Sandy Williams - The Shadow Reader

“I mean, yeah. I was just . . . remembering I forgot something.”

“No problem, psycho,” Paige says, dragging her date inside. “I forgot to call ahead to the restaurant.”

“Um.” I look over my shoulder, see Kyol standing at the far end of my couch. His edarratae flicker a little more than usual—nothing too serious—but it’s hard not to reach out and turn off the living room lights.

“I’ll come back later,” he says again.

I motion Ben inside. “I need to run to the restroom.”

“Hurry,” Paige says as she picks up my phone.

Kyol’s gaze lingers on Ben before he follows me to the bathroom. When I close the door behind us, it’s dark. Too dark. I rub my eyes until my vision clears. I almost wish it didn’t. A jagged bolt of lightning flashes across an expressionless face. He’s never this closed off when we’re alone.

“I just met him,” I say. “Paige talked me into a double date and . . .”

His eyes soften. “No, it’s okay. You should see your own kind.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to.”

“Neither do I,” he says quietly.

“But you should, too?” It’s a stupid question. Of course he should. We both know this can’t go on forever. The king will find out. Some other fae will be assigned to escort me when I read the shadows. Kyol assured me the worst that will happen to him is that he’ll lose his position as Atroth’s sword-master, but I think there’s more to it than that, more he doesn’t want me to know about.

“There are reasons I should,” he says. “And a reason I shouldn’t.”

The way he’s looking at me makes my stomach flip. I wonder if there’s any way I can get out of this date. I can tell Paige I’m sick. It wouldn’t be a complete lie—I do feel disoriented.

“I’ll tell Radath you’re busy,” Kyol says.

I sigh. Never mind. Kyol won’t let me out of it. “Radath won’t like that.”

“No,” he agrees.

The lord general expects me to be at his beck and call, go where he wants, when he wants, no matter how dangerous it might be. Sometimes I wonder how much hell Kyol gets when he makes excuses for me.

He opens a fissure. The bright light makes me squint, and a sharp lance of pain strikes behind my eyes. I rub my forehead until it goes away.

“Hey,” I say to stop Kyol before he disappears.

He turns away from his fissure.

“I’m not interested in that guy.”

He smiles down at me. “You just met him, kaesha .”

The smile and the kaesha undo me. I throw my arms around his neck. He wraps his around my waist. Some days we’re better at staying away from each other than others. This isn’t one of those days.

His kiss burns through me. I run my fingers through his dark hair, then let them linger on the sensitive spot just below his left ear. I want my lips there, but I’m too absorbed by what he’s doing with his tongue. His chaos lusters rush into my hands, into my mouth, into every place we touch.

I must forget to breathe. I’m light-headed, but I don’t want to stop. I press my body into Kyol’s, pull his bottom lip gently between my teeth, and do everything I can to break his self-control. It’s become a game, teasing and testing him. It’s one I always lose, but one I never grow tired of playing.

He grips my shoulders and smiles against my mouth.

“Try to have a good time,” he says, ending this game way too soon.

I rest my head against his chest. I don’t want to have a good time. I want to stay right here in his arms, sleep forever in them.

“No. Don’t sleep, McKenzie.”

“I’m not.” I close my eyes. He’s warm. Hot, really.

“You need to wake up.”

“Mmm,” I murmur against his heartbeat.

“McKenzie. Please.”

He sounds worried. That’s strange. He hardly ever worries. Always so in control. More in control than I want him to be. But that’s okay. It’s comfortable here. Quiet. Peaceful and . . .

I’M dropped into a vat of scalding water. I lurch up, trying to evade the blistering heat, but my shoulders are held submerged beneath the surface.

“Easy, McKenzie. You need this.”

The room spins and blurs as I awaken. Focus, I order. I need to focus.

Chaos lusters slither from a fae’s hands into my skin. “Kyol?”

After an eternal pause, the voice says, “Aren.”

“Aren?” I repeat, confused. I squeeze my eyes shut once, twice. Ah, yes. Aren, the Butcher of Brykeld, my captor. Of course it’s him. Kyol would never hurt me like this.

I struggle to get out of the vat—no, the tub —again. “It’s too hot.”

“It’s fine, McKenzie. You’re too cold. Stay still.”

His hands don’t unlock from my shoulders. My bare shoulders. His edarratae flow unhindered into me. I glance down as a bolt flashes from his fingers to my skin. It zigzags below the water’s surface, disappears briefly beneath my bra, then reappears before it skirts along my hip.

My attention snaps back to Aren. “I’m naked.”

“Not completely,” he says, and some of the tension leaves his face. His grip loosens. I try to sit up, to get out of as much of the water as I can, but he won’t let me. When the room spins again, I stop struggling. It feels like I’m waking up from a bad hangover. I swear to God, I’m never letting Aren take me through another gate.

I open my eyes and take a quick inventory of my surroundings. I’m sitting just high enough in a Jacuzzi to see the rest of the bathroom. There’s a separate, glass-encased shower on the other side of twin sinks. The white countertop is bare except for a magically lit mason jar. There are no bath mats, no towels that I can see. There’s a vent for central air and heating, though, which makes me hope we might be somewhere in the U.S. Maybe this is some kind of rebel safe house? I want to part the blinds of the window over my left shoulder and peek outside, but turning doesn’t seem like a good idea just yet. My equilibrium is still off.

“What happened?” I ask.

Aren’s focus drops to the water rippling above my bare stomach. “I . . . You took more of the drain than I intended. I couldn’t wake you.”

I hug my knees to my chest, partly to hide my body and partly because I’m suddenly numb. Cold, but sweating. I clench my hands into fists, trying to squeeze away the prickling sensation in my fingertips.

“The In-Between’s made you sick,” he says. He reaches down to his side of the tub, then brings up a bottle filled with some deep red liquid. “Drink this.”

“What is it?”

“It will make you feel better.” He raises the bottle to my lips.

As soon as I take the first sip, I try to spit it out. He grasps my chin and tilts my head back. “Swallow.”

His fingers dig into my jaw. The bitter drink floods my mouth and I can either choke or do as he says. The first gulp burns down my throat, sinks and sizzles in my belly. I grab his wrist, try to force him and the bottle away, but he doesn’t budge, not until he’s satisfied I’ve choked down enough of the liquid. When he finally lets me breathe again, I sit up in the tub, coughing and spluttering. I scoop a handful of water to my mouth and try to rinse the taste away.

“Are you finally trying to poison me?”

The faintest smile appears on Aren’s lips. My stomach burns with something hotter than the flames of the concoction he forced down my throat. Damn him for being so attractive. Damn him for keeping me with him, and damn him for gazing at me with that stupid, sardonic grin.

“We’ve already discussed this,” he says, setting the bottle aside. “Poisoning you would be inefficient, my nalkin-shom .”