Shadow's Pleasure: The Shadow Warder Series, Book Two (A Paranormal/Urban Fantasy Romance Series)

Table of Contents

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Epilogue

Thank You

Excerpt: Shadow's Discovery

Acknowledgements

Copyright

Shadow’s Pleasure

The Shadow Warder Series: Book Two

Molle McGregor

Ginger Quill Press

Also in The Shadow Warder Series:

Prequel Novella: 
Shadow’s Passion

Book One: 
Shadow’s Awakening

Book Two: 
Shadow's Pleasure

Book Three: 
Shadow’s Discovery
 (Spring 2015)

Book Four: 
Shadow’s Promise
 (Fall 2015)

For B – Love is hard work. Most romance novels start with the first, heady rush of love and end before reality sets in. Fifteen years of a shared life…success and failure, loss and new life, the day to day of making lunches and paying bills…and every day that I wake next to you I smile. You make the hard work of love and family into the most fun I’ve ever had. With you, the bad is bearable and the good transcends joy. Thanks for giving me an epic love story. Even when we’re cleaning peanut butter off the walls.

Chapter One

B
reathe
, Sorcha told herself.
Take a breath and just relax. They’re not all watching you. Judging you. Looking for weakness
. She shifted in the stiff wooden chair, nerves vibrating with anxiety, hiding her tension beneath a mask of inscrutable calm. All eyes were on the three newcomers, ears tuned to their story. No one was paying attention to Sorcha. Yet. If this meeting went the way she thought it might, it could be her ticket to freedom.

Was it wrong to use her friend’s misfortune to untangle her own disaster? Maybe. But Caerwyn would be the first to encourage her to do what she had to. For a decade, Sorcha had been trapped in this Sanctuary. Treated like an invalid. Useless. This could be her only chance to make a move.

Ten months ago, Caerwyn, her younger sister Lissa, and another Shadow had disappeared. They’d left to go shopping in Knoxville and had vanished. Cell records showed the last call Caerwyn had made was from the mall outside the city. A short conversation with her mother, saying they were on their way home. Then nothing. Caerwyn’s car, her phone, every sign of them had disappeared.

No one would clear Sorcha to search for them. Her mentor, her parents, even Iris and Garran had deemed Sorcha too fragile to leave the Sanctuary. It was bullshit. She wasn’t fragile. Not anymore. If she could hold it together long enough to get through this meeting, she’d prove it to them.

Sorcha took a sip of the lukewarm coffee in front of her. The remains of their breakfast were scattered across the table, mostly ignored as the gathered Shadows and two new Warders tried to work out a game plan. So far, they hadn’t accomplished much. The new Shadow, Hannah, her bonded Warder, and his friend were telling their story a second time. Recounting how Hannah had escaped a secret lab run by a corrupt Warder, while those around the table listened intently, hoping to scavenge any details they’d missed the night before.

Iris, the Keeper of the Sanctuary, sat at the head of the long table wearing yet another of her loose dresses, her graying hair in its customary bun. Sorcha had no idea why she liked the hippie grandmother look. As a Shadow, Iris could have kept her hair the same rich brown it had been in her youth, could have smoothed every wrinkle from her skin.

Then again, Sorcha wasn’t exactly the height of fashion herself. This morning she wore an embroidered tunic over dark cotton leggings. She hated that tunic, and not just because her mother had made it for her. Decades out of fashion, it wasn’t her style. Most days, she put on jeans and a graphic t-shirt. But today Sorcha needed those in charge of their Sanctuary on her side. If dressing to please would help, Sorcha would do it. When she got out of here she was leaving the ugly tunic, and all the others like it, behind.

Garran sat opposite Iris at the other end of the table, absently stirring his coffee. The burly, grizzled Elder Shadow looked bored, but he listened to every word. The renegade Warders and Hannah were their best lead on Caerwyn, Lissa, and Sara. So far, the information they’d shared about Hannah’s captivity was both encouraging and deflating. Finally, after all these months, they knew who had the missing Shadows. They knew all three had been alive as recently as a few days before. They also knew the Shadows were being held as part of a sinister plan to breed a Shadow-Warder. It was ridiculous. Kate, sitting beside her and waiting for the chance to describe her part in Hannah’s escape, was the only living Shadow-Warder. There wouldn’t be another until she died. They couldn’t be manufactured in a lab.

Sorcha tried not to listen as Hannah described talking to Lissa while they’d been imprisoned together. Hannah’s light, clear voice faltered. Lissa had told Hannah the Warder Director who’d held them was trying to create his Shadow-Warder the old-fashioned way. Sorcha focused on the golden surface of the pine table, concentrating on the cycle of air in her lungs. In and out. Moisture prickled the corners of her eyes. Bright, sunny Caerwyn was being raped. Repeatedly. Possibly since the day of her capture. According to Lissa, Caerwyn of the quick smile and goofy jokes no longer spoke, had completely withdrawn. Hannah’s guilt at leaving them behind flooded across the table, almost swamping Sorcha’s shield.

Sorcha withdrew mentally, furiously shoving Hannah’s emotions away. If she were a better empath, Sorcha would draw all that dark, sticky guilt from the girl, soothe her, help her work through the pain. Hannah had no reason to feel guilty. Her own escape was a miracle. Trying to save the others would have doomed her. At least now they had some idea what had happened to their missing.

Sorcha was going to get out of the Sanctuary. She was going to find Caerwyn. She was not going to think about the hell Caerwyn was going through. She couldn’t. Not yet. When Sorcha found her friend, she’d use every bit of her empathic ability to help her heal. If Sorcha let the reality of Caerwyn’s circumstances get to her, she’d never be able to do anything. Sending part of her consciousness to her inner mind, Sorcha wove reinforcements into her shield, strong enough to block Hannah’s emotions. Sorcha was the one Shadow with the skills to find Caerwyn and the other girls. She had to maintain the illusion that she could handle the outside world, or they’d never agree to send her.

Even with the reinforcements to her shield, their emotions battered at her, a tidal wave she struggled to hold back. Sorcha’s only chance was physical distance. For ten years, the greatest danger to her safety had come from within the Sanctuary. If she could get far enough away, she could rebuild her shield. This time strong enough to keep herself safe. It all depended on what happened in the next few minutes.

The Warders and Hannah had finished their story. Voices rose around the table, distracting Sorcha from the thoughts of her friends. It seemed the Shadows couldn’t decide what to do next. The two Warders and Kate looked faintly disgusted. Sorcha agreed. She loved her people, but sometimes they were all talk, no balls. Taking a deep breath, she leaned forward in her seat. Showtime.

Into the argument, Sorcha said, “I’ll find them.” Silence fell as the room turned to her. Surprise on half the faces. She hadn’t spoken since she’d entered, so it was possible most of them had forgotten she was there. “I’ll find them,” she repeated. “That’s why you asked me here, isn’t it?”

“Sorcha,” Iris said in a placating tone that made Sorcha grind her teeth. “You can’t go out there alone.”

“I was a tracker,” Sorcha responded, willing herself to be calm. Reasonable. Mature. “I’m trained to fight. And I’m the best we have at finding what is lost. I should have been out there before this. Now that we have an idea where to look, I’m going.”

“It’s more than you can handle,” Iris protested. “I’d hoped you could guide one of the others from here.”

“No,” Sorcha said. “It’s too complicated. This Director is using spell craft. I have to be closer.”

Sorcha didn’t know for certain that it was true, but it probably was. Kate leaned in, anticipation pulsing over her skin. Sorcha tried not to flinch. Kate was a great friend, but her energy was potent stuff.

“I’ll go with her,” Kate said. “I can keep her safe long enough to find them. I can help her get them out.”

“Hell no, girl,” came booming from Garran’s end of the table. He waved his big hand at Kate, gesturing for her to sit back. “If I’d had a say in it, you’d never have stepped into this one’s escape.” He pointed a thick finger at Hannah, who looked surprised and uncomfortable at the attention. “You’re unreliable and half crazy, Katherine. Drunk more than sober, holing up on your island, turning your back on your people more often than not. Denying your birthright…”

“Fuck you, old man,” Kate shouted, her face red, eyes wet with rage. “You don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“I know we’re not risking Sorcha or these girls to you. If you want to contribute, get your shit together. Otherwise, sit back and shut up.” Garran slapped his bear paw of a hand on the table for emphasis.

Kate slumped in her seat, vibrating with humiliation and fury. Sorcha knew her well enough to know that Kate wanted to storm from the room in a fit of temper. In other circumstances, she might have done it, proving Garran right. But she, like Sorcha, loved Caerwyn. Kate would stay. She might be imagining inventive ways to kill Garran, but she’d stay.