Everywhere and Nowhere (Safe Haven Book 1) (17 page)

“Hello, Hadrian. I’ve been expecting you.”

Had she slept at all? She must have, because when she’d woken up, she’d not been where she fell asleep. It had taken her ten minutes to figure that out and now, after another five, she was still not prepared for what she next learned. The Shadow King had stolen her. He paced the room of what she assumed was his palace.

He finally stopped his endless pacing and turned to face her. His skin, as pale as the whitest snow, held a slight flush in his cheeks that she imagined was from the exertion it must have taken to teleport himself into her tent, grab her and transport out. Other than informing her he was the Shadow King and he’d teleported her here to his palace, he hadn’t said anything else.

Tired of being stared at, she finally spoke. “Why am I here? Have you ‘claimed’ me?”

Her sisters hadn’t told her exactly how that worked, so she supposed this could be the protocol. He pulled his long blond hair from its ponytail holder, tugging nervously on the long strands. He was the only man she’d seen here who wasn’t as dark as midnight.

“I am not claiming you. Although if I thought it would solve my problem, I would do so in a minute.”

“You have a problem?” She had a whole bunch of them herself. If she didn’t believe in self-preservation and the hope that she’d once again get to see Hadrian, she’d have let him know just how she felt about his adding to the ever-growing long list of issues.

“My people are being attacked, my mines are being raided, and my women are being taken from me. All of this is because of you.” He shouted the last two words, which might have previously made her cringe. But since she’d gotten so good lately at handling Hadrian’s bad moods, she didn’t find it that difficult to endure. Men screamed, they ranted and raved, but she didn’t have to respond to it.

“Excuse me, Your Shadow Majesty, but I don’t see how any of this could possibly be my fault. I didn’t ask to be brought here against my will, dragged around or threatened. Not to mention that I couldn’t even begin to figure out how the fact that people are being attacked could have anything to do with me.”

“Does the name Hadrian mean anything to you?”

Hadley’s heart skipped a beat. “Should it?” She wasn’t going to give this man any information about Hadrian. Nothing that might compromise him.

The Shadow King bent over until his face practically touched hers. “Oh, I think it should. I just finished communicating with your father and he tells me you are quite familiar with Hadrian. So I can only assume he is here with thirteen Haven Warriors because of you.”

“There are some words I’d like to have with my father too.”

“You still have not answered my question.”

Hadley raised an eyebrow. “Do I know Hadrian?”

“Yes, woman, that question.”

“Well, I suppose if my father says I know him, then I must know him.”

“You aren’t going to help me at all, are you?”

“Ooh! You’re a bright one!”

The king picked her up and shoved her against the wall. His hands pressed hard into her arms and she cried out. “Is that supposed to be sarcasm?”

“I suppose so. Is this supposed to be frightening?” Her words were strained as the pain in her arms worsened.

“If I wanted to, I could keep you here until your body on Haven dies. It won’t take much longer. Soon you’ll be nothing but a rotten corpse like your sisters.” His pupils were huge and Hadley had to admit she was scared. But she’d be damned if she let him know. She squirmed and tried to pull out of his clutches but he was too strong. “Stop struggling.”

“No.” If Hadrian was somewhere in this dimension, he’d find her. She’d never seen herself as needing someone to get her out of tough situations but right at that moment, she would gladly take rescue.

“I can see it in your eyes that you still have hope. That is a dangerous thing. Very few people in your position would dare to still hold on to such a ridiculous notion.”

Hadley shook her head. “Is it? It seems to me you must want something from me. You’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to bring me here to your castle. Why don’t you tell me what you really need from me and I’ll decide if I feel like negotiating with you.” She was taking a big chance—if she was wrong, she was in more trouble than she cared to admit.

With a plop, she collided with the floor as he dropped her. “You’re right. I do want something from you.” His eyes traced her body and she shivered with dread. That wasn’t what she’d expected him to desire. He smiled, a glint of satisfaction in his eyes.

“Tempting, but I’m afraid I have more pressing matters.” He crossed the room to a tall, black desk and opened the top left drawer. Pulling out a small vial, he closed the drawer and shut the top of the desk so that it now resembled a giant safe. Obviously, whatever he kept in there he didn’t want people getting to.

Stomping his feet, he walked over to where she sat on the floor. He towered over her but she wouldn’t blink or flinch from his hard gaze. “In this small vial I have something called Breathless.” “I don’t want endless life,” Hadley spat.

“Not like father, like daughter, eh?” The King laughed, a hard, cold, sound. “I actually didn’t think so. Breathless, if consumed daily, will keep you alive as long as you drink it every day. But the second you stop taking it, normal aging begins again. On Haven, your body is in rapid decline. Even now I can see Leopard working constantly to keep down a fever from an infection she cannot find. Eventually she will lose her battle. Everyone does.”

“You have the gift of sight.” It wasn’t a question. The man could obviously see things beyond what happened around him.

“Only of those who are members of my kingdom.”

Hadley shot to her feet. “I am not a member of your kingdom.”

“You were given to us when you were born in return for thirty years’ worth of Breathless.”

“I wasn’t available to be given, nor were my sisters.” Hadley blinked rapidly. She couldn’t remember ever being so angry but she needed to keep her control.

The king raised an eyebrow. “I rather agree.” He did? “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t take them—and you—anyway, because desperation has caused me to do things I would not do otherwise.”

Hadley swallowed. Her mouth felt dry. “And what makes you desperate?”

“My people are dying. We haven’t produced a female of our own in two centuries. A terrible virus, nothing more than a flu, overwhelmed us. Everyone got sick. When the fever had cleared, all the women were dead. Since then, even mating with off-worlders we have not been able to have female children of our own. The men grow more withdrawn, less civilized as time goes on. They spend increasing amounts of time in the mines, going deeper into the ground where we have never explored, and I fear what they will find there.”

Hadley couldn’t help but be moved by what he said. Whatever else he was, in this he was sincere. A lump formed in her throat. “Your Majesty…”

He laughed, the same humorless sound. “Leon. My name is Leon. As you have pointed out, you are not actually my subject.”

“Leon, tell me what it is that I can do for you? I feel pain for your plight but I’m just a woman, raised on Earth, who recently found out I am actually something quite different than I imagined. I’m ill-equipped for any of this.”

“You’re a Healer, as your mother is a Healer. I cannot get to her—some sort of unbreakable wall blocks her, and your sisters are pale comparisons. Each one of them might have metaphysical talent if trained but I have neither the time nor the resources to devote to that. But you…when I look toward you with my third eye, I see what you can do and already have done on Haven.” He pounded on the wall with his fist. “Do it here. Heal us.”

Hadley paced to the window where Leon stood so she could have eye contact with him. “It’s not that I don’t care for your problems—I do.”

“But?”

“I cannot travel from dimension to dimension fixing the problems of the world, and I will not be used as a pawn.” She sighed. “I’d rather be dead.”

“Which is what you will be if I don’t let you have one sip of this.” He held up the vial. “A day. Just one sip.”

Hadley’s arms tingled. This close to Leon, and not being physically threatened, her newfound abilities surged through her with a desire to heal his wounds, especially the emotional ones. Who might he have been if he’d been dealt different cards?

Hadrian’s words traveled back to her. She wasn’t to try to heal the emotional baggage of everyone she came into contact with. It was too risky a problem.

“If I’m supposed to die, then I will die.” Wow, she had never in her life felt so fatalistic.

“And are you prepared to die like this? Your body is put in the ground and yet here you remain, broodmare to the most disgusting, repulsive shadow man I can find for you?”

Turning her head slightly to the left, she examined his hard profile. Another woman would call him handsome, but all she could see were the currents of misery that filled his days and tainted his soul. “Your burdens have killed off any kindness you ever had, haven’t they?”

“Long ago, I learned to distinguish between ends and means. I will do whatever I have to do, to whomever I have to do it to. Especially you.”

Hadley threw her hands in the air. “There is nothing I can do for you. I can’t control my gift—it nearly kills me every time I use it and it’s usually more of a subconscious thing anyway.”

“I can’t get to Hadrian. I’m afraid he would best me if I tried, but I can hurt him more than you can imagine. He’s already lost Annabelle—unless of course he’s found her again.”

Hadley tried not to flinch as the image of Annabelle and Hadrian lost in each other’s embrace filled her with aching loneliness.

“I can’t fathom the pain he would feel to fail again, to lose you, which is what will happen if you don’t drink your Breathless.”

“And the only way you’ll give me the drug is if I heal your people. All of you?” He nodded and she swallowed hard. She wasn’t ready to give up on Hadrian. Just hours earlier she’d thought to sacrifice her happiness for Annabelle’s, but now something had shifted inside her.

He was hers. Right or wrong, she would fight for him.

To do that she would have to live. Hadrian had traveled here with an army to rescue her. The least she could do would be not to give up hope and to fight for both of them.

“What if I can’t do it? If I try and I’m unable to succeed?”

“If you fail there will be no Breathless.”

Hadley groaned. “So I won’t even get it for good measure?”

“If you fail, two-thirds of my people will be dead with no hope of renewal. I will accept nothing from you but absolute success.”

“You don’t think you’re being a little unfair here?”

Leon shrugged. “I know I’m being unfair.”

“If I agree to this, what assurances do I have that you will keep your word?”

Leon’s face split in an angry grin. “You think because I am a creature of the shadows, I am not to be trusted?”

Now he’d pissed her off. “Don’t you dare treat me as if I’m some kind of bigot. You’ve done nothing but abuse me for days. And now you want me to just accept your word as if you actually have some honor.”

She realized she was shouting but she wanted some kind of reassurance or she would halt this all right now and find another way out of this mess. Not that any ideas presented themselves to her at the moment.

“Contract.”

Hadley was confused—what did he mean? One moment later, a paper appeared before her eyes. It floated in the air in front of her. She reached out and grabbed it.

“This is a contract with my soul attached to it. As soon as you’ve looked at it, I will send it to the shadow people hall of chambers. There it will be filed. If I do not live up to my end of the bargain, this contract will activate and I will be sent immediately from here to the pits of the mines of Brenta, where I will remain for the rest of my days, soulless and alone.”

Well, that sounded fair. Hadley nodded and passed the contract to him. He seemed to blink and the paper vanished, presumably sent to the so-called hall of chambers.

“I’m going to do this. I have one request.”

He raised an eyebrow. “A request?”

“Whenever I’ve tried to do this in the past, or rather whenever it has happened to me without my consent, I’ve nearly died from it. This is larger than anything I’ve done thus far. Please, if I die, tell Hadrian that I loved him. I never said it when we were together. I felt as if everything was too soon, too fast, and I doubted myself… But I know that I do love him…and I want him to know it too.”

One tear slipped from her eye and she wiped it away. It was the only tear she would shed.

She walked to the window and pressed both palms against it. Having no idea whether she was doing any of this right, but going on instinct alone, she closed her eyes and let her mind wander.

At first nothing happened and she blew out an exasperated breath. She didn’t wonder where Leon was—she could still feel his presence on the other side of the room.

Hadrian. She wanted it to be Hadrian standing there, supporting her as she undertook this way-too-large experience.

Thinking of him gave her a feeling of strength. Her arms and legs started to tingle. She could feel the sickness that still lived inside these people. It had killed the women and slowly but surely it was destroying the men.