Shadow Kin

by M. J. Scott

  I passed a few Trusted here and there, going about their tasks, but no one bothered me. One or two of the men stared at my chest before ducking their heads and looking away.

  No wonder they were staring. I’d dressed for the occasion, donning a black shirt with a thin ruffle around the deep neckline, so it looked like my vest had sprouted frills. I’d piled my braids high on my head so that there was no barrier to my throat. I looked like a Nightseeker displaying myself as a Blood feast.

  I turned the last corner and was waved past the guard at the iron door that protected Lucius’ outer hall. Once inside, I was alone again. Lucius, unlike others of the Court, didn’t worry overly much about protecting himself here in his inner sanctum. He’d won his way to power with war and bloody retribution and it had been years now since anyone had made a direct attempt on his life.

  One day I might try to change that, but not tonight. Tonight I needed what he was offering.

  My steps slowed further as I walked the last few feet, hand curled around my dagger, as my instincts whispered warnings. Back away from the monster’s lair. Flee. At the same time, the need urged me forward. I forced myself to let go of the dagger and raised my hand to knock softly on the door.

  “You may enter.” Lucius’ voice was deep, enticing.

  I took one last deep breath. Once I crossed the threshold, there would be no turning back. No pretending I was there under any compunction other than the need. It was my choice. My choice to come to him, my choice to let him feed.

  To let him touch me.

  Lady, forgive me, I thought fleetingly, then pushed open the door.

  The room was lit with gaslights on every wall, brighter than I’d expected. The lamps were soft, but their combined light was enough to show everything clearly. I’d never been in this room before. The honor of being invited to Lucius’ inner sanctum was one I’d actively avoided. The scent of blood and fear and pleasure rode the air.

  The muscles in my back tightened. I was going to become intimately familiar with that smell. With this room. With Lucius. I shivered slightly, my hand drifting down to my dagger before I forced myself to let go.

  Lucius stood in the middle of the room, in front of a large bed. It was carved from some heavy wood, so dark a brown to be near enough to black in the gaslight. Black as the coat Lucius wore.

  “Night keep you, my Lord.” I bowed correctly, then forced myself to move toward him. Each step felt like it took far too long. I couldn’t afford to let him see any indecision or reluctance. I was doing this to buy his trust back. Buy time and freedom.

  Buy a chance to one day be rid of him.

  I tried to blank my mind and let the need carry me but couldn’t quite do it. I needed the blood to give me that complete escape from reality. I hoped he would let me have it before he drank.

  As I reached Lucius, he smiled, his fangs white and sharp seeming far more prominent than usual. “Shadow,” he said softly. “I have been looking forward to this.”

  “As have I, my Lord.” I forced myself to respond in a pleased tone and moved closer still, then stopped, waiting for him to make a move.

  He circled me slowly, like a wild dog stalking prey. When we were once again face-to-face, his smile came again. “Very nice, my shadow. I am pleased.”

  There didn’t seem to be an easy response to that. Just give me the gods-damned blood probably wouldn’t have the seductive effect I was trying to achieve.

  “I am glad to see you choosing wisely,” Lucius continued. “I think you too will be glad of it over time. I will reward your loyalty. This city will be changing, shadow.”

  I cast my eyes down, as my thoughts whirled. Changing? What did he mean? Was he planning something? Something more than killing Simon? Something bigger? His tone was smugly certain, carrying something more than his usual arrogance. “I ask for no reward other than to stand by your side, my Lord.”

  How I managed to get the words out without choking on them, I wasn’t entirely sure. But he had to continue to believe me. Then perhaps I could find out what he had planned.

  Lucius made a pleased noise. “And so you shall. You by my side and the rest of them beneath my feet. But enough talking. Tonight we have more pressing business, you and I.”

  His voice had turned silken and low, the sound of it sleeking across my skin and making me shiver.

  He pulled me against him, one hand pulling my head back. It seemed his hunger was to be satisfied first after all. I shut my eyes as his mouth dragged along my neck, tongue stroking wetly across my pulse. I breathed deep, desperate to let the need carry me, let the scent of him fan it so that I wouldn’t have to think, wouldn’t have to be so aware of what I was doing.

  It helped a little, the fog of desire driving away the other emotions ricocheting though me. Fear. Regret. Disgust. Until Lucius’ fangs cut through my skin with an icy stab of pain and he began to drink. It only hurt for a moment before his venom numbed the wound and there was only the feel of his lips against my neck, the feel of blood being drawn from me and the horribly arousing press of his body against mine.

  I focused on that arousal, seeking oblivion. I didn’t want to think or know. I just wanted to be taken away. To be anywhere other than in my own body or my own mind.

  As it had in Halcyon, the sensation of him feeding seemed to close around me like a cloak, my pulse slowing to beat like his, intimacy twining between us as he held me and fed. For a few moments I was able to ride the darkness behind my eyes and become nothing more than the sensation, but then he withdrew and before I could do anything, pressed his mouth to mine, kissing me.

  He tasted of blood and need and darkness. There was nothing clean or warm in his kiss, nothing like the feelings I had felt when Simon had kissed me. This kiss was more like dying, being possessed by something that might never let you go. Something that would keep you in the dark and hurt you to please itself.

  It was horrible even as my body screamed for more of his touch.

  He broke the kiss. “Lily,” he said, pleasure and satisfaction darkening his voice.

  The sound of my name on his lips broke the spell. He had never called me by my name. And I suddenly knew that I couldn’t stand it if he did.

  “Lily,” he said again, and pressed to me again, one hand suddenly between my legs, seeking the buttons to my trousers. Simon’s face suddenly filled my mind. The look on his face as he had touched me. The pleasure and delight. The kindness.

  I couldn’t do it, couldn’t let Lucius touch me.

  Acting on pure instinct, I shadowed, stumbling back from Lucius blindly, raising a hand that had no substance to try to scrub the taste of him from my mouth, eyes blinded by sudden tears.

  It took a few seconds to blink back the moisture, to slow the panic screaming through me. Safe. I was safe in the shadow. He couldn’t reach me here.

  But as the room came back into focus I saw that, instead of an infuriated Blood Lord waiting for me to reappear, there was . . . nothing. Lucius had vanished.

  I froze, twisting my head to make certain of what I saw. Illusion? Magic? What in the names of hell was going on? Every sense strained. Even a vampire fading into the darkness has a heartbeat. Breathes.

  Nothing. I reached for my dagger. Whatever was going on, I didn’t like it. Time to retreat.

  I backed toward the door, dagger still in my hand, still listening. I wished desperately that I could call light with a snap of my fingers like Simon. The darkness seemed to press around me even with my night vision.

  I had to get away.

  Trying desperately to think what might have just happened, I quickened my steps as I passed through the door.

  “Hello, my shadow.”

  I whirled. “You!”

  Lucius’ smile was cruel. “Were you expecting someone else?”

  Viewed from the shadow, he was a creature of pure white and black and gray, none of his favored red to stand out and draw the eye. “How . . .”

  “Ah. How am I here w
ith you, shadow?” His smile grew wider. Crueler. His fangs gleamed at me, white and sharp. The memory of them pressed to my throat made me shudder. Run. I stayed frozen where I was.

  “You haven’t figured it out, then? The gift you have given me?” Lucius said. He reached toward me and I slashed instinctively with my dagger.

  Lucius recoiled with a hiss.

  My brain, fogged and stretched with adrenaline and shock and anger, finally realized what was wrong. He could see me. I could see him. I was shadowed.

  The only way he could see me was if he was shadowed too.

  Run.

  This time I didn’t fight the impulse. I turned and fled, running as hard and fast as I could.

  Lucius laughed. Then I heard his footsteps as he gave chase.

  The sound of his feet echoed around me. Which made no sense. In the shadow, he should make no noise against the stones. In the shadow he was nothing that should be able to make a noise. Yet the echoes came, relentless. Pounding.

  I ran faster, diving through walls and doors in my panic. Run.

  I didn’t know how he’d done it.

  I just knew I had to get away.

  He kept coming. I could feel him behind me, though I didn’t dare turn and look behind me.

  No matter what I did, I couldn’t lose him as I made my way through the myriad tunnels of the warren.

  “Shadow,” I heard Lucius’ voice come through the darkness toward me. “Why run? I can always find you now. You are mine, wraith.”

  My stomach twisted and clenched, the urge to give up and let him just take me and end everything a nagging black demon in the back of my head. I could almost smell him, closing in on me, but maybe that was just the general stink of the Blood that permeated this place.

  I ran, my heart pounding. Another pulse pounded just as fiercely between my legs, as if Simon had never touched me, as if the need had never eased at all. It burned bright and fierce as it had when Lucius had first fed me, ignited to full force by what had passed between us. It whispered in my brain. Whispered of what he could give me if I stopped.

  I fought the urge to press my hands over my ears, block out that insidious whispering. It would do no good.

  Run.

  Desperate, I turned again, heading for the outer walls. We were still many levels down, below the surface. But I might have an advantage if I could make my way into the dirt outside those walls. Lucius might be confused by the distracting sensation of fighting his way through the earth. It might slow him down.

  So I pushed my way through the wall and into the darkness of the earth, clawing my way forward and up. Up to where the sun might be rising if I hadn’t completely lost track of time.

  It was hard work. Hard and claustrophobic, with the weight of earth pressing against every part of me. I fought upward, throat and eyes and nose blocked and choking like a mole caught in an airless box, scrabbling desperately for air and life.

  Below, I heard Lucius choking and sputtering too as he floundered behind me.

  Up. Only up.

  I pushed harder as the earth started to feel slightly warmer around me. There were roots of plants as well as earth and rock around me now. Nearly there.

  I could just see the faintest of lights ahead. The beginnings of dawn filtering through the tiny gaps left by the plants above.

  Up. Faster.

  I was nearly there when his hand closed around my ankle. I kicked violently, killing the scream that rose in my throat.

  How was he touching me in the shadow?

  I didn’t know whether he should be able to do or not. I’d never met another of my kind, didn’t know what happened when two beings interacted here.

  Could he win? Pull me back down to him?

  I kicked again, desperate. His fingers slipped and I fought my way upward a few more inches. Tantalizing scents of grass and sunshine wafted through the earth, telling me I was close.

  So close.

  The fingers came again, his nails raking at me, then finding a grip.

  “You are mine,” he snarled from beneath me.

  I kept pushing upward, alternately kicking and clawing to ascend.

  My boot slipped off my foot and I made a last desperate lunge upward, breaking through the top layer of dirt with a coughing scream. I was moving fast enough that my whole body came free of the earth before the faint rays of early sun turned me solid again and I fell with a jolting thud to the ground.

  There was another snarling cry from below and Lucius’ hand broke free of the earth next to me, pale and grasping, the rubies in his rings gleaming like blood turned to glass in the sunlight.

  But, unlike with me, the sun didn’t just turn him solid. Him, it wanted to burn. There was a sizzling hiss and his skin started to blacken. I heard another screaming snarl and then his hand disappeared back underneath the earth, leaving me lying, panting and horrified, on the grass just beyond the outer walls of the mansion.

  I ran without thinking. No keeping to shadows, no hiding. Instead I sought the protection of the sunlight as I ran. Only the light would stop Lucius from reclaiming me.

  For now.

  I was horribly aware that my respite wouldn’t last. The sky was lightening rapidly as the sun climbed. But inevitably, after sunrise, came sunset. Panic made my breath rasp and my heart pound in my ears.

  Sunset.

  Lucius could move freely in the darkness. He would find me.

  So I ran. Not caring who saw me. Ran in heedless terror. Through sheer luck, no one challenged me on that headlong flight back out of Sorrow’s Hill. Luck held when I was able to hail an autocab once I hit Brightown, almost dragging the last of the disembarking passengers from the door in my eagerness to be inside.

  I didn’t know where I was headed until the driver asked where I wanted to go, his expression somewhat scared as though he thought I might spring at him. God knows what I looked like. I managed to say “St. Giles,” through chattering teeth. I wrapped my arms around myself, chilled to the bone as the ’cab rattled into life. St. Giles. Simon.

  Safety.

  For a time. But even the thought of Simon couldn’t chase the chill away.

  Lucius could shadow.

  He had drunk my blood and now he could shadow.

  I pulled my feet up on the seat, loath to leave them on the floor of the ’cab, feeling the grasp of his hand around my ankle once more. My bootless foot bled. Somewhere in my flight I had cut it and not even noticed. I still couldn’t feel it now. All I could feel was the fear.

  By the time I reached the hospital, I was shivering in earnest, barely holding back tears. The sun was bright in the sky when I stepped across the Haven line, but I couldn’t feel the warmth. My skin crawled as I wondered if Lucius lurked below, underneath the earth. If he hunted me even now.

  I ran across the marble, fleeing for the safety of the hospital and Simon. And as I ran, only one word filled my mind.

  I crossed the threshold and burst into the main hall. Simon stood in the middle of the space, talking to one of the healers. At the crash of the doors behind me, he turned and saw me. He froze.

  I brought myself to a halt and stood, shaking, before him, seeing the shock burst into his blue eyes. “Sunlight,” I managed to say before I fainted dead away.

  I felt as though my heart had turned to stone as Lily sank onto the floor at my feet.

  “Get me Bryony,” I yelled at the nearest orderly. I dropped to my knees, frantically searching her body. Was she hurt?

  No blood. I couldn’t see any blood, other than from a shallow cut on her foot. Why in hell was her foot bare?

  What had happened? Why had she come back? I scooped her into my arms and carried her to the nearest examination room, yelling for blankets and assistance. Her skin was icy, the cold unnatural somehow.

  By the time Bryony arrived, I had Lily stripped—though her bare flesh didn’t yield any more clues—and wrapped in blankets, where she lay shivering even though she hadn’t regained consciousness
.

  Gods and suns.

  She looked pale. Pale even for her. Small, somehow, under the gray blankets. I’d unpinned her hair to check for wounds, but even the mass of red didn’t bring any warmth to her skin.

  “What happened?” Bryony asked. To her credit she didn’t say “What is she doing here?”

  “I don’t know.” Frustration burned my throat. “I can’t see any wounds. Nothing’s broken. Nothing’s bruised. She just ran in here, said ‘sunlight,’ and collapsed.” I heard my voice rise and gritted my teeth. I needed to keep my head. Lily needed my help.

  “Let me look at her,” Bryony said. “You’re too close to this. You’ll do her no good.” She elbowed past me and knelt leaned over the bed.

  She laid a hand on Lily’s forehead, slipped the other beneath the blankets to rest over her heart, and stood there, eyes closing slowly as she went into a trance.

  Stupid. I forced myself to stillness. I could’ve done that much. Instead I’d panicked, displaying no more sense than a first-year mage.

  But she’d looked so . . . so helpless somehow.

  I’d spent days convincing myself I wouldn’t see her again. Shutting down my feelings so I could keep walking and talking. The Fae had said no to our petition. That meant that Lucius would continue and that Lily would continue to belong to him.

  I’d tried to accept it. I knew only too well what disasters could come from trying to rescue her if she didn’t want to be rescued. I didn’t want any deaths on my hands. People had paid the price for my actions before and I was done. But now she was back.

  Why she was back was yet to be revealed.

  Underneath the worry, another thought rose, unwelcome but unavoidable. She might have been sent back.

  Or she might not.

  Head warred with heart as I stared down at her, feeling sick. How could I trust her?