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“I let them all down; I let Bennie die.” The anguish in his eyes tugs on the emotions locked behind my Shadow. I don’t dare reach and find them. I can see, clear as day, how much he hurts, and I never want to feel that pain again.
“What happened at the hotel, Raine?” I ask in a soft voice.
His eyes well with emotion and he sets his head on my shoulder as a trembling sob leaves his chest. “One second everything was normal and then people starting fucking exploding. The ones that didn’t started to panic. There were so many fucking dark smoke figures.” He wheezes a heart-wrenching breath. “Everyone was confused and scared so they opened fire. Bennie—he was… He was right in front of me and took so many fucking bullets.”
I never thought hearing a grown man sob would be so sad. His shoulders tremble and all I can do is wrap my arms around him. “It wasn’t your fault.”
He stops shaking and stills, pulling away and looking down at me with realization in his eyes. “No, it wasn’t, it was Elias’s. I should’ve killed him when I had the chance.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think you ever had that chance, Raine. He was letting you torture him.”
He bites his lower lip, dropping his shoulders in defeat. I trace the scar on his neck and jawline. He returns the gesture, wrapping his thumb and forefinger around my chin and pulling me close. His breath is warm against my lips before he presses into me for a long kiss.
Raine deepens the kiss, urging my lips open with his tongue as he lets his hands explore my body. The evidence of his arousal is nestled between my thighs and he thrusts his hips softly into them.
I smile and whisper, “We have a million other things to do right now.”
He chuckles and kisses me fervently, biting and pulling my lower lip until I squirm in his hold. “Well, I was just sentenced to death, remember? So I don’t really care.”
My breath leaves my lungs and I jerk back, clenching my jaw. “Don’t say that.”
Raine arches a brow. “Why not? I don’t think that instructor was lying; I don’t think he’s even capable of it,” he says indifferently as he turns the shower off and grabs two folded towels perched on the edge of the sink.
He hands me one but I don’t unfold it. “There has to be a way around it. A loophole or something.” Inside my chest, the emotions are battling against Amser, trying to rise, but my Shadow prevails.
The way Raine watches me so carefully with his blue eyes knots my throat. His voice is raspy and low as he replies, “You don’t feel anything bad after you shut it off, do you? Did your Shadow truly steal all the emotions from your heart?”
I’m not sure what to say. I don’t want to hurt him, so I settle with: “I don’t want you to go anywhere, Raine.”
He smiles bleakly at that and nods with a small scoff. As he leaves me behind and shuts the door behind him, I’m consumed with an odd sense of emptiness. The longer I protect myself from my emotions, the more I dislike the lack of them.
My eyes lift to the foggy mirror. The girl I see, no longer stained by blood, is one I don’t recognize.
4
Elias
I’m going on three days of no sleep. That underground torture chamber left me restless. An average human being would be suffering greatly by now, but Velis keeps me fueled with enough energy to stay awake for months at a time. Well, as long as I’m killing and it gets the life force it needs to feed my body.
Thankfully, I’ve only had to do that once.
Three days is nothing, but I’m still fucking tired. Worrying about Terra is more draining than I thought it’d be. Then again, I never imagined I’d find my Shadow Mate. A rarity among Shadows.
Of all people, I deserve one the least.
I take a long breath as I head to my quarters. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve returned here. The corridors are the same, the stones a dreadful gray, and the death that hangs in the air is as tantalizing as ever. Each new recruitment cycle brings Shadows we’ve never seen before, but if what Arthur spoke of is true, then we’ve finally found the one we’ve been searching for—the one Cein has been searching for.
Edgar Eldridge.
His eyes are already fractured and filled with hate that will only continue to grow; Alkrose will make sure of that. But I still have my doubts about him… If it truly is the Shadow we seek, then I’m not sure why Emerai thinks he can control it this time around. My spine constricts with the memories of the last time I came face to face with that Shadow.
I enter the eastern tower to the right of the Nova House and ascend the spiral stone stairs all the way to the top. The scent of dust and clay mix in the air, a smell I particularly dislike. The dark oak door to my study is locked and looks untouched.
Good. Nekane and Kallos haven’t been invading my space again.
Velis wisps out from my fingertips as dark smoke and unlocks the door. I step in and take a deep breath of my room, the only place I’ve ever really known as home.
It smells like a cabin, the firewood giving off a piney and smoky scent. My bed is a mattress on the floor with black blankets pooling off the edges. There are no photos on the walls or silly sentiments that some of the others like to keep. There isn’t a point, not for me. Candles and papers are strewn about my desk, old books still piled up against walls by my reading window where I left them.
