Shadow's Light (9 page)

Finally, he said, “Ms. Monk, if you can do what you did last night and just now with your Light, then you can do anything. I was shielded last night, prepared as your thoughts had already betrayed you, yet unable to stop your attack at all. This morning, I was physically incapacitated for some time, the only chance I had of holding you captive was to manipulate your mind. But I had been prepared. Others would not be. You'd get one shot and one shot only, but it may be enough. They would be as good as defenceless." He paused, letting that all sink in. "You don't need me to train you to use your Light as a shield. You just need to get the hell on and do it.”

Easier said than done. When I didn't reply, but just sat there motionless staring at him, he went on. “I think you need to take the night off from the bar and we'll work on convincing you just how powerful your Light can be.”

I shook my head and flicked a glance at my wall clock. Still a couple of hours until I had to be at work.

“You've got two hours, Rousseau, then I'm out of here.” I couldn't bear the thought of being in his presence longer than that. I needed a break. From him. From this flat. Hell, from life, but I'd settle for a change of scenery and a rowdy beach crowd of drunks.

“If you haven't mastered it in two hours, then you don't go to work.” He said it like it was a fact. I just shrugged in reply, not having enough energy to bite back.

His first attack wasn't subtle. Maybe he was letting me find my feet with the obvious. But,
Pina Coladas
on an obviously Hawaiian beach with the sun pelting down and the palm trees swaying in the breeze, wasn't hard to see for what it was. An illusion. I let Michel's naked body stalk closer to me for a moment, enjoying the scene and then slammed my shields home and pushed Avery from my mind with my Light. It wasn't instinctive, but I wouldn't have admitted that to him to save myself. I'd get better, with practice.

Luckily, he wasn't ready to pull the plug on this little adventure down insanity lane.

The next attack was less blatant. In fact I was several minutes into it, making out with Michel in his chamber in
Sensations
when it occurred to me, Michel was dead. I bit back a cry of pain and sent my Light out at the source of the illusion like a whip. I came to in my Copacabana flat with Avery rolling around on the floor, holding his hands to his head.

He continued to writhe on the floor in agony, so I wasn't prepared for the third attack, expecting him to need to recover before launching in on my mind again. This one felt real. Avery must have put more oomph into it or something, because I didn't fight it, like I had started to the rest. I accepted Michel sitting across from me at
Sensations
, him drinking his Scotch straight, me with my
Bacardi and Coke.
Doug was even there, bringing me a sandwich on a silver tray. Michel was making jokes, telling me about his night. Sharing his evening's conversations, his business plans, his optimism over a contract he was about to sign. His eyes were shining an amazing combination of colours; indigo, violet, amethyst. All the shades I had come to adore.

He was attentive and entertaining. I felt so loved and complete and... home. He stood and took my hand, asking me to dance. Michel was such a wonderful dancer, it always felt like I was flying when wrapped up in his arms. Several beautiful moments passed as I was cradled next to him and twirled around the dance floor, then his head bent slowly, his eyes holding onto mine, a glint of hunger and desire flashing in their depths. I craved what was about to happen, the clubroom fell away, only Michel in close proximity, his heat, his feather-like touch, his fangs.

I floated on the sensations he was sending me through the connection of his bite. I barely registered he'd moved us to his chamber, stripped our clothes and laid me on the bed. He licked his fang marks closed, his eyes coming up to hold my gaze and then slowly entered me. I revelled in the feel of his body inside mine, the move of his naked skin against my feverish flesh. The build of one orgasm, followed by another and another. The increase in speed, his breathing becoming uneven, his moans of pleasure louder, his muscled thighs between mine. His beautifully moulded butt in my hands. Then finally, I celebrated his release, wanting nothing more than Michel to be as wrapped up in the moment as I was, as sated as he had made me.

That beautiful scene in Michel's chamber slowly disintegrated around me and with it the last of my happiness and hope.

Avery was sitting very still across from me in a chair opposite my couch, in Copacabana. His rapid breathing and steely gaze the only indication that he had witnessed what I had. My own breath had stilled. I was as tight as a bow string, ready to break at a single touch.

“They will use any ruse necessary to convince you of what is happening,” he said, a little roughly. “They will even take the time to seduce you. Time is irrelevant to them. They are practically immortal. A half hour, an hour, they will gladly attempt to make you more pliable. The
Dökkálfa
will take your courage, love, hope and happiness - whatever emotion the illusion creates they will consume - and they will enjoy every ounce of pain that they leave in their wake. The
Ljósálfar
will make love to you through your mind and then spirit you away to
Álfheimr
to hand you over to your
Ljósálfar
Prince, if you are lucky. Or simply pillage your body themselves while you are no longer aware.”

I ran a hand through my hair and glanced up at the clock. We'd only been at this for an hour, but I was already exhausted. My emotions a mixed up bag of raw nerves. But, I wouldn't let this better me. I wouldn't hide away in my flat, alter my routine because I was scared. I'd been hiding from a lot of things lately. I was getting a little tired of it, truth be told.

Before I even had a chance to answer Avery, he hit my mind again. This time he made me believe I was in bed dreaming. The sheets wrapped around my naked thighs. I could feel the soft breeze coming through the windows and hear the slow tick of my wall clock in the room. He'd found a memory, one I didn't want him to have. But, because he had never seen it before, I initially couldn't put what was happening down to Avery. It felt like a dream. I
was
dreaming. And Michel was making love to me on the hill above my parents' farm.

I don't know what tipped me off that this wasn't real. Wasn't even a dream. But, something instinctive did kick in. Maybe the low hum from the back of mind. My inner monologue finally making some noise after being absent for the past two months. The humming a reminder that life was not as I knew it right now and to stay on guard.

I immediately threw my Light around me and came to back on the couch.

“Very good, Ms. Monk,” Avery said casually, unaware of just how much he had hurt me by seeing that memory at all.

The next few illusions he threw at me, my inner monologue became faster at identifying. All of them featured Michel, but were so varied and familiar, my immediate thought was always,
this is right
. But, for some reason, my inner monologue had finally woken up and all of a sudden I had a defence. It didn't work every time. Of the twelve more mind manipulations featuring Michel that Avery attempted, he succeeded in only two. Two out of twelve. Not ideal, but considering where I had come from it gave me an unbelievable high.

I skipped around the room as I got ready for work and Avery sat quietly on the couch. Just before I left for the start of my shift at the bar, he entered my mind one more time.

I hadn't expected it. We'd stopped practising a quarter of an hour earlier, but my inner monologue piped up the minute the room changed scene, despite the fact that my mind felt like it had been there, on the bed with Michel above me, all along. I slipped into the illusion like a well worn glove. Michel so familiar, so magnificent above me. His fully aroused body on display. He was brilliant, sweat glistened his skin. Every ridge of his body, every defined line of his muscles, stood out in the low lights of the room. The image was mesmerising. And a total turn on. I arched up against him, begging for him to take me. The humming in mind distracting though and for a moment, almost enough to shatter what was surely a dream. It didn't matter, the humming was too late, as soon as the room coalesced around me Michel thrust inside in one hard movement and had me coming in the next instant as he pounded in and out.

My mind was blinded by my orgasm, too distracted by the pure bliss to consider that this wasn't real. I knew it wasn't, I knew Michel was dead and this was a mind manipulation managed by Avery. I couldn't, for the life of me, throw up a shield, let alone think of my Light. Avery made me keep coming again and again for several minutes until Michel spilled himself inside with one hard final thrust.

I came to with Avery beside me on the couch. His eyes full of jade and rimmed in red. His fangs down and a low growl coming from between his lips. His intention to bite me was apparent. Before he got the chance, I blasted him with Light. Just enough to get him to back the fuck off, just enough to pay him back for the pain he had caused me, the hurt he had dug up. But not enough to actually incapacitate, a part of me aware he had, in fact, helped me today. He had taught me, albeit most harshly, to defend myself against the Fey.

“Fuck,” he said with meaning, the jade slowly ebbing from his eyes. “Fuck!”

“Oh fuck,” Avery said one more time for good measure. “I... fuck!”

“Relax, Avery,” I said, surprised it was me who now seemed the one in control. Avery had breached each newly learnt defence and managed to get close enough for an attack. “I seriously doubt the Fey will know how to circumvent my shields and Light. You've had two hours to test them, your vampire knew exactly how to break down my defences in the end. You did what any vampire would do.”

He swallowed painfully and just kept staring at me. I expected his vampire to pounce at any moment, yet for some reason, I wasn't actually afraid.

He didn't move, he just kept looking at me, waiting for something, but I don't know what.  This was Avery. The Plucking Pervert. The Darkest vampire I have ever spent any time with. But he
had
helped me. He had been trying to teach me new skills, skills that would make me safer, protect me from harm. How could a Dark vampire do that?

Because he wants something in return
, my inner voice quietly, softly whispered in my mind. It was right. Avery wanted my cooperation, wanted me to join with him without duress.

Had I moved on in my grief enough not to be angered by what had just transpired? Avery had used my heartache and loss over Michel to lower my barricades and slip within an inch of draining me dry. I had seen the hunger and possession on his face. His desire to feed from me, to make me his.

I felt a tear slowly track down the side of my cheek. It felt like the weight, the entire mass of all my pain was trapped inside that little drop. It was hot and at the same time so ice cold. It was tiny, but at the same time full of so much grief it should have encompassed the entire room. It was all alone. It represented everything I hated about my life. It represented my loss.

I started crying in earnest then. I wanted, with every fibre of my body, to feel something else. But a sadistic, twisted, desperate part of me wanted to never let go. To never relinquish that pain, that heartache, that loss. To let it go would be to forget. And how could I forget Michel?

I couldn’t. Michel had been my whole world and although he no longer existed and I was still alive; breathing, walking,
feeling
in the cruel world that now wrapped around me, it was not my world if I didn't think of Michel. I could not survive here if Michel wasn't first and foremost in my heart. One day, I may be able to let him slip to a farther recess in my mind, but not yet. Not now. It was too soon. And Avery had been using that grief, expecting it to break my defences down. Instead he had only solidified them.

I didn't want to forget Michel. Even if Avery cruelly made me relive mentally every intimate moment with my kindred for the rest of my very long life. I would
not
forget.

I stood to my feet in the centre of the room, my arms wrapped tightly around my body and stared at the vampire before me.

“Go to work, Ms. Monk. Go pour your
Caipirinhas
and
Cachaças
and bury yourself in the mundane. This meant nothing. Just a reaction to heightened tension after our practice sessions with your Light. The need for my vampire to stake a claim, nothing more. We both know it was unintended." He shrugged. He had clearly got himself back under control.

I said nothing, what was there to say? Avery could pretend he didn't want to possess me, to own me, but I knew better. Especially now. His inner vampire had just let it slip, in an unguarded moment he was now trying to cover up. Avery wanted me. I wasn't sure in what form, but I did know it involved the power I could give him when we joined.

I stomped out without another word and headed down the stairs. I was already half an hour late for work. I walked in a daze, with my Light wrapped firmly around me. I wasn't taking the chance a fey could jump out of the shadows and bypass my shattered mental shields. So I simply fashioned my Light into a cloak and draped it over every part of my body.

It felt surprisingly good.

Jorge scalded me for my tardiness, but when he saw my face immediately stopped in his tracks. Instead he handed me my apron and the keys to the till silently and took his scheduled break, leaving me in charge.

Despite being rushed off my feet, my mind still wandered. The afternoon's experiences branded on my mind. In my desperation to feel anything other than the pain I had been suffering, I had almost let a vampire close enough to drain me. But I hadn't, in the end. In the end I had fought back. And even if the attack from Avery had been painful, reminders of a life lost, I would not give up my love for Michel. And if that meant I had to live the rest of my very long eternal life feeling that keen sense of loss and heartache, then I would. For Michel. For me.

I devoted the next few hours to serving, clearing tables and keeping my customers happy. By the time the sun set and I could feel vampires spreading out in the night, I was back in control of myself. My mind. My body. Even my grief. Despite the circumstances, it had been cathartic. It had forced me to face up to my feelings, that over riding sense of loss and heartache and pain. And it had made me accept them. I
could
live with them a while longer.

I would continue to fight back.

No more than a minute after the sun set, Avery slid into a seat at the bar. He looked relaxed, his whole body a confident, luxuriously sinuous flow of muscles. He practically oozed post coital bliss, despite the fact nothing like that had happened between us - he'd only witnessed what had appeared in my mind. This was the Avery I was used to, though. Not that slightly puzzled and off-kilter man I had left behind in my apartment. His sexy demeanour now hadn't gone unnoticed by my female customers either. Hell, even some of the males were drooling.

I pushed a
Cachaça
towards him, prepared to accept his offer of friendship in the guise of aid, despite knowing exactly where it might lead. I needed an ally right now and I'd use Avery just like he was using me. And then I poured a drink for myself. Avery raised his shot glass up to me and said with an intense gaze to his eyes, “To the potential for a fantastic relationship.”

I hesitated as a few heads turned my way and more than one look of jealousy accompanied them and then keeping a wary eye on the crouching tiger before me, slammed the drink back and tipped the shot glass upside down on the bench. I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand and heard Avery's low, but controlled, growl.

“I thought we might have passed this,” I said quietly - if not even a little hopefully - holding his hunger filled gaze.

“You have suddenly become more appealing, Ms. Monk. As though you've lost your ribbons and satin and lace, and finally grown some claws and an attitude and more than just a growl to your bite.” He leaned forward and grabbed hold of my singlet pulling me across the bar towards him. His lips brushed the pulse in my neck and he whispered, “It's fucking hot.”

I pushed back roughly against his hold, he released me and sat back down with a satisfied look to his face. I was stunned. Although far more familiar to me than the helpful
friend
Avery had been, this sudden about face still seemed out of place. He had come close to showing me his vampire's end game, he'd maybe seen a different side of me because of it, I'm not certain, but now, it seemed that Avery had a taste for more. I wasn't sure what to make of this. I thought perhaps he would moderate his intentions - not hunt me with such open desire. Make
my
end game easier to obtain. How stupid could I have been? I was playing with the devil right now and I needed to remember that.

I decided nonchalance was my best approach. “The experience was enlightening, Rousseau, but not enough to tempt.” I just hoped he bought my brush off. I couldn't lie, he'd know I was still not keen to join with him, but I wasn't ready to cast him adrift either. I would gladly use him, while he was still able to hone my skills, but then I'd figure a way to ditch him at the first appropriate chance.

He just looked at me for a while, then shrugged. His gaze taking in the customers in the bar for the first time. I noticed a slight tension seep into his frame.

I continued to serve for a few more minutes, then during a lull he waved me over to his end of the bar.

“What do you see, Ms. Monk?” he asked, flicking his eyes out over the bar.

I looked up across the bar and took in the patrons. I knew Avery wasn't asking me literally what it was I saw. So, I tried to differentiate auras. I'm hopeless at reading auras and only those with some sort of power show. I supposed fairies should rate something on the aura scale, but I couldn't see it. So, I let myself sink into the black nothingness that takes me Dream Walking or Blood Life Seeking and
sought
out those in the room. Still nothing, only Avery registering as a Dark space right beside me.

I was about to shrug a non-committal reply when the air around certain people shimmered. Not their aura, which is a glow close to their bodies, but the actual air or space around them, possibly as far out as several feet in some instances. I went around the bar methodically counting all those with a shimmering space surrounding them and turned back to Avery. He had been watching me very closely.

“There's six of them. They were harder for me to detect.”

He nodded slowly, obviously not fazed by the level of difficulty I had detecting the Fey, but pleased in the fact that I had at all.

“And yet, none have approached you. What are you doing, Ms. Monk?” he asked, looking me up and down as though he might see what magical shield I had operating.

“I've got my Light wrapped around me like a cloak.” I hadn't lowered it or removed it the entire afternoon. It was still firmly in place.

“Is that a fact?” Avery said impressed. “Is it hard to maintain?”

“No, not really. I'm constantly aware of it being there, but it only requires a small amount of effort to keep it up.” A bit like my normal mental shields. They were so natural that they remained in place even when I slept. I could lose them though. When I was injured or upset. I was picking it would be the same with my Light.

“This is good,” he said, taking another look out across the room. “I'm sure they could bypass it though, if they know who they are hunting. If a description of you gets out or the location you are hiding in. Still, this is something we can definitely work with.”

“I'd like to see them try,” I shot back at him, bristling at the implication that my Light wasn't strong enough.

Suddenly Michel had me up against the side of the bar, his body trapping mine and grinding against me from behind. We were both fully clothed, but the implication was obvious. Avery had breached my shields without any effort at all.

“Do you still think they can't get past your Light?” Michel whispered against my cheek. I felt sick to the stomach that Avery was using Michel to get his point across. Not unlike the sessions in my apartment, but this one just crossed a line.

I pictured where Avery had been sitting at the bar in my head, then slapped him in the face with my Light as hard as I could and came back to my body. One hand holding onto the bar top to keep me steady, the other clenched around my stake ready to strike.

Avery stared at me for a second, his hand rubbing his cheek where my Light had struck, his eyes glinting in the lights of the bar. Not yet releasing the jade, but threatening to.

“I say again... hot,” he said in a low voice. “Fucking hot.”

“Stop doing that!” I ground out through gritted teeth. “Just because
you
know how to get past my Light, doesn't mean
they
will.”

“But they may communicate with each other. Those who fail, will hand on their knowledge of your defences to others. In time, they will know what I know.”

“But not yet,” I growled and turned to serve a few customers.

I felt Avery's hot gaze on me the entire time I carried out my tasks. Pouring drinks, chatting to customers, giving out change. I'd almost got used it when I felt an even hotter gaze on me, right between my shoulder blades. I don't know what it was about Gabriel, but I could always tell when he was right there.

I didn't respond to it. He would have seen Avery watching me, perched close to the bar. I could imagine he wasn't thrilled about that, but hey!, what could I do about it? It's not like Avery was going to let me out of his sights after dark. I flicked a glance over at Avery and my jaw almost dropped to the ground. Another skimpily clad teenage couple were being chatted up. He was insatiable. He had their attention too and he was no longer watching me, but instead concentrating on the line of their necks and I think the full swell of the female's breasts. Bloody men and their never ending hard-ons.

I swung around to have a go at him and bring him back down to Earth, when Gabriel stepped in front of my view.

“You look tired, Luce,” he said, reaching out and running a finger down my cheek.

I frowned at him. Gabriel had shown interest in me, but never touched. Still, I could imagine he was feeling threatened with Avery here and maybe it had been enough to get him to take that bold next step. I didn't want to offend him, he was my boss's son after all.

“Hey, Gabriel. Is it change of shift already?”