Shadow's Awakening: The Shadow Warder Series, Book One (An Urban Fantasy Romance Series) (39 page)

A car roared to life a few feet away, startling Hannah when it shifted into gear and surged to block her path. The passenger door flew open to reveal a young brunette at the wheel.

“Get in the car,” the woman said, impatient. Hannah just stared at her, dumbfounded.

“Get in the fucking car,” the woman repeated. “We have to get out of here.”

“Who are you?” Hannah asked. It filtered through that she needed to get away from the Warder Citadel. Immediately. But she didn’t know this woman. The last thing she wanted was to end up in the wrong hands again.

“I’m Kate.” Kate gave her an impersonal scan, taking in her injury, attire and the layer of filth coating her. She shook her head. “You’re bleeding all over the street. Get in and I’ll get you healed up. Your Warder is going to go apeshit when he sees you.”

“What Warder?” Hannah asked. Too exhausted and dizzy to think clearly, she was paralyzed by conflicting desires. Get in the car. Run away as fast as she could. Or just collapse on the sidewalk.

“I don’t know his name. Look, I’m Kate, Zach’s cousin.” At Hannah’s blank look, Kate went on, her voice rising with tension. “The Shadow Oracle who told your Warder to rescue you? He sent me to help. But if you don’t get in this goddamned car, we’ll both be caught.”

The information filtered into Hannah’s brain in slow drops of logic. Sent by the Shadow Oracle. Conner hadn’t told her his name. But who else would know a Shadow Oracle had sent Conner to her? Conner wouldn’t have told the other Warders about that. He didn’t want to be caught talking to a Shadow. Trying to get her head in gear, Hannah wobbled on the sidewalk. She had to sit down before she passed out. This Kate wasn’t a sure thing, but what she’d said so far added up. Hoping she wasn’t making a fatal mistake, Hannah got in the low-slung car in an awkward tumble.

Her vision began to fade as she heard Kate say, “Glad Zach told me to put plastic on the seat.”

With a roar of the engine, Kate sped away from the Citadel.

Hannah kept her eyes closed, afraid she’d throw up if she had to watch Kate whip them through the city in her fast, loud car. Once they hit the highway, Hannah opened her eyes and looked at Kate.

Sensing the attention, Kate shot her an assessing look. “They did a number on you,” she said. “How badly are you hurt?”

“Stabbed in the shoulder with a scalpel. Hit my head. That’s it.”

Kate eyed the blood streaming down Hannah’s left arm. “You look like you’ve lost a lot of blood. We’re about an hour out from meeting up with your Warder and his friend. You’re not going to hold out that long.”

Giving no sign that she planned to make an abrupt lane change, Kate swung off on the upcoming exit, ignoring the honks of the cars behind her. She drove to a large suburban mall, stopping in the farthest reaches of the parking lot where they were guaranteed privacy.

Hannah laid her head back, allowing her eyes to slip shut again. Despite Kate’s crazed driving, Hannah felt safe. She was so tired. Cold and tired. Kate’s hand closed over the wound on her shoulder in a tight grip, sending pain shooting through her arm and back. Hannah gasped, her head arched back, cords in her neck drawn taught.

“Shh,” Kate soothed. “I know it hurts like a bitch. I’m not a great healer, but this needs to be knit together fast to stop the bleeding. Just give me another minute and the pain should start to fade. Then we’ll get you cleaned up.”

True to her words, the blinding pain mellowed into a burn that was almost comforting. Before she would have thought possible, the discomfort was gone entirely. Hannah wanted to open her eyes and take a look, but the effort to raise her heavy lids was too much. She heard Kate get up and walk around the car, then return seconds later. A cool cloth wiped at her arm and face, cleaning away the sticky blood and clinging dust. Kate smoothed another cloth over Hannah’s hair before tying it back in a low ponytail.

“This isn’t as good as a shower, but it’ll get the worst of it off you.” Kate continued to wipe at her skin in long, relaxing strokes of cool moisture.

Finally as clean as she was going to get in a mall parking lot, Hannah felt Kate lean her forward and tug off the hospital gown. It occurred to her that she should mind being naked out in the open. After the events of the past week, Hannah was just glad to get out of that thing. Kate tugged a loose shirt over her head.

“Hannah,” Kate said in a tone sharp enough to wake her up a little. “I have some stretchy pants for you to wear, but I need you to help me get them on you.”

“‘Kay,” Hannah mumbled, clumsily shifting her legs into the pants, wiggling them up with Kate’s assistance. When she had them on all the way, she collapsed back into her bucket seat in relief.

“What’s around your neck?” Kate examined the amulet Hannah had used to get past the wards. Then she touched the copper collar circling Hannah’s neck, giving it an experimental tug. The collar held firm. “Feels like it’s disrupting the energy around your body.”

“Yeah.” Hannah tried to kick her brain into gear. She was so relaxed and sleepy. “They put it on me. It blocks my Shadow stuff.”

“Fuckers,” Kate swore under her breath. Hannah felt her moving the collar around her neck, studying it from every angle. “Do you want me to try to take it off? It might hurt.”

“Yes,” Hannah said, her voice stronger than it had been since Kate began to clean her up. “Get it off me. Please get it off.”

“Yeah. I bet you’ll heal a lot faster with this gone. Probably why you were healing so slowly in the first place. I can feel it disrupting your energy.”

Kate gripped the collar in both hands, pulling it taut against Hannah’s neck. Before she ripped it away, Kate ran her fingers over the cool metal, her touch assessing. Abruptly, she dropped the collar.

“I can’t take it off yet,” she said. “We need to wait for Conner. This thing has been isolating your energy. If I rip it away without him here to balance you out—” Kate trailed off. “I’m not sure what would happen, but I’m not keen to find out. Just hang in there a little longer.” She lay her hand on Hannah’s forehead. “I’m going to put you in a healing trance for a while. It’s like being in a really deep sleep. With that collar on you need all your reserves to heal. I’ll bring you out of it when we get to Conner. Okay?”

“Mmmm.” Hannah didn’t have the energy for anything else. She was worried about the baby, after so much blood loss. And about Conner. She wanted to see him so badly. What if he didn’t want to see her? The thoughts rattled in her brain, but she was too exhausted for them to gain purchase. Kate’s hand grew hot against her forehead and she slid gratefully into a deep healing sleep.

Kate checked her sleeping passenger for the fiftieth time. Still out cold. The girl was a trouper. The wound in her shoulder was deeper than Kate would have liked. Unfortunately, Kate had been telling the truth when she said she wasn’t a healer. She’d gotten it closed and the bleeding stopped with little muscle damage, but Hannah would likely bear a scar. Kate thought she’d get over it.

What a cluster fuck. An untrained Shadow bonded to a now-rebel Warder. Kate wondered if Hannah knew she was pregnant. The baby was holding on just fine. One thing their kind didn’t suffer was miscarriage. Once the baby had taken root, it stayed right where it was until it was time to come out, even in dire circumstances. In a way, it made up for their low birth rate.

Kate had removed the spell-crafted amulet, but the collar was a worry. Cutting a Shadow off from the energy around her was a subtle yet deep kind of torture. Hannah was too new to what she was to truly suffer the punishment. Kate knew a more experienced Shadow might go slowly mad if isolated by such a collar. What would have driven the Warders to create such a thing? How long had they had it?

As far as anyone knew, the enforced separation between Warders and Shadows was still in effect, had been for over fifteen hundred years. A Warder shouldn’t be in contact with a Shadow, much less have designed a device that would keep one powerless. Kate shivered. There was more going on here than any of them understood. Whatever it was, it heralded bad things to come.

Yet she was sitting beside a bonded Shadow. With no contact, the bondings had all but disappeared. Few even knew such a thing existed. Kate was certain Hannah had no idea what was between her and Conner. You had to know what you were looking for. As intimately aware of bonding as Kate was, she could feel the connection between Hannah and Conner vibrating in the air, growing more intense as the lovers grew geographically closer. Her phone sounded the distinct tone that signaled Zach.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Fine. You?”

“The kid is a mess, but she’s all right. I have her in a healing trance. We’re on our way to the Warders. I’m ready for the rest of the directions if you can give them to me.”

“Get on I-40 headed west. At the next exit there’s a big truck stop. Get off and drive past the truck stop about two miles. On your left will be an abandoned gas station. They’ll be parked behind it.”

“That’s a clear vision,” Kate commented.

“Internet map, smartass. Meet up with them and bring them to the Sanctuary in Tennessee. I’ve got them a spot there. Iris is waiting for you.”

“Fuck that,” Kate shouted, sending a guilty glance at her still sleeping passenger. “I’m not going to fucking Tennessee.”

“Ben’s not there. He’s in London. He won’t be back for another few weeks.”

“Zach,” she said, her voice weighed by despair. “Don’t ask me to go there.”

“Kate. I can’t send two renegade Warders and a strange, injured Shadow into the Sanctuary alone. Even with Iris expecting them. You need to bring them in.”

Kate knew she was being a pain in the ass. She hadn’t been to the Sanctuary in Tennessee for years, despite it being the closest true Shadow Sanctuary to her home base. She and Ben had an unspoken agreement to avoid the other’s territory. The Tennessee Sanctuary was his. She didn’t like the thought of being there. Too many memories. But Zach was right. These three couldn’t show up alone. Some enterprising Shadow might blow them right off the mountain road.

“Fine. I’ll bring them in. But I’m leaving in the morning. Maybe tonight depending on how it goes.”

“Wait for me to get there before you go. I’m headed there soon. I’ve got a surprise of my own.” With that, he hung up.

Fucking Zach, Kate thought with an affectionate grin. Sometimes he couldn’t help playing up the mysterious Oracle bit. She checked the mile marker on I-77. Not too much farther until she could reunite the star-crossed lovers. Hannah seemed sweet. Kate hoped Conner wasn’t a dick. She’d hate to be responsible for setting the girl up for a broken heart.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Michael stood in the hallway of his lab, swamped by conflicting emotions. Deep rage chased chilly fear around and around in a useless circle as he stared at Henry’s body. His former assistant lay on his back, lower body twisted, a stream of drying blood coming from the destroyed mess that was his eye. A dull dinner knife still stuck there, embedded far enough to have penetrated his brain.

They’d been running this lab for three years and had never come close to an escape. Had they gotten slack in their security? Henry had been weak. But it was hard to find the right combination of docility and intelligence for a lab assistant. One trait always seemed to overshadow the other. In Henry’s case, he’d been plenty docile, but not terribly bright. Hannah, on the other hand, had been more than bright enough. And now she was gone, the baby along with her. All their work. They’d been so close. Michael heard the grate of his teeth grinding together. Unable to confine his fury, he kicked Henry’s lifeless corpse. The thunk of his foot into Henry’s doughy midsection was unsatisfying.

At least the other Shadows were still where they belonged. Michael suppressed the urge to kick Henry’s body again. He was beyond punishment. Michael himself was not. All he needed after this disaster was for Druj to see him losing control again. For all his power, Michael was under no illusions about who was in charge in this relationship. If Druj grew too impatient, Michael would lose more than a test subject.

As if summoned just by thinking of him, Michael felt the familiar, terrifying shimmer of Druj’s dark power fill the blood-streaked hallway. For the first time in their acquaintance, Druj appeared naked, without the shell of a human host to contain his presence. Ten feet tall, he towered over Michael. Arms and legs like a man, thick with muscle, were covered in a skin that shifted into gleaming reptilian scales over its chest, back, knees, and elbows. A long, tapered, scaled tail whipped back and forth. Without the physical power of a body, the tail still managed to give the impression of strength. Michael imagined it sweeping his feet out from beneath him, sending him to his back, vulnerable to Druj’s death strike. He shuddered.