Shadow Thief (Flirting with Monsters Book 1)

by Eva Chase

  As I tugged him along the crowded aisle, he leaned close to me. His warm breath tickled my ear. “There are so many things here—and each array is so different from the others! Are they really all being sold? What were those objects with the numbers and the ticking?”

  “Clocks,” I said, scanning the shoppers and stalls around us. “They’re for telling time. And yep, pretty much everything here is on offer—they’d probably even sell the tables if someone put up the cash.”

  “Telling time,” Snap repeated in a puzzled tone.

  “Like, how long it’s been during the day. It took us an hour to get here on the bus.”

  “Ah! That would be good to keep track of.” He peered back over his shoulder at the booth, so avidly I half expected him to bound back over there and grab one for himself. I guessed shadowkind didn’t worry much about the passage of hours—or days or sometimes even years—while they went about their business in their own realm. From the way Auntie Luna had described it when I’d badgered her for information, things there didn’t work in ways mortal senses understood.

  The best I can describe it is that it’s like a vast dark cave, one you’d never reach the walls or back of, she’d said. You’re aware of who and what’s around you, but everything feels somewhat… flat. You could almost say it’s like a dream, one interaction and another bleeding into each other without much logic to it.

  Do you miss it? I’d asked her, and she’d laughed and said, Not while I can be here with you. But after what Snap had gleaned from her glittery shoes, I wasn’t sure how true that was. No matter how flat and random the shadow realm was, how could you not miss the place where you came to be?

  She would have loved this market. When I was a kid, she’d drag me off to garage sales and church bazaars and the like: anyplace where you never knew what you might stumble on that could be bought for not much money at all—not that she ever used real money when her illusionary magic could transform a few pieces of blank paper into a payment. She might even have gotten her fairy dust shoes at one of those places.

  By the time I’d hit my teens, all I’d seen was a bunch of junk. I hadn’t been to a market like this in years. So far, I hadn’t spotted anything to make me think shadowkind other than the three who’d come with me had ever passed through.

  Snap’s slim fingers encircled my forearm with a gentle squeeze. “What are those for?” he murmured, his eyes almost round.

  He was staring at a rack of bikes and—if you can believe it—unicycles in the corner of the market we’d just reached. The man behind the rack motioned to a kid I figured was his, who hopped up on a small unicycle and showed off her skills pedaling back and forth, her body swaying over the seat. Somehow Snap’s eyes managed to grow even larger.

  “Most people don’t use those anymore,” I said. “Not the things with one wheel, anyway. The two-wheeled ones are for getting around, like buses and cars, only they don’t go as fast.”

  “Why use them, then?” Snap said as I ushered him onward.

  “Well, speed isn’t everything. You don’t need any fuel to make them go, which saves money, and they’re good exercise to keep your body in shape. And you don’t need a license, so there’s a lot less hassle and paperwork.”

  “Paperwork.” His puzzled tone had come back.

  I elbowed him playfully. “Believe me, you don’t want to get into that. Come on, Thorn and Ruse are leaving us behind.”

  The other two had only made it about three booths ahead of us, but Snap took the warning with all seriousness. He darted between the other shoppers to reach them, faster than I could match. Then he stopped in his tracks, faced with a stall offering stacks of gleaming honey jars.

  The woman behind the table held out a little plastic spoon. “Want a sample?”

  Snap accepted the offering as if he wasn’t quite sure how he’d gotten so lucky. He carefully dipped the spoon into his mouth so his forked tongue could stay hidden. Oh, boy.

  If I’d thought I’d seen his face lit up with joy before, it was nothing compared to the expression I saw now. His eyes outright sparkled. He glanced over at me, not just reveling in the sweetness but wanting to share it, and my heart skipped a beat.

  Oh, boy, indeed. That sensation wasn’t just the awe I’d felt seeing his full beauty. Nope, the giddy tingle that had shot through me had at least as much carnal desire in it too. What would it be like to taste that honey off those godly lips? To experience his divine eagerness in all sorts of other ways?

  I shook the giddiness and the questions off as quickly as they’d come. This wasn’t the time for it. But when I dragged my gaze away from Snap, it caught Ruse’s. He was watching me with a knowing smirk.

  I gave him a light punch as I caught up with him. “Shut up.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” the incubus said, all innocence other than that damned smirk.

  “You were thinking it very loudly.”

  Ruse tucked his arm around my waist as if we were some kind of couple. The slide of his hand across my back left me tingling all over again.

  “It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he said under his breath. “The boy’s got something special. If I swung in that direction, I’d be angling to get him into my bed too.”

  I resisted the urge to kick him as a follow-up to the punch. “Did you miss the part about shutting up?” What if Snap overheard? Would he know what the hell we were talking about? I could only imagine trying to deal with those sorts of questions.

  As far as I’d been able to determine, sex wasn’t really a thing in the shadow realm. Shadowkind emerged from the ether, or whatever it was, rather than being born. The cubi kind had to venture into the mortal realm to sate their hunger. I’d never seen anything like a carnal longing in Snap’s demeanor. He probably had no idea that kind of pleasure was even possible.

  How ecstatic would he look when he discovered it?

  Nope, nope, not chugging along with that train of thought right now. But I did let myself smile as Snap rejoined us, exclaiming over the spoonful of honey. His joyful sense of wonder might be catching.

  Maybe places like this weren’t all junk. I shouldn’t let my former teenage cynicism color how I looked at it now. There was a sort of magic to the possible treasures you could stumble on—even more so when it was all brand new to you.

  I spent most of my life dealing with paranormal creatures from an otherworldly realm. I had a pet miniature dragon, by all that was holy. I really ought to revel in that magic a little more myself, in between the difficult bits.

  Thorn had marched deeper into the crowd. He doubled back just outside the doorway to the inner market.

  “Did you spot something?” I asked.

  His expression was slightly more grave than usual. I was learning to read the Thorn range of emotions, from vaguely discomforted (his happiest) through to “the apocalypse is nigh” (his most severe, I was assuming in the hopes of never seeing it).

  “Not any sign that we were seeking,” he said. “But I have a sense that a man several paces behind you has started following us.”

  I restrained myself from glancing back. Giving away that we’d noticed a potential tail was an amateur’s mistake. “How sure are you? Everyone’s kind of moving in the same direction along the stalls.”

  Thorn’s frown deepened a tad more. “My instincts are well honed. I will observe more closely.”

  He headed off before I could say anything else. I glanced at Ruse. “Do you think we should get out of here?”

  The incubus shrugged. “It’s not as though anyone stalking us could have realized what we’re looking for, since we haven’t found any trace of it yet. I haven’t picked up any ill intent toward us from anyone we’ve come near. And our disguises are firmly in place.” He tweaked his cap. “I think we’re fine. Let’s keep going and see what they do next.”

  That sounded like a reasonable enough plan. Especially since while we’d been distracted, Snap had already wandered ahead into the sprawling build
ing that contained the other half of the market. I hustled to reach him before he became so overwhelmed by amazement he forgot to tone it down to reasonably acceptable levels.

  Somehow he managed to be equally fascinated by old leather jackets and the artwork on retro video game cases. But we kept him moving, studying the stalls as well as the walls and ceiling of the building around them. We’d made it up and down two of the four aisles when Thorn returned.

  “Have you sufficiently defended our honor?” Ruse asked him.

  Thorn glowered at him, but there wasn’t much conviction to it. “The one I thought was following us went in a different direction and left.”

  “Ah. So either he’s very bad at this whole following thing, or he wasn’t interested in us in the first place.”

  “I might have misread the situation,” Thorn admitted. “But I think it’s equally likely someone else was monitoring us, and I simply attributed that awareness to the wrong target.”

  I scanned the crowd. “Do you feel like we’re being tracked now?”

  He paused, his gaze making a similar trajectory across the market. “I’m not sure. Not strongly enough to narrow down the source, in any case.”

  Ruse patted him on the arm. “That, my friend, is called ‘paranoia.’”

  The remark earned him a whole-hearted glower. Before they could get into a real squabble, I nudged them both. “Come on. We’re going to lose Snap at this rate. Let’s just get through the rest of the market.”

  My expectations had already been low. By the time we emerged from the market building’s back door, they’d bottomed out. Even Snap’s high spirits flagged as he took in our expressions.

  “This wasn’t the right place?” he said.

  He was the one who’d given us the name. I couldn’t bring myself to completely nix any usefulness he’d felt. “It could be that the sword-star bunch only used it the one time to pass Omen on to someone else or to get a different vehicle to transport him. It just doesn’t look as if anyone with shadowkind connections has a regular presence here.”

  “I will—” Thorn started, and seemed to catch himself. He frowned, his gaze settling on me and jerking away again. “I’ll endeavor to bring on a shadowkind or two willing to survey this location across the next few days to confirm that conclusion.”

  I suspected he’d been going to say that he would keep an eye on the market but then remembered his commitment to watch over me. It was hard to argue with him about that when he hadn’t outright said it, though.

  “You’d better let me do the smooth-talking,” Ruse said. “That’s my job here, after all. I’m sure I can find a willing candidate.” As we meandered back toward the bus stop, he slipped his hand into his pocket. “And our expedition wasn’t totally fruitless. For the lady.”

  He held out his hand to me with a little bow, his tone an obvious mockery of Thorn’s formal courtesy. A gold chain with a pendant dangled from his fingers: a pendant in the shape of a curled dragon, its one visible eye a glinting ruby.

  “Given your choice of pet, I thought you might appreciate it,” he said, grinning.

  It was a charming enough gesture that my chest fluttered—but also completely unacceptable. I admired the necklace for a moment longer and then tucked the pendant back into his palm. “You stole that, didn’t you?”

  “I liberated it from its display rack.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Stolen goods don’t make a great gift, FYI. You can’t go around just taking whatever you want.” A decency you couldn’t count on any shadowkind recognizing.

  “You lifted some pretty trinkets from our collector,” he pointed out.

  I hadn’t realized he’d noticed that. That didn’t change my answer, though. “It’s not the same thing. The collector had money coming out of his ass, and he was using it in horrible ways. The people who set up shop in that market—most of them are barely making ends meet. And even if they’re doing all right, they don’t deserve to be robbed. Take it back.”

  Ruse let out a little huff, but his eyes still gleamed with good humor. “As the lady requires.” He stepped toward the trees beside the sidewalk and wisped away into the shadows to do so.

  Snap had cocked his head. “Can mortals really produce money out of their—”

  “Just an expression,” I said quickly. “Don’t worry about it.” Especially when we had so many other things to worry about. I couldn’t help studying the street around us in case Thorn’s possibly imagined follower had trailed us out here.

  No one I saw appeared to be paying any attention to us at all, other than a teenage girl who openly ogled both Thorn and Snap as she sauntered past. I could hardly blame her for that.

  Well, our next course of action had already been decided. I exhaled, making a silent plea to the fates that today wouldn’t be a total loss. “We’ve still got the bar tonight. Jade is a better bet than the market was anyway.”

  11

  Sorsha

  I wouldn’t have called Jade’s Fountain exactly posh, but it did have a vibe you needed to dress to match if you didn’t want to stick out like a total rube. Inventive but sophisticated was probably the best description. I didn’t get dolled up very often, but over the years I’d picked up a few suitable dresses for my nights on the town with Vivi.

  For this evening, I pulled on the forest-green one that set off my hair—and my collarbone with its square neckline. The geometric element was repeated in the black buckle of the dress’s wide belt and the cut-out pattern in the bottom few inches of the knee-length skirt. Flashes of my thighs in their silky black tights showed through those peepholes as I turned in front of my bedroom mirror.

  Between the outfit and the makeup I’d carefully applied, toeing the line between striking and overboard, I looked a lot more sophisticated than I generally felt. Luna would have liked it, though, even if the colors weren’t the bright ones she adored. I adjusted the cap sleeves, pepping myself up with a murmured lyric: “Neat seams are laid to please. Who am I to disagree?”

  It wasn’t just Jade’s clientele this get-up would please, apparently. The moment I stepped out of the bedroom, Ruse let out an approving whistle from where he’d been hanging out by the living room doorway. “Not that I had any complaints before, but you do clean up nicely, Miss Blaze.”

  I pressed my hand to my chest in a mock swoon, although the appreciation in his voice had given me a quiver of pleasure too. “Be still my beating heart.”

  The incubus ambled closer. I could almost feel his eyes roving over me like a whisper of a caress. “I think it’s much more fun to speed that pulse up. I hope you’ll be down for some fun alongside all your hard work. You’ll deserve it.”

  “Not at the bar,” I reminded him with a jab of my finger. “You’re staying put.” I’d insisted that my entourage let me navigate this part of the investigation alone. They might be able to pass for mortal among people who weren’t in the know, but there were bound to be at least a few shadowkind—including Jade herself, of course—enjoying a night out at the bar.

  And Vivi. If she found out about my new roommates, I’d never keep her out of the perilous situation I’d stumbled into.

  Ruse winked. “I’ll just have to wait up for you then.”

  Thorn came out of the kitchen, where he seemed to have declared the one chair his official domain, to see what the fuss was about. His gaze skimmed over me and shifted to the incubus.

  “She isn’t going out to make merry or invite intimate relations,” he chided. “This is about finding—and rescuing—Omen.”

  Ruse rolled his eyes. “Forgive me, my lord, for daring to distract the fine maiden from her quest. I’ll just have to find another young lady to bestow my affections on.” He sauntered back to the living room and swept Pickle’s mannequin into his arms.

  “You look absolutely exquisite tonight, my darling,” he said. “No one could possibly compare. May I have this dance?”

  I raised my hand to my mouth to cover a giggle. The inc
ubus dipped the headless, armless figure low, filling his voice with exaggerated passion. “How can I resist you? And yet—how can I possibly kiss you when you have no mouth? My heart breaks!”

  My giggle turned into a full-out laugh. Thorn’s scowl deepened. “You’re ridiculous,” he informed Ruse, and turned back to me. “And you do look as if you’ve fashioned yourself to draw attention.”

  My amusement dampened. I folded my arms over my chest. “I don’t see how what I’m wearing could be a problem, but maybe you should remember that I know a lot more about what I’m walking into than you do. This is how people dress at Jade’s. People will trust me more if I look like I belong there instead of like I’m some clueless newbie.”

  Thorn let out a grunt that was barely conciliatory. He cut his gaze toward Ruse before returning it to me. “I suppose it’s for the best that this one won’t be along to divert you, then.”

  Something in his tone pricked at me. He hadn’t said it in so many words, hadn’t given any indication before now that he knew what Ruse and I had gotten up to in the privacy of my bedroom, but he knew what the incubus was. It wouldn’t have been hard for him to guess. I was abruptly certain that I’d heard disapproval of our prior diversions under that statement.

  As if there was something wrong with me getting a little enjoyment out of the company I’d been forced to accept. While I was running around the city and beyond it trying to solve their mystery for them, on top of that.

  I let my lips curve into a smirk I intended to rival Ruse’s. “Maybe I should bring you along. You could obviously use some practice in loosening up. Constantly going around like you’ve just put your best friend in the ground doesn’t help us find your boss any faster, you know.”

  Now I was getting the full Thorn glower. “Do you have a problem with my comportment, m’lady?” he asked stiffly.

  “Yeah, actually, I do. Considering all the favors you’re asking of me, the least you could do is act like you’re at least a little happy for the help.”