Shadow's Awakening: The Shadow Warder Series, Book One (An Urban Fantasy Romance Series) (12 page)

A few minutes with the razor and Hannah felt like a human being again. The body lotion and brand new clothes turned her into a princess. It was funny how the simplest things were an almost unbearable luxury when your life had been stripped to nothing. A clean body, new clothes, the promise of a meal and best yet, the possibility that she wasn’t going to be hurt any time in the near future. Behind her eyes, she felt a prickle. She squeezed them shut, refusing to cry again.

Tears were weakness. Conner had gone to a lot of trouble to get her to a safe place and make her comfortable. Maybe he was truly a good guy. Maybe he’d saved her because it was the right thing to do. Experience had taught her that the truth was probably more complicated. He knew too much about what had happened to her and she knew too little. Until she got a better handle on what was going on, Hannah wasn’t prepared to assume Conner had her best interests at heart. She didn’t know who he really was. According to Conner, she didn’t even know who she was. While she didn’t want to think that was true, that under his sweet protectiveness Conner might be plotting to use and hurt her just as Glenn had, Hannah had to leave the possibility open. She didn’t know anything concrete about her current situation, except that she was free, her mind was clear, and if the smells seeping beneath the door were any sign, she was about to eat something better than peanut butter and jelly for the first time in months. Moisture flooded her mouth. Her earlier objections to soup seemed stupid, especially if it tasted as good as it smelled. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Hannah opened the door and stepped out of the room.

Chapter Six

A fire crackled in the big stone fireplace, sending light flickering over the warm pine walls. Conner stood facing the stove, a white towel in his hand. The sight of the broad-shouldered man engaged in such a domestic task disarmed her. A timer dinged. Conner opened the stove and used the towel to pull out a pan of golden-topped biscuits. How long had it been since she’d smelled freshly baked biscuits? Hannah swallowed hard and started forward.

“Anything I can do to help?” she asked.

Conner turned from the stove and started to smile. His expression froze. Hannah shifted beneath his gaze as he continued to stare. Her face heated. She hadn’t been around normal people for a while. Had she forgotten anything? Missed a button? She hadn’t eaten yet, so there couldn’t be anything stuck in her teeth.

“Is something wrong?” she asked in a small voice.

“No,” Conner said, cheeks flushing to match hers. “No, sorry. You just surprised me. A lot of your bruises have already started to fade. You look a lot—” He paused. “Better. You look a lot better.”

“Oh, okay,” Hannah said. She hadn’t looked in the mirror while she’d showered and dressed, afraid of what she’d see there. Maybe she should have, since she had no idea what Conner had been staring at. After her first real shower in months, vanity hadn’t seemed like an issue. Now, faced with Conner’s lingering gaze and warm brown eyes, it would have been nice to know what she looked like.

“Well, can I help with anything?” she asked again.

“Nope, just go sit down.” Conner gestured at the table where he had set out two bowls, spoons and two small plates. A crock of butter, a jar of red jam and a plastic bottle of honey shaped like a bear all sat on the table.

“Dinner smells amazing.” Hannah watched as Conner brought a steaming pot to the table. He ladled a thick, creamy soup into each bowl.

“Junie stocked the kitchen for us,” Conner said, sliding the biscuits from the pan to a bowl. “She knows chicken and dumplings is one of my favorites. She must have made some after Kiernan called last night.”

Hannah leaned over the bowl and inhaled the scent of the food. Light, yeasty biscuits, savory chicken and plump dumplings. Her stomach rumbled again, filling the quiet room. Another hot blush on her cheeks. Rubbing the heel of her hand against her abdomen, she said, “I haven’t eaten anything warm in a while. Or anything homemade. Mostly peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. If I never see one of those again it’ll be too soon.”

“Don’t wait on me,” Conner said. “Go ahead and start.”

She did as he’d suggested and dipped her spoon into the bowl. For the next few minutes they both ate in silence, dedicated to their meals with single-minded attention. Hannah didn’t look up until Conner slid a steaming biscuit in front of her, freshly split, dripping with melting butter and honey.

“Try that,” he said. “It isn’t fresh made. Just the kind from a tube, but it’s not bad.”

“Thanks,” Hannah said and picked up the biscuit. It was hot and rich, the smooth butter and sweet honey an explosion on her tongue. She tried not to inhale it in one bite, but she was afraid she still stuffed more than half of it in her mouth. Before she could swallow, Conner was sliding a second honeyed biscuit on her plate. She looked up to see him studying her with the same intent gaze he’d had earlier. A tingle went down her spine. She should have excused herself to check the mirror. Glenn had taken her mirror at home, so it had been months since she’d seen her own reflection. Was something wrong with her face? Conner might be too polite to say anything. His staring was unsettling. As if realizing she was uncomfortable, Conner looked away and started to eat again. Hannah finished the first biscuit and started on the second, forcing herself to chew instead of swallowing it whole.

“They weren’t feeding you enough,” Conner said. “If those clothes you were wearing were yours, then you’ve lost a lot of weight.”

“They were mine,” Hannah said. “I haven’t really been paying attention. Glenn wasn’t starving me. They brought me food three times a day.”

“But you usually have a big appetite, don’t you? You eat a lot and don’t gain weight,” Conner said.

“Yes.” Hannah spoke slowly, knowing Conner was getting at something. “My girlfriends used to give me a hard time about it.”

“And you stayed fit without having to work on it?” Conner continued.

“How do you know that? Is this part of what you said before about me not understanding what I am?” Hannah licked a drop of honey off her finger and looked at her empty bowl with longing. Her stomach was stuffed, but she still wanted more. Conner followed her gaze.

“Let it settle a little. I don’t want you to get sick,” he said.

“So, are you going to explain what’s going on? Not that I don’t appreciate you getting me away from Glenn—I really do—but the past few years have been like living in
The Twilight Zone
and I would love it if you could somehow make sense of all of this.”

“I’ve been trying to figure out where to start,” Conner said. “Why don’t you tell me what’s happened, and I’ll tell you how it fits into the bigger picture.”

“Okay,” Hannah said. She sat back in her chair, propping her heels on the bottom rung. “It started with a headache.” She began slowly, then picked up speed, the story spilling out. Telling it like this, the escalation sounded unreal. Hannah getting sick was normal enough. Her mother dying wasn’t that unusual in the greater scheme of things, even if it had been miserable for Hannah. But Glenn slowly going insane and locking Hannah in her room while he and a bunch of strange men tortured her for fun—that was nuts.

Hannah waited for Conner to laugh, or at least to tell her that she was, in fact, crazy and he’d rescued her by mistake. Instead, he sat perfectly still, staring over her shoulder, apparently deep in thought.

“Conner?” Hannah said.

“Yeah, still trying to figure out where to start. You have to understand, everything I’m about to tell you—I’ve always known it, since I was a child. I’m not sure how to tell it to someone who’s starting from scratch.”

“Then start at the beginning,” Hannah said. “What did you learn as a child?”

“Maybe that’s the best way. I’ll start with the old stories,” Conner paused, as if assembling his memories. When he began speaking again his voice changed. It had a new cadence, one that lulled and wove his words into pictures.

“A very long time ago, when the world was young,” Conner said. “There was man and there were demons.”

“Demons?” Hannah said. “I thought you were going to tell me what was going on. When I said to start at the beginning, I didn’t mean I wanted to hear fairy tales.”

“This isn’t a bedtime story. It’s the history of my people, and in part, the history of yours. Just sit still and listen. My story isn’t any crazier than yours.”

“Good point,” Hannah said with a small smile. “I’ll try not to interrupt.”

“Try hard. Ask anything you want when I’m done.”

“Promise,” Hannah said, clamping her lips together. Conner raised an eyebrow but made no comment.

“In the beginning there was man and there were demons. There were many kinds of demons, but the strongest were the Vorati. They stood on two legs, like humans, but they were taller and covered in scales. They wore the faces of serpents and lived off the pain and suffering of humans. The Vorati captured people, tortured them until they died, then ate the remains. They fed off the resonance of the pain and suffering as much as they fed from the flesh itself.

“A few of the humans had magic. They couldn’t use their magic to fight the Vorati—it wasn’t strong enough. But they used magic to create creatures who could fight the demons for them. The mages needed men and women who could fight with physical power and those who harnessed the power of the elements—the power of the earth and the power of the heavens. Both were necessary to defeat the Vorati. But the skills of a soldier and those of an elemental were incompatible. So they created two races to be their protectors, one made up of soldiers and one of elementals. For thousands of years the two races fought the Vorati together. The demons were driven underground and humanity thrived.

“The soldiers evolved into Warders—so called because they warded, or protected, humans. The elementals had another name—I don’t know what it was—but in more modern times they’ve been called Shadows.” Conner pushed back from the table. Picking up their bowls, he asked, “Do you want coffee? Tea?”

“Whatever you’re having,” Hannah said, waiting. When he didn’t immediately speak, but put his dishes in the sink, she said, “Is that it? There are demons called Vorati and the Warders and Shadows fight them?”

“Not exactly,” Conner said. With his back to her as he started the coffee he continued. “What happened next isn’t clear. Our history books don’t have a lot of details, but we know that around the time Rome fell, the Warders and the Shadows turned against one another. The Warders wanted to try a spell to destroy the Vorati once and for all. The Shadows were against it.”

“Why were they against the spell?” Hannah asked. Conner set the coffeemaker to brew and turned around. Leaning against the kitchen counter, he crossed his arms over his chest.

“According to our books, the Shadows feared the spell. Shadows don’t work spell craft. They hate it. Something about the way they direct energy and spell craft being too crude. So they dislike anything to do with spells anyway. And the history books suggested this one involved some kind of sacrifice. But I’m not sure if anyone alive today knows what the spell really was or why the Shadows refused to do it. If they do, it’s not in our books. At least not the ones they gave us in school.”

Conner stopped, as if caught by the idea that his schoolbooks might not have covered everything. Hannah wondered if that had occurred to him before—that what his people knew and what they taught might not be the same thing. With a quick shake of his head, as if to flick the idea away, he went on.

“What we do know is that the Warders went ahead with the spell despite the Shadows’ objections. It didn’t work the way it was supposed to. The Vorati weren’t exterminated, but they were rendered incorporeal. Somehow the spell destroyed their bodies, but not their spirits, leaving them free to continue to prey on humanity.

“Again, the books I’ve read aren’t clear but there’s the suggestion that there were deaths, both Warder and Shadow, as a result of the failed spell. Also, before the spell, the Vorati could be killed. After the spell, they might have lost their bodies, but they could infect humans. If they aren’t killed the right way, the host body dies and the demon escapes to infect a new victim.

“Whatever really happened, when the dust settled, both sides wanted nothing to do with one another. It’s over fifteen hundred years later and we still have only limited contact with Shadows. We’re forbidden by law to seek them out or work with them except in very specific circumstances. Since they don’t seem to have any interest in approaching us, I’ve always assumed that they have a similar rule on their side.”

“So you’re a Warder?” Hannah asked.

“Yes. And you’re a Shadow,” Conner said.

“No, I’m not.” Hannah shook her head. “How can I be a Shadow? My parents were both normal people. I’m not adopted—wouldn’t I have to have Shadow parents?”

“Not necessarily. It’s uncommon, but both Warders and Shadows are randomly born into the human population. It’s a kind of mutation caused by the magic that created our people in the first place. Rare, but it happens. I know we have mages who use spells to look for Warder children born to human parents so we can train them properly. I’ve never heard of an adult Shadow being alone, away from the other Shadows. They probably find their children the same way we do. They’d have to—a Warder child might have a tough time growing up on his own, but a Shadow child would eventually go crazy.