Shadows and Shade Box Set

by Amanda Cashure

  I dig through my pack and pull out the vial of Eydis’ experimental potion. With his arms wrapped around Kitten, Seth moves into our conversation. She has her back to him, her eyes searching over us. Watching as I hold the vial out to Pax, even though I’m torn on whether it will be an advantage or disadvantage.

  “Eydis was calling it a Null Elixir. It could give us the edge we need, but she hadn’t perfected it. It could null the Return Seal’s pull for three hours, or three days, or do nothing. But it will definitely leave you unable to access a skill. It’s a trade off – but if it’s life or death, then use it.”

  “What are we talking about?” she asks.

  “You,” Killian says with a sharp point.

  “We,” I jump in quickly, trying to cover his rough edges, “need to make sure you’re safe.”

  “By using a potion that could make you lose the ability to breathe?”

  Her logic makes me smile. “No, I’m pretty sure it would be more of a learned skill than an innate one. Like writing or horse riding. It’s worth it as a last resort, and in the meantime I can work on perfecting the recipe at the White Castle.”

  Seth rolls back and forth from his heel to his toes, looking a little concerned. “In the meantime, we need to deal with the Origin Spring. The Origin Spring.”

  “Door’s locked,” Killian says.

  I chew the inside of my lip. Running over my options a few more times.

  “Roarke?” Pax pushes.

  “I was going to propose we send Tanilya; they were disbanded when they lost their third.”

  “They won’t have the power to put the barrier back up,” Pax points out.

  “I know, but they’re not sealed to any castle, and we can be sure of their allegiance.”

  “When were you thinking this?” Seth asks, completely off topic.

  “While you were snoring.”

  “Oh,” he says, drawing the sound out.

  “What about Leon?” Kitten interrupts.

  I ignore Thane’s warning growl, which is possibly a dangerous move. It’s not that I don’t agree with him – I’d rather be at the forefront of one of Seth’s jokes than leave anything of importance in a mortal’s grip – but… “She’s right. Hear me out, if the mortals are gathering somewhere, and they are planning something, and they do have the power between them to be of some significance, then we should put them where we can watch them.”

  “Not what I meant,” Kitten mutters.

  “Enough – the Spring is too important to lose,” Pax says, clearly to Thane. “And Tanilya can handle them. The man is a FurySeed.”

  “Pretty sure that’s why his triune was targeted,” Seth says.

  “Let me guess – another last of?”

  We nod, and I try to focus the conversation back on the immediate problem. “We trust Leon, we have to, to put the barrier back up and keep the domain locked down. But we trust Tanilya to keep the Spring. If they try to get into it – Tanilya eliminates them.”

  “How are we going to find the mortal?” Seth asks. “I’m happy to go looking, but where?”

  “I like the idea of knowing where the mortal mages are. Their support is useless if we can’t call on them. I’ll find the mages – and send them to Eydis’ – Leon knows the way once I get a message to him,” Pax says, distaste dripping from the words.

  “And I’ll find Tan and send him to the Spring,” I volunteer. “But for now I wouldn’t mind checking that bubble again. Just to be sure it’s gone, and that we have more room here.”

  “It’s gone. I can feel the difference,” Kitten argues, and gets nothing but dominant looks from each of us.

  Seth leans forwards, pressing a kiss just in front of her ear. “Can you stand here for a moment, Vexy?”

  “Yes, Sethy, I’m hurting, not broken.”

  Killian grunts in agreement.

  Thane growls with a deep tone that clearly disagrees.

  I cut in. “You were very broken, Kitten.”

  She moves out of Seth’s arms. “See, fine. Now go.”

  We move out in all directions. The vines unfurl from my path as I push towards the original circumference of her bubble. The space we tested way back when we were in the forest behind the White Castle’s stables. Seth climbs up and over the vines. Killian starts hacking them to pieces, and Pax makes his way with a combination of climbing through, over, under, and around. When I can barely see her in the distance, I stop and pull time to get back to her side.

  “No bubble,” she says, her smile reaching every part of her expression. The twinkle in her gray eyes, the lift of her cheeks, the little creases, all of it.

  “No bubble,” I repeat, cupping her cheeks and stepping in close so I can pull her face to mine and taste the sweet honey of her lips. They heat under mine, warming like a mirror to my power. Like they were made for me.

  And for some indefinable reason her soul feels like pure Allure.

  Not always Allure, but turning Allure just for me. Each and every sensation that floods into me screams of our connection, of our perfectness.

  I nudge my nose against hers, trying to draw back, trying not to fall into this.

  This.

  Us.

  Our lips part, and her soul brushes against mine.

  Alive and full and pure. I don’t even know who is breathing for who anymore. Everything in me is moving in time with her, in the same rhythm. To the same beat.

  Harmony.

  We linger, our lips resting together, until, in the background, Pax clears his throat.

  Before I can obey, she pushes up onto her tippy toes.

  “Not yet,” she whispers, pressing her lips to mine.

  I meet her kiss, delicate and passionate and just brushing the surface of my desires. My fingers hook in her shirt, slip under to skim her skin, then hesitate on the edge of her braies.

  “Kitten,” I moan, breaking the contact – if I don’t walk away now, I’m going to have a very uncomfortable ride.

  “Mmmm.”

  I wait for her bright eyes to open and meet mine before continuing, “No matter where Pax takes you, don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Okay,” she says, leaning in to rest her weight against me with her head on my shoulder.

  “And vow you’ll come back to me,” I whisper, the words both desperate to come out and fearful of not being echoed. She nods a little, comfortable against me. Maybe that’s for the best; looking at her expression would make this harder. “Because I vow to you I’m yours, and no matter what happens, I’ll find you.”

  She looks up, a depth of sincerity in her eyes as she says, “Always, Roarke. If you need a vow, blood oath, attestation, or alsatian, or anything, always.”

  I snort at her. “Alsatian is a dog.”

  “I know.”

  Of course, she knows. She’s playing with me, using words and knowledge and threading them right through my already doomed soul. Oh, Kitten, you’d better come back to me – I need you.

  Pax nudges Killian in our direction, and I get the hint. My time’s up.

  One last moment with her honey scent. One last slip of silk as my power prods her body like a sad puppy wishing it could erase the past. An alsation, which I now have the urge to source and acquire.

  She meets my gaze, a swirl of gray that for just one second tricks me into thinking it’s silver. She blinks – the glimpse of silver gone – reaches up on her tip-toes and presses a soft kiss to my cheek.

  Please don’t let this be our last.

  I step into Roarke’s place, standing before Shadow.

  Darkness – that’s all I’ve ever known. I’m good at being the dark, being the shadows, being the depths of other people’s emotions.

  I’m not good at this small light in front of me. My light, I know.

  My love.

  My woman.

  Cool air rises from her, teasing at my Shadows as it dances along my skin and leaves tiny droplets of moisture in its wake. My insides shudder, but I l
ock that down. My needs and wants come after hers. Her body is struggling to heal in a tangle of power with a Saber soul that wasn’t there before.

  And… something more. Another thread that wasn’t there before struggles to rise into existence. I fix on it and almost miss another sinking into my chest. My own heart thread shimmers in response. Both of us willing to exist in the Darkness for the other.

  So close. So perfect.

  But she’s not strong enough. Not yet.

  Not for this.

  I pull my threads in sharply – making pain stab, then radiate, then throb.

  Not for me.

  She almost bonded with Roarke when they sang around the campfire. Both threads tried to meet in the middle, tried to fuse, tried to bind. Searching for harmony. I only just managed to stop them, but that was when she was nothing more than a vulnerable mortal.

  Roarke’s guard is up, and he’s still holding back – I was watching. Fear, layered in ash like the hearth after winter, still sits heavily inside him.

  Her thread connected with Pax’s when he saved her life from the lizards, him needing to protect – her feeling desperate to do the same in return. Out of my control. Too late.

  Not Seth yet. He’s as clamped down as I am for his very own reasons – but that heart thread is there. Hurting her is not an option. Pax, for all his dangers, is actually the safest one of us to mate with. The most controlled.

  Her mortal soul was being bled dry, but her Silvari soul is growing before my eyes. Her body is ever so slowly filling with the colors that mortals miss out on.

  Damn, it’s powerful. But she is not. Gentle and playful – suited to Seth. Wise and attentive – suited to Roarke. Commanding and stubborn – suited to Pax.

  And just a hint of what she has that begs to me.

  One hint. One kiss. One moment of falling into the Darkness.

  I want to let her in, but only when I know she understands what connecting with someone like me means. Only after I know she’ll survive. That she can meet me as an equal. That she is willing to break me in return.

  Which may be never.

  “It’s going to hurt,” I rumble, filling the silence between us. “Don’t run from the pain. That doesn’t make it any easier.”

  “No, fighting it does,” she says, sassiness lacing her voice but hiding none of the fear she’s feeling.

  Just fear – because that other thread didn’t connect. Because I stopped it.

  I struggle to keep my hands off of her. Locking one around my sword hilt – the other in a fist.

  She needs a warrior right now – and a warrior is what I’m good at.

  “Fighting against it is instinct. Pain loses its power when we stop fighting against it or with it or because of it. Fight despite of it.”

  I want to say the words again and again.

  Don’t fight the pain. Don’t fight for it. Don’t fight because of it.

  Only fight despite it. No matter what.

  “Pain loses its power when we do what we have to, even though it is there,” she says, her eyes glazed as she translates my words into her own.

  I offer her a sharp nod, savoring the last sweet tease of honey on the back of my throat.

  “You know what the true power of my Seed is?” I ask, and wait just a moment for her silence before answering. “If a person turns their face to the sun, the shadows will fall behind them.”

  “That’s what Cook used to say about forgetting about my worries,” she says.

  “My gift is that I thrive with my face to the Shadows, so those behind me can see the sun. The Darkness, the Shadows, they aren’t my enemy. My love, remember when you promised you would keep your promises?”

  After a beat she nods. “Around the campfire – was I naked?”

  Shadow. Focus.

  “Promise you’ll return,” I growl. “If we don’t find you, and he’s out cold, drag his ass back to the White Castle. Promise me.”

  “Why? Why don’t we just go now?”

  “He won’t risk you there. Not after this. He won’t risk you stepping foot back in Silva – even if it kills him – until he knows he can keep you safe.”

  “Soot-servant,” she says, tapping herself on the chest. “Make promise – keep promise.”

  Those words feel like she first spoke them a million years ago.

  And like it might be a million more before I hear her speak again.

  I hook my finger under her chin.

  “Saber,” I correct her, losing my battle not to press my lips into hers.

  Just a kiss.

  One touch of my cold skin to hers, then away again.

  I want to wrap my arms around her, to feel her strong against me, to have her locked in my grasp, but I keep my hands to myself.

  Break, that is what she would do.

  That first kiss was all the result of the Power Blocker because she doesn’t like pain. So we’d both regret it later. I can’t hurt her.

  I just want to protect her.

  Try telling everything other than my mind that. My lips scream more, and my pants have all kinds of problems.

  Thank fuck she’s badly injured. I can respect badly injured. A little injured and I might be thinking differently.

  I straighten, my finger still hooked under her chin, and watch the little shadow slide down my arm, brush against her cheek, then retreat.

  She spots him instantly. The bubble’s gone, and she’s still attuned to my power, which unfurls misguided blue hope in my chest. Ocean colors, swirls of turquoise and sapphire. Both beautiful and dangerous.

  “Have you named him yet?” she asks.

  “Fleck,” I say, surprising the fuck out of myself.

  “Why Fleck?” she asks.

  “Because reflection was too long, and it reminds me of you.”

  “Why?” she almost demands.

  “Annoying as bralls,” I say, barely smothering a smile by pursing my lips.

  I reach into my pocket and pluck out the small glass bracelet kept safe since the moment she called me her husband in the markets. It has five fine bands of color through it. Pax in green, Roarke in purple, Seth in burnt orange, Thane in golden yellow, and me in red. I may have claimed it then, but it seemed pointless at the time. The darts and the blades had a purpose, and it was none of my business to be giving her a trinket.

  She spots it and makes a little awed noise, kind of like a sigh. “It’s beautiful.”

  I take her hand and press the piece into her palm, saying, “Glass is your weapon.”

  She chuckles and slips the bracelet on the opposite arm to her other glass. I lift the armor to inspect it. The surface is smooth and solid and looks impossible to remove.

  “It hums,” she says. “Almost like a sound too real, too alive, to be considered a sound.”

  Like an extra sense that no one else has, so there’s been no word invented to describe it.

  I nod, because the feeling is familiar. Then I wrap an arm around her, pulling her in softly, desiring so much more. And ignoring every one of those desires.

  “It’s time,” Pax says, guiding her onto the front of his saddle, then mounting up behind her.

  We watch her leave, Pax’s expression set in stone, fear and regret warring for dominance. His AlphaSeed pushes it all aside for what he knows is right. What he thinks is right.

  And what is bound to go wrong.

  Because the Darkness that sat in the pit of my stomach since the moment Thane returned has stopped its hunt and slipped from existence, but the master moving all of his puppets into place is still wearing the crown – and killing him is not going to come without a cost.

  By nightfall the next day I have relocated the potions to a safe, hidden, almost-impossible-to-find location, and we’ve made good time towards the Falcon estates. None of us have spoken a word or stopped for more than the toilet. They would have hidden the potions, but by the moon mother herself Chaos has a way of making sure the hidden things stay hidden – if that is
what will keep me alive. Even a person looking right into that tree trunk won’t see the boxes of vials unless it is in some way going to do us a favor.

  My arms still ache from holding her – not that the muscles are damaged or weak nor could ever be when it comes to her. But want, need, those are two things my Seed is not immune to. And Vexy, gray eyes, dirty blonde hair, smile like Sirius the dog star himself, all mischief, she is something else altogether. A constellation I’ve never encountered before.

  So I need her.

  And now I’m riding away from her.

  I sigh, long since giving in to the fact that this is what we must do, and ride on with my brothers. Darkness on the right and Allure on the left.

  With the sun setting and the blessed stars beginning to watch over us, Roarke finally snaps his SeedLore book closed. The guy has been reading almost all day.

  “What?” Killian grunts.

  “GlassSeeds just don’t exist. Never have. But until very recently I had no idea that Silvari glass has a natural state.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know, brother.”

  Comforting fingers of mist are stretching from the damp earth by the time the first Falcon fence comes into view.

  Tanilya Defnasenda and his family breed things. All kinds of things. Falcons being only one of them, horses another, and if you know the family well enough to be privy to some of their secrets, dragons and worse are also on that list.

  A farmhand spots us, rushing ahead to raise the alarm, and moments later the blue man himself, along with several servants suspiciously armed, rides straight for us. Roarke moves ahead, meeting Tan first, and the two of them stop with their horses side by side and their knees almost touching.

  The other men circle us with hands on hilts and gazes making measured calculations of their chances and our weaknesses. Perceived weaknesses.

  Killian smiles, which makes them add more space to their safe distance radius. They have no idea how well we understand distances, every single pace. If just one of them moves to draw their weapon, Killian will go left, me right, and in less than ten paces, we would eliminate them all.