by Kira Brady
LOVE IN THE SHADOWS
He could do this for her. He could make her forget. He could run her ragged until she didn’t remember her own name, squeeze every last drop of passion and pain from her body, leave her languid as sea kelp washed upon the shore.
He wanted to.
He wanted to be the white knight that swept her off her capable feet, the man she turned to when the storm thundered.
She ground herself against him. Her hands tangled in his hair. Her teeth clamped down on his lip hard enough to draw blood. It would heal her, and she took it as her right. The darkness raged up inside him, all semblance of control thrown over for a moment as his primitive self demanded he take what was offered and drive himself into her sweet bliss.
She sucked his tongue into her mouth. He saw stars.
But his civilized part heard the sorrow behind her moans. And his civilized part felt the shaking of her limbs and tasted the desperation in her kiss. No man was a saint, him least of all, but civilization depended on man controlling his instincts. Without that fierce self-restraint he was no better than Kingu.
Leif waited a beat for his blood to heal her wounds, and then he softly disengaged. He pressed his forehead to hers. Her heavy breathing bordered on sobs. His forearms supported her weight, while his fingers swept small, soothing circles across her back.
“It will be okay,” he whispered.
The tension slid out of her like a body giving up the ghost. She slipped her legs from around his hips to touch the ground. She fell into his embrace, and he rested his cheek on the top of her head. He held her as she cried.
Books by Kira Brady
Hearts of Fire: A Deadglass Novella
Hearts of Darkness
Hearts of Shadow
Hearts of Chaos
(coming February 2014)
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
Hearts of Shadow
A Deadglass Novel
KIRA BRADY
ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
LOVE IN THE SHADOWS
Also by
Title Page
Dedication
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Copyright Page
To Ryan and J,
who put the “happy” in “happily ever after”
and
to Joy,
who is a ray of California sunshine in my grey Seattle skies
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book was made possible by all the wonderful people who helped watch my new baby so that I could write. Thanks to Prince Charming, aka Mr. Kira, for being a constant source of support and inspiration. Thanks to Joy for being a kickass critique partner and friend. Thanks to the Cherry Plotters for their plotting assistance, and to Joy and Marni for talking me through the tangles. Thank you to Teresa Grasseschi, whose beautiful illustrations brought Deadglass Seattle to life.
This book is a work of fiction. It was inspired by my beloved Seattle, but the names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of my imagination or used fictitiously. There are no cliffs in Ballard. Last time I checked, there were no dragons either. But wouldn’t it be fun if there were?
I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld,
I will smash the door posts, and leave the doors flat down,
and will let the dead go up to eat the living!
And the dead will outnumber the living!
—The goddess Ishtar, from the Epic of Gilgamesh: Tablet VI
Chapter 1
Leif Asgard looked up when the blood slave slipped into the crowded council chamber. Hidden in the back of the mob, the slight figure blended with the shadows in a black sweatshirt. A few blue bangs stuck out from beneath the hood. Leif could pinpoint the kid with his eyes closed. No one else noticed. But Leif did, because he felt the ring on his finger softly thrum. It was his brother’s ring, and Leif couldn’t figure out how to get the damned thing off.
One more thing to curse Sven for. Worse, his brother had the balls to die and leave Leif to this madness. Six months since the Unraveling. Six months since the world turned upside down. Six months since all hell had broken loose, literally, and brought down the civilization he had come to depend on.
Six months since Sven had died and left Leif shackled at the reins of this runaway circus train.
From his seat at the defendant’s gate, Leif watched Admiral Jameson ranting across the room. In his mind he turned the sound off like an old silent movie. He was tired of listening, tired of having to defend himself and his kind, tired of having to prove his right to exist when some moments he didn’t even know if he believed it himself.
Admiral Jameson wore his navy uniform like a shield. Frayed about the collar and threadbare in some places, it was a nostalgic symbol of authority in the once great United States of America. The fallen government had few spokesmen left. Those who chose to fill the void were frightened, bullheaded, and incredibly paranoid. Jameson pointed his gavel at Leif, and Leif tuned back in. “—let me remind you, sir, that you are under oath. Do you mean to say you have never killed?”
Leif didn’t think anyone could survive two hundred years without shedding blood, but the human admiral was having difficulty wrapping his head around the idea of immortality. There was any number of honorable reasons for killing in the course of his two centuries. There had been revolutions, riots, duels. Insults that couldn’t be borne. Revenge. Justice. But Leif refused to be tried for past deeds in this laughable shoestring mockery of a court, judged by a mob of terrified mortals.
He wouldn’t die for his brother’s sins either.
“Dragons are not killers,” Leif said, “any more than the lion on the Serengeti is a killer. A predator, yes, but man is also at the top of the food chain.”
“Humans don’t harvest souls!” Jameson shouted, and the mob in the council audience murmured its agreement. Leif could almost imagine them with pitchforks, right out of Shelley’s tale. Time might progress, but humans stayed as ignorant and xenophobic as ever. Zetian had promised him this would be an easy council meeting, but it had turned into a trial.
“But you kill to eat,” Leif said. “The imbibing of souls doesn’t require the death of the donor. Think of it as a blood transfusion.”
“You steal—”
“Our donors are willing.” At least his were. “And this really isn’t the point of contention, is it? Humans could choose to be vegetarians, but most of you don’t. For a Dreki to choose not to eat souls would be suicide.”
Tiamat blight him. He’d told Zetian this was a mistake. She sat on one side of the long council bench separated from the Kivati by Jameson and his fellow human representatives. It made a pretty tableau: two shape-shifting races forced to play nice beneath the terrified watch of the humans. Everyone had pulled together to help put the world back to rights after the Unraveling. Leif h
ad left the political wrangling to Zetian, because she was experienced in this bullshit. Astrid Zetian had served Sven’s interests on the Seattle City Council for four decades, right here in this room beneath the blithely ignorant noses of the humans. Since the Unraveling, she’d stopped dying her hair grey. She wasn’t pretending to be human anymore. None of them were.
Leif didn’t have Sven’s silver tongue or Zetian’s slippery morals. He shouldn’t be here debating his people’s right to live when he could be doing real work in his laboratory. He was a scientist, not a politician, and he was a damned good one. The Unraveling had unleashed a massive electromagnetic pulse from the Land of the Dead, which had fried the Aether. The Aether could no longer hold an electric charge. There were people dying in the streets. People cold and hungry without jobs, without the skills needed to live in a world without electricity, without shelter from the wraiths. Leif could help those people, but not here. He needed to get back to work inventing tools that could make a difference.
“Your kind put us into this situation,” Jameson accused.
“Not my kind. Not the Drekar.” Sven might have set up the fall of the Gate, but a Kivati man pulled the trigger. “Please stop lumping all supernatural races into the same group—”
“You are all killers!” Jameson shouted.
“Please.” Emory Corbette, the leader of the Kivati, was elegant in a coal-black three-piece suit, silver rings in his ears. His ebony hair brushed his straight shoulders. A thin circle of violet—the tell of all Kivati shape-shifters—ringed his jet-black eyes. A vein ticked in his temple. His people were an ancient race who could shift into a totem animal: Thunderbird, Crow, Wolf, Bear, Fox, and the like. Corbette’s totem was the Raven, and his sharp beak of a nose gave him away. He raised his hand, and a silent wave of Aether licked through the room, quieting tempers, easing the rabid murmurs of the crowd. “This is unproductive. We are all here to help rebuild civilization. We have the same goal. The new Regent is not his brother.”
Thank Tiamat for that, Leif thought. But what if he was? He’d felt the darkness swirling in the empty space where his soul should have been. He could easily follow it down and get lost somewhere between despair and madness. It happened to all Drekar eventually. But Sven had always seemed so sane.
Corbette rapped his silver-tipped cane on the banister. Since the Unraveling, everything about the Kivati leader was sharper, crueler. “As a scientist, Leif Asgard was building steam and coal-powered technology in its heyday. He is an invaluable resource for reviving our technological capabilities and building a new world. Even if the Drekar deserve to be exterminated”—and his tone said they did—“we can’t afford to lose his skills.”
Leif granted Corbette a tight smile. After more than a century of bloodshed between their two races, he was hesitant to trust Corbette. Leif didn’t want to be the Regent, and he had good reason. His people still needed a wartime leader, and it would never be him. Dragons might have survived the apocalypse better than most, given their thick hides and imperviousness to fire, but how many would want to live on in this barren new world? Their treasure hoards lay beneath miles of collapsed rubble and dirt. Their once-clear skies were constantly grey with thick volcanic ash. They needed someone to rally behind. A Machiavellian leader who could wield fear to keep them in line.
Not Leif.
Zetian finally decided to intervene. About damned time. She rose. With her black hair undyed, she didn’t look a day over twenty-five, though she’d seen the fall of Genghis Khan.
Act charming and a little clueless, the elder Dreki had coached him. Humans don’t trust anyone smarter than them.
She should be the one standing behind the defendant’s gate answering questions, not Leif.
“Admiral, Lord Raven, gracious members of the council.” Her smile caught their attention. Gorgeous like all dragonkind, she had the cat eyes of her Mongol father and the fair skin of her Norse mother. Few could resist her charm, even before she opened her mouth. “The Drekar bring many invaluable resources to the council. The Regent, in particular, is almost finished restoring the Seattle Gas Works so that we may have functioning gas to light our city.”
Drekar and Kivati burned low on their stores of luminous gas. The humans had none. This was a project to aid all three races.
Out of the spotlight for a moment, Leif spared a glance for the blood slave. The invisible tether burned across the room like a live wire.
“Regent?” Zetian called his attention back to the damned meeting. “Why don’t you share your progress on this project with the council. I’m sure they will understand how generously we put our resources toward the good of the whole.”
“Right.” He shuffled his notes. This was why Zetian had insisted he come. She wanted him to be the face of the Drekar. She needed him to explain the technical details of his project, not that Jameson would care. Leif could smell a ruse as good as the next fellow. But she wore him down until he agreed. She could be as bad as Sven. “The Gas Works is an old coal gasification plant built in 1906 to create luminous gas for houses and streetlights. Though it was decommissioned in the 1950s, I’ve spent the last six months restoring it. Corbette has reopened his coal mine at Ravensdale.” He nodded to Corbette, who acknowledged the fragile partnership with an answering nod. This was where the project got sticky. The city needed light. The Kivati had the coal; Leif had the factory. Both sides expected a knife in the back at any moment.
Another human on the council, the charismatic and fanatical prophet-minister Edmund Marks, raised his hand. Marks had uncannily predicted the Unraveling one day before it happened and had since then developed a fierce following of those who believed the destruction was heaven’s wrath. A fire-and-brimstone preacher, he’d earned a seat on the council because his flock was as violent as it was numerous. His militant arm, the Mark of Cain, was made up of nothing more than organized thugs, but in a city without a police force, they had quickly become celebrated as justice dealers. They would protect anyone as long as he was human. “And where do you expect to put this gas? Who gets it first?”
“The old Victorian mansions on Capitol Hill and Queen Anne make the most sense. Many of them were wired for both gas and electric, as the victor in the gas/electric battle had yet to emerge at the time they were built. I’ve placed those houses at the top of the list for renovation.”
“And how many humans live in those mansions?” Marks asked.
“Ah.” Leif hesitated. He’d walked right into that trap. “Retrofitting regular houses for gas will take time.”
The mob, who was mostly made up of Marks’s rabid followers, hissed.
“Resources for mankind first!” someone yelled.
“Send Satan’s minions back to hell!” another shouted.
Leif did his best not to roll his eyes. He sent Zetian a pleading glare. She raised her eyebrows a fraction. She wasn’t going to take over and save this thing. Damn the woman. “First we need to get the Gas Works back into commission, then we can identify the most suitable buildings.” He raised his voice to be heard over the crowd. “I need resources and man power to finish the job.”
“What about wraiths?” a woman called.
“I don’t think a few ghosts should be an insurmountable obstacle to retrofitting the—”
The mob started throwing things. More anger. More anti-supernatural hatemongering. The tide had definitely turned. After six months of working together, the survivors needed someone to blame. Leif made a convenient scapegoat.
“What about Kingu?” the woman shouted over the crowd.
“Please,” Leif said. “Please hear me out. Light will help. Secure shelter out of the darkness—”
“Resources should be used for training human civilians,” the woman called.
“We don’t need more armed civilians,” Jameson growled. He banged his gavel, but no one minded. “And if you’re worried about demons, talk to Marks here.” He jerked his gavel at the reverend. “We’ve got more important
things to discuss. Moving on!”
Marks zeroed in on the speaker, and his handsome face broke into a sympathetic smile. He bent to whisper something to the grizzled admiral. Leif turned in his seat to locate the woman. It was the blood slave. She was still half hidden in the crowd, still hiding behind her black hood and hunched posture. He wouldn’t let a coward derail his project. “Show yourself,” he ordered. The bond between them cracked like a whip.
She jerked forward and threw back her hood. He was startled to find such a delicate face: a heart-shaped chin framed by long, blue-black hair. Coral lips, a slash of anger across her smooth skin. Short, sooty lashes above almond eyes. Those eyes sparked with hatred.
Interesting. In black jeans and a baggy sweatshirt, hunched shoulders and a scowl, she looked like a skinny punk kid. Leif would never have given her a second glance on the street. Perhaps that was her intent.
On his finger, Sven’s ring hummed. Leif wondered what his brother had used her for. She looked too small to be trained as a fighter. Perhaps an assassin or thief? He tried to keep his mind from exploring other possibilities. The words “pleasure slave” rose unbidden to his brain.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
“Safety,” she said and clapped her hand over her mouth.
Admiral Jameson rose. “What do you think we’re doing? We need to control the real, flesh-and-blood threats, not ghosts or devils or spiritual woo-hoo. You got questions about King Whatever-his-name-is? Take it up with Marks on Sunday. He’s in charge of the spiritual side of this endeavor.”
“Kingu is real!” Her face flushed scarlet. “We must train citizen soldiers to recognize the aptrgangr and take them out. Establish a tougher curfew—”
“She’s right, Jameson.” Marks’s smile widened in her direction. Leif’s stomach tightened. The girl was pretty, and Marks could charm the panties off a nun. Leif might not want Sven’s blood slaves, but he’d shoot Marks before he’d let any woman in his protection fall under the reverend’s spell.
