Page 18 of Battle for the Shadow Prince (A Bargain with the Shadow Prince #2)

18

Training & Preparation

ELOISE

“ Y ou don’t have to do this, Eloise,” Cassius says. “You’re human. You can move on. No one would judge you for it. It would be the least foolish thing to do.”

Sabrina assigned him to train me in self-defense. I have until the end of the month to ready myself for the challenge. One month to master my magic and find some way to take it with me to Night Haven. Once a month, the madams of the blood brothels of Night Haven emerge from their subterranean enterprises. Past donors who tire of the life or aren’t in demand go back to their lives topside. New donors volunteer or are sold into the position by their vampire masters.

Vampires love new blood.

“I’m not abandoning him,” I tell Cassius. “If you can’t go and Morpheus won’t go and it’s too risky for my friend Maeve to go, then I’m all that’s left. I’m his mate. I’m his way out. I’m doing this.”

“You must know that following Sabrina’s plan will likely cost you your life. I know your feelings for Damien are strong, as are mine, but you’ve known him only a short time. If he were here, he’d want you to keep yourself safe. He’d want you to be happy.”

All the way home from Chicago, I thought about this. He’s not exaggerating the risks. I’ll have to become a blood whore to make it into Night Haven, hope and pray that the distinct flavor of my blood doesn’t cause a customer to drain me or to accuse me of being a witch. Without calling attention to myself, I’ll have to wait until the queen appears in public and then find a way to get close enough to her to challenge her. All without being detected by anyone despite the queen having a price on my head. Then I’ll have to hope and pray that the magic of the box and the demands of vampire tradition protect me as I navigate the three trials of the Provocationem Ad Mortem.

Roll the dice.

Choose a challenge.

Try not to die.

It’s a fools game. I’m a fool for considering it, all for a man—no, a monster—I’ve known only a matter of months. But I clear my throat and bare my soul to Cassius because I am that fool, and he deserves to know why. “When I was a little girl, I was loved. Every child should be loved by their family, but the longer I’m alive, the more I see how uncommon it is to have what I had. My parents both loved me unconditionally, and I was happy. I know what love is and what it isn’t. I learned firsthand what it isn’t from Tony. When my parents were murdered, I learned what it felt like to lose love, to have all the sunshine and gentle breezes stripped from your days. Days of limp sails, gray skies. Dark days. Days that only my grandmother and Maeve kept me alive. Do you know what I’ve learned from all of it?”

He shakes his head in sober silence.

“Once you know love, you know it’s worth dying for. I love Damien. Damien loves me. I know we fell in love quickly and that we haven’t known each other very long, but it’s like when you see a sprout in the garden. A rose is a rose far before it blooms. I recognize the roots, Cassius, and this relationship is a rare and beautiful species. You’re right—Damien would want me to go on without him. He’d want me to stay safe. He wants better for me because he loves me. And unlike Damien, my biology does not restrict me from loving another. But my heart does. I will always know that I had the beginnings of something, a promise so rare that another woman was willing to kill for it. How could I live with myself? How could I move forward as anything but an empty shell, knowing I’d thrown away a chance at something extraordinary, all to settle for something safe ?”

He glances toward his feet but then challenges me again. “You’d be a woman who survived a terrible loss. An empty shell, maybe at first, but in time, perhaps, something greater.”

I scoff. “When I was married to Tony, I survived a life of domestic abuse by hiding who I was and making myself small. All it earned me was a sore jaw and a broken rib. I don’t want safe, Cassius. Safe doesn’t even exist. I want fair. I want a chance. I want to know I did everything I could.”

He smiles, a dimple forming in one cheek. “Damien said you were a warrior at heart.”

“He did? When?”

“He came to see me when he first realized he was falling in love with you. He said you’d do anything for the people you loved. I guess he was right.”

“He was.” I lift my chin another inch.

“Then there’s no time to waste. Show me your fighting stance.”

I spare him the truth that I’m not entirely sure what a fighting stance is and raise my fists, parting my feet like I imagine a boxer might do.

He shoves my shoulder, and I trip over my own feet. He catches me before I eat the carpet.

He snorts. “We’ll work on it.”

The following weeks fall into a pattern. Maeve comes to Harcourt directly after work, and we practice magic until around eleven p.m. when Cassius forms from the shadows and takes over with physical training. Progress comes slowly. I can light a candle now, make the water in a glass boil, cause a wind to blow through the room, and sprout a seed without the help of my ancestors. But when we test my magic, my power fades with distance from my anchor, which is still the grandfather clock. I can’t manifest a thing once I’m past my driveway. I still need Harcourt Manor to do any of it.

Moving my anchor to something portable is imperative if I want the benefit of my magic in Night Haven, something I can only assume will greatly increase my chances of survival. But when I try to call for the spell I need like before, no book flies into my hands. To make matters worse, when my ancestors appear and I ask them about it, they seem confused by the question. Their mouths move in silent protestations I can’t understand.

We spend hours in the attic, combing through books, journals, and notebooks for a way to move my anchor. I’ve even picked out a gorgeous jade ring that was once my mother’s as a new target. We find nothing. When we try to invent our own spell, we fail miserably. Hell, we never designated the grandfather clock in the first place. The clock simply was my anchor from the beginning, from the day we performed the Hitch and Cast spell.

“I’ll keep looking,” Maeve says as we wrap up our lesson at the end of week three of practice. We’re sitting on the floor of the attic within a sea of open books and notebooks.

“I leave for Night Haven next week. I may have to go without it and try to win this thing without any witchy help.”

She shakes her head. “I’m not sending you down there without any magic. You practice with Cassius. If there’s something here, I’ll find it.” She reaches behind her and draws another book from her stack.

“You need your sleep.” Maeve’s been pushing herself too hard lately. Between the office and my training, she doesn’t have a minute to herself.

“So do you,” she says softly.

I don’t have to look in the mirror to know I’ve got a permanent case of dark circles under my eyes, and my skin is the palest it’s ever been. “I’m trying to get used to sleeping during the day. From everything I’ve read, it takes a few weeks to adjust. All I need to do is stick to it.”

“Are you eating?”

I frown. “I’m trying to adjust to that too.” I’m too busy training to eat much at night and too tired during the day to make up the calories. I’m lucky to get in one good meal a day.

“Try harder. Your clothes look like they might fall off you.” She frowns.

It’s true, I haven’t been this thin since I left Tony. “It’s too long,” I mumble, rubbing the ache of our mating bond that never leaves my chest. “Damien is suffering. In one week, he went from being himself in his dream to being suicidal. Who knows what she’s doing to him now? I don’t want to eat or sleep. I just want him back.”

She pulls me into a tight hug. “And the way you’re going to do that is to win a challenge against the queen. If you don’t eat and don’t sleep, you’ll be too weak to free him. I know it’s hard, but you have to keep yourself strong.”

I promise her I’ll try harder and then descend the back stairs as Cassius’s voice from the parlor carries into the attic. We start with balance and then basic sparring. I know how to throw my weight into a punch with proper form and can now move quickly while maintaining stability. I’ve done about a million sit-ups and spent more time planking over the past few weeks than I probably have my entire life. But today, when I meet him in the parlor, he thrusts a dagger into my hand.

“Good evening, Eloise. Are you ready to learn knife-fighting techniques?”

“Knives? No swords or guns?” I mean it as a joke. I don’t even feel ready for the blade in my hand.

“Guns are almost useless against vampires. And while a sword is works for a quick beheading, they’re slower and more awkward to wield, especially for a human. No offense, but any vampire worth their blood would be able to see your intent with a sword the second you pulled it from its scabbard, You’d be blocked and disemboweled mid-swing.”

I draw in a deep breath. “All right. So no swords. What do I do with this?”

I immediately flip the dagger over in my hand so that the blade faces upward. He shakes his head and frowns.

“What? I already did something wrong? I just repositioned the knife.”

He takes the dagger from me and flips it over, double-sided blade pointing down and back from where I grip the hilt. “When you’re in Night Haven, your only hope of slaying a healthy vampire is the element of surprise.”

He moves in, pressing the fingers of my fist to my thigh. This close, with him towering above me, it’s impossible not to be reminded of Damien. If I closed my eyes, I might imagine he’s here. I catch myself inhaling deeply, hoping for his scent, but Cassius’s is completely different. White pepper and Egyptian amber. I refocus on the lesson, missing Damien so much my chest aches.

“Pretend the dagger is sheathed at your thigh and I am a vampire moving in to feed. Where do you strike?”

I lift the dagger between us and press my knuckles into his turtleneck-covered torso. “The gut.”

He shakes his head. “You can’t kill a vampire that way. They’ll simply drain you dry, and your blood will heal their injury.” He grabs my hand and sweeps the blade between us until the edge presses into the inside of his thigh. “You need to open an artery. That won’t kill a vampire, but it may buy you time. There’s one here, in the thigh.” He sweeps my hand up to the side of his throat. “And here, on either side of the neck. But to kill, you need to go for the heart or the brain. Hit those and you will incapacitate your victim for several minutes. That should be long enough to cut off their head. Never assume a vampire is dead if their heart is still in their chest and their head is still attached to their body.”

I gulp. Jesus. Now I’m cutting off heads? “Okay,” I drawl, obviously not okay.

“As a blood donor, your best option is to fake romantic interest, pull them in close, and stab them in the heart.” He points to the area under his left arm. “Slide it between the ribs.”

He wraps my left hand around the back of his neck, moving in like we’re embracing. I raise the dagger from my thigh and try to press the tip between his third and fourth ribs. I miss.

“That’s too low. If I were a vampire, you’d only piss me off. You’ll have to feel your way. You won’t be able to see it, and every vampire will be a different height and weight. We’ll get there. Let’s start with the basics.”

He gives me two sheaths to strap to my thighs. Great. I now have two daggers I don’t know what to do with. But over the next hour, we go through a set of hooks, thrusts, and slashing movements. I practice over and over—right diagonal, left diagonal, as if I’m drawing an x on my opponent, and then straight down like I’m plunging the knife into their chest, dropping to my knees with my entire weight to sink and tear whatever my dagger can reach. Hooking to the head from the left, from the right, slashing on the return. Cassius becomes the world’s best practice dummy, turning into shadow the second before my blade makes contact. It’s something a vampire can’t do, and in no time, I’m sweating fiercely, struggling to maintain a balanced fighting stance while avoiding his intentionally slow counterattacks.

“Remember, you’ll have to push hard to break through the rib cage if you hit bone. As hard as you can push. The daggers I’m giving you are the sharpest you can attain in these lands and enchanted by the Lamia coven’s witch, but it will still take all your might. It’s better if you can slice between the ribs.”

“You’re giving me enchanted daggers?” I frown. “Will I need such a thing?”

“No one knows, Eloise. But even before you challenge Valeska, you must be able to defend yourself. Night Haven is a dangerous place.”

We run through various scenarios. He attacks me from the front, from behind, from the side. He grabs one wrist. Both wrists. He teaches me to kick, to break a hold. We go again and again, the clock in the corner chiming as the hours tick by. Chiming and anchoring me. I might not be exercising my magic, but as I grow tired, I can sense my connection to it, as if it’s an invisible hand, steadying me, holding me up, giving me speed, endurance.

“Good!” Cassius yells. “You’ve got it. Just like that!”

He rushes me, pretending to bite, his teeth grazing the side of my neck. I do as he trained me, pulling him closer and stabbing into his smoky flesh, between where his ribs would be. He re-forms and I slice his femoral and jugular in one sweeping pass between us, then hook into his ear. We go again and again until, despite my exertion, my skin grows icy cold.

He catches my arm. “You’re pale and… freezing.”

Spots swim in my eyes. “I’ve overused my magic.”

He helps me into the chair near the fire and to sheathe my blades. “I didn’t think we were using magic. Is that how you improved so quickly?”

My head is pounding, and I lean it against the back of the chair, closing my eyes. “It just sort of happened.”

“Well then, time for a break.” He grabs my water bottle off the mantel, his eyes falling on the ventilation grate that’s still waiting for me to get the ladder from the garage and reinstall it.

He hands me the bottle and then digs a protein bar out of his bag and tucks it into my hand. “Eat something.”

I nod but can’t get the wrapper open. I’m too weak.

He grimaces and opens it for me.

I take a bite.

“Would you like me to put that back up for you?” he asks, pointing toward the grill.

I take a deep drink of water. “If it’s not too much trouble. There’s a ladder in the garage. I just don’t trust myself not to bang up the walls with it.”

“No need.” He grabs the grate and screws, breaking apart into shadow. Black tendrils twist and lift, repositioning the grate on the wall and screwing it in. I stare at it, again wondering why the spell I needed came to me that night after we’d visited Bad Witches’ Club but the spell to switch my anchor hasn’t come when I’ve called for it over and over again the past few weeks. Maybe it doesn’t exist.

“Thank you,” I say when he re-forms next to his black bag.

He holds up a thermos. “Please excuse me. I have not fed, and I’m delighted to say you were more of a challenge tonight than I was expecting.”

“Knock yourself out. I think I’m done for the night. Just making it upstairs to bed is going to be a challenge.”

“Rest. Hydrate. If we need to, we’ll call it an early night.” He drinks, staining his lips red with the contents of the thermos. Blood. I concentrate on my water.

“Can I ask you something personal?” I’m suddenly keen to distract myself from the pain in my head and the sight of blood on his lips.

“Of course. I’d like to think we’re friends. That seems like something friends would entertain.” He gives me one of his bright white smiles.

“We’re definitely friends. I really appreciate you helping me. I was just wondering why the turtlenecks?”

“Turtlenecks?” He glances down at himself, then at me.

“I’ve never seen you wear anything else,” I point out. “And I got the impression from Damien that your clothing can look any way you please.”

He nods, confirming it. “Saves time,” he says softly. “And hides this.” He pulls the neck of the sweater down to reveal a jagged, raised scar that travels from above the hollow of his throat toward his left collarbone.

I inhale sharply at the ghastly sight. “That looks brutal. But… couldn’t you hide the scar the same way you transform from shade to human form? Damien made it seem like you can look how you wish to look.”

He scratches the back of his head. “Damien oversimplified. I suspect he didn’t want to overwhelm you with the details of our transmutation. Scars this deep are difficult to hide. I can mask it, but only at a high cost of power that would leave me at a disadvantage in a fight. The same with why we prefer to wear clothing rather than create it as part of our illusion.”

I lift an eyebrow. “So Morpheus’s scar, the one on his face, it’s real?”

He smiles softly. “It is. We earned them at the same time. It was Damien who saved us from the worst of it though. Saved our lives.”

“How so?”

He takes a seat on the sofa. “Would you like to hear the story?”

I nod and take another bite of the protein bar. It’s chalky but better than nothing.

“Hundreds of years ago, before the three of us were drawn here through the rift, there was a war over the forested territory between the kingdom of Stygarde—the kingdom of the shades—and the kingdom of Willowgulch, where the dark elves rule. Damien’s father Malek was captured a year into the war, leaving Damien as the oldest son to rule at the side of his mother, Nyxadora, the queen. As prince regent in his father’s absence, he served as supreme military commander of Stygarde’s army of warriors, the umbrae.”

“Were you and Morpheus soldiers in that army?”

He grunts like he finds the word soldier distasteful. “Not a soldier, an umbrae warrior.” He taps his chin. “You might consider us similar to samurai in your world, or perhaps Navy SEALs. Each one of us was highly trained, deadly, and powerful, and while we would follow orders as a team, we often accomplished missions independently. One umbrae was as good as an entire legion of soldiers.”

“Sorry if I offended you.”

“No offense taken. How could you have known?” He sips again from his thermos, his lips coming away red. “Damien devised a system of patrolling the grounds and had made a deal with the witches of Dimhollow to provide Stygarde with wards as well. We’d successfully thwarted every attack on our lands since the king was taken, but Damien refused to give up on getting him back.

“Damien, Morpheus, and I had been friends since our school days and advanced through the ranks together. My mother was a wealthy landowner, and Morpheus’s father was Lord of Aendor, the coastal territory of Stygarde and commander of a fleet of ships that was the source of all goods delivered by sea. As such, we’d been aware of each other practically since birth and had aligned ourselves from our first royal ball. He knew he could trust us in a way he couldn’t trust his siblings.”

“Why couldn’t he trust his siblings?” I remember Damien mentioning them but not any animosity between them.

“His sister, Karyl, was still a child at the time, and his younger brother, Brahm, was prone to drinking and debauchery. Damien could never get his mother to consider it, but there were rumors that Brahm was the leak responsible for their father’s abduction. A tavern owner told Damien he saw Brahm, so drunk he’d wet himself, whispering with a Rivertoad the night before it happened.” I must look sufficiently confused because he explains. “Rivertoads are wanderers. They have no land of their own but live in encampments along the river that borders the mountains. They’re not bad people but are as poor as they come. It would be a cruel temptation to give one information so valuable as the location of the king.”

He pauses to take another deep drink. “Anyway, he trusted us and so he asked us to help him get his father back. Against every law of the kingdom at the time, we used the shadows, at great personal risk, to find where the elves were holding Malek, a heavily fortified prison called Dhegal Castle. We only made it through their wards at all because Damien had a friend among the witches who agreed to help us. The following night, the three of us staged a rescue. The castle was guarded by elf mages who wielded light magic. They wielded it like swords.”

“Lightsabers,” I whisper breathlessly.

His eyes crease at the corners. “Not quite as elegant, thank the gods. The plan was to enter from the roof. Elves can’t fly, and we’d seen only two guards up there on our reconnaissance missions. We formed from shadow during the darkest night, slit the guard’s throats, and descended a spiral staircase to the castle proper. But the elves had a failsafe. At the bottom of the staircase, we found ourselves having to traverse a light-filled passageway. Not only were we rendered mortal, but the magic triggered the arrival of more guards.

“It would have been natural for Damien, as the acting king, to send me and Morpheus forward into battle first. But he never held himself above us or any of the umbrae. He charged into the guards, sword swinging. He’d decapitate one elf only to use its body as a shield against another. Morpheus and I defended his flanks, but we’d never been as skilled with a sword as he was. Morpheus took a hit to the face with a sun-poisoned blade. I took one here.” He gestures over the scar at his throat. “When we finally reached the end of the corridor and Damien slew the mage responsible for the light, we all broke into shadow and found Malek. Morpheus slew the mage powering his father’s cell, but when Damien entered, his father protested, begged his son for mercy, to kill him. He’d been imprisoned there for a year, starved and tortured. Damien carried him out of there. Both Morpheus and I were still bleeding, but we helped him get Malek to the roof and shadoweave home. Our wounds healed quickly, although the light made them scar. His father’s ran deeper. He did recover, but Damien effectively ruled the kingdom until the day we were captured and brought here.”

Nothing surprises me about the story. Not that Damien risked his life for his father nor that he refused to use his title to protect himself. I’m not surprised by his competency as a warrior either. But I frown at the fireplace, suddenly swollen with fury.

“I’ve upset you,” Cassius says.

I look at him and shake my head. “It’s been over a month since Valeska took Damien. What lengths must she be taking to hold him there?”

His expression turns grave. “If he were dead, we’d know. You’d feel it along your mating bond and I along the shadows.”

“But if he’s not dead?”

We both stare at each other. Neither of us needs to say it, but I know by the look in his eyes that it’s true. By the time I make it to Night Haven, it’s very possible that Damien will be as broken as his father was.