Shadowstorm (The Shadow World Book 6) (16 page)

Kai’s words came back: “
If you can make everyone who loves you come to hate you, will you finally be satisfied?”

“I only have you like this for a little while,” David said, nuzzling Nico’s ear and then nipping the point, eliciting a hitched breath. “We’ll figure out how to negotiate everything once Miranda comes home, but I want to enjoy these few days as much as fate will allow.”

“As do I.”

“Glad you agree.” David curved one foot around Nico’s calf, one hand around his arm, and pulled him closer, kissing him hard and deep—a tremor ran through Nico, and he gripped David’s biceps with surprising strength. There was a brief, and only partly serious, struggle for control, Nico switching their positions with lightning quickness and pinning David’s wrists above his head, then the Prime doing the same to him, both growling faintly.

Deven had to cling to the bedpost even harder. It was unbearable to watch—so incredibly beautiful, and so agonizing, seeing two people he had cast aside in so many ways find in each other what he had been unable to give either.

Again, David held the Elf beneath him, this time saying in a harsh whisper, “Whatever happens tomorrow…right now, right here…you’re mine.”

“Yes,” Nico murmured. “Yours. You have this night made me your own, by blood and flesh alike…” He locked eyes with David and all but hissed, “Now it’s my turn.”

The emotion that surged through the room—through Deven—as they tore into each other was too much…too much for his weakened and already shaken heart to bear. Panicking, Deven shoved himself backwards, out of the room, out of the dream, and a moment later gasped himself awake and sat bolt upright in bed.

He was shaking, and couldn’t catch his breath, disoriented—the last time he’d been thrown back into his body so forcefully was when Miranda had created the Trinity and dragged him back from death. The feeling was too similar, the shock of what he’d witnessed overwhelming the logic that he had nothing to be upset about, and he curled up in a ball, trying desperately to get warm.

He should be glad. They could have each other and stop trying to get through to him. They could give up, and live their lives while he faded into the shadows beneath the trees where he belonged, his sustained heartbeat enough to keep Nico alive. That was all they needed. They didn’t actually need him. Nobody did. Not now. Maybe not ever. All he had to do was stay alive, forever, giving Nico the only thing he could even if it meant being chained to the world for centuries, decade after decade rolling out endlessly…

Freezing. He was freezing. The room wasn’t cold, but ice was forming in his veins. He could give in to it, it would be so easy…

Then something…it was difficult to know what to call it…his soul, perhaps, or at least the tiny wasted part of him that was still longing so deeply to feel again, stumbled out of hiding, its sorrow combined with a thousand other kinds of despair and grief, and it felt like his entire being became one concentrated plea, whispered harshly into the still air and screamed into the void:

“Help me…please…help me.”

He had made that same entreaty a hundred times over the centuries until finally he had accepted that there would be no answer. Either there was no one to reply, or Whoever was there had dismissed Deven as Deven had dismissed those he had once claimed to love. He knew the words would fall flat on the deaf ears of the universe. It was folly to try, foolish to grasp at those last frayed threads of faith that had clung to his heart even after all else had fallen away. Chained to a table at the mercy of a Dominican, or feeling the knife-blades of grief when the words
Call Ended
flashed on his phone and his world shattered…he had been begging for mercy for hundreds of years and received no reply.

From what seemed like a thousand miles away, he heard wings.

He didn’t look up—he was too afraid to find out he was imagining it. He kept his head bowed, breath coming shallowly, as something heavy and warm was drawn over him, rustling, tickling the skin where it touched.

Feathers.

He must still be dreaming. She couldn’t show up in the real world like this, only in the dreamtime. The power to intervene directly in their lives was still denied Her. She had to act here, or through someone.

He was grateful to be asleep, though. The real world was so empty and cold. Here he could dream up love from the past, or a Goddess to hold him, or a moment of peace in ten lifetimes of loss.

But when he lifted his head, he gasped; there were no wings around him, no waterfall of blood red hair…the eyes that met his were not star-flecked black, but dark violet, filled with their own quiet power.

Deven pulled back, feeling suddenly exposed, flushing and grabbing at the comforter even though he was clothed. “Kai.”

The Bard, who was dressed in the sort of lounging robe one might wear while surrounded by adoring Elven lads and/or lasses, merely held his gaze a moment, unspeaking. What was it about him that was so goddamned unnerving?

Finally Kai said, “I was passing by. You cried out — it sounded as though you were in agony. I felt compelled to come to your aid.”

“I’m fine,” Deven replied automatically…but he wasn’t fine, and he and the Elf both knew it. His voice shook, as did the rest of him…why was he still so cold? The fire was still dancing, and with the endless rain of an early Fall—for Texas anyway—the central heat was set pretty high.

Kai picked up the thought easily, which was even more unsettling than his being here at all—Deven’s shields were seven centuries old and well nigh impenetrable, but to an empath as powerful as Kai apparently was, they seemed transparent. “What you are feeling is not external,” he said. “You have driven all the love from your life, or tried to—without it nothing can be warm.”

Deven tried to roll his eyes, but a headache slammed right between them and wrapped itself around his skull, squeezing hard. He put his head in his hands. If this were his old life, he would have been able to turn to the other side of the bed and give Jonathan a look of entreaty…the blonde would touch a hand to Deven’s forehead, and in seconds the bond between them would banish the pain.

That was all gone now. Gone.

He tried to dredge up the strength to tell the Elf to leave. He didn’t want those dark eyes stripping away all his defenses. Kai looked too much like Nico and felt too much like David, and both of them were together now, touching, kissing, lost in each other while Deven wasted precious months he could have been in that bed…he could be there now…no…never. That part of him was dead, and lucky to be dead.

He tried to speak again, to order Kai out of the room, but what came out of his mouth was completely unexpected.

“It hurts,” he whispered. “Help me.”

He didn’t know Kai at all, but he had a feeling that the expression on the Bard’s face wasn’t one often seen. Kai drew a surprised breath, the cultivated stillness of his countenance softening into genuine emotion. If it had been pity, Deven would have shrunk back from it; but it wasn’t pity, it was the same compassion Miranda had offered outside the hospital that he had thrown back in her face. An empath’s love. All she had wanted was to love him. So many people wanted to love him. Why?
Why?

Again, Kai read the thought without effort, and again a surprise: for just a moment his eyes grew bright, and he closed them and took a deep breath.

“Why?” Kai asked quietly. “How can you ask such a thing? Do you think we are all too stupid to know better? Do you value our love so little that you think it born of delusion?”

“You don’t know me,” Deven said. “You don’t know what I’ve done to everyone…I break things. I break people. I don’t deserve your love. I don’t understand why none of you can see that.”

“Then you are the delusional one,” Kai replied. “I am an empath, like your Queen. It is what makes me a Bard, the ability to affect emotion through sound, but I can also read people on sight as I did you. Your Queen is one of the most powerful empaths I have ever met, and I outmatch her only due to age and experience. Both of us can see to the truth of someone’s heart in seconds. We know who is evil, who is kind, whose soul is black and whose is gold. Miranda loves you more than you can conceive of—she, who would know immediately if you were worthless or irredeemable. What do you say to that? Is she a fool?”

Deven had no answer for him, so he went on. “Your fear has turned to poison in your veins, and now it has become hate, toxic and slowly killing what cannot die…but what you will not see, we all see. I see.”

His mind was swimming in circles, caught in the quiet storm in the Bard’s eyes. “What…what do you see?”

A touch of amusement and sadness both together in Kai’s voice: “I see that for all your faults, in spite of whatever crimes you have—or believe you have—committed, no matter what you do or how hard you push everyone away, the fact remains, and is obvious to anyone willing to truly see you: you are beautiful, my Lord, in every way possible, and we would all move heaven and earth to make you see it too.”

Damn it…damn him…
Deven couldn’t stop the first hot tear from falling, or the second, and though he tried to turn away in shame at being so weak and broken, a hand took gentle hold of his face and held him still.

Kai leaned forward to rest his forehead against Deven’s, and that familiar scent that David claimed was “trees and cookies” but was really just “Elf” seemed to ease something in Deven’s chest, letting him exhale. He could feel the Bard’s energy moving over him, lightly, like the barest lover’s caress; it had the same “flavor” as Miranda’s, but was infinitely deeper and wiser, and Deven realized he had completely misjudged the Elf, as he suspected most people did. There was a well of love in Kai that perhaps only his twin and Miranda knew existed.

“I am sorry,” Kai said softly. “I am sorry you hurt…I am sorry you have lost so much…sorry that I thought so unkindly of you all this time when I might have been able to help you. And I am sorry that you make it all so much harder on yourself than it needs to be.”

“How can you help?” Deven could scarcely speak above a whisper, but the quiet and intimacy of the moment demanded an equally intimate tone.

“At this moment? I can stay with you and help you rest. You need not worry any farther than that. Just let me do what I can for you.”

Deven closed his eyes tightly. He didn’t know what to do or what to say. But though he might be temporarily paralyzed, Kai was not; he slid his arms around Deven and eased him back into the pillows, settling in close and drawing the comforter up over them both. He didn’t make any sort of move beyond that, but coaxed Deven’s head to his shoulder, and lay back with him, silent again for a long while.

Deven felt all the remaining tension flood out of his body, and for the first time in months he was completely relaxed, finally touching something of the peace he’d craved. Without really meaning to he burrowed into the Bard’s neck, wanting to be as close to that peace as possible, and heard a quiet chuckle followed a moment later by a half-whispered voice twining itself around the lyrical Elven language, a melody Deven knew so well it felt like Kai had drawn it out of Deven’s own soul.

“
As the Moon embraces the silver stars,

As the golden Sun adores the color blue…”

It should have been astonishing, Deven supposed, that Kai would just happen to choose that song at that moment; but Deven was simply too weary for surprise, and accepted it as he accepted the fact that it wasn’t just a lullaby, it was magic. The old words took on new meaning now that they were clothed in such compassion. That power asked nothing of him; it only wanted to touch him and gently wash some of the pain away.

He let it. He could not do otherwise. And true to the Bard’s word, Deven felt sleep rising up over his mind and body as slowly and gently as a summer sunset. Deven closed his eyes, smiling with relief.

He felt one long-fingered, strong hand glide over his face. The fingers were callused from untold years of playing musical instruments. The Bard’s lips, however, were like silk—he kissed Deven softly on the mouth, again demanding nothing, only giving.

Then Kai whispered against Deven’s lips, “Sleep,” and that was the last thing Deven knew for quite a while.

Chapter Six

From the very first night Miranda had been told she was in a mansion surrounded by vampires, she had come to expect surprises, usually unpleasant ones, around every corner.

Two nights before she was due back in Austin, just after arriving in New York, she got a surprise that knocked her for a bit of a loop…and for the life of her she couldn’t decide if it was a good one or a bad one. In the end she supposed it must be a little of both.

She was to spend two nights at Prime Olivia’s Haven. The first was a night off for her and her Elite; she could get a little rest and recharge for one last show away from Texas, and have a chance to spend some time with Olivia, whom she had always wanted to know better. Even if David hadn’t been so attached to the dreadlocked Prime, Olivia had been the one to bring him home to his Queen, and that alone made her a worthy friend. And as with everyone in the Circle, Miranda felt drawn to Olivia both empathically and on a deeper, more instinctive level she imagined only the elder children of Persephone would understand.

Still, as much as she wanted to visit Olivia, Miranda’s nerves were damn near shot. She’d managed to go the entire three weeks of her tour without running home to Austin, a minor miracle for any Pair. A big part of the reason was that David’s end of the bond was currently very well grounded in a certain lovely pointy-eared boy. The Prime had, in fact, been in bed with said boy for nearly 72 hours without leaving the bedroom except to deal with the most strictly necessary Signet business.

Miranda was still surprised at herself. She didn’t feel resentful of his time with Nico, though she very well might once she got home and actually saw them interact now that they were lovers. She was prepared for jealousy or whatever might come up, but at the moment she knew this thing they had was new and burning bright, and it wasn’t as if the Elf was taking attention away from her. They were getting the first intense few days out of the way while she was out of the house…and even with the allure of endless Elven shaggery, she could sense David was starting to lose it as well—an edge had crept into his voice, and she could feel his energy reaching across the miles, trying to touch hers with increasing need. She might have called a halt to things but there were only two nights left, and she really wanted to prove—to herself? To the world? She wasn’t sure—she could survive on her own, mystical bond or no.