Shadow's Pleasure: The Shadow Warder Series, Book Two (A Paranormal/Urban Fantasy Romance Series) (38 page)

It only took a few minutes to find Michael’s house. His luxury sedan was parked out front, empty and dark. A light was on in the back of the house, gleaming through the glass window in the front door. From his position in the trees to the side of the driveway, Kiernan studied the foundation of the house. Light shone from a small window set into a sunken well behind a bush. There was a basement, and the lights were on. There were no lights on the second level. At least none that showed from the front.

“Wards?” he asked.

“We’re right on the edge of them,” Ben replied. “They cover most of the lawn.”

“A few more feet,” Madoc said, “and I have a feeling we’ll have a welcoming committee.”

“How do you want to play this?” Ben asked. “Stealth or full assault?”

“How about both?” Kiernan answered. He needed to get to Sorcha. While he’d love to go after Michael, Kiernan wasn’t naive enough to think he could take Michael down, even with the two Mysterium at his back. Especially now that Michael was infected. Trying to do everything at once was a great way to get them all killed. He might be willing to risk his life, but he wouldn’t risk Sorcha’s. Or his friends’. As he’d said before, Michael was another mission.

“I’m thinking you two trip the wards and draw the guards out front,” Kiernan said, pointing to the front yard. “I’ll go around the side and try to break in through the basement window or the back door.”

“If you run into Michael? Or more guards?” Madoc asked.

Kiernan shrugged. “I don’t feel more than a few Vorati in there. This is his home. He won’t want an army. If nothing else, it would be impossible to explain if another Warder came here.”

“And Michael?”

“I’ll figure that out if I see him. But he’s big on covering his ass. My guess is if he thinks things are hot here, he’ll take off rather than fight it out.”

“Okay,” Madoc said. “Basic and filled with holes. My kind of plan. We’ll give you a few minutes to get to the other side of the house. Wait when you get there and let us break the wards first.”

Kiernan nodded and jogged back to the street, then to the other side of the lot. Careful to stay in the trees, away from the wards covering the lawn, he circled around to the opposite side of the house. More small windows at the foundation and the soft glow of light. She was down there. Kiernan didn’t know why he was so sure. Maybe it was the bond. Or instinct. Once he got closer, he’d know if he was right. And if she wasn’t in the basement, he’d find her.

On the other side of the house, two dark shapes emerged from the woods onto the manicured front lawn. Kiernan didn’t hear the wards go off, but he felt them. A grating buzz swept from the outer edges of the lawn to the house in the center, disappearing with an audible pop when the front door opened. Five Vorati emerged. Tall and broad, they looked like they could fight, but none of them had any true power. Too young. Ben and Madoc could handle them. Keeping low, he headed for the closest basement window.

It was going to be a tight fit. The sliding window was sunk below ground level, protected by a curved metal well. He sat on the edge of the well, his legs and feet taking up almost all the space in front of the window. Now he just had to figure out how to get enough leverage to bust open the window in the confined space. If he wasn’t so positive that Sorcha was down there, Kiernan would have changed his plan and gone for the back door. Now that he was closer, the bond hummed with pent-up energy, desperate to break free from the confines of Sorcha’s collar.

Leaning back, he braced his hands on the edge of the well and pulled his knees to his chest. With a quick, powerful thrust, he kicked both feet at the window frame. The soles of his boots hit the frame dead on, breaking it at one corner and twisting it out of alignment. Another, more carefully aimed kick sent half the sliding window to the floor of the basement with the crash of shattered glass.

Kiernan froze, waiting. The broken glass was somehow louder than the thud of his kicks. Nothing new, just the thumps and grunts of fighting in front of the house. Silence inside. Satisfied that no one was coming for him yet, Kiernan got back to the window. A third kick and most of the window frame followed the glass to the floor inside. Funny how the house looked top of the line from the outside but had crappy basement windows. Kiernan wasn’t complaining. The cheap window was making it a hell of a lot easier to get in the basement than it could have been.

Kicking away the remaining fragments of glass, Kiernan pulled his legs back and rolled onto his stomach to peer through the hole he’d created. A painted concrete floor. Metal support posts. Light coming from somewhere, but the source wasn’t in his view. No movement he could see. Based on the size of the house above, Kiernan guessed he could only see a fraction of the basement. It would have to be good enough.

Feeding his feet through what remained of the window frame, Kiernan eased his body through the hole. It was a tight fit. He managed with only a tear to his jeans and a scrape on his leg until he hit his shoulders. No way he’d slide straight through. Adjusting his grip on the edge of the well, he pulled himself back out a few inches and angled his left shoulder and arm down, wedging them through the cramped space. The rough edge of the metal frame caught on his skin, tearing off the top few layers along with a chunk of his t-shirt.

Kiernan ignored it and pushed harder. His arm squeezed through, his shoulder popped free, and the rest of him slid so easily afterward that he stumbled when he hit his feet. Straightening and looking back at the window, he realized he wouldn’t be able to leave the way he’d come in. Shoving himself through that hole with gravity on his side was one thing. Unless there was a ladder conveniently stashed down here, or anything else he could stack against the wall to climb up, he’d have to find another way out.

View lit by a single bulb dangling from the ceiling, a glance around the room revealed that not only was there no ladder, the main part of the basement was completely empty. The bond pulled and Kiernan followed. The barren room was freshly painted, lined with closed doors. A basic wood staircase led to the main level of the house. Sorcha wasn’t up there. She was here, behind one of these doors. Letting the tug of their bond lead him, Kiernan chose the door to the right of the stairs.

The handle didn’t move. Locked. Kiernan pressed the side of his face into the door, listening for any sign that Sorcha was in the room. Silence.

“Sorcha?” he asked, keeping his voice just loud enough to reach through the door. On the other side, he caught a sliding sound. He tried again. “Sorcha?”

“Kiernan?”

Her voice was muffled, but he could hear her. Relief washed through him. Kiernan’s forehead dropped to the door and he took a breath. He’d found her. As long as he had Sorcha he’d get them out of here. Figuring out where she was had been the hard part, and that was done.

“I’m going to break the door down. If you’re next to it, take a step back.”

Kiernan braced himself to kick when he heard her shout, “Wait! Stop!”

Kiernan froze. “What? What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Michael did something to the door. Booby-trapped it. He said if I tried to get it open, I wouldn’t be around to regret it.”

“Fuck,” he said, backing up. “Just hold on. I’m going to get you out of there. Are you all right?”

“I’m okay. I got my hands free. And I managed to stretch the collar. Not enough to get it off yet, but it’s close.”

“Let me think for a second.” Kiernan ran through all the available options. If he couldn’t use the door… “What about the walls?”

“The walls?” Sorcha asked.

“Did he say he put the trap on the room, or the door?”

“He said the door. Definitely the door.”

Kiernan studied the door, then turned and examined the rest of the main room of the basement. About ten feet down the wall from the door to Sorcha’s room, there was another door. Kiernan walked to it and tried the handle. It turned easily, opening to a bare room. It made sense, he guessed. The day Hannah had escaped the lab, he and Conner had blown up Michael’s stately mansion in Meyers Park as a distraction to cover her escape. He wouldn’t have had many possessions left to move into his new place.

Kiernan studied the wall this room shared with the room Sorcha was locked inside. Running his hands over the unpainted drywall, he didn’t feel any signs of spell craft. Not that he would, necessarily. He’d always sucked at spell craft unless it involved exploding or burning shit. So the trap didn’t involve an explosion. At least they knew that much.

“Sorcha, can you hear me?”

“Kind of,” she answered, her voice faint through the wall.

“This is just drywall and some two by fours. I don’t think it’s a support wall. I’m going to kick through it. Get as far away from the wall as you can, just in case.”

“Okay,” she said, the sound trailing off as she moved.

Kiernan knocked on the wall a few times to get a feel for where the studs were. Then he took a step back and launched himself at the bottom half of the wall, leading with his boot. The drywall split under the sudden pressure, trapping his foot. Kiernan wrenched himself free and kicked again, widening the hole. Ripping off the loose drywall and throwing it to the ground, he tore off all the drywall between the two studs from the floor to the line of electrical wires halfway up. Once his side of the wall was clear, he kicked a matching hole in the drywall in Sorcha’s room.

The sight of her face on the other side, her green eyes bright with joy and relief, loosened the knot of fear in Kiernan’s chest. She waited, just out of range of flying drywall, for Kiernan to finish kicking the hole clear. When he stepped back, she slipped through the studs and launched herself into his arms.

“I’ve got you,” he said, pressing his cheek to the top of her head. “It’s good now. I’ve got you.”

“I knew you were coming.” She lifted her head and took his face in her hands. “Get this collar off me and let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Kiernan laughed. “You got it, Scorch.”

He reached for the twisted copper collar and saw that she had managed to stretch it out. A few more inches and she would have been able to get it over her head. He gripped it in two hands and began to pull. Slowly, he felt it begin to give. “How did you do this?” he asked as worked on the collar.

Sorcha tilted her head back further, trying to give him more room to work. “I used the Warder energy trapped by the collar to give me more strength.”

“Great minds,” he said, adjusting his grip to get more leverage. He almost had it.

“What?” she asked, confused by his comment.

“I used your fire to burn down the house where he had Caerwyn.”

“You got her?” Sorcha asked, hope shining in her voice.

“Yeah.” He didn’t want to go into more detail about Caerwyn’s condition or the still-missing girls until he had Sorcha out of the house and away from Michael.

One more pull and he’d have the collar loose enough. Setting his jaw, Kiernan shifted his hands for the last time and gave a hard yank on the thinning copper strands. The collar didn’t break, but it stretched that last bit he needed. Sliding it up, Kiernan tugged it over her head and threw it back into the room.

The second the collar cleared her body, a wave of energy poured into Sorcha and rebounded into Kiernan, knocking him back a few feet. As the power settled, their bond flared back to life, flowing between them in a rush. Had it always been this strong, or was it the backlash from the collar that intensified it? It wasn’t important. Sorcha was free of the collar and they were getting out. That was all that mattered. Taking Sorcha’s hand in his, he led her to the stairs.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Sorcha gripped Kiernan’s hand, not ready to let go yet. She’d known he was coming for her. Had believed it all the way to her soul. But knowing he was coming and actually holding on to him were two completely different things. The crashing sounds and shatter of glass right before he’d come to her door had been terrifying. And encouraging. Why would Michael be breaking into his own house? She’d guessed it was the cavalry. Or it was something worse than Michael. Hoped it might be Kiernan.

She followed Kiernan up the stairs, glad to be out of the collar. Only an hour cut off from her power, from their bond, and she’d been going a little crazy. Kiernan reached for the door handle and turned. It didn’t move. Locked. Studying the door from behind him, Sorcha realized they had a problem. The door had a deadbolt with a double-keyed lock. Without the key, they couldn’t unlock the bolt from either side.

“What about the way you came in?” she asked.

Kiernan looked back at her and shook his head. “I can’t get back out that way. You could. I could boost you up—”

“No way,” she said. “We’re not splitting up again.”

“Scorch,” Kiernan began.

“Seriously. No fucking way. We’ll get past the door.”

“Normally I’d say we should blow it up, but—” Kiernan gestured to the very flammable wooden steps under their feet.

“I don’t think these would survive an explosion,” she said, looking from the door to the steps and back. “Let me take a closer look.”