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FIVE

Omen

I nudged Thorn down the dark passage beyond the door of my canyon safe house, out to the narrow ledge of yellow-brown rock where the morning sun shone. He went without protest but with tension still ringing through his presence.

We could have talked in the shadows, but the blurred awareness of the outer world made my thoughts feel muddled. And they’d been muddled enough already after Sorsha had made her offer and her plea just now.

I waited at the mouth of the passage long enough for the cool shade to knit the wounds from our fight to the point that I wasn’t worried about how much smoky essence I was leaking, and then I emerged into the sunlight.

Thorn followed me into physical form but stayed in the passage. There wasn’t really room for him to join me on the ledge, considering it only jutted about a foot from the entrance and a few feet across. Getting to and from this place while carrying Sorsha had required a precarious scramble down the uneven rock face above, which held nothing wide enough to be considered an actual path. No human could have made it here alone without a host of rock-climbing gear.

We were about halfway down the canyon wall. Rocky cliffs stretched out all around us, towering over a valley flecked with green vegetation on either side of its shimmering river. The wind whistled through the crags, dry and fresh with no hint of human occupation.

The grandeur of the landscape before me might have been the closest any place in the mortal world came to matching the sublime if oppressive enormity of the Highest and their vast hollow in the shadow realm. Looking out over it in the flood of warm light from above, it was hard to imagine that Sorsha had volunteered to trade her existence here for the complete and infinite darkness of the death the Highest wished on her. Even harder to imagine that only minutes ago, I’d been wavering on the edge of consigning her to that darkness.

And the first point was exactly why I was now feeling so unsettled about the second.

Thorn had wrapped a strip of cloth around the worst of the slashes my claws had dealt. With another uncomfortable pang, I watched him secure it. I hadn’t enjoyed fighting him any more than I’d enjoyed the idea of subjecting Sorsha to the Highest’s potentially irrational brutality.

“You can’t listen to her,” he said, fixing the full depth of his dark eyes on me. “She was only trying to stop us from hurting each other. She doesn’t want to die. And you know the Highest won’t be moved by any overtures on her behalf. If they’d been willing to believe she might not be such a terrible threat, the twenty-five years in which she failed to incinerate the world while they searched for her should have made them rethink their position.”

“Agreed.” He hadn’t even heard how the Highest spoke about her. I had no doubts at all about how quickly they’d dismiss any appeals I made.

Had Sorsha wanted to save both of us from each other, or only to protect Thorn in case I savaged him beyond repair? I hadn’t been aiming for that, had only wanted to force him to surrender, but in the heat of battle, one’s intentions didn’t always carry through. She could have taken the gamble, hoping that he’d best me, free her, and convey her to safety…

But whatever chance she’d seen of escape, she’d decided it was worth less than the chance of losing Thorn. Possibly even of losing me to his blows, though darkness only knew why she’d care about that after the way I’d treated her over the past two days.

The past two days? That was the least of it. What about the past month ?

I’d cut her only the tiny portion of slack my unexpected respect for her had demanded, and I’d reproached myself for every bit of that, thinking it was emotional weakness. But perhaps she’d been right that day when my frustration had boiled over into passion—when she’d told me there was more strength in owning one’s emotions than burying them.

Over and over, I’d told myself that I shouldn’t allow myself to be impressed by her or desire her. That no matter what I saw, her mortal frailty would come through and screw us over when it mattered most. And here I was with her words still ringing in my ears, hearing her take a greater stand and making a greater sacrifice than I’d ever been willing to do with all the amends I’d tried to make to my kind.

Who the hell was I to judge a woman willing to lay down her life to spare our pain?

Yes, she’d risked her life plenty of times in her capers to free captive shadowkind and during our missions. Somehow I’d managed to dismiss all that as adventure-seeking rather than generosity. But there was no adventure to be had in lying down at the mercy of the most inhumane—and inhuman—of all shadowkind. That was pure, selfless sacrifice.

I couldn’t shake the sense that at least some small part of it was for my benefit. I might be adept at pretending away my own emotions, but I couldn’t deny the compassion I’d seen cross her eyes when I’d spoken of my ties to the Highest and the consequences that would come from defying them.

Did I really think a woman with that much valor and forgiveness in her would allow herself to cause some global act of destruction? By the looks of things, she’d sooner throw herself on my claws than let herself spiral anywhere near that far out of control.

“Omen,” Thorn started again, but I stopped him with a gesture.

“Stop fretting. I’m not turning her over to the Highest.”

He paused, his stern face so befuddled in that moment it was almost amusing. “But she— You were adamant— What in the worlds were we fighting over if you had no intention?—”

“I did intend,” I said tersely. “Then she proved how far she’ll go just to spare the two of us from pain. It’s a little hard to continue believing she could possibly exterminate us all after that, don’t you think?”

Thorn scowled. “I don’t fully understand why she made that offer either. I would have subdued you and freed her, given enough time…” He glowered at me as if daring me to argue about his combat prowess.

I patted one of his massive arms. “Don’t be a grouch about it. You’re getting the outcome you wanted, and it didn’t even require any near-fatal wounds—for either of us, which I’m especially glad of.”

“She should have seen I wouldn’t have come all this way or forced the issue with you if her survival hadn’t been more important than a few battle wounds.”

The furrows on the wingéd’s forehead deepened. No doubt he still couldn’t understand why I’d considered turning Sorsha over in the first place. What could he attribute it to other than the frequent clashes between us? I might have made demands of her that, I’d admit, looked petty in retrospect, but I’d never been anywhere near that vindictive toward her—or anyone, in ages.

But explaining my reasoning would mean revealing the leash I’d allowed the Highest to fix around my neck, the way I’d abased myself to save my life, and the thought of doing that sent a far deeper jab of revulsion through me than the possibility that the wingéd might see me as overly callous. It’d been hard enough admitting it to Sorsha. Thorn would have a far clearer understanding of just what my deal had required of me.

Thorn wasn’t the type to dwell on minor conflicts anyway, not when he’d had such a huge transgression of his own weighing on him for so long. After a moment, he shook his head. “You’re right. If we’re agreed to protect her from the Highest’s plans, that’s all that matters. Then we’d better go?—”

The peal of my phone interrupted him. Maybe remembering what had gone down the last time that ringtone had split the air, Thorn cut himself off into an uneasy silence.

I hadn’t been expecting a call… just like I hadn’t been last time. Tempest didn’t enjoy being ignored. As I pulled the phone out of my pocket, I braced myself, anticipating the blank screen and all that would follow.

The thought of hearing her needling voice carrying from the speaker again made me want to hurl the phone into the depths of the canyon. But I knew better than anyone that my former co-conspirator wasn’t a problem you could expect to just go away. Even when a horde of immensely powerful beings went to extreme lengths to ensure she was battered out of existence, somehow she was still here, playing out another of her gleefully malicious schemes.

I hit the answer button and held the phone a good foot away from me, remembering how loudly she’d projected her remarks through it two days ago. “For someone who hid her existence from me for the better part of six centuries, you seem awfully eager to chat all of a sudden, Tempest.”

Her voice slithered out in a languid tone I knew better than to believe. “I simply wanted to confirm you hadn’t met some sudden calamity after we last spoke. Have you become a much slower traveler in your old age?”

“I haven’t started traveling yet,” I said. “Funny thing—when you drop out of the blue into someone’s life, they often have prior affairs they need to take care of first.”

“And here I thought meddling with the Company of Light was your largest concern at the moment. I have all the answers you need on that subject.”

“Yes, well, for all your sphinxly wisdom, you never did manage to know everything. How many guesses did it take you to get my phone number right, hmm?”

She would have managed to hit on the right one with a guess—plucking the correct answer to anything remotely like a riddle out of thin air was as much a talent of hers as coming up with riddles designed to confound was. It wasn’t an exact science, though. I’d be willing to stake my tail that she’d gotten at least ten wrong numbers before she’d heard my voice on the other end of the line.

That suspicion was born out by the irritation that crept into her tone while she dodged that question. “You sound displeased with me. No rejoicing at the chance for us to join forces again? Have you forgotten what a good run of it we had long ago?”

I hadn’t at all, and that was the problem. The question sent a slimy sensation down my spine as if she’d trailed decaying seaweed over my back. Sorsha might call me a bastard now, but what a bastard I’d truly been back then—not ice-cold but searingly sadistic, as selfish when it came to indulging my disdain for mortals as that mortal woman had proven herself the opposite moments ago.

And Tempest had gleefully egged on that side of me. She’d stoked my flames and my contempt, and nothing had made her applaud louder than seeing our mortal targets twisted into agony. If she’d been around when the hunters had burst in on the innocent creatures I’d inadvertently led them to, she’d have laughed at their mistake and found some way to amplify it without a second’s regret for the deaths of the lesser beasts.

And maybe I’d have done the same if she’d still been standing with me in all her sly, vicious glory.

But I was better than that now, even if she didn’t understand. I was better than that… and was there perhaps a better way through this mess than had occurred to me before?

Tempest might hold a different sort of answer. She might even delight in providing it, if I played the game right. I had known her awfully well, and she didn’t appear to have changed much.

“It has been a long time,” I said, bringing out all the inner cool I’d worked so hard to cultivate. “But of course I haven’t forgotten. I know exactly where I’ll find you when I have the chance to make my way in your direction. Since you’re so enthusiastic for that reunion, I’ll see if I can’t make it there in a day or so.”

“If you’re going to dillydally about it, be prepared that you might find yourself stranded on your lonesome for a good while before I get around to stopping by,” Tempest retorted, but I doubted she’d leave me hanging all that long. If nothing else, she had to be dying to brag about this bizarre, immense scheme of hers to someone with the discernment to fully appreciate it.

I smiled thinly. “I’ll see you sooner or later, then.”

Before she could respond, I hung up. Let her stew over that rather than think she had me wrapped around her finger.

I turned to Thorn. “We’re taking a little trip. It’ll be useful to have back-up. Assemble whichever of our allies is inclined to stick with us and meet me in Barstow with the RV—that should make a suitable halfway point. I’ll see to Sorsha.”

Thorn frowned as if he wasn’t entirely sure he should trust me with that responsibility. “We’re continuing our campaign against the Company as before?”

“Not exactly as before. I need to determine what precisely Tempest is using those mortals for. But you can be sure I intend to see the lot of them crushed—and for our mortal to be right there alongside us making that happen. Now get on with it. Or are you still in an insubordinate mood?”

Thorn’s jaw tightened at the memory of just how far he’d pushed against my orders less than a half hour ago. His gaze lingered for a moment on the few wounds his fists had dealt that were still seeping trickles of smoke, and then he dipped his head in acknowledgment.

As he stepped into the shadows, I drew in a heavy breath and headed back down the passage to confront my most recent crimes.

When I slipped through the shadows around the door, I found Sorsha sitting in the same spot on the bed, tensed as if she expected the next being to emerge in the room to be arriving to lead her to her death—or perhaps to kill her on the spot. A reasonable enough assumption, considering what I’d put her through.

At the sight of me, her stance went even more rigid, but a familiar determination lit in her eyes. While she’d agreed to willingly surrender herself to the Highest, she hadn’t surrendered her spirit. If I’d been coming to haul her off, no doubt she’d have gone with plenty of choice remarks.

The worst shame of it was how much her defiance made me want her—and how much her surrender had crumbled my defenses against admitting that. Even with her hair rumpled and her clothes wrinkled, her face drawn from lack of sleep, she was breathtaking.

And that damned joke about the chain had wormed its way inside my head. For a moment, I couldn’t help picturing chaining both her wrists to the bedframe and then working over her body so thoroughly she’d lose both her own breath and all those snarky remarks, until we both reached an even more ecstatic release than the last time.

I wasn’t going to kid myself that she’d be quite so forgiving as to go for that proposition, though. And we did have a maniacal, nearly immortal evil genius of a shadowkind to contend with on top of all the problems we’d been up against before.

I stalked over and unlocked the cuff at Sorsha’s wrist, doing my best to tune out the heat that coursed over my body when I stood so near her.

She swallowed audibly. “How are we doing this? Are you taking me to a rift?”

“No. I have a better idea. One that, if it works, will ensure the Highest never think about having their minions brutalize you again.”

She blinked at me. “What? I thought you figured they might be right to want me dead.”

“I changed my mind. Even shadowkind are allowed to do that, you know.”

“But— why ?”

I grasped her forearm, careful to avoid the reddened marks where the cuff had rubbed her wrist, and tugged her onto her feet. “Don’t look a gift hound in the mouth, Disaster.” And then, because the nickname had brought a tightness of regret into my throat as it’d rolled off my tongue, “You wouldn’t have told me to hand you over if protecting shadowkind didn’t matter more to you than your own existence. That’s enough for me. It just won’t be enough for the Highest.”

Sorsha stretched, limbering up now that she had her full range of movement. Her gaze stayed wary. “And what do you think will be enough?”

I smiled again, even narrower than before. “We’re going to set it up so it appears you’ve destroyed someone who’s foiled them far more than ‘Ruby’ ever did. Tempest might even agree to help us with the ploy for the extra chaos it’ll cause. If you accomplish more on their behalf than even their most loyal subjects ever did before, how can they possibly accuse you of meaning them harm?”

At least, I hoped that was the case. And if it wasn’t, well, then I’d have a battle with their minions on my hands. If Sorsha died at the Highest’s command, it’d only be over my dead body as well.