Where Dark Collides: Part 1 (Shades of Dark) Read online

  “Men?” I shrugged. “They were just boys. Kids from a local gang, and I’m not sure they were trying to actually kill anyone. Kial and—my friend and I went out there, hoping to give them a scare. We’ve been having some trouble with them lately, you know? Graffiti. Slashed tires.” I could see he wasn’t buying my fibs, so I went in for the kill. “Tortured kittens, that kind of thing.”

  Who could resist a tortured kitty?

  “A local gang armed with fire bolts,” he said dryly.

  “Target lasers would be my guess.” I offered him a dubious smile. “Although I’m no munitions expert.”

  Our voices brought Kial into the living room, sparing me for the moment.

  “You should drink this,” Kial informed our patient, shoving a mug of coffee under his nose. He hadn’t quite warmed to the man yet. “Sweet and black…for the shock.”

  Those green, green eyes hardened on Kial. “I don’t drink coffee.”

  Kial stood back and shrugged. “Only trying to help.”

  “I’m Raine Shelle,” I said, initiating introductions partly to break the tension, partly because I was curious. “This is my friend, Kial Callin.”

  Another beat passed before his stare broke from Kial and came to me. “Roman.”

  He pushed himself carefully into a sitting position on the sofa, his hand going to his shoulder in a protective gesture. “Roman La Mar.”

  Such a soft, flowing name for a man who was, so far as I’d seen, all hard edges, hard stares and hard suspicions. Roman. I liked the way it rolled off my tongue. I liked it a lot. And the longer I looked into his jade green eyes, the more the name suited him.

  And now I was staring.

  I blinked, and refocused my priorities. “Would you prefer something else to drink? Water?”

  A grin touched his wide mouth, not reaching his eyes. “I could do with a decent Scotch.”

  So could I. But… “Not a good idea, I’m afraid.”

  “I’ll make it a double,” said Kial, ignoring my eye roll as he walked out.

  I turned back to Roman with a sigh. “Is there someone I can call for you? Someone who might be worried where you are?”

  “Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we?” Despite the brash words, his voice was warm and husk, designed to lure confessions from the most resistant. Even his gaze softened, washing over me, inviting confidences he had no right to. “I know what I saw.”

  “Bullshit?” I stalled, all out of fresh lies.

  “My shoulder feels as if it were ripped apart by a sword of fire. Blue fire, to be precise, originating from that… that thing’s palm.”

  Ah, so he’d seen that. I made a sympathetic noise. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

  “Are you’re suggesting I’m delusional?”

  The soft wash caked brittle on my skin. Green eyes that hinted at a league of ancient secrets bore into me with rapt warning.

  Not a question. A second chance, a last chance, to cut out the crap and lies. Apparently he’d tried nice and now he was going with threats.

  Damn those Demors! What was I supposed to say now?

  “Before you say anything else,” he added, “I saw you hold up your hand and deflect the same fire that struck me.”

  I lurched to my feet, wiping damp palms on the back pockets of my jeans. This was going so, so not well. What about the duel Kial had engaged in? Had he seen that? How did I explain snaking swords of fire?

  Demors I could face without breaking into a sweat, but explaining the intricacies of my world to a human was new, terrifying territory. My gut told me—screamed a pithy siren against the back of my skull—this human was a danger to our very existence. He’d seen too much, but it wasn’t only that. It was… I didn’t have a clue, just a vague feeling, maybe born from the ancient secrets buried in his black eyes or the danger-laden valleys of his jaw. If I had the gift of premonition, I’d call this one at 7.2 on the Richter scale of bad.

  For a second, for the briefest, darkest second of my life, I considered the advantages of cleaning up this mess the Demor way.

  “Forgive me, Raine Shelle.” He slumped back into the sofa, his face contorted in pain. “I’m not usually this abrupt.”

  Immediately ashamed at my black thoughts, I wrung some sort of smile from my grimace. “You’ve been through a lot.”

  Premonition wasn’t my gift any more than mind reading was. I had nothing scientific or concrete to back up this very bad feeling. And if I had, I’d still never trade the life of a human for my own. Well, not unless he held an actual gun to my head or a knife to my throat. Even then, I’d aim to stun or maim rather than to kill. Mercy comes easier to those with staggering advantages. Sometimes.

  Kial returned with a tumbler of whiskey and I grabbed the opportunity, fleeing to the kitchen, disturbed by the way this Roman La Mar had managed to unnerve me.

  He was bluffing. He must be. What man could be so confident, so self-assured, to believe his own eyes over every natural law? Humans made excuses, they spun improbable tales of yarn a mile long to explain away the impossible.

  I set about making a pile of sandwiches to replace our ruined meal, needing to keep my hands busy.

  There wasn’t much I could do about the hot mess inside my head.

  Kial had cleared all evidence of the exploding incident and he’d closed the drapes on the shattered window while our unexpected guest had been out for the count. Roman La Mar would just have to accept the possibility he was confused, concussed, and there was nothing currently evident to dispute it.

  All I had to do was deny, deny, deny.

  Kial’s arms came around me from behind to steal a ham sandwich. “Do you think he’s going to leave it alone?” he said near my ear.

  “Do you think getting him drunk is the answer?” I hissed quietly, glaring over my shoulder as he drew back.

  “A fuzzy head in the morning might save us from being front page news.”

  “He saw everything!”

  “I know,” Kial grunted. “I was listening.”

  I looked at him, hoping for more, but it seemed both our solution tanks were empty.

  “C’mon.” I handed over a plate of sandwiches, taking another with me as I nudged him out the kitchen.

  Roman was fast asleep.

  I strongly suspected Kial had slipped more than ice into his whiskey, but I had no argument with that.

  We dropped onto opposite ends of the unoccupied sofa, munching on our sandwiches in comfortable silence.

  My gaze kept drifting in Roman’s direction.

  No restless tossing and turning.

  No fever.

  Just that lethal power lurking in the hollows and carved into the angles of his face. My gaze lingered on his lips, slightly parted with his shallow breaths.

  Gods, this man was seriously gorgeous. He had enough sex appeal to turn a cloister of nuns and I hadn’t had any in a long, long time.

  With a sigh, I tucked my legs beneath me and snuggled deeper into the sofa.

  Maybe I was making this out to be worse than it had to be. Roman La Mar was…different. He’d rushed into danger without a care for his own life. His pain threshold, either that or the magnitude of sheer determination to push through the pain, rocked the charts. Demor fire crept into your body like a million marching ants, biting, tearing, searing, driving one to near madness. I’d taken a direct hit, I knew what it felt like, and Roman didn’t have the advantage of Angeon internal-defences and self-healing abilities.

  Self-doubt was clearly not part of his vocabulary. He knew what he’d seen and apparently nothing could shake that. All at once I knew, knew, I could deny all I wanted—and he’d never have any proof—but he’d never be talked out of the truth of what he’d witnessed.

  “He wouldn’t be the first human to know,” I breathed out.

  “You sound as if you trust him.”

  Kial’s voice jolted me into the real world.

  “Of course I don’t.” I didn’t dare trust a per
fect stranger. Sometimes my world really sucked. A dark wave crashed over me, a bone-tired weariness. I noticed the time on the wall clock and put it down to the late hour rather than the general state of my life.

  “It’s past midnight.” I stood, holding out a hand to pull Kial up. “I’ll stay down here with him tonight, make sure he doesn’t relapse.”

  Kial’s eyes went to the clock, then over Roman on the way back to me. “I’m not tired.”

  “Roman’s already proven he’s more likely to save me than harm me,” I pointed out. “There’s no reason for you to skip a night’s sleep.”

  “You’re kicking me out?”

  “I’m kicking you upstairs,” I said. Kial had moved into the house next door this morning, a couple of weeks ahead of his furniture. “The spare room’s made up, but this sofa’s taken.”

  Kial looked at me, hesitating, then shook his head. “Thanks, but I’m okay at my own place.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.” He turned to go, stopping me when I made to follow. “I’ll see myself out. If there’s any trouble,” he reminded me, “I’m only next door.”

  “I’ll call,” I reassured him.

  I didn’t stretch out on the sofa. As tired as my body was, I was too unsettled to sleep. I curled into the armchair, my cheek pressed to the padded back, my gaze trained on the rhythmic rise and fall of Roman’s chest. After a short while, however, the rhythm lulled my unease and my eyelids grew heavy.

  I jolted awake numerous times during the night, my heart racing through the end sequence of the same recurring nightmare. Over and over. Roman charging up the lane, shadows grabbing at his ankles, wreathes of silvery-grey tightening around his throat like a dead-man’s noose. He was running to his death and there was nothing I could do to help. My limbs were weighted down, my reactions sluggish; I was a tin man wading along the bottom of the ocean, drowning in uselessness.

  And then, just as dawn stole the black depths from the night, I woke one more time and found Roman La Mar gone, his blanket tucked around my curled-up body.

  CASTLE MEADRITH WAS BUILT into the magnificent Clo Mor cliffs, just a few miles east of Cape Wrath on the North Coast of Scotland. Constructed fifteen millennia ago from the same stone into which it had been carved, gouged in synchrony to the jagged outcrops dropping a sheer thousand feet at the edge of the Parph Forest to the torrid sea below, continuous fog bathed the high seat of the Demors. Ancient trees of the Parph shrouded it from unwanted attention.

  Deep inside the belly of Clo Mor, at the head of a polished slate table, sat the Shinmar, High Lord of the Demors. Casual amusement warred with irritation, all masked by patience fifteen thousand and ninety eight years in the making.

  “You would dilute our heritage with Angeon blood?” came yet another belligerent voice.

  “Strengthen,” corrected the Shinmar.

  He’d offered no explanation when he’d ordered the attack on the Angeons and seldom allowed his reasoning to be questioned, but this was different. Ultimately, the Demors would have a new Shinmar; his son, yet to be conceived, more powerful than any Demor or Angeon, a reckoning force the Guardians could not deny.

  His gaze fell upon each of the Demors present in turn. “We’ve never made the mistake of underestimating the wealth of Angeon power.”

  And so the argument continued around the table.

  “Their inherent good will is their downfall.”

  “To our benefit.”

  “They are mortal!” spat one Demor in disgust.

  “But make up for it by breeding like gnats.”

  The Shinmar nodded in agreement. The Angeon’s eternal breeding with humans, however, had whittled at their abilities over the centuries, reducing entire families to druids, wizards and, more recently, mere witches. “In this instance, there is not strength in numbers.”

  “But what if the child is inclined to their ways?”

  “The Shinmar’s son undone by good will?” A raucous chuckle followed.

  “Who says the child will be male?” asked Angeline, one of the few female Demors left.

  The Shinmar’s patience ran out. “Enough.”

  All eyes went to Aristan on his left, sculpted in the Shinmar’s likeness with the habitual dark storm riding harsh features. Almost four thousand years younger than his brother, Aristan was of a similar mortal age. Demor bodies never aged beyond the physical apex of late twenties, the years varying only slightly in each individual.

  “You would yield all to some hypothetical child?” Aristan demanded.

  The Shinmar turned to his brother, meeting hard eyes a shade darker than his own. He understood the underlying hurt, the shocked fury at suddenly finding oneself no longer heir to the glory of Demoran.

  But he’d already done far worse than displace one heir for another; he’d given up his firstborn.

  Demoran would be restored.

  He’d paid the price four hundred years ago and that was just the first instalment.

  “Not hypothetical, Aristan,” he responded at last. “This will happen.”

  His mind rested on the picture of Raine Shelle and her dark hair tumbling halfway down her back, her flawless bone structure and pale grey eyes. With her slim hips and trim waist, long legs and narrow shoulders, her body provided suppleness and strength without excess muscle.

  Her genes would give him a child with the united strength of Angeon and Demor might, and the build to contain their lithe panther power.

  A direct descendent from the Angeon High Throne, her noble blood untainted with the human rubble Angeons had developed a tendency to mate with, even marry on occasion, she was pure.

  For over four centuries, he’d searched for an Angeon worthy of bearing the next Shinmar. He’d searched, and found Raine Shelle. And then he’d waited, for three long years. A blink of an eye in the life of an immortal, yet these last three years felt like forever.

  “We will rise,” the Shinmar said. “We will conquer. There will never be another ageless war to bring the might of the Guardians down upon us.”

  “I am afraid of no Angeon or Guardian,” Aristan pushed through gritted teeth.

  “Aristan!” Eridan barked in warning, rising to confront the intolerable insubordination on the Shinmar’s behalf.

  “Leave be,” the Shinmar said, waving Eridan back into his seat.

  “This Angeon…” Aristan’s brow blackened with the thunder of restrained fury. “She has killed four of ours. This Raine Shelle,” he spat, “is responsible for the deaths of Braiden, Archellous, Dra—”

  “I’m aware of our losses,” the Shinmar cut through the list of fallen, his voice hard as iron. He regretted each and every lost soul. He mourned the price of war, and he mourned those who’d foolishly ignored his warning.

  “And yet we are not permitted to touch her!”

  A murmur of concurrence rose amongst those seated around table.

  “Raine Shelle will not be harmed.” The Shinmar’s gaze rested on each and every one, instilling the command into the weave of their bones. “I’ve advised you to remain here, to avoid England and stay out of her way.”

  “For how long?” challenged Aristan. “Until she expires of natural causes?”

  The Shinmar observed his brother for a long moment. One did not pass through as many millennia as they had without the occasional sibling rift, but it did sadden him that this one might never be breached.

  “What I request from you—” His gaze swept over the table as he spoke “—from each one of you, is patience. A second in time compared to the span of our existence,” he said, his jaw set, his temper grim. He disliked issuing direct orders of obedience, for to disobey him meant death. In this instance, however, the ultimate result converged. “Travel outside of Scotland is forbidden until I say otherwise.”

  “And what if the Angeon comes to us?” The question raised from Eridan. Respectful, without challenge.

  The Shinmar contemplated the unlikely event, then pushed
to his feet, indicating this was his last word on the matter. “I’ll rethink our position at that time.”

  I SLID BEHIND THE WHEEL, smothering a yawn as I did so. Not very successfully, apparently.

  “Let me guess.” Beth folded her long legs into the tight space on the passenger side of my small car. “Hot date last night? No, wait, that would be me.” She smirked at me, twining the orange flame that was her hair into a thick rope and knotting it at the back of her head. “Happy Demor hunting last night?”

  I pulled my seatbelt on, giving her a droll look. “I can hunt three days straight and it wouldn’t exhaust me nearly as much as three hours shopping with you.”

  “Stop whining.”

  “You brought it up.”

  Beth settled in the seat with her back to the door, blasting me full on with a disarming smile. “Speaking of hot dates—”

  “We weren’t,” I cut her off. Not that I minded hearing about my best friend’s dating adventures, but I knew her too well. I knew that smile. This wasn’t about the spice in her life; it was about spicing mine up.

  She pulled a face at me. “Pete has this utterly dreamy friend—”

  “No.”

  “What do you have against dreamy guys?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Nothing at all.”

  My mind went to a certain dark-haired guy, far too intense to ever be mistaken for dreamy, and who hadn’t bothered to stick around for morning coffee. I don’t drink coffee. I snorted. What kind of person doesn’t drink coffee?

  I reined in my disdain, reminding myself I should be—no, I was—grateful I hadn’t woken up to another barrage of suspicious questions. If it turns out Roman La Mar had run off to sell his story to the highest bidder, then I could be miffed. Him trotting off quietly into the fledgling dawn of light was an unexpected blessing.

  “But you,” I said, wagging a finger at Beth, “don’t get to pull off cosy couple stunts until you’re an actual cosy couple.”

  She fluttered her lashes prettily. “Pete and I were very cosy last night.”

  I laughed at her theatrics, was still shaking my head and smiling when innovation struck. Sometimes, I’m simply brilliant. Beth had a steamy social life, but she was completely commitment-phobic. She flitted through relationships like a vibrant, colourful, flirty butterfly. This was my chance to get her off my case.