Shadow's Pleasure: The Shadow Warder Series, Book Two (A Paranormal/Urban Fantasy Romance Series) (37 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

Awareness filtered back to Sorcha in wispy drifts of thought. Her head hurt, the pressure on the inside of her skull dull and constant. Her shoulders felt wrong. Tight and wrenched backward. And she was moving. Before she thought better of it, she opened her eyes. She was in a car. Not Kiernan’s SUV. Her arms were bound behind her, contained by what felt like the same spell crafted copper as the collar around her neck. Remaining as still as she could, Sorcha looked around.

From her slumped position in the passenger seat of the car, she couldn’t see much. The lights flashing by suggested they were on a highway, but she was too low in the seat to see any road signs, so she had no clue which highway. Or how long she’d been out. More than a few minutes. Less than four hours, since the sun wasn’t up yet. Too big a window of time to be helpful.

How had she gotten into the car? Her last memory was of throwing up, Kiernan’s hand on her back, the thundering buzz of Vorati, then being dragged outside. A vague awareness of Kiernan fighting. Fear. Then nothing. They must have knocked her out, but how? She didn’t remember being hit. The collar? Had to be the collar. Fucking thing. She couldn’t wait to get it off.

There wasn’t any doubt in her mind who had her. The collar muted her senses and cut her off from accessing outside energy, but she could feel Michael. She’d touched him, drawn his energy inside her. She knew him. Debating the wisdom of letting him know she was awake, she decided she might as well talk to him. Maybe she could find out something useful. Eventually, Kiernan and the Mysterium would find her. She just had to hold on until they did. Shifting in the seat until she could see the driver’s side of the car, Sorcha caught his eyes on her. The cold brown gaze was assessing and oddly amused.

“Awake already?” he asked.

“Where are we?” Sorcha asked.

Michael smiled, a chilly, toothy smile, and shook his head. “Just going for a ride,” he said.

“What are you going to do with me?” Sorcha struggled to sit up farther, so she could at least see the road. Her bound hands left her without much leverage, but she managed to brace her feet and push herself up into a sitting position.

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Michael said, checking his rearview. “You’ll just work yourself up for nothing.”

“For nothing?” Sorcha asked, trying to keep the snark out of her voice when all she wanted to do was smack his arrogant face with sarcasm. And one of her knives. Where were her knives? “Because you’re going to let me go?” she went on, “or because there’s nothing I can do to thwart your dastardly plan, so I might as well sit back and take it?”

“The second option,” he said, his smug smile growing even more so as he glanced at her bound arms and the collar around her neck.

The crawl of his eyes on her skin made her want to cringe. Or kick him. Probably not a great idea to kick the driver while they were speeding down a highway.

“Are you going to tell me what the dastardly plan is? Or should I just wait quietly until I find out?”

“Again, the second option,” he said and sighed. “You must watch a lot of television. Do you think I’m going to sit here and tell you everything? Who I really am, what I want, who I’m working with? So you can stage a miraculous escape and run to tell your partners all about my evil schemes and save the day?”

“Something like that,” Sorcha said, heat in her cheeks at how stupid he’d made her sound. They had nothing better to do until they got where they were going. Getting him to talk was better than just staring out the window. And if she did get away—
when
she got away—she’d have something useful to tell the others. It wasn’t a stupid idea.

“Cute,” he said. “I’m not interested in sharing my plans with you. You aren’t an integral part of them, not that I’d tell you even if you were. You’re nothing more than a convenient bribe. A gift. I needed a female Shadow. You stumbled into my path. A little sleuthing and I had a pretty good idea where to find you. In the morning, I’ll deliver you where I need you to be, and that will be the end of our association. There, now you know everything. Do your worst with it.”

He was mocking her. Asshole. He’d told her nothing of any use. Not even where they were going. Or who he was taking her to. From his dismissive tone, Sorcha knew that pressing further wasn’t going to get her anywhere. Instead, she turned her attention to the collar. It blocked her from the energy around her. But Hannah had said she could still use her power to Resonate, to influence a person’s mind, because that power didn’t need to draw from external energy. So what could she use that she drew from inside herself?

Not her fire. Her best offensive weapon pulled all but the initial spark of heat from outside her body. It was useless with the collar on. Empathy didn’t require an external power source, but it wasn’t exactly a weapon. If she tried, she might have been able to read Michael well enough to find an emotional weakness. The collar dampened her ability, so while she’d known it was Michael in the car with her, she’d have to push to get enough detail to use against him. And he hadn’t exactly given her an opening for psychological warfare. From his condescending commentary, Sorcha thought he’d be immune to any attempts to get to him that way. Maybe if she’d trained to project emotions onto others she could have used that, but it was a low skill, one that seemed more a violation than a talent, and Sorcha had never tried to use it. Besides, the collar would probably block that anyway.

What did that leave her? Tracking wasn’t any good. She knew where she was. She was sitting here in this fucking car with her hands bound and a collar on her neck like a dog. Pulling her temper back, she tried to think. No fire. No empathy. No tracking. There had to be something else that could help her. She wasn’t going to sit here and wait around to be saved. Kiernan would come for her, but she had to be ready when he did. It hit her at the thought of Kiernan. She had their bond.

Narrowed down to a thin strand of energy, barely flowing between them. But it was there. Closing her eyes, she focused on the bond. The collar had squeezed it down, compressing it until Sorcha had to work to feel Kiernan inside her. But he was there. As she examined their connection further, she realized a portion of his energy was trapped inside her, caught by the collar before it could flow back to him. Warders didn’t have abilities the way Shadows did. But they had strength. The unique resonance that made them Warders gave them their speed and power in battle. Maybe she could use some of Kiernan’s Warder strength to weaken the bonds on her wrists.

There was no way she could go after the collar on her neck. Michael was sitting right next to her, and he’d already proven he didn’t have much of a sense of humor. She had a feeling if he caught her going after the collar he’d knock her out again. Shifting around so she faced the driver’s seat, hiding her bound hands in the gap between the passenger door and the side of the seat, she began to stretch the copper around her wrists. It took her a minute to figure out how to send Kiernan’s energy into her arm muscles.

Once she managed to guide the potent Warder strength into her forearms, she pulled, trying to keep the strain below her elbows, out of sight. It took all her concentration to remain relaxed everywhere but her lower arm muscles and still stretch the copper strands as hard as she could. Searching for patience, Sorcha watched the infected Director drive, kept an eye on the road signs, and slowly, painstakingly, lengthened the spelled copper binding her hands.

“Where the fuck is he taking her?” Kiernan asked Aiden, almost losing hold of his phone as they careened around a corner, tilting on two wheels. With a jolt, the SUV rocked back, sending its occupants lurching in their seats. Kiernan kept the vehicle on the road, the on-ramp for I-77 finally in sight. Ben hadn’t been kidding when he’d said no one would see them. At this hour, there were few cars on the road, but as the SUV barreled toward them, they all moved out of his way, not a honked horn or waved fist among them.

The highway was almost deserted. Well after midnight in the middle of the week, the travelers on the wide expanse of lanes were mainly long-haul truckers and one police car parked in the median. None of them noticed the SUV barreling north.

“Where are you?” Kiernan asked.

“Just past Huntersville,” Aiden answered, naming a town north of the city, just before the edge of Lake Norman. “Michael’s new house is about fifteen minutes from here. In Davidson.”

“Fuck,” Kiernan said. “We still haven’t hit 485. Wait for us to get there before you try to go in.”

“That was my plan,” Aiden said.

“I’m giving the phone to Ben so I can concentrate on not running us off the road. Keep the line open and Ben will ask directions once we get to the lake.”

“Ben?” Aiden asked, sounding suspicious.

“A friend. No one you need to worry about.” Kiernan handed the phone to Ben and leaned forward, eyes focused on the road ahead. He was pushing ninety miles an hour, not the safest speed for the top-heavy SUV. He wanted to get to Sorcha, but flipping them on I-77 wouldn’t help. As fast as they were going, it would to take at least ten minutes to catch up to Aiden. Probably a little longer.

Kiernan wanted to feel for the bond, to see if he could catch a sense of Sorcha. Instead, he held back. Later. As soon as he got to the lake, he’d be able to focus on looking for her. Until then, all he had to do was keep the car on the road. Endless minutes passed before Ben began to relay directions from Aiden. They got off an exit and wound through residential streets until they came to a small church at an intersection. Aiden was parked beside it, mostly out of sight of the road. Leaving Caerwyn in the vehicle, Kiernan, Madoc and Ben got out of the SUV.

“Where is he?” Kiernan asked, impatience clawing inside him.

“About a quarter mile down the road. Skipjack Lane. His house is on the end, right on the water. Secluded. I drove by and saw him carrying her in, before I circled back here.”

Aiden turned to head to Michael’s. Kiernan fell in beside him.

From behind him, Kiernan heard Ben say, “Kier? We can’t leave Caerwyn here alone.”

“Fuck,” Kiernan swore. “Fuck, I forgot.” He reversed direction and went back to the SUV. He’d completely forgotten the Shadow in the backseat. Ben was right. This was a safe area, but she’d been through a nightmare. Leaving Caerwyn on her own might scare the shit out of her. Just because she seemed catatonic didn’t mean she was. And with their luck, a roving band of Vorati would wander into the church parking lot and steal her out from under them.

“You found the Shadows?” Aiden asked.

“One of them. The two younger girls are still missing. He moved them. No idea where.”

Kiernan opened the rear door of the SUV and peered in at the Shadow. She lay across the seat, arms wrapped around her chest, eyes staring vacantly ahead, apparently seeing nothing. In the dim light, her thin, white hospital gown glowed, making her look more like a ghost than a living female.

Aiden squeezed in beside him to take a look and went solid. “That’s her?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“Yeah. That’s Caerwyn,” Kiernan said, studying the Sicari assassin beside him. Aiden was staring at Caerwyn, completely absorbed by the sight of the barely-conscious Shadow. “Do you know her?” Kiernan asked.

Aiden shook his head without taking his eyes off Caerwyn’s still form. “No,” he said. “What did Michael do to her? He must have—”

“Brutalized is the word you’re looking for,” Madoc said, cutting in. “He brutalized her. For months.”

Aiden reached out to touch Caerwyn’s bare ankle, his fingers tracing the sharp bones and pale skin. Before Kiernan could register what he was seeing, the ruthless assassin shifted to block Kiernan from the back of his SUV. “I’ll stay with her. You don’t need me.” Aiden surveyed Ben and Madoc, standing back, watching him talk to Kiernan. “The three of you should be able to handle the rescue. I’ll keep Caerwyn safe.”

Kiernan didn’t think twice. Nodding, he handed the keys to Aiden in case he had to move the vehicle and took off down the road to Michael’s house. Glancing back, he saw Aiden easing himself into the backseat, carefully shifting Caerwyn into his arms. He didn’t have the headspace to think about whatever the fuck was happening back there. Kiernan didn’t know much about Aiden. But the Warder was a Sicarius, and they, above all other Warders, were protectors. If you were a renegade, they were your most terrifying nightmare. To a damaged female Shadow? Kiernan didn’t know why Aiden was so interested in Caerwyn, but he was certain she’d be safe while they went after Sorcha.