Shadow Bound (26 page)
Authors: Erin Kellison
Tags: #Romance, #Fantasy, #General, #Paranormal, #Fiction
“How did this happen in the first place?” Adam’s tone was hard, demanding. The pain of his loss was so acute, Talia wondered that he didn’t shake his fist in Death’s face. She thought of her own mother, taken at her birth, Aunt Maggie, Melanie, Patty, Custo. Death everywhere.
Shadowman canted his head, but not in contrition. “I parted the veils between life and death when I had no call to do so. Chaos escaped and took root in the mortal world.”
“You—? Why?” Adam’s voice was coarse with strain.
“I loved a woman.”
“Was it worth it?” Adam mocked Death.
Shadowman’s gaze shifted to Adam again. “Is Talia worth it?”
Adam’s body went rigid behind her, anger—and something else—surging within him.
Talia felt herself grow old with a hideous knowledge that blotted everything else out. Shadowman and her mother—the fairy tale—ending in a scourge.
“All those people died because of me?” Her broken whisper carried clearly across the veils. The scythe clattered to the deck. If Adam weren’t behind her, she might have fallen with it.
“Did you kill them?” Death’s pretty face was impassive.
“No, but—”
Shadowman raised a hand. “Then, no. The demon escaped to the world because of
me.
I should have been the one to face him, but I was bound by my own transgression.”
“All those lives lost because…” Talia couldn’t finish the sentence. She swallowed the words. How could Adam love her now? How could he love her when the same act that brought her into the world destroyed his family?
Talia straightened slightly, pulling her weight from Adam’s body with a step forward so that she couldn’t feel him anymore. Shadow succored her.
“The demon’s children made their own choices. Not even chaos could compel them to join him without their consent. Their actions are theirs and theirs alone.”
“And the ones they fed on?” There was no mistaking the bitterness in Adam’s voice.
“Crossed. They are where they belong.”
“And the wraiths that got away?” Adam shot back.
“Must be sundered as well, the souls within them freed.”
Talia drew the shadows more tightly around her, willing its chill folds to freeze the aching part of her into numbness.
“Are you ready, then?” Shadowman asked her. Of course, he noticed her separation from Adam and interpreted it correctly.
Adam reached for her and met only shadow. “What do you mean?”
“I mean to take my daughter home.”
The darkness broke into vibrant colors the likes of which Talia had only seen in snatches of dreams, and yet, their hues were familiar. Music filled the air, drowning out the noise on deck. She heard a song at once sweet and sorrowful, sung in a round unending.
“What? You can’t have her.” Adam may as well have been shouting at the wind.
“For your unparalleled aid,” Shadowman continued, “I grant you the immortality that these others sought, but without their sharp hunger.”
“You mean without Talia,” Adam corrected. “No. You hear me. NO.”
“Talia is fae, and as such, belongs in Shadow.”
“She is half fae, half mortal, and
all
mine.”
Talia turned at Adam’s declaration. From her dark vantage she regarded him. Adam was distinctly different than she—in shadow that fact was very clear. He was clay, animated by the internal core of his will. And just then his will burned bright enough to force her fae eyes to squint. Bright enough to quell the shadow around her. Bright enough to find and grip her hand.
Through their crossed palms a current of energy flowed—an anchor, a lifeline, a connection that did not discriminate between fae and mortal. She was his and he was hers.
And he wasn’t letting her go.
The intensity of his vow made clear that he didn’t hold
her accountable for the hurts to his family. On the contrary, Talia understood his deep trust, a soul recognition, that superseded what they’d endured. It was more than enough.
“Whatever moments you hope to steal now, your union cannot last.” Shadowman’s voice carried the weight of personal experience. “The time will come when Talia must bide in Twilight and you must pass beyond.”
Adam pulled her into his embrace and locked his arms around her. He was flesh and bone and fragile mortality, but she never felt safer in her life.
“You breached a barrier once; when the time comes, you watch us do it,” Adam said.
“I am Death, and I know it cannot be done.”
“I am alive, and I know it can. We’ll find the way.”
“I will go when he goes,” Talia said, “
where
he goes.”
Shadowman’s gaze rested on Talia, sadly. He stooped like a lonely old man to lift his scythe. It seemed heavy in his hand’s grasp. “Call, and I will come.”
A twist of shadow and her father was gone. The welcome of Twilight evaporated into glittery black ocean spray as the deck of the ship rocked with the roaring rhythm of the helicopter’s propellers.
She’d see her father again, probably soon. The demon might be dead, but thousands of wraiths still skulked the earth. Her work, and his, remained unfinished.
“You know I’m not done with all this,” she said to Adam’s chest. And probably would never be done.
“Then neither am I,” he answered.
Adam’s embrace transformed from possessive to…possession. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, while he fitted himself intimately to her. Relief, determination, hope, and love coursed out of him. So much, and with shattering intensity. She could feel like this forever.
But they were on a stinking boat, and he was hurt and
bleeding. The wind from the helicopter’s propellers was making wild with her hair.
Talia pulled against his hold to lift his shirt and examine the wound. The raw pucker of flesh was oozing blood. The fighting must have hurt terribly. She needed something to bind it with, to stop the flow until they could find help.
“Take off your shirt,” she said. It was already wet and sticky with blood, but it would have to do.
His gaze didn’t leave her as he peeled it off, disregarding how the movement made his side bleed more. He was pale and panting, but the look in his eyes warmed her to her bones. She ripped down one of the side seams of the shirt to make a bandage. Then ripped again to make two long, semisodden strips.
“Do you have a preference?” Adam said. His rough knuckles brushed her cheek softly, and she caught a hint of gathering intent within him.
She glanced up from her work. His left cheekbone was swelling. “For what?”
“Our trip. The one I promised you. Anywhere in the world. You name it.” Poor man could barely form a sentence and was already planning the next thing.
Talia would have rolled her eyes, but she could feel how serious he was. “Somewhere restful,” she answered.
Somewhere you can heal.
“Not too restful.”
She knotted the fabric over his belly, which tensed, muscles firming as his arms went around her again. “Somewhere quiet.”
He kissed her, deep and dark, too short for satisfaction, but just enough to prove again where she belonged. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ll handle everything.”
The abused man had half his weight on her shoulders, but
she wasn’t going to point it out. His mouth skimmed along her jawline.
“I don’t suppose you know how to fly a helicopter?” Talia asked the sky as Adam dipped to her neck. Her throat was suddenly feeling much, much better.
“Yeah.” He found her earlobe.
“And do you have a good idea where we can find medical assistance?” A hand rounded her breast, doubling her heart rate.
He grunted.
“It’s just that, though I am agreeable to your…uh…present course of action…” His other hand slid over her ass.
“We should pursue a…uh…strategy of doctor first, life-affirming acts later.”
He pulled back, swaying on his feet. “Promise?”
Talia looked him in the eyes. “Promise.”
S
HADOWMAN
stands in a darkened room at the bedside of a grandfather. The air is sweet with tobacco. Except for a clock’s tick, the house is still, soft snow falling outside the window to insulate the home from sound. Down the hall, a woman sleeps in the hollow of her husband’s body. Farther still, a nursery. In one house, three generations. Soon to be two.
The old man’s heart flutters. The veil thins for his cross. Such is the way of the three worlds: each belongs in its place, Earth, Shadow, and Heaven.
It is a folly of pain to disregard the boundary. Shadowman lives this truth, as will his daughter. Time is a miser to the fae, and the penalty for stealing is great.
The heart stills. The veil parts.
A family in this house. The glimmering tie that binds them together heart by heart cannot be severed, not even with his fell blade, not even by the great distance from this house to the shores of Heaven. Though the patriarch will cross, he will still be tethered to the generations. And thus is so, a chain through time, forged by love.
Love.
Kathleen. Talia. And Talia’s strong, misguided man, Adam. He dares to scorn the laws that govern the borders between
the worlds. So stubborn. So ignorant. So mortal. Talia has chosen a dreamer.
They will learn.
Love is not a magic the fae can wield. Love will not obey a fae heart.
Except perhaps, that once when Talia reached across Shadow and found the weapon best suited to her need. That once, love prevailed.
The staff of the scythe chills in Shadowman’s hand. A great soul lifts out of the old man’s body. Shadowman turns to guide him through the fae forest of Twilight. The old man lingers, his attention drawn on the slumbering forms in the rooms beyond.
“They’re so beautiful,” the old man says, his ageless eyes shining with awe.
“Yes.” But Shadowman is thinking of Talia and Kathleen.
“I will see them again.” Conviction underscores the man’s words and the soul-string at his heart glows.
Yes.
Shadowman borrows the old man’s confidence.
If Talia can breach Twilight for Adam, perhaps Death can breach Heaven, too.
The old man steps into the slender boat. “I am ready.”
Through the dark forest and across the water. A thought brings Shadowman to the shores of Heaven. He has made this journey times without number. The isle is encircled by a shimmering wall of light. Its rippling, translucent colors burn away his cloak of veils and buffet his naked skin. It has always been so.
The old man steps out of the boat. “Thank you,” he says, but his gaze is drawn to Heaven, waves of rapture leaving a trail of golden light as he approaches the wall. He lifts a hand to touch the surface. A step, a spark, and he is drawn within. From one home, to another.
On the other side—
what?
Kathleen.
Dark winds lift Shadowman off the waters that lap the shoreline.
“Kathleen,” he calls, his voice a groan.
There is magic in names. Can she hear him?
“Kathleen,” he calls again, louder.
Behind him, the denizens of Twilight murmur.
“KATHLEEN,” he cries. His anguish batters the shining wall, shifting the starstruck colors from rose and lapis to deep purple and bloody magenta, but it remains inviolable.
Shadowman drops his scythe in the waters. He’ll scream forever, if need be, until the day the walls tumble into the ocean.
“Hey, you.”
Shadowman’s attention whips to the top of the wall some distance down the shoreline to his left. An angel is perched on the edge—fair hair, fair-eyed, skin a soft café. A recent crossing.
“Trade you,” Custo says.
Shadowman has no words.
“You want in or don’t you? Heaven’s no place for me, and I’m not hanging around until they figure it out.” The angel glances over his shoulder.
The murmurs of Twilight grow louder, sharper, but Shadowman pays them no mind. Not anymore. They’ve already done their worst.
“I do,” Shadowman says.
Custo flashes a grin. “Meet me at the wall.”
Shadowman sets foot on the sandy shore, each grain a diamond white sparkle. He peers into the wall of colors and a face appears. Custo’s. Custo raises a hand, and Shadowman mirrors him. They reach for each other across the brink. A touch, a spark…
Kathleen, I come.
Tremendous thanks to Leah Hultenschmidt, my editor, for her support and enthusiasm. To Alicia Condon, who made that incredible call one January morning. And to Jessica Faust, my agent, for her expert counsel and a whirlwind week I’ll never forget. Thank you to my husband, Matt, for kicking all obstacles out of the way and reading every word of every version so carefully. To Mom and Dad for love and support, to my awesome sister Deborah, with whom I learned to write, and to the rest of my family for their encouragement and excellent humor. Thanks to Brian Anderson, for his detailed information on weapons and tactical situations. Any mistakes are mine. And of course, to my GNO girls, Jill, Jen, and Jeni. And finally, to my critique partners and the wonderful writers of WriteSpot: Julie Ellis, Jo Gregory, Kathleen Grieve, Tes Hilaire, jj Keller, KC Klein, Lynnette Labelle, Theresa Sallach, Jenn Thor, and Dee Ann Williamson, and to my fantastic beta readers, Kris Tualla and Nora Needham.
A LEISURE BOOK
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July 2010
Published by
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Copyright © 2010 by Clarissa Ellison
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