Page 16 of Shadow (Marinah and the Apocalypse #1)

King

S he was human, I reminded myself. Not weak, just human.

“Stay with me,” I muttered under my breath as I carried her back to my room.

Her hair brushed against my face, and I couldn’t ignore her scent. It drew me in, and I knew this wasn’t a good thing.

“Please put me down,” she said softly when we were halfway to our destination.

I stopped and lowered her legs slowly, tilting her upright. She stumbled slightly, her hands reaching for the wall to steady herself. Hanging her head, she took a few shuddering breaths. Moments later, she bent over, her palms on her knees, drawing in deep, gulping breaths of air.

I stayed silent, giving her time to regain control.

“It was a panic attack,” she finally said, a little steadier now. “I get them occasionally.”

She straightened, closed her eyes briefly, and exhaled deeply. “You have given me a lot to think about. Please, take me to my room so I can sort it out.”

Sweat beaded on her temple, causing a few strands of hair to stick to her pale, damp skin. Skin that looked impossibly soft. I shoved the thought aside.

“This way,” I said, pointing to the right before walking ahead of her, deliberately putting some distance between us.

The sound of her sluggish footsteps trailed behind me. Beast remained oddly quiet, which was a surprise. When I picked her up, he didn’t stir. Not even a whisper.

I was the one who struggled. Seeing her in distress, having her so close. It got to me.

But she was human and worked for the Federation. I could never allow myself to forget that.

I owed her father, but I did not owe her government. That was where the problem lay. Right then, I couldn’t trust her to leave with the hellhound information. Not yet. We still didn’t know what the Federation knew, and that uncertainty was dangerous. We were waiting for confirmation of what we believed, and it could come at any time. Until we had the truth, she wasn’t going anywhere.

Greystone had kept a journal, and through it, we pieced together fragments of the conversations Secretary of Defense Church had with him. It shouldn’t matter, but it did. The Federation needed to come clean and share everything they knew about the hellhounds.

If we had worked together from the beginning, we might have developed a more effective way to destroy them. Something better than the gruesome task of severing individual heads.

From what we studied, we believed the first wave of hounds was made up of those who had died within the past fifty years. The next wave could possibly hold those who were older.

The question was: Would they be stronger? Weaker? Smarter? We didn’t know.

What we did know was that these creatures were intelligent on some level. They tested their restraints methodically, and once they determined escape wasn’t possible, they stopped trying. They waited. That kind of patience wasn’t lost on any of us.

What we didn’t know was whether they could communicate with each other. We had been running experiments to prove or disprove this theory, but so far, we had made no progress.

When they first attacked, they came in wave after wave. That was why we suspected they might have some form of communication. If they could communicate, we’d figure out how, and we’d use it to our advantage.

I wasn’t entirely honest with Marinah about what we had discovered. From documentation my Warriors had recovered in the U.S., it was clear that the old government had known what was happening long before the first electromagnetic waves hit.

We also believed the Federation had its own collection of experimental monsters. She hadn’t known. Her response had been too real.

And as far as the two U.S. governments, old and new, were concerned, there wasn’t much difference between them.

I needed to ask Marinah a hundred questions, but I wasn’t sure she would answer them. Worse, I was afraid she wouldn’t know the answers at all.

What we did know was this: When hellhounds died, their bodies, or the dust left behind, contaminated the ground. Human bodies in the affected area, if not properly destroyed, reanimated. We almost always took our Warrior dead with us, but humans buried theirs in mass graves. On top of that, graveyards where hellhounds originated came from the newer sections. The older sections were waiting, and this new round of monsters was coming from them. We’d found proof here on the island. The formaldehyde leaked from newer coffins, spreading into the surrounding burial plots.

The next wave would be worse. We thought they were evolving and knew they would be far more dangerous. Marinah believed the next round of hellhounds was coming. What she didn’t realize was they were already here on the island, watching us, calculating our weaknesses.

Waiting.

It wasn’t like this in the beginning. If it had been, we would be dead.

I left her at her door with her guards. Her eyes told me she didn’t want to be alone, but I couldn’t stay. Catching her in a lie at this moment would have been very dangerous.

I headed to the training yard outside. My body’s reaction to her was unsettling, and I didn’t like it. I needed an outlet.

The clash of metal greeted me as soon as I pushed through the large doors leading to the inner courtyard. The familiar sounds helped me settle.

Greystone had trained hard from the time we were young Shadow Warriors. He never let up. I remembered running fifty miles, my legs threatening to give out, only for him to ambush me with a knife after I was completely spent.

He had a talent for setting traps and establishing ambushes. Even knowing an attack was coming, predicting when it would strike was impossible.

I missed him.

The Warriors I watched right now were a testament to Greystone’s preparation. He had somehow known something was coming and knew we would be fighting for our lives again. The young men he trained remained unmated and ready for war.

He also knew a gentler, kinder, farming Shadow Warrior wouldn’t survive in the world we would soon face. Before he died, he told me it wasn’t wisdom or brilliance that led him to his conclusion. It was pure survival instinct.

And Greystone was right.

“Whether on our home planet or Earth, history repeats itself. People convince themselves it won’t, but it always does. It takes down every society across the great galaxies,” he often preached.

He’d studied the failures of our home planet through the historical texts, and he saw the parallels with Earth’s trajectory. When the two histories were compared as a whole, the patterns were unmistakable.

I would have given anything to have Greystone at the helm again. He was both the best and worst of us, somehow finding a way to balance the two.

I had failed at that, but Greystone believed that history inevitably repeated itself, and I aimed to prove him respectfully wrong.

But hatred for humans burned inside me, smoldering just beneath the surface. Maybe that was why Marinah challenged Beast so much. My control wasn’t as solid as I thought. Around her, it unraveled faster than I could rein it in. She made me feel unsettled. I didn’t understand why, nor did I like the feeling.

Grabbing one of the broadswords from the rack, I charged onto the training field.

Beck noticed me, said something to his sparring partner, and strode my way. I lifted my sword in silent challenge, and the fight began.

Sword fighting hadn’t come naturally to us at first. But after discovering that severing a hellhound’s head was the fastest way to neutralize the threat, we adapted. Training with broadswords became essential.

Our claws could do the job too, but fighting so close meant a greater risk of taking a bite or scratch. High-powered guns could work if you blasted the entire head off, but as the war dragged on, ammunition shortages became a constant problem.

Most humans lacked the physical strength to wield the weapons we used effectively. Severing a hellhound’s head in one blow was nearly impossible for them. Marinah’s father, however, was an exception.

He couldn’t do it in a single strike, but he was fast, faster than most. His blows were always precise, and it was enough to end the threat.

In our warrior forms, we were proficient with large firepower if the trigger guards were modified for our claws. But even with firearms at our disposal, swords remained our first line of defense. Guns came second. And when all else failed, we relied on claws and teeth.

The biggest challenge, however, was the sheer number of hellhounds we faced. This second war would be far worse than the first. We knew it.

There were over fifty billion humans buried on Earth, and the genetically modified formaldehyde didn’t limit itself to embalmed bodies. Our tests showed that the compound permeated the ground, searching for the dead. Older cemeteries, even those predating the new formaldehyde, showed higher concentrations of the chemical, which proved its far reach.

We had started digging up remains and neutralizing them before their transformations were complete. It was gruesome work, but necessary.

A big problem was the variability in burial practices across cultures and regions. Even within the U.S., private burials were common, especially on family land, as long as the necessary permits were obtained. Here on the island, private burials were a frequent practice.

We could identify cemeteries and destroy what we found, but finding every single grave on private property? It was an impossible task.

Many countries had banned U.S. GMO food. Not so for things that were never meant for consumption. The problem was worldwide, and it was ultimately what destroyed everyone.

The two hellhounds we currently had were newly formed. We had come across them about six months ago. They weren’t the first we had captured, though our tests showed these two to be smarter. We were trying to understand their evolution and find an easier way to kill them.

My thoughts were interrupted when Beck’s sword came uncomfortably close to my throat, forcing me to jump back. I realized I needed to focus on the fight or risk losing more than the sparring match.

“About time you woke up,” he growled, blocking my next blow effortlessly.

“The woman knows about the hounds and what made them,” I admitted.

Beck’s response was immediate; his next swing was wild, and it was his head that nearly separated from his shoulders as I countered. He paused, laying the tip of his sword in the dirt. I pulled back from my next strike and did the same.

“You told her?” His tone was accusatory with disbelief and concern etched across his face.

“If fighting beside humans is going to work, we had to trust her,” I replied.

Beck placed a hand on his hip, the gesture unintentionally prissy, and for a brief moment, I almost smiled. “But do you trust her?” he asked pointedly.

“I’m trying,” I replied, but even to my own ears, I wasn’t sure if I could.