Shadowborn (5 page)

I pressed my palms against my forehead. “I’ve lived my entire life as a human. I can’t change my values overnight just because you think I should.”

He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me against his body. His lips found mine, his touch sparking fireworks in my center as his tongue caressed mine. It took a herculean effort to break the kiss, but I did it. When I tried to step back, he held me close. I jittered like an addict, knowing I should hit him but unable to will my rubbery limbs to obey me.

“Tell me that felt wrong, that it felt bad, and I’ll never do it again. Tell me you don’t ache to be touched by your people. It doesn’t have to be sex, Li. Sleep with me tonight, skin on skin. Let me hold you while you rest. I promise you’ll feel better tomorrow.”

I allowed him to hold my body so I wouldn’t waver. “I love him, and I won’t lie to him about this.”

“Then don’t. Admit to him you have feelings for me.” The backs of his fingers smoothed over my cheek, stoking my internal fire even more. “You and him, it can’t last. I’m sorry for that. I truly am, but I’m only saying what I’m sure you already know in your heart. He’s pulling away from you because he has no choice. He is a king of a nation that hates us, and a cruel one at that. His kind will stand between you, as will your people when they find out what you’ve been doing.”

The ache in my heart throbbed. I shoved Nix away, put a hand to my chest and closed my eyes. “You’re wrong. And I don’t have any feelings for you other than friendship.”
I love Liam, dammit!
“I can make it work.” The desperation lilting my tone sounded pathetic even to me. If I couldn’t form one relationship, how could I possibly do it for thousands?

“If in the end, that’s still what you want, I’ll help you. Even though he isn’t worthy of you. I’ll also prepare you for the long road to get there and the possibility that some obstacles are just too big to overcome.” His arms came around my waist from behind, his breath heating my ear. “You died for us once. Make sure you don’t forget to live now.”

I elbowed him away, huffing with anger. “Why are you doing this? Just because you hate Liam, and you want him to suffer?”

A slight hesitation preceded him saying, “I care about you, Li, enough to want your happiness. He doesn’t care about anything but owning you.”

Before my whirling mind conjured a response that would prove him wrong, Gallagher emerged from the portal with Andrew, both of their expressions grim. I jumped away from Nix and stooped to fiddle with the bow on my shoe, my face burning with shame.

“Liam sent one of his people to Toronto to set up a portal for us there,” Gallagher said. “He’ll contact me when he’s ready.” His gaze ping-ponged between Nix and me, and his frown vanished beneath a knowing smile.

I shot up and angled away from him. “Fine. Call me when it’s ready.” I strode toward a boulder a few yards away to escape Gallagher.

Parthalan screamed through our link, the tortured sound ripping into me like claws. Agony jolted through my head and out my arms. I cried out and held my shaking hands to my temples. “What is it?” Nix pulled my hands away as Gallagher faced me.

“Someone’s hurting Parthalan.” A long, slow moan escaped as I climbed above the pain. That was going to get old fast.

A half hour later, we exited the portal and stepped onto a barren Front Street in the Ontario capital under a clouded sky. Cas greeted us with a shy grin. He’d tucked his long, plum hair under a black cap, though it didn’t do much to help him blend into the human world. The golden sword strapped over the back of his black T-shirt made sure of that.

“Cas!” I closed the distance and tried to embrace him, but he stepped back, his cheeks blotches of pink.

“He’ll kill me if I touch you.” He hooked his thumb through the belt loops of his jeans.

My brows dipped. “Who will?”

“Come on, Lila.” Nix threw up his hand. “Liam. Who else? Threats and abuse is all he’s capable of.”

“Shut up.” My focus returned to the young Unseelie. “Cas? Is that true? Did Liam threaten you?”

He nodded, a sheepish grin on his face. His toe dug at the crumbling pavement as his eyes kept wandering back to my body the way they had since the first time I met him. I was the first Seelie he’d ever met, and apparently, I’d made an impression. It never bothered me because it seemed more like innocent curiosity than an overt act of a young pervert.

I gripped his chin and forced his gaze to mine. “What did he say, exactly?”

“Uh …” Cas wiggled out of my hands, moaned and touched his jaw. His innocent grin re-emerged, half-drunk, half-boyish. “Hands off if you want to keep them, and she’s not eye candy for you, either.”

My internal pot bubbled as my fingers worked open and shut at my sides. “How dare he threaten you!” A growl burned in my throat. “He has no right to decide who—”

“We don’t have time for this nonsense.” Gallagher’s voice came out sharper than I’d ever heard it.

Cas’s grin vanished.

Trembling with the need to pound something, I shut my eyes long enough to wrangle my growing power.

Cas led us down a side street toward a tall, gray building lined with two rows of guards in gray army uniforms. They all held large rifles across their chests, feet wide, watchful eyes scanning the surroundings.

All of the structures around the building had been burned or were boarded up, but the one we neared appeared pristine with all of its windows intact and no trash littering the stairs or the sidewalk in front. Clearly the guards were effective.

“Is this a hospital?” I surveyed the street strewn with paper and soda cans. “It doesn’t have the big, blue “H” like the rest of them. Are you sure this is the right place?” Farther down, a few people hovered around a trash barrel spewing orange flames out the top. I’d been to Toronto once when I was young but didn’t recognize the city.

“This is a palliative care center,” Cas said. “I got the down and dirty about all of this from that James guy over the phone when I got here.”

“Where are all the people?” I scanned the other direction. Not a soul inhabited the sidewalks except for the half dozen by the barrel. All of the businesses were dark.

“James said most of the folks have gone north to escape the violence here. There’s a big group of thugs, three hundred strong or more, that take whatever they want. So far James hasn’t been able to find where they’re hiding. He and Bethany are coming by helicopter, but it might be a while before they get here.”

It had been too long since I’d seen the damage for myself. To stand in the center of what used to be a bustling center and find it a ghost town put a squeeze on my heart. Parthalan had done unspeakable things to the humans and tricked them into starting a war that resulted in global economic collapse.

I had to fix it, or I’d never be able to live with myself.

“Raise your glamour, boys.” I headed along the sidewalk amidst cigarette butts and condom wrappers. The silence and acrid scent of charred building remains crowded around me.

Gallagher started up the stairs, and I followed after. Nix and Cas took either side but remained a few steps back in standard guard point position.

Beyond the glass sliding doors, I wouldn’t have known anything was wrong in the world. Nurses in colorful scrubs milled around the lobby, coming and going from the wooden reception desk in the middle. Some smiled. Others wrote on a white board on the wall. Some talked low to one another, their gazes locked while they carried on what appeared to be a serious conversation.

I approached a red-headed nurse working on a computer, but Nix put his hand on my arm, stopping my progress.

“Maybe you should let me.” His lips twitched.

I shot him a glance, trying to be annoyed, but knew he was probably right. “Am I really that bad with people?”

Gallagher made an abrupt turn toward a plaque on the wall. Nix waved to one of the nurses, his face flushed.

“So I hear, anyway.” Cas was the only one brave enough to answer.

I groaned. “Fine. Go and talk to the pretty nurse, Nix.”

The red head smiled as my captain approached. He must have been flashing his brightest grin because she twirled one of her curls around her finger and tilted her head the way women did when they were being charmed by a good looking man.

A twinge caught me low in my belly. I rubbed it, brows knitting together. Why did Nix’s flirting with that woman bother me so much? It wasn’t as if I owned him. He was my guard and nothing more. A small voice in my head shouted
liar, liar!

He leaned his elbows on the tall desk and spoke so low his words didn’t reach my ears. The woman laughed through pink glossed lips, a sound like a peal of bells on a crisp Sunday morning. She stood and leaned closer to him, the tops of her ample bosom showing through her gaping blouse.

“Lila?” Gallagher stepped in front of me.

“What?” The word snapped like a whip as I tried to lean around him to keep my eye on the nurse, but his palm on my shoulder stopped me.

“Look at your skin.”

I raised my hands to find the blue tinge had returned. My wide eyes fixed on Gallagher’s. “Why is this happening? I feel …” How did I feel? He’d told me to be mindful of my emotions, but whatever gripped me was something new.

“Are you jealous because Nix is talking to the nurse?”

My lips curved downward. “No.” I turned to inspect a weird painting on the wall.

“Lila.” His tone warned me.

I snapped my head around, glared at him and spoke through clenched teeth. “Nix can flirt with every hot chick in the whole damn country, and it wouldn’t bother me a bit.”

James and Bethany came through the main doors and strode toward us, stealing away whatever admonishment Gallagher was about to unleash from his open mouth.

“Sorry we’re late.” James’s gaze went to my arms; his eyebrow quirked up. “Wow. Why so blue?”

“Hardy-har-har, Mr. Funnyman.” I rolled my eyes. After a few seconds, my glamour returned. “Can we get on with this?” I sped to the elevator without letting my glare stray back to Nix and the hussy nurse.

“Actually, they’re on the first floor, Ms. Gray.” Bethany came up beside me with questioning eyes, looking me over the way a psychiatrist would a new patient.

I rolled my head until my neck gave a satisfying crack. “Lead on, then, Beth.”

“It’s Lieutenant Ross.” Her ramrod straight posture and the stare were perfect. Did she practice that in the mirror every night? How did she manage to speak with her upper lip curled like that? A snort burst out of me. That earned me a full out scowl which induced more laughter.

“This way, folks.” James pulled open a door beside the nurse’s desk and propped it with his foot. Although his perpetual smile remained, his eyes conveyed menace. “Is there a problem here, Lieutenant?”

Bethany tore her stinging stare from me and clicked her heels along the tile toward her boss. “No, Sir.”

I lingered behind the group, gave in and glanced over my shoulder at Nix. When he trotted up beside me, his pale skin flushed pink, I chastised myself for letting him know I’d been looking for him. Why was he blushing? From the jog, or from his little charm session with Nurse Big Tits? A growl burned in my throat.
I don’t care.

“Lila?” He cleared his throat and half jogged to keep pace with my hurried steps. “What was that all about?”

“Don’t know.” I kept going, confused by the nasty squirming in my guts.
I am not jealous. I’m not.

“Li?”

I stopped and jabbed a finger at him. “It was nothing, all right?”

“Are you angry with me?”

The strain and fear in his voice sent twinges of discomfort into my midsection. I let out a long-suffering sigh and scrubbed my forehead. “No, I’m not angry with you.”

Nix’s brow creased. His hand slid down my arm.

I shrugged him off and continued on. “Don’t touch me.”

Cas stood outside a door farther down the hallway, in a guard stance—feet wide, hands clasped behind his back. Although his head dipped forward, roaming eyes still fixed on my approach from beneath the brim of his cap.

Without stopping to chat, I entered the white room and cringed at the stale scent of antiseptic and sickness.
Yum.
Fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered. A nerve below my eye twitched.

Six beds dotted the white tile. Three against one wall and three on the other. The two Mounties and Gallagher stood next to the bed nearest the door.

“This is the first one we found not far from here,” James said. “He was lying on the steps of his apartment building with a suitcase in his hand.”

The man’s vacant grey eyes stared at the ceiling, blinking once in a while. His dark hair had been shaved close to his head. IV lines snaked out of both of his strapped-down wrists.

Gallagher sat on the edge of the mattress and placed his palm on the man’s forehead. Eyes closed and shoulders relaxed, Gallagher remained motionless. “The body is intact, but the mind and soul are gone. There’s an echo of a tremendous moment of fear there, but the image is blurry.”

“How do we know for sure this is the Shadowborn’s work?” I asked.

“Any disease that would leave a human in a coma would not feel the way this one does. The organs function. The brain works in a primal state.” Gallagher stood and faced James. “Can they feed themselves if given food?”

James nodded. “Most of them can, yeah.”

Gallagher pinched the man in the bed. He cried out and jerked on his restraints.

A nurse came running in, glaring at us as she spoke soothing words to the man. She tightened the leather strap holding his IV hand down.

“Their survival instincts remain,” Gallagher said. “I have no doubt this man’s soul now serves the Shadowborn.”

I walked the length of the room, chewing my fingernail. Of the people in the beds, I couldn’t detect a pattern. A plump woman. An old man. A skinny lady with tattoos. A young, bearded man, and a little girl in the last bed with pale white skin. Her black hair held a sheen of dark blue under the light.

Before I turned, I caught the child’s icy blue eyes blink open, stare right at me and close again. I met Gallagher’s gaze and thought hard at him.
The kid’s faking. Why don’t you ask the Mounties to take a hike?