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FOUR

Sorsha

When I got tired enough that I figured I should try to get some rest, I turned off the electric lantern. I jolted awake sometime later to a room that was as pitch black as my first experience of it. But before Omen even spoke, I could tell from some shift in the air and the prickle of his scorching aura over my skin that I wasn’t alone. Probably his arrival was what had jarred my nerves.

“You managed to sleep,” he said. The lantern flared on to illuminate his well-built form.

I shoved back the sheet and sat up, rubbing the bleariness from my eyes. I hadn’t slept for half as long as it felt as if my body had needed. “It is a physical necessity for some of us.”

Not that I really wanted him thinking about my mortal side. It might be my shadowkind powers that were causing the biggest issue, but I’d bet he’d be much more inclined to believe that I could control those if it weren’t for the weaknesses that came with the human part of me. Although I’d still argue that I didn’t have half as many weaknesses as he liked to claim.

His lips had curled with a familiar hint of disdain, but his pale eyes looked only solemn. My pulse hitched. Had he made up his mind about my fate? If so, I didn’t think I was going to like the outcome.

The words spilled out of their own accord. “We’ve come a long way from when we first met, haven’t we? I know you’re more than an ice-cold bastard. You know I can handle anything you throw at me. We pulled off some pretty amazing missions when we put our heads together.”

He raised his hand to stop me before I could keep babbling. His expression hadn’t turned any less somber. I closed my eyes, groping for any shred of inner calm I could find. Whatever happened, I was not going to die flailing in panic. I had a smidge more dignity than that.

One last mangled ‘80s song to do Luna proud and offer a final plea? “Hate from the start,” I sang at a murmur. “Tell me we can take it all apart…”

“Sorsha.” His voice sounded strained. “I don’t like that I’ve had to do any of this.”

I could believe that. But he was going to do it anyway. Because why wouldn’t he? How could I possibly be worth more to him than finally getting his freedom back after eons under the thumb of these pompous ancients? I was sick of them already, and I hadn’t even met them yet.

Delay. Delay, and there was a chance, however miniscule, that I’d figure out another option.

“Can we talk a little more? I can go through some of my strongest memories of Luna in case there’s anything she did glamour over, and?—”

Omen jerked around abruptly, as if he’d heard a noise beyond the door that I hadn’t. His posture tensed. He moved like he was about to spring into the shadows around that door—but at the same moment, an even larger and more muscular figure materialized beside him.

Thorn’s brawny bulk made the room feel twice as small, but I’d never been more relieved to see anyone in my life. I’d have leapt to him with a kiss designed to get across every particle of that gratitude if it hadn’t been for the damned chain fixing me to the cot.

The wingéd warrior took in my pose and the cuff around my wrist, his expression darkening with horror. He swiveled to face Omen. “What is the matter with you? You’ve chained her up like an animal!”

“The split-second before you noticed that, weren’t you simply pleased I’ve left her alive?” Omen retorted, his tone now dry. “You know how difficult it is to keep this one anyplace she doesn’t want to be.”

“You shouldn’t have dragged her off to begin with. She isn’t going to destroy the realms, and we’re not handing her over to the Highest.”

The warrior stepped toward me, but Omen sprang in front of him, holding up his hands. “Hold on. It’s not as simple as that.”

“Of course it is,” Thorn bellowed, the reverb of his shadowkind voice creeping into his words. I caught a dark flicker around his shoulders as if his wings had threatened to burst into sight. “Sorsha is the most compassionate being I’ve ever known—she’d never harm anyone who hadn’t brought it on themselves. She’s shown multitudes more dedication to us and our cause than any of our shadowkind brethren.”

The hellhound shifter arched his eyebrows. “You have to admit you might be a tad biased when it comes to assessing her worthiness. You’re not exactly an impartial party after how closely you’ve been getting to know her.”

“Whatever desire I’ve felt hasn’t clouded my mind. She’s proven herself time and time again. Get out of my way, hound.”

He loomed on Omen threateningly, a good half a foot taller and nearly twice as broad. The hard crystalline ridges that covered his knuckles glinted in the thin light.

My pulse skipped a beat. I’d never heard the wingéd speak to his boss like that before—hell, I’d never heard him talk to Omen with anything less than total respect and deference. The fact that he’d gotten this riled up on my behalf sent a flutter of affection through me, but also a jab of fear.

I’d had multiple occasions to witness Thorn’s preferred strategy when people he cared about were threatened. It tended to involve heads wrenched from necks and guts spilling on floors. I would’ve thought he cared enough about Omen as a colleague that it would at least mostly balance out his determination to help me, but maybe I’d underestimated his devotion. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

Omen’s natural shadowkind coloring, a dark gray tint lined with glowing magma-line rivulets, broke out over his skin. His hellhound claws formed at the tips of his still—for now—humanoid fingers. He let out a snarl that told me his fangs had come forth too.

“Back down, old friend,” he snapped. “This is my responsibility, my call, and I will not let you rush or override my decision.”

It kind of sounded like he might not have come to a definite decision yet after all. Maybe he would have taken me up on the suggestion to talk more. Maybe he’d only stopped by to ask how I wanted my morning coffee, and I’d started shooting my mouth off before he had the chance.

A hasty remark or two getting me into trouble? It wouldn’t be the first time for that either.

Thorn’s loyalty was too ingrained for him to push this stand-off straight to a battle without at least trying to reason with the other shadowkind. “What does it matter what the Highest say? They know nothing of who Sorsha is, and we owe them nothing. Only the four of us are aware of what we discovered about her, and Snap and Ruse would never think of sharing that information. If they did, they’d be dealing with a wingéd’s rage.” The muscles in his arms flexed to impressive effect.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Omen growled, and it struck me how true that was. Thorn clearly had no idea how much Omen did owe the Highest or the dire consequences he’d face if he failed to carry out their orders. No wonder the warrior was so furious. He assumed the hellhound shifter had carted me off on the basis of a little hearsay.

Omen didn’t appear to be inclined to fill the warrior in on his situation, though. “I’ll tell you again,” he added through gritted teeth. “Stand down .”

I felt the inexplicable need to speak up on my captor’s behalf. “Thorn, Omen has to?—”

The hellhound shifter wheeled on me, a blaze lighting in his eyes. “Shut up, or I’ll sock the mouth right off of you.”

“Don’t you lay another hand on her,” Thorn roared, and shoved Omen away from me. He reached to smash the chain, but Omen spun around and lunged at the warrior.

Hellhound claws seared slashes through Thorn’s shoulder. The smoke that shadowkind contained instead of blood billowed up from the wound.

Thorn threw a punch I suspected would have been solid enough to send Omen crashing straight through the door, but the shifter dodged the worst of it, taking only a gash as the warrior’s knuckles grazed the side of his arm. He transformed into the massive beast of his hellhound form before my eyes. With a howl, he bounded off one of the walls and crashed into Thorn, his fangs gnashing and his underworldly glow hazing the room with an orange tint.

The warrior stumbled but pummeled Omen in the face at the same time. More smoke flooded the small space from so many more new wounds. It clogged in my throat and stung my eyes.

I scrambled back on the bed just before the fight brought Thorn slamming into the side of the cot. My lungs had constricted. “Stop it!” I hollered at them. “Just take a breath and talk about it.”

My appeal went unheeded. The way the two powerful shadowkind were going at each other, I wasn’t sure if Thorn would even hear me if I revealed Omen’s secret—if it would have made a difference at this point anyway.

At this rate, they were going to kill each other. Over me. I valued my life pretty highly, but no part of me wanted to see either of my monstrous lovers end their existence while vying to decide my fate. How much destruction was I going to cause right here without even using my supernatural sparks?

Just thinking that in the midst of the chaos brought a stinging surge of my flames licking up over my chest. As I smacked at them, willing down the fire, Thorn hurled the hellhound against the wall. One of Omen’s paws hit the rough stone with a crunch that turned my stomach, but he flung himself back at the warrior with his fangs flashing.

More heat churned up from the bonfire inside me. This wasn’t how I wanted this catastrophe to end. I was responsible—for myself, for what my powers might do, and for what I allowed to happen here if I stood silent and let these two men tear each other apart.

I’d accomplished a lot of supposedly impossible things in the past month. Maybe it was time to try one more if that meant I didn’t have to watch anyone else die in an attempt to protect me.

“Stop!” I shouted, louder than before, and hopped onto my feet. I stood as tall as I could manage given the length of the chain and waved my free arm frantically. “ Stop! I’ll go. I’ll go to the Highest.”

The two shadowkind careened past me in their fight without giving any sign of acknowledgment, so I did what might have been the most foolhardy act of my life so far—which if you’ve been following along, you’ll know is saying a lot. I hurled myself right into the middle of that smoky clash of fists and claws.

Of course, thanks to my close friend Chain, I only made it a couple of feet from the bed, but that was enough to propel my arm between the two fighters.

Thorn heaved himself backward with a startled grunt and wild eyes. Omen, for all he’d threatened to rearrange my face a few minutes ago, recoiled in the opposite direction with just as much force. They both stared at me, Omen panting as he shifted back into human form, Thorn checking me over for damage as if he wasn’t standing there pouring his life essence into the room.

“I’ll go to the Highest,” I said again, now that I was sure I had their attention. The words caught in my throat, but I forced myself to keep going anyway. “You don’t need to fight about it or make any decisions. I’m deciding. They want me, so I’ll go.”

Thorn’s tan face grayed. “M’lady—they mean to destroy you.”

“I know.” I swallowed thickly. “But they haven’t met me yet. I’ve stolen a lot of things in my life—possibly I can manage to steal a little goodwill too.”

When I shifted my gaze to Omen, he looked equally stunned. The fire had gone out of his eyes, and the blue that remained looked more pained than icy. “What are you playing at, Disaster?” he said, but without any of his typical rancor. He sounded almost worried .

About my sanity, possibly. I was questioning that too. But I’d made my decision, and I wasn’t going to go all wishy-washy now.

“You can tell the Highest where I am and fulfill their orders,” I said. “I’m just asking that you also tell them how much good I’ve done trying to help the shadowkind and how much I want the chance to keep doing that. Tell them I’ve been trying to stop the extermination of your kind, and the last thing I want to do is devastate the realms myself. See if there’s any way they’d consider making some kind of deal with me rather than going straight to murder. Please.”

He blinked, his expression still frozen in its state of shock.

“Sorsha,” Thorn rumbled. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do. Because I like the alternatives even less.”

Omen drew himself up straighter abruptly. I didn’t know how to read the brooding look he gave me. Then he motioned to the warrior with a jerk of his hand.

“You heard her. She doesn’t want to be rescued. Let’s go, before you insist on doing it anyway. You can weigh in on where I take things from here—outside, in the fresh air, like comrades.”

Thorn shot me an imploring glance that wrenched at my heart. I nodded encouragingly. “It’ll be okay,” I said, with no idea at all how that could turn out to be true. “Go with him and give him some pointers on how to present my better qualities in a good light.”

The warrior grimaced, but at another beckoning gesture from Omen, his bulky form vanished into the shadows. As Omen dove after him without a backward glance, it occurred to me with a lurch of my gut that this might be the last time I’d ever see them before I faced the direst possible fate I’d ever imagined I might meet.