Shadow's Pleasure: The Shadow Warder Series, Book Two (A Paranormal/Urban Fantasy Romance Series) (34 page)

In the background, she heard Kiernan dial his phone and leave a message telling someone they were going to make their move in a few hours. Had to be Cameron. Kiernan had promised to warn his friend before they went after the girls. Now, they were almost ready. Kiernan reached around her and pulled out a flyer from a Middle Eastern place, setting it on top of the sushi menu. They continued to sift through the stack, waiting. Finally, what felt like hours later, she heard the metal frame of the couch creak as both Ben and Madoc sat back.

Turning around, Sorcha saw the sickly green ball of energy was gone, and the map on the table in front of them had a bright point of green light on it. They’d done it. Sorcha dropped the menus and crossed the room, eager to see where Caerwyn was. The light shone a few miles from where they’d last been searching, in the same general direction she’d been tracking, the northeast side of the city.

She looked over her shoulder at Kiernan. “You know the place?” she asked.

“Know the area,” he said. “Residential. Run-down houses. Not too close together. Some older, some trailers. A bathtub on the front lawn kind of neighborhood, and not because it’s landscaping art. The good news is, no one’s really going to be watching too closely.”

“We wait until after nightfall,” Ben said, writing down the address in case something happened to the map. Sorcha didn’t want to wait, but she knew he was right. Under cover of darkness, they’d make their move.

Chapter Nineteen

Michael crouched behind a parked car, annoyed at the need for subterfuge. His curiosity had led him down many strange paths in his long life, but this one wasn’t the most comfortable. No one moved in the loft. One of them, a tall, dark male who looked like he could bench press a truck, had gone out about thirty minutes before and returned ten minutes ago with a large white shopping bag emblazoned with the logo of a local sushi restaurant. So they were eating. The question was, were they in for the night?

The female who’d knocked into him earlier had almost escaped his attention. If she’d just bumped into him and moved on, he would have done the same. But she’d grabbed his hand for balance and at the touch of her skin, the demon inside him had come to attention. It drank deep of her, all nervy edges and growing panic. Not as good as the sheer terror or pain a Voratus preferred, but the demon had tasted something in her as it fed. Something more.

Michael had taken a careful look as he’d helped her to her feet, unable to determine what had the demon so intrigued. She had more resonance to her than a typical human. Instinct, or the demon whispering in the back of his mind, had driven Michael to pull a few of her flame-red hairs before she’d walked away. He’d been curious. The demon had demanded an answer. A quick spell later and he had it. Shadow. A Shadow disguised as a human. A disguised Shadow who’d run into him. Almost knocked him down.

Pleased he’d had the forethought to pull more than one hair. Michael did a basic spell crafting to determine her location. A few clicks on his laptop and he knew where she was. For the past few days, as he’d been preparing for their next move, a problem worried at the back of his mind. The treat for their ally. He had nothing. The crazy fucker wanted a Shadow. A female Shadow. Michael didn’t even want to know why. Not for an experiment, he knew that much. His job wasn’t to ask, it was to keep the nutcase happy. There weren’t a lot of Shadows in Charlotte. It had always been a Warder-held city. And Michael didn’t have time to go on a road trip. This Shadow would suffice. Once he had her, he’d find out why she’d disguised herself and what she wanted. That way, he could appease his curiosity and solve his problem at the same time.

He’d been waiting behind the parked car for so long, the dark enveloped him. His eyes had adjusted to the dim light perfectly, so he was able to see the hunched shape of a male scurry around the corner and back into an alley, keeping his eyes turned to the same windows Michael studied himself. He watched the newcomer for a few minutes, waiting for him to do something other than stare at the loft and mutter.

Intrigued by the extra complication, Michael gave up his watch on the loft and focused on the male in the alley. If he was watching the red-headed Shadow, he might be able to give Michael the information he wanted. As he drew closer, Michael got the first piece of the puzzle. The male’s energy resonated all over the place, a little crazed and a lot unconfined. The demon inside Michael hummed with pleasure.
Shadow
. Two in one day. And this one simmered with all sorts of delicious emotions. Rage, jealousy, sexual frustration; all seasoned with bitterness and physical pain. Drawing within reach, the bruises on the male Shadow’s face became obvious. Someone had worked him over, thoroughly. Michael would find out who. He’d find out everything.

Dipping his hand into the pocket of his jacket, he withdrew a flexible copper collar and slipped behind the Shadow. He had it secured around the male’s neck before the Shadow knew he was there. As the two ends of the collar came together with an audible snap and a flare of white light, the Shadow dropped to the ground. It always hit them like that the first few minutes after the collar came to life, the shock of the spell craft cutting them off from the energy they needed to thrive, leaving them temporarily helpless.

Michael scooped the Shadow up and carried the limp body to his sedan parked a block away. No one noticed him, striding down the street carrying a fully-grown male as if he were a child. Michael found it annoying to keep their unpredictable ally happy, but he couldn’t argue with the results. Even as a Director, he didn’t have access to this level of spell craft. Obfuscation, Tracking, Misdirection, it wasn’t just the advanced types of spell craft, but their power. Difficult to attain, even for a Director. And normally, terribly expensive. For him, it was neither. Not anymore.

He shoved the unconscious Shadow in the backseat of the sedan and started it up, heading to his new base of operations. He’d saved parts of the hair he’d stolen. He could find the female Shadow again. And he had a feeling the Shadow in his car would be able to give him the answers he wanted. Deep in Michael’s heart, the demon hummed in anticipation.

Chapter Twenty

“He’s not here,” Sorcha said in a low voice. She knew better than to whisper. The hissing sound of a whisper carried further than simply speaking quietly.

“You’re sure?” Kiernan asked. Sorcha nodded. The small, run-down ranch house was dark. No car in the drive, no signs of recent habitation. If she didn’t have her Shadow senses to rely on, Sorcha would have thought it empty. From their vantage point, pressed to the side of an empty double-wide trailer across the street, she couldn’t discern any movement. Ben and Madoc should be coming up on the house from the back. She hoped they felt the swarm of Vorati inside as clearly as she did.

“Can you tell how many there are?” she asked.

Kiernan shook his head. “A lot. More than five. Fewer than twenty. Hard to be more accurate. Could be a lot of weaker ones, or a few old, strong ones.” He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Burns like hell.”

Sorcha had forgotten the prickling sensation that alerted Warders to the presence of Vorati. She always thought it was like the electrical buzzing a Shadow felt near the demons. If Kiernan’s response was any clue, it was worse. The electrical buzz currently vibrating through her nerves was distracting and annoying, but it didn’t hurt. She wished, just for a second, that she was a healer. Emotional pain, Sorcha could draw away. Physical pain? She couldn’t do anything but squeeze Kiernan’s arm in sympathy.

A flash of light gleamed from the back of the ranch house, shining into Sorcha’s eyes for a second before it disappeared. Ben and Madoc were in position. It was time.

Kiernan turned to her, leaning in until his lips grazed her ear. “You feel her in there?”

“She’s there,” Sorcha murmured. Her friend’s energy was so strong she could taste it. After so much time, Caerwyn was less than a hundred feet away. “I can’t get a read on the girls, but Caerwyn is there.”

“Be careful,” Kiernan said. “I know you want to get to her, but we don’t know what we’re walking into. Cover my back and let me take point.”

“I know how to fight,” she said.

His fear bled through their bond, strong enough to push through his thick emotional shield. Not fear for himself. Kiernan was a Warder, born and trained to kill the Vorati. He was afraid for her. Because everything in him rebelled against taking her, a female and his bonded Shadow, into a swarm of demons. Sorcha didn’t need him to tell her how he was feeling. She knew who he was, what he was, well enough to understand.

“I’ll be okay,” she said, shifting her head until her lips were a breath from his. “I promise I’ll be careful.”

Kiernan closed the distance between them, taking her mouth with his in a kiss that was fast and a little rough. His usual finesse gone, this kiss was a possession—his teeth nipping her lip, his tongue driving deep, tasting and claiming her. Pulling back just enough that she could see the gleam of his hazel eyes in the streetlight, he slid his fingers along her jaw, tilting her face to his.

“I love you, Scorch,” he said, his eyes locked to hers. “I’m going to be seriously pissed if you get killed.”

He dropped his hand and turned to face the ranch house. Moving forward, he made a ‘come on’ gesture to her as he headed across the street, keeping away from the dim glow cast by the streetlights.

Had he just said that he loved her? Sorcha’s brain was reeling. She knew he wanted her. Sexual attraction wasn’t an issue. They’d never spoken of love. To be honest, she hadn’t thought about love. Not really. Did she love him? How would she even know? It was a good thing he hadn’t given her a chance to respond. Sorcha had no clue what she would have said.

Crouching behind him as they ran across the exposed asphalt of the street, she cleared her mind of everything but the fight ahead. Their missing Shadows were somewhere in that squat, decrepit ranch house. So were an unknown number of Vorati. She’d need her head in the game if she was going to keep her promise to Kiernan and not get herself killed. True, she was a fighter, but she’d been out of the field for a decade. And she’d been trained to fight one, maybe two Vorati at a time. Not five or twenty. She’d have to stay on her toes.

They’d discussed the plan back at the loft. Approach the house from back and front. Don’t alert the occupants until they were inside. Kill any Vorati and get the girls. Simple. Not much strategy. But without knowing what they were walking into, it was hard to get more specific. Sorcha did a quick inventory of her weapons. Two long-bladed knives in sheaths on her hips. Her favorite weapons when she’d been in the field, they were treated with spell crafted copper. Mysterium-made, and insanely expensive, they remained invisible while sheathed. A cut from one of her spelled blades interrupted the demon’s hold on its human form, weakening it long enough for her to stab a calix in its chest. They’d saved her life more than once. She’d spent every penny she’d ever saved on them and never regretted it.

In a discreet holster at the small of her back, tucked under her shirt, she carried a nine-millimeter handgun Madoc had given her. Both the holster and the gun were spelled only to work by her hand. She didn’t plan to fire the gun—she wasn’t a great shot even using her Tk to steady the bullet, and in this residential neighborhood they didn’t want to bring the human police with a hail of gunfire.

In front of her, Kiernan pulled one of his long-bladed knives. Similar to hers, except in size, it was more a short sword than a knife. Long enough to do major damage, compact enough to give him room to move in close quarters. His easy grip on the hilt told her he was more than comfortable with the weapon. It was an extension of his arm.

On his wrist, Kiernan wore a simple charm, an ash wood circle on a leather thong with a sigil Sorcha didn’t recognize. Not that she knew many. Ben wore the twin on his arm. Sorcha crept up on the sagging porch behind Kiernan and pressed her back to the exterior wall beside the door. Paint flaked into her hair, falling around her like dirty snow. She looked at Kiernan. He stared at the charm on his wrist. Sorcha began to count, mostly to give her restless brain something to do. She’d always hated the anticipation before a fight. The battle itself was adrenaline and muscle and blood. No time to freak out. But the waiting…she hated the waiting.