Authors: M.J. Scott
Shadow Kin (47 page)
Simon’s hands were rough on me and I wanted to be rough too. Wanted to work out this desperate sense of hunger and fury and fear that I wouldn’t know this again. Wouldn’t taste him or touch him or feel him hard against me ever again.
If sheer desire could meld us together, we should have fused to the stone on the spot, but we were still only flesh and bone, however heated.
His mouth left mine as hands tore at clothing and yanked and pulled until there was just flesh to flesh.
The stone was hard at my back but not as hard as the feel of him between my legs. I gripped him tighter, raised one leg to wrap around his hip, gasped as he lifted me and sank home all in one savage movement.
We stayed suspended then, face-to-face in the dark. I could just see him, sketched in shades of gray as his eyes searched my face. A face I knew he couldn’t really see in the darkness.
His eyes closed briefly and I bit my lip, feeling him buried deep within me, hot at my center, but still not hot enough to melt the icy core of fear in my chest. What if he really couldn’t trust me again?
“Simon,” I said again. A lost sound in the dark.
“Don’t.” He gripped me harder, tight enough to hurt.
But it didn’t really, though bruises would mark my skin in the morning. It had gone beyond pain. I just wanted his hands on me, his body in me, his mouth taking me away from what we faced. What I was about to do.
He thrust then, one hard strike that pushed me against the wall, stone biting into me even as I pushed back against him, wanting what he was giving me.
My hand tightened in his hair, pulling. His mouth came back to me and I nipped at his lip, tugging it with my teeth and curling my inner muscles around him until he thrust again, filling me with heat to chase away the darkness.
And again.
And again.
Again.
More.
Now.
Pleasure washed through me, sparks lighting behind my eyes with colored whirls like a pyrotechnic display.
I met his every thrust, trying my best to let him fill me completely.
I don’t know how long it took, how long we moved there in the dark, silent except for the sounds of flesh against flesh and gasping breaths. It felt endless.
It felt like no time at all.
And then inevitably, I began to tremble in his arms, coming apart, until all I could do was hold on more tightly as the pleasure took me.
He followed me with a strangled cry that might have been my name or a plea to whatever gods were listening.
We stayed there, foreheads resting together, breathing deeply as we both came back from wherever it was we had gone.
Then, oh so gently, he eased away from me, lowered me, his hands staying only until it seemed that I could stand on my own.
That last touch was enough to break my heart.
But I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move at all as he fastened his breeches again and turned and slipped out the door.
Chapter Twenty
Unholy fucking insane.
There were no other words for it.
I didn’t look back as I headed for the hidden ward. What in the name of all the gods, had I been thinking?
First I told Lily that I couldn’t trust her, and then I—suns, I couldn’t even put a name to what we’d done in the dark. Other than it had felt wonderful and terrible at the same time.
I wanted to do it again.
I wanted her to be gone. My life had been simple before. Now it was an unholy mess.
But mess or no mess, I couldn’t forget the feel or taste of her. Couldn’t shake free of her. Trust or not.
I shoved my way through the inner door and slammed it behind me. Lily might be following—I hadn’t dared look and see—but she could find her own way in.
I paused for a moment, sucked in a breath. I was here to make sure Atherton was safe. I let my senses flick toward the wards protecting the rooms. They seemed whole, no indication anyone had breached them.
I relaxed, then swore as I remembered that wraiths don’t trigger wards.
Atherton was tending to the patients. He turned at my muttered curses. “Simon? What are you doing here?”
Before I could answer, his attention moved past me and he frowned. “Who’s with you?”
Suns. She was here. I didn’t turn. I didn’t know what I’d do if I saw her just now.
“It’s me, Atherton,” Lily said. She sounded calm. My gut twisted, doubts rising again. She shouldn’t be calm.
Atherton’s head snapped back to me. “The wraith is back?”
She came up beside me then and for a moment, I thought I saw something akin to hurt flash across her face. But she stayed silent, standing slim and straight. Her face was pale, only two spots of color burning in each cheek to show she wasn’t marble. She’d found a healer tunic somewhere and pulled it over her torn shirt. Her hair lay loose over the green cotton, fiery in the lamplight. I remembered the feel of it against my skin. Remember the taste of those lips that looked swollen from my kisses.
Don’t feel. Think.
“Yes,” I said. “And she has some bad news. Lucius can shadow.”
I’d never actually seen Atherton look completely taken aback before.
“Shadow? How?” He looked toward Lily. “Did—”
“He drank my blood,” Lily said. “Apparently there’s a reason that wraiths are feared.”
Abominations, that’s what the Fae called her kind. Maybe they were right after all. Gods and suns. Lucius with the powers of a wraith. But how? It had to be something to do with what she was, that her blood would do this to him. I swung back to Atherton. “Do you know how a wraith is made?”
Atherton shook his head. “No. I never found out. Lucius does and some of the older Blood might.”
“Fuck.”
“The Fae must know.”
The Fae who never lifted a hand to help unless forced to? Those Fae? Gods.
“We have to stop Lucius. If this is true, no one is safe,” Atherton continued.
Lily’s face grew fierce. “Stop him? We have to kill him.”
I cut her off. “No, we—”
“She’s right,” Atherton interrupted me in turn. It was unlike him. “Nothing else will stay his hand if he can shadow. Lucius is an infection in our race. One that should be cut out before it spreads.”
“He wants to rule the City. He told me as much,” Lily said.
“When?” I bit out.
She looked at me, not flinching. “When he fed from me.” Her eyes looked guileless, not a hint of guilt or lies. I wanted to believe her. But gods and fucking suns, Lucius had had his mouth on her skin and his hands on her body. Neither of which I could think about because I needed to stay in control.
“Maybe he was lying. Maybe he knew you’d come back.” If he hadn’t sent her himself. “Maybe he wants to provoke us into doing something foolish. Like breaking the treaty.”
Lily glared. “You’re already breaking the treaty.” She gestured around the room. “By doing this.”
“This is trying to help people. This is about saving lives.”
“We’ll save more lives by killing Lucius. At this point, does breaking the treaty even matter? If you don’t do anything, Lucius will break it for you. More than break it. He’ll make it as if there never was a treaty.”
“If you’re telling the truth.”
“Why would I lie? Why would I leave him if that’s where you think I want to be? There are plenty of other ways of provoking you humans into doing something foolish. You’re just angry that he fed from me.”
“Of course—” I broke off, biting down on the words. She was right, I was letting my feelings rule my head. I tried again. “If you’re telling the truth, then prove it. You said you’d try to find out about his informant. Did you?”
Her glare intensified. “I looked, yes.”
“Now you’re going to tell me you didn’t find anything? Another convenient story.”
She slid one hand down to her dagger. Spiked her temper, had I? Well and good.
“As it happens,” she said with edged precision, snapping each word off as if she’d like to bite me, “I did find something but I don’t know what it meant. Bryony might.”
That stopped me. She had found something? My anger subsided a little. Was I being cautious or just a complete bastard? “Bryony?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ll go see Bryony,” I said. I wanted this over and done with.
Lily looked slightly confused. “I thought you came down here to check the wards.”
Gods. She was right. I fumbled in my trouser pocket, reached for the bundle of charms I carried there, fishing out the black metal circles Guy and I had worn at Halcyon. I pressed one of them into Atherton’s hand. “Wear this. If anything concerns you, touch it on both sides and I’ll know.”
“You think Lucius might come here,” Atherton said. His hands twined the cord of the charm nervously around his fingers.
“Yes. He might,” I said. “I’ll be back. Don’t worry.”
“He’s more likely to come for me,” Lily offered.
The thought didn’t improve my mood any. “Bryony,” I said shortly, and ushered her out of the room.
“Tell me,” Bryony said after Simon had marched us back to her office.
For once her voice wasn’t openly hostile. Though the words were closer to an order than a request. Across the room, Simon’s eyes were guarded as he watched me. It was as though he were two men. The one who’d loved me like we were dying in that dark room below and the one who didn’t like what he saw standing before him in the clear light of day. I gripped the back of the chair I stood next to, suddenly exhausted.
“Lucius had a letter in his office. Fae sealed. A woman’s handwriting. I also saw a woman in a carriage delivering another letter with the same seals to the mansion this afternoon,” I said. “She wore a veil but I thought she had light hair.” I watched Bryony rather than Simon. Light hair wasn’t very helpful. Half the Fae I’d met in the hospital were blond.
Her face clouded. “What color were the seals?” she asked.
“Green and gold.” I knew that the different ways various Fae Families worked their magic changed the colors observed by those who could see the traces of it. I didn’t know more than that. Hopefully Bryony would.
Her perfect black brows drew together. “That could be any number of Families,” she said. “What did the letter say?”
I rubbed my forehead, trying to remember. It seemed a long time ago. I pictured the letter, the elegant script. “Something about the work not bearing fruit and turmoils but that ‘his’ interests hadn’t changed.”
“That’s vague.”
“That’s hardly my fault,” I snapped.
“What else? A signature?”
I shook my head, leaning my weight a little harder against the chair as a sudden ache stung my belly. The need. I’d hoped that perhaps that stupid interlude with Simon—for it had been stupid when obviously it had done nothing to ease his doubts about me—would have sated it for a time. No such luck. The Lady had definitely turned her back on me.
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