Saving Daylight

by Shannon K. Butcher

  Morgan’s decision to never love again wasn’t just empty words. It was part of who he was—down to his bones. What he’d lost when Femi died could never be replaced. Not by anyone.

  That was what the luceria wanted Serena to see—that the man she’d bound herself to was broken. Permanently, irrevocably broken.

  Just like her.

  ***

  When Serena opened her eyes and looked up at Morgan, tears glittered behind her lashes and sadness creased her brow.

  “What did the luceria show you?” he asked, worried.

  “Femi.”

  That one word had the power to rock him to his foundation. His human wife was the secret he’d kept for so long, he wasn’t sure how he could talk about her now. She was a hidden part of his past—not because of shame, but because of sorrow.

  Serena swallowed. Sniffed. “She was an amazing woman. I would never even try to take her place.”

  Morgan didn’t know what to say to that. In some ways, it was a gift that Serena understood how he felt—that she wouldn’t be struggling to replace what was irreplaceable. But in other ways, he wondered if having Femi between them would make their bond harder to forge.

  He took Serena’s hands in his, and let the play of heat and energy between them sooth his worries.

  “You’re not alone anymore,” he told her. “We may never have what we could have before our hearts were broken, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have something special.”

  She nodded, her deep blue eyes huge and luminous with tears. “We have no choice. Too many people depend on us to have a strong partnership. We cannot fail.”

  “You deserve more,” he said. “You deserve someone who could love you.”

  She gave him a sad smile. “So do you. At least this way, we both know what we’re getting.”

  He took her beautiful face in his hands, marveling over the gift she was.

  She’d saved his life and taken away his pain. He didn’t know how long their bond would last, or if either of them would make it out alive, but for now, he was content.

  He bent and kissed her forehead. Heat danced beneath his lips and curled through his veins.

  His body reacted to the touch, lighting up from the inside. Desire swelled low in his abdomen and shimmered out of him.

  Serena sucked in a small breath and looked up at him in shock.

  “Too much?” he asked, instinctively seeking the connection that should have been formed between them when she took his luceria.

  All he felt was a blank hum of nothingness. Static. Her thoughts and emotions were still hidden from him.

  He reassured himself that their bond was too new for him to feel anything. They needed time and patience. He couldn’t force their connection. It would happen in its own time.

  She gave her head a little shake. “No. Our bond will never be strengthened by love, so we’ll have to find another way. Physical intimacy, mutual respect, and deep friendship are all that are left to us.” She squared her shoulders. “Respect and friendship take time. Your seer Sibyl told me that there is none to spare.”

  Morgan ignored her mention of physical intimacy, though only barely. Serena had been alluring before they’d bonded, but now she was becoming more enticing by the second.

  Her skin seemed to glow now. Her eyes were bigger and more luminous. Her lips were damp and the most enticing shade of pink he’d ever seen.

  He wanted to kiss her so badly he had to clench his jaw to keep his mouth off hers.

  The luceria’s doing, no doubt.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  “Sibyl said that I must find the source of the new demons that are overrunning Dabyr before Iain’s baby is born. That’s what I was trying to do when you found me in that cave.”

  “But the baby will come any day now.”

  “Which is why there is no time to waste.” She closed her eyes in concentration. “I can feel your power, but the conduit is tiny—barely more energy than I can gather from the air around me. I’m going to need more if I’m going to use your magic in combat.”

  “So…what? You want us to sleep together so our bond will strengthen?”

  “Can you think of another way?”

  He wanted her. There was no question about that. He hadn’t been with a woman since Femi, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready to admit that to Serena or not. He didn’t want her to see him as pathetic.

  He needed her respect. Not only for his own sense of self-worth, but also because it would strengthen their bond and allow her to access his power more easily.

  “What if it backfires?” he asked. “What if we rush things and end up doing more harm than good.”

  He couldn’t believe he was saying that. Here she was, offering him her body, and he was giving her reasons why she shouldn’t.

  If this kept up, he was going to have to turn in his man card.

  She frowned. “I hadn’t considered that. I’m ready to do my duty, but we don’t have time for setbacks.”

  Her duty? That’s what sex with him was to her?

  He knew the idea shouldn’t grate on him the way it did, but he couldn’t get past the image of her lying under him, cold and robotic, taking one for the team.

  That wasn’t at all what he wanted, what he craved. He wanted heat, fire, passion. If he couldn’t have love, he could at least have something more than a calculated merging of bodies, couldn’t he?

  Maybe that was all he deserved. Maybe that was all that was left to him now that Femi was gone.

  His words came out harder than he’d intended. “Eat and get some sleep. There will be plenty of time for you to do your duty later.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Serena had hurt Morgan’s feelings. She wasn’t sure how, but there was no mistaking the flutter of annoyance coming from him.

  That she could feel anything coming through the luceria was a good sign. Too bad it didn’t make her feel better.

  She’d been raised to know what to expect of her when she bound herself to a male Theronai, and it usually took a long time for the connection to widen enough for emotions to trickle through. Her feeling him now—even his annoyance—was more than she could have hoped for.

  Of course, Morgan had told her that bonding between Theronai was different now than it had been when she was a girl. After so long with few women to tap into their power, men had been pushed past all usual endurance, bearing more power for longer than was natural. That vast pressure they carried had changed the way couples bonded, so she had to discard her childhood lessons and learn new ones.

  If he’d been Iain, she would have gone to his bed and used sex to strengthen their connection. Her mother had told her that she would be duty-bound to do so.

  But he wasn’t Iain, she wasn’t Femi, and her mother wasn’t here. They were going to have to find a way to get around their obstacles. Quickly.

  Serena didn’t mind the idea of bedding him. Morgan was deeply attractive, with a wide streak of kindness running right through his core. She’d known when she’d taken his luceria that he would take her as a woman.

  Truth be told, knowing that was part of what had swayed her to go ahead and bind herself to him. She hadn’t been with a man since Iain, and two hundred years was far too long to go without physical release.

  Unlike with Link, she loved the way it felt when Morgan touched her. She’d been hopeful that he’d touch her more, kiss her, hold her.

  It had been so very long since she’d been held. She ached for the physical contact, the intimacy of lying naked with a man and feeling his warmth sink into her skin.

  As much as she craved sex, what she needed even more than that was simple physical contact. A hand stroking her arm, the thick weight of a man’s thigh cast over hers as she slept, an arm around her waist, pulling her close.

  She was never again going to have any of those things with Iain, so she would have to settle with finding them elsewhere. Morgan, with his delicious body and kindn
ess, was as good a choice as any. Even the luceria agreed.

  Too bad Morgan had other ideas.

  He’d closed himself away from her in one of the bedrooms, presumably to sleep. Even though the Sanguinar had done most of the healing, her body was still too weak to go out and fight tonight. She needed to rebuild her strength, to drink and eat and rest so her body could recover from the strain of healing.

  Still, nagging pressure bulged at the back of her mind, urging her to hurry.

  Sibyl knew what was coming. She’d warned Serena what had to be done. There was no time to waste.

  While Serena didn’t dare go hunting for the source of those demons tonight, there was one thing she could do that wouldn’t be a waste of time.

  She had been trained from the time she could speak what would be expected of her. Over and over, she’d watched her mother draw power from her father and force it to answer to her will.

  The Iron Lady was capable of many things, but her specialty had been manipulation of time and its flow. She used that gift in amazing ways, to heal and to hurt, to protect and to destroy. Serena had once seen her kill an entire nest of demons by speeding time and making them die of starvation before the sun set and they could go out to hunt for food.

  While specific gifts didn’t always run in a family, Serena had most definitely inherited her mother’s ability to bend time to her will.

  She hoped that was the only part of her mother she’d inherited. The world did not need another controlling, manipulative bitch.

  Rather than dwell on an unhappy past, Serena refocused her attention on the one thing that could help the most people.

  She had to find the source of the demons that could withstand sunlight, and to do that, she needed power—power that was now right at her fingertips, thanks to Morgan. She could feel it glowing inside of her, seething with eagerness.

  It wanted to be free, to be shaped by her hand.

  Serena had seen the accidents caused by female Theronai new to their power—the fires, the buildings shaken to the ground. She wanted to believe that she’d have more control than that, but decided it was better to go outside and experiment rather than take chances.

  The air was cold and clear, scented with frost and not even the barest hint of spring. Dawn would come soon, but not for another couple of hours.

  The grass under her feet was dry and brittle. There were no houses within sight, but plenty of open pasture interrupted by clumps of trees and brush grown up along aging barbed wire fences and creeks.

  The moon was a bright sliver in the sky, which seemed like the only thing that hadn’t changed from her youth.

  She didn’t stray far from the house. The threat of attack hovered in the back of her mind like a vulture, reminding her to be alert.

  Death was always near.

  She’d found an oversized coat in a closet, which she now hugged around her body. She closed her eyes and focused inward, to the tiny glowing spot where Morgan’s power entered her. She didn’t know if it was a physical place or simply a construct of her mind, but when she concentrated on it, that light seemed to shimmer in response.

  Tentatively, she touched it, and was surprised to find that it felt like Morgan—hot, kind, intense, consuming.

  She shivered in reaction, but didn’t pull away. Instead, she tried to coax that light into herself by opening up a cozy place meant just for it.

  At first, nothing happened. His power stayed where it was, hovering just outside of herself, out of reach.

  Her mother’s lessons came flooding back. Her stern, demanding voice was always there, lecturing her on the value of her appearance, how beauty was power and she must learn to use that power to get what she wanted from life. But there were other lessons, too. Valuable ones, like how the flow of energy from a mate worked best when one was relaxed and confident. Power abhorred timidity, but bowed down to the bold.

  Gertrude Brinn had definitely been bold.

  Serena imagined the pool of energy inside Morgan as a feisty puppy, eager to obey. She straightened her spine, relaxed her shoulders and summoned every bit of confidence she had.

  Once she felt completely in control, she summoned the power with a firm command.

  Instantly, a burst of energy shot into her with so much force, she gasped in surprise. Light and heat flooded her body, seeping into bones and tissue, weaving through her blood and filling her lungs. As she exhaled, tiny sparks of magic swirled in her misty breath.

  The clean, hot smell of Morgan’s skin surrounded her like an embrace. She could feel his presence inside that light, as if he were hugging her from the inside.

  The feeling was exquisite. She reveled in it, soaking in the mirage of human contact as if it were real.

  One of the hardest parts of her captivity had been not being touched. As much as she craved company and conversation, her body had starved for the simple brush of a hand or the warmth of a hug. She hadn’t even known how deep her craving for such things could go until she was sure that not feeling the touch of another would literally kill her.

  Only it hadn’t. She continued on in her endless life of boredom and loneliness without relief.

  But now she had something new, something amazing. Even though he wasn’t here, his power was. Morgan’s magical touch filled her and comforted her in a way she never could have imagined before experiencing it.

  She wanted to hold in his essence and keep that warmth forever, but that was not the way her body was designed to function. She couldn’t store power the way he could. She could only carry a small amount for immediate use, and if she didn’t let it out, it would damage her.

  With the warnings of her mother clanging in the back of her mind, Serena grudgingly let go of the energy, forcing it to come out in the form of fire.

  A strand of flame the width of her finger shot out from her outstretched hand and sizzled among the blades of dead grass a few yards away.

  Heat left her body in a rush. There was an odd, sucking sensation that made her tense, as if she could stop it. When the flow of power finally stopped, what was left behind was a charred, black squiggle in the lawn.

  Tiny flames flickered for a moment before the cold stole their life and snuffed them out.

  Serena was left with a feeling of satisfaction, mixed with a strange sense of loss. Something vital had been hers for only a moment before she’d lost it. She was greedy for more, desperate for that rush of power flowing through her.

  This was what she’d been born for. This was what she’d been missing all her life.

  She knew there was danger in what she sought, but didn’t care. She was done living a life of safety, a life without risk. She deserved to feel alive and whole after what she’d suffered.

  She wanted more of Morgan’s power inside of her. All of it. Now. And no one was going to stop her from having it.

  ***

  Jackie locked herself in a supply closet with Iain in an effort to find some quiet. She couldn’t concentrate. Sibyl’s ominous warnings played through her mind on a continuous loop, making it impossible to focus.

  Lights danced in Jackie’s vision, so bright she couldn’t see past them. The headache the glare caused pounded at her temples, but even when she closed her eyes, there was no relief.

  Her baby seemed to sense her distress. She stretched and punched at her confines, hitting Jackie’s bladder with uncanny accuracy. The infant’s tiny feet lodged against Jackie’s ribcage and began to dance.

  Her back ached and the skin of her abdomen seemed so tight it might tear. The hard mound of her belly protruded like the prow of a ship, with her belly button as the figurehead.

  She was almost done carrying this child. She could sense her daughter’s eagerness to join the rest of the world and take her place within it.

  The thought made Jackie panic. What if she couldn’t protect her? What if she couldn’t keep this tiny, little life out of the hands of their enemy?

  She had to figure out how to locate the light
s before her daughter was born. There was no other choice. Her baby had to survive. Any other outcome was unthinkable.

  Iain was right at her side while she worked to solve the puzzle of how to find these women. His worry funneled through their link, fluttering against her like frantic insect wings.

  She wanted to reassure him, but she didn’t have the attention to spare. All her effort was going inward, pointed toward the map in her mind.

  A few times before, she’d seen a bird’s eye view of the world in her visions. As if flying overhead, she could see trees, rivers, lakes and mountains. Even roads were visible when she got close enough to see them. Superimposed on that view were the lights that haunted her. They pulsed and flashed, colorful and glaring.

  They needed to be found, to be saved before it was too late.

  While there were many lights spread across the globe, the ones she focused on were in North America. But without map lines to guide her, she couldn’t pinpoint exactly where they were. All she could gather was a general location, sometimes not even a specific state. Even more frustrating, the lights moved around, sometimes hopping across the country as one of the women drove or flew to a different destination. At least, that was Jackie’s guess.

  How was she ever going to find them, much less pin them down so they didn’t move once she did?

  For a few weeks before the attack on Dabyr, she’d been working with a handful of unbound male Theronai in an effort to guide them toward these women. But so far, the process had failed. Her vision wasn’t like Google Maps where she had a blue dot to guide her. She couldn’t even see the men in her mind, only the women. The men simply told her where they were, or she located them on an app Nicholas had created to track them.

  Connecting a light with a man seemed impossible. Without a better system, she had no hope of ever guiding the two together. And now, with every able-bodied male swinging a sword in defense of Dabyr, there were no men to spare to go hunting.

  Sibyl’s warning echoed in Jackie’s mind.

  Dabyr cannot fall….We won’t survive it.

  She had to find a better way.