Shaedes of Gray: A Shaede Assassin Novel

“Darian.”

Cool breath trickled over my cheek. I didn’t try to make myself wake up.

A hand brushed at my hair, sweeping it away from my forehead. A deep sigh and another wash of cool air. “Darian.”

The whispered voice spoke more clearly, and fingers traced over my bare arm, up and around my shoulder, grazing the skin at my collarbone. Shivering from the skin-on-skin contact, I rolled onto my back to give those fingers a wider canvas to paint on. This was a dream I didn’t want to wake from. Lips brushed my forehead, tracing a line down my temple to my jawline. I arched my back, and my nipples hardened as my breasts strained against the sheet. A sharp intake of breath that wasn’t mine brought me to awareness. I wasn’t dreaming and I wasn’t alone in my bed.

Tyler.

Even if I wanted him close, it couldn’t happen now. My life had taken an unexpected turn down a dangerous road. I couldn’t risk Tyler’s safety. A new world unraveled around me—and he had become a liability by association. I could hope Xander would leave him alone. But I couldn’t be sure. Whether I wanted it or not, distance was what we both were going to get. He needed to be taught a lesson, and I was more than happy to oblige him. I feigned a languid stretch with the arm not anchored by Ty’s fingers and absently slipped my hand beneath the pillow. My fingers found the hilt of the dagger and I paused, waiting for the right moment. I didn’t want to kill him, after all; I just wanted to reaffirm some boundaries.

Bending low, he took a huge whiff of my hair. Seriously—smelling my hair. I sensed him shift on the bed, straightening, and I struck.

I brought the blade around in a movement so fast that it must have been a blur in his slow human vision. The steel winked at me, the tip glinting against the hollow of his throat, and I pressed gently against his tender skin. Propping myself on the other elbow, I glanced down at his hand still touching me.

He didn’t make a sound. Actually, he didn’t even jump. I had to give him credit: The boy had balls. His mouth spread into a slow, sheepish grin, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Giving a gentle shake of my head, I pressed the blade deeper into the recess of his throat. “May I ask what you’re doing?” I didn’t move the blade. Not an inch.

“Admiring you,” he said. “You look different when you’re asleep. Softer.”

Had he known I’d been watching him last night? Rather than push him away, my actions were only drawing us closer. I wanted to slap myself for being stupid enough to let Tyler kiss me outside of that warehouse.

“You know, it’s not advisable to molest a dangerous woman while she sleeps. You might find yourself bereft of your head.”

“I would never hurt you, Darian,” he said.

Here we go again. I’d just told him that if he didn’t take his hands off me I was going to give his head a permanent vacation from his shoulders, and he said he wouldn’t hurt me. “Ty, you couldn’t hurt me if you wanted to,” I said in a voice gentle as falling snow. I wondered why he hadn’t pulled away from the dagger. All he’d have to do is sit up straighter, but he seemed to delight in leaving his life in my hands. Sick. I fought the urge to smile.

“Tyler.” I spared what little patience I had to offer. “Being as I’m naked under this sheet, it would be a good idea for you to take your fingers for a walk and give me a little privacy.”

His eyes widened, like he’d never actually considered what might be under the sheets, though I knew he’d gotten a nice, long look. He leaned in, pressing against the dagger as if he’d forgotten I was still holding it there. It pricked the skin, and a crimson drop bloomed and forked as one path followed the curve of the blade.

“Do you have a death wish?” I asked, watching the other trail of red make its way down the peachy flesh of his throat.

“Something like that,” he murmured, adding to the utter weirdness of the moment.

I pushed myself upright and felt the sheet give way, revealing a generous portion of my breast. Tyler’s eyes shone like someone had lit a candle behind each of them. I expected a thin line of saliva to trickle from the corner of his mouth at any second. The hand that he’d rested at his side twitched.

“Yesterday . . .” he started to say.

“Was yesterday,” I finished for him. “And today is today. We work together, Ty. That’s all. I shouldn’t have let you kiss me.”

“You liked it,” he said, pushing himself against the blade again.

Maybe Ty was less of a tough guy than I’d given him credit for, or maybe he was simply like all men—one thing on the brain.

“What I would or would not like to do with you is immaterial.” I argued my point in the most logical way possible. “We work together, and I don’t blur the lines between my personal life and business.”

Dismissing my argument, he reached out, ran the backs of his fingers across my cheek. “You don’t have a personal life.”

He did have a point. I didn’t have friends, family, or acquaintances. And there was a reason for that. My pulse picked up as his fingers left my face in favor of my arm, trickling slowly across my skin from shoulder to wrist. I wanted to return the gesture and just trace his skin with my fingertips.

His hand continued to wander as slowly as if he were approaching a hungry tiger, coming to rest on my thigh. A thin cotton sheet was all that separated our skin, and I can’t say it wasn’t exciting. The touch of his cooler skin permeated the fabric and left a trail of chills as he ran his hand along my thigh and up over my hip, curling around my waist.

I lowered the dagger. It wasn’t doing any good, and I found I didn’t feel much like threatening him anymore. When had my mouth gone dry? God, he was ridiculously beautiful. Tyler’s chest rose and fell with his breath, and I imagined what he’d look like without his shirt, his muscled chest beneath my hands. I gathered my bottom lip between my teeth. He took the action as consent and swooped down to lay his mouth to mine. I came to my senses just in time and rolled, taking the sheet with me. Tyler fell to the mattress, getting nothing but a mouthful of pillow.

By the time he sat up, I stood at the bathroom door. As I passed through the threshold I said, “Time for you to go, Ty. I’ll talk to you later.” I closed the door behind me and turned on the shower, determined to ignore him. Through the sound of rushing water, my keen hearing didn’t have to strain to hear the gate slam down over the lift. I leaned my forehead against the cool tile wall and let out a deep breath. The unique scent that was all Ty swirled in my memory, and I was less than relieved to be alone with my thoughts. No doubt Tyler was pissed.

He’d get over it.

I lay across my bed, arms and legs splayed out like a starfish. Clouds chased each other across the skylight. Patches of blue peeked between the fluffs of gray and white. Xander’s words played on a loop in my head, messing with me as I tried to comprehend all that I did not know.

I would have made a great poker player. I could bluff like nobody’s business. What Azriel hadn’t taught me could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and what I did know might have filled a tumbler, if I were lucky. Maybe if he’d done his job and given me some basis for my existence, something to define who and what I had become, I might not have been so hard. I might have actually given a damn about something.

I’d never tried to seek out another inhuman creature. Azriel told me there were no others. I believed him too. Stupid, blind faith. He’d never given me reason to doubt him, and I’d never seen proof to the contrary. What an idiotic notion. Had the Shaede population purposely stayed away? Had they known about me all along and silently spied as I lived my life? Jesus, the thought made me sick. Why show up now and ruin the illusion Azriel had so easily crafted? And if more Shaedes roamed the earth, what else existed beyond my scope of reality? I shivered at the thought.

For too many years I had simply existed. Going through the motions, making more money than I could spend, eating, sleeping, drinking, killing, finding pleasure when I wanted it. But I had not lived in a very long time. I had not known companionship, tenderness, camaraderie, and a sense of duty or purpose. I had not known love.

Xander said I was ignorant. He said I knew nothing of myself, my people, or my skills.

And he was right.

So it was no big surprise that I went out looking for him as soon as the sun went down.