Of Shadow Born (17 page)

She had simply looked at him through her big, empty eyes and nodded vacantly.

At least it was something. He’d gotten a few words from her here and there but still couldn’t tell how much she understood about where she was, or even that she was free. In her sleep she whimpered, begged invisible assailants to stop, her child’s voice numbly repeating phrases she had been schooled into reciting to entertain Hart during his use of her body. Listening to it had been a new form of torment, and up until now Jeremy had thought he was familiar with them all. It had taken a monumental act of will not to head straight for the Haven and fight his way through the Elite to draw and quarter Hart with his bare hands.

Not now. Later. One day he would have his vengeance. For now, Amelia was all that mattered.

To that end, he was preparing to get her out of the country. Perhaps once they were home in Brisbane and she was surrounded by sights and sounds and scents she had grown up with, she would rally. At the very least it would be more comforting to her than this place.

His phone rang, startling him, and his heart immediately set to pounding. The only person who had his number was Amelia.

“Hello?”

There was a pause, and then a soft, young voice said, “I’m sorry, Dad.”

He froze where he was, midstride. “Sweetheart, are you all right? I’m on my way back now, I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

“What are you—”

He heard the faint sound of glass breaking, but not heavy like a window or mirror—more like a jar, or a bottle. Then there was a scraping, and the noises in the room got suddenly louder; he could hear traffic going by down below. “Amelia . . .”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Something in her voice triggered an instinct older than time, and he broke into a run, heading toward the apartment.

“I can’t do it, Dad. I’m sorry.”

He came around the corner of the building, and as he heard the phone clatter to the ground, someone across the street yelled in surprise.

A dark shape fell from one of the fourth-floor windows, nightgown fluttering in the wind, a cape of white-blond hair trailing behind.

He was halfway across the street, desperately calling her name, when she hit the ground and the explosives in her body went off, throwing him back into a parked car with a blast of heat and a shower of blood.

* * *

My name is David Solomon. I am Prime of the Southern United States. I hold a PhD in Engineering from MIT and have a Stanford-Binet IQ of 187. I was born in . . . in England . . .

His hands wrapped around the cool sides of the sink, and he leaned forward, staring into the stream of water flowing into the vessel as he tried again.

I was born in England and married Elizabeth Cooke. She bore one son, Thomas, before her execution for Witchcraft. I came to America in . . . in . . .

The date would not come. He had to start over:

My name is David Solomon. I have black hair and blue eyes. I have a tattoo of . . .

His mind filled again with that cold, gray fog, and he had to try a different approach, something to cast light through the confusion.

My name is David Solomon, Prime of the Southern United States. My Queen is Miranda Grey-Solomon, an award-winning musician and singer, gifted with empathy and some of my telekinesis. I met her four years ago, as a human, and I brought her to the Haven when she was injured.

Yes, that part was working. It sounded right, it made sense. As long as he kept his mind focused on the connections to his heart, he didn’t panic. It was only when he tried to remember anything else, anything outside his emotional world, that he felt the creeping madness begin.

He stood at the sink for far longer than seemed appropriate, and sure enough, a few minutes later he heard the soft knock. “Are you all right in there?”

“I’m fine.”

“Can I come in?”

“Yes . . . of course.”

She opened the door a few inches and peered in, and he saw the relief cross her face when her leaf green eyes settled on him. She was still expecting him to disappear, or for herself to wake up. He felt rather the same way.

“You still look so thin,” she said, coming into the room in her bathrobe, her hair a damp fall of shining curls around her face. “I guess you couldn’t feed . . . where you were.”

He closed his eyes. “I don’t know. I guess not.”

He felt her hand, warm and real, on his bare shoulder, and reached up to link his fingers with hers.

“I called California,” she said. “I’m pretty sure Deven fainted. He dropped the phone and Jonathan picked it up and said they’d have to call me back.”

“What . . . who?”

She frowned, took a breath. “Deven . . . the Prime of the West. Your ex-lover . . . mostly. Our friend. Little guy, lots of leather, the world’s oldest bitchy queen.”

Again, he shut his eyes, this time against a sudden memory: mouth against mouth in the darkness, his nails digging into tattooed biceps, a gasp of pain that faded into pleasure.

“I hurt you,” he murmured. “I went to him and hurt you.”

Miranda nodded. “Three years ago.”

“Why would I do something like that . . . to you? Why . . .”

She looked down at the tile floor, then back up into his eyes. “You love him,” she said. “Not the same way you love me, but you do. You were both very confused about your relationship, and you made a terrible mistake. But it’s been three years and we’ve grown so much since then.”

He returned her nod; it made sense, and he believed her. He remembered that night, the desperation . . . both of them trying to claw their way into . . . something. Something they had lost long before. Something that should never happen again . . . and yet . . . it had . . . and . . .

“You do remember him,” Miranda said with a sigh. “That’s something, I guess.”

She smiled. “Come on,” she told him, tugging lightly on his arm. “Esther brought in more blood—doctor’s orders. Then we can have a long sleep.”

With a nod, he followed her back into the bedroom, to the fireplace, where two goblets of blood sat on the coffee table. They drank in silence for a while, both concentrating on the renewed strength and nourishment that seeped into all the still-raw places in their bodies and minds . . .

“I can’t feel you,” he said suddenly, head snapping up.

Miranda lowered her eyes. “I know.”

“I should be able to. You should be in my head.”

She set her glass down, staring at the fire. “The bond between us was broken when the Signet shattered. I don’t . . . I don’t know how to get it back.”

His hand moved up to his throat. “My Signet.”

“Oh!” Miranda, looking sheepish, rose from the couch and took her coat from its hook by the door; she reached into the pocket and retrieved the heavy silver chain, then returned to him, sitting down and giving him an uncertain look. “Do you think that’s all it will take?”

He held out his hand, and she placed the Signet in it silently. He regarded the amulet for a moment; he could feel its energy humming faintly, and as soon as he turned it over in his palm, the stone began to glow.

Miranda sighed. “Thank God. It remembers you.”

“I thought it was broken.”

“It was. Earlier tonight it fixed itself.”

“You didn’t think that was a little strange?”

She raised an eyebrow and said wryly, “Don’t know if you noticed, baby, but much stranger things have happened tonight.”

He lifted the chain and fastened it around his neck, letting the stone settle where it belonged between his collarbones . . . and waited.

The stone continued to glow, but nothing felt different. He remembered . . . vaguely . . . the first time he had put it on, and the rush of power that had overcome him; this time he could feel the Signet’s aura, whatever it was, like warmth spreading through his skin, but there was no drama, no rush . . . no bond.

They were still two separate people. The wrongness of it made him feel sick.

Miranda’s eyes were wet, and she looked away again. “Too much to ask that it be that easy,” she muttered. Then her eyes returned to him, and she managed a smile. “But you look like yourself again with it on.”

He let his hand rest on the stone. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what to do to make all of this better.”

She smiled again through her tears. “You don’t have to make it better. You being here makes it better. Just be patient—I’m sure it’ll all come back.”

He met her eyes. “But . . . what if it doesn’t? What if . . . this is just how things are now? Do you still want . . .” He looked away, no longer able to bear the desperation in her gaze. “Would you still want to be with me if we couldn’t have what we did before?”

“David Solomon, don’t be a dumbass,” she said, reaching over to swat him lightly on the back of the head, a move he was
sure
he remembered. “I didn’t fall in love with you because of a mystical bond. I sure as hell didn’t marry you for it. I married you because I wanted to spend as much of my future with you as I could, as your partner and Queen, and because I loved you. None of that has changed. I believe things will come back. But if they don’t, we’ll adapt. I lost you once already—no stupid soul mate thing is going to make me lose you again.”

Her voice, fierce and strong, flooded his heart with love, and he smiled.
That’s my girl.
“All right,” he said. “We’re in this together, then. For better or worse.”

“Let’s stick with better. We’ve already done worse.”

“From your lips to God’s ears,” he answered automatically.

She smiled. “That’s my boy.”

They took each other’s hands and just sat for a while, taking in the wonder of each other’s presence. It seemed a silly thing, perhaps, but wherever he had been, he had missed just being with her, hearing her breathe, catching the scent of her shampoo. He had missed their conversations and the way she moved. Her wit, her honeyed voice . . . her skin . . .

“Bed,” she said, softly but insistently. Once again, he obeyed.

Halfway there, he stopped and pulled her back toward him, into his arms, fixing his mouth to hers with a greater hunger than he had felt since waking up in Olivia’s loft. He wove his hand through her hair, his tongue through her lips, kissing her until they were both breathless and dizzy from the heat that leapt up through them.

He took hold of her robe and pushed it off her shoulders onto the floor, running his hands down her back. Her fingernails scratched over his skin as she urged him toward the bed again, neither willing to break the kiss as they sank into the comforter together. She pinned him on his back, leaned down to nibble along his neck, while her hands busied themselves getting reacquainted with the rest of his body.

“Do you remember this?” she asked.

He grinned. “If I say no, will you keep doing it?”

Miranda chuckled. “You asked for it—how about this?”

She flicked her tongue at his navel, and he made an involuntary snorting sort of sound and tried to push her off. “No fair tickling,” he said, laughing. In reply she repeated the motion off to the side, midway between his rib cage and hip bone, and he yelped.

She was giggling as he flipped her onto her back. “That’s it, woman, you’re in for it now,” he informed her.

He wanted so badly to get lost in her, to feel their joined being merging and dissolving as their skin met and joined, but even through hours of renewing their love for each other, there was something . . . something not
wrong
, exactly, but not the same. They were both trying to find it, trying to return to what had been there before, but the reality was there, and incontrovertible: They were two people, separate, able to connect to each other only as closely as flesh would allow.

When, hours later, they lay entwined, sweaty and out of breath, he heard her sigh, her fingertips tracing the new lines on his back.

“I love you,” she whispered into his ear. “So much.”

He smiled. “I love you, too.”

She kissed the back of his neck and rested her cheek against his shoulder. “What happens now?” she asked.

“Now we sleep,” he replied.

He knew, without any sort of mystical bond, that she still had a thousand questions and was no more satisfied than he was—but she especially needed rest, and whatever answers there were to find would have to wait until they were both functional enough to face them.

But bond or no bond, they would face them together . . . and he gave in to sleep gratefully, knowing—not hoping, knowing—that if death couldn’t keep them apart, nothing could.

Nine

To: Lark ([email protected])

From: Stella ([email protected])

Subject: Shit gets weirder.

YOU’RE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS . . .

Stella stared at the monitor of her laptop for several minutes, then sighed and closed it.

She had absolutely no idea how to finish the sentence.

It would help if she knew more about what the hell was going on. All she had been able to glean from eavesdropping on her guards was that somehow, some way, the Prime had come back from the dead. It didn’t sound like anyone had seen him, just that he was home and he and the Queen had been in bed for most of the last two days, recovering from . . . it, whatever it was.

She was dying to know more, but the only person she knew she could ask was Miranda herself, and she hadn’t seen Miranda in days. Stella didn’t blame her for not having time to come entertain her human guest, but still, Stella was getting bored and impatient, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.

Sighing again, she slid down off the bed and stretched. Her legs were kinked up from sitting too much. Maybe she should go outside. She wasn’t much on working out, but she was used to walking everywhere to save gas. That was one of the nice things about living where she did. In her part of town, everything she needed was within walking distance.

At this point she was starting to consider Austin itself within walking distance . . . it would just be a really long walk. It would be worth it, though, to get back to her actual life and stop grumping around her gilded cage.