwing tables around the room. I left her behind the desk and enjoyed watching Logan lose his shit until you guys arrived. She was safe.”
“Then who made her bleed?” Pax asks, his commander voice settling into something calmer.
Four pulls a few cloths from the bag and a bottle of something. I hold out my hand to take them, but he hesitates – so I waggle my fingers impatiently.
Which he ignores. Instead he reaches up, gripping my shirt near the shoulder and in one sharp downward tug, rips the sleeve clean from its seams. He pulls it all the way off my arm and tosses it to the side.
“You can scream,” he says, before dumping the contents of a bottle on my arm.
Without a single gentle bone in his body he cups my arm in the cloth and pulls it straight down over the wound.
I scream.
“It helps,” he says, pinning the cloth over the wound before it can bleed all over the place again.
“I could have distracted her,” Roarke says, almost like he doesn’t expect anyone to reply – and no one does.
“Who attacked you?” Pax asks, stopping his pacing to squat down beside Four.
I open my mouth to say ‘no one’, but then realize there’s a tinge of hope in his golden eyes.
“Do you want me to say Logan?” I ask.
“I want you to speak the truth,” he says.
“I did, kind of, but by accident and with help,” I start blubbering. “I’m having a little problem with an invisible wall. Do you guys get those a lot around here?”
Seth chuckles. “I want one.”
But Pax is a better indicator of my current situation and judging by the confused angles of his brow – no, invisible walls are not something he’s heard of before. Explains why Clara wouldn’t even listen.
“It’s a real, moving, invisible wall that keeps threatening to squash me,” I insist.
Roarke gets up and stalks to the bookshelf, slipping three books down and dumping them on the low table right behind me with the kind of thud that makes me jump. So the lean guy with the long hair is the reader, and the scary big guy with the scar on his face is their healer. Not what I was imagining.
“Don’t move,” Four says, taking the cloth off to inspect the wound.
He grips my fingers with an icy touch, turning my arm to inspect it. Pain shoots up from my palm and on instinct, I pull away. His hand snaps firmly down and searing heat explodes out from under his grip. A warring of sensations, the hot pain and his icy fingers.
I scream in earnest, buckling under his hold.
“Easy,” Pax says, resting a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
Hesitantly, Four’s grip relaxes and the sharpness eases, replaced by throbbing.
“Let me go,” I growl through gritted teeth.
“Watch your balls, Killian,” Roarke says, not looking up from the book in front of him.
Killian, of course Four’s name would be Killian. Perfect. The Seed of Darkness has my arm in his grip, a grip I have no doubt is strong enough to crush my bones, and his name is Killian.
Seth chuckles, leaning forward to pick up one of the books.
“Don’t worry, he’s not going to break you,” Seth says.
“I might,” Four – Killian – counters.
I throw my head forward, trying to head-butt him and pretty sure he’ll move out of my way. He doesn’t and my forehead connects with his rock hard cheekbone.
He doesn’t flinch, but my vision goes dark and my body weak. I collapse onto my back with a groan. Killian lets out a few huffs that must pass as a chuckle from the man.
“I like her,” he says.
With me mildly incapacitated, he turns my hand, palm up, and yanks out the piece of glass. I hiss, but a hiss is all I can manage.
I don’t realize I’ve passed out until I’m stirring awake again. Still on their lounge, I realize. I struggle to open my eyes even a little bit, then let their heaviness win – closing them again. The light outside has begun to fade – so I’ve been on their couch for a few hours.
“Where should we put her?” Killian asks.
“Do you even know where the servants’ quarters are, Killian?” Roarke asks.
“Pax,” Killian counters.
“We don’t have time. Thanks to you, Chaos, we have an appointment with the Crown.”
“Fantastic,” Seth says, but there’s no cheer in his tone.
“We leave her here,” Pax says practically over the top of his brother.
The door shuts, and I sit bolt upright.
No, no, no. Panic rushes through me.
I don’t have time to shake my brain into gear and properly analyze why I’m terrified. I jump to my feet, checking myself as I dash across the room. Still wearing the same clothes, that’s important, still with one sleeve ripped from my shirt. Very inconsiderate. But the bandage on my wrist is new, and probably twice as long as it needs to be. The thing goes all of the way down my wrist and wraps around the palm of my hand, too. I didn’t think the glass wounds were bad enough to warrant a bandage. When I spent days in the chain, and rubbed the skin from the same wrist trying to escape, Cook had wrapped it in thin gauze soaked with fresh honey. The scar’s permanent, wide and rough, but it healed up without infection. And it is now hidden under this overkill bandage.
And that’s all the reflection time I get before realizing exactly why I’m running across a room after four guys who have made my life a misery and enjoyed every minute of it.
My invisible wall.
It hits me at double-speed and throws me against the door. The pain’s instant, no gentle pressing me to death this time. This time it feels like it’s trying to run right through me. I shake at the handle, but the door opens inwards, and I’ve got it pinned shut. My own weight making it impossible to open the thing.
I’m going to die, there’s no other option here.
So, I scream. Terror and pain bursting from my lips. I’m pinned so hard I can feel my ribs press in on my other organs.
Then suddenly the pressure’s gone, and I fall backward onto the floor. Whimpering.
I can’t help it. I can’t stop myself. Tears fill my eyes as I hug my chest tightly.
The door bursts open, and Pax surveys the room before settling his gaze on me. He frowns, scoops me up, and deposits me back on the couch. Everything in me is trying to recover from almost dying – again – so I don’t have a spare nerve ending to care about being man-handled or to analyze the fact that when he approaches the wall retreats.
“Senseless soot,” he mutters, turning back for the door.
The other three have filed into the room.
Seth gives me a worried look before turning to Killian. “She looks like she’s seriously in pain.”
“She is,” Killian says.
Pax stops and the look he shares with Killian shows how much they understand each other. No words needed.
“I’ll take it away,” Roarke says advancing on me.
“You can do that? You can get rid of the wall?” I ask.
“There is no wall,” he says, waving at the books on the way past.
I groan. Every bit of me feels tender, and my head’s pounding from being flattened without mercy against a door and from being so scared I was reduced to tears.
This wall makes no sense, except for one key element.
I snap my gaze to meet Seth’s.
“It’s your fault,” I say.
The guy holds his hands out like he’s completely innocent.
“Wh
atever you did to Logan has messed something up. Messed my life up, or added to my messed up life. I’ve been stuck inside invisible walls since you and that potion.”
“What exactly did you do?” Pax asks his brother, and not for the first time.
“Technically, she did all the –”
The guy probably keeps talking, but Roarke is perched on the edge of the table and without so much as a warning he puts his palm on my forehead, and my vision turns to white spots and weird sparkles.
All the tension, the throbbing pain, the tightness through my chest, it all dissolves.
“The fear’s genuine,” he says, taking his hand off my head and letting my vision return.
“Of course it’s genuine,” I say, jumping up and putting some distance between us.
The last time we were this close, I kicked him in the balls. And I had a good reason to.
“We’re late,” Killian interrupts, which makes them all turn to the door.
“You, stay. We’ll deal with you and your imaginary walls when we get back,” Pax orders.
Then they leave.
I’m hot on their heels and into the hall right behind them.
“I can’t,” I say.
“Then do what you want,” Pax calls back.
“No, I literally can’t. I just can’t.”
They’re not listening. I run after them and round the corner into a longer corridor.
“Just watch, I’ll show you,” I call, wanting to add ‘please’ but I’m worried that pleading has a different effect on these guys than it does on normal people, the same way the word ‘please’ would make Lord Martin hungrier for retribution. They don’t turn around, so I take the risk anyway, uttering a meek little, “Please.”
Seth and Roarke both stop, turning slowly to look back at me. They’re in the same order, I realize, Pax on the left followed by Seth, Roarke and Killian at the end. One, Two, Three, Four.
I get the feeling that the other two only stop because of their brothers, but they do stop and when they’re all facing me, I sit on the floor.
“Walk backward,” I say. “Please.”
The only one who doesn’t look genuinely pissed off at me is Seth, then Roarke’s lip twitches in a curious smile and they all start walking backward.
Shadows and Shade Box Set Page 10
