Storm of Shadows (41 page)

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Authors: Christina Dodd

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal, #General

BOOK: Storm of Shadows
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Anguish rose in Rosamund, a hundred times as harsh as the anguish she had felt at her mother’s death, at her father’s death.
He doesn’t mean that. He never said that before.
“When the ceiling collapsed, I had a split second to decide—leave and live, forever alone, or stay and die, for Rosamund. I stayed. I died. I didn’t like it.” He smiled painfully around at his friends, then down at Rosamund.
I can’t do this. I can’t stand this.
“I made my choice. I allowed the cave to crush my life from my body.” His voice was vibrant.
His friends watched him, riveted by his intensity.
“But the cave couldn’t keep me because I had sacrificed my life to save Rosamund. And look! My powers have grown beyond anything I’ve ever imagined.” He turned to Rosamund. “Before you, I could dissolve my body, become a dark mist, and without ever being seen, retrieve stolen objects of art. And I made a good living at it, too. But as wonderful as that was, that was all I could do. Worse, that ability had started to fail me.”
Rosamund saw Samuel nod. “My gift has been getting a little chancy for me, too,” he said.
Aaron continued to gaze at Rosamund as if she were truly the Fair Rosamund of ages past. “But once I found you, once I learned to admire your strengths, and love your weaknesses, I could create myself into different forms. I could dissolve my body and make it a shell to protect that person who is most precious to me. When Fujimoto tried to execute me, I could pass that sword through my neck without harm. Most wonderful, I could make love to my Rosamund and touch her everywhere at once.” Before her eyes, he dissolved and wrapped himself around her, and surrounded her with a warmth and tenderness she could breathe into her lungs and feel on every pore of her skin.
Dimly she heard Charisma say, “That’s golden.”
Luckily, before Rosamund allowed herself to relax into him, to allow him to care for her, Aaron snapped back into his human form, leaving her feeling chilled and abandoned.
It was a feeling she remembered all too well.
“But this is the most telling.” Aaron stripped off his shirt the same way he had stripped it off in the cave. “The mark of the Chosen on my back has expanded. It used to be these tiny, crumpled wings, mere outlines in black. But look at them now!” On either side of his spine, he had developed a true representation of angel wings, each feather large and colorful, covering his back from his shoulder blades to his waist.
“Awesome!” Charisma said.
Rosamund didn’t know what to say. What to think. She didn’t want to be stricken with wonder at the sight of his muscled back and the glorious decoration he wore so proudly, but she was. She didn’t want to lust at the sight of his bare body, but white-hot lust filled her.
She didn’t want to love him . . . but she didn’t know how to stop.
Proudly, he finished. “I’ve succeeded in finding my true love. I made my sacrifice, and now I have complete control of my gift.”
“Me, too. Look!” Jacqueline showed them the palms of her hand, and the two black, stylized eyes there. “I used to have an eye on
one
hand. Then, when I sought a vision I desperately feared, and did so to protect Caleb, I got the second eye. Plus, I can access my visions at will!”
While the Chosen who had still to fulfill the terms of the prophecy exchanged pained and doubtful looks, Rosamund tried to understand what Aaron meant. “Are you trying to say I’m your true love?”
Aaron pulled on his shirt. He sat down next to her and fastened the buttons. “Of course you are. It didn’t take a pair of wings and an enhanced gift to tell me that.”
She stammered, “B-but you only wanted me when I was made pretty.”
Aaron’s jaw dropped open, and he looked foolish and confused. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you. You barely noticed me before Philippe did a makeover.”
Aaron’s mouth moved soundlessly.
She pushed her glasses up on her nose. “That’s not who I am. I’m Rosamund, the plain librarian. Everyone thinks so, and I know you do, too.”
Everybody did, too. The uncomfortable silence that fell over the table said it all.
Somewhere, a door slammed.
“Rosamund.” Aaron tried to take her hands.
Angrily, she snatched them away. Angrily, because being angry with him beat thinking about, dealing with, the fear, the grief, and the love that shadowed her every thought, her every move.
Footsteps ran down the stairs outside the kitchen. Aleksandr walked in and dropped his backpack on the floor. Seeing the food, seeing Aaron and Rosamund, he dove toward the table and said, “Hey, you two, you’re back. Did I miss anything?”
An awkward laughter rippled through the room.
“Not much.” Jacqueline nibbled on grapes and cheese. “Just that Rosamund found the prophecy.”
“All right!” Aleksandr tried to high-five her.
She shook her head, too disheartened to pretend joy.
“All right,” he said in a totally different tone. “What is the prophecy?”
“The Chosen Ones, all
seven
of us, have got to find and fall in love with our soul mates before our seven years are up or—” Samuel made a slitting-his-own-throat gesture.
Aleksandr straddled a chair. “Except for the fact there are only six of us, that shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard? How random is this? Find your true love, hope to hell you’ve got the right one, and somehow make her fall in love with you?” Samuel’s eyes narrowed on Aleksandr. “Wait a minute. What do you mean, shouldn’t be too hard?
”
He turned to the group. “We were right. He
is
in love with someone!”
“No!” Aleksandr jumped up, went to the refrigerator, opened it, and stared inside as if expecting to find a treasure of jewels and pearls.
Finally, Martha said in her most annoyed voice, “Would you get what you want and shut the refrigerator?”
“Okay. Geez.” Grabbing a Coke, he turned back to the room, and found every eye on him.
“What?”
Rosamund knew the truth, knew he wanted to keep his girlfriend a secret, and why not? He was young, and a man who didn’t believe in kiss-and-tell. She respected his ethics even if no one else did.
So she diverted them. In a voice pitched a little too loud, she said, “I didn’t get to read the
whole
prophecy.”
Chapter 41
I
n unison, the Chosen Ones turned to stare at Rosamund.
She gritted her teeth and tried to smile.
“What do you mean, you didn’t get to read the whole prophecy?” Samuel asked in a chilly voice.
“I was trying to tell you. I hadn’t finished my translation when the fight broke out.”
“And the stela disintegrated in your hands.” Jacqueline leaned back in her chair. “Of course. It would be too easy if we knew everything we needed to know.”
“Everything we needed to know. You are kidding!” Samuel leaped to his feet and paced across the kitchen. “We each have to find our true love—our true love, for Pete’s sake! Have any of you ever been involved in a messy divorce?
True love.
Honestly.”
“I’ve found true love, Samuel.” Caleb was the last person Rosamund expected to say such a thing. He was lean, tough, laconic. Yet as he looked at Jacqueline, his eyes shone with an inner light that set a treacherous envy burning in her chest.
“Tell me that in seven years when we’re all broke because we can’t work at our regular jobs, and we’re crushed by the burdens of our duties, and maybe I’ll believe you then.” Samuel showed his true colors now. “Right now, you guys are doing the horizontal mambo every chance you get. What you feel isn’t true love. It’s infatuation.”
“You’re a fool, Samuel.” But Caleb didn’t seem in the slightest bit worried.
Samuel wasn’t done ripping up the prophecy. “Oh, oh, and after finding our true love, we have to romance her or him, fall deeply in love ourselves, and I assume mate for life. Not a problem!”
Charisma leaned across the table toward Rosamund. “He’s magnificent when he’s in lawyer mode, isn’t he?”
He was, really. Rosamund nodded, unable to take her eyes off the Rom with the flashing eyes.
Isabelle, too, watched him as if she couldn’t look away, but her mockery was bright and sharp as a blade. “He’s right. For who is ever going to love Samuel Faa?”
Samuel stopped pacing and glared, and the heat between them blazed like fire. At that moment, if the kitchen hadn’t been full of other people, Rosamund would have feared for Isabelle’s life . . . or virtue.
“She’s not tactful, but she’s right,” Jacqueline said.
Samuel swung on her.
Jacqueline laughed in his face. “Oh, sit down, Faa. You’re making an ass of yourself. And you’re right, too. Why couldn’t the prophecy be that we needed to find the Temple of Doom, or the Lost Ark?”
“Because none of us is Indiana Jones?” Caleb suggested.
Samuel went back to his chair, seated himself, crossed his arms over his chest, and in his normal tone of voice said, “By the way, has anyone noticed there aren’t seven of us? Another tiny bump in the road to fulfilling the prophecy
which isn’t complete
.”
“Rosamund? Now that you know so much of the prophecy, can you find corroboration in another form elsewhere?” Irving spoke with the voice of reason.
She nodded. He knew his stuff. “Possibly. I intend to search, and with Bala’s Stone, I may be successful.”
“You might want to start
now
,” Samuel said.
“She can’t start now.” A warm, rich, man’s voice spoke from the deepest shadows of the kitchen.
Rosamund jumped in surprise.
Aaron leaned close to her ear. “That’s Vidar Davidov. He’s, uh . . . he brews beer.”
“Okay,” she whispered, and strained to see this Davidov.
But still he hung in the shadows, and his voice was tense and commanding. “There’s a situation in New Jersey, a two-year-old girl at an orphanage with a very interesting mark on her shoulder blade that looks like a unicorn. One of the day-care workers is convinced its eyes open and close, and watch, and she told her boyfriend, who has sold the child to the Others. They are coming to take possession, and—”
Chairs scraped on the stone floor as everyone jumped to their feet.
Rosamund knew what this meant. The Chosen Ones would go into danger, into battle, to rescue the little girl.
Aaron would go into danger.
Her artificial calm began to crumble.
With cool authority, Isabelle assumed command. “Samuel, get whatever information Davidov has for us. Jacqueline, anything you can see would be helpful. Caleb, you’re in charge of organizing the attack or diversion. Charisma and I will rescue the child. Irving, Martha, McKenna, I don’t know where to place the child when we rescue her, but you do. Please, if those places are still safe—”
Martha and McKenna both nodded.
Rosamund stood there, embarrassed at her uselessness and wanting desperately to forbid them to go into danger.
I can’t stand to lose the people I consider my friends. I don’t want to lose Aaron.
I can’t lose Aaron.
But she could. She already had.
Yet Isabelle looked at Aaron and shook her head. “We’ve probably got too many people working this anyway, but since it’s our first operation, I’d rather be safe than sorry. Please stay here and try to recover from—”
“Your death,” Samuel filled in.
“Thank you, Samuel,” Isabelle snapped.
Rosamund felt a glimmer of hope. “Can he stay here? If you need someone, I could go in his place.”
“Sure. Bring the antiquities librarian with the arm in a sling in place of the former dead guy,” Samuel said.
“Samuel, shut up,” Charisma commanded.
“Samuel, I’m not bringing either one of them.” Isabelle turned to Rosamund. “Thank you, but the reason there are seven Chosen—or rather six right now—and a support team is so we have a variety of skills we can draw on. Your job is to heal as quickly as possible, then go looking for any information that can help us recover the future.”

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