Shadowman (36 page)
Authors: Erin Kellison
Layla kept her sights on Shadowman. Her heart quailed, but yes, this time she was certain if she asked it of him he'd agree. She was the master of her own fate, and she would not permit her legacy to the world, to Talia, be a gate to Hell. Not when she could stop it. He'd understand. He'd have to understand.
Rose feinted to one side. Shadowman wasn't duped and tracked her movement with a dodge of his own. Turned. Drew the ax back, muscles rippling into tensed planes and bunches.
Layla's heart stalled. “I'd like the night with him, if that's okay.”
She'd requested the same when she first learned why she'd been reborn. Maybe now there would be a different answer.
The ax darted in a downward stroke. Rose twisted, off balance, clawing through empty air. Her eyes took on a panicked plea.
Shadowman's expression went indifferent. The blade flashed. Cut through the red dust hovering in the air. Met flesh.
And Rose's head skipped across the cracked, fiery earth.
The angels were already retreating to their cars en masse. The blond one called back in answer, “Have him bring my ax, will you?”
Layla shifted her gaze to Shadowman, who stood panting, sweat coursing down his tawny shoulders. The ax hung at his side. His shoelaces were undone, again.
Those black fae eyes of his tracked the exodus of the angels, whom she knew he'd expected to fight next, then returned to her, a dark and wary question in their depths.
Chapter 19
Shadowman glanced from his shoelaces to Layla. “Now I make bunny ears?”
“Yeah,” she said, flashing her bright smile. “Cross them, just like that, tuck one under . . . right. And pull.”
Shadowman assessed his handiwork, then looked up to make his report. “This will take some practice.”
“You'll get it.” Her gaze slid from his eyes to his hair, and the humor turned to mock sadness. “So pretty, now gone. I had plans for that hair, damn it.”
An unspoken agreement hung in the air of the hotel room. They would not speak about what tomorrow would bring. Layla's optimism wouldn't flag.
He'd been introduced to the bliss of a shower but driven to curses by the slippery little bottle of shampoo. The trays of food had been set aside, extra water downed until, yes, as she promised, he felt a whole lot better.
She stood up from the foot of the bed, where the impromptu lesson had been held, she on her knees, and he on the edge. (Not how he'd intended to use the bed.) When she reached for the bag of clothing she'd insisted they buy for him, he stood. Took it from her. Placed it on the couch.
At last Layla went still, as he did beside her. The room fell quiet, except for the bumps and occasional footsteps outside their room. It was so quiet he could hear them both breathe, and he altered his rhythm to match hers.
“I don't think I've ever felt this good,” she said.
Shadowman knew she'd arranged something with the angels. That, or they'd never have left them alone with the gate still rattling evil. She must think she was going to die with its destruction, and soon. How much time had she bought them? Considering the angels' urgency, not long. A day? Just one night?
She'd be shining bright about now, as she always did at the brink. He closed his eyes and could feel the heat of the glow between them. It wouldn't do, however, to inform her that he'd taken her place with Rose's death. The new day would begin soon enough.
He lowered his head to her crown and breathed in the sweetness and heat of her hair. She tilted her face up in response, brushing her cheek along his shoulder.
“I should've had you take me on a date.” She laughed. “Dinner and a movie. Oh! Or for a drive to the ocean. We would've had time for a little detour. There's nothing like the ocean at night.”
Shadowman looked down into her eyes. “Regrets?”
She startled, then shook her head emphatically, gazing back at him. “None. I'm exactly where I want to be.”
He brought a hand to her waist, slid it under the cloth of her shirt to the slope of her side. The smoothness of her skin had him closing his eyes again to weather the hard beat and flush of heat that was his new body's response to her nearness. Would Death give up forever for a single mortal day? Easily. Layla had more magic than all of Shadow combined.
His eyes were still closed when her lips touched his. The contact set off a clumsy avalanche of motion: a sudden shift for better access, a tug of his sleeve, a grasp and salty taste of skin, a confusion of limbs shedding shirts and pants. When he swung her weight around to the bed, he'd lost everything but one shoe, held fast by a gathered pant leg and boxer at his ankle. He kicked himself free as she, naked, scooted back to the pillows, laughing at him.
Then she shrieked, happy, when he pounced. The shock of skin on skin set the room careening, but he didn't care as long as he held Layla. He went for the flushed cleft between her breasts, his hand stroking up her thigh, until her luscious bottom filled his palm. He squeezed, then adjusted the position of her leg a little higher, and knew she liked it when she brought the other leg up to match, sliding her hands through his hair to grip his shoulders.
A taste on the tender underside of her breast, too. He had to breathe deep at the thump of want that fuzzed his brain. A pause to wrestle with his laboring heart. Then he brushed his mouth up to the hollow at her throat, just below her ear, where her life beat against his lips. A long life, which she'd won for herself. He would not allow his cursed gate to take it away.
For tonight, however, she would be his. He was granted this much at least, though it embittered his heart that the time should be so brief. Good thing he wouldn't need the tainted organ after tomorrow.
He moved upward, nipped her earlobe, tasted the smoothness of her cheek, grazed her mouth with his teeth. She wrapped her legs around him and hooked her ankles. Her smug expression told him she didn't intend to let him go. So he pushed her further, cruising his free hand around her hip, and discovered just how much she desired him. The wetness between her thighs told him that, even without the gift of Shadow.
Blood and heat gathered within him into a churn and swell of sensation and need. He tensed everything to speak through a shudder of awareness, so she would understand, too.
“You and I,” he said.
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“Yes,” Layla answered. “Absolutely.”
His face was flushed, back tensing, ribs flaring with each tight breath. The slow wave of the motion sent dark currents of rapture through her body. No man ever could have made her feel like this, not when her psyche had already known Shadowman.
Layla pulled him down with her legs and wrapped her arms more tightly around his shoulders, so that his slanted eye was next to her human one, and they could look at each other soul to soul. She guided him to her entrance.
“It'll be okay,” she said and adjusted her hips slightly to tease him.
Which made him growl against her. The vibration tickled, so she laughed again. Kissed his mouth, soft and deep. Fine-tuned their fit. Connected.
Which stopped his breath completely; every strand of muscle and sinew in his back, thighs, and delicious ass was strung tight. A damp sheen broke out on his skin. A pleasure groan rumbled low in his chest.
She used her legs for leverage, and took them deeper, torturing them both. A bright pulse of delight gathered deep in her womb, begging for friction.
And he answered with a slow, filling pump.
His black irises widened as he moved again, a subtle ripple of Shadow in the room. Mage. Right. Problem? Too late now . . .
His hands took hers, fingers lacing, and braced them above her head on the mattress. His shoulders flexed as he balanced his weight on either side of her for total possession. A riot of sensation consumed her mind, body, heart, as he claimed her again. She arched to rub her breasts against his chest.
He drove deep once more. “Layla . . .”
Breeched all barriers, stole her breath, and silenced the world until it was reduced to the pounding in her head. The darkness in the room became a sea of reckoning Shadow. Relentlessly he moved, wave upon wave, quickening his tempo. It was primitive, dark, magic and flesh, a cataclysm, volcanic, creating as much as it destroyed. She'd never be the same, but it didn't matter anyway. When his forehead dropped to touch hers, she sobbed and clenched him tight. An extended shout was ripped from his throat, and she met him with her own lift and fierce cry.
They clung like that, together in the dark, a pocket of the universe that didn't wholly belong to any world. She almost would have begged him to make a little universe of their own, if not for the trouble they'd leave behind.
He let his big body collapse on top of her, oblivious to the fact that she required oxygen to breathe. When she gasped for air, he rolled to the side and took her with him. But he wouldn't let her go. One arm held her fast at the small of her back. His other tangled in her hair at her nape. She trembled, gripping him just as hard, as if a hurricane might blow through the room at any moment and tear them apart, when really they both intended to walk into disaster freely come morning.
Layla woke to the light snore of the mage known as Shadowman. She'd fallen into the crook of his arm sometime in the night, his muscle her pillow. That's how they would sleep if they could have a future. With him breathing deeply beside her, she'd bet her nightmares would be a thing of the past. Nuzzling, she kissed his chest. He was as warm as the tint of his skin, and very little could have compelled her to leave him, but she had work to do, and only a few hours to do it.
First, a difficult responsibility, sure to frustrate her newfound family. She ducked out to the car to get a laptop she'd borrowed from Adam, then settled into the hotel room's sofa. She titled her article “Wraiths, Shrouded in Secrecy” and spotlighted Segue, the place she considered home. With the emergence of the wights and the reorganization of the wraiths, the public needed to know what the world was up against. She corrected the dates for the firstknown cases, referencing murders found in Segue's case files over twenty-three years ago. She vouched personally for wraiths' near-immortality and stated that The Segue Institute had discovered a means to kill them, but she didn't divulge more, to protect Talia and The Order. She described in detail the signs of a wraith kill, and then, after a hard internal debate, revealed what the wraiths fed upon for sustenance: human souls. Denied nourishment, the wraiths became wights, specters of such little substance that not even gravity could hold them. The wights troubled her most now. She went on to state that Segue was also in the process of developing capture and control techniques, called Barrow-tech. And last of all, for fun, she referred questions to Adam Thorne.
As the sky grayed outside her hotel window, she e-mailed the article to her editor, and blind cc'd Adam, so he'd be prepared for the phone calls. Not that the public would believe her claims, but at least she'd done what she'd come to do. People were dying. A new age of magic was upon the world. The Order might strive to reverse it, and Segue might try to control it, but really there was no going back.
Having done her worst, she sought pen and paper (more personal) to write a note to Talia, but after addressing the sheet in her best penmanship (never good), she couldn't figure out what to say, and heart aching, she abandoned the project altogether.
She turned when Shadowman shifted to sit up, his physique glorious in the dappled morning light. “Morning, sunshine.”
The black got deeper in his eyes.
All right then, a kiss. Which rapidly turned into more. And even though they had several hours of driving ahead of them, they ended up in the shower together. Breakfast on the road. Doom on the horizon.
The gate started rattling in her head as soon as they turned onto Interstate 81 heading south. She tried the radio to cover the sound, but it was no good. The metallic, angry jangle only increased its volume until she could barely hear herself think. And here she'd been looking forward to talking with Shadowman, to having this last time together. The rattle made her want to turn the car around for a little peace. To save themselves.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: How about just one more day?
Rose and Moira had tapped her deepest fears. The gate was playing a crueler game, taunting her with her forfeited future.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: A day for love.
“I hear it, too,” Shadowman said, massaging the muscles at her neck. He must have put some magic into the touch, because she could breathe again. Focus.
'Cause, see, a day would never be enough. Not with Shadowman, warm and vital at her side, not with Talia, friend, sister, and so much more. The gate could only offer portions, which was a cheat. And a mean one. With its destruction, the danger would pass, and Layla would carry the precious memory of love with her beyond. None of the nightmares that had plagued her life. Just a bittersweet joy. She wasn't afraid anymore, just impatient.
She gripped the steering wheel and floored the gas. Angels must have been on the road, parting the traffic, turning the cops' speed guns the other way, because she got up to 120 and stayed there. Adam's car could more than handle it. The tolls were empty, gates lifted, metered exits flashing green. The several hours were cut in half.
When she crossed the state line into West Virginia, the rattle reached a crescendo, so loud she had to grab her head to keep it from bursting.
Shadowman took the steering wheel, while she curled into herself, her foot a brick on the gas. Tears ran down her face as the gate to Hell shook every bone in her body and chattered her clenched teeth. Hateful, hateful thing.
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