Going to the toilet is a relief; walking out of the toilet cubicle to find Pax standing right outside the door is not. He exits without a word – back into the room with the clothes and towels.
I snatch up a towel and head for the showers.
“Just get some clothes. We don’t have time for that.”
“I’m showering.”
“There’s a washroom in the stables,” he says, walking up to the wall of clothes and frowning at it.
That’s a good look on him – confused and out of his depth. I turn away before he can see my smile, letting myself into the next room and walking past empty cubicle after empty cubicle.
The door opens behind me, and I spin.
“Don’t,” I say, pointing at him and waiting for the rest of my sentence to come out. Like maybe, ‘you dare’ or ‘come any closer’.
Nothing else comes.
He crosses his arms over his chest, his biceps a little more tense than they should be. Then he settles his legs shoulder-width apart, in an I’m-not-moving-an-inch stance. His head bobs once, just one little nod, and he settles into place like a boulder blocking anyone from entering.
Thank you, I find myself thinking, but my mouth has chosen this moment to shut itself.
Just like last night, when the only word I could find was ‘sorry’. I’m turning into a Killian.
On that note, I step into the shower and toss my clothing out.
“One minute,” he calls out.
I need less than that. With the sting of the water and the fact that it’s colder than the air outside, I scrub – using my hand because servants don’t even get a cloth – and flick the water off.
“Put your old clothes back on,” he says.
“I didn’t just shower to get back into dirty clothes,” I call back, pulling the towel around me.
“Put,” he says in his commander’s voice. “Your old clothes back on.”
“Fine,” I holler, reaching out to drag the clothes into the wet cubicle with me.
Fully dressed, I follow him into the dry changing room where he picks up a pile of clothes and moves straight for the exit.
“Wait, will they even fit me?” I demand.
“Does it matter?” he asks, the door clicking shut behind him.
“Yes,” I say, but I’m torn between chasing him before an invisible wall crushes me to death, and showing him that I’m a person with a right to choose my own clothing.
The latter isn’t even true. Yes – I’m a living breathing person. No – I don’t have any rights.
I approach the decidedly female side of the clothing shelves and pick up the top tunic in a pile, holding it against myself, discarding it and trying again with the next pile. Guessing at my size by looking at things, I grab two tunics, four pairs of tights, and an armful of undergarments. Mindful that there is every chance that my need for clean clothes is an indulgence these guys might not let me have again anytime soon.
Pushing through the door, I find Pax leaning against the wall, a much smaller pile of clothes tucked under one arm and a suspicious look on his face.
“Move,” he says. “You’re taking too long.”
“Why the rush?”
“Stable boys aren’t allowed in the palace. The grounds servants’ quarters are on the west side of the castle,” he says. “We’re not going there.”
I realize that. We’re going to live in a secret corner on hay bale furniture with a washroom some unknown distance away, and I’m willing to bet the water temperature will be no better than in here.
“So someone knowing we’re in the castle would be bad?” I ask, but he doesn’t really react so I keep talking. “Because Logan saw us walk in.”
Which makes him growl. He swallows the sound before he can speak. “Logan can’t touch us, we have a deal and it’s against castle rules.”
“But he was trying to, with that potion,” I say.
“Which he would have somehow avoided being associated with. The man doesn’t have the balls to meet us in the corridor. He wants us vulnerable and then in the arena – and he wants his uncle to watch.”
“So we’re safe?”
“Right here, right now, from Logan? Yes. From a dignitary or the Saber enforcement that keeps order in the White Castle – if they come walking along and find us here, we’re in trouble.”
“Wouldn’t Logan have informed someone?”
Pax shakes his head. “His uncle wants us in tournament, so that’s what Logan wants. Lithael has done this to make us seem weak, he thinks we will lose respect amongst the other Sabers. That’s when Logan will strike – when we’re vulnerable. And his strike will be a challenge to tournament. Seth would put money on it. Stable boys can’t be challenged to tournament.”
“You’re not a stable boy, though. Seth is.”
“We all are.”
“I knew we were all going into the stables, I didn’t realize you were all stripped of your ranks because of Seth’s…” I trail off, because it wasn’t just Seth’s fault and I don’t want to remind him of my part in this whole mess.
“It’s not the first time,” he says, cutting into the silence.
“Seth’s done this before?”
He lets out a noise that actually sounds amused. I half turn to look over my shoulder, and the toe of my boot catches on the lip of the doorstep, sending me hurtling toward the ground.
Except – I don’t hit the ground. My arm is snatched mid-fall by Pax – who shouldn’t have been close enough to grab me at all, let alone grab me faster than a frog’s tongue snatches a fly.
Which makes me the fly.
As soon as I find my footing he lets go, straightening like nothing just happened. Thankfully, I didn’t voice my frog-fly analogy.
“Seth is always doing stupid shit,” he says.
I glance back at him, my attention caught by a new light turning on about three stories up.
“Don’t you people sleep?”
“You’re mortal, your life is short. Sabers usually sleep every seven days, the time it takes for the moon to shift phase. If you lived as long as us, a phase would feel like a day. We can stretch it to ten days, but that’s worse than you missing a night’s sleep.”
“So you sleep once a week?”
“On average.”
“How long are we staying in the stables for?” I ask, but my interest is more around when they’re going to be sleeping.
That room in the stables feels very intimate.
“We slept last night, that’s why we were late to the dining hall. We won’t sleep again until we’re back in the castle.”
“And when will that be?”
“We won’t be going back in there for another five days. So don’t ask.”
I don’t, focusing instead on walking in front of him and not feeling immensely self-conscious. Which possibly makes me even more self-conscious.
When we get to the branch-wall, I step aside and let him open the thing.
A very sweaty Killian is polishing a blade in the corner, several other blades laid out on the floor around him. Seth’s on one hay-couch. More bales have been stacked to make a backrest of sorts. His cheeks are still flushed as he tosses a small ball back and forth with Roarke. Roarke’s on the couch with the stable wall at his back, and half the time he ignores the ball, letting it bounce off the wall instead. Back into Seth’s hands. Roarke’s long hair is pulled back in a tight knot behind his head, and he’s more interested in about a dozen books in various stages of being read, abandoned, and propped open, beside him.
Pax tosses the few items of clothing under his arm to Killian, then takes everything from me and tosses that around the room too.
The brothers grab the items a little too energetically and stuff them behind them, under them, or in Seth’s case, tucked under one arm.
“Give me my shirt,” I insist, holding my hand out to Seth – because he owes me big time.
“If you’re wearing it, I have to hug you for a ve
ry long time,” he says.
“I don’t know what’s worse. A hug or an arm-pit shirt.” I drop onto his lounge, an arm’s length from him before adding, “Why?”
“You know Pax is an AlphaSeed right?” he asks softly.
I nod, but he doesn’t continue. Like maybe the word ‘alpha’ explains everything.
“Alpha is a wolf thing, right? We didn’t have wolves on the estate,” I say.
“Smell. You need to smell like the pack,” he goes on.
“Or what?”
“Pax can have whoever he wants in his bed for a night, but he can’t live with you unless you’re pack.”
“None of us can,” Killian adds.
“If Pax is uncomfortable, then we all are,” Roarke explains.
“You wouldn’t understand,” Pax says, accepting a pair of pants that Roarke tosses him and practically stuffing them up his own shirt.
“What I don’t understand is why you’re all making my clean clothes stink, but you don’t even know my name.”
“Do we need your name?” Killian asks.
The others look just as confused. They do know servants have names, don’t they?
“You do if you want to treat me like you own me.”
“You haven’t asked us our names,” Roarke counters.
I could tell them that, of course, I’ve worked out their names by now, but this guy is currently sitting on my undergarments.
“One, Two, Three, Four,” I say, pointing to them in turn.
“Four?” Killian asks, getting up off the floor and dropping the clothes that he was scenting in to Roarke’s lap. “Two,” he says, trying to claim the number.
The threat of competition that laces his usually-closed expression produces an explosion of pleasure inside me. It shouldn’t – but it does.
“Two,” I correct, pointing to Seth.
“Yes,” Seth says, pumping his fist.
“I don’t see why Pax gets One,” Roarke says, his silvery tones making my eyes lock onto his. “I think I might be number One.”
My eyes glaze over a little, like seeing is a lesser priority to hearing. Hearing Roarke’s voice. Obeying Roarke’s voice.
My lips part, the words ‘Roarke is number One,’ about to fill the room.
Someone smacks him across the back of the head, punctuated by a grunt. The world becomes real again.
Blood pounds in my ears – he did it again. My fists ball. My muscles coil. I don’t care if there’s a table between us, or if he’s twice as big and twice as strong as me. I don’t care that he’s some deadly Elite Saber – I’m going to stomp on his balls so hard that he won’t have any anymore.
“Seth,” Pax says, which is completely unrelated to anything that’s happening except that Seth’s arm reaches out in front of me.
He presses it across my lap and pins me in place. That’s all these guys need, one word and they understand each other.
“All right, what’s your name then?” Seth asks. “Five.”
“She’s not Five,” Pax snaps.
Seth laughs. He wanted his brother to bite. He wanted everyone’s attention away from Roarke – mine included.
“I don’t know. I can see the merits of the idea,” Roarke says, running his thumb and forefinger across his manicured mo-beard comb.
Asshole.
Seth won’t let me go forward so I go backward instead, pushing myself up onto my feet and slipping over the hay bale at my back.
“What’s your name, then?” Pax asks, dumping the clothes he was holding onto the empty seat closest to him.
Does that mean he doesn’t want my clothes to smell like him anymore? I’m so confused.
And torn. I never wanted them to smell anything but clean in the first place.
“Shade, my name’s Shade.”
Four grunts. “Not a name.”
Seth shifts, the clothes he had pinned underneath him falling away as he turns, pulls his feet up under him, and squats on the lounge.
“What’s wrong with Shade?” I ask.
“It’s not a name,” Pax says, like I’ve broken some stupid rule of his.
“Well, it’s the only one I have. Maybe I was born with a different one, but when I graduated to working in Lord Martin’s estate, Cook would always be telling me, ‘stay in the shadows or the shade,’ and if Lord Martin was approaching she’d just yell, ‘shade’. But this isn’t up for debate. My name’s Shade.”
It doesn’t escape my attention that all of them stiffen at the mention of Lord Martin. It’s quite easy not to like the guy.
Killian’s already walking off toward the row of boots near the door.
“Shade, and I’m not a pet.” I point at Roarke, and across the room Killian turns with keen interest. “And not a toy either.” I poke Seth in the chest because he’s close enough for me to reach. “And I’m not your property or your servant.” I point at Pax.
“You kind of are his servant,” Seth says, jumping lightly to the ground and completely missing the point.
“You heard us talking? Pax ordered you to sleep,” Killian is asking me, but looking at Roarke for some kind of answer.
“That shouldn’t have happened,” Roarke says.
Pax pulls on his boots, and Roarke moves to blow out the lanterns on the wall. I hadn’t even realized the sun was coming up, but morning light has begun to filter into the room.
My fresh clothes are right here, but my opportunity to get changed into them has passed. I look at them longingly, even as I chase out the already closing door after the boys. They set a quick pace through the stables – in their usual order.
“Not your shadow either,” I say.
“Shadows don’t speak,” Killian tuts.
He reaches back, practically grabs me by the head because his hand is that big, and pushes me out in front of them. Which puts me between them and a gathering of about twenty stable boys. Boys is not quite the right word, they’re men. Men chosen for this job because they have muscles and like swinging shovels around.
“Oh, no,” I squeak, bloody squeak, because walking in front of their wall of Elite muscle with all eyes on me is not my idea of fun.
I duck back between Killian and Roarke, back into their shadows. Killian chuckles, not a huff-chuckle or a grunt-chuckle, but the real thing.
“So you can be his toy, but not mine?” Seth asks, sounding a little hurt.
“Enough,” Pax snaps, the word almost inaudible.
A much older guy steps toward them, nudging a path between the others. He’s got the same kind of really long, completely straight, and perfectly white hair that the Potions Master did yesterday. With a decorative golden chain hanging, in several loops and drops, from his left ear.
“Elorsins,” the guy says, offering a bow. “It’s been a decade since you’ve stayed here long enough to sweep my floors.”
“Ravaryn,” Pax says, a warning in the word.
Ravaryn sighs. “As it must be.” He turns, eyeballing the gathering of workers. “Four or five shovels?” he asks over his shoulder.
“Five,” Killian says, shooting me a glance that promises pain.
“Thank you,” I drawl, and get the kind of look from Pax that says he’ll deliver the pain himself if I open my mouth again.
Not that I didn’t expect to work – all day, every day – but the kitchens suited me just fine. Aside from the Lord part of the Manor, being a servant on the estate suited me just fine.
“You five,” Ravaryn says, pointing to five guys amongst the group of regular-Silvari-here-to-do-our-years-of-service. “Report to the bonded coordinator for reassignment.”
The five guys do as they’re told, resting their shovels back on the wall behind them.
Ravaryn claps his hands loudly. “Just a normal day, people.”
And the group disperses.
My four guys walk over to the wall and collect their shovels. Killian picks up two and offers me the handle of the bigger one.
“Let’s see
what you’re made of.”
We walk off to the left. The Stables Master very deliberately waves the rest of the workers in other directions.
“What’s the story with the white hair and jewelry – the Potions Master looked like that too?”
Seth lets himself into the first stall, ties the horses head to the far wall, and gets to work shoveling everything off the floor. Unceremoniously launching it into the middle of the corridor.
“This is the way we shovel the shit, shovel the shit, shovel the shit,” he starts singing.
Pax moves into the next stall and starts doing the same – just without the singing.
“A thousand years does that to a Saber,” Roarke answers me, followed by the contents of his shovel being thrown from the stall opposite.
I stand in the middle of them all, trying not to get in the way.
“A thousand years?” I ask, gasp, can’t even process.
Seth stops singing and leans over the stall wall to inspect me.
“How old are you?” I demand.
“A few hundred,” he says. “How old are you?” And he points at me like I’m the one being ridiculous here.
“Eighteen. I’m eighteen – no extra zeros.”
“Mortals don’t live long,” Pax clarifies.
The pile before me is growing, largely ignored by everyone.
“If we’d waited another decade we might not have found her,” Seth says.
“Found me?”
“Yeah, alive.”
“I’ll live longer than thirty,” I say, then consider that without their intervention I probably wasn’t going to make it to thirty – and with their delightful input in my life I’m struggling to fathom being alive tomorrow.
“Dig,” Killian says, pointing at the pile of brown matter spiked with chunks of straw before me. Adding, “Wheelbarrow.”
The wheelbarrow happens to be in the corner, and I push the big tub on wheels across to the pile and set to work.
Seth’s annoying little tune slips from my lips. “This is the way I shovel the shit, shovel the shit, shovel the shit.”
“Not you, too,” Pax groans.
Shadows and Shade Box Set Page 14
