Shades of Midnight: an Urban Fantasy novel (Chronicles of Midnight Book 4) Read online

  Rivers didn’t speak, he just poked and prodded and twisted. Ice trickled through my veins as I took a step back. Right now, I was presented with Rivers’s back, which was good, because if I saw his face, if I saw the inhumanity in his eyes, then I’d lose it. I’d lose my conviction that the man I cared for was still there, and then my feet would do what they’d been longing to as soon as he’d opened the door.

  They’d run.

  I straightened my spine and breathed through my mouth to avoid the worst of the stench. “Did you get the information we need?”

  “Yes,” Rivers said.

  “Then we’re done here.”

  “Not finished yet.”

  “Why? We have what we need.”

  Rivers stood and walked over to the tray. His chest was rising and falling rapidly as he studied his implements of torture.

  “Rivers?”

  He turned his head to look at me and, damn, did it take every inch of my will power not to back the fuck up. Instead, I stared right back and lifted my chin. “Enough. It’s enough.”

  His brow furrowed and then he cocked his head. “You keep calling me Rivers. But Rivers isn’t here right now. This is my time, and I intend to utilize it.”

  I swallowed hard. “Okay, Mind Reaper, then.”

  He smiled then, wicked and beautiful and deadly. “I know about you. You’re important to him.”

  I nodded. “And he told me about you. He told me that he didn’t want to let you out to play unless absolutely necessary.”

  The Mind Reaper looked at the pieces of the shade tossed on the ground. “And it was necessary. This creature told me everything once he felt the slice of my blade.”

  My heart stalled. “So, why did you keep cutting?”

  He blinked at me as if that was the stupidest question ever. “Whyever not?”

  Oh, God.

  The shade trapped in the body whimpered in pain. Trapped … it was trapped. Surely, if it could have left it would have. Did that mean that once a shade had control and the soul was gone, the shade was stuck within the human shell? But it still didn’t explain why it hadn’t healed itself.

  “Please …” It was looking at me.

  Rivers went back to surveying his tray of goodies. We had the information we needed. It was time to end this, but I needed to move fast. With a quick glance at Rivers, I switched to aether-sight and rushed toward the shade. My hand touched his flesh and the divine power rose up on instinct to tear through the shade’s essence, leaving nothing but the ashes of ember. They rained down on me and clung to my lashes. And then I was hauled back by the hair and flung against the wall. My head smacked against stone and stars lit up the room. Mind Reaper didn’t give me the chance to recover. His hand closed around my throat and began to squeeze.

  Chapter 7

  Rivers’s grip tightened. I dug my nails into his skin and twisted, but he didn’t even flinch. In fact, his eyes lit up, and his mouth twisted in that sadistic smile of his.

  “You interfered. No one interferes and lives.”

  “Rivers …” I choked out his name. “Stop.” My vision was darkening. “I don’t want … hurt you.”

  I couldn’t breathe. He was taking his time, choking me by degrees to prolong my pain and his pleasure. Because there was no doubt in my mind that he was enjoying this. Damn him, he’d been warned. My daimon was on it before I could consciously decide to act. She pulled power from him, sharp and urgent. His grip loosened a fraction. It was enough for me to jerk free. But there would be no fighting him, not without hurting him. Not without getting hurt. There was only one way to pull Rivers back into the driver’s seat. I needed to remind him who he was, and what he meant to me.

  I grabbed Mind Reaper’s face and kissed him. He resisted at first, his fingers digging into my arms as he tried to pry me off. But it was time to play parasitic leech. I kissed and fed, kissed and fed. And slowly, Rivers’s body relaxed, his grip morphed from biting to a caress, and then his lips began to move against mine. I was shoved back against the wall, but this time with violent passion. His hands tangled in my hair, his tongue rasped against mine. Our teeth clashed and then he bit my lip, drawing blood, coppery but sweet. He sucked on it, tugging a moan that rose up from the depths of my core. Desire flooded my limbs. This was crazy. There was a dismembered body in the room with us.

  He broke the kiss long enough to say my name and then his hand slipped between us to fumble with the buttons of my jeans. I was going to let him. I wanted him to. But not here. Not like this.

  “Rivers.” I pushed at his shoulders. “Rivers. No.”

  He froze at the word and raised his head. His dazed gaze cleared, and he blinked several times until his pale eyes were sharp and lucid once more. His mouth parted in an ‘o’ and then he leapt away from me as if he’d been scalded.

  He stood hands on head, fingers threaded through his short silver locks as he took in the carnage.

  “This is real.” His voice was hoarse.

  “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

  His attention snapped from the body to me, and then back again. “You saw that? Saw me do that?”

  “It wasn’t you. It was him.”

  He grabbed my arm and ushered me out the door into the corridor. “You have to go. Now.”

  I resisted. “Rivers, let me help you.”

  His mouth tightened and his eyes hardened. “No, Harker. Don’t you get it? There is no helping me.”

  He slammed the door in my face.

  I pressed a hand to the metal. He thought he was doomed, that he was a slave to the Mind Reaper … but he wasn’t. Because when I’d called, he’d come back. He’d resurfaced for me. And there was no way I was ever going to let him lose himself like that again.

  ***

  Bane had his back to me, flipping pancakes like a pro, when I entered. Ryker was nursing a cup of coffee at the table. The aroma of cinnamon laced the air, and my stomach growled.

  Ryker spotted me and his face broke into a smile, but then his gaze dropped to my throat and the smile evaporated. “What the fuck happened to your neck?”

  I reached up to touch my throat. What? Oh, shit. Rivers. Of course.

  Bane’s shoulders flexed and tensed beneath his shirt. He carefully set down the skillet and switched off the gas. And then he turned to face me, his attentions zeroing in on my throat. His jaw flexed and then he strode straight toward me. No. Not toward me. His attention was on the door. He was headed for the fucking exit.

  “Ryker!” I leapt at Bane, grabbing him around the waist and holding on for dear life while using every ounce of my body weight to try and stall him, but he was still moving.

  Ryker was frozen in his seat, probably wondering what the fuck was going on.

  “He’s going for Rivers. Help me stop him.”

  Ryker jumped up and grabbed Bane in a bear hug, pinning his arms to his torso.

  “Get the fuck off me, Ryker.” Bane’s tone was a low, menacing rumble.

  “Harker, what the fuck is going on?” Ryker asked.

  But I was focused on Bane, on calming the monster inside. “It’s okay. I’m okay. Rivers is back. He didn’t let the Reaper hurt me. I’m fine. Now, please. Calm the fuck down.”

  “Wait. Rivers did that?” Ryker asked.

  “He wasn’t himself.”

  But Ryker was no longer listening. In fact, he was no longer holding onto Bane. Shit, he was already at the door.

  Dammit. I released Bane, but slammed a hand onto his chest, then grabbed a fistful of Ryker’s T-shirt. “Will you just stop, for fucksake. You can’t get mad at him for what the Mind Reaper did. How does that even make sense when we allowed him to let the fucker out in the first place?”

  Ryker’s shoulders sagged, and the tension in the room dropped several notches.

  A look at Bane’s face told me he was working on cooling down too. “We good?”

  He exhaled, releasing the remnants of his rage. “Yeah, Harker, we’re good.”

/>   My hand slid from his chest and Ryker got the rest of his shirt back. “Now, let’s have some pancakes.”

  Bane reached for my neck and ran a finger along the bruising. “He is so fucking lucky you’re okay.”

  “I’m not okay, because you’re starving me.” I smiled and his shoulders relaxed.

  “Sit.” He pointed at the nearest seat.

  Crisis over. For now.

  We were tucking into maple syrup-covered deliciousness when Rivers finally joined us. His face was pale, his eyes haunted.

  “It’s done,” he said before lowering himself into the nearest chair.

  His hair was wet and he smelled like citrus. My gaze dropped to his hands—clean, blood-free hands. Even the nails had been scrubbed. He looked as composed and dispassionate as ever. Rivers was back in the driver’s seat, and the Reaper was in lockdown. My heart ached for him. How could he live like this?

  Bane jerked his head toward me. “Have you seen Harker’s throat?”

  Rivers blinked slowly and then looked at me, at my neck. His throat bobbed. “I did that.”

  It wasn’t a question, but it needed an answer. “No, Rivers. You didn’t. He did.”

  Rivers flinched and his pale eyes darkened. It was a crack in his armor. I’d made that crack. My pulse thrummed at the base of my throat at the revelation that I could get under his skin, under that steel persona that kept the world out. But it was gone too soon, and the shields were back up.

  “Are there any more pancakes left?” he asked.

  Bane scraped back his seat and donned his apron. “I’ll make you some. Plenty of batter left.” He set to work at the cooker. “What did you find out?”

  Rivers sat back in his seat and closed his eyes. Was he about to take a nap? I looked to Ryker, but the neph was focused on Rivers, and then the siren began to speak.

  “The shade was a grunt. He didn’t know too much. Just that his companions are desperate for more human hosts. He said that the humans of Midnight are hard to claim, their minds are strong. He also mentioned something about an advantage, about there being help to weaken the humans, but he didn’t know what that was. Just something he’d overheard. He wasn’t one of the shades in the know. He did confirm the existence of a power hierarchy among the shades, though, much like the hierarchy of an army. There are grunts and lieutenants, generals and a commander. The higher up in the ranks a shade is, the stronger they are. They can claim a powerful host. They definitely need shadows to claim a host, so we were right about that. Also, the winged can’t be taken as hosts. He didn’t know why, though. Just that it wasn’t possible. His language skills were limited. He said something about our world being their home. About being the shepherds of God. But it didn’t make sense. He also mentioned prisons. But that’s all I could understand.”

  There was another thing gnawing at me. “Why couldn’t he heal? And why didn’t he just leave the body?”

  He opened his eyes and looked straight at me, and the image of that dismembered body flitted through my mind. His lips tightened; was he seeing it too?

  “Grunts don’t have the same healing ability as the higher-level shade,” he said evenly. “I guess if he’d been given enough time between injury …” He trailed off and averted his gaze.

  Yeah, he was seeing it too. Recalling what his hands had done. Hard to heal when you were being dismembered. The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I bit them back. No need for the others to know the extent of the mutilation the Reaper had inflicted. Rivers would have disposed of the body by now—a body that had once been a human. Thank goodness this particular specimen had been a loner. No family to speak of. Not in Midnight anyway.

  “I don’t think he could leave the host body,” Rivers continued. “I think that once they’re in they can only be removed by being killed or expelled.”

  Yeah, it was the obvious conclusion and made a twisted sense. There had to be a consequence for the shades, a price they had to pay to gain a host. But then that meant Drayton was stuck with Xavier unless I could find a way to get him out. Expelling him hadn’t worked and killing him would kill Drayton. Damn, there had to be a way.

  Bane put the stack of pancakes in front of Rivers. “Eat up and then we’ll go over what we know.” He sat back down in his seat. “It seems that our best bet is to remove the shadows, but in the event that we fail, we need to come up with a plan B.”

  Boot falls interrupted his train of thought and we all glanced at the door as Orin popped his head into the kitchen. His face was flushed, his eyes bright. He looked … aroused?

  Bane stiffened. “Orin?”

  Orin licked his lips. “Lilith is here.”

  No, that couldn’t be right. She’d had her quota of sexual energy already. Shit, if she demanded more now, how would I siphon it? I could barely contain the divine energy coursing through my veins. I shot Bane a panicked glance, but he was busy grinding his teeth into oblivion.

  “She wants us all in the lounge. Now,” Orin said.

  All of us?

  Bane pushed back his chair. “She has no right to be here. Not now. And she has no right to make demands.” He glared at Ryker and me. “Stay here,” he ordered before following Orin out of the room.

  Ryker, Rivers, and I exchanged glances and then Ryker arched an enquiring brow.

  I scraped my chair back. “Fuck it. Let’s go see what the bitch wants.”

  ***

  We entered the lounge a minute or so after Bane, but it looked like he was already neck-deep in an argument with Lilith. The succubus, who was usually calm and collected, looked decidedly shaken. Her usually silken, groomed hair was ruffled and out of place, and her lips were bare of the crimson lipstick she usually sported. In fact, she looked very much as if she’d thrown on her clothes and run all the way over here.

  Bane was standing by the hearth as usual, his arms crossed defensively across his chest. He didn’t look over as we entered, but Lilith did. Her tense face relaxed a fraction.

  “Please, come in and shut the door,” she said softly. “In fact, lock it if you can.”

  “What the fuck is this about?” Bane said.

  “I’ll tell you now that everyone is here. Please, just be patient.”

  Ryker slid the door shut behind us and turned the key in the lock.

  Lilith walked over to the drinks tray, poured a generous measure of whisky in a glass, and gulped it down. She blew out a breath and then turned to face the room.

  “Lilith.” Bane’s tone was a warning. “You’re trying my patience. I’m going to ask you one more time, and if I don’t like your response, I will hurt you. Why. Are. You. Here?”

  She smoothed her hair away from her face. “Ambrosius brought me.”

  “Ambrosius?” I took a step toward her. “What do you mean?”

  She smiled at me. “He’s a friend of yours, and for the last two weeks he’s been harassing me, except I didn’t know who he was. I couldn’t see or hear him. But he made his presence known by banging and moving stuff. I thought I was being haunted. But a few hours ago, I finally heard his voice. He told me his name, and I knew it was time.”

  “Time for what?” Bane snapped.

  She looked at him. “To release you from our contract.”

  Bane inhaled sharply, and an expression of longing flitted across his harsh face, and then his eyes hardened. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “No. It isn’t,” Lilith said. “A long time ago, you asked me to enter into this contract with you. You told me it was to facilitate an agreement between the White Wings and the Black Wings. You told me that the White Wings would never negotiate a stand-down with the Black Wings if you were around. So, you asked me to help you hide. You told me the contract would be over when Ambrosius came to call. I had no idea who Ambrosius was, and you didn’t enlighten me.”

  What was she talking about? Knowledge pricked the back of my mind. I looked at Bane, but his face had drained of color, and he was shaking his head.


  Lilith took a step toward him, her hand out as if to console him, but he jerked back. She caught her lip between her teeth. “Ambrosius explains it better.” She ran a hand over her face. “Ambrosius, are you there?”

  “I’m here.” His voice was weak but audible.

  My heart climbed up into my throat. He’d been gone for what felt like forever, and now he was back. I could hear him, and it felt like a missing piece of me had been restored.

  It had been too long since we’d talked, but I was about to remedy that. “What’s going on? Why did you bring Lilith here?”

  “It’s good to see you, Serenity,” he said. “I’ll answer all your questions now that I can. When you severed the connection between Merlin’s body and me, I finally remembered everything.” His voice was louder now, closer, as if he were standing next to me. “A long time ago, Merlin drew the divine power out of the five weapons created by the White Wings. He cast a powerful spell to send it into the aether to hide there until a time when it was needed. Then it would find a home in a cambion soul. He knew that the veil would fall. He’d known that the world would need this power someday for a greater good, that humans and winged would need to work together. Before he left to try and seal the cracks in the veil, to buy us more time, he crafted the daggers and he left part of his soul behind with some of his memories.”

  “You. He left you.”

  “Yes. He linked the daggers to the weapon, so they could only be wielded by the chosen cambion. But he didn’t do this alone. He collaborated with his friend, his confidant, Lucifer.”

  Lucifer … a chill trickled through my veins.

  “Lucifer was afraid that the knowledge he had may fall into the wrong hands, that if the winged did manage to capture him, they may find a way of searching his mind and discover what Merlin had done with the power held inside the weapons. He couldn’t risk them finding out and somehow foiling the plan. And so, he decided to hide his memories, even from himself.”

  “To kill two birds with one stone,” Lilith said. “Hide the weapon and promote a truce between the winged.”