Pain Seeker (The New Orleans Shade Book 1)

by D. N. Hoxa

  “You are no prisoner here,” Hiss said, lowering his head on my lap before he slithered up my body, around my waist and up my back. His head came out from under my hair, right next to mine. “There is nobody here who can take anything away from you unwillingly. Why do you stay?”

  “Because I have no place else to go.” My heart broke as I spoke the words. It broke at the truth in them—so deep. So final.

  “The world is a great place—and not the only one. You can go wherever you want,” he hissed, his tongue licking my cheek every few seconds. The warmth from his body slipping into mine was the closest thing to heaven I could imagine. Slowly, I touched his smooth skin with my fingertips.

  “How?” I asked, just to keep him talking, to keep him on me for a little longer.

  “You’re living in a Shade,” he said. “The Shade is a powerful thing. More powerful than anything out there. You know this, don’t you?”

  I looked up at the ceiling with a new eye. A Shadergrit.

  I’d read about Shades all my life, but I had never been in one before. There were twenty-three of them in existence. They were creatures, guardians—Gateways to the worlds. They were giant beasts who lived on the ground and grew towns, cities, countries on their backs. Magic fueled them. It was why the fae had taken over all the Shades in Gaena—they had a lot more of it than elves did.

  To the other worlds, they were safe havens for every creature who possessed magic in their veins. They were homes, workplaces, battlegrounds—anything you needed them to be.

  “I’m in a Shade?” I whispered to the ceiling, unable to stop the train of thought that was running through my mind. Everything I’d read about Shades was coming back to me, and I only picked up the things I needed.

  Like the fact that a Shade could provide for its subjects anything they needed—in exchange for magic. Magic that I had, unlike most elves in existence.

  “You are. It’s a very powerful one, though not as big as some. You can ask it for what you need,” Hiss whispered in my ear.

  I could ask the Shade for what I needed.

  But what did I need, really?

  “I need to die,” I breathed, surprised at my own words. At yet another deep truth in them.

  “Good—so die. We all need to kill parts of ourselves every once in a while. It’s the only way we can shed old skin and evolve,” he whispered. “Because that, my dearest Pain Seeker, is the purpose of all that lives: to get better.” He laughed, and the sound was like waves moving in the ocean, deep and calming, but powerful at the same time.

  “It’s going to be over soon,” I told Hiss as I looked at the door. “My captor knows I can get out of my chains. Any moment now, he’s going to come in here and finish me.” After two long days.

  I wished I’d known I was in a Shade before, though. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt as alone as I did until now.

  “Ah, yes. Maceno Iarnea, the Winter prince. I have heard a great deal about him today,” Hiss said and moved around my neck and to the other side of my face, resting his jaw on my shoulder. I kept on playing with his scales. It was very relaxing for whatever reason.

  “Maceno,” I whispered to taste the name on my tongue.

  “His people call him Mace. They hate him as much as they fear him.”

  My fingers stopped on his skin. “Who hates him?”

  “His people, Pain Seeker,” Hiss said, like I’d asked a ridiculous question.

  But it was his answer that was ridiculous.

  “Why would they? They’re all fae.” And fae hated elves, not one another.

  “The species doesn’t matter. Fear breeds hate in every kind—and your prince is no exception to this rule. But he is an outcast.”

  I absorbed every word he said like it was the most important thing I would ever hear. Where did this curiosity about my captor come from?

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means he was banished from his Court by his father, the King.” Hiss moved away from my shoulder and licked my cheek once more. “I don’t know why, as I wasn’t able to listen properly, but he was cast away from his home, given these men to command, and sent as far away from his kingdom as possible.”

  All the pain in the fae. Was this where it came from?

  “Tell me more,” I asked Hiss and continued to slide my fingers down his scales as he moved from one side of my face to the other, licking my cheeks. I didn’t realize he was warming me with it until I felt them flushing.

  “He has never lost a battle in his life. He has never been defeated, by elf or fae. Before angering his father, he, out of seven sons, was the most favored to inherit the throne when the King decides to retire. Or dies,” Hiss continued. “He’s difficult to speak to, likes to keep to himself, and works his men harder than most commanders all day.”

  “And where did you hear this?”

  “I’ve spent the day wandering around the Shade, listening to whispers. I am a collector of wisdom, and I have collected a lot of it today,” Hiss said, his tongue now licking my dry lips.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “For you, Pain Seeker. Information is food for the brain. Without it, we wither.”

  “But why?” Why did he think it mattered if I withered or not, when I was going to die soon?

  “Because you showed me kindness in a world driven by cruelty. You gave me your food when you were starving. You gave me your gift without asking for anything in return. I’ve lived a long life and know how to appreciate small acts of kindness, for they can only be done by great people.”

  I smiled, watching all of his ten eyes right in front of mine. “Do great people allow themselves to be fooled and poisoned by their own people, and chained to a wall by their sworn enemies, Hiss?”

  “No,” he said, and again, he laughed that wavy sound. “But great people don’t hold others responsible for their misfortunes. They don’t see justice in treating others the same way they were treated. They don’t kill, even when they can, even when they know they should, in the name of the greatest gift we all have—life,” Hiss said, and slowly, he began to unwrap himself from around me. I felt empty where his presence had been a second ago. “To nine of my eyes, that you haven’t killed the prince yet is akin to insanity, but the tenth sees through it. Past it.” He stopped in front of me, his body wrapped in a bundle, his face right in front of mine.

  “You make little sense to me,” I said honestly. “But I’m glad you found me, Hiss. Even if you are not real.”

  “Sleep now, Pain Seeker. Tomorrow comes another day,” he said, the same second his black wings sprouted from his sides, and he jumped right over my head.

  I watched, mesmerized, as he disappeared once more in the darkness of the night, leaving me alone. I wondered, was this all just a dream? Was I at home, in my room, on my bed, sleeping?

  Hope sparked in my chest. If it was true, now was the time to wake up. I would slip into sleep and hope to wake up in my bed, surrounded by my people.

  I lay down on the stone floor, the warmth Hiss had given me already fading away.

  But I no longer felt completely alone. I was in a Shade.

  Pressing my hand against the floor, I released some of my magic, as if I were trying to search for pain in the stone. Warmth, I asked the Shade. Please, give me warmth.

  It could have been my imagination, but deep in my mind I felt a presence, a connection I had never felt before. It was like a shadow slipping through my thoughts, analyzing them, collecting them.

  The stone floor heated up. I didn’t question it. I didn’t allow myself to feel any different, for fear it would slip away. If this was my imagination, all that mattered was that I wasn’t cold anymore.

  Then, I slept.

  Chapter 8

  Mace

  The smell of sweat and ale made me wary of breathing through my nose. I looked at the cup in my hand and wondered why it didn’t do for me what it did for my soldiers.

  “It’s inevitable. If we don’t stop th
em, they’re going to set up camp closer to the faelands than ever,” Trinam reminded me. “We can’t allow that.”

  “And we won’t,” I reassured him.

  He was nervous, and I understood. After the meeting with the Autumn Court earlier today, it was all he’d been able to talk about. Now that he was drunk, it had only gotten worse.

  “So, what’s the plan? How many are we taking with? All of them?” Chastin asked. As much as I hated to share meals with him, he sat with me around the table anyway. He was my second-in-command, and he took advantage of that most of the time.

  I nodded. “All of them. The battalion stationed east will be there, too.” My brother and his two thousand men.

  Trinam flinched. “I see,” he breathed.

  He was right to be more nervous. Out of all my brothers, Ethonas was the worst. He was the reason why I was here in the first place. The eldest of us, my father listened to him the most, and his ideas surpassed even the king’s when it came to brutality and punishments.

  At first, when I disobeyed my father, my brother Ethonas demanded my head. For whatever reason, my father refused to listen to him. Then he demanded I be taken as far away from home as possible and given the worst men in the Winter army to protect the border. He wanted to set me up for failure because he knew that that way, I would either die in battle or force my father’s hand.

  Needless to say, we hadn’t failed. We were still standing, and I didn’t need to see him to know that he despised me even more for that. Meeting him tomorrow was going to certainly be interesting.

  “We will not be leading the attack,” I said to Trinam, as a way to clear my own thoughts. “The Autumn fae will. We will serve as protection for their borders.”

  Trinam slammed his cup to the table. “Protection? We can do better than protect!” he shouted.

  “Sons of whores!” said Chastin from the other side, laughing.

  We could, but that wasn’t the point.

  When I first received the invitation for the meeting with the Autumn Court, I thought it would be just another act of curiosity on their part. The attack from the elves two nights ago had been a surprise to everyone, and the people were curious.

  But the Autumn King hadn’t been curious about me and my battalion in the least. That alone earned him my respect. He and his Court had information that three elf Houses had joined forces to attack the southern Autumn border and relocate a third of their army near Kanda, one of the biggest rivers that ran across all three fae kingdoms of Gaena. Access to the river would give them resources to grow, and that was enough reason why they needed to be stopped, even if we didn’t take into account the pride of the Autumn fae.

  Even if we didn’t take into account the fact that the elves had used a similar strategy a long time ago, before they’d burned the entire Spring Court to the ground.

  I understood the logic behind it. The more land the elves gained, the more power fell on them. That is why the Autumn Court had gathered six battalions across the Autumn and Winter kingdoms and had even brought in terrans—supernaturals from Earth. They didn’t want to take any chances.

  And I couldn’t refuse to be part of the battle even if I wanted to, but what Trinam would never know is that I preferred that we weren’t going to be directly involved. We would serve as protection for the Autumn fae who lived in Yobora, the town closest to the border. There were over two hundred of them, and though they could fight, they were no match for elven soldiers. There was no doubt in my mind that for this attack, they would have gathered their best.

  It wouldn’t be like it was two nights ago when they’d attacked us—and I still wasn’t sure of the reason. They had nothing to gain from pushing the Winter border. There were no rivers, no fertile land where we were stationed.

  The only thing that made slightly more sense was the Shade. They wanted access to the Shade’s Gateway, but elves had no magic. The Shade would wither and die in their hands. They knew this.

  So why had they attacked us?

  “Basically, we’re going to stand there while the other fae bastards spill elf blood?” Trinam said after a while.

  I didn’t get to answer.

  “Hello, gentlemen,” said Eonne. She’d come to the dining hall not five minutes ago, and her eyes had never left mine. We had shared a bed plenty of times before, and she was perfectly comfortable with what I had told her since the day we arrived in this Shade—I could never be more than temporary pleasure for her.

  She understood. She didn’t mind. It’s why she had no trouble sitting on my lap and wrapping her arms around my neck. I was not in the mood to be touched, but I had an image to maintain. There were eyes watching every movement I made. Reports were being sent to my father regularly, and if I ever hoped to go home again, I needed to behave as he expected me to, no matter how much I hated him—and myself—for it.

  “There they are,” Trinam said, his face completely transformed as Eonne’s friend, a petite woman with hair lighter than most Winter fae, sat next to him around our table.

  “Now I feel left out,” said Chastin with his hands to his chest. “Maid! Fetch me more ale!”

  “You look very tense,” Eonne whispered in my ear, caressing my face. I held onto her with one hand and grabbed my cup again with the other to make sure I wouldn’t push her hands away. “Let me relax you, my prince.”

  “Not now,” I told her. Not tonight. Not tomorrow night, either.

  “As you wish,” she whispered and continued to plant kisses below my ear and down my neck. I couldn’t even enjoy her soft, full lips on my skin now that my mind spun with the battle that was to come.

  We were prepared, my men and I. Better prepared than most battalions out there. When my brother and father had given me the weakest men in their army, I’d made it my mission to change that. I’d trained them harder than my brothers and I were trained in our youth. There was no rest, no days off, no excuses.

  That is why five hundred of us were able to make seven hundred elves retreat two nights ago, with what my father would call “minimum casualties.”

  Trinam and Chastin told the ladies stories, and I pretended to keep up, laugh when due, nod, shake my head at the proper time. But my mind was not there.

  “Have you gotten her to speak yet?” Trinam asked after a while, leaning close to whisper in my ear.

  “No, I haven’t,” I said, shaking my head.

  He meant the elf, chained in my room, whose blood was on my hands even though she was still alive. I didn’t know what I was going to do with her. I’d put off killing her with the excuse of wanting to get information out of her first—that was what I’d told Trinam and Chastin earlier, but the truth was far uglier.

  The image of her eyes took over my mind. I had never seen a more beautiful creature, and the harder I tried to find where she hid the cruelty elves were infamous for, the more I found pain. She didn’t look like she hated me. She didn’t look like she wanted me dead, as I should have wanted her.

  Who was she?

  My eyes moved to the door to my room, across from the dining hall. Silver eyes bore onto me, locking me in place. Eonne whispered something in my ear and kissed my cheek, but I didn’t hear it. I didn’t feel it at all.

  The elf was looking right at me through the window on the side of my door.

  How?

  Certainly it was just my imagination. She was chained to the wall by a lock so full of magic even a Heivar sword couldn’t cut through it.

  The next second, she was gone.

  My eyes closed as Eonne turned my head toward her and kissed my lips.

  Was I so desperate to meet my end that I was imagining a weakling elf to break through chains to deliver it? If she could have gotten out of her chains, she would have killed me two nights ago. I’d have been a free spirit now, but here I was.

  “Let me make you feel better. I promise I won’t disappoint,” Eonne said, kissing me softly, but all she managed to do was irritate me.

  All I
was able to say was, not now. Not tonight.

  Hours must have passed, but I never stopped feeling like I was being watched. Yet every time I looked at the door to my room, the windows at its sides were empty. Nobody was looking at me anymore. I was a bigger fool than I gave myself credit for.

  When the time came to retreat, get rest for the next night’s battle, I was relieved. I was relieved that I could go to my room and see the elf—to convince myself that she was there, she hadn’t broken free and disappeared.

  “Prepare the men. We meet south of the hill at first light,” I told Chastin. He nodded, his eyes bloodshot. All the ale he’d drunk tonight was going to make him dizzy tomorrow, but he could take responsibility for that.

  I said my goodnights to Trinam and a disappointed Eonne. Then I took a piece of bread, some meat, a cup full of water, and I made my way to the room.

  The elf was there, lying on the floor, the chain still wrapped around her ankle. She hadn’t gone anywhere.

  I put the food in front of her, but when I was close enough to see her face, I realized that she really was asleep. For the past two nights, she’d pretended, and I’d let her, but this time, she was really asleep.

  And the skin of her arm had gained a bit of color. I reached my hand toward it. Warm.

  I pressed a finger to the floor, too. Heat came off it, like the sun was hiding right underneath the stone. The Shade. It was the Shade’s magic.

  But I hadn’t asked it to keep her warm yet tonight. I had the night before. I’d given my magic to the Shade for it, and it had heated her up while she slept because that’s how the Shade worked. It required magic for favors.

  So why was the stone warm now?

  Maybe I had unconsciously asked the Shade to warm her while at dinner? It was possible. Thoughts and actions sometimes slipped my mind when I did them without focus. That had to be it because there was no other explanation that made sense.

  Standing up, I went to the wardrobe and slowly began to undress. I didn’t want to wake the elf. She must have been tired from being chained to a wall all day, imagining ways to kill us, kill me. She must have thought I was cruel. Heartless. A monster.