Unchained tdf-3

by Sharon Ashwood

  Guilt filled her mouth with a taste like ashes, followed by a chaser of sour fear. Her skin crawled, as if her unseen attacker were watching her from all sides.

  Go away, go away, go away.

  Ashe didn’t see or hear any change, but the atmosphere shifted, as if the air had suddenly lost density. Had her prayer worked, or had her watcher simply chosen to back off?

  A cry of surprise and pain sounded behind her. She wheeled around to find a corridor that hadn’t been there before. It looked like something out of the Castle, all stone and torchlight. With the certainty of dreams, she knew Reynard was down that dark passage, injured and bleeding, just like he had been last fall.

  She raced into the cool shadows, terrified she wouldn’t get there before he died of his wounds. She would bind up his injuries, just like she’d done before. Give him water. Guard him. She was a hunter, so she treasured those chances she had to heal. Maybe it erased a bit of the stain on her soul left from her parents’ deaths.

  There he was, curled on his side, the bright blood lost on his red coat. She raced to the still form, gently turning him over.

  Oh, Goddess! Horror shrilled through her. It wasn’t Reynard. It was her husband.

  Oh, Goddess! His face had the same waxy pallor as when he’d died, organs crushed. Furious, hurt, lost, she’d sat by his hospital bed and held his hand as his magnificent body failed. Her husband had conquered every mountain, snowstorm, and cave worth the challenge. They’d done most of it together.

  But his work was as dangerous as his play. He’d chosen to stay in Spain because it offered the most exciting, most glamorous occupation he could find. One with enough peril even for him—he had been a matador.

  He hadn’t survived his last fight. The bull had trampled him to death.

  Anger and grief ripped through her, a repeat of everything she’d felt when his heart had stopped, leaving hers to beat alone.

  She had loved him so much.

  Ashe woke up in tears. He was gone. He would always be gone.

  She hadn’t been able to save him.

  Friday, April 3, 8:30 a.m.

  North Central Shopping Mall

  The next morning, a very tired Ashe trudged from the parking lot to the mall, stopped at the Beans! Beans!Beans! Coffee Bar, and carried on through the food court to the library. The North Central Branch was attached to a shopping mall, its entrance between the washrooms and the fast-food kiosks. The popularity of any front-rack bestseller could be determined by the number of ketchup stains and ice-cream smudges.

  Sadly, slaying library patrons wasn’t allowed. Bad customer service and all.

  Ashe had landed a job as circulation clerk mostly because she’d volunteered at North Central in high school. She had no other real qualifications. Fortunately, the head librarian remembered her and liked the fact that she was fluent in three languages. Plus, Ashe was great at keeping even the snarliest mall rats at bay. The pay was average, dismal compared to her contract fee as a kick-ass monster killer.

  On the upside, “library worker” would go over well in family court. It sounded responsible, learned, and harmless. Obviously, no judge had ever been to the staff parties.

  Ashe yawned, her body objecting to the fact that she’d fallen asleep again at three and been up at six to get Eden off to school. She’d dreamed about Roberto’s death before, but not as often now as she used to. Lately, the nightmares seemed to come up in times of stress. Or whenever another attractive man crossed her path—like Reynard. Guilt, maybe?

  If so, the guilt was needless. Roberto would want her to move on. He’d lived in the moment far more than Ashe had—he’d never understood things like photographs and albums before Eden was born. He’d always said the heart was enough of a scrapbook for him, with an infinite number of pages.

  Yeah, it was hard to let go of someone who could just look at you, and you knew your image was recorded in their heart forever. That was a tough act to follow.

  And yet, Ashe was lonely. It had crept up on her since she moved back to Fairview. Maybe time had finally buried her grief deeply enough for her to feel again. Or maybe it was hanging around Holly and her immortal hunk o’ vampire love. They were nauseatingly pleased with each other. Watching them had revived longings Ashe had thought were over—everything from a steady supply of hot sex to the wish that someone else would pick up milk on the way home.

  As for the vampire dreams, she was just damned sick of those. Obviously the fight with the assassin had scared her worse than she thought.

  She stopped, swallowing a slug of scalding coffee. The hot liquid burned down her throat and she blinked hard. The mall was gloomy, shutting out most of the spring daylight. At the other end of the food court, the janitor was pushing around a noisy floor polisher. The place smelled of junk food and industrial cleaner.

  With a shudder, she resumed her course. She went a few steps before she saw the Battle of the Pranksters (library versus mall bookstore) was alive and well. Sort of.

  Ashe shook her head sadly. Lame, guys, really lame. There was a forest of life- sized cardboard people—courtesy of various book publicity campaigns—in front of the library. Legolas, some guy in shades, a studly romance hero with no shirt, and a cartoon pirate. The pirate had an Easter basket looped over his cardboard arm. A sea of little chocolate eggs covered the floor. They must have bribed the janitor.

  Someone had already stepped on a couple of the eggs. Sticky filling smeared the floor like bird droppings. Okay, gotta give ’em points for the yuck factor.

  The bookstore nerds still hadn’t topped the green coffee incident on Saint Patrick’s Day, and Ashe’s team wasn’t divulging their nefarious chemical secrets. War was war, and the librarians had a reference section on their side.

  Ashe shouldered her way between manly cardboard men, tiptoeing around the eggs and fishing in her coat pocket for her keys. Looked like she was the first one there.

  “Good morning.”

  Jeez! Ashe jumped, managing to splatter coffee despite the travel mug’s lid. She spun around, crouching, keys held like a weapon.

  It was Reynard, standing so still that in her morning fog she’d mistaken him for one of the cardboard cutouts. Crap! Her heart pounded madly, partly from the fright, partly because it was him. Whatever her brain was saying, her neglected libido was very aware of his good looks.

  “I’m a bad person to startle,” she said grumpily. At least she was wide-awake now.

  “So it seems.” He gave her a slight bow, all grace and manners, but there was that hard edge underneath.

  Oddly, he was wearing shades. That and the fact that he’d been standing behind the pirate were why she hadn’t recognized him. “What are you doing here?”

  “I require your assistance.” He turned to look at Legolas, then the bare-chested stud. “What are these things?”

  “Decoys. All the librarians are hoping the real thing shows up.”

  Reynard looked confused, but that slowly gave way to amusement. “Is that why you scatter food on the ground? I had no idea shirtless men were in season.”

  Ashe ignored that and undid the lock. Like all the storefronts in the mall, the library door folded away like an accordion, disappearing into a pocket in the wall. The clatter of it echoed over the cavernous food court. Reynard watched with interest, apparently fascinated by the track mechanism. Boys and mechanical stuff. Guess it goes way back.

  “Come on in,” she said, setting her coffee on the front desk and flicking on the overhead lights.

  When she turned back to her visitor, she froze, the palms of her hands suddenly tingling like she’d touched a live wire. She grabbed her mug, taking another swig just so she didn’t stand there like an idiot. It was the first time she’d seen him in decent light, and even hidden behind the sunglasses he was drop-dead gorgeous. Don’t even go there.

  She wasn’t in the market for men. After the dream last night, it was obvious her emotions weren’t ready. But she couldn’t help it. Th
ere was no threat to distract her, like there had been at the gardens. She could give all that studly goodness her full attention. And that accent . . .

  And she was lonely. She’d said that to herself just minutes ago.

  Ashe wanted to throw Reynard down on the circulation desk and, well, circulate. Check him out. Crack spines and bend pages. Granted, she’d been alone for a long time, but a guy had to be hot to get her attention before she’d finished her first cup of coffee.

  He pulled off the shades and immediately started blinking against the light. Back on went the sunglasses. “I apologize for wearing these ridiculous things, but Mac insisted I borrow them. Fortunate that he did. I’m not used to the light any longer.”

  She’d never seen a guardsman in daylight. Now she knew why. They were blind as cave bats. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s go back here.” She grabbed his sleeve and dragged him into the dim staff room.

  The bulk of muscle under the wool of his jacket was unmistakable. Feeling even more deprived and frustrated, she pushed him into one of the plastic chairs and then took a step back, folding her arms to keep her hands to herself. What is the matter with me?

  She gave Reynard the once-over as he took the glasses off again and rubbed his eyes. He was still wearing his uniform, but at least he’d left the musket and sword behind. Mac must have frisked him at the Castle door for things that would upset the natives.

  The demon should have made him change clothes, too. The uniform had been on its last legs generations ago. Reynard was deathly pale, like he hadn’t seen sunlight for, gosh, centuries. The circles under his eyes said he hadn’t done much sleeping, either.

  Take that, hormones. Ragged and pasty. Bad mating material.

  Yeah, right.

  She’d thought his eyes were icy gray. During that moment when they had been in full light, she’d seen they actually had darker streaks, giving them a changeable, stormy cast. And his hair was more brown than black. The Castle’s shadows had robbed him of color.

  A memory flickered through her mind, a picture from the battle last fall, when she’d held Reynard’s head in her lap. No one was sure he’d live. She’d nursed him out of sheer perversity, willing him to beat the odds. She’d never seen a man cling to his courage like that.

  Ashe gripped her elbows like she might fly apart. “So what’s up?”

  He stopped rubbing his eyes and squinted at her. The watering eyes ruined his panache. “I am sorry for disturbing you.”

  She grabbed another chair and sat down. “It must be important, or you wouldn’t have come.”

  He was silent, head lowered, hands resting on his knees.

  “More bunny problems?” she prompted.

  She caught a glimpse of his wry smile, the merest twitch of lips. “A thief has escaped from my world into yours. And, though I’m not sure if or how it is related, the phouka was deliberately released.”

  Her eyes lingered on his mouth. In a face made up of blade-sharp angles, it hinted at melting sensuality. Stop it! This is a serious conversation! She coughed. “Huh. I assumed the phouka was connected to our lone vampire gunman.”

  “My informant”—Reynard said the word acidly—“is a prince of the dark fey. I would not be surprised if the vampire assassin was involved with the phouka or the thief as well. Dealing with Miru- kai is like seeking a door within a hall of mirrors. There is always the reflection of truth, but you find substance by pure chance.”

  “So we’re dealing with a bunny- releasing, hit-man-hiring thief?”

  “Perhaps. I am only guessing that there is a connection. Miru-kai hinted that there is a collector from your world involved. If there is such a collector, he hired the thief. The time line, such as I can determine, is that a thief—most likely a demon—escaped and committed his burglary several days before the incident with the phouka and the assassin.”

  This was getting complicated. “What was stolen?”

  Reynard’s face was carefully neutral, but panic was leaking around the edges of that perfect blankness. “It is difficult to explain, but I’ll try.”

  Ashe listened, her slayer senses going on high alert as Reynard spoke. What the hell is he saying? But she could hear the strain in his voice. That more than anything told her his crazy story was real.

  She sat speechless after he finished, not able to find anything helpful to say. What dumb-ass idea ever made them put their souls in jars?

  So she came out with the first thing that wasn’t an outright insult. “If your soul—or whatever—is out here somewhere in my world, that means you’re not tied to the Castle anymore, right?”

  “Not exactly. Ordinary prisoners can leave the Castle and carry on with their lives, free of its magic. Guardsmen cannot. First, the magic that allows our bodies to survive separated from our life essence begins to dissipate once we’ve left that dimension. Second, we cannot stray too far from the vessel that contains our life essence. If we do, we start to fade.” He said it coldly, softening nothing.

  “Fade?”

  “Die. The bottom line, as they say, is that I have to find my urn and return to the Castle as soon as possible.”

  Die. The word clutched, cold and hard, in her gut. She forced her dismay down, covering it with gruffness. “How long have you got?”

  Reynard gave a slight shrug, his face a complete mask. “I don’t know. I can feel the urn’s absence. It’s like something you’re trying to recall, but can’t. A nagging sensation. But that’s all.” He made a weary gesture. “I assume it will grow worse with time. Being outside the Castle helps. At least I’m in the same realm as my soul.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. Goddess, Ashe, that was lame. “What can I do?”

  “I was hoping you would offer your aid,” he said tentatively, finally letting his storm gray eyes meet hers.

  It was suddenly hard to breathe.

  “You helped before,” he said quietly. “When I was hurt.”

  A girl could drown in those eyes.

  “Yeah.” She ducked her head, not wanting to think about him dying a lingering death because some maniac had taken his urn. A man’s urn should stay in his Castle. Or whatever. A sick sensation, part anger, part helplessness, made her momentarily dizzy.

  “Since I found out about the theft, I checked the vault where the guardsmen’s souls are kept. I examined every vessel. Mine is not there. Mac is questioning the Castle residents thoroughly.”

  Ashe swallowed hard. “So now you have to comb through the whole of my world looking for your thief?”

  He spread his hands. “I don’t know this world anymore. I’m not helpless, but I don’t know where to start. I am hoping you can guide me.”

  “Why not Mac?”

  “Besides being an overlarge fire demon with a full-body tattoo and therefore highly conspicuous, he has a prison dimension to run. His contacts in the human police department are checking their contacts, but this is really a supernatural crime. I would benefit more from the advice of someone familiar with the nonhuman world.”

  “Plus,” added Ashe, “this sounds like there was someone on the inside. Mac needs to find out who in the Castle set this up.”

  “And what they hoped to gain.” His eyes went hard with anger, giving them a gunmetal cast.

  Just then Gina Chen, the other clerk on shift, stuck her head in the door. “Hey, Ashe, you here? What’s with the cardboard people?”

  The young woman, all sleek black hair and almond eyes, caught sight of Reynard. “Oh, hi.” She smiled slowly, like a toddler spying a ginormous ice-cream cone. “I don’t think I’ve met you before.”

  Ashe nearly growled. All of a sudden Gina was far too young and exotically pretty. Reynard was out of his element and vulnerable to the wiles of clever circulation clerks.

  “I’ll be right out,” she said. At least the spike of hostility had put her back in charge of her emotions.

  “Neat outfit,” Gina persisted.

  “He’s in a play,” Ashe snapped. “Ea
rly rehearsals.”

  “An actor. Cool.”

  Reynard was watching the two women cautiously, looking from one to the other as if he were following a tennis match—or perhaps he was a cat choosing between two birds. His expression wasn’t entirely innocent.

  “I’ll be out to help with the returns in a minute,” Ashe grumped.

  Finally taking the hint, Gina huffed and went back to the desk.

  Ashe turned to Reynard. “I have to work. I have to think about what you’ve said.”

  Images flitted through her head. Eden. The vampire in the gardens turning to dust. The piles of books waiting to be checked in. Eden. Bannerman’s waterfall of slime. Kneeling beside Reynard in the Castle, watching him bleed. Eden. There was too much crowding in on her.

  Reynard frowned, seeming to sense her tension. He took her hand lightly, just holding it. Drawing her in with the touch of his warm fingers. “Please take the time you need.”

  “I’ve got a lot going on right now.” She should send Reynard packing. She didn’t need his problems on top of her own—too many demands made it easy to drop the ball. She couldn’t afford that. Not with assassins and lawyers on her case.

  Just standing in Reynard’s presence, she felt as if she’d run a marathon. There was a sudden frisson of fear, desire, and schoolgirl nerves.

  He let her go, the tips of his fingers sliding along her palm. “I’ll take whatever advice you can offer.”

  Her mouth went dry. Well, at least she wasn’t salivating. Just pick a problem, Ashe; pick something and fix it. “You need new clothes. You stand out too much dressed like that.”

  He looked affronted. “As I told Mac, this is my uniform.”

  So Mac had already lost this argument. Too bad. “You’re going to attract attention. You came to me for advice; I’m giving it to you.”

  He frowned, looking very Mr. Darcy.

  “Don’t be stubborn.” Ashe used her mom voice.