shaede assassin 05 - shadows at midnight

by amanda bonilla

  Once everyone was where they needed to be, we moved farther down to the dark corridor toward the cell I was certain Xander was being held in. Torchlight flickered from their sconces, casting eerie shadows on the stone walls. I tried not to let them draw my attention. To remind me of the horrors I’d endured here. While I took point, Ty and Ash flanked me. The daggers hummed in my palms, anxious for another kill. I hoped to hell I’d be able to give them one soon.

  The sound of a low moan echoed down the stone passageway. Asher turned to me and cocked a curious brow. A strange mix of pleasure and pain that speared my chest with tiny fingers of fear. We needed to get a move on and get the hell out of Padma’s hellhole. ASAP. I didn’t know how much longer I could stand being here before I cracked.

  I’d been prepared for the long and frustrating task of picking the lock to Xander’s cell, but the closer we got, I noticed the door had been left open wide.

  “A trap?” Asher asked in a whisper.

  “Or an illusion,” I suggested.

  “Neither.” Tyler’s tone soured and my stomach twisted into an anxious knot. “Fall back, Darian. I’ll take it from here.”

  The hell he would. “No way, Tyler. We do this together or not at all.” I refused to let him put himself in danger when this mission had been my idea.

  Tyler swore under his breath and a wave of tension rolled off of him, blasting me with its icy chill. Whatever he didn’t want me to see had him riled. I pushed past him, careful to stay out of sight and froze.

  Oh my god.

  Xander lay sprawled out naked on a ratty bed of straw. And riding him like a jockey with the finish line in sight was…me.

  “Holy shit, Darian. She looks just like you.” Asher’s seething whisper only served to turn my stomach. The woman screwing Xander with mindless abandon was my mirror image. I squeezed my eyes shut. Willed the vision away. And opened them only to find the same unbelievable illusion.

  “What in the hell is this?” Anxiety coursed through my body as I tried to reconcile what I was seeing.

  “It’s Padma.” Ty’s voice was a controlled burn. “I can see through the illusion.”

  That bitch! My anxiety turned to rage in an instant. Ugly welts and cuts marred Xander’s body. Blood trickled down his chest and over his biceps. The raw gaping wounds indicated that Padma hadn’t gone easy on him. She’d been supplementing her disgusting diet well since I’d been here. Xander’s gaze was focused yet glassy. His expression cut with lines of pain despite the seemingly pleasurable act. She berated him, cut him, whipped and abused him. And still, Xander gripped her hips in his palms as he pulled her down with every thrust of his hips. Bile rose in my throat and I swallowed it down.

  “I’m going to kill her.” Angry tears sprang to my eyes as I choked on the words. “And it won’t be painless or quick.”

  Before Tyler could hold me back, I charged forward. Xander sat up, his gaze still wild and unfocused. He clutched Padma close to him and rolled her away. Protected her. My rage burned in supernova proportions. My own confusion, hurt, and emotional fallout had to take a backseat. Xander was out of his mind. Lost to Padma’s illusions. And as I advanced, daggers in hand, I realized that I was going to have to get through him to kill her. So many times I’d fantasized about kicking Xander’s ass. The problem was, I didn’t know if I could bring myself to hurt him.

  He was bleeding. Weak. Used and abused in ways that I couldn’t bring myself to think about. And yet, he came at me with the ferocity of a warrior sent fresh into battle. Padma stood behind him, a smug expression curving her—or my—lips. Jesus. A shriek that grated on my nerves rent the air as she called for her guards. Fucking hell. Shit was about to hit the fan.

  “Ash, don’t let a single one of them through that door!”

  Xander rushed at me, his naked body no less impressive despite the many wounds and bruises. He kept his head down, shoulders poised for a full-body tackle. Tyler intercepted him, taking Xander to the floor instead. I couldn’t take on both Padma and Xander, but the others were going to need Ty’s help in keeping her guards at bay if we were going to make it out of this place alive.

  Padma circled me, her steps light. Totally unabashed with her own nakedness, she produced a pair of daggers from the ground beside the bed. The serrated blades were stained with blood and adorned with bits of flesh. My stomach lurched at the sight of them. No doubt she’d used them to carve away at Xander while she used him in ways that were bound to do permanent damage to his psyche.

  Beside me, Xander fought like a wild animal against Ty’s hold. He snarled, his words almost incomprehensible save my name which left his throat in a ragged, desperate shout. “Darian! Darian!”

  Fighting a naked woman was weird enough. Fighting one who was my doppelganger was straight up trippy. I couldn’t let that distract me, though. Not when Padma had more weapons in her arsenal than simply the daggers in her hands. The only thing that played to my advantage was the fact that if she shed her own illusion, Xander would no longer fight for her. She had to maintain the façade. Anything else though, could easily throw me off my game.

  “Tyler! We could use a little help here!”

  Shit. The scrape of metal meeting metal meant that Padma’s guards tried to break through our meager defenses. We couldn’t afford to lose any advantage—no matter how small—in this fight. “Go, Ty.” Padma continued to circle me, her hawkish gaze trained on my face. “I can handle this.”

  He pulled back his fist and let it fly. His knuckles connected with Xander’s chin and the Shaede King slumped to the dirt floor, dazed, but not completely unconscious. It would buy me some time though. If I could kill Padma before Xander had his shit together enough to come at me, the illusion would disappear. I might just make it out of this scrape relatively unscathed. Though, based on my track record, I had zero reason to believe that any of this would turn out in my favor.

  My only option was to attack Padma with so much speed and intensity that her focus would be thrown. It might not break the illusion that she’d cast on herself, but it might keep her from using any of her trickery on me.

  Time to go to work.

  I gave myself over to the daggers. Their magic didn’t seem to be dulled in the epicenter of Padma’s lair. They were just as hungry as they’d ever been. My hands flew in a blur of motion and Padma responded, parrying each trust, cut, and jab with a speed that shocked me. So much for having the upper hand in a fight. She knew how to use the weapons in her hands.

  I kept my body positioned so that I could keep one eye on Xander. He was still slumped over, though now his arms braced him up on the cold dirt floor. Padma lurched forward and the wicked blade of her dagger caught on my shoulder, cutting through the heavy fabric of my jacket down to the flesh. The cut burned like a motherfucker. Poison? I didn’t have time to even contemplate the possibilities.

  Hatred fueled me as I pressed forward. Every lesson Raif had ever taught me occupied my thoughts as I rushed at Padma, blades held aloft. I managed to catch her in the abdomen and she let out a painful shout as the dagger cut deep. Her cry stirred Xander from his stupor and he stumbled to his feet. His molten caramel gaze burned through me and his lip pulled back in a snarl. “Darian, stay behind me.”

  He wasn’t talking to me, though. Xander protected Padma with a fierceness that caught me off guard. I’d always known that he cared about me. Claimed to love me. But I’d always suspected that Xander loved himself more than anything else. Seeing him tuck Padma behind his back, braced and ready to protect her despite his disadvantage—the guy was naked, weakened, and unarmed for fuck’s sake!—caused a lump to form in my throat.

  Did he really care about me enough to put his own life on the line for mine? He’d given himself over to the wickedest woman I’d ever known in order to save me. I shouldn’t have been surprised.

  Padma gauged my reaction and a slow smile spread across her face. “Take these,” she handed Xander her daggers, “and kill her.”

&
nbsp; Well, fuck.

  Xander spun the daggers in his palms. The wink of metal in the low light caused my gut to clench tight. Daggers were his forte. He’d nearly kicked my ass just a few months ago while trying to teach me a lesson in his gym. My own daggers would be useless in this fight. They’d belonged to Xander and had bonded with him. He could touch them, use them, and they wouldn’t turn against him in a fight.

  I suddenly found myself at a serious disadvantage.

  “Xander, don’t.” He came at me slowly, calculating each step forward. “You can’t trust what you see.” His brows drew down sharply over his narrowed eyes and he bared his teeth.

  “Padma.” His voice rasped in his throat. I tried not to think about how long and hard he’d screamed to make it so raw. I knew that pain firsthand. “I’ll see you dead before you ever lay a hand on her.”

  Fucking hell. He thought I was Padma. “You bitch!” I spat, looking past Xander to find her smirking from behind him. “I’m going to gut you!”

  I hadn’t meant to goad him, but my words pushed Xander’s temper over the edge. The attack came with the full force of his strength. He wasn’t nearly as weak as I’d first thought. I’d never been on the receiving end of the full force of Xander’s rage before. Everything I knew about him, every pre-conceived notion I had about him, evaporated under his onslaught.

  My arms were slow to react. The daggers held me back, their previous bloodlust non-existent. They were lead weights in my hands, unwilling to fight, as I parried again and again. I wasn’t going to get the upper hand with Xander. At this point my sole objective was to protect myself. “Xander, please,” I panted through heavy breaths as he continued his assault. A wide sweeping arc of his arm caught me off guard and the blade bit into my shoulder. “It’s me. Darian. This is an illusion! You’re protecting Padma, but you’re going to kill me!”

  Another jab caught me between the ribs. The serrated blade caught on the leather of my jacket slowing its progress. I cried out and stumbled back. Any deeper and I would have been fucked. Xander seized on the opportunity that my injury presented and took me to the ground.

  “Kill her,” Padma seethed. “She wants me dead, Alexander.”

  He paused when she said his name and his brows pulled down in a frown. “That’s right!” I’d use his confusion to my advantage. “You know I’d never call you Alexander. Pain in my ass, maybe. His Royal High and Mightiness, sure. Xander, yes. But can you think of a time that I’ve ever called you Alexander?”

  He shook his head as though trying to dislodge something. The daggers fell to the ground with a clatter of metal. Padma crossed the length of the cell and came to rest behind Xander. She placed her mouth at his ear and whispered. “Don’t listen to her lies. She’s trying to turn you against me. You can have me. Always. All you have to do is kill her.”

  His eyes glazed over once again and I knew I’d lost him. Shit.

  “You tortured her.” His hands came around my throat and squeezed. “Cut her.” I tried to speak but he’d cut off my airway. “You took her away from me.” The words tore from his throat. “I will kill you for what you did to her!”

  I clawed at his hands, slapped at his arms, fought for any tiny bit of breath that would help me maintain consciousness. My vision darkened at the periphery. My lungs burned with their need for oxygen and my brain grew fuzzy. Xander loomed over me, death personified in his grim, bloodied expression. I brought up my left hand, shoved it against him with every bit of strength in my stores. Cold magic chilled my fingers, wound like twining vines around my arm and up my shoulder. I wasn’t going to die like this. Not in this dungeon. Not by his hands. And not with that sadistic fucking bitch looking on as my life was snuffed out. A single word manifested in my mind and with it a blast of cold that caused the left side of my body to go almost completely numb.

  No!

  Xander flew off of me, thrown by an invisible force. He hit the opposite wall and slumped to the floor, not unconscious, but definitely stunned. Padma’s eyes grew wide and her lip curled in a cruel sneer. “How did you do that?” she hissed. “How?”

  Hell if I knew, but I wasn’t about to waste my advantage sitting around talking about it. I rolled to my left and scooped up one of my daggers. My aim true, I pulled back my arm. And with the knowledge that the daggers would never fail me in battle—ever—I let one fly. The blade embedded itself in Padma’s forehead and she actually had the nerve to look shocked before she died.

  “I told you I’d kill you,” I said as I pushed myself up to stand. “And I always keep my promises.”

  A ripple of energy passed over me. Xander lay naked on the ground, his chest rising and falling with shuddering breath. I stumbled toward him and went to my knees beside him. Rapid footsteps approached and a second later, Ty flew through the cell door. His eyes darted to Padma’s lifeless form and then back to me. The left side of my body was still so numb with cold that I could barely move. I pinned Ty with an accusing glare. I’d had enough of esoteric Jinn magic to last me a lifetime.

  “You,” I said pointedly, “have a lot of explaining to do.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  You don’t kill the queen of the Rakshasa without bringing a hell storm down on your head. Silly optimistic fool that I was, I’d sort of thought that killing Padma would somehow obliterate all of her disciples at the same time. Poof! A few hundred ghouls turned to do dust in an instant. No such luck.

  Killing her did, however, release the hold of her illusions. Getting Xander out of the tunnels would be tricky even without that obstacle. Naked, hunched over, and shaking, Xander’s eyes had a hard time reconciling what he saw.

  “Darian.” He turned his head to the side, studied me with wide eyes. “I saw you die.”

  “You saw Padma die,” I explained. “What you think happened was an illusion.”

  “No!” He lunged at me, his eyes wild and burning with rage. “You’re the illusion!”

  It took Tyler, Ash, and Liam to pull him off of me. His strength was immense despite everything he’d gone through in the short time he’d been here.

  Ash’s gaze met mine and his brow knitted. “In the vault,” I reminded him and everyone else there. “None of this ever leaves these tunnels.”

  It would undermine Xander’s strength, his authority, if word of his weakness got out. Naked, dirty, bleeding, out of his damned mind and escorted to safety by a handful of his soldiers and the Jinn he’d vowed to punish. Saben would pay big bucks for that sort of intel. Fuel for his propaganda machine. Thankfully, I trusted every last Shaede here. And as far as Ty was concerned, I trusted him with my life, my heart, everything. His loyalty—despite his feelings for Xander—was unquestionable.

  “My liege,” Asher went to one knee beside Xander, his gaze cast downward. “Let us get you out of here and back home.”

  I knew from my own experience that there would be no reasoning with Xander. He snarled at Asher, his lip curled. “You let them take her!” he railed. “And now she’s dead!”

  “She’s not dead.” Asher pointed toward me. “She’s right there. I promise you. But your highness, we have to leave this place, now.”

  “There’s no point in living if she’s dead.”

  My gaze darted to Ty who was glaring daggers at the befuddled Shaede King. The time for conversation was over. I’d need a lobotomy to forget everything I’d seen in this place today and erase the emotional fallout. “How are we going to get him out of here when he’s so combative?”

  I saw a shrug form on his shoulders but Tyler rolled the gesture away instead. I knew that if the choice were his, he’d have left Xander down here to rot. I couldn’t blame him, considering their history. But if we could get him back to Raif and on the road to healing, Tyler and I could finally get on with our own lives.

  “Knock him unconscious and drag him out of here,” Ty finally suggested.

  I pursed my lips and gave him a look.

  “He’s right Darian.” Liam stepped up
close so Xander wouldn’t hear him. “It’s probably the only way we’ll get him to leave.”

  Mother fuck. I let out a gust of breath and stretched my neck from shoulder to shoulder in the hopes it would release some of the tension that pulled my muscles tight. “All right. Any volunteers?”

  Ty cocked a brow. “I won’t hurt him. Much.”

  “Fine. Did anyone find any clothes?” I wasn’t looking forward to dragging him out of here buck-ass naked.

  “Nothing,” Louella said quietly. She cleared her throat. “I have a feeling there haven’t been any clothes in here for a while.”

  My stomach turned thinking of what Padma must have done to him. The way she’d manipulated him and used him. I knew firsthand what it felt like to be helpless and at someone else’s mercy. Powerless. Knowing he’d done this—turned himself over to her for me—caused a fresh wave of anger and guilt to cloud my vision. I crossed the room and knelt beside him. “Damn it, Xander. Why did you have to be so goddamned noble?”

  The barest trace of clarity returned to his gaze, but just as quickly it disappeared. “She was precious to me, Padma,” Xander said for my ears alone. “And I will see you dead for what you’ve done.”

  “Take it out on Tyler,” I said. “I bet you’d like to get a shot in.” It probably wasn’t nice to goad him into charging Ty, but I’d feel a lot better about him knocking Xander out knowing it was in self-defense.

  He pushed off from the floor and rushed at the very target I’d sent him toward. Tyler gave me a long suffering look before he let his fist fly and laid the Shaede King out on the ground.

  “Damn, Ty,” Asher said. “Remind me never to piss you off.”

  “No shit,” Julian said.