The Shadows

The change in her voice stopped him. And for a split second he wanted to say, Please, no. We can talk about it at nightfall. Let’s leave the day hours for the fantasy of forever.

But as always, he could deny her nothing. “What is it?”

Selena took a while to answer, and that probably meant she was choosing her words carefully.

He tried to stay calm. “Take your time.”

“My sisters.” She hesitated. “The ones who have passed . . . they’re put up in a cemetery. You know, right where you found me?”

That hedgerow, he thought. The one that he had looked through to see those marble statues . . . which now he feared weren’t made of marble at all.

“Yes, I remember.”

“Don’t let them take me up there.” She took her hand away from him and sat up. As she stared down at him, her long, beautiful black hair poured over her shoulders, covering one of her breasts, touching the skin of her thighs. “They’re going to want to. You’re supposed to pick a position . . . you know, when the time comes, they can put you in any position you want. Then they plaster over your hair and your face and your body. It’s a ritual. That’s why they’re all different up there—in different poses, I mean.”

Trez rubbed his face. Which did nothing to relieve the lancing pain in his chest. “Selena, let’s not talk about this—”

She grabbed his arm. Hard. “Promise me. I won’t be able to advocate for myself when that time comes. I need you to do that for me.”

Again, he could deny her nothing—and as a bonded male, that not only seemed right, but healthy. Except with this request? It broke him in half to nod.

“All right.” He cleared his throat. “Okay, I’ll make sure of it.”

At once, her body relaxed and she let out an exhale. Then, as she resettled beside him, she shook her head. “I know this is against everything I’ve been taught and all the traditions of my service . . . but a part of me is paranoid that they’re stuck in there.”

“I’m sorry—what? You mean, your sisters?”

She nodded. “How do we know for a fact that the Fade is real? What if everything we’ve been told is true is actually not? As with everyone else in the Sanctuary, I have always tried to avoid that cemetery—I hate the silence and the stillness inside, and, God, those poor females, some of whom I knew and shared meals with and worked alongside in service to the Scribe Virgin.” She cursed softly. “They’re stuck in that cemetery, not just frozen in their bodies, but forgotten by the rest of us because we can’t stand how we feel when we’re with them. What if they can see us? What if they can hear us? What if time just stretches out into forever with them imprisoned . . .” Selena shuddered. “I don’t want that. When I go, I want to be free.”

Her eyes returned to the window, to the twinkling stars so high above.

“Every species has a version of an afterlife,” he said. “Humans have Heaven. Vampires the Fade. For Shadows, it is the Eternal. We can’t all be wrong—and each one is a version of the same. So it would seem to make sense that there’s something after all this.”

“But there’s no guarantee—and you won’t know until it’s too late.” She seemed to retreat into herself. “You know, when I’m in the Arrest, I can hear things . . . when I’m in that place where my body is just . . . out of my control, I can hear and smell, I can see. My awareness is with me, I am there, but I can’t do anything. As I’ve said before, there’s no greater panic than what you feel when your brain is functioning and nothing else is.”

Don’t lose it, he told himself. Don’t you dare lose it.

You pull your shit together and you be there for her. Right here, right now.

As she grew quiet, he put himself in that place she had described, aware of everything, but unable to respond or speak or react.

Reaching over, he stroked her long hair back. And then he was kissing her, softly, slowly. A moment later, he rolled on top of her and found her sex with his own. As the penetration happened, as that familiar yet ever shocking tightness of her gripped him, he gave her his vow through the physical act.

Sometimes, the evil you fought wasn’t anything you could hit or shoot or dismember. Sometimes you couldn’t even hurt it.

And that was really fucking awful.

As his hips rocked and she wrapped her arms around him, he kept the rhythm sweet and careful so that he could kiss her the entire time.

Halfway through, he caught the rainwater scent of tears.

They were both crying.

* * *

Down in the training center’s gym, Rhage was running like he was being chased by his own beast.

The treadmill was not feeling it. He was pretty sure that the scream coming from the belt—which was loud enough that he could hear it over the T.I. he was pumping into his ears like the shit was heroin—meant the machine was going to check out at any moment. But he didn’t want to break stride long enough to move to the one next door.