25. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Power of any sort is a double-edged blade. The wielder will always be cut just as her enemy is, but she has the opportunity to embrace the blade's edge. There is no warrior that has not been wounded. Every action has a cost.

~Inni the Destroyer, A History of Magic and Dragons

Magical power flows through me in a way that it's never done before. I feel unstoppable right now. Capable of doing anything.

Shadows flow from my fingertips, a thin stream of darkness that falls to the forest floor to cover the leaves and sticks. The moon's light still coats the world in silver as I embrace the power in my body.

The drumbeat of that power is so loud I doubt I could hear a predator sneaking up on me, but I don't know if I'd need to hear it. I might just feel it.

That's with my mother's ring on. When I slip it off and slide it into a pocket, the shadows explode from my fingertips, like thick water that's unaffected by the soft breeze. Leaves fall from the trees, and they're swallowed up by the inky blackness that roils around me.

That darkness pulls at me. Calling for me to move it, to twist it and shift it. To make it into something else.

I look up at the moon in the night sky. A mirror of my own darkness. The waning moon against a darkness that isn't actually dark. A billion little pinpricks of light fill the sky, and when I look down at the shadows at my feet, I wonder what else those shadows could be. Is darkness all I have in me? Or could there be light there as well? Could there be stars in my own midnight sky?

The waves of shadows shift and twist, and as that drum beats a steady rhythm, an image of the Shade rises from them. The black cloak. Every little piece of him except the coarse hands and sharp nails. Just like when he's here, shadows pool around his feet, hiding the ground. Except that this time, they're my shadows.

I run my hands over the cloaked side of his face, my fingers touching that black mist instead of cloth, but I swear I feel it. Rough linen that's seen thousands of years. Stained black not only from dye but also from blood and tears.

I don't know why I recreated the Shade out of shadows. I didn't do it on purpose, but when I let my power flow unconstrained, this is what the shadows showed me.

An imitation that looks so similar to the Fae I've become far too familiar with. Why do I want to touch him like this? I glance down at the marks on my wrist. Those four reasons that Cole doesn't trust me.

As if I had called him, a voice comes from behind a tree. Like water over river rocks, it speaks to me. Except that this time, I hadn't called him. I hadn't wanted his help. "You could do better if you tried harder," the Shade says as he flows toward me. Before he gets too close to me, I step back, not ready for him to touch me.

How long has he been here? What has he seen? Did he see me look longingly at his likeness? Did he see me try to touch it?

His hand trails over the side of the shadows, those long black nails cutting through it easier than a knife through butter, but where his fingers pass, the shadows disappear, and the vision fades.

"Do it again now that you have a model," he says and turns toward me. "Look at me and make it accurate. Including the fingers."

I blink. "I don't want to. Thank you for the help, but I can't become indebted any more than I already am."

He slowly shakes his head. "This will not put you in my debt. You are my investment, Maeve, and making sure that you can protect yourself is important to protecting that investment. Tomorrow, you will go to the most dangerous place in the world, and if you aren't ready… I'll lose my investment."

The way he says it, so cold and ruthless, I'm reminded of all the stories. Wealthy men who'd made a bargain and then been forced to burn down their businesses. Poor women who'd been forced to marry men who they never wanted to marry.

Nowhere in any of it was there softness or kindness. If I could go back in time, would I have asked the Shade for help again? Yes. At least for Hazel. Maybe the other three times. But not now. Not when I have the power, and I'm learning to use it.

"Tonight, Maeve, you are going to train with shadow magic." He says the words slowly. "You'll do as I say until I am done. Is that understand?"

"No." I want to be alone tonight. I want to understand the emotions that run through me. The last thing I want is to be near the Shade and be influenced by the way he makes me feel.

"That isn't an acceptable response. I call in the debt, Maeve Arden. You will follow my directions on practicing shadow magic, or you will forfeit your life." My wrist begins to burn, and I look down at the fourth mark on my wrist. "Decide to do as I say, and the pain will go away." My eyes go wide as I watch the mark go from black to glowing red. Pain sears through my body, hundreds of times worse than when he put the mark on my wrist.

"Fine!" I shout. The pain immediately fades. After only a second, it's like there wasn't any pain at all. I run my finger over the mark that had turned red hot. "Why would you do that?" I ask, eyes wide. "Why are you trying to force me to train with magic tonight?"

"I've already explained it," he says, just as coldly as he had earlier. "Now make a copy of me out of shadows."

I hesitate, and the mark on my arm flares with pain. Immediately, I focus on doing as he says, and the pain evaporates. I focus on all the details of the Shade, from the way the cloak moves to the way the shadows seem to swirl around him. Then I try to get his nails and hands correct. That part is the hardest. Especially with the fact that the shadows don't have any color.

The Shade nods and approaches the effigy. He looks closer, and I'm not sure whether he's appreciating it or critiquing it. Then he says, "Make it move."

What? I blink at him. "How am I supposed to do that?"

He smiles at me. Sure, I can't see it, but I know he's doing it. "Just do it. They're your shadows. An outpouring of your power. Make it move just like you'd move your own arm."

I can't do that. There's no way. As soon as the Shade sees the fear and confusion in my eyes, he moves toward me and hisses, "Stand still and don't move a muscle." As I try to pull away, my arm burns like it's on fire. When I look down at it, I can see steam coming from the mark and little bubbles rising on the surrounding skin.

I stop moving, and the pain stops, but those blisters don't go away. I stand perfectly still, not even wanting to blink for fear of more pain, and the Shade stands inches away from me. So close I can feel his breath on me. Those black tipped nails run over my cheek and slide down my neck.

"Calm down and breathe slowly," he whispers to me. "I want you to be successful, Maeve Arden. I want you to survive and help your cousin to get better. These things won't happen until you're stronger, though."

His breath whispers over my skin, hot and in direct opposition to the cool shadows that slip from his fingertips so similar to mine.

Those nails slide down my throat to where my tunic is, and for just a moment, I remember the way it felt when his shadows criss-crossed over my body, under my clothes. The way he'd touched me so intimately without ever putting a finger on me.

That drum that had been drowned out by fear roars to life. His nails go back to my throat, the black tips pressing against my skin as he softly tightens his grip. I swallow hard as that drumbeat tries to force shadows out of my fingertips.

The Shade's hand moves over my face, gently covering my eyes for a moment, and suddenly the entire world is covered in darkness. Yet, I don't care because I feel those black-tinted nails moving to the back of my neck.

"See it moving, Maeve," he whispers to me, the lips I've never seen before only inches from my ear. "See it move and let the shadows flow just like your fingers would."

I think about the imitation of him, and I see it gliding across the ground. My mind struggles with it, with believing that it's possible, but while the Shade's nails are on me, I don't care.

Then I feel his shadows slipping under my clothes again. There's no teasing this time, as they slide under my pants and press between my legs. A gasp escapes my lips as those shadows solidify just enough that I feel a pressure, an urgency. The world is nothing but blackness and he whispers, "See the effigy moving."

Those shadows move ever so slightly, pressing harder against me, almost begging me for something . Something I don't understand. Something that I desperately want. The sensation of soft pressure against my stomach begins at my navel, tracing a path down. Like kisses. Is the Shade kissing me?

The pressure between my legs intensifies, and the Shade whispers again, "Make it move, or I'll stop."

That drum inside me is pounding so fast that I wonder if anything isn't covered in shadows. Then the pressure fades just a bit, and I whisper, "No. Please don't stop." I visualize the effigy and feel it moving. Not just a mental image.

No, for the first time, I can feel my shadows. They're not separate from me, not a thing I control. No, they're a part of me. Like my hair or fingernails. They simply grow faster than I'm used to.

I can feel the ground, can feel the way they curl and shift and slide as I pull the effigy toward me. I can feel when it nearly collapses, but I stabilize it. Then I make it move again, pulling it toward me.

"That's it," he whispers from behind me, and the shadows between my legs stiffen and become almost completely solid, pressing against my core. His hands press against my tunic-covered stomach until they're nearly touching my breasts.

And then he releases me. His hands, his shadows, his… everything. It all seems to disappear, including the shadows covering my eyes. Right in front of me, a foot away, stands his effigy.

"Excellent work, Maeve," he whispers in that dark voice that he was using to whisper in my ear. "Now you need to learn to use revulsion."

I gape at him as he strides toward the nearest tree. Revulsion? How can he even think about training after the way he made me feel? My body is going crazy, and he wants me to focus on anything other than his touch?

He turns around and moves away from me. "Revulsion is the opposite of desire. Where desire is the need to be close to someone or something—to feel them and have them—revulsion is the need to be far away from them. It's being sickened at the thought of them touching you. Revulsion is not how you feel about your enemy. It's how you feel about your failures and about the people who have hurt you."

"No," I say. The Shade whirls around, and I could swear that he's furious. My body is throbbing so hard that it feels like the entire world should move in time to my heartbeat. Shadows pour from my fingertips, but the anger inside me wars with it. "You keep touching me," I hiss. "You keep making me feel things I shouldn't feel for you. Making me want things I shouldn't want. Then you walk away, leaving me desperate for your touch. You cannot expect me to focus on something brand new when I feel like this. When all I want is…"

"Is my hands on you?" he says so softly that I know that it's a warning. "Or do you want more, Maeve Arden?"

When he moves toward me, I recognize the ferality. I know the look to his movements and the feel behind that cloak hood. I know that he's on the verge of hurting me. No different from the day that I hurt Hazel and would have hurt Aunt Prudence if she'd tried to punish me.

I'm not a stupid human, though, and with each day that I practice, I feel more strength flowing through my veins. Especially tonight.

Which is why, when shadows wreathe his hands in black, I prepare myself. I know he could make that tally mark on my wrist burn just as he did earlier, but he's angry, and he wants to make me pay for my insolence. For my questioning him.

I prepare to fight back, to use magic and my strength to defend myself. But he's so fast. Like lightning, his hands move to my wrists so quickly that I can't react. When I try to struggle, it's like trying to struggle against stone or steel. Unbendable. Unbreakable. A force of nature that no Fae, much less a Wyrdling, can break.

He lifts my hands into the air, and the shadows wrapped around his hands tighten, holding me in place and leaving his hands free to do whatever he wants. I struggle against them, but there really is no way to get free. "You want more? I could give you more. I could give you more than you can handle. I could make you scream until morning."

Fear takes a hold of me and doesn't let go as he stands in front of me, his fingers hooked in the waistband of my pants. Unceremoniously, he pulls them down to my knees, baring me to the darkness of the woods. More shadows snake across the ground and wrap around my ankles, tightening until I know I can't move my feet anymore than I can move my hands.

And then the shadows wreathe my body in darkness, sliding across my bare skin like a wind. The Shade watches me, both of our eyes open as that inky darkness makes my body feel things that I'd never imagined. It slips inside me, fitting in a way that only shadows could.

I can't stop the moan that comes from my lips. The heat that radiates from between my legs should melt these shadows, but they keep swirling and tickling my most intimate parts as the Shade watches with no reaction. With no movement. As cold and heartless as I could ever imagine.

That doesn't change how badly I need more. How badly I need him.

"Please," I whisper, wanting him to do everything he's suggesting.

He says nothing. Instead, he takes one step toward me. He puts his hand between my legs, and a warmth so great that I can barely believe it flows through me. A finger slides inside me, and a shiver runs up my spine, dark and delicious.

But then he says, "No," and pulls his hand away. He turns and walks away, the shadows dissipating again, and then he says, "Now I want you to think of something you hate ."

The fire burns at my wrist, and I grit my teeth, my pants around my knees still. If he wants me to think of someone I hate… I think of the Shade, pure anger rolling through me, threatening to wash away every bit of desire as I stare at him. And something changes. Those emotions blend and change and become something different. A single emotion. Revulsion. I want the Shade gone.

I feel the shadows flowing from my fingers before I see them. Everything in the clearing has become inky darkness between the two of us, but these tightly coiled shadows are different. Wrong, somehow. Unnatural.

And yet, I feel like I've felt them before. Like these are almost more familiar.

"Good," the Shade says as my shadows crawl across the ground toward him. That feeling inside me doesn't seem to end, like a fire that has more fuel than it could ever burn. I grit my teeth and push those shadows toward him.

But then he says, "Now stop. Pull up your damned pants, Maeve."

His voice is shocking. I hadn't even thought about the fact that my pants are still down, but it shakes me out of the emotions that had filled me up. The shadows that were only a few feet away from the Shade fade, leaving nothing behind.

It's… bizarre. All the shadows in the clearing dissipate, both the Shade and I letting go of them, and it's easy to tell where the revulsion shadows were. I quickly pull up my pants, and the Shade doesn't so much as glance at me.

"Revulsion makes things go away. It takes them into the void between worlds, and the darkness does everything it can to convince that item or person to let go. To become part of it."

I blink and walk down the trail that's been left by my revulsion shadows. No sticks. No grass or leaves or even piles of dirt. A small indentation on the forest floor is all that's left between me and the Shade. Those shadows make things go away .

"And if they touch a person?" I ask, no longer worried about what I'd wanted the Shade to do to me. "Do they die?"

"That part of the person goes into the void. If the shadows swallow the entire person, they're brought to the void."

They go into the void. "And they die?" I whisper.

"The darkness is very convincing," the Shade says. "I have never heard of anyone other than members of the House of Shadows coming back from the darkness without an escort."

A true combat magic. A way to protect myself from the Fae. "Thank you," I whisper.

He nods his head. "Your training is done tonight." And then he moves faster than ever before, stepping directly in front of me, inches away from me.

"Don't you ever tell me ‘No' again. You owe me three debts still, and I could make those three debts exceptionally uncomfortable."

I stand up a little straighter. "I'm not afraid to pay my debts, Shade."

I could swear that his lips curl up even though they're hidden by the cloak. "That's because you don't know what I would ask."

He turns around and takes several steps before saying, "Your debt is paid, Maeve Arden. You still have three left."

He raises his hand, and something shifts inside me, like a bond between the Shade and I changes. The debt. I look down, and one of the tally marks is blurring and fading. Like smoke dissipating.

I turn back to see him as he takes a step and falls into the shadows at his feet. Swallowed up by the inky blackness, he disappears.

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. I just repaid a debt. I don't know how to feel about it, though. Especially with the emotions and sensations that the Shade drew out in me. Before he'd shown up, I'd wanted to understand how I was feeling about Cole. Now it's the Shade that I can't stop thinking about. The way he made me feel. The way he made me beg .

Even so, all of that power seems to roll through me. I slide my mother's ring on, and when I lift my hand into the air to force shadows from my fingertips, they show up as thin tendrils. Nothing compared to what I could do without the ring on, but enough that it's terrifying.

I could hurt someone now, even with the ring on.

That's power, and even though I no longer have any kind of safety net to depend on, it means I'm getting stronger, which is exactly what I need.

Because tomorrow, I'm entering the most dangerous place in the world.