Dark Flight (The Shadow Slayers) (34 page)

And as for Kara’s strange wings, they’d decided that when it came to the O.P.A. and the residents of the Shadowland, what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

Kara looked out over the island—the lights, the games and all the festivities. Not only was every warrior, lady and human camp companion in attendance for the birthday celebration, Gavin had even invited Nefren, Mazeki and Hexa to share in his joy. Kara had issued an invitation of her own, but so far her guest hadn’t arrived, and she was starting to get worried.

Rachel and Darrinda, both looking so beautiful in their formal gowns, made their way toward the dance floor. They adored their new home, so much so that they rarely got out to the mainland. But Kara had to admit they looked happy and healthy right where they were. Rachel bounced Rafael on her hip in time with the music as she sashayed in Kara’s direction.

“Well, there’s the birthday boy!” Kara cooed, and Rafael lifted his tiny little hands to her.

“Do you mind?” Rachel asked. “I haven’t been to a party like this in two hundred years.”

“Are you kidding?” Kara laughed and took Rafael in her arms, nuzzling his cheek and blowing a raspberry on his neck. He dissolved in giggles and then planted his cheek on her chest, making nonstop chatter in his own language the entire time.

Darrinda’s boy was growing so fast. He’d been in regeneration for the first year of his life, but when he’d awoken, he’d gone from newborn-sized to a hefty toddler in a little under three months. He and the island’s only other toddler were the best of friends—and partners in crime.

“But you’re perfect, aren’t you?” Kara murmured to Rafael, and he smiled his one-toothed grin, agreeing with her completely.

Darrinda had hold of her son’s hand as they danced—she and Rachel and the boy. Darri needed him with her most of the time since he’d woken from regeneration, and who could blame her? Many of Brakken’s former females were still adapting to a life of safety and freedom. And besides, for Darrinda, the teen years would come soon enough when he wanted his space. For now it was all about healing for mothers and for son.

Kara sucked in a breath through her teeth against Rafael’s cheek to make a big, squeaky, kissy noise. Rafe giggled, openmouthed and drooly, and raised his cheek to her again.

“Save some of those kisses for me, princess.”

Gavin ran his hand over her rump, and Kara blushed. “Um, there are children present…”

“Only three on an island of three hundred. I’m fairly certain that means I can do
this
—” he closed the gap behind her and gave her ass a squeeze, “—anytime little eyes are pointed in the other direction.”

“You mean an island of three hundred and forty-seven. That’s a lot of eyes watching your hands, big guy.” They had lost warriors in the battle, some who were gone for good, and the clan still mourned them. But with the net migration of Brakken’s females and the scores of other warriors and servants who’d come crawling out of the woodwork, ready to swear allegiance to “Prince Gavine”, the island’s population had grown dramatically.

“Kara, may I speak to you?” Mazeki asked, causing Kara and Gavin to glance up as though they’d just been caught. Mazeki wasn’t much into dancing, but he seemed to be enjoying his time on the surface.

Kara waved and gave him a smile, then turned to Gavin. “Duty calls, Daddy. Here’s your boy.”

Kara waited for the moment that always came when she handed Rafael off. His lips curved into a deep frown and his eyes went wide and watery, and yes, she was probably going to hell for it, but it still made her feel like a million bucks.

Gavin shook his head, trying to calm little Rafe. “What a gift you have for turning grown men into babies.”

“Hey, Rafe is already a baby. I can’t be blamed for this.”

“I was talking about myself,” he said, and then he kissed her.

Kara was still smiling when she weaved her way through the crowd to where Mazeki stood by Hexa. Since Jaxon and Abbey’s wedding, Hexa was trying to visit more often, and folks on the island were trying their best to act like they didn’t want to reach out and pet her. Kara was amazed how much good it had done both Hexa and Jaxon to feel like they’d had a part in bringing Brakken to justice.

Now was that newfound confidence helping Hexa to send out sexy vibes or helping Mazeki to act on them? No. Not even close. But it was adorable to see those two, always finding themselves side by side, accidentally rubbing shoulders, fingers grazing the other’s wrist when they passed the dinner plate. In another hundred years, Kara thought Mazeki might even get up the nerve to ask her on a date.

Kara greeted them with a hug,
accidentally
losing her balance and causing Hexa to bump sideways into Mazeki’s chest. “Oh, sorry!”

Mazeki brought his hands to Hexa’s arms and they lingered there. “Were you hurt?” he asked, as though Kara had really plowed her down.

Hexa could barely lift her chin to meet his eyes, but to Kara’s astonishment, her female wiles seemed to kick in and she glanced up at him through her lashes. “No. I’m quite all right.”

And when Hexa backed away and folded her hands in front of her, Kara had to change her estimate. Oh, yeah, they’d be dining alone in twenty years—tops.

Kara schooled her face into an innocent mask. “You needed to speak to me?”

“Yes, yes,” he said, but he was still so flustered that his braid was swishing down his back like a horse’s tail. “Did you give Jaxon the key to the journal yet?”

“I’ve opened them with a well-placed claw before,” Hexa chimed in.

“Ah, no, not a little metal key, more like a code. I found it in the chest that Kara’s father gave me,” Mazeki said.

“Oh,” she answered, seeming embarrassed.

“You can really open a locked journal with a claw?” he asked, as though she’d discovered one of the secrets of the universe.

Hexa smiled, her lips pressed together in a gently curving line. “Well, yes, in a time of need.”

“Amazing. I would love to see that sometime. I have several journals to which I’ve lost the keys. Well…” he stammered, “you’d have to see my library to believe it. It’s immense! I probably have dozens of journals. Maybe hundreds. It might be more of a task than you’d be interested in undertaking… But I could arrange for some dinner—from the surface. Anything you like.”

“Ooh,” she breathed, perhaps seeing for the first time what Kara had suspected for months—that Mazeki was hot to trot. “I would be happy to help you with your journals.”

He just blinked, smiling, staring into Hexa’s eyes.

“So…” Kara prodded. “Was that all you needed to know?”

“No.” He grudgingly tore his gaze away from his furry female and met Kara’s eyes. “What did he find?”

Kara glanced to Hexa, wondering if it was appropriate to discuss this in front of her. But she was Jaxon’s mom, for crying out loud, and Kara’s parents were long gone. They didn’t have much of a reputation to protect anymore.

“Well, because Deanna was so…verbose, Jaxon’s only been able to finish it recently. I’ve read through it, and I don’t know why she bothered to encode it, unless it was to keep it from Ailexon. It’s all pretty basic stuff, to be honest. She loved my dad, couldn’t live without him, being a queen was boring, blah, blah, blah.” Yeah, Kara was a big talker. She’d read the thing every night for the past week before bed.

“Nothing interesting, you say?”

“Nope. Some drama in Ailexon’s court. Questions as to whether or not they should eat food made of will or try to import fresh stuff from the surface. You know, that kind of queenly duty stuff.”

“Kara.” He shook his head. “You are smarter than this.”

Her mouth went slack. “I am?”

“You’re telling me what the journal says. Tell me what it does not say.”

Her brow wrinkled and she was just about to ask him what the heck he was talking about when he extended his hand to Hexa and bowed. “My lady, would you do me the honor?”

“I…why, yes.” Kara could swear Hexa’s rich brown fur rippled with crimson as she put her hand in Mazeki’s and was led to the floor.

Gavin caught her eye. Rafael was sleeping in his arms, and Gavin’s expression as he watched Kara and Mazeki could only be classified as intrigued. “What is it?” he mouthed.

She opened her hands and hitched her shoulders. “No idea,” she mouthed back.

To be fair, Mazeki might be as cryptic as a bowl of alphabet soup, but the man had a way of knowing things he shouldn’t know. Julian had even speculated that either he was a mind reader or he could foretell the future. Neither of those was something Kara was ready to deal with.

She glanced over the dance floor, smiling when she saw the contrast of Mazeki and Hexa’s formal dance with Eva and her new harem’s. Ted didn’t seem to mind that he was now one of nine. Looking at him smiling back at Eva, shoulder to shoulder with one of his harem brothers—he didn’t seem to mind at all.

Kara wasn’t sure the good word she’d put in for him had had anything to do with Eva’s decision, but she still enjoyed the fruit and wildflowers Ted brought her in gratitude. Let him think what he wanted to think. It was a free island.

When two pairs of wings appeared on the horizon, one black, one dappled silver, Kara almost squealed with joy. Since Gavin couldn’t see them from where he was standing, Kara smiled and pointed to the sky. “Find Aiden,” she mouthed.

Gavin nodded and started making his way toward Rachel to hand off the birthday boy, as Kara scampered toward the edge of the woods. Dane hadn’t been too eager to be seen publicly on the island, but it looked like Julian had convinced him.

“Dane!” She went straight up to him and practically squeezed his guts out. She hadn’t seen him in weeks, since he was still acting weird about spending time with her and her friends.

“Hey, sis.” He ruffled her hair, and Kara covered her laugh with a growl as she tried to get the flyaway pieces back into place.

Next, she approached her black-wing and gave him a scorching kiss. “Hey, handsome. Thanks for chauffeuring Dane. I didn’t want him to have to go through the trouble of breaking through the island’s wards—
again
.” When Kara gave her brother the stink-eye, he laughed.

“How’s the party?” Julian asked. He held his tux jacket and dress shirt in his hand, and it was odd to see his cummerbund fitted around his bare waist. The rest of the warriors had risked wearing their formalwear for the night, so the island was a designated no-fly zone—no one wanted to ruin a perfectly good suit by tearing the back open with his wings.

“The party is
huge.
Now I understand why the Demiáre fertility rate is so low—these kids cost their parents an arm and a leg!”

Julian laughed heartily. “I believe Gavin would give up all four extremities for that child.”

“I think you’re right.” She turned her attention back to her brother. “So…you made it! Was Ailexon mad?”

Dane shifted his feet. “He doesn’t exactly know.”

“Still?” Kara asked.

“Yeah, well, it’s complicated.”

She tried to hide her hurt. “If you don’t want him to know that we found each other, I’ll have to respect that. I didn’t grow up with him, so I don’t know what he’s like.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem. Oh, and by the way, Aiden really wants to meet you. It’s been hard on him knowing that he was too deep in his blood addiction to remember you, but I guess you would’ve been really little at the time.”

It’d been so flippin’ creepy for Kara the day she’d discovered that
her
half-brother was also Aiden’s half-brother. She couldn’t mathematically convince herself that she and Aiden weren’t related now. Gavin and Jaxon were doing much better with the truth that they shared a father, especially now that Brakken was where he belonged.

“Aiden’s here tonight,” Kara continued. “You know, he hasn’t been back to visit his father since he and Ailexon had their falling out. I think it would be so therapeutic for him to talk to you and hear about your experiences growing up there.”

Dane was looking more and more agitated, and Kara couldn’t figure out how to put his mind at ease. “You don’t have to feel weird here on the island, Dane. We want you to be an honorary part of our clan. You’re family, and I never want you to feel uncomfortable or left out.”

“Uh, yeah. Thanks, Kara.”

But something was niggling at her mind.
Left out.
She didn’t want Dane to feel left out. “Oh sweet Cheez-Its.”

Julian’s gaze sharpened on Kara’s face, silently asking the question.

“You were left out,” she whispered. “Of my mother’s journal. It recorded every minute detail of her life for the year before her death, and you weren’t in it. Why is that, Dane?”

“Nannies,” he answered quickly. “You think most females live like your friends do on this island—all doting mothers? Not hardly.”

Kara was desperate to believe him. Desperate…but not stupid.

“She listed formulas for making herbal shampoo, what gifts she brought to her friend’s baby showers and whether or not they wrote a thank-you note; she recorded everything.
But she never mentioned you
.”

Dane darted a quick glance to the side at Julian, as though waiting for him to pounce. “I’m sorry, Kara. I really need to be getting back now. Ailexon will be wondering where I am.” With one last tortured look in her eyes, her “brother” flashed out of her life.