Chapter 1
Quinn
If you’d told me a month ago that I’d soon find myself on a road trip through Norway with a powerful demon as my only companion, I’d have suggested you needed your head checked. But here I was, sitting next to said demon while he drove our rental car through a landscape of mossy-looking hills and sparkling lakes. We hadn’t passed any human habitation in half an hour.
I frowned at the journal I had open on my lap, full of loopy handwriting that’d faded with age. “We don’t know for sure that the mention of Alta means the town up here. It could have been someone’s name or who knows what else.”
The sorcerer of decades past who’d recorded some of his thoughts on the worn pages hadn’t been all that specific. He’d just mentioned “associates from the vicinity of Alta” and a few pages later commented on how the “established families” like those associates were more reliable than greener practitioners. But it was the only reference to anything that could have had to do with Norway that I’d found so far.
Rollick—who might have been a powerful demon but at the moment looked like technicolor made flesh with his human guise’s movie-star good looks—made a derisive sound. “It fits with everything else we know: what the sorcerers said to you about the enclave up here, the little tidbits I’ve been able to dig up from that starting point. There are certainly a lot of places in this area where a clan of sorcerers with their little training center could hide themselves away.”
He swept his hand over his fawn-brown hair, his dark blue gaze skimming over the beautiful but remote landscape. He did have a point. With all the hills and the more distant mountains rising from the earth, we could rarely see more than half a mile away in any direction, often less than that. And sorcerers with strong enough magic to be able to provoke the same talent in people who’d never had it before probably had major shadowkind at their command. Those supernatural beings could possess all sorts of talents for avoiding discovery.
Even though it was coming up on the evening, bright sunlight still washed over the terrain. The sorcerers I’d talked to briefly—before they’d been slaughtered by the particularly monstrous shadowkind beings we were hoping to stop—had mentioned the extremes of daylight in this part of the world as being a key feature of the enclave. During the winter months, there’d be little sunlight at all, which I guessed made for more opportunities to catch and enslave shadowkind.
I hoped the enclave was still active during the summer. The sorcerers had to do something the rest of the year, right? Otherwise we’d have come all the way out here—and done everything else we’d had to in order to get here—for nothing.
A sudden gloom swept over me. I stared at the vibrant greens and blues beyond the window and thought of how much Lance would have loved leaping and tumbling across those slopes with his acrobatic grace. In his dragon form with his jewel-toned scales, he’d have fit in with the scenery perfectly.
Had Crag ever gotten to fly over this gorgeous terrain and admire it from above, soaring on his gargoyle wings? Would Torrent have enjoyed taking a dip in those lakes, or would he and his tentacles have been more at home in the ocean we’d left behind after following a stretch of highway along the coast?
It’d only been yesterday when I’d last seen the three shadowkind men I’d fallen hard for. I’d gone longer without their presence just in the past week. But this time… this time it might be permanent.
A pang shot through my chest alongside a wobble of energy in my heart. I pressed my hand to my sternum instinctively. I’d used the magic I held, the sorcerer powers I’d gained thanks to my childhood heart transplant, to send my three lovers away. In a way, I’d briefly enslaved them. I’d forced them to act against their will.
I didn’t know how long my control over them would last before the energies faded with distance and time, but even when they did fade—if they did, which I couldn’t know for sure—there was no guarantee that the men I’d fallen for would want anything to do with me again. I’d betrayed them in the most horrible way any human could.
I shouldn’t want them to come back to me. I’d sent them away specifically because of how much it was hurting them trying to fight my battles for me. But my entire abdomen ached with the sense of loss. A fresh burn of tears formed behind my eyes.
I’d felt so many things with them that I hadn’t known I could feel, discovered new confidence, realized how much I was capable of. But I didn’t know how to protect them other than by forcing them out of my life. They’d protected me so much in the past month. I’d owed them the same in return, even if they wouldn’t see it that way.
Rollick’s gaze flicked toward me as he took a particularly tight turn around a jutting stand of dark gray rocks. “Don’t be regretting your choices, reluctant sorcerer. We’ve got to stay focused on the problems ahead of us rather than behind.”
“I know,” I said tightly.
He flashed his shiny white teeth, which I knew were veneers hiding the savagely sharp tips underneath. “Maybe I should be insulted that you couldn’t be bothered to protect me too. You did them a favor, keeping them out of this mess, but apparently I’m fair game.”
I couldn’t help rolling my eyes at him despite the pain tangled up inside me. “You haven’t given me a whole lot of reason to care about your well-being.” Until a couple of days ago, Rollick had been essentially holding me captive, forcing me to develop my sorcerer talents despite the reluctance he’d noted. “Anyway, this is your battle too. You wanted to take this sorcerer-devouring duo on. Torrent, Crag, and Lance only got involved for my sake.”
“I can’t argue with any of that,” Rollick said in his typically smooth, charming way, not that I was particularly in the mood to be charmed.
I stifled a sigh and sank lower in my seat. “How much farther is it to the village you think is an ideal jumping off point?” He’d identified a community smaller than the town of Alta that he’d decided was our best choice for a base of operations while we searched for the enclave.
“About ten more minutes.” He kept the same mildly teasing lilt. “Are you that tired of my company already?”
“You’re a wonderful conversational partner,” I said with an edge of sarcasm. “I’m tired, period.” We’d taken a flight from Salt Lake City to Oslo with a brief stopover in Amsterdam, leaving and arriving in the middle of the day as if night didn’t exist thanks to the time zone jump, and then immediately hopped on a local flight up to Alta. At this point, I wasn’t sure how long it’d been since I last properly slept, only that it’d definitely been too long. It was only the periodic spurts of adrenaline I got when I remembered our mission that kept me going.
The thought of that mission—and the full reasons behind it—brought my gaze back to the landscape. It might still be sunny out, but the tall, craggy hills were dappled with patches of shadow. Stands of trees cast broader swaths of darkness at their bases. I scanned the murk, my nerves jangling at a flicker of movement that turned out to be a branch bobbing in a gust of wind.
“Can you sense many shadowkind around?” I asked. I wasn’t sure how well the demon could pick up on their presence from inside the car while he was at least partly focused on keeping us on the road.
Rollick was perceptive enough to pick up on the worry underlying my question. “Just a few stray beings here and there, about what I’d expect in a place without much human presence. I don’t see any sign at all that our enemies have marauded this far. Your heart is safe for the moment.”
My mouth formed a tight grimace. Our main enemies were two very ancient shadowkind who were possibly even more powerful than Rollick—and who’d been killing sorcerers and eating their vital organs to take on some of the magic that would allow them to control their own kind in a way the monstrous beings usually couldn’t. We didn’t know what they were planning on using that power for now that they had it, but they’d also been very interested in getting their hands on me.
It”d appeared that the villainous duo was mostly active on the other side of the ocean right now, though. We were here in Norway to see if the sorcerers in the enclave—if we could find it; if it even existed—could teach me something that would allow me to get a greater handle on my own powers faster. Rollick thought it was possible that I might be the best chance of stopping these fiends now that they could brainwash their fellow shadowkind, since an actual sorcerer’s powers would beat the bits and pieces of talent they’d absorbed from their violent meals.
Maybe I could also figure out how and why sorcery worked at all, and that would give us other ideas for bringing the fiends down.
I couldn’t see the men I loved again until I’d eliminated the threat. That was the condition I’d put in my command to them. As long as it held.
Nestled at the base of a low hill up ahead, a cluster of buildings came into view, most of them houses. A few darker buildings were interspersed between the white-washed walls, the roofs deep blue or red, all of them with a quaintly picturesque vibe that made me feel like I didn’t belong here at all.
Rollick drove straight to one of the two-story houses on the outskirts of the village, which had a hand-painted sign proclaiming it the Daffodil Inn. It didn’t look like it was big enough to host more than a handful of guests, but then, how many tourists came out this way anyway?
As it turned out, it was really more of a bed and breakfast. The grandmotherly owner bustled out to meet us, eagerly taking my backpack and fussing warmly about what a long trip we must have made. It was obvious from my first step inside that she lived on the first floor. She led us up a narrow staircase, opened one of only two doors at the top, and ushered us into a decent-sized bedroom. It held a queen-sized bed in a simple Scandinavian-style beech frame, a matching dresser and chair, and a door through which I could make out a shower stall.
Only one bed.
“Make yourself at home and let me know if you’d like anything to eat before you turn in for the night,” our host said with a pat of my arm, and vanished, closing the door behind her.
I folded my arms over my chest and eyed Rollick. “You only got us one room. With one bed.”
The demon spread his hands, his lips curving into a slight smirk. “This town doesn’t offer a whole lot of travel accommodations. I didn’t figure it’d matter. It’s not as if I need to sleep.”
“I do,” I muttered.
He tsked his tongue at me, still looking amused by my hesitation. “I won’t even be here while you’re doing that. You’re very boring when you’re asleep, you realize. I’ll be off scouting around seeing if I can’t determine exactly where this enclave is hidden away.” He paused, and a sly gleam lit in his eyes. “Of course, we could share it if you’d really like to.”
I made a face at him. “The only people I’d want to share it with can’t be here.”
I was trying to make a sharp retort, but my voice got rough with the last few words. I yanked my gaze away from him, not wanting to see him being amused by my sense of loss, but Rollick didn’t push his provocative teasing any further than the little nudge he’d tested me with.
Maybe he realized just how much I wasn’t in the mood for him to flex his seductive charms.
“What a shame that is. I’m sure you’d all have enjoyed that bed very much.” He clapped his hands together. “Do you need anything to eat? Was the snack you picked up in Alta enough?”
He’d always been conscientious of my health, even when he was being a jerk about other things—I’d give him that. I rubbed my hand over my mouth, considering. I couldn’t summon any interest at all in shoving more food into my knotted stomach. In an hour or so, it’d be time to take my second set of pills for the day to convince my body that my new heart belonged to me, and other than that, I didn’t think I needed anything to survive until morning.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I just need that sleep. Go do your scouting or whatever.” I waved vaguely toward the door.
Rollick shot me another grin. “Pleasant dreams, my sweet sorcerer,” he said, but he vanished into the shadows a moment later.
I sank down on the bed and nestled my head in the downy pillow without bothering to change my clothes. I barely wanted to move. And I couldn’t fully change, not when the silver-and-iron beaded vest I wore under my shirt was the only thing ensuring that no other shadowkind, including our enemies, figured out where I’d gone.
Closing my eyes, I hugged myself. The squeeze of my own arms was a pale echo of the embrace any of my men would have offered.
How had my life ended up being so different from where I’d expected I’d be—where I’d wanted to be—just a month ago?
And what fresh hell was I going to find myself stumbling into next?