Reign of Shadows (7 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Brianna

The room was nothing like Brianna had expected. No place at the complex that housed Council was institutional, but this room was warm, comfortable. The walls were an earthy shade of brown, carpet plush and inviting. Two large windows centered the back wall, the sheer curtains hinting at a view of the south lawn. Ornate vases and sculptures decorated the mantel, artwork hung on either side of a modern block hearth, and she had to remind herself this was not simply some horrible, horrible man. This was Aern’s brother. This was the once-great leader of their only Council. Someone they loved.

“Leave me be,” Morgan said, not turning to discover who
m he was addressing.

Brianna stepped forward, closer to where he sat at a plain black desk, back to her as he stared in the direction of the sheered window. His shoulders were slumped, form tilted where he leaned on one arm of the chair. Everything about his posture had changed, the way he’d held himself gone, his suit coat missing, button
-down shirt draped over the other arm of the chair. Her eyes went from his cotton tee shirt to the floor, where fine Italian loafers rested beside his bare feet, something that seemed more unlike Morgan than anything else.

He deserved this. Whatever his pain, his resignation. No part of her wanted to feel sorry for him, sorry that he appeared
less
.

Morgan sighed, a deep, giving-up kind of sigh. “What now?”

She didn’t answer, simply stared at the back of him, his short, dark hair, his thinning frame. He finally turned, glancing first over his shoulder and then spinning the chair. “Brianna.”

The word came out of him like a breath, as if he’d never expected to see her again.
But why would he? She stepped forward, closer to this man who had been everything to them. The one to fear, the one to ruin their destiny, the one to bind her to that other prophecy.

But t
his wasn’t that man.

She moved toward him,
suddenly uninterested in whatever she’d planned to say. Her businesslike tone surprised even her when she said, “I need to check your connections. To see what my sister has done to you.”

Morgan’s
expression fell, and he nodded. “Of course.”

He
stood, the same height as ever, excepting the loss of his shoes, but somehow smaller now. More human. His arms lifted over his head as he removed his shirt with a quick, easy motion, and she froze. She’d only wanted his hand.

“Is that…” S
he paused, temporarily stunned by the bare-chested man in front of her. “Is that the way my mother worked?”

The question confounded him, and then Brianna had a flash of memory, unbidden. It was the dark-haired main, screaming in pain as
a pair of hands pressed to his naked chest. Gods, had she been doing it wrong?

She
shook her head, closing the distance, and came nearer than she ever had to the man who was once the stuff of nightmares. She raised her palms to his chest—feeling the briefest flicker of thankfulness that she’d made Logan wait outside—and pressed them against the heat of Morgan’s flesh.

There
was nothing. Morgan felt like anyone, like a stranger on the street. Every connection that had made him special, that had made him
other
, was dead. The faster healing, his strength, the ability to go without rest, all of it gone. Emily hadn’t just severed the links, she’d destroyed them. Like they were burned away.

Brianna
opened her eyes, not having intended to close them in such an intimate space, and found Morgan. Watching her.

He knew they were gone,
she realized, he could feel it. There was nothing Brianna, nothing anyone could do to change that now. This was what he was.

She dropped her hands, swallowing
whatever words she would have said, because she would not feel sorry for this man. This was Morgan.
Morgan
.

He stood, nothing but plain slacks covering him, sim
ply watching her as she moved farther away. She had once been everything he’d ever wanted. Everything he’d ever dreamed of. And they’d destroyed him.

And he had deserved it.

She inclined her head, by way of thanks or by way of departure, she didn’t know, and then walked the rest of the way to the door. She glanced back once as she opened it, seeing that he still watched her, and her gaze fell beyond him, finding the way the windows reflected the last of the day’s light. They were sealed, shatterproof.

They were his prison.

Chapter Seventeen

Shadows

“Do you take me for a fool?” the shadow said. It wasn’t a question, and Callan didn’t answer. He didn’t
even move, hadn’t since the shadow had stalked into his office, looming over Callan’s desk with a ferocity that sent his instincts into overdrive.

It wasn’t something a shadow did. Not
one of these shadows. Not the ancients. Callan didn’t think he’d seen either of them leave their domicile in the last year, let alone track him down when they could have easily called him back. Whatever they’d found out, whatever he’d done to incite their fury, the only option left to him was to wait, to let this one’s anger play through and hope it revealed some way out.

“We have given you every resource. We have handed you
this task despite the dishonor your father brought upon us.”

Callan didn’t flinch at the mention of his father, didn’t
so much as twitch a muscle in his body. Instead, he let the anger boil through him, reminding himself why he needed to stay still. Reminding himself of his true mission.

The shadow leaned closer
, over the fine inlay of exotic wood that marked the desk’s surface, and Callan could scent the sulfur, taste the bitter tang of metal. “And yet you seek to deceive us, to use the very talent we’ve exonerated you for.” The shadow’s eyes lit with an unnatural glow, too sharp in the dim light of the office, and his hand came to lie flat against the polished wood desk. “On us.”

Power radiated from him,
scraping Callan’s skin with an electric heat, warning him of precisely how much danger he was in. A half-dozen scenarios went through Callan’s head, a half-dozen answers to the accusation. But there was no true argument, he had done exactly that: used his talent for blocking the prophecies against the very men who’d thought they were controlling it. However, this was the least of his crimes.

“I can’t see the visions,” he reminded the shadow. “Why would I hide them from you?”

The shadow raged, “You expect me to believe someone
else
is doing it?”

Callan was the only shadow with the ability to block the visions, and they all knew it. What the rest of them didn’t
understand, though, was how the talent worked, that he wasn’t truly affecting the prophecies, only the minds of the prophets. “I’ve focused all of my ability on the Drake girl. I couldn’t control your prophets if I wanted to.”

It was a lie, but a hint of truth
rested beneath it. He did have the power to control the prophets, but only because of how strongly he was focused on Brianna. It was draining her, and he was running out of time, but he did have them restrained for the time being. As long as he kept his hold, they would be unable to reveal to the shadows the true outcome of the game.

“Understand me
, weak-blood,” the shadow said, “I will not warn you again.” He straightened, eyes glowing darker, a seething heat reminiscent of molten metal. Callan kept his gaze averted, eyes on the insignia carved into his desk, until the man spoke again.

“Send your shadows to her
. It’s time to test the boundaries of her gift.”

Chapter Eighteen

Brianna

Brianna had woken early, anxious to finish repairing connections in the men. She’d set to work on Ellin’s right away, despite the woman’s still-healing injuries and need for sleep, because even with those concerns, she had a fair deal of strength and talent. And Brianna had wanted to ask her about the dark-haired man.

As they walked
the corridor, part of Brianna regretted the decision. “She said she could feel the air change around him,” Brianna explained. “Like he was gathering power.”

Logan
kept pace beside her, listening as she talked through her thoughts. He’d not gone into the room with Ellin, but Brianna wasn’t sure whether it was out of respect for the woman’s condition or because he trusted her implicitly.

“He didn’t try and sway her to tell him.” Brianna’s brow was drawn down, her gaze focused on the door at the end of the hallway. “She and Brendan could have been made to speak, to do any single thing he asked of them, and he didn’t.” She looked at the man beside her. “He didn’t turn them, Logan. He tortured them for so long, and he didn’t use his power.”

“He used his power,” Logan corrected. “Just not that one.”

Brianna chewed her lip. “So h
e didn’t truly want the answer?” She paused outside the library, their meeting point for Wesley. “Because he doesn’t want them to find out.”

Logan stared down at her. “Because he doesn’t want them to know he can.”

They were two real possibilities, but the distinction was severe.

Brianna and Log
an had spent many hours in the Council libraries when he’d become her protector, so as they stepped into the space, it was the first thing that came to mind. The room felt comforting to her now, not simply for those memories, but because most of her life had been spent surrounded by books, immersed in learning and the ancient languages. She was surprised Wesley would be spending his time there, but found him in a dimly lit corner beside a pile of leather-bound records.

“Brianna,” he said, standing to meet them.

His dark red hair was backlit by the high windows, the tips hinting at curls that would run feral if allowed their freedom. Wesley reached out, grasping Logan’s forearm in the typical Council manner, then brushing Brianna’s.

“You look well,” she said.

He reached up, scratching self-consciously at the faint pink lines marking his neck, the last remaining token of the attack on Council. “Yeah, it’s pretty amazing.”

Some of the men were healing quicker than others, a
proficiency for the gift or their strength giving them the advantage, but none faster than Aern and Logan.

“Aern told me what you’d been able to do,” Wesley said, gesturing toward the books in the corner. “So I’ve been searching the records for something we might have missed.”

“That’s excellent,” Brianna answered. She’d been through the records herself, as had many of the others, but they were void of anything specific about the power or the way it had changed. Almost suspiciously so. “Have you had any luck?”

“No, not here anyway.” His
expression lifted, suddenly eager to share his discovery. “I’d been thinking all this time that you were special.” Brianna noticed Logan’s mouth twitch at the boy’s enthusiasm, but she managed to keep a straight face as Wesley’s hands became animated. “There was something about your power that I could feel, whatever you did to protect me from Morgan, from the sway—” He shook his head, struggling to get the explanation out clearly. “I thought it was you, that I had some sort of connection to your power. And then this morning, I saw Emily in the lobby. She’s down there making a terrible mess, you know. There’s water and metal everywhere, and she took this jar of marbles and…”

Brianna raised her brow and Wesley remembered his point. “It was
when I saw her that I realized it’s not just you, Brianna. Whatever this is, the way I can feel the power, it’s with everyone. I guess I didn’t realize because the soldiers weren’t really using their sway. Just Morgan. And it wasn’t very strong, it only felt a little bit…”

He trailed off
, trying to think of a word to describe the feeling, and Logan said, “That’s how you were blocking it?”

One side of Wesley’s face scrunched up. “More like avoiding it. I could feel it, kind of a pulse through the air, and then I could just…
not be where it was.”

Brianna thought of the way the power had looked in her hands, that faint aura that only the shadows could see. Wesley could
only feel it, not see it, but blind to it as he was, he would know as easily as she where the power was headed. Possibly even easier than her. “It’s because your gift is getting stronger,” she said. “As you use it, it will strengthen, become less difficult to manipulate.”

Wesley’s stare went a little unfocused as he recalled watching Emily. “I could feel everything. Each time she brought the wind, the very second she released her focus to shoot some bit of debris across the room, I knew what would happen, could sense how strong the blow would be.”

Brianna stared at him. Her sister was apparently taking to the task of learning her powers with single-minded focus. An imagined lobby filled with flying marbles and gale-force winds was tugging at Brianna’s consciousness, but she brushed it off. Emily would figure it out. She was thorough, if nothing else.

“I’d like to give you some
different connections to those powers,” she explained to Wesley. “So you can protect yourself when the others come.”

The boyish wonder at their discussion disappeared completely from his face. He was suddenly a soldier of
Council, a son of… “Wesley,” Brianna asked, “what line is your blood?”

“Lion,” he said.

Lion
. She smiled, taking his hands into hers. “You will be strong, in control.”

He held very still, but Brianna thought she detected the slightest straightening in his shoulders.

***

The conversations with Ellin and Wesley consumed Brianna’s thoughts on the walk back to her room. She was exhausted. She needed to turn more of them, to repair as many connections as possible, but she couldn’t seem to keep up without rest. It reminded her of Morgan, the way her mother had used her own power to find the links within
him. As Logan closed the door to her suite, she turned to face him.

He came up short, surprised by her sudden stop.

“Take off your shirt.”

Logan’s expression didn’t falter, but one eyebrow crept up.

“I need to see something, and I already know how your connections work,” she explained. “It has to be a network I’m familiar with.”

He
reached for the hem of his shirt, the barest trace of a smile crossing his lips. “Here?”

Brianna glanced at the sitting area, certain if she got off her feet she’d be out with the first blink. “Yeah,” she said. “It should only take a second.”

He tugged the shirt free, drawing it smoothly over his head to reveal a bare chest and broad, muscled shoulders. She hesitated, suddenly unsure, and then flexed her fingers open and closed. “I just …” she started, eyes falling to the spot she’d intended to touch.

“Whatever you need, Brianna,” Logan replied, only a hint of emotion beneath his tone.

She stepped closer, raising her palms to hover over the steady rise and fall of his chest, and then closed her eyes as she laid them against the warmth of his bare skin.

The network of connections within Logan was there, suddenly clearer than it had been before.
She could see each of the ties that she’d made, each link she’d restored in him. There was no way to be sure whether it was easier now because she’d had practice, or because it was somehow closer to her here, but she couldn’t deny the difference. It was the way Emily had touched Morgan, as if she had known, and Brianna suspected her sister had connected with Aern the same way when they’d been bound.

She searched Logan closer, finding the web
similar to the one that linked Aern through his union with Emily, but could see no real difference within.

“That looks like bad news,” Logan murmured, seeing the furrow in her brow, the disappointment she hadn’t meant to show.

She opened her eyes, so close to him, and said, “No, it’s fine.”

He
pressed his lips together, hands sliding to her waist. It hadn’t looked fine, she realized.

“I… it’s just the bond,” she offered. “I was looking to see—” Her words cut off as the door to the suite opened, Aern and Emily’s voices giving her only enough warning to step free of Logan’s embrace. That left them standing there, Loga
n shirtless for no good reason. Emily’s eyes widened as she and Aern stopped short.

There was a moment of silence as the four exchanged glances, and then Emily raised a brow at Logan, her gaze rolling down and then up his bare torso with a smirk. He frowned, yanking the tee shirt back over his head with considerably less ease than it had come off, and Emily fought a full-on grin.

The silence lengthened, though, Brianna considering what her discovery could mean, what possible implications it held, instead of bothering to explain what they’d been doing. Logan cleared his throat.

“Right,” she said, finally free of her stupor. “So the good news is that Wesley can feel the pulses that generate our power. He’s got some sort of sense of where they are and how fast they’re coming. He won’t be able to relay the information to
the rest of us quickly enough to do much good, but at least he’ll be safe. He’ll have the tool he needs to stay out of harm’s way that much longer.” Brianna glanced at Emily. “He tells us you’ve got quite a grip on your new talents.”

Aern’s eyes
rolled to the ceiling, and Brianna was sure he was purposefully
not
thinking of the damage she’d done to their front hall.

Emily shrugged. “It’s a bit trickier than I imagined. The wind is easy enough, fire
too. But I don’t have much control over projectiles yet. Can’t focus the strikes as well as I’d like.” She smiled. “You were right about the water, though. That one will come in handy.” A sound came from Aern, indecipherable and barely audible, but Emily didn’t seem to notice. “Too bad we didn’t get the—”

Emily’s
words dropped off as she reached forward, barely catching the tail of Brianna’s shirt. It was only then that Brianna realized she was falling backward, that Logan had caught her. Her vision had lost all focus, and he was dragging her into his arms as Emily’s hands pressed to Brianna’s face.

Emily’s voice was far away as she called her name. She was
pleading with her to come back.

To be okay.