Shadow Reign (Shadow Puppeteer Book 2) (22 page)

She hissed. “You’ve betrayed your followers.”

“I’m not Hecate. I didn’t betray anyone. You killed my friends and many innocent people in the name of Hecate. I’m glad I’m not her. I don’t think I’d like her,” I said.

Despite my words, I recognized the intimate hum of the energy. I felt it in the statue graveyard, and now it surrounded me. I wasn’t sure who I was.

“It’s not over. You’ll complete your task,” she threatened.

My only task now was to send her to Hades. I stepped into the room, ready to pull my spirit to my fingertips if it would answer the call. She stiffened, recognizing the attack.

“No daughter, not me.” She raised her hands in the air and smoke exploded out of nowhere.

It left heavy waves of sulfur floating through the air. The smoke burned my eyes and the back of my throat. There was no way I could follow her with so little concentration.

“Belen?” Draken’s voice was distant.

My attention drifted away from the room for just a moment, but when I turned back, I knew she was gone. I didn’t need the smoke to clear to know that I was now alone.

A hand caught my upper arm, pulling me back. I swirled, expecting trouble. It was Draken and I couldn’t stand the way he looked at me, like I was a freak of nature. I immediately pulled my eye patch back out and slid it onto my face, hoping nothing else about me stood out.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“Later. I have something to do.”

I yanked back, but he wasn’t going to let me go.

“This is serious. You did something and it needs to be resolved,” he persisted.

I didn’t like the sound of that, but there wasn’t much time to open a doorway. Kelaino’s energy was dissipating as quickly as the smoke. A few more minutes and I’d lose my only connection with her.

“We can talk about it later.”

He yanked me back. The pressure of our bodies slamming knocked the air from my lungs, but when I took a steady breath, it was more than empty lungs that hurt. The sharp pain was shoved up between my ribs. The wolf blade set my jaw on edge. Every heart beat brushed against the blade. There wasn’t instant death, but the pain centered right there.

“I’m sorry it has to be this way, but we can’t afford a god ruining what we have.”

I tried to speak, but blood gurgled at the back of my throat. My legs lost strength and I slid against him, driving the blade deeper. The steel made my muscle burn.

“Shh,” he whispered.

His fingers brushed the top of my head as he tried to smooth my hair from my face, but it only made it worse. The edge of my vision was darkening. I couldn’t go down like this. He had to know I’d wake up; wolf blade or not, I’d wake up again.

“You shouldn’t have visited the graveyard. You shouldn’t have awoken the gods. I could’ve protected you,” he whispered softly in my ear. I could feel his nose against my head as he breathed in my scent. “You’re the first human I’ve ever loved.”

It hurt to move my lips, to force that sound up my throat and against my tongue and lips. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“I’ll take you somewhere safe. You’ll never hurt like this again.”

“Belen!” Rex called.

There was no way to warn him to stay back. Draken twisted the blade before yanking it out. Warmth gushed over my shirt. He stepped away from me and I tried to grasp his shirt to stop him from going down that hall to meet Rex.

He patted my head as I wrestled to grasp my blade. “Your duty to this earth and to me is done. You can rest now.”

My slippery fingers slid right down his torso as he let me fall to the floor. I couldn’t hold on. I could barely stay focused. That was unacceptable. I refused to let Draken kill Rex.

“W
hy?” It took so much exerted energy to speak. My body was shutting down.

Draken kneeled in front of me, pushing my hair from my face. His fingers lingered intimately. “You weren’t meant for this life.”

“Belen?”

Rex was closer now. I wondered if he could hear us talking.

Draken pulled out a gun and opened the pouch at his side. I meant to grab his hand, but I could barely get my fingers to twitch. He pulled out a few weird looking darts and loaded them into his gun. He knew that Rex was a werewolf.

“World Congress.” That was it. That was all the words I could get out.

“Yes, hail World Congress,” he whispered, before standing.

The torchlight in the room behind me made it difficult discerning the shadows in the hall. There wasn’t a bit of light in the direction Draken was walking and Rex was heading right to him. The werewolf population was dying off because of hunters and Rex lost everything. I couldn’t let Draken take his life too.

My spine tingled and my limbs were numb, but I had to find the strength. As heavy as my body felt, a part of me felt far lighter. It rolled like smoke through my system and down to my fingertips. My shadow wanted to retreat from my body.

Was this what people felt right before they died?

Not yet.

Khaos’s words were sharp in my head. She was here watching.

I squeezed my fist, sending the energy through my fingertips and right back through my palm. My spirit wasn’t going anywhere without my body. It took effort, but I got my hands underneath me and shoved upward. My head swam and felt too heavy for my neck.

It took a lot of concentration to push the haze back and get my legs underneath me. I tittered where I stood and the wall came up fast. I shoved away before I could lean on it and lose my strength again. It felt like a long distance between where I stood and where Rex was. One foot in front of the other wasn’t going to get me far when every step was a struggle.

I yanked the patch off my eye and flung it. I wanted nothing hindering my sight as I shuffled forward. Movement made the pain worse, but it gave me something more to focus on. I tried to ease the pain with pressure on my chest, but it did nothing. My blood burned a path between my fingers and cooled the moment it touched the air.

A breeze moved down the tunnel, bringing with it the warm smell of wolf and pine. I breathed it deeply, wanting to coat my sensory with that scent. It was far better than the scent Kelaino left in the cavern. Rex was everything I longed for; security and loyalty.

Doubt pressed into my thoughts and I shoved them out. There wasn’t time for insecurity or guessing Rex’s feelings on this. I needed to keep Draken from killing him.

Determination was the force that drove my steps. I found balance and strength with every forward motion. My shadow heart gave me adrenaline and my physical heart made me lethargic. It was a weird mix and the dueling mental state made it hard to concentrate. As tired as I was and as bad as movement made my chest ache, I wanted Rex’s survival more than anything.

“I smell blood. What did you do to her?”

Rex’s voice led me around the bend. The hall wasn’t extremely big and I had to look over Draken’s shoulder to see. Rex’s golden eyes had a silver sheen and his jaw was bloody where the metal plate was pulled off.

“Your concern should be for yourself, werewolf,” Draken said.

Rex growled, “You can’t keep me from her.

Draken laughed, raising the tranquilizer gun. “I can’t?”

Rex growled and lunged at the same time as me. The gun went off with a little pop and the dart whacked the wall. I plunged the blade into Draken, trying hard not to think about what I was doing. I didn’t want to be this close, feeling the blade pushing through his skin. He wasn’t human, but his blood was still warm. My shadow responded and I had to shove it down.

Draken slammed back against the wall, shaking me. My achy bones screamed in protest and it took every ounce of energy not to curl up on the floor.

“Belen?”

Before I could answer, Rex attacked. The two were a mess of limbs, battling it out. The fight was short lived. Rex yelped and I knew Draken got him with the wolf blade.

“Draken, stop. Don’t kill him.”

It was an order I thought he’d ignore, but he shoved Rex away and turned to face me. Rex tried to stand and swayed. There was so much blood, my stomach turned. I pulled another blade from my hip holster and kept it pressed against my side.

“I wouldn’t risk it. He hasn’t changed into a werewolf yet.” Draken’s tone held neither surprise nor disappointment that I was still standing.

His goat eyes were intense; almost demonic. I had no doubt he could see me as well as I saw him. He worked with World Congress, but he was no Free-String Walker. It was comforting knowing World Congress had limits.

“You can’t have him.” The growl emerged deep within my chest.

Draken tilted his head. “That’s right, you’re a werewolf too. Were you mated?” He took one look back at Rex and returned his attention to me with a knowing smile. “No. I don’t believe so.”

He pointed his gun at me and I tried to pull my shadow at my fingertips, but it refused to move. There wasn’t room to maneuver. I couldn’t move faster than the speeding tranquillizer.

Rex growled and lunged, taking Draken down hard, but not before the gun went off. The fight was fast. Draken rolled Rex right off him.

I couldn’t stand the thought of him being skinned. It drove home D laying in the Dutch Gamer’s bed, his torso and arms wrapped with bloody gauze as the gamer painted on a skin canvas. It would be worse for Rex, because he wouldn’t be alive at the end of this. Someone would be wearing his pelt like a fur coat. Bile burned a path up the back of my throat.

For once, there was no thought driving me forward. Anger and fear was a deadly mix, beating through my veins. I shoved him and he tripped over Rex, hitting the side of his head hard against the rock. I shouldn’t stop there, but straddling him with my blade at his throat, I couldn’t ignore the way his pulse beat against my fingers.

Blood, possibly his or mine, smeared across his face. His hair was spiked for this battle, just like the first night I met him. He saved me from the creature at the club feeding on emotions and he saved me from the Berserkers. My chest hurt with every breath, a reminder that with him, everything was a falsehood. I lead him where he wanted to go.

“Why me? Why say you love someone you spent all this time using?”

His smile was weak. He was hurting as badly as I was.

“There’s just something about you. Maybe it’s your determination or the hurt in your eyes. I found you sheltered, but now, look at you, bloody, angry and broken. You’re absolutely perfect.”

His words were anything but flattering. I tried to focus on my muscles, forcing them to tighten and heed my will. I expected Khaos to fill my head with laughter, but there was no noise. I didn’t like the thought of pushing the blade through his skin. Human or not, I didn’t want see how the skin would part when I sliced him open.

“Do it, Belen. Prove that you are no better than me,” he said.

“Shut up.”

“Where I come from, after mating, a female kills her partner.”

“So you chose a werewolf to fall in love with? How befitting.”

His laugh was gurgled and wet. “I’m about battle and you brought me a war. It’s difficult not to love you.”

What lust I felt for him vanished when he stabbed me with the wolf blade. So why couldn’t I finish this. My fingers shook. I couldn’t walk away from him.

He tried to sit up, dislodging me. Fear rattled my defense and my shadow was right at my fingertips. There was no spoken command. My driving energy plunged into him with force. He grasped my wrist, but there was no strength in it. His eyes said he was as surprised as I was. Blood drizzled down the edge of his lips managing to make his tan skin look pale.

I couldn’t watch and yet I couldn’t turn away. His life force pulsed through my shadow as I sucked it from him. It happened so fast and then it was over.

The moment my shadow withdrew from his body, he fell against the floor. There were plenty of reasons to hate him. The alien spirit within me only made me restless. Yet, I couldn’t leave him like this. I brushed his eyelids shut and tried to reposition his body, but he was too heavy and the pain within me was growing worse.

Air blew through the tunnel carrying the distant sound of voices, the smell of fire and best of all, the smell of wolf. Draken’s friends were still here and I had no trust for the Brotherhood of Elements.

I stood on wobbly knees and managed to shuffle over to Rex. There was so much blood, but his pulse was stronger than mine. I could barely move Draken. I had no hope in moving Rex.

“Come on Rex, time to wake up.” I gave his cheek a little slap. His lack of response didn’t surprise me.

Voices carried down the hallway, uncomfortably close. Any minute now, the brotherhood would come in and see that I killed Draken. My body shook with his energy and a great deal of remorse. So many people died here and their spirits would be restless until Hades was back in business.

I braced my legs on both sides of Rex, grabbed his wrist and tried to pull him. He was incredibly heavy and I didn’t have the energy. Before I let his hand go, a glimmer of gold in his clenched fist caught my attention. I grasped his hand and pried Draken’s transporter from him.

Light reached around the corners of the hall and adrenaline made my nerves rattle more than Draken’s energy. I set the transporter, unsure where I was sending us. The edge of my mind began to haze as I slapped the middle button and prayed we weren’t about to go somewhere terribly cold.

I needed to stay alive a little longer. I needed to get Rex somewhere safe. This time, I wasn’t so gentle when it came to slapping him. My open hand throbbed from the contact. Rex startled, but barely opened his eyes.

“We need to leave.”

“I’m so tired. I can’t stay awake,” he mumbled.

“Come on, for me.” I got his arm over my shoulder and nearly tumbled due to his weight. My chest was aching so badly now, it was lucky the doorway was right in front of us.

Once Rex was on his feet, he pulled back. “You’re bleeding. What did he do to you?”

“Nothing I can’t heal from.” And I honestly believed that.

The light was getting closer now and Rex was tittering on his feet. If he fell, I wouldn’t get him to move before the men got to us. I shoved him towards the doorway and the movement sent sharp pain up my arms and down the length of my torso.