“I’ll be back this afternoon. Today is pancake day.” Viktoria laughed. “Like they’d let you forget.”
He frowned. Pancake day? Was he a stay-at-home dad? His kids ate food? Did he drive a minivan and attend play dates while Viktoria went out, half-clothed, to work?
His Dragă’s playful, happy sparkle morphed into a troubled expression he didn’t like. “You don’t know how to make pancakes, do you?”
It sounded like an accusation.
Jael shook his head, not sure how to hold on to this reality.
“Dream!” his Dragă shouted in a tone that promised vengeance. Was she the Assassin now?
The baby vanished, along with the twins. They weren’t real, but he wished they were, and their disappearance left gaping holes in his soul. His swords thudded to the floor, where he expected to see his shattered heart.
Viktoria aimed a murderous glare at him and disappeared. What had he done?
She knew he was a vampire. She should know he liked a chase. Running was not the way to get rid of him. If he’d had her blood, he could track her anywhere in the real world. He’d bitten her in their shared dream, though. Could he find her that way in this dream world?
He scooped his swords off the floor and sheathed them, then closed his eyes and focused on his Dragă. There. A pull to the left.
Jael sprinted through dreams, wishes and imagined realities, following the pull and vanilla scent until she stopped.
His Dragă sat at a small, candle-lit table covered with white linen in a fancy restaurant. He took the empty chair across from her.
Her menu required intense concentration. He studied her. “Shouldn’t we have done this part before we had three kids?”
She slapped the leather menu on the table with a snap. “None of that was real. This is the work of my sister, Dream.”
“Does that mean you didn’t want any of what happened between us?” Hadn’t it been her dream? He hadn’t asked to be here, although now that the dream was gone, he wanted it all back. The home. The happy wife. The children. It was safe to want things in dreams. Mages couldn’t take them that way.
But before she answered, she vanished, and this time he couldn’t track her
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
VIKTORIA
“HE’S KIND OF CUTE. Are you going to keep him? You’d better not let Mother see him!”
Her sister’s teasing voice wrenched Viktoria from the fantasy and swept Lurky away, leaving her standing in a room of white. Disliking the all white palette, Viktoria moved the dream to her house, where the furniture was dark and comfortable and a fire created shadows.
“Memory.” Viktoria turned to face her. “I didn’t reach for you.”
“I’m hurt, Shadow. You never call. You never write.” Memory crossed her arms over her head as she stretched full length on a black leather sofa. “You’re the only one allowed to be free. I wanted to make sure you’re not messing things up for the rest of us.” She narrowed her dark blue eyes. “You’re not messing it up for the rest of us over a man, are you?”
“No, of course not.” Viktoria sighed. “I know what it means for all of you. Don’t worry. I won’t fail so close to passing the test. I wanted to see if Dream could come for a short visit. One of my friends can’t wake up.”
“I’m here.” Dream appeared before them, wearing blue and white striped pajamas, a long triangular old-fashioned nightcap draped down her chest, and fuzzy slippers with rabbit ears. “Humans really wear this stuff?”
Viktoria grinned. “Not all of them.”
“Good.” Dream’s pajamas poofed into fluffy white clouds around her body. “What happened to your friend?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Viktoria admitted. “All I know is she’s asleep and can’t wake up. Can you come for a visit?”
“Mother might let me visit you.” Dream tapped her chin with a finger. “I haven’t left Pohjola in a while, willingly or otherwise, and you haven’t had any problems since she let you move out.”
That wasn’t true. Viktoria had plenty of problems, but she’d learned to solve them without help. Her sisters lived in Pohjola, where Louhi kept her daughters in ignorant bliss. They had no idea what it was like to be hungry, in actual danger, or lonely.
“I’ll come, too.” Memory sat up. “If it’s safe for two of us, it’s safe for three, and I haven’t left home in ages. There just aren't as many kidnappings as there used to be.”
“It will be nice to see you both again, but don’t tell the others, or we’ll have a riot,” Viktoria said. “Ask Mother and let me know what she says.”
“We will!” Dream winked. “Back to your sweet dreams, Shadow.”
Dream and Memory laughed as they faded away, and a black-eyed vampire once again invaded Viktoria’s dreams.
Viktoria ran, but he caught her. This time, instead of keeping the vampire at bay, her enamored and disobedient shadows twined them together. Dark tendrils supported her back as he laid her down and knelt between her knees, one of her legs propped on his shoulder. He started at her ankle and explored with his mouth in agonizing slowness, dropping kisses and gentle bites that hinted of fang onto her skin.
She wanted to feel his bite. To let him mark her and have him as hers in return. This man would be different than all the rest. He wouldn’t claim her as spoils. Her shadows adored him. They’d never go to someone not meant for her.
His black eyes darkened, and his fangs grew as his mouth traveled from her knee to the top of her inner thigh. Would she feel his fangs when his tongue was inside her? His hot breath touched her aching core just before the tip of his tongue —
“Shadow!” Dream shrieked.
Viktoria jolted and sat upright in bed. Dream’s voice hadn’t come from the sleeping world. Stumbling to the French doors, she threw them open and rushed onto the balcony. She blinked in the sunlight, then groaned and closed her eyes. Their mother was going to kill them all.
Dream and Memory sat astride an enormous black swan flapping wings rapidly as he circled over her property. Fortunately, he remained hidden from human sight on the edge of the Soul Paths he traveled.
But they hadn’t stolen just any swan.
Viktoria dropped her wards, turned, and sprinted through her house, coming out the door into the yard as the swan drifted gracefully downward to land. She put her wards back up. “What are you two thinking? You stole Mother’s Sieluluntu?”
“She won’t miss him.” Memory snorted as she slid off the swan’s back. “That woman will never need her soul bird. I’m not sure she even has a soul.”
Dream dropped to the ground beside them, patting the swan’s wing affectionately. “He wanted to get away too, and the Soul Paths were the fastest way for us to get here.”
Free of his passengers, the bird curled his long neck around Viktoria and nudged her. She stroked his head and dug her fingers in where his feathers met his beak. His eyes closed in bliss as she rubbed at that particularly itchy spot for him. “Thank you for bringing my sisters to me. The property is walled and warded all the way around. You are safe here, and no one can see you.”
He gave a contented honk and poked at the ground with his beak as he wandered around the meadow.
“You two may as well come in so I can tell you about Ember, Musette, and vampires.” Viktoria waved at the door. “But don’t blame me when Mother makes us all go home and locks us up forever.”
“Don’t even joke about that, Shadow.” Memory pointed a finger at Viktoria. “She might hear you.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ASIM
MEMORIES FOUGHT TO surface as Asim lay in the dark. After twenty years of servitude and learning how to harvest magic, he’d killed his master to reap his sigils and become a mage himself, but his master, and all the previous mages, refused to stay dead.
He’d thought the old mage trusted him, but his master hadn’t revealed that particular secret to Asim. Even after a decade as a mage, it took a constant influx of new magi
c to power the glyph to the resurrection spells the prior mages carried. It was the only one Asim never let empty, because one day he would be killed, too, and need to come back.
Something about the blonde witch Thomax had talked to, and the man with two swords the little spider saw outside the wall, stirred the past mages more than usual. They’d already been pushing to take over since Asim had drained himself to the edge of too low in order to create a secret weapon out of the gold witch. A Trojan horse, of sorts. Until the witch disappeared, along with his ability to track it.
The witches in his stable barely channeled enough magic for Asim to function. The witch at the gallery had a type of magic he wasn’t familiar with, but several of the dead mages had recognized it.
Esne.
A witch a mage could breed.
Asim was done fucking witches to get his power. They didn’t deserve the pleasure that gave them. But, if he didn’t find a new witch to drain soon, one of the old mages could kill him from the inside out and take over his body. Time to reconsider.
He let the memories in.
Yexu pushed forward. “Ten thousand years ago, the goddess Uttu was my Esne. I took its father’s body. I was a god.”
He approached a witch trying to hide in the center of its web and offered a cup of beer mixed with a fertility elixir. With the witch drunken, Yexu touched the web, a sigil glowing as he fed on the witch's magic and took control. The web ensnared it, stretching its arms and legs wide. It screamed and wept as Yexu moved over it.
The potion worked, and when he left, the witch carried his young. As a spider, he watched a goddess approach, remove his offspring from the witch, and bury them in the ground. He waited until his children grew into trees, touched with the magic of the god he inhabited, the witch, and the goddess, then devoured them.
“You had eight plants.” Niaku scoffed, fighting his way to dominance. “I kept the Jorogumo prisoner for four hundred years.”
A witch slumped in a dank cell warded to keep it trapped, even if it changed to spider form. Centuries passed. His body changed, but the witch remained the same. The potion, given daily in water, ensured the witch would be ready. During the fourth century of captivity, the witch glowed with new magic. Niaku fell on it, draining the witch of power and filling it with his seed.
Its abdomen swelled over time.
Niaku rushed into the cell, bloodied and bruised. He slashed at the witch’s belly. Hundreds of spiderlings poured out. His children.
A man with fangs and black eyes stalked into the room, one curved sword prodding the back of a young acolyte — the heir to the mage magic. The vampire closed the door behind him. Niaku fell to the second sword. Mage magic rushed for the boy. He collapsed, body seizing as mages battled for control.
Niaku emerged victorious, only to witness his children slaughtered by the Scourge, dual blades shattering delicate, newly born bodies until none remained.
The Scourge knelt next to the witch. It lived, having sealed its injury with webbing. Sheathing one sword, he lifted the witch and carried it to the door, the remaining blade aimed at Niaku.
As the door opened, realization the Scourge meant to leave Niaku here filled him with dread. Too weak to use a glyph yet, he threw himself forward, impaling himself on a scimitar as the door opened and the mage magic escaped.
Kaxas laughed. “My children by Arachnae lived.”
“It gave you only daughters.” Before Asim could identify that mage, his voice was talked over.
“I can keep my children safe,” Djieien said. “I will take their hearts and bury them.”
“You died.”
“That son of a witch, Hiawatha, only found my heart because I used his mother’s magic to hide it.”
Asim had heard enough. He pushed the squabbling mages back, muting their voices.
The blonde was no normal witch — it was a goddess, or born of one. It was Esne and belonged to the Scourge. Two reasons to take the witch.
The thought of the vampire with the matching swords stabbed a sharp pain through Asim’s head. He showed up in the memories of mage after mage, all killed, their spells and memories passed on to the next vessel over thousands of years.
Vampires. In Port Storm. Was the Scourge alone? Not likely. There was only one reason vampires would be interested in witches — they were looking for women to make into silver witches.
A shudder and a sense of dread washed over Asim. The Scourge was trying to create a witch immune to mage magic.
Asim had to get to the witch first.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
JAEL
JAEL STALKED INTO THE dungeon in a foul mood. His Dragă slipped from his grasp so effortlessly.
Mages were the reason he couldn’t have any of the things he’d experienced in that dream world. He took some comfort in the fact this was a proper dungeon, carved from grey stone, and carried with them when Soră and Selene brought the fortress from Dacia to this new land a thousand years ago. The dungeon ended up deep in the cliff under the compound. No windows and a single tunnel entrance easily blocked magic, light, and sound.
His swords sang an eager chant as he unlocked the door and let himself inside. He closed the door and leaned against it. “Ember wanted me to see how you like her gift.”
Selene and Ember somehow enhanced the magic on the manacles. Dmitri had shackled Ember with them and forced her to fight, while keeping the chain from sticking to everything.
Now, in addition to that trait, the faster whoever wore the manacles moved, the longer and heavier the chain connecting them became. Inedel struggled when Jael put the manacles on, and the chain had grown to eight feet. If a single link touched a wall, the floor, or the furniture, he remained stuck until Jael returned to move the chain.
A single torch high on the wall lit Inedel’s small cell, and metal clinked as the mage stirred on his cot. Clad only in shorts, he lay on his back, cupped hands on his chest overflowing with the chain linking the cuffs around his wrists. He sneered. “I have nothing to say. Just kill me.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? But I won’t be freeing your magic into the world.” Jael tutted. “Mages don’t kill their guests quickly. In fact, you insist they remain with you for years. Why would we do any less for you? We wouldn’t want the world to think vampires are inhospitable hosts.” He unsheathed his swords and spun them in his hands as he paced. Their eagerness amplified his mood. If he let them have their way, the mage could end up dead like he wished.
Jael eyed Inedel’s cut and bruised face — wounds Ember gave him when she’d beaten him with the whip he used on her. Stryx healed her skin without a single reminder of the damage done. No vampire would be doing that for the mage.
Scimitars in hand, the hundreds, maybe thousands, of white glyphs that covered Inedel’s body became visible to Jael. They swarmed over the mage’s skin in layers.
“Although if we are ever ready for you to die, Ember wants to fight me for which of us gets to kill you.”
Inedel’s white eyes glittered. “It gets above its station. No witch could harm me. Unless it’s the silver witch I feel. If the red witch had silver magic, I would have sensed that before. Only one escaped us in Dacia. You have it here, don’t you? Riordan’s witch. This is where it fled.”
The way mages and their minions referred to witches as it infuriated Jael, although he couldn’t be sure how much was his and how much the swords’. He tamped it back, but only just. Inedel had worked out Selene was here. That meant Jael would work even harder to make sure Inedel didn’t die. If his magic was freed from this place, the knowledge Selene lived would travel, too. “Time to pay your rent, mage.”
“I can’t say anything, Scourge. I’m spelled against speaking of the others. Because of you.”
“So, the other mages in your twisted little head told you who I am.” Jael pushed away from the door.
The mage shuddered. “All this time I thought you were a phantom. A stupid ghost story.”
; Jael grinned. “I’ve killed thousands of your kind and your minions. And if you know why you’re spelled against me, you know I have a lot of experience judging for myself how much a mage has to say. You never have enough faith in your own knowledge. I find it’s not so much you don’t know anything more, as I just haven’t asked the right questions yet. You and I have reminisced about the past, and so far what you say has checked out, but now I want to talk about the future.”
Inedel’s head fell back to the cot. “I have no future.”
“It’s not much of one, I’ll give you that. Would you prefer not to see it?” Jael leapt, spinning in the air as he brought his swords down toward Inedel’s eyes. The medallions blazed, their silver light blinding in the cell’s darkness.
The mage screamed and tried to dodge, overturning the cot and throwing his hands up to shield his face. The chain grew and slipped out of his grasp, part of it attaching to the wall behind and above his head, another part of it to the floor, pulling tight and stopping him mid-motion. Arms stuck, he contorted in a half-risen position, unable to sit, lay down or stand, with one arm stretched towards the floor and the other pinned over his head.
“Well, that’s going to make sleeping awkward.” Jael cocked his head. “You know what to do if you want me to move that chain.” He leaned against a wall and watched, amused, as the mage scrambled to get his knees under him, trying to find a comfortable position. “Tell me, mage, of things that have not happened yet. When is the next auction of witches to take place, and where?”
White magic flared over Inedel’s skin. “I can’t!”
Jael sighed. “I did try asking nicely.” The hilts of his swords warmed in his hands as he stepped close, the magic in his blades eager to cut. He pointed them at the mage, moving one over his torso, the other over his left arm. “I just saw that spell. Where did it go?” he murmured. “Where is it?”
Viktoria's Shadow: Jael Page 7
