The Book Of Shade (Shadeborn 1) (27 page)

August 20th

Five humans had been put to death yesterday, but Alexander Cross found that he still had stomach enough for his breakfast. Charlotte brought him a plateful of hot delights but served nothing for herself, sitting across from him at their rickety table, her eyes blazing into the thin fabric of his shirt. Alexander began to eat, seeming reactionless to her awful look, despite the way it prickled his skin. When he had finished a few mouthfuls and realised that Charlotte was not going to leave him alone, he shook himself once and gave her a thoughtful sigh.

“Well, at least if they turn on you, you wouldn’t be hanged for another seven months, not until the baby’s born.”

If Charlotte had been a shade, she could have set him aflame with her presence alone. As it was, she seemed to be giving it her best human try.

“Why should they turn against me?” she snapped.

Alexander shrugged casually.

“These people do appear to be pointing the finger of blame left, right and centre now,” he mused, “and the trials have turned to utter madness.”

“And so have I, it seems,” Charlotte answered, “trusting you.” She looked down at the table, her resolve shattering as her voice broke at last. “You’re not going to marry me, are you?”

“No,” he answered. It was the first moment of honesty they had ever shared.

Charlotte nodded to herself, sniffing.

“I shall be ruined. Pregnant, shunned, alone.”

“You could move towns,” Alexander suggested amiably. “Go somewhere else and tell them the father of your child died in an accident. You’ll be pitied and helped.”

Charlotte’s anger flared once more. She rose from the table and rounded on the man she thought she’d loved.

“That’s your solution?” she demanded. “Lies on top of lies? Why am I not surprised? Perhaps when I tell them my husband is dead, it won’t have to be entirely untruthful!”

She lunged for the knife Alexander had been cutting his meat with, and came down on him like a rock-fall, wild and heavy. The young man panicked, his eyes rushing to and fro as the shine of the blade slipped in and out of his vision. He wrestled fervently to get Charlotte back on her feet and out of his way, the two of them tumbling off his chair and onto the floor in the fracas. A woman possessed with scornful vengeance, Charlotte found herself atop the man who’d betrayed her and took her moment, pinning him down with the knife pressed tightly to his throat.

“I could have loved you, you know,” she spat.

Alexander closed his eyes, as if accepting the end of his life.

“God preserve me!” Charlotte screamed.

Her lover stood and dusted off his shirt as she floated in mid-air beside him. Alexander had never been all that good at gravity magic but, when the need arose, his instincts helped him to focus all the better. At other times in his life, Alexander had had no fear of the odd human making wild accusations that he was a demon or a witch, but in the town of Salem, these things were taken much too seriously at present. He let Charlotte drop to the floor where she connected with the boards head first, knocking herself unconscious in the fall.

Alexander needed a plan. He had left his family in Virginia quite some time ago, travelling from place to place in search of pretty girls and good living, of which he supposed he would never have his fill. Knowing that he would stay youthful and strong for many centuries to come, the young shade was consumed by hubris and often got himself into trouble. A plan would be handy now, when he needed to escape a town full of witch-hunters before they trussed him up like a chicken and sent him to the gallows ladder. He wasn’t sure that his skills with gravity would be enough to survive a lengthy hanging, and the thought sent him reeling with despair.

He burst out into the town square, where the bodies of the five accused witches had been cut down from the gallows, his stomach wrenching at the thought that he would be next if he couldn’t make himself vanish before Charlotte opened her big mouth. She had been a pretty little lover for a time, but her sudden pregnancy wasn’t the sort of thing Alexander Cross hung around for.
Hung around.
The young shade could hardly breathe as he stood in the square, wondering what was best to do.

That was the moment when the most beautiful girl in the world strode up to the gallows.

Alexander watched in fascination, his sharp blue eyes captivated by the sight of the vision before him. She wore all black in the baking August heat, the sun beating down on her as though it would defy her very presence in its glow. Her hair was as raven as her black lace dress, cascading down her back like a great obsidian river, exposed to the elements and unashamedly so.
Was she in mourning?
She was provocatively dressed, if she was. The young woman reached the steps of the gallows, observing the structure still caked in dirt and filth from the hanging the day before. She extended her pale fingertips to touch the wood and gave a smile with lips as deep as blood.

Not in mourning then
, Alexander decided.

“Come here, boy,” she said, her voice carried across the square by an unseen breeze. “It’s rude of us not to make introductions.”

Alexander wasn’t sure if he wanted to make introductions or not, but his whole body drew him nearer to the girl and her funereal presence. He took slow steps to arrive before her, studying her strange, morbid attire and her amused look as he approached. She was petite, a full foot shorter than his impressive frame, and she stepped a little closer to appraise him better. The girl faltered a moment in her approach, stopping to lift the point of her dainty black shoe. The spongy remains of a half-smoked cigar lay crushed beneath her sole.

"There's a saying in Salem town," Alexander said with a grin. "That when a woman steps on a cigar, the next man she looks upon will be her husband."

The dark beauty gave him a wry smile.

"Do you think the same rules apply to shades?" she inquired.

A fellow shade. Alexander had not seen one in quite some time. He was not as talented as most of his kind with his powers, so he preferred to rule over impressionable humans instead. He remained motionless in his surprise, half-grinning and hoping she didn’t mistake his hesitance for idiocy.

“What is your house, young one?” the beauty added.

She had called him young, so this girl was older than her perfect porcelain skin suggested. He was tempted by the very improper sight of her collarbones, following the faint veins on her chest down to the place where her dress obscured his view. He licked his lips and swallowed, wanting to reply in his best, most charming voice.

“I’m Alexander Cross,” he said, giving her a bow. “We were the Cross house of England some years ago, but I am of the American contingent now.”

The beautiful temptress nodded, her rouged lips parting in amusement.

“My name is Evangeline,” she answered, “of the French house of Novel.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

K. C. Finn was born and raised in Cardiff, South Wales, where her love for storytelling grew at a precociously young age. After developing the medical condition M.E. / C.F.S., Kim turned to writing to escape the pressures of disabled living, only to become hooked on the incredible world of publishing.

As an author for Clean Teen Publishing and Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Press, Kim spends most of her time locked in the writing cave with an obscenely large mug of tea. When not writing, she can be found studying for her MA in Linguistics, watching classic British comedy, or concocting evil schemes in the secret laboratory in her attic.