Page 122 of Storm of Shadows

Dray, however, is waiting for me, big grin on his face, glass of whisky in his hand.

“That was fucking fun,” he says.

“You think it’s fun that someone abused and tortured our thrall?” I say quietly.

The grin falls from his face and something more sinister takes its place. Dray is one step away from being unhinged, hanging on to civility by the skin of his teeth. I’ve no doubt if the person responsible for those scars were here now, he’d transform into his wolf and tear them limb from limb – that’s if I didn’t get there first.

“Who do you think it was?” Dray asks, growling.

“Someone from home.” I take up the glass of whisky waiting for me on the mantelpiece and take a long drawn out swig,enjoying the burn it causes right the way down my gullet. “I’ll have it looked into.”

Dray rocks on his toes, swilling his drink around his glass. “I could go ask a few questions of the shits from the Slate Quarter.”

I’m pretty sure by ‘ask a few questions’ he means ‘torture until they tell me’.

“No,” I say, “she won’t want everyone knowing. You saw how self conscious she was about it.”

“She shouldn’t be. That girl has a body made for sin, and fuck I cannot wait to indulge in some filthy immoralities.” His eyes twinkle and he actually tips back his head and howls towards the ceiling.

“Not tonight. She’s resting.”

He lowers his head. “I’m not a jackass.”

I slump down into one of the armchairs, rest my drink on my knee and stare off into the fire.

I wish I could access that vision again. I wish I had control over the sight. I wish I could use it and bend it to my will – rather than the hopeless way my gift presents in flashes and glimpses.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the girl. She’s growing on me and I like her a lot. Especially when she’s down on her knees sucking my cock with that pretty mouth of hers. Hell, I even like it when she’s arguing with me. But that doesn’t mean I understand. Why her?

A girl from Slate Quarter. A girlabusedback in Slate Quarter. If I had any lingering hope she might be someone special after all, that maybe she’d have some unknown power soon to be revealed, well, the scars on her back have put heed to that.

She’s no unrevealed shadow weaver. There is no way one of us could go through torture like that and not reveal our true nature.

“Where exactly is she resting?” Dray asks with suspicion.

“My bed.”

“Not the room we have set up for our thrall on the fifth floor then?” he says with annoyance.

I take another sip of my drink, smiling into the liquid. “I thought she’d be more comfortable inmybed.”

Dray slams his empty glass down on the mantelpiece.

“I’m going to go look for Thorne,” he says sulkily.

Once he’s gone, I fetch what’s left of the bottle and climb back up the stairs, peering around the bedroom door to find the girl already fast asleep.

I stare at her enviously. I don’t sleep much these days, too much raging around in my head, too much to consider, to think about, to prepare. That’s if I want my future to pan out the way it should. Some days – every so often – I’m not sure I do.

Life in Slate Quarter may be grim, but I bet it’s a hell of a lot simpler.

Quietly, I close the door again and retreat to my study, dumping the whisky bottle and the glass down on my desk and drawing up the chair. Across the surface of my desk lie open books, the recent accounts of events across the realm, letters from my family and my own notebooks, scribbled with my thoughts and memorandums.

Fresh accounts were delivered by raven to our tower this evening as usual, hand written and laid out across the scroll, tied with bine. I snip through the bind with my powers and unwind the tiny scroll. The writing that runs across its width is tinier still and I position it under the waiting magnifying glass and begin to read.

At some point I hear the door of the tower slam open and close, muffled voices and heavy footfall, then silence again. A sliver of moonlight moves across my desk from east to west as the hours pass and then slowly the first lights of dawn creep through the window.

I hear my bedroom door open.