“At last. My Mila.”
Her eyes flew open, and she gasped, holding her hand to her chest. But the other hand held the long pointed spear at her visitor’s belly.
“Cho,” she said.
Chapter Sixteen
She scrambled to her feet and dropped the spear, flying at the small man. “Cho!”
He opened his arms to her, pulling her into the warmth of his small, strong arms. “Mila, how I have missed you. How I have worried…”
“I came back to see to you, Cho.” She dropped to her knees and held him against her. “And everyone…” She pulled back and looked into his eyes. “You are ill.”
He shook his head, his smile not reaching his eyes. “No.”
“Something’s wrong, I can feel it. What has happened here?” His clothes were ragged and torn and, most worrying of all, bloodstained. She’d never seen the fastidious man unkempt, but now he was dirty, his long hair tangled and matted, his face scratched and bruised.
“A lot has happened since you left, Mila.”
“Have we been attacked?”
“You could say that.”
“Tell me.”
He pulled away and took her hand. “Come. I will explain everything.”
Some part of her felt the danger emanating from his body, the darkness from his eyes, and she resisted. She didn’t feel, suddenly, like she knew him. “Just explain here, Cho. The watcher will be back in a moment and would not want to see me gone. He would worry.”
His dark eyes narrowed. “Once we’re in the village, we will find him and show him you’re safe, with me.”
“Let go of me, Cho.”
He frowned. “Mila, have you forgotten me? Why are you afraid?”
She swallowed. “I don’t know. I feel something.” Her voice came out in a hoarse whisper. “Something is wrong. With you.”
He smiled, showing the sharp fangs she never saw when he was her shadow. He, as well as the other shadows, kept them hidden until the shadows’ night. He didn’t bother now. “My Mila, so innocent and afraid. You’re right, sweet. Something is wrong with me.” He wrapped strong fingers around her wrist. “But it’s nothing a little blood won’t cure.”
Out of the trees stepped more shadows, fangs showing. They moved as silently as the shadows they were named for, enclosing Mila and Cho in a terrible circle. Some of them she recognized, most of them she didn’t. She pulled away from him, and he didn’t resist. Where would she go, after all?
“Take her to my house,” he told the shadows, “and kill the watcher.”
“Cho! No!” They’d gone mad, all of them. She could only hope Slawomir would realize it and hide.
The shadows bore her along on a silent sea of eagerness. She could do little but go, craning her head this way and that to try and find something normal, something familiar. There was nothing.
The village was stark and cold. Her village was nearly unrecognizable. The once picturesque little place, her home, was roofed with gray, bleak skies and floored with cold, sucking mud. Bare trees reached toward the heavens with skinny, pleading fingers, and haphazardly-placed smoky fires stung her eyes with acrid desperation.
Her relief at spotting some of the villagers was short lived. They slunk through the cool air like the shadows they once ruled, some of them peering around the peeling corners of huts with large, half-starved gazes, and still others watched her with blank, uncaring eyes and bleak expressions.
“What have you done to them?” she whispered, not expecting an answer, and not disappointed when none was forthcoming. It was as though she’d never lived here, never knew these people, had never grown up with the shadows. All that was erased in a single moment.
The shadows pushed her inside the councilor’s house, grand no more. How quickly things could fall into disrepair. The shadows pushed her into a corner where she huddled, content to be as unobtrusive as possible while she tried to figure out what to do.
Shadows had taken over. And they had multiplied.
* * * *
“Fuck!” Lake punched the wall, then punched it again, ignoring the blood he slung from his busted knuckles. Then he groaned. Mila, what the fuck have you done?
“Go get her, Lake. Bring her back. Bring her back to me.”
Lake looked at his mother, his eyebrows raised. She had a murderous gleam in her eyes, and her lips were pressed together so tightly they were colorless lines.
“Mother,” he said, “Mila is my concern.”
“She might have killed you!”
“But she didn’t. Mila has been taught herbs and plants since before she could walk. She knew what she was doing.” He hoped the doubt didn’t show in his voice.
“But why, son? Why would she do such a thing?”
“I refused to let her go back to her village.”
His mother shrugged. “So?”
Suddenly angry, he turned on her. “So she took matters into her own hands!”
His father stepped from the shadows, his eyes worried and filled with dread.
Lake frowned. “What is it now?”
“Slawomir is also missing.”
Lake shook his head, confused. “What do you mean, missing?”
“He went with Mila. He took her.”
His mother gasped and held a hand to her chest. “She has betrayed my Lake for Slawomir?”
“I have to go.” A haze of red covered his vision as he stumbled back toward the house.
“What are you going to do?” his mother called.
“I’m going to find her,” he muttered. “I’m going to find her, and I’m going to bring her back.” Rage pierced him but could not quite smother the fear that clutched at his gut. He had a bad, bad feeling.
That she had used him to get a baby in her belly then fled from him, running back to her village and her shadow…yeah, he was pissed. He was going to find her. She wasn’t going to take his child and raise it in the midst of a bunch of freaking fucking halfwits. He didn’t even want to think about Slawomir, the traitor. But the watcher was going to get the worst ass-kicking of his worthless life.
He slung together some supplies and grabbed his horse, galloping from his village with his mother’s shrill warnings echoing in his ears. It was going to take him for fucking ever and a day to reach Mila. When he got her in his fucking arms, he was going to teach her a lesson she wouldn’t soon forget. Oh, the bitch. The bitch. She might as well have stuck a knife into his gut.
He didn’t stop until the horse nearly gave out beneath him. And even then, he was up and riding again in four hours. A fire burnt in his belly, and he would not be able to rest until he saw for himself that she was all right. Then he’d make her wish she’d never been so foolhardy.
At least that’s what he kept telling himself.
Chapter Seventeen
On the morning of the second day, Cho came to see her. He squatted before her on the cold, dirty floor, his eyes blank and almost black as he stared at her, silent.
She licked dry lips. “I need some water, Cho. And I need—”
He touched her cheek, his face animating somewhat. “My sweet. My sweet. I am what you need. I’ve always been what you need.”
She wasn’t stupid enough to argue with him. “Maybe you’re right.”
His smile lit his face and made him look almost like the Cho of old. “I am right, Mila. You will rule at my side. I shall make you one of us, and you will live forever.”
“What?” She was too tired and too shocked to pretend to know what he was talking about.
“Our master has come. At long last, he has come. We are now free to possess the world. We are now powerful enough to fight the humans.” His grin was hideous, stretching across his thin face like an early morning spider web. “There will be no stopping us now. No more hiding in the shadows, no more being mastered by puny humans.” His gaze turned inward, and for a long moment, he said nothing.
She thought he had forgotten her. She shuddered as an insidious chil
l raced down her spine. “What has happened, Cho?”
He focused on her, frowning for a moment as he pulled his mind from whatever had occupied it. “Forget everything you thought you knew, Mila. None of it matters now.”
“Where are my people?”
He shrugged, grimacing as he stood. His legs creaked, and he stretched out a hand to catch his balance against the wall. “Most of them are dead. Some of them are turned.”
“I don’t know what turned means.”
He smiled again. “Yes, Mila, you do.”
She shook her head, unwilling to think about his meaning. “Where is the councilor? Where is Vera?” She was too afraid to ask after Slawomir.
He sighed, then backed away. “I will send water.” One sharp gesture and the shadows in the room snapped to attention, their black eyes watching her.
“Cho! What is to become of me?”
His shoulders slumped. “Nothing good, my darling. And for that, I am truly sorry.”
She swallowed, her pulse pounding with a fast, weak beat. If she moved, would they eat her? How had things changed so drastically, so quickly?
She couldn’t help but call after him. “I loved you!”
His laugh came, sharp and harsh. “You loved me as a pet, Mila. Not as a man.”
“Cho!”
But he walked out the door, leaving her wrapped in her fear and questions, surrounded by sinister shadows who crowded in on her and seemed to suck the very air from the room.
“Get away from me!” She kicked out, landing a solid blow and sending one of the shadows halfway across the room.
He seemed not affected in the least, pulling himself up slowly, walking back toward her without a single change in his expression.
She had to get out of there. She couldn’t let the shadows destroy her. She would not let them destroy her baby. She closed her eyes for a long moment, caressing her belly. I’ll save us, little one. I’ll save us.
They’d done damage she couldn’t fix, but she’d be damned if she would just sit shivering in a corner without even trying to save herself.
A dirty little shadow scampered to her with a bowl of water. His hair was matted and fuzzy, his face so filthy it took her a moment to realize who he was.
“Ponga?” She took the water from him and drank deeply, despite the fact that neither the water nor the bowl looked clean.
He wouldn’t meet her eyes. That alone gave her hope. Not all the shadows were comfortable with the turn of events. She remembered how Ponga had truly loved Vera, and that led her to believe that her own shadow, Cho, had never really cared about her. Not if he could turn on her and her people so completely.
“Ponga, where is Vera? Did they leave her alive?”
His gaze darted toward the other shadows, then back at her. His whisper barely reached her desperate ears. “She hides. She waits. When—”
A kick sent him flying before he could tell her more, and another shadow stood in his place. She did not recognize him. “Keep your mouth shut.” His fangs were yellowed and dull, not as sharp as they should have been. This one had fed a lot. This one had eaten.
She shuddered but said nothing. She would not anger them if she could help it, and receive an early death as reward. She would bide her time. As Vera did. She couldn’t help a small smile from touching her lips.
“You laugh at me, cunt?”
“Never.”
“Then what causes you amusement? You should be begging and crying. Believe me. If you knew what was in your future, you would not smile.”
She dropped her gaze, unable to find a suitable answer.
“Bow to me,” the nasty shadow said.
She looked up in surprise. “What?”
He snarled, and the other shadows gathered closer, eager little bodies pressing in on her. “You heard me, dog. Bow to me.” He gestured at the other shadows. “Bow to all of us! We rule you now.”
“We never ruled you, shadow. Your people were free to come and go as they pleased. They chose us.”
He hit her then, knocking her head against the hard wall. “That was a gentle tap, dog. Next time I will not hold back. Bow! Lie on the floor and kiss my boots!”
The shadows began dancing and howling, their voices chorusing in a mad, hideous laughter.
She pressed her palms to her ears. She would die before she kowtowed to the repulsive shadow. But then she remembered the baby growing even now inside her. She must not let her pride cost her child his life.
Slowly, she rose to her knees, and with the shadows excited gazes upon her, she bowed to them.
“Lower!” the instigator shouted. “Supplicate yourself before me!” He held his hands in the air, his smile stretched and gruesome.
She bit her lip, hard, and lowered her upper body to the floor, hiding her face against the unforgiving planks. In her mind, she marked the shadow’s face well. He would make her beg, but before it was over, she would make him sorry.
In seconds, it was over. The shadows quieted with a chilling suddenness and ignored her when she scooted back in her corner to watch. Their faces bore a remarkable similarity. Gazes turned inward, heads cocked and mouths slack, they listened to voices only they could hear.
At last the mouthy shadow pointed out three of his people. “Watch her.” Ignoring their protests, he hurried from the house, the other shadows at his heels. With a quick glance back at her, Ponga followed.
“What’s going on?” she asked, but no one answered her. She settled back to think. Somewhere out there was Vera. Though she and Vera did not love each other, Vera would not leave her to die.
If Slawomir found Vera, that would even the odds even more. If they weren’t dead.
And Lake…Lake would come for her. It would take him days to arrive, but he would come.
She could only hope he would come in time.
Chapter Eighteen
Slawomir crouched in the field, his back to a tree. The bastard shadows had gotten him good, but he’d escaped with his life. And that’s what mattered.
He had a plan, but with Mila a prisoner, it complicated matters. He’d not found Vera, but from the state of the villagers he had seen, he didn’t hold out much hope for the strong-willed and stubborn female. With her attitude, she probably would have been one of the first to go.
He mourned. Mourned for the life of the first female he’d been unable to resist, mourned the loss of the first stirrings of a sexual love so strong it had haunted his every waking hour since he’d met her.
He would avenge her. The shadows would regret the day they had ever come to the Myaians with their traitorous black hearts and sneaky glances. They had killed his baby, his love.
For a moment he could barely resist the impulse to throw back his head and howl. His grief needed an exit. But he would get his outlet. Oh yes. He would get his relief through blood and savagery. The shadows would die beneath the onslaught of his rage. When it was spent…well, he would greet that guest when it arrived.
The crackle of dead leaves jerked him from his thoughts. They’d found him. So be it. With a silent, icy calmness, he prepared to attack. Time to kill some shadows.
With a roar that could have been heard all the way back home, he burst from behind the tree, spear in one hand, axe in the other.
A scream nearly split his eardrums, and for a brief, shocking moment, time stood suspended as he and Vera stared at each other across the Myaian leaf-covered ground.
“It is you,” she breathed. “Truly?”
He dropped his weapons and in two steps he was upon her. He jerked her to his chest. “You live, Vera.” He rubbed her cold body with his disbelieving hands. One could not touch a ghost so, could one? Inhaling her essence, her vitality, raining kisses upon her upturned face, he murmured her name. “I thought I’d lost you…”
She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. “When did you think you had me, Watcher?” Her voice was weak, weak and glad.
He laughed, so happy he couldn’t think
of anything beyond that moment. “I’ve never been in love.” For some reason, he had to tell her. Had to. What if they didn’t live beyond the next hour? She had to know that she’d meant so much to someone. To him.
“You came for me?” she asked, as though unable to believe it. “You came back for me?”
“I will never let you go, Vera.”
She sobbed against his chest, her little body shuddering against him. “It was horrible, Slawomir. Horrible!”
“I know, little one. But you’re safe now.”
She stopped mid-sob and drew back. “Don’t be an idiot, Watcher! None of us is safe, not while those dirty little bastards are free. They went insane. Once he came, it magnified a thousand times and everything—”
“He?”
She stared at him with a mix of fear and rage coloring her eyes. “Yes, Watcher. On the night you and your ass of a kinsman ran out of here with Mila, leaving the rest of us behind, he came.”
“Vera, I will regret until the day I die that I left you here. I did not know your village was going to be attacked. And though we’d always known that someday those disgusting little vampyrs were going to turn on you, we did not know it would happen that night.”
She jerked away and gave him her back. “How could you not know? How could you not know when the shadows were attacking us even as you pulled away in your lumbering wagon?”
He shook his head, confused. “When we left, it was only because Lake feared for Mila’s life. Her shadow…”
Her voice was bitter. “Exactly, Watcher. Welcome to the fucking games.”
“Vera.” He reached out to touch her shoulder, but she shrank away. He understood. She was entitled to her anger. “Tell me, what has happened?”
“He came is what happened. He was in their heads before he even reached us.”
He swallowed. “Who is he?”
“Their leader. Their master. He’s so fucking…ancient. You can feel the power seeping from his very pores.” She shuddered, then gagged. “I can’t get the taste of him out of my mind. I’d heard tales…I thought they were only made-up stories, created by the shadows to give themselves some sort of…tradition. Something to talk about. I didn’t know.”
First Night Page 10
