Radiant Shadows

Chapter 21

Devlin chastised himself as they sped along the freeway. He was becoming far too close to Ani. He’d lived forever, and she’d had barely a blink of existence. She was a Hound unlike any other, a faery unlike any he’d known.

And she’s vulnerable.

And she really shouldn’t even be alive.

And losing her would destroy me.

He didn’t believe in inescapable fate. He’d watched both of his sisters sort through threads of possibilities frequently enough to know that few things in the world were certainties. He’d seen threads himself, watched their fluidity, and marveled at their transience. Where Bananach saw the threads that could further discord, Sorcha saw the threads that could further order. Devlin often saw both, but as he looked at Ani, he realized that he saw nothing. Her entire tapestry was blank to him.

Some fragment of a memory of Ani’s life niggled at his mind, but he couldn’t focus on it. Rae. She knew something. He remembered that. What’s the rest? His head throbbed as he tried to make the memory come clear. Why I was sent to kill Ani? If the threat was to Sorcha, he’d have been willing to kill Ani, but despite what Bananach intimated, Devlin didn’t believe that Ani would help Bananach. Ani wouldn’t give her blood to War or kill Sorcha.

Because she isn’t that cruel.

Devlin wondered if the threads had changed because of his actions, if his telling Ani what he’d done had changed her path. Have my choices changed things, or were these choices already ordained? There was no way to ask Sorcha what she had seen before Ani was tied to Devlin, and there was no way to tell if Bananach had interpreted the possibilities truly. The thinnest thread of possibility was enough for War to embrace as fated truth. Her desires clouded her interpretation. It was a perverted sort of hopefulness.

The one truth that was inevitable was that Sorcha had stopped seeing Ani when her life was tied to his and to their lives. He realized it in an awful moment of clarity: Sorcha had known then that Ani’s thread was to be entwined with his.

The insight became so clear to him so suddenly that he felt sick with it. He had no doubt at all that both of his sisters were jealous or cruel enough to change his life for their interest. That’s who they were. Sorcha reshaped the world to bend to her will; Bananach manipulated faeries to bring about destruction. Perhaps it wasn’t ever that Ani was meant to be entangled in their lives, but always in his. Was that how her blood would kill Sorcha? By his refusing to shed it? By his not killing her? Such interpretations would not be out of character for Bananach.

But her blood is different. I tasted it. She is different.

“Are you okay?” Ani’s voice startled him. “You’re, ummm, locking down your emotions again.”

“Tell me what exactly Bananach wants from you.”

“Kill Seth. Kill Niall. And to give her my blood because”—Ani took a deep breath—“if you tell anyone what I tell you next, Irial will want you dead. So you can’t. Ever.”

He nodded.

“Irial’s overprotective, but… he…” She paused, took another breath, and continued, “I can trust you?”

He hesitated. The weight of that decision was unexpected. Devlin had never willfully chosen to put another before his queen.

Until now. I would. For you.

“You can trust me,” Devlin assured her. He considered telling her then that he’d spoken to Irial about her, but mentioning that Irial had given consent for him to take Ani wasn’t something he wanted to do. The premeditation might anger her, and that wouldn’t help matters.

It would also lead to more things I don’t want to discuss. The former Dark King’s taste of Devlin’s emotions apparently had revealed enough of his concern to convince Irial that Ani was safe in his care. Devlin would get her to safety and then find a way to extricate himself from her life. It was the logical choice, the appropriate path.

“Tell me,” he prompted Ani.

“So you know how I can feed off your emotions?” She paused only a fraction before saying, “That’s a Dark Court thing.”

“I know.”

“But I can do the same with mortals.” She accelerated the car, whether consciously or not. “I really shouldn’t be able to do either.”

Devlin struggled to keep his own emotions in check. The more Ani revealed, the more he realized how rare she was. If Sorcha realizes Ani lives, she will hunt her. The chances of Bananach telling Sorcha, of letting slip that he was with Ani, were strong. War needled. It was her way.

Neither sister will rest until one of them possesses or destroys Ani.

Ani didn’t look his way. She drove the car faster still. There were things she was not saying, things she obviously worried that she should not say, so he waited.

After several quiet minutes, she continued, “You know, Hounds don’t feed like that anyhow. We aren’t about emotions. They’re what we evoke, not what we consume.”

“Hounds need touch, not emotion,” he said, realizing then what she hadn’t said earlier, what she was admitting now: she required touch. He reached out and covered her hand where it was on the gearshift. “I’ve been insensitive. Forgive me?”

She sped up faster still. “What do—”

“Skin hunger. Hounds have skin hunger.” He slipped his fingers between hers. “That’s why you were wanting near me. It makes sense now. I should’ve thought of that. I apologize.”

He watched her draw several breaths as if she were afraid. Hounds typically had skin hunger, not emotional appetites, and in all of his looking at her as a mortal and as Dark Court, he hadn’t been thinking about her father’s lineage. Few Hounds so young could handle it well enough to hide it all. They didn’t travel without their pack because of it, and Devlin had assumed—erroneously—that her independence meant she did not carry that trait.

“I won’t take advantage,” he whispered. “You can hold my hand or… embrace me as you did if you are in need of nourishment. I should’ve—”

“I didn’t want to touch you for that reason.” She blushed a little.

It was so out of character that it made him falter. “Oh. Should I remove my hand?”

Ani laughed. “Gods, no. I’m afraid. I’m hungry as hell. I’m wondering if I’m going to die. Hounds need touch…. I’m not sure if it usually gets easier with practice, but for me nothing seems quite right. I’m getting worse.”

Devlin looked out the window, not at her, but he lowered his control so some of his emotions were there for her to taste. He let her in further.

“Dev?”

He looked over, but he couldn’t speak. The rules he’d lived by for all of eternity were all vanishing. He’d nourished his need for blood over the years, reveled in fighting. He’d taken other pleasures that he knew weren’t High Court. But at the core of himself, he chose to live as if High Court was his instinct. Every day, he had made that choice.

“Can I keep hold of your hand?” she asked. “Please? I want to, and you… and I think you want me to.” The last words were rushed together, and now she paused. She turned her hand so it was palm up, and the car adjusted around them so it was suddenly an automatic. The gearshift had vanished. “Am I wrong?”

“No.” He squeezed her hand in his.

In all of his life, he’d never had a relationship. It was occasionally done in the High Court that two faeries chose to entwine their lives, but no one had ever looked at Devlin that way. He was deemed inapproachable, too fearsome to want, as if they recognized that he was not truly of their court. I am the innocent in this. The thought amused him: only two faeries had existed before him, and yet he was inexperienced in relationships.

What does it matter? I cannot stay with her. I cannot have a relationship.

Devlin stared out the window as they crossed the landscape. If Ani survived, Devlin would return her to the Dark Court, to Irial and Niall’s care, to the Hounds. They were her court and family. And he would return to Faerie. That was the order of the world. An aberration of emotion wasn’t going to change logical order.

Focus on Ani’s situation.

He pushed his emotions back under layers of High Court control and began to think through what Ani had revealed. Somewhere in the details he’d find the answer; it was simple logic. He just needed to focus.

The reasons Bananach had were serious enough that her interest wouldn’t wane. Murdering Bananach would be catastrophic, and killing Ani was untenable. So where does that leave us? They couldn’t spend Ani’s life running, but he had no better plan.

Ani watched Devlin close her out. She felt the walls go up, and if not for his hand in hers, she’d wonder if she were alone in the car.

He’s frightened of you, her steed suggested.

Ani didn’t want to talk about that. Instead she thought, What do you think of Barry for a name?

There was silence.

It’s short for Barracuda. It can be male or female. She switched lanes again and accelerated.

I like it, the steed growled happily. It’s mine. I am Barry.

She smiled to herself. One problem resolved, a few more to go….

Unfortunately, the rest of the day was spent in silence. Eventually, Barry whispered, Sleep, Ani. I will drive.

The next four days and nights were spent in much the same way—brief stops for food, hours of silence, and fitful rest while Barry carried her farther and farther away from everyone she knew. They passed through the middle of the States, headed west to where there were wide-open parks, natural areas where camping and running were possible. They drove through every city or remotely steel-filled town they could, slowing their progress with mortal traffic, but hiding themselves more fully from faeries. If not for the threat behind them, it would be the start of a great trip. It still could be if he would let me in. She had found Devlin impossibly tempting when she’d met him, and her opinion of him had only gone up after fighting next to him. The revelations he’d shared made her like him, but the passion he hid—and revealed during fighting and running—made her want him.

But, as they traveled, Devlin kept his walls up. He spoke less and less, and when he did, it was polite but distant. The silence and distance in such close quarters was maddening. After their brief revelations, she hoped there was something happening between them, but his actions implied otherwise.

Late on what Ani thought was the sixth day of driving, she pulled into a motel parking lot. The building was surrounded by a thick steel fence; the balconies on the rooms each had steel rails; and the windows had steel safety bars. With the faery aversion to iron and, consequently, to steel, it was the ideal place for them to rest. As long as the building didn’t catch fire, they were safe from faery and mortal dangers.

“I’ll stay with Barry while you get a room.” Ani touched Devlin’s hand briefly, drawing him out of whatever contemplation he was in.

He looked at her in confusion. “What?”

She gestured to the humming lights that said vacancy and wondered if he’d ever stayed in a motel. Somehow, she doubted that this was what things looked like in Faerie. “A room. Do you have money or a credit card?”

“Yes, but…” Devlin frowned. “Barry?”

“My steed”—she ran a hand over the dash—“has been Named.”

“I could’ve given it a name,” Devlin grumbled.

He’s still upset over the seat adjustments, Barry said with marked amusement. His knees… and head… and perhaps arms are a bit sore, I expect.

Ani wisely didn’t respond to either of them. All she said was, “I’ll be right here. Just outside the door, inside Barry the whole time.”

Helpfully, Barry opened Devlin’s door.

“Why are we stopping? It can—” His seat fell backward. “Barry can drive while you rest.”

“I want a shower. Pillow. Bed.” Ani gestured. “Please? A room for the night.”

“I don’t suppose it matters.” He sounded as exhausted as she felt, and Ani knew then that he was no closer to figuring out a plan beyond “stay moving” than he’d been when they left.

We could kill the raven one, Barry suggested.

Privately, Ani agreed, but she didn’t know if Devlin would go for that plan. Bananach was who she was. If moving and hiding for a while would be enough to make her forget about Ani, that was a better plan than asking Devlin to murder his sister.

Ani closed her eyes to wait for Devlin to return. The grungiest of rooms sounded like a treat just then. Hot water and an actual bed were rarely as tempting as they were in that moment.

They’d be even better if he’d share them….