by Callie Rose
“All because we fucked?” I say, my heart beating fast in my chest.
Frost and Malix shift back into their human forms as I speak. Gray smoke filters away, like the trail of a smoker finishing their cigarette in a darkened room.
Then all three of them surround me.
Naked.
My heart races for reasons much, much more devastating than my initial fear over their strange shadow forms. I have to carefully keep my eyes up, focus on their hard expressions, their smooth chests rising and falling from their breaths.
If I look any further south, I have a feeling I won’t be able to handle it. Heat and desire already fill every corner of my body.
“Yeah,” I say, keeping my voice pointedly bland. “We fucked in a shitty hotel room in Montana. And we did it because I went to the bar looking to get laid. Kian came in for a drink, and he was exactly the candidate I was looking for.”
I look at the man in question then, holding his gaze as I continue. “We had sex, and the mate bond presented itself. But the next day, we went our separate ways. I wasn’t looking for a mate, and neither was he. Just because fate says something has to happen doesn’t mean you have to go along with it. Because sometimes fate is fucking wrong.”
Kian’s gold-ringed eyes glitter in the darkening room. I’m still holding his gaze, challenging him, looking him right in the eye so he knows without a doubt I’m not broken by what happened between us. Maybe I was back then, for a while, but that’s—in his words—ancient history.
I finish by echoing his earlier statement, forcing the words from my mouth. “It meant nothing.”
A long moment of silence settles over the room. The sun is almost gone outside the window, casting us in shadow. I want to turn on a lamp, shine some light in here to chase away the doom and gloom, but I don’t want to move either. As far as I know, I’m the only thing keeping them from shifting back to those horrific forms and tearing this place apart.
Malix stalks away toward his backpack in the corner and bends to dig around for some clothes. I steal a glance at his body, my breath hitching in my throat. His ass is tighter and rounder than the best Grecian god statue in the world. His cheeks taper into thick thighs and strong calves beneath, and his muscular torso above.
I feel an intense, deep-seated urge to sink my teeth into that expanse of dark brown skin.
The moment the thought fills my mind, I whirl away from the three of them and focus on taking a few deep breaths. The room was drenched in their scents just a while ago, but something about their shadow wolf forms made all scent vanish, leaving the air fresh. Filled with tension, but fresh.
I stand still, facing the window as I listen to the three of them moving about the room as they dress. The two men’s response to finding out about my night with Kian seems like an overreaction. I don’t understand it. Hell, I don’t understand anything about the lingering tension in the room or what’s really going on between the three of them. And quite frankly, I don’t want to. It’s none of my business.
My business is to make sure that before all of this is said and done, the three of them are six feet under.
It’s almost fully dark out by now, and I stare out the window with my arms crossed under my breasts. A twin pair of headlights passes by in the parking lot outside, illuminating the room. As the two beams drift across me, they light up the ceiling and the wall.
Except for a splotch of darkness in the corner that the light can’t seem to penetrate at all.
A shadow.
And not a natural one.
I barely manage to scream out, “Frost!” before the living shadow lunges right for me.
Chapter 14
I leap aside and, thankfully, land on the mattress instead of the ground. The shadow narrowly misses me, and the air around my head displaces from its passage, whipping my hair around my face. I bounce precariously on the edge of the bed and nearly fall off onto the floor, though I manage to catch myself on the blankets.
All three men shout in surprise, but I’m too busy trying to get my limbs back in the proper order to see what’s happening.
Finally, I manage to lever up onto my hands and knees and glance wildly around for the shadow, ready to leap into action if it comes for me. Then I freeze.
Fuck.
There’s not just one shadow this time. There are several.
Kian’s on his knees next to the fallen television, reaching into his pack. He brandishes a long dagger, slicing out at the shadow that narrowly missed me. Across the room, Frost calls out his name, and Kian throws the knife to him. The blade twists and flashes silver in the dim light, but Frost catches it easily by the hilt and turns on two more shadows darting along the wall. On the other side of the bed near the bathroom, Malix is using another shadow like a punching bag.
Kian extracts a second knife from his bag—dear god, how many knives does one man need?—and jabs at the shadow in front of him. He curses when it darts under the television stand, then snaps, “Amora! Get the light!”
It takes me a split second to realize he’s said my name. I bound off the edge of the mattress and reach for the nineties era lamp hanging on the wall between the beds.
I don’t make it. Something slams into me, and I pitch sideways with an oof. I land on my hip on the second bed, then bounce off onto the floor. My side hits hard, and my cheek slams into the carpet.
Great, now I’m going to get E.coli, I think, and if the situation weren’t so damn dire, I’d laugh. I’m already poisoned, so why not add a deadly bacterial virus? I could die twice.
Shoving against the floor with both hands, I ignore the gritty, crumbly texture of the carpet and glance around. Kian’s still battling his shadow, while Frost and Malix both have one of their own. Three shadows in the dark, three knives slashing.
So what hit me?
I probe the tender area on my forehead as I climb to my feet. The blow felt like a water balloon that didn’t break—squishy, but firm and capable of knocking down a grown woman.
This time, I manage to get my fingers on the cheap plastic switch before I get hit again.
I’m ready for it though. I throw up an arm, batting the thing away from me before it can fully slam into me. It’s a shadow—a fourth shadow—and it skitters across the bed then disappears on the other side of the mattress. I take advantage of its distraction and slam the light on with a little more force than necessary.
The lamp illuminates the room, such as it is, casting dull amber light into all the corners. It’s the first time I’ve seen the shadows in the light, and the effect is even more eerie because my brain knows they should vanish—but they don’t.
The fourth shadow appears from nowhere and launches at me again. I whip my knife out of the holster at my hip and lash out at the dark shape. Even though I don’t miss, the blade slices right through the shadow without doing a bit of damage.
“Son of a bitch!” I duck another darting attack, then do a tuck and roll away from the beds toward where the feral shifters are fighting their shadows.
I roll to my knees by Frost’s feet and leap up in time to see his knife take off a hunk of the shadow. The piece falls away and immediately turns to smoke that fades into the air. The shadow darts out of reach, but doesn’t seem too bothered that it just lost a chunk of itself.
Malix yells, “Amora!”
His voice is so hard that I almost don’t recognize it. I instinctually duck, and Malix’s knife jabs out over my head, slicing through a shadow that had been only centimeters from taking me down. The shadow hisses and slides away, trailing smoke.
Just like back in Oscura. The three of them can land blows on the shadows, but I can’t.
I straighten, the idea dredging up a deep sense of horror inside me.
What would happen if more of these shadows were unleashed on the world? They could decimate whole cities, and nobody—not soldiers, not police, not even a redneck with a gun—could stop them.
Kian’s attention is on the sh
adow in front of him, so he doesn’t see the shadow looming behind him. I can’t do fuck all about stopping the thing, so I yell, “Kian! Behind you!”
He whirls, surprisingly graceful for such a burly, muscular man, and his knife slices through the approaching shadow, while his other hand punches out at the first. Both shadows dart away, and the knifed one trails fading smoke from its injury.
I feel useless. I move around the room, calling shots like I’m a fucking referee. The fourth shadow does its best to take me down, and it’s certainly quick, but I’m quicker. It balances its attacks between me and the feral shifters. I yell a name, a direction, anything to warn them it’s coming, and they lash out.
It works, for a time, until two of the shadows decide to get smarter than they should be.
One whips toward Frost’s head, and I say his name, but the moment he turns to battle the oncoming threat, the first shadow whips around his face like a cloak. Frost drops his knife, and his hands go to the shadow squeezing his face.
Horrified, I rush up to him and try to get a grip on the monster. Even though the one back in Oscura was able to grab me, and poison me, I can’t get a grip on this one. My hands go right through the shadow and glance off Frost’s face while he gasps for air.
“Kian!” I scream. “Help!”
In the split second after my scream, the light goes out.
Kian’s at my side in an instant, his gaze raking over me like he expects me to be hurt. I rake at Frost’s face again, my heart in my throat because I can feel that he can’t breathe. It’s like I’m with him, feeling his lack of air, and even though he’s not outwardly terrified, I am.
Kian latches on to the shadow and yanks. It pulls a few inches away from Frost’s face, and Frost sucks in a deep breath. Then Kian slices the knife through the tendril, severing it in half. Before the shadow can dart away and lick its wounds, Frost latches on to it, slams it to the television stand, and skewers it.
It vanishes in a puff of smoke.
“Well,” I grunt breathlessly. “One down.”
From near the door, Malix calls, “Uh, guys?”
The remaining shadows have him cornered.
Shit.
Moving almost like a single unit, all three of us lunge across the room to his aid. The shadows swirl around us like storm clouds, and I duck and twist away from them while the men fight. Without the light illuminating the room, it’s harder to see them, and even harder to keep from being brained by one of them as they dodge and attack.
In the midst of the chaos, I take a blow to the head that knocks me off my feet.
Lights flicker in my vision, and I sail backward, hitting the table. The wobbly piece of shit slips out from beneath me, and I fall, banging my head on the edge before slumping blearily to the floor.
A shadow looms over me, blocking out the ambient streetlights coming in through the window overhead. I struggle to see it, blinking rapidly as I try to make the world come into focus again. I can’t even seem to pull enough air in my lungs to yell for help.
Suddenly, over the grunting and cursing from the guys, I hear a new voice.
A soft, intensely creepy whisper.
A whisper that feels like it’s more inside my head than in the real world.
“Leave her,” the voice hisses.
The shadow hovering over me undulates in what can only be irritation. An answering whisper, higher pitched than the first, replies, “But she is so bright.”
The first whisper grows harder. “The witch wants her alive. He must receive his payment. Leave her.”
The witch wants her alive. His payment.
Goddammit. That motherfucking Comic-Con piece of shit.
He sold us out.
Frost appears from nowhere like a shooting star. His pale hair flutters around his hard face as he launches at the shadow above me. I watch, equal parts horrified and mesmerized, as he slams into the shadow and both of them crash through the window.
I throw my arms up and squeeze my eyes shut against the deluge of broken glass. Shards rain down on me, and Kian shouts something I don’t hear through my surprise. A moment later, the door flings open and a gust of hot, sandy wind flows past me.
I sit up, swaying a little as my equilibrium balances, and watch as the door slams shut behind Kian and Malix.
Well, they were smart enough to use the door instead of climbing out the window after him.
I grab my knife from under the table where it landed when I fell, then lurch to my feet to follow them.
The moon is high in a crystal clear night sky dotted by hundreds of stars. A gray wash of light splashes over the feral shifters as they fight with the shadows in the parking lot.
Frost is on the sidewalk just outside our room as smoke filters away from him. His knife blade is still jammed against the concrete where he defeated the shadow who almost killed me, and the blade is broken from how hard he stabbed the thing. He tosses his broken weapon aside and climbs to his feet, then casts me a single glance that I can’t read before he sprints into the parking lot to join his brothers.
Kian ducks a blow from a shadow, but not quick enough, and he slams into an SUV. The alarm begins to blare, and the headlights start to flash right into someone’s motel room. But he’s back in motion almost immediately, undeterred by the noise. Frost joins him—weaponless this time—but punches out at the shadow with his fists.
They’re fighting harder now, and fury seems to cloak all three of them. Malix slams a shadow into a small, rusted out coupe, caving in the hood. Kian kicks a shadow into one of the shoddy landscaped trees, snapping the trunk in two. Frost runs interference for both of them, and I just stand on the sidewalk holding my useless fucking knife.
Doors begin to open up and down the motel block. Further down, where the ambient glow of the lobby spills onto the asphalt, I see the proprietor emerge in his casual khakis and Oxford, a cell phone pressed to his ear.
Great. Probably calling the cops.
Malix takes out the third shadow with his dagger, breaking a car window in the process. A moment later, Frost and Kian corner the last shadow against the building and slice it to bits too.
The resulting silence seems far too loud.
Kian straightens, still clutching his dagger as he glances around at the gawking civilians.
“Get your things,” he tells the rest of us sharply. “We’re leaving.”
“Leaving to go where?” I ask as he passes me on his way back into the motel room.
He halts and levels his gold-ringed eyes on me. There’s hot anger burning in his gaze. I think for a second that it’s fury toward me, until he speaks again. “To pay Erik a visit.”
Frost appears at my side and places his cool hand on my shoulder. “You heard what the shadows said. The witch sent them after us. With you as the prize.”
I shudder at the reminder. Not just of the shadows’ creepy hissing voices, but at the fact that Erik the mad witch has machinations on me. I don’t know what the fuck he wants to do with me, but it definitely can’t be anything good.
“You heard them speak too?” I clarify.
Frost nods. His expression is ice cold.
I remember the way he leapt out of the darkness and carried the shadow away from me. He saved my life. Although, maybe we’re square, given he might have suffocated beneath his own shadow if I hadn’t yelled for help.
Malix limps up to us, his violet eyes flashing in the night. “I hear sirens.”
Kian nods. “We need to go. Now. Time to make the witch pay.”
Chapter 15
The dirt road that leads to Erik’s rundown shack is even darker in the night. A few of the sad little houses lining the strip have a light or two gleaming inside, but for the most part, the desert is silent and black as midnight.
Kian leaves the road for a patch of sparse grass next to a seemingly unoccupied house—considering its door is hanging off the hinges—and the rest of us park beside him. Instead of riding our bikes down the r
oad and announcing our presence like we did earlier in the day, we walk the rest of the way.
Intense heat from the day is fading as we walk down the dirt road, and the strange chill of night is settling in. The weather here is so extreme—one moment, sunburn, the next hypothermia. But I can imagine the allure of living somewhere so secluded. So isolated.
Peace. The lack of city lights ruining the stars or pollution in the air.
It reminds me a bit of home. Only drier. More brown.
A light burns in one of Erik’s front windows like a beacon, growing larger as we head toward it. We stay off the road, slinking through the desert shadows. Even though Frost’s hair flashes in the moonlight, the three of them are preternaturally silent.
As a shifter, I’m silent too, but they’re on a whole new level.
I can’t help but wonder what the hell else is different about them.
When we reach Erik’s yard, Kian points to Frost and Malix, then points to the side of the house, before rotating his finger. A signal for them to go around the back of the house, I’m guessing, because they immediately peel away from us into the darkness.
Kian catches my gaze. The moonlight turns the gold in his eyes to a molten silver. He lifts his chin, indicating I should follow him.
It’s weird. I’ve hated him for years. I’ve wished I could rip his head off his gorgeous body since the moment he left me in that hotel bed.
But here I am. Following his orders like he’s my fucking alpha or something.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
I tiptoe across the rickety wooden boards of Erik’s front porch on Kian’s heels. A television plays inside—something squeaky and high-pitched, like a cartoon. Not that I’m surprised, given how fucking weird the guy is for a witch.
Kian pauses for a moment, his eyes going blank. I stare up at him, confused; the look on his face is almost like he’s listening to something I can’t hear. I get the strangest feeling he’s communicating in some way with Frost and Malix, but that can’t be. Mind-speak is only for when we’re in wolf form.
