Shadowfae (30 page)

I didn’t know what to say. He was sorry for what? That he’d stolen my souls and given them to Kane? That I’d made it back from Dante’s alive?

Frustration and helplessness stiffened my limbs, and I walked forward and clunked Dante’s soultrap onto the table next to the others. Rajah closed his eyes, shaking his head softly, and I had to look away. He was too beautiful, too sad. Too distant. A dull ache spread in my chest, intensifying to agony when it pierced my heart. I’d imagined myself numb. I was wrong.

“Oh, look. The set. How nice.” Kane licked frosty lips, delight twinkling in his eyes, and held out his hand to me.

I waited for him to speak, to order me to come to him. But he didn’t. He just stood there, and when I didn’t move he stared, sparks fading from his fingers, a dark line creasing his perfect brow. “Did you not . . . That is Dante DiLuca in that bottle, yes?”

His words made no sense. My throat hurt, and I could barely speak. “You knew your answers all along. You killed those fae. Why?”

He pouted, his gaze slipping like a sulky child’s. “Couldn’t help it. Not my fault. I just . . . you made me sad, Jade. The air tastes bad when I’m unhappy.”

I remembered Nyx, shivering wet in my arms, and hot guilt burned my spine. If I’d stayed with Kane that night, Nyx would still be alive. I didn’t want it to be my fault. It wasn’t fair to land Kane’s jealousy in my lap. But that didn’t stop shame from tearing at my heart like I’d killed Nyx myself. “Then why give me to Dante? Why did you send me away?”

Kane’s lips quivered. Tears swelled in his eyes, slipping free, and tiny diamonds clicked onto the floor, facets sparkling as they tumbled one by one. “Because I thought . . . if you wanted to, you might come back. To me.”

I stared. I’d never seen Kane cry before. My heart stung, sorrow fresh on my tongue. He meant it. He actually imagined a world in which I could love him, regardless of thrall or rapture or the disgusting things he’d ordered me to do.

Strange, deluded demon. His tears cut me, all the more because I couldn’t laugh at him or spit in his face. I didn’t hate him, any more than I hated an insect who bit me or a bird who crapped on my shoulder. A lot of the time I felt sorry for him, and for years he’d been my only companion. In better moments, I felt fond of him, in a helpless codependent sort of way, and even being his thrall-bound lover had occasional shades of tenderness and affection. But love?

Speechless, I shook my head.

He stared back at me, flames licking his earlobe. Glitter crusted his lashes, and for a moment I thought he’d dissolve in tears, and guilt wrenched my heart.

Then his mouth tightened. His gaze flickered away, and his fingernails flooded a deep and dangerous indigo. “Rajah, I think you owe me.”

Fear stung me like a wasp, and I stumbled forward, compelled. “No, wait—”

Rajah retched, clutching his guts, and fell to his knees. Spasms racked him, curling his body like a peanut. Unbidden, my rapture flickered out, sensing, and I felt his energy start to leach away at Kane’s behest.

No. No way. This was my five minutes. He couldn’t die now. I hadn’t yet worked up the courage to say
I love you.

Rajah hunched on his side, choking. Honey-colored liquid spilled over his lips, splashing on the floor. His soul, golden and beautiful and perfect, just like he was, smearing wasted on the floorboards in the sparkle of Kane’s scattered tears.

Kane watched, his black eyes gleaming with delight, his red lips shining.

“Stop it! Kane, please.” I grabbed his shoulder, desperate to spin him around, distract him, anything.

He whirled, furious scarlet flames bursting to life in his hair. He bared jagged teeth, smoke hissing out to choke me with demonic compulsion. “No.”

My thrall bangles screeched tight, and I staggered backwards, woolly stickiness clogging my throat. My spine cracked into the glass table’s edge, tilting it as I fell. Pain flared, a sharp spear along the bones. My legs sprawled before me, numb, and into my lap rolled a warm brass soultrap.

I’d never stop Kane on my own.

I didn’t wait. I didn’t think. I just ripped the cork out, brought the crinkled neck to my lips, and chugged.

26

F
oul black sickness like mud made me gag, and I fought to swallow on grit and slime. Quinn, already crazy and pissed off, his senses unhinged by what I’d done to him. His soul squelched down my throat, and Luna’s shade latched on to it with sharp rodent teeth. Scaly mayhem exploded in my stomach, writhing creatures struggling to the death, and a mad, psychotic light ignited in my skull. Colors glared, the down-lights painfully bright. My nose tingled, icy and burning at the same time, and alien fury clenched my fingers until my palms bled.

Great. I’ve always wondered what it was like to be Quinn.

Beside me, Rajah’s knees cramped to his chest, and he clutched his guts, his throat convulsing as he fought to keep his honey-gold soul down.

My head spinning, I scrabbled on the ground for the next one. The cork shot out into my palm under pressure, bruising. Kane screeched, but it was too late. Brass smashed into my teeth, rattling my skull, and Luna’s soul sparkled in my mouth like sweet fruit juice, delicious and sinful. I gulped it down, swooning.

Heat spread in my abdomen, blood rushing to the flesh between my legs. My eardrums rattled, aching, drowned in minute sounds I’d never heard before, my pulse, the squelch of my wet fingers on the brass, the slide of moisture deep inside me. My rapture stretched with a sensuous sigh, joined by the lithe new sensation of Luna’s senses, wild, grasping, euphoric.

Luna’s fragment screamed in delight and ripped free of Quinn, black acid searing my guts. He dived upon himself and melted, froth bubbling, and an irresistible cackle surged up my throat. I laughed out loud, mad, ecstatic, overcome with desperate, strange joy.

Rajah dragged himself to his hands and knees, spitting, tears leaking onto his cheeks as his stomach heaved. He swallowed, gagging, trying to keep it in, but hot golden phlegm spattered from his lips to sizzle on the floorboards.

I scrambled for the third and last trap, but it lay out of my reach under the table. Kane slashed at me with suddenly razor-sharp talons, his skin crisping to burnt black scales, his hair streaming to his waist wrapped in cerulean flames. Yellow eyes swirled with fury, his lashes caked with ash, and the acrid stink of hellfire burned my nostrils.

I jerked back. I couldn’t get past him. I’d burn. Frustration seethed, igniting a crackling knot of current that exploded along my nerves.

Under the table, the soultrap juddered under latent force and rolled over.

My arm jerked, alive with the glowing sensation of Luna. My fingers strained to hyperextension. Pain crabbed up my forearm, and the soultrap tumbled into a roll, skidding across the floor. Kane dived for it, smoke hissing from his joints, but it careered around his grasping talons and thumped into my hand.

I didn’t hesitate. The cork squelched out, clotted and stinking, and I lifted the trap to my lips and tilted. Copper-tainted filth slid over my tongue, choking, burning as it went down. I gagged, scarlet mess spilling down my chin, but I forced my throat open and swallowed more. It hit my stomach, hot and sluggish, smearing my insides, ruining Luna’s sweet rhapsody with Dante’s sour disgust for everything human.

Rapture slashed through my veins, ravenous, and I screamed. My blood burned with hate, and Luna’s hyperaware nerves screeched in my limbs, spasming my muscles until I shook. Desperately, I gulped for air, my lungs crushing. My taste buds sizzled with Dante’s vampire perception, stray emotion splashing in the air like fragrant dust. Jealousy, tart like citrus. A splash of cyanide fury on a salty sea of regret, the warm fresh taste of summer rain that could only be sorrow.

Kane growled, spitting broken shards, and my thrall bangles squeezed tight, crushing my forearm bones to agony. I yelled, electricity flaring translucent under my skin, and my sight blurred and blackened for a moment. Kane struck, jaws snapping. But a thick, invisible wall of force solidified between us, and his teeth grated like flint on metallic nothing, sparks jumping.

He howled, his demon fury thwarted. Splinters flew from cracking floorboards, stabbing at my ankles, but I didn’t stop to watch. I skidded to my knees and slid sparking fingers into Rajah’s wet black hair, lifting his head to see his eyes.

He coughed with his mouth shut, gagging on another mouthful. Syrupy liquid bubbled from his lips, smearing with the sweat running down his face.

Anguish sliced under my skin, flaying my nerves raw, and despair strangled my heart. I buried my face in Rajah’s hair, black strands sticking in my tears. “No, don’t. You can’t die.” I gripped his temples between shaking hands and forced my mouth onto his.

He coughed, his body jerking. I held on, trying to feed him, give him my energy, anything to stop his precious soul slipping away. But his strength leaked free, his muscles juddering, and his lips softened, surrendered, slipped apart. Sweet golden energy filled my mouth, rippling over my skin, sinking in like sunshine. My rapture moaned, greedy, orgasmic, and I ached with longing. Sanguine sweat soaked me, staining my dress, and helplessly I clenched my hands in his hair and kissed him deeper, sliding my tongue on his, drinking.

Effortlessly, his soul slipped into me, and I gasped, spasms of delight sliding along my limbs and into my core. Pleasure sizzled along my tendons, into my muscles, through my bones. I could feel him embracing me, enveloping me in endless warmth. Like we’d been as we loved, delicious, intimate, wonderful.

We weren’t a lie. He’d meant every beautiful, breathless word.

My heart melted. I wanted to weep, laugh, scream my delight to the world. Rajah loved me. I’d tasted his soul. I knew it. I could prove it. I’d longed so many years for freedom, to end my desolate, empty life. Now, I wasn’t empty anymore.

But his exquisite lips curled on mine in a last, sweet smile, and his whisper warmed my mouth like flame. “Love you, princess. Always.” And then he sighed, soft like release, and his head grew heavy in my hands. His mouth slipped from mine, slack, and the golden flecks in his eyes faded to empty gray.

Dread slashed like poisoned knives in my guts, where already his heavenly soul essence frothed and fought with the others. My skin chilled. That wasn’t what I meant to do.

I tried to talk, to say his name, but no sound emerged, and my treacherous nerves stung alive with blissful energy. My thrall bangles quivered and loosened, the metal humming, and as I watched, a tiny crack opened in the rolled edge, a rift widening in flawless gold.

Kane laughed, hollow like hellish drums, and ash fell from the air like dirty snow.

At the corner of my eye, golden radiance glimmered.

My gaze magnetized, drawn helplessly back to Rajah, and my heart somersaulted. Faint golden light shimmered over him, glowing on his brown skin, flickering weakly through his dark hair, caressing his perfect face.

My aura. Fading. Dying.

Breath rushed from my lungs, forgotten. I’d never figured out what
animus
meant. Soul. What kind of fucked-up clue was that? I’d thought it obscure, useless, infuriating. But it didn’t just mean anyone’s soul. It meant mine.

And there he lay.

I’d given him my heart, and now it was too late to change anything. This ritual was a malicious hellwrought trick, a game I couldn’t win. I’d swallowed him, my fourth and final soul. My bangles were breaking. And Rajah would die.

I choked, and cinders stung bitter on my tongue, ruining the sweetness. Horror dripped icy filth over my ecstasy, a vicious ache chewing at my heart. No. This wasn’t right.

My hard-won freedom loomed cold and worthless without him. I’d rather live my interminable years in thrall all over again than watch him die. If this was that final five minutes, I didn’t want it.

I wanted forever.

At my wrist the crack widened, screeching, and with a horrid snap the other bangle cracked, too, the curled edge popping as gold ripped asunder.

No.

I dragged Rajah’s forehead to mine, and the cool pallor of his skin sparked a shiver of fear in my core. I kissed his temple, his cheek, his idle lips. “Don’t leave. Please. I can’t bear this without you. Come back to me.”

No breath tingled my tongue, no life stirred. My spit warmed his lips, and my guts bubbled, four disparate souls mingling. Despair clutched my chest. Mingling was no good. Soon his essence would die and it’d be too late. I needed the rest of them gone. I needed Rajah back, alone, alive before my rapture consumed his soul for good.

Before my bangles split off because I’d lost him forever.

Haste scrabbled along my spine like a frightened rat, and I forced myself to close my eyes and listen to my rapture, which sighed in my womb like a sated lioness. I summoned every scrap of experience I’d earned in 140 years of thrall, and dived my new quadruple senses deep into my own soul.

I summoned Quinn, black hatred searing my blood. He squirmed, spitting foul curses, but I pressed my will harder, and he snarled one final insult and let go, swirling with a scream into the depths of hell.