Veil of Shadows (13 page)

Sleeping alone on a narrow cot in the peace and quiet of Granna’s old dormer, Elina Corsairs dreamed of a man with pale blond hair, the face of an angel and eyes deeper than midnight.

Sighing in her sleep, she rolled over and snuggled deeper into her blankets. In her dream, she wasn’t on the cot, she wasn’t alone and it wasn’t a pile of blankets keeping her warm.

It was the strong arms of a man who had never touched her, had never really shown any interest in touching her.

She was on the beach, in one of the grand lodges that no longer existed—except in ruins—in a bed that was as wide as a lake and soft as angel wings. Next to her lay Morne. He was leaner, and although it was difficult to imagine, he was harder. Harsher.

Sadder, too. But then, sadness had always been a part of him, although he was unlikely to ever admit it. Although it was unlikely anybody else had noticed.

His dark blue eyes were shadowed and he stared up at her as she lay over him. He toyed with her hair, twining it around his long fingers. “You’ve stayed away a long time,” she murmured.

“A few weeks. A few weeks is not very long. You’ve been gone much longer. Years.”

“I had to.” Elina shrugged and grabbed the sheet, tucking it under her arms. “I couldn’t raise my kids in the middle of a war zone. They’d already lost their father . . . I couldn’t risk anything happening to me. Besides, this was the last place I wanted my daughter.”

“Of course.” He reached up and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “She is safer in the East.
You
would be safer in the East.”

Heat shimmered through her body as he cupped her cheek in his hand and stroked his thumb along her lower lip. “Do you plan to remain in New Angeles? Or will you go back east?”

“I don’t know. Part of me wants to leave here.” Elina sighed and lay back down. Resting her head against his chest, she snuggled close. “I had something that resembled normal back there, although it was getting bad when I left. Now that the Gate is pretty much out of commission, I guess things will settle back down there. I could start teaching again. Have a life.”

“But?”

She grimaced. “I’m needed here. The magic . . . we have to do something about it.”

“Like what?” He stroked a finger down her cheek and said, “It is in chaos—we’ve both seen it. A maelstrom. You cannot fight that kind of chaos.”

“No. I can’t.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and muttered, “There has to be something.”

He laid a hand on her belly. “Perhaps you are trying too hard. Perhaps you need to simply adjust to the changes before you try to fix them.”

She opened her eyes and peered up at him.

“Adjust to the changes.” Pursing her lips, she frowned thoughtfully.

Morne nuzzled her neck. “Whatever it is you are thinking about, think some other time. You’re needed here right now,” he whispered, raking his teeth along her smooth, golden skin. “Right here.”

“Yes.” She pressed a kiss to his lips and whimpered as he reached between them, pulling away the sheets. Now nothing separated them as he aligned his body with hers.

Elina groaned as he nipped her lip. His hands, those beautiful hands, stroked over her body. He left fiery trails of heat in the wake of each touch, filled a need even as he stoked another. “Make love to me,” she whispered, pressing her lips to his shoulder.

“As you wish.”

Elina came awake with a ragged gasp, her body hovering on the razor’s edge of climax. Gritting her teeth, she rolled over and buried her face in the piss-poor excuse for a pillow. Her slender, willowy body acclimated to the ridiculous cot that served as a bed even as it protested. She could still feel the luxurious softness of the bed from her dreams . . . still feel the warmth of Morne’s hands on her body.

Still feel him as he moved over her, in her.

“Why in the hell did I have to wake up
now
?”

She had half a mind to finish the job herself, but it was a waste of time. She’d been sleeping alone for too long, and after a while, it got to the point where nothing was going to ease the ache inside, save for a man.

That posed a problem, though.

Elina didn’t want just any man.

She wanted Morne.

Craved him.

That wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle. She was used to wanting what she couldn’t have. Craving what she’d never know. She’d dreamed about Morne for years, and she had always dealt with it. It had been easy, because there were always miles separating them or a war to be fought.

It wasn’t so easy now, though, and she wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. It might not mean anything . . . or it might mean everything.

She closed her eyes as a sigh shuddered out of her.
Don’t think about him.

But thinking about him was getting to be a lot like breathing—something she couldn’t control.

But even as she tried to push those thoughts out, she found herself remembering what he’d said.

“So what do you think?”

“I think we’ll be lucky if we don’t end up getting our asses handed to us on a platter,” Syn said grimly. “And in my case, I’ll be lucky if I get through with my sanity intact.”

“If I thought it was that big a danger to you, Syn, I wouldn’t ask.” Elina tucked her hair behind her ear and gave Syn an easy smile. “I can handle the magic for short periods of time, certainly long enough to see if this is even possible. If it doesn’t feel like it would work, or if it’s too dangerous, I don’t pull you in.”

“I want to think it can work,” Lee said softly. She glanced from Elina to Syn, a self-deprecating smile on her face. “But I’m hardly the ideal person to ask. All the magical theory classes you two took, I never had them. Do you think it sounds plausible?”

The question was directed at Syn. With a grimace, she flicked her hair out of her eyes. The thick black strands were getting too long. She needed to find some trimmers and take care of the mess. It was getting in the way again.

Meeting Lee’s gaze, she shrugged and said, “I think it sounds like madness, and that it goes against every law of magic I’ve been taught. But I also think it’s got a real chance of working, so take that however you want.”

“Man, you sound just like this voice I keep hearing over and over in my head,” Lee muttered. “This is crazy . . .
and
crazy as it sounds, I think it could work.”

The stronger witches could anchor themselves but tired quickly.

The weaker witches couldn’t anchor themselves at all.

But together . . .

Together, they could create a web and anchor one another, let the power flow through them, and the power would boost that anchor. They didn’t know if it would work, though. And only one way to find out. Try it and see what happened.

Syn, Elina and Lee were breaking a direct order from their commander, but they didn’t see any way around it.

In theory, each of them was too important in their own way for the penalty to be that bad. Kalen couldn’t risk sending any of them back east, and for a diehard soldier, that was the worst possible outcome.

Elina was the instigator and she’d be the one taking the biggest risk. Not just because it had been her idea, but because she had more power than Syn, and she had more experience than Lee.

Lee’s gift was amazing but she was still too new to it. It was something that confused the hell out of Syn, because she had memories of Lee serving in battle with her dating back to when she wasn’t much more than a child. But until a few short months ago, Lee had never truly
been
in their world.

Just her shade. A physical manifestation of her being, and the memories of those times, had been hidden deep inside her subconscious. She’d managed to merge her split selves—her shade who fought as a warrior to the woman she knew she was. Once she’d crossed over into their world, she’d had to relearn her magic from the ground up.

She’d uncovered most of her memories, but some of them were still less than clear.

But there were other reasons Lee couldn’t take the biggest risk. Other reasons that would keep her on the sidelines for this experiment. At least until they had an idea of what could happen.

Lee’s father had been a Warlord, one of the bastards from Anqar, the realm on the other side of the Gates. He’d claimed her mother, one of the witches in Ishtan, after she’d been kidnapped in a raid, and he’d fathered Lee.

Lee’s mixed heritage combined the two powerful magics, the Warlord’s abilities to manipulate Gate energies, and her mother’s witch gift. That dual heritage would make her one very, very fine prize to any Warlord that still lurked in the forests at the base of the Roinan Mountains.

If she used her magic, they might sense her. None of them could take that chance, especially not until they knew if the magic was reliable again. If the energy that fueled their magic couldn’t be used, they couldn’t even use it to defend themselves in an attack.

Syn stood by the side, her arms crossed over her chest. She hoped neither of her friends could feel how terrified, how anxious, she was.

For close to two months, she hadn’t been able to use her magic.

There were times when she felt like she was dying inside. She wasn’t as strong as Lee or Elina, but the magic was a part of her. It was second nature for her to use it to probe an area before making a decision on whether to advance or fall back. It was instinct to use the magic as a defensive tactic when they were battling the demons that prowled the forest. It was natural to use it in an offensive when they corned a cache of the fucking monsters.

It was part of her, and ever since the Gate’s collapse, she hadn’t been able to so much as make sparks flare.

She’d tried. Once.

It had been a week after the Gate’s collapse, and she’d been in the forest with her team. Bron’s team wasn’t far away and they’d been closing in on a small contingent of Raviners. Things went bad and then from bad to worse quicker than she could blink. And if she’d had less effective troops with her, she’d be dead. Or at least insane.

She’d reached for the magic and it had responded by reaching back and trying to suck her in. One of her seconds had struck her in the head with the butt of his pulsar, knocking her unconscious and breaking her connection to the energy. It had been instinct, and a gamble, but it had worked.

Now she couldn’t reach for the earth’s energy, and she needed it to use her magic. But she couldn’t do it . . . and Syn feared it was slowly killing her.

The Gate’s collapse had set the earth’s energies into a state of chaos. It was no longer safe to merge with the energy, and until they could reach it safely, they couldn’t rely on their magic.

That was a huge part of the reason Syn had felt so chilled over the past weeks. She was hemorrhaging inside. But it wasn’t blood she was losing. It felt like part of her. Not being able to use her magic made her feel like she wasn’t the woman who’d helped lead the rebel army to their somewhat questionable victory.

She felt like she had lost herself.