Shaedes of Gray: A Shaede Assassin Novel

file procession, walking clockwise around the grassy clearing to end at my feet.

Tyler placed lazy kisses along my forehead before running his fingers through my knotted hair. He hushed and soothed me, and the soft, chanting voices of the teens comforted me. The moon continued its path before the sun, and the light slowly seeped away like water sucking down a dark drain, to bathe us in a gray combination of both.

Pulses like the ticking of time pounded in my chest. I felt every fraction of every second and fought again against the eclipse of my own soul.

“Say you love me, and I’ll end it quickly,” Tyler crooned. “Isn’t that love, Darian? Sparing you from further pain? Say the words and it will all be over.”

The moon moved its last little bit, passing completely in front of the sun. A halo of light shone out from the empty black disk, and I knew I would never be the same. Why not say it? I was tired of this existence, tired of pretending I didn’t care about anything. The gray had swallowed me whole, and I yearned for a little clarity. Black, white, light, dark. I no longer craved obscurity. I could try to lie to him all I wanted, but I could no longer lie to myself.

“I love you, Tyler,” I said through my tears. “Damn you to hell for making me love you.”

Chapter 27

Another pulse of energy rocked my body. Tyler looked to the sky and pulled a shining, blue-steel dagger from the folds of his robes. With surgical precision, he sliced one and then my other wrist. I didn’t feel a thing; my circulation had been cut off from the rope that held me down. A sliver of red flashed against my skin before pouring from the cuts.

My captors, the creepy poster children for birth control, broke their ranks and split to either side of me, filling the bowls with the blood that carried some magical connection to my heart. Not the beating lump of flesh that pumped the sticky red stuff from my wrists. But the essence of every feeling, every emotion that resided in the secret parts of me that I had hidden away for so long.

Tyler walked around the dais and knelt near my shoulder. I turned and stared straight into his eyes, hoping he saw the defiance burning in my own. Again his gaze seemed to pass right through me. He brushed his lips against my forehead one last time, and I screamed with as much force as I could muster. Thrump- thump, thrump-thump, the soft pounding of my heart echoed in my ears, and the blood gushed in rhythm with each pumping sound. My eyes drooped as I focused on the beat, like the new internal ticking that marked the passage of time inside me, and I felt a surge of peace. I floated in nothingness for a brief and pleasurable moment. I wondered if I’d go to heaven when I died. No tunnel of heavenly light appeared to welcome me. I was more than likely headed somewhere considerably warmer. I didn’t bother atoning for my sins. What was done was done, and it was too late to consider making amends with God or anyone else.

Tyler’s face loomed in my memories; that last look into his eyes frozen in finite detail. His breath no longer cool, but warm against my skin. And then, as if I’d dropped from the sky, I no longer floated in a state of death-bliss. A throbbing from my hand drew my thoughts to the ring circling my thumb. I’d always wondered why the symbol on the ring that was supposed to guarantee my protection had looked like some prehistoric buffalo. I mean, why not something huge? Something fierce, with vicious claws and weight to throw around. An animal with thick, warm fur and impenetrable skin. A beast worthy of the term protector. The ancient animal carved into the silver was fierce and large; a hulking beast, but no buffalo. My eyes opened wide in pain, and, finally, recognition. A Lyhtan’s scream pierced the air, and Tyler cocked his head toward the sound. The movement was almost . . .

“You’re not Tyler!” I gasped, struggling against the rope restraining my bleeding wrists. “Who are you?” I spit at the cloaked figure and kicked my legs. “Who the fuck are you?”

The teens had filled their bowls with my supposedly magic blood and filed in a respectful line, walking the clearing counterclockwise this time. Each took up their former positions in front of his or her corresponding statue. Each dipped a finger in the bowl of blood, and, in turn, anointed the forehead of the statue with a long, bright-red smear.

A cool breeze stirred from the center of the clearing, from where the bear had been chained, and hit me full in the face. The sweetest smell permeated my senses, and for a moment I could almost taste his cool kisses. Tyler was here, right under my nose the entire time, watching over me. How could I have let my eyes trick me so easily?

The furious chanting of the dark-haired guardians drew my attention. Their ritual had begun. One of the girls raised her bowl and paused. The moon pulled away from the sun, and a sliver of light shone onto the clearing. I observed the whole gruesome scene, noticing hundreds of details in a space of time no longer than a single second. . . .

Azriel stood, proud and smirking, at the bower, watching with sick delight as my blood drained from the gashes at my wrists.

The Lyhtans, worked into a frenzy, cried out in myriad voices for killing, for revenge, for retribution.

Nine teens stood before nine gargoyle statues, chanting in low, melodious voices, bowls poised above gaping stone mouths.

The moon traveled, undeterred by the events taking place below it, to reveal more of the sun’s glorious warmth.

Tall grass swayed, the short grass of the clearing quivered, and a breeze whispered through the trees, sounding like crumpling tissue paper and soft applause.

And at last I locked my gaze with the bear, pacing and pulling at his chain, desperate to free himself. I looked hard and deep into those eyes for the first time and noticed the beautiful hazel color, green with an almost-brown star blooming from the pupil. I’d had to learn so much in such a short time, I’d forgotten Xander’s Genie 101. . . . They possess a very powerful magic and can change shape and form, but only when their charge is threatened. . . . The shape they choose is the physical embodiment of their protection. It must have happened when the Lyhtans attacked him. A knee-jerk reaction, because he knew they were after me. All this time, my Jinn had been protecting me, and I’d been too stupid to realize it. But why remain in animal form? Did it make him stronger? More capable of keeping me safe?

“Tyler!” I called out. “I wish Raif were here! I wish he were here now! Please, Tyler!”

Tyler’s bear lips quivered and he mewled in answer. I turned to the imposter standing beside me. “Why don’t you show your true face, coward?”

The blood loss had begun to take a toll on me. My breathing was labored as I tried to focus on saving myself. There was fight left in me, and I wasn’t about to go out flat on my back.

As the moon finished its passage across the sun, the clearing filled with blinding sunlight. I realized as the rays poured down on me that I had become something more than I had been, and with the passage of the eclipse, that transformation was complete. I thought about the cuts on my wrists, bathing the lovely green grass in crimson red, and I visualized the cuts healing more quickly than even my supernatural body allowed. Close, I told the cuts. Heal. Stop bleeding.

A chill ran the length of my arms and snaked around my wrists like bracelets made of ice. The sensation intensified, and though I couldn’t see the wounds, I felt my skin pull together, sensed the bleeding as it stopped.

By small degrees, my strength returned and I pulled against the Lyhtan hair binding me to the stone dais. My right ankle and then the left broke free, and I rotated the stiff and nearly numb extremities until I was certain I could move. I pulled with my arms and they broke the Lyhtan hair as if I’d been tied down with merely a thread.

The imposter Tyler flinched, taking a cautious step back. Indecision marred his features as he looked back and forth from me to the kids, who carried on as if nothing disturbed their moment in time. My body tingled in the sunlight. A faint glow burst from my skin, filtering all around me, but I had little time to contemplate these changes. I had to do something to stop the insufferable teenagers, who proceeded as if the world held nothing more enchanting than these nine horrible statues and the bowls of my blood.

The first of the nine lifted her bowl above the gaping maw of the snarling gargoyle. She poured the blood into the mouth of the beast, draining every last drop into the lifeless statue.