Chapter Thirty-Three Dominic #2
Henry pulls out the blade and stares at the wound with wide eyes. He whirls around, running a hand through his hair. “I fucked up,” he mutters, a frenzied look in his eyes. “I fucked up. I fucked up. Hurry. I need to hurry.”
He whirls back toward Inana, knife raised toward her chest again, but she swings her hand toward him, slicing his cheek with her needle, once, twice, then pierces it through the side of his throat.
He staggers back. The slices on his cheek are already healing, but blood seeps beneath the needle, a vein nicked open and unable to close around the foreign object.
The Shades hiss and clamor at the sight of the blood, clustering closer within that sliver of shadow.
Henry doesn’t notice them. Doesn’t notice anything but the needle he pulls from his neck as he steps to the side, his heel planted directly on the divide between shadow and light. Bridging it.
The Shades surge forward.
They slither up his ankle, beneath the leg of his trousers. He kicks out, whirling around and flailing his arm as bulges appear beneath his white-and-gold jacket. His hand strikes the lantern, sending it rocking side to side.
The light swivels across the room from the momentum of the lantern, casting Henry in shadow, then light. Shadow then light.
His bleeding neck falls under a faint beat of darkness.
The Shades funnel out from beneath his collar and into that still-open wound. Barely a pinprick, but they claw at it, opening it wider, slithering into that nicked vein one at a time.
I count the number of Shades that enter his flesh.
One.
Two.
Three.
My heart races. I know what’s happening. I know what this means.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Henry doubles over, screaming.
My eyes meet Inana’s over his bent-over form. Her rage seeps into me. Or maybe it’s my rage.
One thing is clear.
She wants Henry Berkham to die.
I want him to die.
Death. Vengeance. It’s all I can think about. All I can taste.
It thrums through everything I am, everything I ever was.
And with his seven cut-away Shades back inside his body, Henry is mortal once more.
The man straightens and charges for Inana.
The light continues to sway.
Left.
Right.
Left.
Right.
I step along a path of shadow, my eyes locked on Inana’s. Her wrath is mine and mine is hers.
Right.
Left.
I’m just behind Henry now, and all I can think is how I want to reach inside his body and tear out his heart. Claw it from between his ribs. Rip it to shreds.
Kill him.
I’m going to kill him.
I stretch out my hand, impossibly long in the narrow sliver of shadow. My fingers meet his back, and he freezes. Stiffening.
I glance at my hand.
My fingertips are made of shadow.
I suck in a breath and sit upright, a sound tearing through my throat that might have been a scream.
Or a hiss.
Or laughter.
What the fuck was that?
Visions from the nightmare flash in my mind’s eye, vibrant at first but fading with every breath I catch. The end of the dream lingers the longest. Haunting me.
I blink several times to clear my eyes, my mind, my thoughts. The cave takes shape around me, replacing the jail cell. My eyes fall on the roaring fire, the fading daylight streaming through the mouth of the cave. Then Inana.
Gods, Inana.
She’s still tucked in my arms, facing me, her face twisted in agony. Tears stream down her cheeks.
I lightly shake her shoulders, trying to snap her out of the nightmare. I call her name, shake her again, but she only whimpers.
I raise my voice to a shout. “Inana!”
Her eyes fly open, and her body goes still.
For a few moments, she just lies there, staring up at me with wide eyes while she heaves sharp, strangled breaths.
I pull her closer, staring down at this fierce and beautiful woman.
How could I have let her experience that nightmare?
Why didn’t I fight harder to free myself—and her—from it earlier?
Staying in that dream was useless. I learned nothing helpful, only confirmed what I already suspected: Henry Berkham was made mortal when his Shades entered his body, drawn by the blood that seeped from the wound Inana inflicted.
That’s no surprise. Henry would have undergone his Absolution ritual after he arrived in Dunway, performed by the priests who escorted him there.
Which means his cut-away Shades would have lingered nearby.
The ritual only sends them away from their original body to the nearest, darkest sources of shadow.
Which is why, in unprotected villages without silver walls, newly appointed dukes must light their braziers as soon as possible, to push their Shades even farther away and keep them from getting close enough to reverse the Absolution.
The dukes may not know that’s the reason, but it is behind the instructions they receive upon accepting their appointment.
Regardless, that’s how his Shades found him so quickly once they smelled his blood.
Yet I still don’t know how Henry died. Or how much of the nightmare I can take as fact.
In the dream, Inana was stabbed in the abdomen, but she bears no scar. I would know. I worshipped every inch of her body this morning.
She sniffles, and I push away all thoughts but those of her. I take in her ruddy cheeks streaked with tears, then lift a fingertip, gently wiping away the trail of moisture.
Her lips quiver and pull into a sad smile. “Sorry,” she whispers. “I…I don’t know why I’m crying.”
“You had a nightmare,” I say, wiping another tear.
She shakes her head. “I don’t remember it.”
“I’m glad.” I don’t elaborate, don’t tell her that I was there. That I remember it. That I wouldn’t wish that memory on anyone. No wonder she forgot what happened that day. The trauma must be unbearable.
Her breathing evens out and she relaxes in my arms. My heart constricts, somehow soft and aching at the same time.
How have I lived six years without feeling this range of emotion?
Without the pleasure and pain that pierces my chest?
How will I live without it again, after she’s gone, safe across the sea?
How can I risk her life for the duration of our agreement? How can I focus on anything but her?
She reaches a hand toward my face and caresses my cheek. That’s when I realize I’m crying too. Or I was. What the hell is happening to me? Hot moisture drips down my face in trails I haven’t felt in even longer than six years. Maybe it’s from the nightmare. Maybe it’s because of her.
Her thumb brushes a tear away, then moves across the line of my jaw.
Then to my mouth. She lifts her head, and I lower mine to meet her lips, a taste of salt between us.
Our kiss starts as a tender thing, then blooms into something more urgent.
It heats my blood until I’m on fire, ready to take her in every way, ready to let her take me, mold me, shape me—
“I smell it.” Sloth’s voice has us both going still. I reluctantly pull back from Inana and find Sloth huddled nearby in the shadows growing at the farthest corners of the cave. Daylight is waning, which means I need to get a hold of my fucking senses.
“You smell what?” I ask.
Sloth rises in a canine stretch. “Your blood. The others are close.”