Shadowfae, page 21
part #1 of Shadowfae Chronicles Series
But I wasn’t. I didn’t feel like getting up. I didn’t feel like doing anything. Without someone to share it with, all the excitement was taken out of it. And I didn’t mean the vicious double-thinking shade of my murdered ex-lover.
Idly I rolled the vase between my palms, watching Dante’s soul struggle and seethe. We’d have laughed together, Rajah and I. Clinked glasses over our soultraps—wine for me, lemon squash for him—and stuffed ourselves silly on chicken tikka and aloo paratha. Walked home in the dark, holding hands, wrapped in each other’s scent and sweat. Fallen breathless onto his bed and made love, with the windows open to soft summer breeze and moonlight. Slept in each other’s embrace, sharing warmth, skin, breath.
Stupid tears swelled my eyes, and I let them blur. I didn’t want to see. I didn’t want to move. What for?
Jade?
Uh-huh.
Don’t you have somewhere to be?
Sure. At home, alone. For eight hundred years, with you and Kane fighting in my guts. Can’t wait.
Luna sniffed again, his dissatisfaction sour on my tongue. Bullshit. You just found a reason to live. You really going to let him get away?
Sorrow pierced me like a hot wire, stinging. “Yeah, right,” I muttered. “Give it a rest.”
Oh, sure. Be like that if you want to. Could have sworn I heard him say something about love.
I laughed, and it caught on the swelling in my throat, choking me. “Like he meant it? That’s just perfect, coming from you.”
I meant it. He sounded distant, bruised. For a while. How long do you need to make it worth living for, anyway?
I opened my mouth for a cutting reply, but it shriveled and died on my tongue. Just how long was worth it, when it came to love? How much happiness did I need? A year? A day? An hour?
Cherish the small pleasures, wildcat. Only thing that makes immortality worth the effort. Luna tossed his head with a haughty shrug. Not that you give a shit what I think, right?
If I could have just another five minutes with Rajah before he left me, would I take it? Would I dare to ask the questions that branded my soul? Or would I rather live out my miserable thousand years and die without ever knowing what was really in his heart for those few precious hours we spent?
I scrambled up, my legs quivering. “Vorenus?”
You still here?
“Thank you.”
23
Vine leaves drip dew onto the pavement from the canopy in front of Valentino’s, shining in the morning sun. The smell of wet asphalt rises, puddles reflecting in the street after the rain, and Lygon Street
bustles with the sounds of shoppers, clinking coffee cups, traffic.
Tony LaFaro shrugs skinny shoulders and slithers his spiked blue tongue into his latte, collecting a blob of white froth. “Don’t know nothin’.”
“Can I see Angelo, then? I just need to know if she—”
“Ange ain’t here. Sorry.” Tony’s second set of eyelids flicker, mocking.
Rajah rakes frustrated fingers through damp hair. “Look, I’ve tried everywhere. She could be in trouble. If you’ve—”
“Ain’t seen her.” Tony unfolds a newspaper, ignoring him.
Rajah spins away before he can break his knuckles on the prick’s snarky brown face. He stalks off, the damp pavement slick, fury and worry seething together in his guts like boiling oil. He’s tried the clubs, the pubs, the whole of King Street and South-bank, where the DiLucas hang, but no one will admit to seeing them or knowing where Dante’s hiding. DiLuca’s fae just smile and murmur, their eyes glazed. He even tried the house in Richmond where old Sal used to live, but Antonia DiLuca just hissed at him and told him to mind his own fucking business, hate flashing in her indigo eyes.
He jogs across the street in front of a slow-moving car and ducks down the side alley, half-running the few blocks to her place. Unlikely she’ll be home, but Dante is cunning, delighting in the unexpected.
A stray cat meows on her doorstep, its skinny gray body tense, and it darts away as he approaches. Remnants of his fingermarks still show in the rain-speckled dust on the glass, half-erased digits fading. The door’s locked, unbroken, both a good and a bad sign. He jams her key in, shoves the door open, and dashes into her grimy living room, tripping in his haste.
A stuffed couch, bookshelves thick with dust, last week’s TV listings creased on the table. A rust-stained fridge, dishes and plastic takeaway containers piled dirty on the sink.
“Princess?” But the smell is all wrong—stale, not fresh like she is—and he already knows she’s not here.
He wipes a weary hand over his face with a sorrowful sigh. He can’t think of anywhere else to look. He’s got only one option left. Sunlight brightens the room, slanting in through open blinds, but it doesn’t lighten his mood, and a chill crawls to his fingertips at the thought of making the call. Slowly he pulls his phone from her bag and keys through the address book, but he can’t bear to dial just yet and he slouches against the table’s edge, bitter anguish awash in his heart. On the table, red roses in a silver box grow crispy at the edges, and he sniffs them, the perfume soft and rich like her skin, but she doesn’t smell of roses. She smells of woman, fresh and natural like sunshine.
On the table, her bag shifts, rocking. Luna’s soul is restless, and Rajah wonders about her other soultrap, the one with Killian Quinn. If Dante gets his hands on that . . .
Swiftly he searches, opening drawers, lifting cushions, flipping back cupboard doors in the gritty kitchen. A row of brass bottles gleams under the dull steel sink, but they’re all empty. He tries the fridge. Chocolate biscuits, yogurt, a stalk of celery. In the bedroom her sheets lie stripped in a pile on the floor, a faint blue stain marking the mattress. He wants to pick them up, slide his face into them, smell her. Instead he tries her drawers, and there’s the soultrap, nestling in amongst slips and T-shirts.
He plucks it out, satin sliding over his sweat-damp hands. It teeters, whispering black curses, and he slips it carefully into her bag next to Luna. Taking it where he’s going is a risk. He could lose it forever with a careless word. But he can’t bear to leave it for Dante. He’d rather take his chances.
Back in the living room, he swallows, dread shredding his nerves. He clenches his hand to steady it, picks up his phone, and presses Call.
After three rings, Kane picks up, his voice light and pleasant. “Rajah. How sweet of you.”
Rajah closes his eyes, warm tears leaking onto his cheek. “I need your help.”
24
I stumbled from the elevator, sweating in the cool air. My hair tangled around the thick collar of the shirt I’d stolen from Dante’s place, and my wet fingers clenched on the handle of the green shopping bag that held my makeshift soultrap. My bare feet stuck on the slate, leaving wet footprints, and I skidded turning the corner to his door.
It lay open. Ajar. Lights out.
I stumbled through, catching myself on the doorframe. “Rajah?”
Silence. Morning sun speared in open venetians, striping the carpet with white, flashing on stainless steel. I skipped into the bedroom, breathless. The mess we’d made was still there, the sheets rumpled, the smell of sweat and sex and cardamom, Luna’s coat a splash of midnight on the pale floor. I kicked it aside, searching, but my foot slid across empty carpet.
My heart clenched. I stuck my head under the bed, desperate. Nothing.
My bag was gone. Luna’s soul was gone.
The soultrap for the girl. Dante’s taunt replayed in my mind, malicious. Not only that, Rajah had taken my purse. My phone. So I couldn’t find him.
No. No way. He’d just taken the bag for safekeeping. I should wait for him. He’d be back.
But I couldn’t wait here. Not here, where the walls screamed of him, the air stinging with his scent and mine. Even the coolness made me think of him, shivering my skin. And in my shopping bag, Dante’s bloody soul writhed and spat, contorting the hot glass. I’d jammed the fabric in as tight as I could, but soon the foul thing would shatter the glass and escape. I needed a soultrap. Now.
I ran back into the kitchen and tried the cupboards, one by one. White dishes, tall glasses, a stainless milkshake maker. Nothing made of brass. The pantry, nothing but breakfast cereal and tinned fruit and spice jars by the dozen. I tried under the sink. Dishwashing powder, a spotless toaster. The world’s cleanest garbage bin. I even peered into the dishwasher, just in case. No soultraps.
I slammed the door shut, unease rippling my pulse. What kind of incubus doesn’t keep soultraps on hand? I scanned the bookshelves, under the TV, behind the sofa.
Fuck.
The bag jerked in my hand, Dante’s soul squelching like hot jam. I couldn’t wait any longer. I scrabbled through the pile of magazines on the floor for pen and paper, and it was the easiest damn letter I’ve ever written.
Rajah,
I love you. Don’t give up on me. I’ll be back in an hour. Wait for me. Please.
Yours forever,
Jade.
I plopped a glass on it on the marble bench so it wouldn’t drift away in the air-conditioning, and dashed out.
The sun burned as I waited at the tram stop, my skin sizzling in the after-rain humidity. A taxi would be faster, but I had no cash and no one on the tram cares if you pay or not. I caught the city circle to Swanston Street
, and people in business suits or gym clothes stared at me as I curled my feet up under me on the seat and cradled my shopping bag. My nerves twinged, ragged with worry, and I wanted to bare my teeth, tear my hair, scream, What the fuck are you looking at? But I was greasy and barefoot, wearing Dante’s shirt and pants—far too big for me, and I hadn’t found any shoes that didn’t fall off my feet—and sporting a ragged red bite mark on my throat. No wonder they were a little curious. If they only knew what was in my bag.
I swapped trams by the shining gray monolith of Federation Square
, watching the creeping hands on the clocks at Flinders Street Station for what seemed like an age. By the time I hopped off at Lygon Street
, a piercing ache split my skull from dehydration and I felt light-headed and weak, like I hadn’t eaten or drunk in days. I’d absorbed some good energy from Dante’s death, but Luna had eaten most of it and it wasn’t enough to make up for the blood Dante took.
I wanted to run. But I walked carefully toward home, clutching my precious bag, crossing slippery bluestone paving and stepping over rivulets of graying water in the gutters. More than once, my feet conspired to tangle and trip me up, and I reached my door with grazed knees and a bloody elbow where I’d scraped it on the ground to keep my temporary soultrap safe.
The door lay ajar, my key ring still dangling from the lock.
My heart tumbled. At least he’d been here, looking for me. I plunged inside, anxiety and hope plugging my throat like a scratchy clump of sand.
The usual mess, dirty dishes, old magazines, piles of washing I hadn’t bothered to put away. Dante’s roses, crisping and fragrant on the table, sweetening the fading smell of fairy. Sunlight, slanting through the blinds, gleaming on open cupboard doors, dishes knocked awry, my threadbare couch cushions tumbled on the linoleum.
My bag twitched, murmuring sadistic promises. Blindly I grabbed an empty trap from the open cupboard and yanked the cork free. The blood-soaked shirt squelched out like an overused tampon, and Dante’s oozing soul spewed into the trap, filling it to the brim. I jammed the cork in as hard as I could, my muscles weak and unresponsive, and shoved the trap into the fridge to shut him the fuck up. Good riddance. I didn’t have time for him now.
In the bedroom, my drawers hung open, clothes jumbled. I pawed through my shirts, sweat sliming my hands, and that beloved spicy scent drifted over me, warming my skin even as my heart thudded screaming into my guts.
The soultrap was gone. Rajah had taken Quinn.
My lungs convulsed, deflated, and I gasped for air, my diaphragm cramping. My only hope of an end to this foulness, and he’d taken it. Even if Luna’s shade was enough, without Quinn, I’d never be free.
My bangles chimed smugly, victorious, and my knees buckled. I sank onto my barren bed, the rotten stink of moldy fairy blood crawling into my nose. My mind gibbered at me like a cage-mad rat, scrabbling for another explanation, any explanation that didn’t mean I’d lost him. Dante. It could have been Dante who took Quinn while I was still passed out in his goddamn box.
But I knew it wasn’t true. Dante would have drunk Quinn’s soul himself, or tipped it out onto the carpet before my eyes so I could watch it wither and die. He wouldn’t have passed up the chance to taunt me. Besides, my keys were in the door, and the whole forsaken place smelled of Rajah. He’d broken in while I was captive and had stolen Quinn, just to make sure I’d never win. To make it pointless for me to fight with him over Luna.
So go get it back, sniffed Luna’s shade dismissively. Giving up so soon?
I ignored him. If Rajah had screamed, Don’t come after me! into my face, the message couldn’t have been clearer.
My eyeballs ached with impossible tears. I wanted to scream, sob, crawl under the bed and rot away to dust. I wanted to curl up and die.
I dragged the stained quilt from the floor and pulled it over my head, burying myself in damp darkness. The flowery smell of Dante crept over me, soaking the quilt, and I wriggled out of his horrid clothes and flung them away. My legs hurt, like I’d run too far uphill, and sickness wormed cold fingers of misery in my guts, but the discomfort was dull and pleasant compared with the savage ache in my heart.
I couldn’t die, but I sure as hell didn’t have to live. Maybe I’d just stay here, and never get up. I wrapped the quilt in tight, my tears spilling out at last to soak the quilt and smother me.
A creeping tingle spidered over my skin, my bangles vibrating.
I clamped my teeth down on the quilt, groaning. No. Fuck off. Not now. I’m wallowing in self-pity. Come back in a few hundred years.
The metal heated, searing my wrists. My skin stung like a rash, and I gurgled in frustration, kicking my legs in useless rebellion. But it was like a cloud of invisible wasps attacked me, piercing every inch of my skin with their feral stings, and the smell of the burning blisters on my forearms grew worse.
I thudded my fists into the mattress, wailing, but it was no use. Resisting thrall was futile. If I’d learned anything from this mess, I’d learned that.
I dragged myself up from the bed, defeated, and struggled into the first thing that came to hand, an old green sundress. My mirror showed a corpse, pale, black circles under staring eyes, hair limp and straggling, a fading yellow bruise splashing my throat. I didn’t care. I forced one foot in front of the other and robot-walked into the kitchen to fetch Dante from the fridge, my skin still writhing with poison. A gift might at least cool Kane’s temper. And Dante was no use to me, not anymore.
The black-suited troll already hulked under the stairs outside, gleaming white tusks curling up over his thick lip, and I got in the car without a word, gripping the cold brass bottle on my lap.
25
You want me to what?”
Kane reclines on his white sofa, calm blue flame twisting around his knuckles, his black eyes like mirrors giving away nothing. Soft downlights gleam on the glass table, the creamy linen drapes drawn. Kane doesn’t like the sun.
Rajah swallows. “Help me find her. Please. I can’t . . .” The words stick in his mouth, sour like rotten meat, and he forces them out, humiliation and sorrow stabbing hot claws in his chest. “I can’t do it on my own.”
A sweet red smile curls Kane’s lips, delight crusting his golden hair with frost like diamonds. “You know what I want.”
“Damn it, Kane, there’s no time—”
“You know what I want,” Kane repeats steadily. His fingernails sharpen and grow an inch, their color mottling.
Rajah’s hands twitch in fury. He’d hoped Kane would insist, order him, take the responsibility away. But Kane is too particular in his pleasures for that. Guilt squeezes Rajah’s bruised heart, cold and bitter, but he’s determined not to let it show. As calmly as he can, he pops Jade’s bag open and sets the two soultraps on the coffee table.
Kane’s eyes blossom azure, a happy, childlike grin lighting his face. He scoots to the sofa’s edge and plucks up the first trap, thumbing the cork aside to sniff the contents. His nose wrinkles in distaste, and behind him a tall black vase of lilies wilts, crisp petals falling to the floor. “Horrid. Is this hers, or yours?”
Rajah doesn’t have time to waste on Kane’s weirdness. Neither does Jade. Images brand his mind again, of her in Dante’s foul embrace, her blood flowing out, and fear compels him more strongly than any thrall bangle. His voice comes tight, barely audible. “Jade’s.”
Blue static zaps in Kane’s hair, his soft chin tightening. The flowers wither and turn black, and he jams the cork back in, hard enough to crumple the brass.
Rajah blinks. He knows that look. Angry, indignant. Jealous.
But before Rajah can figure more, Kane opens the second trap, and sparkling golden flame flickers along his fingers, his expression overwritten by a smile. “This one’s been a long time coming. Very sweet of you, Rajah. You shouldn’t have. But I’m afraid it’s not enough.”
He leans back on the couch, flicking imaginary dirt from his nails, and Rajah longs to leap up and throttle him with his bare hands. “Please, you have to help me find Jade before he hurts her. I’ll give you anything you ask.”
“Anything?” Kane’s eyes light with a malicious green twinkle.
Humiliation and hate burn together like oil and acid in Rajah’s lungs, but he forces the word out. “Anything.”
Another smile twists Kane’s lips, this one not so nice. “Done,” he says lightly, his red tongue flicking his teeth in delicate pleasure. “But you needn’t have. She’s already here.”
