Shadowfae (31 page)

Kane screeched in a hail of hellish sparks. My bangles howled, and the cracks split further.

I stroked a seductive caress of promise over Luna. He snapped at me with sharp, mischievous teeth and grinned.
Told you so.

I gave him one last, lingering kiss—he’d earned back that much—and tore him free. He struggled for a moment, spitting, and then he flicked loose with a careless shrug and dived headfirst into the chasm with a crazy fuck-’em-all yell.

Dante hissed, fangs tearing my insides. I scrabbled, but he slid away, slime dragging through my clutches. I stung my rapture to shrieking fury, engulfing him, but still he resisted. And then a scaly purple tentacle writhed up from the deep and wrapped around him like a vile python, yanking him free. Dante screamed, but Luna pulled harder, constricting, and sharp fangs finally ripped away, leaving me sore and bleeding as they tumbled to hell together.

Now only Rajah’s soul remained. My hot breath stung my lips, my mind swirling like leaves in a tornado. I dragged Rajah closer, plastering my lips on his, willing him to wake. His honey-thick soul writhed inside me, my rapture snapping at it with hungry teeth. I breathed in, tasting his fading scent, filling my lungs with him, tempting his soul back from the brink.

He didn’t stir. Urgency chewed my nerves raw, and cold desperation flooded my veins. I tried to reach out my senses, dull and colorless now without Luna. I didn’t know if Rajah could hear me, if anything was left. I pressed my lips on his, my fingers aching in his hair, frantic for a sign of life.
Come back to me, my prince. Don’t give up. I love you.

Sweet soul essence erupted onto my tongue, spilling over my lips and back into his mouth. His spine jerked, shaking his limp limbs and cracking his teeth against mine. A sugary ache tormented my throat, and my rapture screeched in fury, ravenous claws slashing for its lost prey, but I didn’t care. I tightened my stomach, closing my gullet so the energy couldn’t slip back down.

Rajah choked, liquid sloshing between us, and burning relief clawed at my heart, so desperate, it hurt. I held on, my eyes squeezed shut, and at last he gulped, sucking it down. My mouth emptied, but I didn’t let go. I never wanted to let go.

He gasped, dragging air into his lungs, his face pale and slick with sweat and honeyed stains. My half-broken bangles sizzled with malice and clamped tight around my wrists, and with a blinding scarlet flash, the metal reformed.

Smoke hissed from my stinging wrists, and my nose seared in the hellish stink of ash and flesh. My rapture wailed and thrashed, bereft. I burned to lick the golden remnants off Rajah’s skin, swallow, steal him again, not only to sate my rapture but also to savor his rich soul energy and crack those hell-cursed bangles off forever.

But I wanted him alive more. So much, much more.

I wiped a shaking finger across his cheek, saving the spill, and touched it to his lips. My fingertip tingled. “Welcome back.”

He forced his eyes open, wet dark lashes fluttering as he squinted, and stood shakily.

I stared at the ash-strewn floor, my nerves shredded. I’d felt his precious soul caressing mine, knew his love wasn’t a lie. He’d offered up his life for me. But doubt still chilled my blood. I’d cursed us both so we could be together. He’d found death. I’d found freedom. We could both have escaped. Now neither of us ever would.

Could he ever forgive me?

Rajah slid careful hands around my ribs and lifted me to my feet. Hardly daring, I looked up.

He licked his acid-burned lip, tears shimmering in warm golden eyes splintered with grief. “Why, Jade? You could have had everything you ever wanted.”

Raw emotion flooded my heart, so new and precious, my throat swelled. No care for himself. Only for me. My eyes burned, but I didn’t let my gaze drop, and my voice came out stronger than I’d expected. “You’re everything I want.”

He swallowed, and drew me closer, his hands warm and reverent on my shoulders. “But—”

“I love you, Rajahni Seth.” I silenced him with my fingertip on his swollen lips. I’d already told him, when I held his soul inside me. But the words still spread warm shivers over me, sparking my skin alive under his touch.

He closed his eyes, and brushed his cheek on mine with a soft incredulous sigh. “Thank you, Jade. I won’t ever make you regret it.”

The warm cardamom scent of his hair intoxicated me. I flushed all over, glorious, and tilted my face up for his kiss. His lips caressed mine, tender, sparkling my mouth with a trace of his honey-sweet soul. My aching limbs weakened in the delicious warmth of his embrace, and for once my thousand long years beckoned shiny and bright, like the twinkling delight in my heart.

Air crackled, shifting, and I dragged myself away. Kane stared at us, white flame flickering in his soft golden hair, his smooth white face flawless once more. His lip trembled, as if he wanted to say something, and then he sat himself elegantly on the couch, plucked up the remote, and flicked on the TV.

I stared at my shining thrall bangles, clean, polished, not a hint of dent or damage. Fresh tears stung my eyes, but hope warmed my blood like sunshine. Together, Rajah and I would make this bitter thrall worth enduring. He gave me strength. I hoped I did the same for him.

Rajah slipped his hand into mine and squeezed. His bangle clinked against mine, and I looked up at him, his beautiful face a blur. My heart shone with love. His lips brushed my hair, gentle as a raindrop, and together we walked out.

A
lone in the dark, Kane stares at the television, colored images flickering meaninglessly before his eyes. The leather sofa feels cold under his limbs. Beside him, tiny flames hiss over the splintered wooden floor, curls of black lacquer-sharp smoke drifting. Splashes of Rajah’s essence still shine wet on the floor, tiny diamonds scattering like stars.

Kane flips a dozen channels, two dozen, through soap operas, cricket, garish advertisements. Now his favorite cartoon is on, the one with the purple ostrich and the coyote, and he manages a faint smile. The coyote never catches the beeping bird, but he never gives up, either.

The crack of sunlight beneath the curtains reddens, shifts, fades. The cartoons give way to news bulletins, sports wraps, cop shows, more news. Still Kane sits, squeezing a cushion in his lap, his nails pale and still. He doesn’t want to go out. He doesn’t want to be alone. But he can’t think of anything else to do.

He wonders where she is, what she’s doing. He lets his gaze lose focus, and his senses burst like an invisible shock wave, climbing, spreading, searching for those elusive cosmic eddies that mean something curious is afoot.

His invisible shade swoops batlike over the city, riding the wind above the wild scatter of lights, cars zooming below along glowing ribbons. He inhales, and distant thunder rumbles, bringing the iron smell of rain. Dive closer, a rush of summer air, golden trails like shooting stars. The warm cloud of his breath on a window, peering inside an Albert Park mansion, where an ancient mother screams ragged over the pale bloodless body of her vampire son, and in the corner a vile-smelling snakeshifter bursts glossy black fins from his skin and plots chilly revenge.

Swish, flap, focus. A vine-draped restaurant across the river, where a grinning fae-born murderer with crazy-bright lizard eyes clinks glasses in celebration with his vampire master.

Dive, along a black stone street to a tiny heat-drenched flat, dark and empty in the smell of dying roses. She’s not there. Skid over bluestone cobbles and concrete tram lines to a row of bright steel apartments, where beyond shining glass his beautiful Jade sighs words of love with shimmering wet lips, her fragrant body breathless in her lover’s strong embrace.

In front of his television, Kane crunches icy lashes tight, and his shade snaps cruel teeth and swoops away.

Across the river, gaslights flaring, the crawling anthill twinkle of the casino, a glittering revue where a skinny blond ex-waitress named Claire dances the show of her life. Upward on a warm jasmine-scented draft, where the wind blows fresher and moonlight slants in the broad glass window on the eighty-seventh floor of EurekaTower. Right-angled shadows carve the pale carpet in Luna’s bedroom, falling on the unmade bed, the striped blue crime scene tape, a lone sleepy boy in blue police uniform and latex gloves who seals an ancient brass oil lamp into a cellophane bag. Spectral female laughter echoes, and the policeman glances this way and that in the empty room.

Down in free fall, wind whipping, the street rushing upward, the bright blue spike atop the state theater stabbing like a blade. Vintage orange streetlamps bathe the wide tarmac lanes of Princes Bridge, where a bright silver tram clatters by and two slender white figures tumble from nowhere onto the pavement in a dense shaft of light.

Kane cocks his head, curiosity and foreboding twinging his spine.

The pale twins climb to their feet in unison, street dirt smearing their white suits. Identical white haircuts, bleached skin, sharp faces that seek each other and smile. Hand in hand, the intruders turn away from the rippling blue spire and stroll in step toward the city.

Back in Toorak, Kane’s hair singes, smoke twisting to the ceiling. He ghosts his shade closer, stealthy, sniffing for honey and flowers, the telltale stink of a centuries-fled enemy.

The twins halt in midstride, and inhale.

Kane darts upward, and jerks back into his cool lounge to a black-and-white movie on television and the church-organ ripple of his telephone.

He swipes up the handset and devours the number, greedy.

It isn’t Jade. Bitter charcoal stings his tongue, the taste of loss. The burning floor smokes one last time, and hisses out. He picks up slowly, his damp thumb smearing the button. “Yes.”

“I have the item we discussed.” Cold voice, grating and metallic with a glint of dark fae attitude. His fairy thief.

Weariness aches Kane’s bones, but a tiny flood of warmth tints his nails green. Jade might still call. In the meantime, a shiny stolen bauble might make him feel better.

“The club, one hour.” He hangs up and slips the phone into his pocket. Quietly, he presses Off on the remote control, and the television blinks to black. He puts the remote aside, scrapes a wet crust of diamonds from his lashes, and walks out.

Epilogue

I
climb off the bed, licking slick fluid from my lips, and straighten my damp dress. The corpse sprawls naked, limbs contorted, damp with sweat and my saliva. My rapture sizzles like a frypan, sated, the soul energy already consumed, but my thighs ache, my sex still twitching. I sigh. After 140 years, I still haven’t learned rule number one.

I tidy my hair and fix my smeared lipstick in the hotel room mirror before I slip my shoes back on and ease the door open.

It flies toward me, knocking me back, and Rajah pins me against the wall, his thigh pressing between mine.

My heart swells with love. He always waits for me. He’s never jealous. It just makes him want me more.

His beautiful lips form a smile, inches away from a kiss. “You cheating on me again?”

God, after all this time, I still can’t stop staring at his mouth. I slip my arms around him, sliding my hands over his ass. His body fits against mine like it was made to be there. Hell, maybe it was. “You bet.”

“Was he good?” He teases loose hair from my neck, shivering my skin with need.

I grin, and pull him closer, harder against me. “He was okay. Had a few tricks.”

“Yeah?” He’s already lifting my skirt, spreading my legs, sliding hot fingers into my wet flesh. Sometimes I’m not in the mood after I’ve swallowed a soul. But he never has to ask me. He just knows.

I sigh, blissful, and shift to accept him. Truly, I’m the luckiest woman in the world. “Yeah. Wanna see?”

He drops to his knees, his laugh soft and warm on my thigh. “Later.”

READ ON FOR A PREVIEW OF

ERICA HAYES’S UPCOMING NOVEL

SHADOWGLASS

Available from St. Martin’s Griffin in April 2010

Copyright © 2009 by Erica Hayes

S
tolen diamond bracelets glittered on my wrists in the colored nightclub lights, and I laughed, my wings swelling damp in the warm crush of bodies. Midnight at

Unseelie Court

, dark and fragrant with smoke and sweat, music ripping my ears like sweet razors, so loud the air thudded in my lungs and my hair shook to the beat. Strobe lights sliced me, snapshots in time as I danced, here, there, gone.

Blaze wrapped his long white arm around my waist, spilling flames on my shoulders from soft crimson hair. I grinned and wriggled closer, his hot firefae flesh a sweet glory on my skin. Dancing, drinking, diamonds I don’t own. Doesn’t get sweeter than this.

The floor’s packed tonight, a mash of bright fairy wings and rainbow limbs and slick vampire smiles, the air steamy with breath and lust and chemical euphoria. Humans here, too, a few sly ones who can see, but mostly glassy-eyed and drunk on poison glamour, here for the oblivion. A sweet bubble of unreality this club, no thought, no consequences. Kiss, embrace, dance, love, drown your cares in glorious sensory nectar. A fairy kind of place, no rules, no guilt, the air so glassy with glamour it might shatter.

Even the name is a fairy joke:

Unseelie Court

. We fae have no court, no queen or princes or justice. We leave that to demons, gangsters, people who matter.

The smell alone warmed my insides. I’m waterfae, which makes me attuned to moisture, and the wet scent of all that pleasure pressed a sweet ache deep inside me. I shimmied on the crowded dance floor, my silky skirt sticking to my thighs, and lifted my arms in the sweet white smoke. My new diamonds sparkled over my wrists, painted blue and green and scarlet by glassy lights. We’d filched them tonight from a shiny apartment in South Yarra, along with a pile of cash and other trinkets.