Shadow's End (16 page)

Since she was considering the possibility of the Wyr, she could think of no reason for Dragos to have come south either. While he had invaded the Elven demesne before, he must be busy in New York with the business meetings and preparations that surrounded the masque.

Shaking her head at her own foolishness, she stepped back indoors to dress in trousers, boots, a loose, comfortable shirt and a quilted jacket. Hesitating over the thought of carrying weapons, the thought of the Wood's youth and
inexperience caused her to slip into her sword harness, just in case.

She considered waking Linwe, or taking one of the night guards with her, but after studying the Wood's alert, calm interest, she decided not to. She could always raise an alarm later, if necessary. For now, she trusted her ability in cloaking her presence.

Her rooms were located at one end of the building. A private stairway led from the balcony to the river's edge below. The guards on duty were much younger than she. None of them noticed as she strolled from the clearing.

What do you have to show me?
she asked the Wood, only not quite in so many words. Her question was more of a nudge and a sense of inquiry.

The Wood tugged her along narrow paths, toward the coast. Other races might have had difficulty following the nearly invisible paths, but they were her design. She knew them like she knew the back of her hand.

As she hiked, a sense of peace and freedom came over her, two things she no longer felt when she resided at the Elven home.

Soon, she realized the Wood was taking her further than she had expected. Her old Wood had covered miles. This new one would be no smaller by the time it finished growing.

She began to run. Her Elven nature gave her tremendous stamina. If necessary, she could run for days, although if the Wood continued to urge her in the current direction, she would run out of land.

She ran out of land.

When she neared the shoreline, a sense of freshness brushed against her cheek, damp with the breeze that blew off the ocean. Breathing deep, she scented the water, refreshing and brisk, and carrying a hint of brine.

The path curved, taking her out of a sparse line of new saplings that would soon, with her encouragement, take on the aspect of a large, old-growth forest.

The path followed the top of a long bluff. Favored by the
Elven guards, it provided a good vantage place to look out over the shoreline and water.

At the highest point on the bluff, she paused to scrutinize the view. Moonlight cascaded over the scene, gilding the water and the edge of shadowed clouds with ivory and silver.

Below, at the edge of the beach, a half-hidden figure of a very large man reclined against a large boulder.

Her heart began to pound. Her stupid, stupid heart.

She couldn't be right. The man was too far away. The lighting was too uncertain for her to recognize his identity at such a distance.

Still, she wanted it so badly to be true. Keeping her cloaking spell tight around her body, she made her way down the side of the bluff to the beach below.

Walking toward the relaxed figure, she stared without blinking, until details became clear.

The man wore jeans and a jean jacket. A battered pack rested beside him. His arms were crossed, as were his legs at the ankles. The cascade of moonlight glinted off wavy, tawny hair. He had let it grow some years ago.

With his chin tucked to his chest, his face remained in shadow, but every line of his rough, sun-kissed features was stamped indelibly in her memory.

“Graydon,”
she whispered, disbelieving and, for one moment, deliriously, unutterably happy.

When he whipped to his feet with catlike speed, she let go of her cloaking spell.

He walked toward her, stepping out of the boulder's shadow. The ivory moonlight touched his cheekbones, his jaw, the masculine curve of his lips.

As he grew near, the Power of his presence enveloped her. She felt nourished again by a warm, friendly blaze. Just as she had in the Vauxhall Gardens, all those years ago, the same crazed desire to fling herself into his arms and nestle against his chest washed over her.

At the same moment, she felt the impulse to back away. What could Malphas sense down that mysterious, ephemeral connection he had established with them?

All this time, while she couldn't fully trust Ferion, she also knew she couldn't fully trust herself.

“Hi, Bel.” Graydon stopped a few feet away and made no attempt to touch her. Silence fell between them and stretched into something intolerable. Finally, he asked, “How are you?”

She lifted one hand and let it drop, at a loss as to what to say.

I miss you.

I want you.

I think about you every day, and when I roll over half asleep in bed, my hand reaches for yours, but you're not there. You're never there.

You never were.

Every word of Malphas's bargain was emblazoned in her memory. As she ran over the words in her mind, she remembered. She could touch him. The terms of the bargain allowed for it. What a hateful thing.

She didn't even know if Graydon would welcome her touch. She was painfully aware that he had not reached out to touch her.

She asked, “What are you doing here? What's wrong?”

Even in the uncertain light of the moon, the intensity of his gaze seared her. “What if I wanted to see you?”

Where had pleasantries gone? Those social niceties one said when encountering an acquaintance one hadn't seen in a long time. Without the trappings of a political function or public gathering to stop them, they had plunged immediately into a raw, intimate place.

Her breathing turned ragged. “You wouldn't come here just to see me. Not after all this time.”

“I wouldn't?” His hands tightened into fists. “One of the hardest things I ever did was leave you with the healers, back in January. I couldn't stay by your side—none of them would have let me, so I had to completely leave the demesne. The only thing I could stand to do was go back to the Other land and help from that end. Since then, I've scoured every online news source for how you were doing, and how hard you've worked to help the recovery effort.”

She had done everything she could think to do for the demesne. From the moment she had left her sickbed, she had worked every day for the last six months until she dropped from exhaustion.

Now, when people came to her for help or advice, she gave it to them by rote, because part of her couldn't help but answer, even as she wondered if she really had anything left to give.

Wrapping her arms around her middle, she confessed, “I read everything I can about New York and the Wyr demesne, just so that I can see your name.”

His voice lowered. “From time to time, I've slipped down to Charleston. I look at the houses for sale. The ones with a big, private yard.”

His words were quiet, even gentle. They devastated her completely. Before she quite realized what she was doing, she flung herself at him in an uncontrolled lunge, blindly trusting him to catch her.

As she collided against his body, his arms slammed around her. He gripped her so tightly, she knew his hold would leave bruises, and she welcomed it. She didn't care.

He was breathing as heavily as she, as if he had been running for a very long time. Burying his face in her hair, he muttered, “I would walk from room to room in those empty houses and wonder if you still thought of me.”

“Oh gods.”
The words felt wrenched out of her. She couldn't hold him any tighter than she already did, but she still wasn't close enough. She wanted to climb up his body, open his skin, crawl inside and never leave. “I've wondered if you thought of me too. I've wondered if you moved on, or if you've been with someone else. I didn't have the right to ask. I still don't.”

“I haven't been with anyone else,” he murmured, cradling her. “Have you?”

Her arms tightened around his neck. “No,” she whispered. “I haven't found anybody who can replace the memory of being with you. What am I saying? That makes it sound like I've been looking, and I haven't. I . . . I'm
unbalanced and obsessive. I wouldn't recommend living this way to anyone, and yet, I still can't give up the thought of you.”

“Good,”
he said between his teeth. He gripped her head in both hands, holding her with such tense care, she could feel the tension vibrating through his big body.

Tilting her face up to his, he held his mouth just over hers. Not quite touching or kissing, but so close she could feel the heat from his lips. She shook with the desire to cross that tiny distance and kiss him.

How could this have happened between them so long ago? It felt as if it had been yesterday. Her voice wobbled. “This is why I've never tried to see you alone. One look at you, one touch, five minutes, and it all spills out.”

He growled, “Don't be balanced, Bel. Don't turn away or find someone else. Wait for me. Wait to see what we can have together. You said it once, don't you remember? Holding your ground is not passivity. Work for this. Stay the course.”

She touched his mouth with shaking fingers. “What course is there? We've been living in a trap for two hundred years. Now Ferion is Lord of the demesne, and I—I don't know him anymore.”

“What do you mean?” He massaged her temples with both callused thumbs.

“Once I knew he was a good man who made a few bad mistakes. Now, mostly he says and does the right thing, but sometimes I find him watching me. I don't know who's looking out of his eyes, or what he's thinking, or how much Malphas might have twisted him.”

When emotion clogged her throat, she had to stop. Memories from very long ago played through her mind. As a towheaded, Elven boy, Ferion had been intelligent, loving and mischievous. How she missed that boy, with a deep, specific pain that only a parent who has become estranged from her child could truly understand.

Graydon stroked wisps of hair off her face. “Does he gamble anymore?”

His words pulled her back to the present. She paused, thinking. “No, not to my knowledge. Not since England.”

“Then don't lose hope, not yet.”

She drew back so she could search his shadowed expression. “Gray, why
did
you come? Has something happened?”

Gently, he laid a large, broad hand over her mouth, stopping her flow of words.
We should talk telepathically,
he told her.
We haven't done anything to trigger the connection, and I don't sense Malphas anywhere, but he has slipped up on us before, remember?

I could never forget.
She gripped his thick, strong wrist, staring up into his dark, shadowed gaze.
You
do
know something!

A slow smile widened his mouth and crinkled the corners of his eyes.

A few months ago, information came into my possession
, he told her.
I didn't go looking for it, and it also has nothing to do with what happened to us and Ferion two hundred years ago, so it doesn't violate the terms of our bargain. I sent investigators into the field to verify the details and gather more evidence.

The thought of the risk he had taken made her stomach clench. Her fingers tightened on his wrist.

Before she could say anything, he added quickly,
They're very good investigators and experienced professionals, thorough and careful to hide their tracks. I took great care.

Her breath shuddered.
Of course you did.

I also went outside both our demesnes. They're not even Wyr. Well, one of them isn't. The other who
is
Wyr has no ties to the Wyr demesne—in fact, he used to be an Elder tribunal Peacekeeper. He's young, but he's respected for the impartiality and quality of his work.

What did they find?
she asked.

Exactly what you would expect.
His gaze turned fierce and eagle-sharp.
What happened to Ferion was no isolated incident. Malphas has enslaved others, Bel. Humans, Dark and Light Fae, Vampyres. His reach crosses over multiple demesnes.

Disappointment began to darken her hopes.
None of that goes against Djinn law, just as Ferion's debt didn't.

I have several things to say to that.
Just as he had so long ago, he pressed his lips to her forehead. Closing her eyes, she leaned into his kiss.
Since Malphas has enslaved them, their behavior has changed.

She sucked in a breath. That sounded like her worst nightmare about Ferion.
What do you mean?

Bank statements show them funneling money to accounts that can be traced back to his casino. In itself, that isn't alarming, since supposedly they owed him money anyway, but some have switched political parties. A couple are committing fraud, even though the investigators could find no history of criminal behavior in their past. A few months back, there was a senator's son who died in a boating accident—do you remember?

Her eyebrows drew together.
You mean a human senator in the federal government?

Yes.

She searched her memory but came up blank.
No, I'm sorry. I don't remember. Usually, I take note of that sort of thing, and I send a message of condolence.

He stroked the back of her neck gently.
You've been preoccupied with your own problems here.

That was true enough.
What happened?

Before he was killed in the boating accident, the senator's son spent a great deal of time at Malphas's casino in Las Vegas. Senator Jackson, his father, arrived, paid off a debt totaling close to two million dollars and took his son home.

He couldn't seem to stop touching her, and his small caresses were drugging her with pleasure. She rubbed her face, forcing herself to concentrate as she digested his words.
Unlike us, he was able to get to his son in time.

Also, unlike us, the debt was in the official casino records. The Senator could pay it off, and Malphas couldn't claim that only his son could clear the debt.
Graydon paused. She realized he was standing on the balls of his feet,
his big body poised for action.
Shortly after, the son died in a freak squall.