King Of Shadows: The Shadowcrown Duet

by Kay Elle Parker

  The demon gaped at her. “How the fuck do you—”

  “I know many things now, you b-bad b-boy.” Fuck, no breath and soon to be no blood. But the sacrifice was worth it. “I know all about you, Antzel.”

  “Get her back to her quarters. I’ll make sssure ssshe doesn’t die.” Itzel snapped, her tone indicating she was less than pleased with the way the night had played out, but willing to stick to their plans. “For now. Once the brat is born, you can kill her how you wish.”

  “Slowly,” Antzel snarled. “Painfully.”

  As he came at her, Allianna lifted her hand a few inches. It was all she could manage. The cold was sweeping in, death on its heels, and she could feel parts of herself shutting down. “That’s m-my cue to leave.”

  Summoning what she’d stolen, she pushed her body past its limits long enough to draw on Kian’s magic, his strength, and open the smallest portal. She smacked the enraged demon back with a flick of bloody fingers, shadows knocking him off his feet and sending him tumbling to the back of the chamber.

  The shadows knew their mistress.

  Tipping sideways, smiling at the impossibly high scream Itzel let loose, Allianna let her weight drag her through the portal without any knowledge of where it would lead. As she tumbled in, as if they read her thoughts the shadows under her command barricaded the door behind her.

  And she fell and fell...into nothingness.

  Chapter Eight

  What a shitshow.

  Islador laid belly-down on a craggy overhang overlooking a small mortal town. It was miles away from where Allianna had taken refuge in both distance and culture. This wasn’t the city, bustling with people and activity.

  It was Nowhere.

  It was a waste of time.

  His team had his back, spread along the ridge. The portal had dumped them out a mile from here, near to where the dead scavengers had been found, and tracks led Islador here. Tracks left by demons who shouldn’t have been anywhere on this plane.

  Demons planted by that fucker Kian.

  Instincts told him the demons were down in the area below. Whether the eight remaining scavengers were there too, whether they were still alive, was another question. Isla had his doubts they would find any survivors, just as there would be none from this mission.

  It seemed Kian was keen to sacrifice several of his realm in order to keep Islador away from Allianna when she needed him most. Isla was confident his treasure would shine and blind the beast slowly killing his best friend and leader.

  “Options, sir?” One of his team murmured from the left.

  There was three hundred feet of incline between the shadow team and the beginnings of the town limits. Strewn with trees, rocks and weird little bushes that would hinder a stealthy approach. Calling a portal to drop them down there was risky and foolish—demons would sense it opening, and although he was skilled at summoning portals, Isla didn’t have the correct knowledge of the area to guarantee they’d arrive where they were supposed to.

  “Get down there in one piece. Check for survivors, watch your backs. If you need help, call for it. I’m not risking you on a suicide mission. I believe we have demons in the vicinity, so keep your eyes out and go in pairs.” Islador scanned the hillside for any obvious traps. “Let’s get this done, I want to get home.”

  The orders hummed down the line. He’d doubled his usual team of soldiers, a solid unit of sixteen of his best Shadow warriors. Knowing he was walking into a potentially fatal trap, Islador had chosen carefully in the brief time Kian had given him, dismissing Kian’s handpicked team and replacing it with his own trusted men.

  He shrugged his shoulder, tempted to scratch at the fucking bite Kian had left as it itched, but eyes were on him and he was loath to draw attention to it. So he stood slowly, pleased his men followed his lead. With a jerk of his hand, his team followed him off the ledge without hesitation, and as nimble as mountain goats slipped and skidded their way toward whatever waited.

  They were nearly at the bottom when the smell hit Isla’s nose like a rotten fist. Blood and gore, some fresh, some really not. It hung over the town like a veil and told him several things.

  One, there were no survivors here. Mortal or shadow. Anything living was either demonic or standing beside him waiting to discover what carnage Kian had organized for Islador’s benefit.

  Two, from the smell of the place, the town had been like this for a few days, maybe a week. Which meant any remaining demons were likely starving and would be a nightmare to handle, and that Kian had set this chain of events into motion before Allianna came home.

  Three, he was well and truly fucked.

  “Stay together,” he commanded, changing tactics before they set another foot toward the fresh graveyard. “No more than six feet away from another team member. This isn’t sitting right.”

  “Death sleeps here,” one of the unit’s younger members spoke up. “We go in there, boss, we ain’t coming out.”

  Isla nodded. “That’s a risk. Anyone who doesn’t want to stick with the team can stay here and wait for us to get back. Frankly, I thought I’d picked a unit with spine, balls and dicks long enough to decapitate someone,” he said with a shake of his head. “Anyone who remains will have their reassignment papers the day we get back to the realm.”

  “Wait, what? We either walk into a rotting town we can smell from a mile away and screams death or we lose our jobs? What the hell?”

  “Either do your job and support the team relying on you to have their backs as they have yours, or you aren’t part of the team.” Islador set steel into his voice and added a challenging grunt at the end. The young soldier didn’t realize his time under Islador’s command was already in jeopardy. “You’re a soldier, boy. You follow orders or you die. Hell, if you follow orders, there’s a chance you’ll die. This isn’t a life for a pussy.”

  “Sir, I see movement.” As one, sixteen shadow soldiers turned in the direction indicated by one of Isla’s more experienced men, and Isla felt the thrill of the hunt sweep him up and wash him away.

  The outside perimeter of town was a ring of presumably abandoned homes. Windows were boarded, some doors had been barred, and most of the houses had holes in the outside walls like rat trails. The perfect warren for an ambush, and if movement was spotted, whatever waited for them was luring them deeper into the maze.

  Islador cast his eye over his men. Most he’d known all their lives, had a hand in some if not all their training to become the finest defense system the Shadow realm had to offer. The realm was little league compared to the big guns—Heaven, Hell and Purgatory were definitely big guns in this world—but it wasn’t to be dismissed as an easily conquered empire.

  The Shadow realm had teeth.

  “We go in, we clear this shit out, and we go home. No fucking about. Something moves, kill it.” He just couldn’t shift the itch between his shoulder blades, and that sent his system onto high alert. “You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t trust you with this; remember that. You’ve been trained for this.”

  They ran, keeping low and to the deep pools of shadows that grew the further the sun went down. Another element that would be both hindrance and help. Isla preferred to see what he was running into before he did so.

  They cut between houses, covering ground quickly and easily, following the ever-deepening stench of rotting flesh. It was that trail they hunted, weaving through properties and deserted businesses, until Islador realized they were almost in the center of the ruins.

  “Fuck me,” someone breathed.

  “That’s not natural,” said another.

  Islador hiked his fist in the air, signaling his unit to stop, and could only swallow sickly at the sight in front of him. If Kian was in any way responsible for this...there would be a mutiny within the realm, and Isla would not be standing behind the fallen Lord as he’d always promised he would.

  Isla would take Kian’s head himself.

  Eight scavengers were scattered, litera
lly, on a section of grass that had once been green. Now it was a slick sea of red and black, dotted with the limbs, torsos and heads of foragers who had been sent on a fool’s mission. Worse, they were joined by a horde of human bodies in various stages of decomposition and consumption.

  Something had been feeding off the dead mortals for some time, stripping meat from bones and brains from skulls.

  It was a massacre, and Islador knew it was one designed for one purpose. Unfortunately for him, it had worked, and he was stuck in the middle of an ambush with a team that didn’t know what was coming.

  “This isn’t a random attack.” Achlid, one of Isla’s best trained and deadliest warriors, sidled up beside him and muttered. “This is well-organized, Islador. The dead have been fed upon, both shadow and mortal. Demons are behind this, and if I’m not mistaken, using the scent of the rotting to disguise themselves from us.” The veteran warrior’s eyes never stopped scanning the area. “If we don’t move now and get out of here, we’ll be nothing but bloody smears on the ground.”

  The ground rumbled beneath their feet. One solid thud that rippled shockwaves out like an earthquake. A few seconds later, another one. Another, another.

  The demon emerged from between two houses, striding steadily toward the gathering of shadow warriors without any apparent need to rush. Black as night, a good twelve feet tall and half of that wide, it resembled a giant carved from onyx. Muscles bulged and, as it moved, its joints licked and spit flame.

  “Shit, I’ve never seen one that big,” Achlid mused. “Male. Seventh Circle of Hell judging by the size and bulk of it. A golem that monstrous won’t be an easy conquest, Isla.”

  “Is it possible with sixteen of us?”

  Achlid shrugged a shoulder. “If you had sixteen of me and you, boss, I’d say yes. Yes, it would be possible. But seeing as three of your chosen have just pissed themselves in fear and one’s a vibrant shade of green, I think it’s safe to say we’re royally fucked.”

  The golem stomped through its feeding ground, one huge foot landing on a discarded mortal body and pulverizing it to fetid mush with a stomach-knotting pop. Putrid remains spewed over the ground in a six-foot area and sent the horrible scent of death wafting closer in a fresh wave.

  It snagged a corpse from a pile, wrenching a leg from the body and chomping on it with enough gusto that Islador sensed half his team backing swiftly away from the beast. He didn’t blame them; if he didn’t know the foul creature had been called here to deal with him, Isla would have been ushering his team far away from this place.

  But Kian was responsible for this, and Islador was too well-trained in cleaning up the Lord’s substantial messes, especially of late. It would be irresponsible and downright criminal to leave a demon of this magnitude wandering around the mortal plane wreaking this level of death and destruction.

  Using the thigh bone to pick out its bloody teeth, the golem tossed the rest of the body to one side and showed a full rack of disgustingly sharp and bloody fangs. “Can I offer you something to eat?”

  Islador blinked in surprise. Having not had anything to do with the demonic breed, he didn’t realize they were capable of speech. He’d always assumed they were just gigantic, mindless clumps of rock soldered together into a killing machine.

  Behind him, one of his team threw up loudly.

  “I wouldn’t run,” the golem commented casually. “I’m faster than I look.”

  “We have no intention of running. We want to know what you’re doing here and who sent you to do...this.” Islador gestured to the carnage around them. “Demons on the mortal plane is a breach of the treaty. Especially when something like this happens.”

  “This? Oh, this wasn’t me. Well, not all of it.” The golem’s stony face made cracking noises as it tried to frown. “The ones that look like you, they were already here when I was shoved through the portal from hell. Several demons from my realm had already slaughtered them and the residents of this place before they forced me through.”

  Achlid scowled. “Forced through?”

  The golem nodded. “I was captured and held prisoner in one of the lower circles of hell. Starved, beaten. When I was desperate, on my knees, a necromancer appeared in my cell and offered me a chance to be free and feast if I did one thing for her.”

  “Go on.”

  “She wanted me to kill a high-ranking Shadow warrior, one close to the Lord of Shadows or whatever he calls himself these days. Wanted him dead, in pieces. In return, I’d get all the food I could eat and be allowed back home as an honored fighter.” The golem’s lips twisted. “Seeing as you and your friends here have arrived, I’m guessing one of you is the one I’m supposed to kill.”

  Islador sighed. “That would be me, I’m thinking.”

  “Hmm. Can’t see why they’d want a little thing like you dead.”

  He couldn’t help it, he laughed. Compared to the golem, he was indeed a little thing, but unfortunately, he knew why they needed him dead and buried. “You got a name, big guy?”

  The golem beamed and said something completely unintelligible in what sounded like two boulders smashing together in different tones. Apparently, the big lump was thrilled to be spoken to like a person.

  “Didn’t catch a word of that,” Isla said with a chuckle. “How about we call you Dhur?” He thought he’d heard a vowel sound in the golem’s recitation of his name that resembled Dhur.

  “Dhur. Dhur.” The golem grinned. “I like that. Yes, I like that a lot.”

  Islador waved his team back with a subtle gesture. He didn’t want them catching in the line of fire if his newfound friend decided to act on his orders without warning. “I have a proposition for you, Dhur. It involves a queen, a realm, and a war that could benefit greatly from help from a strapping young golem such as yourself.”

  If the bastard wasn’t black as night, Isla would have sworn Dhur blushed from head to chest. Pride puffed up the huge chest, and a sense of purpose took over the beast. “Young, I am not, but I thank you for the thought. This queen, is she pretty?”

  Isla thought of his treasure, his pretty Allianna. He knew his lips curved in a soft, dopey smile and didn’t give a fuck. His thoughts of her were his own, and his cock throbbed with the knowledge his seed had anointed her long before Kian’s could. “Allianna is beautiful, inside and out, Dhur. There is no other worthy of wearing the Shadow Crown.”

  The golem cocked his head. “The Shadow warrior in love with his queen? Is that helpful or a hindrance?”

  The goddamn rock was smarter than Islador gave him credit for. “I hope it’s helpful. There’s more than enough hindrances in our way as it is.”

  Dhur grunted, came forward with bone-shaking steps. “The necromancer told me I could go home, shadow warrior. Back to my people, my world, in exchange for your life. What can you give me?”

  His life was in the balance. Isla could only speak the truth.

  “First, if you trust the necromancer, if you honestly believe she will honor her word and send you home, kill me. Here and now. I won’t fight you, and my men won’t attempt to stop you.”

  “Islador!” Achlid snapped sharply.

  Isla lifted his hand for silence. “That choice is yours to make, Dhur.”

  Black eyes regarded him carefully, almost warily. Then the golem turned his head and glanced around the bloody area that had probably once been a friendly neighborhood, where everyone spoke to each other, crime was minimal, and everyone had a barbeque cooking on a Sunday. “I believe she would leave me here. An eradication crew would be dispatched to kill me, and I would be the demon who broke the plane treaty.”

  Yes, Isla thought sympathetically. The big rock was smarter than everyone gave him credit for. “Join us. I am the highest-ranking warrior in the Shadow realm, and I hold the ear of the Lord of Shadows,” he said as though that meant anything, “and the heart of the queen. Live in the Shadow realm until the war is won, and then decide what you want. If you still want to go home, we will
make sure you arrive there safe and well. If you like the Shadow realm, you’ll always be welcome with us.”

  The golem sighed, a forlorn sound. “I don’t think the Shadow people will like me. I eat a lot and I’m not exactly stealthy.”

  Risking his limbs, Isla walked up to the towering beast and set his hand on the solid arm. It was warm like flesh yet held the substance and sheen on the rock Dhur was made from. “Shadows are everyone’s friend, Dhur. Regardless of size, stealth, breed, shadows protect the ones who need it. Feeding you? No problem. The realm welcomes you, Dhur.”

  Islador held out his hand and grimaced as Dhur’s eclipsed it. The golem’s hand was three times the size of his and could have crushed it beyond recognition with one wrong squeeze.

  “Would be nice to have friends,” Dhur told him, his features wistful. “Being alone in that cell, then left out here with just these dead bodies...company would be really nice.”

  And this conversation was really fucking strange. Relief at not having to fight for his life swamped him as the bite on his shoulder burned as though acid had been poured over the raw flesh. He jolted, hissed in a breath as Kian’s apoplectic fury filled him from head to toe.

  The Lord was supremely fucked off.

  Ignoring the pull of Kian’s call through the mark, Islador turned to face his team. A quick count revealed four had made a run for it, and he wasn’t looking forward to doling out the punishment. Shoving that aside for later, he pointed to the group huddled further back as they considered making a break for it.

  “You lot there. Start gathering bodies and parts. I want that pile behind me turning into a pyre. Dismantle what you can from the houses for firewood. We don’t leave a fucking trace of what’s gone on here.” They looked sick at the thought, but Islador had done worse clean-ups in his years. He pointed to the other group. “Start setting houses alight from the outside in. Leave us a firebreak. Raze this hellhole to the ground, not a trace left.”