But there, in her eyes, was the understanding he’d known she would gain from their mating.
A beat passed. Two. Three. He held his breath.
She licked her lips, her small tongue making their plump redness slick, and nearly making him hard once more. But this was too important.
She knew.
“You’re a werewolf,” she said.
Her gorgeous crystalline eyes were luminous, like quartz held before a candle’s flame. She looked at him through those glowing pools of promise, and he prayed she would forgive him for his response.
“I was. A long time ago.”
“How long?”
He smiled in a way that conveyed the years. She was fae, and time had a different meaning for people like them. “Long enough.”
But Keeran knew Violet was also aware that the warlock bit was only part of the twisted equation he’d been keeping inside these many millennia. There were more secrets. And she’d felt another of them as he’d taken them over the edge in his bed and forever sealed their fates. That deeper, darker mystery had brushed against the open doors of her soul like a slinking cat gauging its chances before leaping right in to make itself home.
She’d regained her magic; he’d given it back to her, and he could sense it in her. Hell, it was all around her, flowing free and strong. There was her darkness lining it, vibrant in its sparkling sableness, like stardust on black velvet. But alongside that beauty of hers was something else. Something even darker.
“Wolf…” she whispered.
His body tensed. Though she gazed steadily up at him, he knew she was only speaking to herself. She was whispering, working it all out.
“Wolf,” she repeated, and then she took a breath. “Wolfram….”
There it was. The sound of that name coming from between her lips stiffened every muscle in Keeran’s tall frame. It struck some deep, portent of a chord within him and stilled him above her.
“You’re Wolfram Lovelace.”
Oh gods.
He found himself wanting to grab her wrists, hold her down. He just wanted to make sure that she wouldn’t suddenly jump up and run or use her magic to teleport away, leaving him alone in his bed. Anything but that. Please.
But he didn’t do that. In fact, he stayed absolutely still, and answered her like a man.
“No,” he told her. “Wolfram Lovelace is dead. I killed him.”
A beat. A hard silence.
Then, “I am his shadow.”
*****
Keeran had filled the coffee table before her with everything from buttery scones to rainbow chocolate fudge, ooey-gooey caramel, chocolate and nut covered apple slices, small cakes and mini-pies, and seven different kinds of ever-hot tea paired with an ever-full pot of milk. She had tried to eat a few things at his behest, but she was literally still tingling from their time together, and even being near him kept that tingling going, like a battery too close to a charger. And there was so much going on, her head was spinning. Food was the last thing on her mind.
So she curled her legs under her, held a cup of tea in her lap so her hands would have somewhere to go, and waited for Keeran to make sense of things.
The flames in the Shadow King’s fireplace were blue. Violet found herself staring into them with mute fascination, but there was more to her stunned silence than that. There was everything else.
“It was before the werewolves were cursed. Eons ago. It feels like forever, and it feels like yesterday,” Keeran told her. He was adding logs to the fire, which was a surreal thing to watch. He wore dark jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt that hugged his corded muscles as he worked. The logs he was adding were pitch black, as black as his name, but in every other respect, appeared to be wood. It was like wood that had already been burned.
“My host’s name was Wolf then,” he said, peering into the flames himself. She looked at his strong, handsome profile and was struck with his beauty. He seemed lost in that moment, captured by the sticky tendrils of the past. “And so it was mine. We were one, as all shadows and their hosts are. What he experienced, I experienced, physically and mentally.”
He paused so that she could fully understood. When he said “my,” he meant Wolf. When he said “I,” he meant wolf. As a shadow, he was a living, breathing part of his host, and vice versa.
“My werewolf parents had a sense of humor, naming me as they did. But it was a name I wore proudly. I became the alpha of my pack, a pack that had run strong and healthy for sixty years.”
He placed the last of the logs in the fire, watched as the flames licked high, and then rested his arm on his bent knee and looked at her. “Two years later, I met my mate.” He paused, turned away, and stood. “Her name was Adelaide. She was fast and strong, a werewolf by birth, as was normal for us before the curse. She gave me nine children, and each of them went on to lead their own packs in time.”
He moved to the sofa beside her and sat down, again choosing to look into the fire. “We lived blissfully, and would have been content to grow old together. If not for the Hunters.”
Violet blinked. “The Hunters were around that long ago?”
He looked at her. “When something is different, it is intrinsically hate-worthy by those who either don’t have it for themselves or don’t understand it. The Hunters are nearly as old as time itself.” He turned back to the flames. “They came en masse to our camp while most of the men and some of the women were hunting. We returned to find our children and mates slaughtered. Then, while we were weak with grief, they attacked again.”
He fell silent, and the flames in the hearth darkened, going from sky-blue to indigo. Violet could sense the pain in Keeran; it was so thick, it choked the life from the fire.
“I was the only one to survive.”
Violet’s gut clenched. She didn’t realize she was doing it when she reached up, ever so gently, and placed her hand on his arm.
It seemed to shock him, that tender contact. He inhaled and glanced down at her hand, stiffening. For a very brief moment, Violet considered withdrawing the touch – but before she could, he placed his hand over hers, holding her there. The touch was so warm, so different from any Violet had ever felt from a man. There was no magic exchanged, no forced give and take. There was something else.
She looked up to meet his gaze, and for the second time since she’d met him, she saw past the mirrors of his eyes to the silver-gray underneath.
Beautiful, she thought. He’s so beautiful.
“I left the slaughter of the camp after burying every one of my brethren. With every blister my hands bled, my pain deepened. And my anger grew stronger. By the time I was walking out of the forest, I was resolved.”
She knew what he’d resolved to do. She knew because it had happened, and because if it had been her… she probably would have done the same thing.
“I apprenticed with the only magic user willing to take me on. The others could not see the need to teach a werewolf magic. I scared them. Though looking back, I’ve wondered whether it was the beast I was by blood or the one I’d become in spirit that truly worried them…. In the end, only one man would take me under his wing.”
“A warlock.”
He nodded, just once. “The spells of the craft came more than naturally to me than they should have. They were like sustenance, inhaled easily and expelled with even more ease. After a while, I craved them more than food. More than air.” He shifted, running his hand over his face before he again gazed into the fire. “As Wolf’s shadow, this was where I began to feel a separation between us. For thirty years, we had been one and the same. But now, his thoughts were not always exactly the same as my thoughts. They were slightly off, just barely different. But it was enough for me to notice. The change was small at first, but grew larger with every spell learned, every day that passed.”
“One day, our teacher told us he had nothing left to teach us. But my hunger – Wolf’s hunger – for magic was too strong by that point, and Wolf’s fur
y was unstoppable. I say Wolf’s because… that’s who the fury truly belonged to. It had been ten years since the destruction of his people. He had little time left to exact justice. Humans simply did not live very long.” He shook his head, just a little, as if to himself. “Maybe this was what the warlock actually recognized in Wolf, this thirst for revenge. And maybe that was why he wanted to call off the lessons. We couldn’t help but wonder. And in wondering, Wolf came to a decision. He couldn’t allow his warlock instructor to turn on him. He couldn’t allow him to warn anyone of his intentions.”
His gaze hardened on the fire. And quite suddenly, the flames began dancing as if a cold wind were licking them into a frenzy.
“He killed him. And I killed him. It was all too easy.”
Violet’s blood went cold.
“It was the first time we’d ever killed without doing so for food or in self defense, but it wouldn’t be the last.” His voice had gone low, his tone distant and terrifying. “It was the day that Wolf officially died, and the world’s most notorious warlock was born.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Her mind reeled. It had been in this state so often of late, she was actually getting used to it. Discombobulation was becoming the norm. She felt like Alice after tumbling down the rabbit hole. What world was this that she’d found herself in? Where did she fit into it?
It’s my world, her inner voice told her. It was stronger now, no longer the tiny, cowering thing in the shadows of her mind. It had regained its strength, and was reinforced by something else. It was something extra that she’d gained from Keeran.
When Lalura had told her to go with Keeran in the valley where the gargoyles had died, she’d realized something. But she’d been in too much pain and too much anger to really accept it. It was something had been something nagging her since she’d received the necklace from The Shadow King. It was something, perhaps, that had even been nagging her since she’d met him in the Underground.
When Lalura told her to go with him and he appeared right beside her like he had, Violet had fully realized, at that very moment, that the reason Keeran Pitch was so interested in her – was because she was his queen.
Violet was fully in the know about the kings and their fated queens and the important parts they all played in this chess game-like drama that had infiltrated the supernatural realms. She knew the queens were coming in from all sides, from every background, and seemingly without warning. She knew a queen could be anyone.
She just didn’t think it could be her. Maybe her sultry, gorgeous, powerful sister could be a queen. But not her.
At first, it was so impossible to accept, in fact, she filed the knowledge away as confusion. She took the truth and twisted it into emotion and other excuses, like a sentence that’s been scrambled to make other sentences. Rather than stop for a minute and try to figure it all out and come to grips with it, she’d simply denied it.
In denying it, she stumbled clumsily down other avenues: Maybe Pitch really was concerned about what she did just because it was his responsibility to make sure no one came to harm in his kingdom or in the Dark. Maybe he did this with everyone. (Not.) Maybe he just liked giving out acorn pendants! (Right.) Maybe he was just so rich, he couldn’t close his big, fat wallet! Yeah, that was it! (Well, maybe.)
But deep down, she knew her thoughts were as good as drunken ramblings and nothing more. The only one that could even possibly be true was that the Shadow King really did care about every single individual person who passed through his realm, but then if this was true, he would have gone after Dahlia long ago.
But no. It was all nonsense. She’d known.
By the time Lalura all but pointed it out, there was little point to denying it any further, but by then, Lovelace’s magic had Violet raging, and the fact that she was the destined Shadow Queen just didn’t jive. In any capacity.
Even if it’s true, her anger screamed, where is my choice in the matter? And if she was supposed to be the fucking queen, then why keep secrets from her? Why not be honest with her? Include her in everything that was happening? After all, the queens were supposed to be more powerful than the kings! That was the whole reason it was so essential for the kings to find their goddamn mates these days, right? That’s why it was all happening so fast? The combined power of the Thirteen Queens was necessary to defeat the Entity? It had been prophesied! It was well known!
Right? Right?! her fury had raged.
It all moved through Violet’s red-lined mind like a hurricane in the Painted Hills. She’d screamed at Keeran, desperately wanting him to just admit to her that she was the queen, and even more desperately needing him to take away her anger and fill her with reason again. There was only one way for that to happen, and that knowledge both thrilled her, filled her with hope and desire – and terrified her. Which made her even madder.
Fortunately for her, he’d known what to do.
Violet flushed warm at the thought of it. Sensations rippled over her skin, remembrances of his touch, hard and soft, of his wolf and the beast within him. She closed her eyes as that same warmth intensified and moved across her belly before sliding lower. She placed her hand on her leg and squeezed gently. Oh gods, she thought. She could almost still feel him inside of her.
So hard and hot. So tight.
She trapped her bottom lip between her teeth. Violet! Enough! You need to concentrate on what is happening! On what this all means!
Out of ruthless desperation, she forced the images of the gargoyle children into her mind.
At once, her body washed cold again, and she opened her eyes.
Oh gods is right. She was fortunate enough to not have known any gargoyles personally, but of course that changed nothing. The scope of this tragedy was immense. There had been families, children, mothers who adored them, fathers who were silently, puffy-chest proud of them. There had been hopes and dreams and memories. And it was all gone.
And there were twelve kings now. And there were still things about the Shadow King that she didn’t understand.
Like Wolfram Lovelace. And how he died.
As if he knew instinctively that she needed more answers from him, Keeran glanced at her, met her gaze, and then gracefully stood. He approached the hearth of his study and braced his arms against the mantle to lean over the flames.
“Wolf returned to the valley where his family had been slaughtered and searched for clues that would lead him to their killers. He found them – and he killed them. But as the last of them died, Wolf learned from him that they’d only been following orders from others, higher up. So he tracked those Hunters as well. And on and on, he went, until he realized that like a spider’s web of insanity, Hunters had infiltrated nearly every aspect of humanity and poisoned the truth, labeling supernatural beings as demons all across the board.”
Violet was all too familiar with the Hunters who’d nearly brought the werewolf nation to extinction during the years they’d been cursed. And Keeran was right. It wasn’t only werewolves they hunted. They were like Nazi’s; everyone fell victim to them. Vampires were often their prey, as were magic users of all sorts. Shifters, naturally, had their fair share of grief to deal with from the Hunters, and even the fae had experienced a run-in or two. It was amazing how dangerous a mere human could be when fueled by weapons and what he thought was righteousness. In the wake of righteousness, goodness didn’t stand a chance.
“There was no end, and hence there was no justice. There was no release for Wolf from the pain of his loss, and time simply passed without mercy. With every warm body he turned cold in death, he became more lost to a kind of darkness not even I, his shadow, could comprehend. The more lost he became, the more viciously he sought out magic in the hopes that he would one day become powerful enough to end the madness once and for all.”
He stopped and lowered his head, closing his eyes. “Wolfram Lovelace was the name Wolf created for himself centuries later, when his dark magic had prolonged his life well past its natur
al course, and he’d begun traveling the world in search of more of it.”
So that’s when the name changed, she thought. And Wolf and Lovelace officially became separate beings.
The fire outlined his frame like a nimbus around a new moon.
Nimbus, she thought suddenly. That’s another thing. She thought of that image she’d seen in the text that had told of the Nimbus riders and their dark leader. The leader is Keeran, I just know it. It would make sense. He’s the king.
“Shadows and their mortals live a symbiotic relationship,” he continued. He lifted his head at that to look at her over his shoulder, and Violet was struck with a slightly glowing gaze that held her hard. “As you well know,” he added, referring to the research he knew she had done on his realm and on the Dark.
Violet shivered. That look was intense. It was all wolf. Whatever he might be now, the beast in him was far from dead.
Keeran released her from his gaze and looked back at the fire. “In time, I’d gained enough experience from his actions and through his magic that I also changed. Shadows normally live their own lives while their mortals sleep. However, I was different. I’d remained by Wolf’s side in the wake of the slaughter of his family, and then I’d remained with him as he had apprenticed as a warlock. I was with him for all of it. I don’t know why. Maybe I thought I owed him. Maybe I didn’t want to leave him alone. Maybe his pain was mine too.”
Violet felt her throat tighten.
“Eventually, there was so much warlock power surging through Lovelace’s form, it surged through mine as well. I wasn’t supposed to have the capacity to absorb it as I did. I was two-dimensional. I was a shadow and nothing more.” He shook his head as if in wonder. “But absorb it, I did.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Suddenly, Keeran rose, pushing off the mantle to face her completely. His eyes were no longer mirrored at all, now. As they had been in his bed, they were open to her, a deep gray circled in liquid metal. Mesmerizing.