Master of Shadows

  “Brother, I can’t leave you here.”

  “You must. Tell the men I am going back into the shadows,” Sylas said. “I will do what I can. Stay with Eregen and do as he says.” He clasped Hutchins’s forearm. “Thank you, my friend.”

  “Anytime.” Hutchins grimaced as he climbed into the small space, cramming his body inside. “All right. Hit it.”

  Sylas watched the door as the dumbwaiter descended. As soon as he heard the pulleys stop, he punched his fist into the control panel, destroying it.

  He stepped into the shadows, where the last thing he saw was the cavalieri forcing in the door.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Reese woke up alone, gagged and tied to a tent pole. In the state she was in, she could not break free of her bonds, and even if she could, one of the guards had already searched her and taken away her bag. She was trapped, a mortal at the mercy of the Kyn, and she had run out of lies.

  Will came in and removed his cloak, tossing it over the camp table before he came to stand in front of her. “If you scream, I will put you to sleep for a week. Do you understand me?”

  She nodded.

  He inspected her face before he pulled the gag from her mouth. “How long have you been working for the Brethren?”

  She swallowed to ease her dry mouth. “I have nothing to do with them.”

  “Then who sent you to spy on us?”

  She had to be careful not to lie. “No one. I’m not a spy.” She tugged at her wrists. “You can untie me. I won’t try to run again.”

  He didn’t move. “Was it Guisbourne? Did you pledge yourself to him? Did you come to work some vengeance in his name?”

  “No. I’ve never met Lord Nottingham. Will, please. I’m not here to hurt anyone.”

  “Then you have failed.” He turned his back on her and went back to the table.

  “You know I’m telling the truth,” she insisted. “You know me, Will. You know I wouldn’t betray you.”

  “Until two nights past, I knew you were a happy, contented woman who enjoyed my company. Who told me that we could never have more than that.” He poured a glass of blood wine and drank it down in three swallows. “You are not that woman.”

  “No, I’m not.” She closed her eyes and twisted her wrists, but the ropes only tightened. “What are you going to do? You can’t keep me tied up here forever.”

  “You think not?” He strode over to her, seizing her face with one hand so that she had no choice but to look into his furious eyes. “I can have you taken from here in chains and tossed into a dark cell and kept there for the rest of your life. One call, Reese, is all I need to make, and you will be gone and forgotten.”

  He meant to frighten her, but no threat could equal that of the book. “Then make the call.”

  “You dare taunt me.” He reached behind her and tore the ropes from her wrists, snapping the cords with one jerk. Before she could bring her arms around he dragged her away from the tent pole and over to the thick blankets spread over the ground.

  Reese went limp, but he didn’t let go of her. He hauled her under his arm like a sack of grain and tossed her with the same indifference onto his bed.

  She rolled away, only to find herself trapped, facedown, beneath his body. “What happened to my right of refusal?”

  “You sacrificed all rights the moment you decided to betray me.” He lifted his weight enough to turn her over onto her back. “I can do whatever I please with you.”

  “You always could,” she whispered.

  “Was this forced upon you? Yes,” he said before she could answer. “That is it. That is what they did. I can see it in your eyes. I can smell it on your skin. Why did you not tell me?”

  The pain in her heart swelled with bitterness. “I was afraid.”

  “You could have come to me at any time, sweetheart. I would have listened.” Slowly, almost as if he were afraid to touch her, he put his hand on her brow and brushed her hair back.

  “I would have put a stop to it. I would have protected you.” By telling him, she would be directly disobeying her father’s orders, putting her life in danger, and risking exposing the power of the book. “I was sent to avert a disaster,” she said. “If I fail, everyone will die—you, your jardin, the Italians, the mortals—and the rest of the world.”

  “You speak of Armageddon.”

  She nodded.

  He gave her a narrow look. “What could you do to prevent the end of the world?”

  “I can’t tell you any more than I have,” Reese told him. “Give me The Maiden’s Book of Hours, and I’ll go.”

  He wasn’t expecting that. “You betrayed me for a bloody book?”

  “I need something inside it,” she said. “Once I have it, humanity will be safe again, and you can keep the rest for your master.”

  He sat up. “I do not have that book, Reese. Neither does Robin. Guisbourne stole it and took it to Rome. Robin has gone to retrieve it. That is why the contessa sent her men to take possession of Rosethorn. If Robin does not deliver the book to her tonight, she vowed to slaughter the jardin.”

  She couldn’t fly to Rome to stop Robin of Locksley. Nothing could stop the book from reaching the contessa now. “That’s it, then.”

  “Who sent you?”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore.” Nothing did. She wished she could weep, but no tears came. “I’ve failed. In a few days we will all be dead.”

  Will sighed. “I do not know what you were told, but one sodding book cannot bring about the end of the world.”

  “This one will.” There was no hope left, she realized. She had always had hope. “I don’t know what to do.” She couldn’t ask to speak to her father. The news would surely kill him. She looked at Will blindly. “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “Come here.”

  Will took her in his arms and held her, and then she could cry—great, sobbing tears that she had held back for so long, too long. She struck at him with her fists, twisting and fighting against him and the terrible emptiness, and still he held her, cradling her grief, enduring her despair. He used the edge of his tunic to wipe her face and his fingers to comb back her hair, and when she thought the sorrow would crush the last shards of her heart, he put his mouth on hers.

  Reese curled her fists into his tunic, clutching him tightly. He kissed her slowly, gently, coaxing her mouth open and tasting her with mindless absorption. She felt his fangs emerge as his hunger grew, and she took her mouth from his, pressing his face to her throat. He stroked his tongue over her flesh and suckled, but he wouldn’t pierce her.

  “Please.” She would have this much, and finally he would know. “Will, take me.”

  He drew back. “I do not need your blood, Reese.”

  Or perhaps it was better that he didn’t know. Let him have this last illusion. She would not cheat him of what would be his final moments of happiness.

  She reached for the buttons of her blouse and began unfastening them. Will made no move to help her, but watched intently, the pupils of his eyes shrinking to onyx slivers, his mouth set in a hard line. She bared her breasts and then knelt to release the waistband of her skirt, pulling it and her panties down and easing her legs out of them.

  He traced a winding line of dried blood that had run down from her right ear. “The last time I touched you like this, you were afraid.”

  “I was foolish. Now all we may have is this night.” She brought his hand to her heart and pressed it there. “I love you. I have always loved you.”

  His eyes lifted from the sight of their hands. “Not always.”

  “I am a very good liar.” She reached for his shoulder and carefully released the velvet loops holding the front of his tunic in place. His garments took more time to remove than hers had, but she stopped to kiss the skin she revealed, and to breathe in the scent of him, which grew stronger and darker with every touch.

  At last they lay together side by side, a small space between them. She reached across it with her
hands, her legs, and her feet. She rubbed the bottom of her toes against the arch of his foot, and stroked the outside of his thigh with the inside of hers. Her hands she could not control; they went everywhere, from the angular bones of his hip to the broad vault of his chest. She felt starved for him, hollowed out by the years of deprivation and denial, and now she wanted to feast.

  Will showed no outward reaction until she slipped her hand between them and palmed his erect shaft, and then his big hand wrapped around her wrist. “I will not stop this time. I do not think I could.”

  She put an arm around his neck and pressed herself full-length against him. “Then don’t.”

  Will spread his hand over her bottom, holding her still as he probed between her legs. Desire had made her silky wet, and she enveloped the head of his penis with her heat, bearing down on him as he pushed in, welcoming him into the narrow recess, catching her breath as he filled it with tender force. When the root of his cock pressed against the flowering folds of her labia, she gripped him from within, squeezing until his brow touched hers and he closed his eyes.

  “Do you feel that?” she murmured, her excitement almost unbearable.

  “I feel you,” he said, surging deeper.

  They had been cheated of this simple thing done to give pleasure and create children. For a terrible moment she felt as if she might begin screaming again, for she had never wished for anything but Will, and one night with him was all she would know.

  “Look at me.” When she did, he kissed her brow and then gazed into her eyes. “The world is ours now. I will not let it end.”

  He held her that way, watching her face as he moved, sliding out and then gliding in, a slow and elegant dance of advance and retreat. The delicate movements became a forge, his hammer to her heat, and he shaped her with every stroke, bringing her to the edge and then turning her back and working her again. Her mortal body was no match for his strength, but he tempered it, his muscles locking and his jaw setting as he kept at her, until passion blinded her and her hands clawed at him.

  “Will.”

  “Yes, there you are.” He whispered that and other things to her, spilling dark words against her hair, his chest stroking the swollen ache in her breasts. He turned her onto her back and wedged himself between her thighs, burying himself in her before drawing out again and again. She wrapped her legs around his, pinning herself to him, and took everything he gave her, returning it with softness and pleading, wordless sounds, until he pushed her over the edge and she fell, trembling and breathless, into the velvet darkness that spread inside her from the clenching ellipse of her sex to the pounding rhythm of her heart.

  Will held her against his chest, soothing her with gentle kisses until she came back to her senses, and then began the dance again.

  The sweat from her skin made them both slick by the time he lifted her and put her astride him. Her fingers slipped down his shoulders and dug into the muscles of his arms as she worked her body against his. He took her by the waist and spun her, pushing her to her hands and knees as he knelt behind her, forging so deep inside her she felt him pressing against her womb. He reached around her hip and pressed his hand between her thighs, parting her with the edge of his palm and using that to stroke her there, where the friction made her swell and cry out as she went over again. He kept rubbing at her sex as he fucked her, his shaft a swollen, rigid spike of need, and when she pressed her face into the blankets to muffle her cries he took hold of her hips, pounding himself into her in long, deep strokes, until the last he held himself inside her and groaned as his body spilled into her.

  When she could think again, Reese found herself on her side, curled up tightly against him, his arm clamped around her waist. His hand moved over her belly in absentminded circles, his thumb brushing over the dent of her navel, his mouth at her shoulder, kissing the curve between it and her neck. She put a hand to her own cheek and felt the warmth and dampness there, divided by a single cool tear that slid aimlessly across her face.

  Will murmured something, and only when he repeated it did she hear the words. “My God, what was that?”

  “Love, Will.” She entwined her fingers with his. “It was love.”

  Rebecca stayed in the camper, drinking some of the blood wine Will Scarlet had sent for her. The rest she had taken in the camper had helped her regain some of her senses, but it had also given her talent time to grow. Without Sylas to help her keep it in check, she didn’t know how much longer she could hold on to her sanity.

  I can wait. I can reach him through our bond. He can help me.

  Concentrating, she tried over and over to reach Sylas. Gradually she became aware of his body, still and unfeeling, strapped to some hard surface. The only sight she saw was the ceiling above him, and the faces of the men shouting questions at him. They wanted to know where the prisoners had gone. They struck him, but he did not respond. He could not; his soul had left his flesh.

  She understood that he felt no pain now, but when he returned to his body he would be in agony. Every blow she felt through him did not harm her, but still she flinched, gripping her skirts until she tore great rents in the fabric.

  Do not tear your pretty dress, wife, Sylas whispered inside her mind. I am here.

  His presence, as thin and insubstantial as smoke, almost slipped away before she could answer. Sylas, you must go back to your body. Tell them what they wish to know, or they will kill you.

  I cannot betray my men. A cold, mindless rage lashed around him. The shadows are so deep here. I never realized how deep.

  She was losing him to the darkness. Sylas, come back to me.

  When I hear your voice call my name, he promised her, I will come back. Only then.

  Rebecca opened her eyes but didn’t recognize her surroundings. She was somewhere near Sylas but not close enough to call him. Her skin crawled, alive with nerves that writhed and tightened and burned with need. She knew what she needed, and she would have it.

  She found a small door and kicked it open. Outside was the night, a small camp of tents, and the woods beyond Rosethorn. She could walk to the stronghold from here, she thought as she climbed down and started toward the house.

  Some faceless male came toward her. “My lady Rebecca, you must not…” His voice stopped as he choked out blood and fell to his knees. As she limped past, he fell onto his side, pressing his hands to his face as the blood poured from between his fingers.

  Rebecca limped into the trees, tugging at her skirts when they became snagged. Two more males, both holding swords, came at her from different sides. She released her talent and they dropped into the shrubs. All around her small bodies began dropping from the trees and thumping to the ground. She stepped over a robin and a squirrel, and around the twitching death throes of a red fox. As she made her way past the first of the enemy’s lines, she left a trail of dead bodies and the scent of clover on fire.

  Reese woke with Will to the sound of men shouting and cries for help. She handed him his trousers before she jerked on her clothes, but when she tried to follow him he shook his head.

  “Stay here until I see what has happened.” He glanced down at the small pile of ropes he had torn from her wrists.

  “I won’t try to escape,” she told him.

  “There will be a guard outside if you do,” he said, and then ducked out of the tent.

  He had no reason to trust her, but still, it hurt. She had given herself to him. She had told him about the book—violating her pledge to her father in the process—and put herself into his hands. As before, he had abandoned her without a second thought.

  She took her case out of her bag and removed one of the vials. As Will came back into the tent, she drank it and slipped the empty vial in her pocket. “Is it Rebecca?”

  “Come here.” When she did, he pushed her against the tent pole and pulled her arms around behind her to tie her wrists.

  “You don’t have to tie me up,” she said. “I have nowhere to go.”

&
nbsp; “I would like to keep it that way, sweetheart.” He came around and stopped, staring at her face. “Who are you?”

  “I’m not your sweetheart.” Reese turned her arms, snapping the cords binding her wrists.

  “I can see that.” Will didn’t blink. “You’re a man, for one thing.” He breathed in. “And you’re Kyn.”

  “For the moment,” she agreed.

  “The woman in my dreams could change her shape. But how?”

  “You know exactly how. You changed me with that kiss.” She stepped away from the pole and handed him the torn ropes. “I went back to the kitchens feeling the weight of it on me. Then, that night, I fell sick.”

  “Claris.”

  “I died in the cottage, but no one came to look for me for three days. I woke from death in a cart filled with dead bodies.” She pulled her long black hair over one shoulder and began to braid it. “Do you know what it’s like to wake up in a pile of corpses, alone and starving? No, of course you don’t.” She turned her back on him. “You made the change in the jail.”

  “You lived.” He jerked her around. “All this time you were alive, and you came to me only once, in a dream? You never looked?”

  “Do you remember what I told you in that dream? What they do with a dead girl who crawls out of a mass grave?” She tilted her head. “No? I can tell you again.”

  “No.” His hands fell away from her. “I remember.”

  She walked around him and went to look out at the camp. “Through all of it, in that cage, the one thing I could not understand was what I had done to deserve such a wretched fate. I’d always been a good girl, worked hard, looked after my mother. I prayed for forgiveness for my sins, though they were hardly worth confessing. I’d never harmed anyone. It had to be a mistake. I told them that again and again. Whenever I did, they would just hurt me more.”

  “How long did they torture you?”

  “I don’t know. Months. A year, perhaps.” She let the tent flap slip from her fingers. “Time had no meaning for me. I tried to count the sunsets, but then they put boards over the windows so no one would discover me.”