A Cast of Shadows: An Araneae Nation Story

by Hailey Edwards

  “Despite rumors to the contrary,” I assured him, “I know no tricks.”

  “Leave her be.” Vaughn stared at the alpha. “I doubt they cross the veil. Animals avoid it the same as we do. Their presence is a good omen. Consider their song a parting gift from the pack.”

  “I’ll consider it what I like.” Torrance glared at Mana. “If I find out this was your doing…”

  “Believe what you want.” I gritted my teeth. “Small minds can’t be changed.”

  Torrance slapped me across the face before I could react, and my lip burst.

  “You struck her.” Vaughn took a slow step toward Torrance. “I will kill you for that.”

  “Back off now or I’ll lop off that ring finger of yours, send it and your signet to your mother. Bet Isolde would love that.” Torrance smirked. “I know my maven would.”

  Muscle worked in Vaughn’s jaw. “Take it. I have nine more where it came from.” He swept his leg out, knocking Torrance’s legs from under him. The male hit the ground with a groan, and Vaughn knelt on his windpipe. Even with his hands cinched behind his back, Vaughn was lethal.

  “You drew first blood,” Vaughn snarled in his face. “Remember that.”

  “Get off.” Urien cuffed Vaughn upside the head and sent him sprawling onto his back.

  Wheezing, Torrance turned onto his side, shoving up onto his hands and knees. “Kill him.”

  The guards exchanged a look as my heart lurched.

  “Are you so eager to go to war with the Mimetidae?” I asked him. “Your maven has begun a battle she can’t hope to win with the Araneidae. After this, the kidnapping of Lourdes’s beloved sister a second time by your clan, she will call in all favors and enlist all her allies to destroy you.”

  A moment passed. Torrance swung his head toward me.

  “You know I’m right.” This time his clan had gone too far. “While the Mimetidae must fight for the Araneidae, those are the terms of their alliance, think how much hotter their tempers will flare after learning you not only kidnapped their ally’s second heir, but murdered their heir too?”

  “She, ah, has a point there.” Urien scratched the stubble on his cheeks.

  “Leave the decision to our maven,” Teilo chimed in. “After the grief these two have caused, I doubt Colleen would deny you the right to carve justice for your wife’s cousin from his flesh.”

  “Heed the counsel of your peers,” I said. “Your maven won’t thank you for making her an enemy in Isolde. Few are more ruthless than the Mimetidae maven, and none are bloodthirstier.”

  “Fine.” Torrance pushed to his feet and glared at Vaughn. “Pray your mother comes quickly for you. If she is a day late or one gold coin short, I will have your head for what you did today.”

  “I see no reason for us to hide behind our mavens. If you have a score to settle with me, free my hands.” Eagerness made Vaughn’s dark eyes glitter. “Let us settle our grievances here, now.”

  Blood draining from his face, Torrance said, “No. The female is right. You’re worth more to my maven alive.” He cleared his throat. “For the time being, your neck is safe. Don’t tempt fate.”

  Once Torrance had gone, and Teilo with him, I could breathe again.

  “You kept my head and neck attached for another day.” Vaughn eyed the veil. “Thank you.”

  “Repay me by not provoking Torrance again.” My nerves were already frayed as it was.

  “I will keep you safe.” Danger sharpened his voice. “No matter the price.”

  I shut my eyes, fearful of what surviving might cost us all.

  When every night is a battle for survival, love is an endangered species.

  Night Whispers

  © 2012 Alisha Rai

  ShadowLands, Book 1

  Analyst James Bennett has spent the years since humankind fell victim to the Illness living underground. Part of an elite group of survivors determined to save their race, his only interaction with the blood-drinking Shadows roaming the Earth is through surveillance technology carried by his team of search-and-rescue agents. Scarred by vicious events, he has no desire to leave the safety of his bunker for the dangerous world outside—until he recruits a tough, haunted young woman clear across the country.

  Former gang member Jules Guerrero learned two things early on: the value of loyalty and never backing down from a fight. Both of those teachings come in handy now that her job description includes protecting humans and kicking Shadow ass. But it’s hard to keep her mind strictly on her mission when all she can think about is the man whose voice keeps her sane through the depths of each dark night.

  When Jules is captured and threatened by a rogue organization even more bloodthirsty than the Shadows, James must draw on all of his courage to fuel a furious cross-country chase through the lawless land…before the Jules he loves is destroyed forever.

  Warning: Contains a hero who would fight monsters for his love, a heroine out to save the world, a treacherous wasteland, poetry as foreplay and flesh-eating enemies.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Night Whispers:

  “You’re not stupid. Not in the slightest.”

  Her smile was without humor. “Yeah, okay.”

  “You aren’t.” The certainty in his voice nearly convinced her.

  “Please. I’d almost rather go running into certain danger than head home because I’d be less lonely. If that doesn’t make me stupid, what does it make me?” She regretted the bleating, overly introspective words as soon as she uttered them.

  “Human. We’re social creatures, Jules.”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry, forget I said anything.”

  “You know I’m always here. You don’t have to be lonely.”

  So selfish: it wasn’t enough that he was on call around the clock for her, accessible at the touch of a button. She wanted to be able to reach out and tap him on the back whenever she needed him. Grab his arm. Run her fingers over his lips—

  You need to stop those fantasies, kiddo. If there had been a hope in hell that he’d fall for her the way she had for him, she’d made it even slimmer tonight with all her bleating. “I know.”

  “I didn’t know you were so unhappy.”

  “I’m not.” Why would she be unhappy? She had food in her belly and a really fulfilling job. To be unhappy would be monumentally ungrateful. It wasn’t like she deserved anything more than what she had.

  “Tell me what would make you happy.”

  You. Someone of my own. “I am happy.”

  “I’m not.”

  She blinked.

  “I should be,” he continued huskily. “But I’m not.”

  “Why not?” He had everything. Family. Friends. Sure, they lived in a bunker, but at least he lived with them.

  “For the same reason I guess anyone’s unhappy. Something’s missing.”

  She drew her knees up to her chest. “Do you know what’s missing for you?”

  He paused. “Yes.”

  “What is it? Can’t you fix it?”

  “Sometimes it’s easier to know what’s causing the void than to go about fixing it.”

  He was absolutely right—those were two entirely different beasts.

  She could, of course, tell him. Go past their constant flirtation and make it clear that somewhere along the line she’d developed feelings for her long-distance colleague.

  Like a movie, she could see a split screen in her head of the two scenarios that would result: A) he would fall to her feet in worship or B) he would rebuff her. Gently, because that was his style. She wouldn’t lose him because he had no choice but to interact with her, but she’d lose this—these late-night conversations, the thrill of flirtation, his friendship.

  The risk of B was too great to conquer the reward of A.

  “I know exactly what you mean,” she murmured. It was still dark outside, and her internal clock told her there were hours to go before travel was safe. She lay back in her bed, unsure of what else to say to her handler.
<
br />   She should hang up with him. But it felt nice to talk to him like this, in the dark, when the world was so quiet and uncertain all around her. A chill ran through her, and she wished she had a blanket. She’d been tempted to grab a comforter from one of the rooms in the house she’d broken into. They’d felt like silk and hadn’t been too dusty. Since the owners of them had probably died or been turned, Jules felt skeevy about using the belongings she found in her temporary abodes, though occasionally needs won out.

  A change of subject was called for. “You never told me what you dream about.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Quid pro quo, right? I show you mine, you show me yours? I more than showed you mine, güey.”

  “Oh. Um. I was joking.”

  “You shouldn’t throw out jokes unless you’re ready to back them up with action,” she teased. “Come on, now.”

  “Nah. I don’t dream, not really.”

  “Now who’s lying?”

  “Lots of people forget their dreams,” he protested.

  “Not you. You’re too detail oriented and aware of everything to shut yourself down at night.” No, there was something he didn’t particularly want to tell her. He was rattled, and like always, it tickled her. “Tell me. Is it unicorns? You dream about unicorns, right?”

  “Yes. Unicorns. I love ’em. They prance through my sleep on cotton-candy clouds.”

  “Or maybe you dream that you’re naked in front of a crowd and you have to recite the Gettysburg Address.”

  His voice deepened. “Occasionally, I am naked, no lie.”

  Jules licked her lips. How he could send her from despair and sadness to laughter to arousal with simple changes in pitch and tone was beyond her. “Is that right? Well now, that image is sure to haunt me.”

  “I’d worry over whether you meant that in a good way or a bad way, but since you’ve never seen me, I don’t think you can mean either.”

  “That would be cool.”

  “What?”

  “If I knew what you looked like,” she blurted out, and then felt immediately foolish.

  Christ. Could she be any more of a girl?

  He was silent. No doubt thinking of how to extricate himself from this. She opened her mouth at the same moment he spoke. “Is that…important to you?”

  “Knowing what you look like?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.” She squirmed. “I’m sorry. It’s just that you’ve been in my head for so long, I felt like… I didn’t mean to cross any lines, so please forget…”

  “No. Of course it makes sense that you would wish to see me, especially when I know what you look like.”

  “How do you know what I look like?”

  “Sometimes if I’m tuned in to you and you pass a mirror or your reflection, I catch a glimpse.”

  Oh. That certainly made her feel vulnerable, though she knew that wasn’t his intent. “I guess when I said you’re detail oriented, I wasn’t wrong, huh?”

  “Like I said, I know it’s not fair. If you want, we can try…” He hesitated. “Are you in a secure location? Can you put on your specs?”

  As secure as she would ever get, and even with the VR specs on, she could still hear fine. Mystified, she leaned over the side of the bed and pulled them out of her knapsack. They looked like plastic goggles a mad scientist might wear, with a strong rubber band that went around the back of the head to keep them from slipping off. They were black, and a cord dangling off the side plugged them into a side slot on her collar.

  “I have them. Am I training now?” She knew how to fight, but since Sanctuary had supplied her with this newfangled technology along with her collar, she’d started combat training with the virtual-reality goggles on. When she plugged it into her collar, James was able to upload virtual assailants for her to fight against.

  It felt real to her. She supposed she looked like a fool, but no one was ever around to see her, and it served to keep her reflexes sharp.

  “Not exactly. We’ve been working on something, and I want to see if it works. Put them on.”

  She slipped them over her head and plugged them into the collar, staring into the blank nothingness of the glasses. “Done.”

  “Give me a second.”

  A second was all it took. For her combat training, James usually uploaded a program that gave her a weight room backdrop. That wasn’t what she saw now. This was a pastoral scene. Green grass lay in a rolling carpet, up to a house in the distance. Weeping willows kissed the ground.

  Pretty.

  Possibly the prettiest thing she’d seen in a while. The last time she’d come across a park, the overgrown lawn and weed-choked playground had depressed the hell out of her.

  There was a moment of disorientation, and the scene became three dimensional. She wasn’t a watcher any longer, she was in it. The bed beneath her morphed into the soft grass. The chirp of birds sang in her ears, the trickle of a nearby river running merrily along.

  Not pretty. Beautiful. Christ, how long had it been since she had experienced a quiet that was peaceful instead of fraught with the silence of those who had lived and died or run away?

  She raised her hand to shade her eyes from the too-bright sun, watching as a colorful bird jumped from one branch of the tree to the next. The brush of her arm against something soft had her glancing down to find herself garbed, not in her usual rough clothes, but in a white satin halter dress with blue flowers strewn over it. Bemused, she touched the skirt. She didn’t own any dresses, and she certainly never wore white. It showed bloodstains too well.

  “Jules?”

  She didn’t jump, though the temptation was there. No one ever, ever crept up on her back. But she knew that voice, and she knew who would be standing there.

  A Cast of Shadows

  Hailey Edwards

  The strongest net is no match for destiny.

  An Araneae Nation Story

  Daraja has grown up watching her brothers journey down the river on the traditional Deinopidae rite of passage. Each returned with riches from their travels, and lovers with whom to share their lives.

  Now she has reached the age where she would strike out on her own to seek her fortune—if she were male. Instead, she is expected to sit patiently, weave her nets and wait for the river to bring a husband to her.

  Patience, however, has never been her strong suit.

  Brynmor haunts the forest surrounding the city of Cathis, his disembodied spirit inextricably bound to the wild canis roaming his lands. Until the day he stumbles across a brazen trespasser in his woods.

  Compelled to step in when the canis suspect her of poaching one of their own, Brynmor fears he has lost a piece of his ragged soul to the feisty, adventure-seeking female. And when the canis confront the real poachers, he is forced to choose which life to sacrifice. Hers…or his own.

  Warning: This book contains one heroine with a knack for weaving nets and one hero who relishes getting caught. Expect singing, some howling, ghostly shenanigans, and the start of a love that transcends death.

  eBooks are not transferable.

  They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

  11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

  Cincinnati OH 45249

  A Cast of Shadows

  Copyright © 2013 by Hailey Edwards

  ISBN: 978-1-61921-486-6

  Edited by Sasha Knight

  Cover by Kanaxa

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.


  First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: February 2013

  www.samhainpublishing.com

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  About the Author

  Look for these titles by Hailey Edwards

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