Page 53 of Bartered by the Shadow Prince (Bargain with the Shadow Prince #3)

Matters of the Heart

DAMIEN

W ell past moonset, when the last silver light disappears like water through cracked earth, the rabble beasts begin to chuff and scratch at the dirt.

They need to be rested and fed. I’ve pushed them too far today.

I remember a place nearby where my fellow umbrae and I would take shelter during the war.

A place with few trees for elves to hide in.

I lead the way to the unnamed field beside the small lake and, after removing the saddles and saddlebags, set the beasts loose to hunt. Soon, they are filling their bellies with vespers they catch in the tall grasses and are quenching their thirst in the cool, still waters.

We make camp in the nook under a mesa of dark stone nearby.

“Do you think you can manage a cloaking spell?” I ask her.

Eloise digs in her bundle for her parents’ grimoire. “It’s been so long since I’ve been able to use my magic, I don’t know. Without an anchor like Phantom, I’m not sure.”

She sits cross-legged on a stone and opens the book in her lap. I start a small fire and heat up some food we brought from Dimhollow. About thirty minutes later, she closes the book, stands, and, grunting with effort, summons a silver strand from the night air.

“This is going to take a while,” she says, her voice strained. She weaves another thread together with the first. “Entertain me while I work.”

“I’m no good at singing,” I admit.

She snorts. “Tell me what you felt and saw in the passageway out of the mountain. Is it the same for everyone?”

“I’m not sure. You’re the only other person I know who’s been through it.”

She smiles at me over her shoulder. “Then let’s compare notes.”

“First, I felt pressure, crushing pressure, until I wasn’t sure I could draw my next breath.”

“Same,” she says, tying off a third strand. She’s building a web around us, anchored by the mesa.

“Then spiders. Swarms of them.”

“Same.”

I hesitate. “The next part was difficult for me. It was something I could see.”

She looks at me briefly before returning to her work. “It was at this point when I saw Phantom disintegrate into a pile of maggots. Hard for me as well. But I’m guessing you didn’t see the same thing.”

I shake my head. “I saw you in that room in Blackspire, bludgeoned and bloody. I saw a strange man feeding you his blood.”

“Was he wearing a suit, like from Earth? Purple tie?”

“Three-piece. Bespoke.”

“That was Nathaniel. He saved my life.”

“It was hard to watch.” We’re both silent for a moment. I don’t press the issue. As much as I wanted to believe that dragon-shifter was only an hallucination, I’m thankful for Nathaniel. Without him, I’m not sure Eloise would have survived Blackspire or known how to resurrect her magic.

“And what came next for you?”

I lick my lips. I did see something else, but the disturbing visual was the stuff of nightmares. I can’t lie to my mate, so I simply say nothing. She doesn’t need to hear the details of my twisted vision.

I sense she’s going to needle me about it, but I’m saved when her nose starts to bleed. “Oh!”

I race to her side and pull my handkerchief from my pocket. “Enough,” I say. “You’ve overextended your magic.”

“But I’m not finished.”

I peruse her web. It covers three-quarters of the opening. At the right angle, it’s true we might be seen, but it is as good or better than any cover we might have anywhere else. “All is well, little bird. Come, heal yourself.”

I offer my neck so that she can take what she needs. She casts the bloody handkerchief aside and, for once, doesn’t argue with me or resist what I offer. She strikes. But the second my blood hits her tongue, she draws back.

I press my fingers to the wound. “What’s wrong?”

Her face falls, and she turns her chin as if she’s trying her best to sort something out. “Your blood tastes different to me.” She shakes her head, her eyes filling with tears. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what—” She presses her hand into the base of her throat, and then her eyes widen.

“Little bird?”

“My heart is beating, Damien. Who ever heard of a vampire with a beating heart?”

I pick up the handkerchief and bring the blood to my nose, smiling at what I smell. “Eloise…”

The sound of a rabble beast’s screams brings us around. I search the fields and find a man in the distance holding a knife to Romulus’s throat. Borus gallops toward me.

“Stay here,” I command Eloise.

“Damien, no!” she whispers, but I’m already in my shadow form, shooting across the field. I manifest behind the man and draw Dawnbreaker. The attacker’s head hits the ground before he knows I’m there. Romulus takes off after Borus, bleeding but not badly.

Squatting, I take a closer look at the assailant.

The man has a slight physique, as if he’s underfed, and is dressed in a jacket constructed of cobbled strips of leather and cloth.

A chain around his severed neck bears a pendant etched with three wavy lines, the symbol for the river. This is a traveler. A Rivertoad.

I turn in place, expecting others. They never travel alone and never act unless they’re compensated for their effort. Come for me, vermin . I’ve taken down a dozen of their mercenaries before, and out here, in a field with nowhere to hide, they don’t stand a chance.

One, two, three… men drop from the trees as silently as spiders dripping from their webs. Fuck . No Rivertoad is that graceful. Those are elves. A trap! The Rivertoad was only to draw me out. He was bait, nothing more.

Arrows of pure sunlight slice through the night toward me.

Dodging them, I somersault into a cloud of darkness and shoot across the field to engage.

Dawnbreaker slices through the arms of the first one, the bow falling with his limbs.

The second loses his head before he can draw his sword.

The third almost has me. I block his burning sword with mine just before it can slice into my shoulder.

The clank of metal on metal rends the night as I shift between each blow, form and swing, form and stab, form and hack. One blade comes so close to me it singes the hair on my arm. My shadows stab through the dark elf’s torso and up into his heart.

But before I’ve finished him off, I see five more elves coming from the north, five more from the south, another half dozen just past the mesa where Eloise is still hiding. Goddess, we’re outnumbered. Please make her stay where she is, I pray.

I call the shadows to me, ready to send them out like a thousand needles to pierce the hearts of my enemies. A dozen sunlight arrows fly. I raise Dawnbreaker. And then I move.