Shaedes of Gray: A Shaede Assassin Novel

I traveled as my shadow self for both speed and cover. I don’t know why I thought he’d be at the warehouse, sitting on that damned throne in the middle of an empty building. So I shouldn’t have been put out when I didn’t find him there.

After that, I checked the town house. Not a single light illuminated the lonely windows, and though his scent lingered, he hadn’t been there for at least a couple of days.

Beleaguered, I went to The Pit. I didn’t want to sit in my apartment and stew, so I decided to seek out diversion in the crowds of humans who went out night after night, trying to define their fleeting lives with even more fleeting encounters.

The club was packed with humans celebrating the end of the work week. They played their usual games, rituals that centered on flirty gestures, suggestive conversations, and the occasional flash of skin. I leaned against the bar and watched, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible. It would be only a matter of time before someone homed in on the faint glow of my eyes or my flawless porcelain skin and decided to throw their hat in the ring.

Levi, the bartender that night, slid a bright blue drink in my direction. The first one of the night was always on the house. Cute, preppy, and completely out of place, Levi looked like an Abercrombie ad. He also struck me as a good guy. He never came on to me and always flashed a friendly smile when I walked in. If he had any idea about my otherness, he never asked. He didn’t stare and gave me space, one of the main reasons why I favored The Pit.

The bar seemed to be the lake that most lonely single men fished from, so I left with my drink and gave Levi a silent toast as I walked away. I found a nice dark corner, and, with the help of my black clothes, melted right into the scenery.

Tyler showed up after I’d been there an hour. He must have had some kind of internal Darian tracking system, because he made a beeline for my table.

I looked away, watching the humans on the dance floor as if I were totally engrossed in their gyrations. Another thing I didn’t do. Dance.

I didn’t acknowledge him when he slid into the seat next to mine, and I tried not to pay attention to how great he smelled. Like an antsy kid, he fidgeted silently, waiting for me to look at him. I wanted to—those hazel eyes of his had a tendency to suck me in—but I’d learned pretty quickly that if you gave Ty an inch, he took about five miles. Oh, man, he smells good.

“Aren’t you going to talk to me?”

The sensation of his breath in my ear sent a zinging rush right through my center. I refused to admit that Tyler had the most delicious mouth I’d ever tasted, and I banished the memory of our passionate moment to the farthest recesses of my mind.

“If Xander always called you, how did you get in touch with him to set up the meeting last night?” I stuck to business. Business . . . business . . . business.

“He called me right after you left here. I guess he knew you’d be fired up to meet him.”

My jaw clenched like a vise. Xander’s recent disappearance really rubbed me the wrong way. I did not wait at anyone’s beck and call, and the least he could offer for the inconveniences he’d caused in my existence was a few answers.

Turning away from Tyler, I centered my focus on the dance floor again. A very young woman pulled up her shirt and tucked it underneath her bra. She stroked her belly like it was a magic lamp. The guy next to her rubbed himself up and down her body. It might have been sexy if either one of them had been more coordinated—or sober—but as it was, they just looked ridiculous. I cracked a grin as I watched them bump and grind, thinking wryly to myself that at one time, the Charleston had been considered lewd.

Tyler’s hands moved up my back by small degrees, creeping against the thin fabric of my T-shirt and over my shoulders. His thumbs rested at the nape of my neck, and he wrapped his fingers around my throat. As soft as a spring breeze, his cool fingertips caressed my skin, fanning out toward my collarbone. I found the contact so completely erotic that I had to stop myself from throwing boundaries to the wayside and laying him across the table.

I didn’t have it in me to explain why this thing he wanted between us was not a good idea. And so I passed into shadow, not caring about the other humans scattered around the club, and moved silently through their masses to the exit.

Tyler wasn’t the only one with boundary issues.

I returned to my apartment to find Xander in my living room. For an oh-so-important king, he seemed to come and go as he pleased with little thought to security. Maybe I was spoiled by my heretofore solitary ways, because I wanted to knock him across the studio for the calm expression on his face.

“What are you doing here, Xander?”

He gave me the same treatment I’d given Tyler at the club, basically ignoring me to get some sort of rise. It worked.

“Is that how you address your king?” he asked, staring at the wall.

My king? My ass. I still wasn’t excited by the idea that someone could hold dominion over me, no matter how much he insisted he could. I gave a quiet but derisive snort.

“My liege,” I began in my most regal voice, copying Anya’s from the previous night. “I am both humbled and honored that you have graced my hovel with your imperial presence. I am yours to command and wish nothing more than to serve you.”

The air in my apartment changed. Charged with energy, like a coming thunderstorm. Xander’s body became insubstantial, scattering in a violent pepper of black dust.

In a waft of sweet, fragrant heat, he reappeared to stand in front of me face-to-face, or, more to the point, face-to-chest. He stood so tall that I almost got a crick in my neck from looking at him. But I didn’t cower in the presence of anyone.

“You were looking for me tonight?” he asked.

With a movement so fast even I had a hard time tracking it, he ran his hands along my side, lifting up my shirt along the waist. My breath caught in my throat as he passed a warm palm along the gash in my side—almost completely healed, save for a thin white line.

“You’re healing well.” The sound of his rich voice lulled me, banishing any trace of anger. He pulled the shirt down and flashed a very unkingly grin. “What do you want of me?”

At that moment, I could have made a list a mile long and comprised of the different things I wanted of him. And then I came to my senses. I thought about Ty, sitting alone at the club, the things he’d said, the way his mouth pressed against mine, and my feelings for him, despite the rules I’d laid down for myself.

“I want to know,” I said, swallowing my considerable pride, “about who I am.”

“I can’t tell you who you are,” he said. “But I can tell you what you are.”

“What am I, then? How did I come to be this way, and why did Azriel leave me without teaching me anything? Why have I thought that I was alone for a century and that there were no others like me?” I paced as I rambled on, trying to form the questions my arrogance didn’t want me to ask. “What is it that I can and cannot do, and why do I do those things? Am I immortal or something else? And where is the magic blade that is the only thing that can take my life? Who has it? Do you?” I asked, remembering Azriel’s words to me.

I left Xander gaping after me and settled down in a chair, too flustered to continue. I suppose those were a lot of questions to bombard someone with. I hadn’t intended to let them all tumble out of my mouth like marbles rolling out of a sack.

He didn’t come to my side, and I was glad for it. His voice floated on the air, and I listened with my eyes closed, out of shame more than anything else.

“You . . . are . . . nothing,” he said. “A creature that lives between the realms. You are made of twilight and shadow and move as the wind through the trees. You are Shaede.”

I reluctantly admitted to myself that his speech sounded eloquent and kingly. If only Azriel had been a millionth of that, I thought as bitter memories taunted me. Though he’d shared the king’s flair for dramatics (maybe it’s a Shaede trait), Azriel had never been one to lend me words of comfort. Merely a force of nature, he’d existed like the wind: fickle and unconcerned with the obstacles in his path.