Shadow Sworn (Copper Falls Book 2)

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  She pushed down her annoyance. If he was pissed at her for being late, she really wasn’t in the mood to deal with it. Her good mood over Layla’s upcoming wedding and making her Shadow magic work was dampened. Again.

  She approached, and leaned against the side of the car, looking down at Calder.

  “Careful. You’ll get blue dust all over your clothes,” he said.

  “These are old anyway,” she said, looking down at him, at his dark blonde hair, his strong shoulders. “Sorry I’m so late. I lost track of time.”

  He just nodded.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me where I was?” she asked quietly.

  “I think maybe I don’t want to know,” he said, getting up and stalking to the other side of the car. “But I can guess who you were with.”

  She stared at him.

  “So what did he make you do this time?”

  “Who?”

  Calder rolled his eyes. “Please don’t tell me you’re trying to protect him now. I can smell him all over you.”

  “You think I was with Marshall?” she asked, dumbfounded. She felt Shadow responding to her anger, rising along with her temper, and she pushed it down.

  He didn’t answer, just ran a cloth along the opposite side of the car, though his jaw was clenched, his shoulders rigid.

  “You think I’d lie to you about being with Marshall? I’ve told you every single goddamn time he’s approached me, Calder. And it’s not him you’re smelling. It’s me, and if you actually gave two shits about me, you’d ask me how my day was instead of immediately jumping to the conclusion that I’m hiding something from you.”

  “You want to tell me what happened with Bryce?”

  “You know what happened with Bryce. You had the curse. Or did you already forget the way it scrambles your brain? If they hadn’t been goddamn shifters, they wouldn’t have known a thing. It’s not like—“ she stopped. “You know what? Stay on your side of the road tonight. I don’t need this crap right now.” She turned on her heel and stalked across the road and up her driveway. She let herself in and slammed the front door soundly behind her, locking it. She headed into the kitchen, her stomach twisting painfully. She’d managed to forget her hunger, that endless emptiness, while she’d been working with her Shadow magic — something to keep in mind, maybe. But now that she was home, she felt bone-tired from using the magic, from trying to force it to her will. From dealing with Calder and his stupid jealous bullshit. She opened the fridge, grabbed a container of yogurt and dug into it, barely in control. She finished it, tossed it aside, and pulled a bowl of grapes out.

  She couldn’t pluck them from the stems fast enough. Sometimes, she didn’t even manage to do it — she could feel the dry, chewy stems in her mouth, along with the sweet, tart juice of the grapes, and she couldn’t even make herself slow down. Within moments, the grapes were gone, and she started tearing open packages of string cheese, losing track of how many she ate.

  She had another one in her hand when she forced herself to slow down, to stop, to think. Some of her hunger was vanquished, though she knew from experience that she could easily keep going. She placed it carefully back on the shelf in the refrigerator, closed the door, then held her hands out as if signaling to herself that it was time to stop. Eyes closed, deep breaths, one after another. Instinctively, she reached for Shadow, and it responded.

  Stop fighting, it seemed to whisper in her soul.

  Sophie ignored it, but she was willing to let it fill her, let it fill the emptiness that had come with Calder’s curse. It didn’t erase the emptiness, and it didn't make her feel any less insane, but it numbed everything, like a dark veil settling over everything she was feeling.

  Sophie stood, and breathed, and let herself feel the floor beneath her feet, the warmth of her cottage around her. She could smell beeswax, the last of the dried herbs hanging from the beams in her living room. She pushed away her irritation at Calder. If he wanted to act like an ass, that was his problem.

  She opened her eyes and looked out the kitchen window, which looked out over her acreage, the small pasture, the barn, the woods beyond. Merlin was in his yard. She glanced at the clock. She had forgotten that she had two more male goats arriving later that day to keep him company, which their owners were giving up because males were a pain in the ass.

  “Obviously,” Sophie muttered. “Doesn’t even matter which species. Males are always a pain in the ass.”

  She opened the back door, breathing in the cool air. As soon as she stepped out, Merlin started bleating at her in his loud, grumpy-sounding way.

  “Hello, you ornery old man,” she greeted him. She opened the gate and stepped into his corral. She had meant to rake out the little barn where he slept. He needed new bedding, and she wanted to take a look at his hooves to see if he needed to be trimmed. He immediately came up to her and butted her hip with his head, rounded horns connecting solidly with her side.

  “Don’t be a jerk, Merlin,” Sophie muttered, pushing him away. He gave her a crabby bleat, then bounded away and started ramming the side of the barn.

  “We’ll see, old man. Maybe one of these new males will teach you some manners. Though I doubt it,” she added. She grabbed the large pitchfork and started shoveling hay out of the barn and into a large wheelbarrow. She’d add it all to her compost pile when she was done. She held out hope, now more than ever, maybe, that she’d eventually be able to grow a garden again, even with Shadow slithering through her.

  She was just returning from dumping the hay into the compost when she saw a large man walking up her driveway. Not the large man she wanted, of course, she thought to herself.

  “Sophie? Got some goats here for you,” he said. “And thank the Light you’re taking them off of my hands.”

  The words shook her to the core.

  “The Light?” she asked him, wondering why he’d said the words.

  He smiled kindly. “I knew Evie, girl. I know what your family is made of.”

  Sophie just nodded, unable to speak over the longing in her heart, longing for the Light. It hit her harder than she could have expected. She took a breath, and followed the farmer to his truck and the trailer behind it.

  Chapter Ten

  Once the farmer, Stephen, had left after shaking her hand one last time, Sophie glanced across the street to see Calder standing in his driveway, arms crossed over his chest, watching her. She barely thought before raising her middle finger toward him and turning on her heel and heading back up her driveway. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard a deep chuckle, a sound she loved more than just about any other, and she wasn’t sure whether she was relieved that he seemed to be getting over his pissiness or irritated that he wasn’t taking her anger seriously. She headed back to the corral where the goats were. They were standing there, roughly in a circle, the three of them seeming to study one another. Merlin was the largest, a deep chocolate brown. She’d been pleased to hear the names of the other two goats; apparently Stephen’s family had a sense of humor. The two pure-black goats she’d taken in were named Gandalf and Dumbledore. Her little flock of wizard goats pleased her in a stupid kind of way.

  Sophie stood and watched them a bit longer. They didn’t move, the three of them standing there in that small circle, eyes on one another. She’d expected bleating, butting, running. Posturing. There was none of that, and Sophie screwed up her face, wondering if there was something wrong with the goats Stephen had loaded off on her. After a few more minutes of watching them stand in that freakishly-still manner, she turned toward the house with a shrug. She’d check on them again later.

  When she got back into her house, her phone was ringing, and it was Layla’s number on the caller ID. She picked it up. Before she could even say a word, Layla rushed to speak.

  “I’m sorry,” Layla said. “I’m sorry, Soph. I was a jerk. I know it was the stupid curse. I don’t know what the hell came over me. I just kept getting more irritated, more angry out of nowhere as the
class went on, even though I should have been getting calmer, and then when that happened, I just lashed out like a bitch. I’m so sorry, hon.”

  Sophie took a breath. “I was about to call you and apologize. I hate that that happened. You know I’m not interested in him. I hate that the curse does that. I’ll stay away from Bryce until I —“

  “No! Screw that, Soph. You don’t have to do anything. He’s your friend, and I know you’re not into him that way, and I trust both of you. I know better. I don’t know what the deal was with me earlier. I’m sorry,” she repeated. “You have enough crap going on, and then you had me acting that way.”

  Sophie took a breath and plopped down onto her sofa. “It’s okay. Though I do wish you guys had less powerful senses of smell,” she said wryly, and Layla laughed, and Sophie felt herself lighten, just a little, relieved to hear the familiar sound from her oldest friend. “Really, it’s freaky.”

  “Well I bet it makes things interesting with Calder, though. He knows the instant you’re hot for him,” Layla said with a bit of a laugh. Sophie didn’t answer. “What’s wrong?” Layla asked after a moment.

  “I’m not talking to Calder right now.”

  “Uh oh. What did he do?” Sophie loved her friend a little more for assuming that it was Calder who did something, not Sophie or the curse making her over-react.

  “I got home later than usual. He’d already heard about the thing at yoga.”

  “Yeah, I think Bryce told him in case you were upset when you came home.”

  “Yeah. Well I was out practicing, trying to see if I could control this Shadow stuff,” Sophie said. “And I managed a few things. I was pretty happy with myself. I felt less helpless than I have in a long time.”

  “That’s good!”

  “I know. So I came home, and Calder wasn’t talking to me. Moody. I was gone a long time, and apparently I smell sorta smoky or something when I use the Shadow magic, and that’s how Marshall smells….”

  “Ugh. So he assumed you were with Marshall.”

  “Right. And that I was somehow hiding whatever I’d done with Marshall. By then I was so annoyed I didn’t even bother telling him what I was actually doing.”

  “He needs to get punched again,” Layla said, and Sophie laughed a little.

  “I mean, I can’t blame him entirely. I know this is rough on him, too.”

  “Yeah, but it’s much rougher on you and he needs to grow the hell up and give you the support you deserve.”

  “I love you. You know this, right?” Sophie asked with a laugh.

  “Of course. And I love you too, Soph. Do you want some company?”

  “Do you even need to ask?”

  Less than a half hour later, Layla and Cara were in Sophie’s living room sprawled across sofas and chairs like the old days. “Powerpuff Girls. Let’s watch em,” Cara said, pressing the button on the remote. They’d brought pizza and garlic bread, and the three of them sat and ate and watched cartoons and laughed harder than they probably should have.

  “Your goats are weird,” Cara said after coming in from the kitchen to get another Coke. “They’re just standing there staring at one another.”

  “Still?” Sophie asked. She got up and headed into the kitchen. It was after sunset, getting dark, and still her three goats stood in their little circle, exactly as they had been earlier. “What the hell?”

  “Maybe it’s a dominance thing,” Layla said, looking out the window over Sophie’s shoulder. “Whoever looks away first loses, or something like that?”

  Sophie shrugged. “Weird.”

  Talk turned to weddings and jokes about ugly bridesmaids dresses. After a while, Sophie got up to grab a tray of cookies she’d bought from the bakery in town for Calder the day before.

  “Your boyfriend keeps looking over here from his driveway,” Cara said from the living room.

  “I told him to stay on his side of the road tonight,” Sophie said, and Layla laughed. “He can look all he wants.”

  “Poor grumpy bear,” Cara said with a laugh, and Sophie rolled her eyes. They settled in again, and by the time Layla and Cara left, hugging Sophie goodbye, Sophie felt a million times better. A glance over at Calder’s house showed the light on in the living room. He’d finally left the driveway, Sophie thought with some humor. She shook her head, closed the front door, and locked it. As much as she wanted him, as much as she wanted him sleeping beside her, his strong arms around her, he needed to understand that the jealous bullshit didn’t fly with her. She understood: he knew the curse better than anyone, and what it made you want to do. But if he knew Sophie at all, he should have known that she’d never let herself fall into it. If he had that little faith in her, then he didn’t actually know a damn thing about her.

  Sophie took a quick shower, then changed into her pajamas, wrapped her hair in a towel, and headed back out into the kitchen. She glanced out the window one more time to see the goats still standing there, staring at one another.

  “Freaks,” she muttered. “What the hell kind of goats did you give me, Stephen?” She shook her head and padded over to the daybed in the living room, shutting lights off as she went.

  She was just snuggling into bed when her phone rang. She picked it up, saw Calder’s number. She looked at it for a second, then answered.

  “Hey,” he said, his deep voice warming her immediately.

  “Hey.”

  “Um. So I’m a complete asshole. Complete, total, absolute asshole, and I’m sorry. You didn’t need that shit, and I don’t even know what the hell is wrong with me. I trust you. I know better. I didn’t even stop to think that you would smell that way when you use the Shadow magic. So far, you’ve only smelled like that when he’s been around you…. And so what? I still had no excuse to act like that.”

  Sophie didn’t answer for a moment. “If this is going to work, you need to trust me.”

  “I know. I do. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me lately. I want to fight, all the time. I’m on edge, and I’m pissed off. Restless. After Layla and Cara showed up at your place, I ran as my bear for a while.”

  “Did it help?”

  “Some. But you know how it is when I shift. It makes everything more… more, you know?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And I was already pissed off, so there was still that, but more. And I was already horny, because you’re completely gorgeous when you’re pissed off, and it didn’t help with that either.”

  “Is that a hint?”

  “Maybe.”

  She didn’t answer for several moments as she tried to get her body under control at the tone in his voice. “Can you give me tonight alone? I need sleep, and I think maybe a night apart will help us both get back on more solid footing. It’s so easy to lose myself in you, Calder. I’m in a fog when we’re together.”

  “I know. It’s the same for me,” he said quietly. “It’s always been like that.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “And I love it, but I need to master myself a little. And I can’t do that when I’m wrapped up in you. We can’t spend every second together. It’s messing us up.”

  The line was silent for a few moments. “I know. We’re both independent people. And Bryce told me the other night that I’m probably driving you nuts, watching you all the time for signs that you might need me.”

  “And it can’t be good for you, either, to be waiting on edge for something to go wrong,” she said gently. “I don’t need to be saved.” And there it was, she realized. That was what had had her off-kilter with Calder the past few weeks: he was always there, waiting to save her. She’d never had that in her life, and though she’d at times wished for it, she realized she didn’t want it.

  “No, you don’t,” he said firmly. “I know that. I just keep forgetting it. I blame the fact that I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my life.” The straightforward tone of his voice warmed her, as if he was stating a fact, like water is wet or the sun is hot. She smiled a li
ttle.

  “I love you more than I ever thought it was possible to love anyone. And it means a lot that you want to protect me. But I don’t want that. And I don’t need it.”

  “Duly noted,” he said. “I’ll try to rein the caveman thing in.”

  She laughed. “Not all the time, though. I rather like the caveman at times.”

  He groaned. “You can’t say something like that after telling me I’m sleeping alone tonight.”

  “Well, keep it in mind for tomorrow night, maybe,” she said quietly.

  “Oh, I will,” he said in a low voice that sent pleasant shivers up her spine. “I love you, Sophie.”

  “I love you, too,” she answered.

  They hung up, and she rolled over and snuggled under the covers. Sleep. She needed sleep, and she rarely got enough of that when Calder was with her.

  Outside her cottage, the three goats stood in the yard, still staring one another down. Beyond, in the woods, Marshall stood, looking toward her house, the way he had every night since arriving in Copper Falls, the same way he had every night of her life through her teenage years and early twenties, watching the house she lived in. She was aware of it, at some level, but drifted off to sleep nonetheless.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sophie was at work, trying to stay away from everyone. Keeping herself away from Calder the night before she had to go to work maybe hadn’t been among her smartest ideas. Her body was going haywire, one endless void of needing, hunger, anger. She gritted her teeth and snapped her wrists, making the sheet she was laying over one of the beds on her floor snap in a satisfying way. It floated down to the bed, and she started making the bed, focusing on making neat, perfect hospital corners, smoothing the soft white sheet perfectly over the mattress.

  “Having a rough day, kitten?”

  Her hands stilled, and she closed her eyes. Marshall. This was one goddamn thing she didn’t need today. And she hated the way he used Calder’s endearment for her, twisting it, fouling it, using it in that derisive way that told her he thought it was appropriate: she was a cute, weak little thing whose claws couldn’t really hurt anyone. She hated it. Calder never said it that way, but it was already happening that, when Calder murmured it to her, she heard Marshall’s snide tone layered over it.