The Shadow King (10 page)

Then she stirred, and he was beside her, going to one knee in order to gather her into his arms. He felt the weight of the powerful substance that swam within her, though she was light and fragile, like a thin, crystal container for something colossally dangerous.

She turned toward him in his arms, her eyes closed, and he saw what she was wearing around her neck. It was the diamond acorn he’d given her. Rather, it was an acorn diamond – shed from the Diamond Oak in his private garden. It dropped one such acorn every one thousand years. The one she wore had been the first seed his tree produced, so many years ago.

It was already glowing as if lit up from the inside by a candle’s flame, but it pulsed repeatedly brighter, like a star dancing to some hidden music; it was beating in time to Violet Kellen’s precious, perfect heart.

She
wore
it. She actually put it on….

A glimmer of hope blossomed inside him. If she’d donned the necklace he’d given her, then perhaps it meant she instinctively trusted him? Might it possibly even mean she
felt
something toward him? Was it conceivable she might accept her place as his queen after all?

That she might accept
him
?

And all my darkness….

She opened her large, luminous eyes just then and looked up at him, blinking slowly. Then she arched her brows. “That was a
doozie
,” she whispered quite emphatically.

For some reason, that surprised him.

“I bet it was” he retorted, but it ended up sounding a little like a question as uncertainty settled in. She was acting strange.

“A real
wwwhopper
,” she said, dragging out the “w” as if she were drunk.

Drunk
, he thought, his gaze narrowing. Violet smiled broadly, an absolutely breathtaking display of a smile, and she laughed. Though the sound was like magic itself, understanding began to dawn on Keeran. He glanced over at her backpack, which had fallen beside her during the spell, and partly spilled its contents.

A black leather-bound book lay atop the rest of her belongings, both obvious and ominous. The cover was blank and buckled tight with magic locks that only a warlock of immense potential could unbind. But Keeran knew the book. There were few mages, especially in the Shadow Realm, who
didn’t
know what it looked like. And they knew by legend what was written on the inside cover:
Shadow Workings.

The title graced the first page in silver scrollwork. Beneath the title, in smaller letters, but even more implied importance, was scrawled the name of the man who’d authored the destructive volume: Wolfram Lovelace.

Keeran looked back down at the angel in his arms. She was shedding light in the blackness of her surroundings like a fallen star. She’d become a vessel for Lovelace’s magic. Her own power had been used up nearly in its entirety during the spell’s casting, and to fill that empty space, the infamous warlock’s magic had moved in.

“Drunk” was probably a good description for what she was feeling just then. She was literally drunk on
power
.

Thoughts chased each other through his head as he stood, taking her with him. He held her tight to his chest, trying desperately not to notice how right she felt there – especially when she circled his neck with her hands in an openly trusting manner.

“Come on, little warlock, let’s get you to bed,” he said through clenched, aching teeth. He turned in the field and headed into the shadows of the forest.

The men who had approached Violet tonight were the same who’d attacked her in the Underground the night before. He could feel their presence there still, detached and scattered. The spell was meant to disconnect a being’s spirit, or soul, from their body. But these men had been demolished to mist, severed in twain physically because they were
already
two-dimensional. There was no soul within them to separate from the body. Or, perhaps there was no body to separate from the soul.

Keeran would forever wonder which it was. Not that it mattered.

He understood why they had gone after Violet. He understood why they’d been instantly fascinated with her when they’d found her beneath the streets of Seattle. He knew why they had no doubt followed her signature, like the scent of flowers or chocolate, and why they’d even managed to find her here, in the Twixt.

They were Pan Shadows. And to them, her unique formula of beautiful darkness was the answer to their eternal loneliness. To them, she was the vessel that could reconnect them and make them whole again at last.

He wondered what exactly the six of them had planned on doing. Were they going to fight over her? Only one Pan could claim a body as its own. Perhaps they’d simply agreed that their leader would have her.

Keeran found his grip on Violet tightening, and he had to force calm back into himself. He did that by recalling the way she’d obliterated them with her spell. A smile hedged at the corners of his mouth. She’d proven very effectively that she could take care of herself against someone of their caliber. It would be years before they found all their shadow pieces again and put themselves back together.

“Oh, acorn. You’re way out of their league.”

“Yeah, I only play for the Giants,” she said conversationally, nodding as if it made perfect sense. He exited the shadow portal and bypassed the wards that would allow no one but him into his private quarters. It was fortuitous they didn’t try to stop him, even though he carried a stranger in his arms.

Because she’s no stranger
, he thought as he stopped in the long, lavishly appointed hallway outside his bedroom door. She wobbled a bit on her long legs when he gently set her down. He steadied her with one hand, opening the door to his room with the other.

“I don’t feel so right,” she said softly.

“I can imagine.”

The bedroom was on scale with the largeness of the mansion, its ceilings rising to spires twenty to thirty feet overhead, its black marble floors giving one the impression of walking on night. Violet looked down, gasped, and jumped back a bit as if she were falling.

He held her from behind and assured her. “It’s solid. I promise.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

He walked her to the four-poster bed against the opposite wall, and she quickly lost interest in the floor, choosing to lovingly pet the drapes hanging from the canopy above instead.

“I think I caught something from someone on Facebook,” she said as she started to go down, and he caught her again, lifting her once more into his arms.

“That’s not actually possible.” He used magic to turn the plush blankets down, and gently laid her on the silk sheets over the mattress.

“Cucumbers.”

“What about cucumbers?” he asked as he pulled the blankets back up and tucked them gently around her body.

“They’re evil. I hate them.” Her eyes were earnest as they gazed up at him.

“Well, I can’t argue with you there. The morals of a cucumber are questionable at best. Now sleep.”

She sat up, and he stepped back. She looked around the room as if making certain they were alone, then leaned toward him conspiratorially. She crooked her finger at him, and he just about died with adorableness overload.

He leaned in.

“I have a confession,” she said, slurring the double “s” just enough that his lips turned up again.

“What is it, acorn?”

She blinked – so slowly. “I think I’m addicted to coffee.”

He grinned, completely unable to help himself. “I dare you to name a single Tuath who isn’t.” He straightened, then added, “Or human, for that matter.”

She shrugged, turned away, and plopped straight back onto the bed again. Her hair fell about her in a cascade of shimmering multi-hued blonde, and Keeran found himself frozen in place, the smile stuck on his face, his breath caught for the second time that night.

Then her eyes closed once more, and this time he figured it would be a while before they opened again.

Chapter Thirteen

He was wrong.

He’d just reached the door to his room and grasped the handle when Violet’s voice cut through him like ice.

“You’re the man from the Underground.”

Slowly, he released the handle of the door and turned to face her. She had tossed the blankets to the side, and was sitting up rigid-backed. She eyed him with completely sober distrust.

That was fast,
he mused. She was very, very strong.

“Feeling better, I see.”

But she ignored the pointless statement and swung her legs over the edge of the bed to stand up. Her gaze narrowed dangerously. “You’re also the man from the poster, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question. She’d figured him out. “You’re that
Shadenigma
guy. The one who creates video games about shadows.”

She really
had
figured him out.

Keeran wrote programs involving creatures urban legend had come to call the “Black Eyed Kids,” and “Black Eyed People,” and so forth. He did it to make mortals aware of the dangers amongst them – dangers that he was responsible for. Because those creatures were
real
.

And they were actually Pan Shadows.

The games he created served a purpose. Sometimes Pan Shadows slipped by him and made it into the mortal realm. There, they hunted, searching endlessly for bodies to connect with, to drain, and to ultimately claim as their own.

Keeran wanted to warn mortals about their presence among them, if even on a subconscious level. But he had
never
come out and told anyone anywhere that the video games were actually about shadows. Violet had simply surmised as much.

“
That’s
why I recognized you in the Underground.” She stepped nervously, took a brief moment to look around the room, and then snapped her gaze back to his. “What do you want with me?”

Most people would have first asked what he
was
. Obviously, he wasn’t human. She knew that much. But she’d cut right through the haze and asked about his intentions. She was seriously smart. Or maybe she already thought she knew what he was.

“That’s… a rather complicated question to answer,” he said as he walked slowly back into the room.

But in a display that clearly illustrated the famous strength and agility of the Tuath, she limberly
jumped
backward onto the bed and held her right hand out toward him in a fist, bringing him to a very fast halt in his tracks.

“No, it isn’t complicated at all, actually,” she told him, her tone having dropped into a veritable threat. “You just open your lips and blow through them. Like you’re doing now.” Her magic pulsed out for a moment, its arms like tentacles that brushed against him. “Just make sure it isn’t hot air or smoke you’re blowing, gorgeous, or
I
will blow
you
to smithereens.”

Keeran looked from her to her hand, and his expression turned grim. He would wager, just then, that another spell like the one she’d cast earlier would indeed make for a bad situation, but not at all in the way she believed.

And of course, he didn’t fail to notice that she had called him gorgeous.

He slowly raised his hands in a calming gesture. “Alright,” he said placatingly. “At the moment, I just want to talk.”

“I’m unseelie,” she said coldly. “I’ve been around long enough to know that line is a lie.”

“This time, it’s true.” Well, mostly. There were other things he could think of doing, too. And many, he swore he would do
soon
. But talking was an acceptable start. “You have questions, and I have answers,” he told her. That much was definitely true.

She didn’t say anything, and he went on.

“You’re wondering what happened in the Underground last night. Who those men were. How they’d managed to follow you across an entire realm into the Twixt, and why they would even bother.”

She blinked, glanced away for a fraction of a second as she thought about what he was saying, and then pinned him with distrust again.

“You’re also wondering how
I
got rid of them, and why
I
would even bother.”

Another pause of silence, but he was taking her non-interruptions as a good sign, and a signal to keep going.

“And I know you’re more than a little curious about what just happened to you in the forest. With that very powerful spell you so foolishly cast.”

Now her gaze narrowed. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Indeed, but at what cost?”

She’d been completely vulnerable to him for long enough that if he’d had ulterior motives, she would be dead now. But she didn’t need him to point that out. She was smart enough to realize that there was a slice of time she couldn’t account for. She had blacked out, so to speak. Her memory went blank in the clearing, and started up again in his bedroom. That had to make her distinctly uncomfortable.