Born in the Shadows (In the Shadows Series Book 1)

by Courtney McPhail

  “I need to see him! I have to know if it’s true!”

  “Fine, fine, but at least let me help you.”

  Nicky wrapped his arm around her waist and she let him take most of her weight as she leaned into him. He guided her out of the room and, though the other room was only a short ways down the hall, their slow pace made it seem like an eternity before they reached the doorway.

  She was cautious as they rounded the corner, keeping her eyes on the foot of the bed, terrified of looking up and discovering that it was all a lie. She had hope now and she didn’t want to lose it.

  But then she heard it, the steady beep of the heart monitor registering a heartbeat.

  His heartbeat.

  She looked up to see him there in the bed. His eyes were closed and his face was grey against the fresh bandage over his neck but she could see the steady rise and fall of his chest and hear the sound of his heart beating in a calm, steady rhythm. He was alive.

  “He is stronger than we thought. Your blood helped him fight. Anne never gave up on him. She was able to bring him back just after you left.”

  Nicky helped her to the chair beside the bed and she collapsed there, any pain from her sutures ignored as she watched Gabe’s heart beat on the machine. When she was sure that it wouldn’t suddenly stop, her eyes went to his hand where it rested on the bed with an IV line taped to it. She hesitated, wanting to reach out for him but afraid that he might slip through her fingers if she did. She still couldn’t believe he was really alive.

  But Nicky was there, as always, taking her hand and placing it over top of Gabe’s. She slowly curled her fingers, grasping his hand and squeezing lightly. He really was here.

  A sob bubbled up and she dropped her head to their joined hands as she began to weep with relief. He was alive. He was going to be okay. All of them were going to be okay.

  Nicky stroked her hair soothingly and a sense of catharsis came over her as she wept. She had experienced so many emotions over the last hour, finally letting go of her grief and anger was like dropping a heavy weight she had been shouldering for too long.

  As the last tear fell from her eyes, she lifted her head up, a cleansing breath filling her lungs as she felt lighter than she had in weeks. She looked to Gabe, still laying in the bed, heart beating steadily and then to Nicky, who sat on the arm of her chair, a comforting hand resting on her shoulder.

  It really was over and they were all safe.

  But for how long?

  The wayward thought surfaced in her mind and she realized that there was truth in it. Armand may be dead but there were still his followers and there was no guarantee that they would not try to get payback for Armand’s death.

  Seeing Gabe here, having almost lost him, she realized exactly how vulnerable he truly was in her world. He had made it through this intact but what if it happened again?

  “I just realized that due to all the commotion lately, our lessons were put on hold,” Nicky spoke up, pulling her out of her hopeless thoughts. “I never got a chance to tell you how we decide who to change.”

  “There are many reasons a Shadow Walker may change a human,” he told her. “Wanting to save them like you and I or because we see something familiar in them like Anne and Demetri. And then there are those we fall in love.”

  He squeezed the hand that was entwined with his. “When it comes to those we fall in love with, the choice isn’t only in their hands. We have to make a choice too. We will live forever and so we must choose those we change out of love carefully. It’s not about finding someone you can spend eternity with, it’s about finding someone you can’t spend eternity without.”

  “I know that I could not live if I lost him again. I want to be with him for eternity and more,” she confessed, “But I don’t think I can change him.”

  “Why not, child?”

  She looked at Nicky, her sire, the one who had given her this life and the always-present wave of gratitude swamped her. Though she knew in her heart of hearts she loved the male who had become like a father to her, she also knew that those emotions were magnified by their blood connection.

  “I want him to love me free of blood or psychic bonds,” she said. “I want us to be together of our own free will.”

  Nicky nodded in understanding. “If you both will permit it, I can change him.”

  She looked at him, her face lighting up with gratefulness. “You would do that?”

  “I would do anything to make you happy,” he said, smiling fondly at her. “You can discuss it with him when he wakes. For now, I’ll leave you two alone. I must go check on Remy.”

  She nodded and he placed a kiss on her temple and patted Gabe’s hand before leaving the room.

  She reached out and brushed the hair off Gabe’s forehead, letting her hand trail over his stubble-covered cheek tenderly. His skin was warm and color was coming back, changing him from a sickly white to a soft pink.

  “I was so scared when I thought I lost you. It felt like a piece of me died with you,” she told him. “The second you wake up, I’m making you promise me you’ll never do something so stupid again.”

  She felt a flutter of movement against her palm and she looked down to watch his fingers clutch her own.

  “I promise.”

  She looked up to see his eyes open and a faint smile playing across his lips. Which immediately had her bursting into tears.

  “Oh hell, don’t cry, I’m okay, I swear,” he croaked, his voice rough and dry.

  “I’m not crying b-b-because you were hurt,” she spluttered through her tears.

  “Oh well that’s good news then. We wouldn’t want that,” he said, cracking another smile.

  She shook her head as the tears continued to spill out. “What I meant was I’m crying because I’m sorry that I got you into this mess.”

  He sobered immediately and his hand gripped hers with surprising strength considering he was laid up in a hospital bed.

  “No, you’re not gonna blame yourself. This is my fault. You told me not to go and I did it anyway. I should have trusted you.”

  She leaned over and kissed him softly, letting him know that all was forgiven. When she pulled back slightly, he smiled and brushed a hand through her hair, letting his fingers tangle in the locks.

  “I promise you that from here on out, I will do whatever you tell me to do.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh. “I could take advantage of you with that kind of promise.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows salaciously. “Just give me a couple hours and I’ll let you take advantage all you want.”

  “A couple hours? I think you are definitely overestimating your healing ability, human,” she joked, her tears drying up. She pulled up her gown to show him her bandaged stomach. “Even with my super awesome Shadow Walker healing, I’m going to be out of commission for a few days.”

  “What the hell happened?” Gabe growled his face coloring with anger and the heart monitor began to beep at a faster pace.

  Christ, he was going to pop a stitch.

  “Easy there, I’m going to be fine, I promise,” she reassured him and it said a lot about what he had learned tonight when he relaxed and laid back.

  “As for what happened, I went after Armand.”

  “Please tell me he looks worse than you,” Gabe said, eyes narrowed with a wrathful hatred.

  “Oh yeah, he looks much worse, like a corpse in fact.”

  Gabe smiled hearing that. “Good. That means we don’t have to worry anymore. Now come here.”

  He carefully rolled on to his side and scooted over to the edge of the bed, making room for her to join him there. She was definitely on the same wavelength as him. She didn’t care how narrow the bed was or how uncomfortable it might be with their injuries, she needed to feel his arms around her.

  She gingerly laid herself out on her side next to him, his chest pressing up against her back as he spooned her. He draped an arm over her, taking her hand and threading his finge
rs through hers, burying his nose in her hair and sighing happily.

  “This feels nice,” she said as the warmth of his body began to seep into her own.

  “It feels right. I want it to be like this forever.”

  “I know a way that could happen,” she told him, figuring now was as good of a time to tell him what she could offer him. “If you want, Nicky said he would change you. It would be our best chance at forever.”

  “Cordelia Reese, are you proposing to me?” he asked, his tone teasing and she laughed along him. She supposed that was exactly what she was doing.

  “I guess I am,” she replied, before looking back at him. “So what do you say?”

  “You are the only woman I’d want to spend eternity with,” he said before leaning over to press a kiss to her lips. It was soft yet demanding and she could feel him pouring all of his love into that one kiss.

  And that started her crying again but for once, they weren’t tears of sadness. She pulled back to stare in his eyes and she could see his love for her reflected there. It was plain as day and she would never tire of seeing it.

  “I’m glad were on the same page because you are stuck with me,” she said and he laughed.

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he told her and hugged her to him, her head resting on his chest so she could hear his heart. Her own heart gave a flutter as she was hit with an epiphany.

  She had thought becoming a Shadow Walker and joining her clan had been the moment she found where she belonged but she had been wrong. Being here in Gabe’s arms, pledging their lives to each other, she knew that she had now found her true home.

  Epilogue

  Barry Sampson cracked a can of beer as he sat down to watch the game on his tiny, shitbox television. It had been a long day at work for very little money and he wanted to relax and forget about it with a few silver bullets and some baseball.

  It had been two months since he left Toronto and life was still not looking up. He had to take whatever job that came along in this backwater burg and each one all paid fuck all. That meant he could only afford this shithole bachelor apartment over a pizza place. The stink of pepperoni filled every corner of the place and stuck to his clothes and his skin.

  It was all that bitch’s fault. If she hadn’t been such a fat ass, she wouldn’t have fallen. It wasn’t like he had pushed her down, she had tripped and fallen. But he knew the cops wouldn’t believe it. He had a record of domestic assault charges a mile long; they would take one look at it and pin her death on him. There was no fucking way he was going down for murder.

  So he had left town that night and hadn’t looked back. Except to pine for the money he had earned under his real name. Here he had to work under the table for cash under his assumed name and that meant less money. Fucking bitch had ruined his life.

  There was a knock on his door and Sampson cursed before downing the rest of his beer and crushing the can. It was probably the damn landlord coming to bitch at him about the mice in the building. The fuckers downstairs blamed him for the vermin instead of admitting their shit pizza attracted them.

  To say he was surprised when he opened the door would be an understatement. He was floored, both mentally and physically.

  Sampson cried out as pain radiated through his body. It started in his chin, where a fist had connected, and it ended in his lower back, which took the brunt of the impact when that fist had sent him flying across the room.

  He stared up from the floor as his assailant came into the room, closing the door and walking to his side.

  “Hello Sampson.”

  “Gabe, what the fuck?” Sampson choked out, trying to clear his spinning head.

  “Just thought I’d catch up with an old co-worker,” Gabe said, shrugging nonchalantly.

  There was something different about Gabe. He looked about the same but there was something off with his eyes. And then there was the air of menace and power that surrounded him, the force of it turning Sampson’s stomach.

  “You know, you are a hard man to find,” Gabe continued, looking around at the apartment with a sneer of disgust. “Then again I should have known to look in the rat holes first.”

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Sampson asked, hauling himself up and groaning from the pain racing through his body from the hit.

  “I just want to talk to you,” Gabe said, exasperated at him as if he was the idiot here.

  “You come to my place, take a cheap shot at me and expect me to fucking talk to you?” Sampson said, letting his anger take over. “You’ve lost your goddamn mind. Get the fuck out.”

  “Afraid that’s not gonna happen. You and me have some things to discuss, specifically what you did to Cordelia.”

  Sampson blanched at his words and his heart began to race with fear. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes you do. I can smell the guilt on you right now.”

  “You’ve lost your fucking mind. Now get the fuck out before I call the cops,” Sampson said, making a move to the couch where he had discarded his cell phone.

  Before he could take more than a step, Gabe was there and the cell was in his hand. A squeeze of his fingers and the sound of cracking plastic filled the room before Gabe dropped the crushed cell to the floor.

  Jesus fucking Christ, what kind of steroids had this guy been taking?

  “No interruptions. Like I said, we’ve got things to talk about, like how you killed Cordelia.”

  “I didn’t touch that bitch,” Sampson spat out. The words were barely out of his mouth when Gabe grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him back against the wall. He got right in his face and the anger in his eyes had Sampson shaking.

  “Don’t call her that!” Gabe growled. “I know what you did to her. You knew I would wait until you left to make sure you didn’t bother her. So you left and then went back that night when you knew she’d be alone. You planned it out, you sick fuck.”

  “I didn’t do anything!” Sampson yelled at him, struggling against Gabe’s iron strong grip.

  “Wrong answer,” Gabe said before pulling back and landing a punch straight into his liver.

  Sampson doubled over in pain as Gabe let him go and he collapsed to the floor. He rolled onto all fours and puked his post-work beers all over the linoleum.

  When the gagging had stopped and he was able to breathe again, he squinted up at Gabe.

  “It was an accident, okay? I just wanted to scare her, that’s all. She’s the one who fell. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “You left her there to die!”

  Gabe’s boot made solid contact with his stomach and his breath left him in a whoosh as he collapsed in his own vomit. He laid there for a minute, trying to catch his breath and ignore the agony ripping through his body. He needed to focus; he needed to think about how the hell to get out of this.

  Gabe was sure as shit stronger than him so trying to take him out physically wasn’t going to work. But no one was strong enough to stop a bullet and lucky for Sampson, he had a gun stashed under the couch. Now he just had to get his hands on it.

  He rose shakily to his knees and looked up at Gabe, who was standing there trembling with barely reined in fury. The knuckles on his clenched fists were white and his mouth was a hard line as he clenched his jaw. He was right on the edge of losing all his focus and that would be Sampson’s opening. He just had to bait him.

  “You can’t pin a thing on me,” Sampson croaked out, chuckling just a bit. “There’s no evidence, no witnesses, nothing connecting me to it except your word which means shit.”

  “You’re wrong. There is a witness. Cordelia.”

  “You’re a fucking lunatic. She’s dead.”

  “She was dead, she’s not anymore. Same goes for me,” Gabe said and for the first time since he had entered the apartment, he smiled.

  Sampson gazed in morbid fascination at his glistening fangs. All thoughts of getting the gun went out of his head, replaced with a pri
mal fear, the kind that told him his life was in danger.

  “What are you?” he asked, his voice trembling with fear.

  “I’m your judge, jury and executioner.”

  His body broke out in a cold sweat at those words and understanding dawned on him. “You’re going to kill me.”

  “Figure of speech,” Gabe said. “I’m not going to kill you. She’d hate me if I killed a human for her. But I’m going to make sure you are punished for what you did.”

  Gabe turned and went for the door and, without his eyes and fangs facing at him, Sampson was able to focus again. He scrambled over to the couch and stuck his hand under it, flailing around for a moment before his hand came into contact with cool metal.

  He pulled out the gun and whipped around to take aim at Gabe. He was surprised to find that Gabe wasn’t alone anymore as a kid came through the open door. He looked like the embodiment of an all-American golden boy. Except for a pair of nasty fangs he was sporting.

  Sampson pushed the safety on the gun as he aimed at Gabe but the man moved with inhuman speed. The safety button had barely reached the off position when the gun was twisted out of his hand and the butt of it slammed into the side of his head.

  Sampson wasn’t sure how long he had blacked out but when he came to, he found himself laying on his couch. The television was still on, the sounds of the baseball announcers filling the apartment. His head felt like it was twice its normal size and his vision swam as he moved it to the side.

  His attackers were still here. Golden Boy sat calmly on the Igloo cooler Sampson used as a coffee table while Gabe paced frantically between the galley kitchen and the bathroom.

  Sampson tried to rise off the couch but all he could do was groan loudly as pain sliced through his head telling him he wasn’t getting vertical anytime soon.

  This caught their attention and Gabe stopped pacing while Golden Boy stood up and came to stand over him.

  “What do you want?” Sampson choked out.

  “You hurt someone we care about,” Golden Boy told him.

  “Just kill me and get it over with.”

  “No you need to absolve yourself of your crimes,” Golden Boy said before reaching out to hold his head still. “Look at me, Sampson. You are going to go to sleep and then tomorrow morning, you are going to go volunteer to build schools and hospitals in impoverished countries. You will never take any money for any help you give to anyone. You will never hurt another person. You are going to spend the rest of your life dedicated to helping the less fortunate.”