Chapter 4
Aimee
Swirls of black pour from my fingertips, circling the training hall’s floor before converging back into my palm, forming a caliginous poniard that’s as sharp as it is wicked. I curl my fingers around its crossguard, gauging the lightweight heft and how it feels in my hand.
I’ve reached a point where I can will my shadows into taking different shapes of weapons, and I’m trying my damnedest to find the one that feels like an extension of myself.
But nothing sticks.
My disappointed sigh reverberates in the chamber’s silence as loud as a brass bell, and I loosen my fingers, allowing the shadows to dissipate into plumes of inklike smoke.
Nothing feels even remotely like Killian’s dagger did.
Kadirah.
The moment I’d touched it, it had hummed against my skin in recognition, as if it were finally home. That buzzing feeling haunts me even now, and no weapon I conjure with my shadows resembles it.
But it must be all in my head, because how could a dagger I have never touched before in my life recognize me as its true wielder?
It must be just another trick of my confused brain, clinging to any remnant of what I had with Killian. Because if his dagger felt like mine, then maybe I could still lie to myself that he was mine too.
Stupid illusions.
The sound of footsteps breaks the silence, and I raise my head just in time to see Nella enter the training hall, accompanied by a young vampire warrior.
“Aimee. Killian has asked to see you,” Nella says, a hopeful smile painting her lips.
That’s new.
What the hell does he want with me now?
“Why?” I ask in my best uninterested voice.
“He did not disclose such information to me, just that he requires your presence right away.”
The gall of this vampire! He thinks he can discard me for two weeks, pretend I don’t even exist and then summon me as if I’m a dog at his beck and call?
Fuck no.
He didn’t even have the decency to come looking for me himself. Instead, he sent Nella and this baby-faced henchman of his, who regards me with open curiosity.
“No,” I answer curtly.
“No?” the vampire asks, cocking his head to the side while Nella opens her mouth to say something too.
“No. I’m not going,” I answer more forcefully. “Run along to your King and tell him I’m not interested. Not available. If he has something to say, he knows where to find me.”
I stand up from the floor, preparing to leave the room.
“Aimee, please.” Nella sighs like an exasperated mother, tired of her children’s antics. She’s only a few years older than I am, though.
I shake my head vehemently, even as I notice the disappointment swimming in her eyes.
“I’m not going, Nella. End of subject. You can’t make me.”
“She can’t, but that’s why I’m here,” the boyish vampire says.
I pay more attention to him, and I sense the hardened resolve in his hazel eyes. He might look young, turned before he reached adulthood, but he’s not a kid.
“Look, uhm,” I scramble my brain for his name, but I come up with nothing.
“Axel,” he provides curtly.
“Look, Axel, I have no quarrel with you.”
“Nor do I with you,” he interrupts, stone-faced. “But I have been given the task of making sure you join the King in his study, and I take my duty seriously. So we can stand here and argue until you finally concede, or you can come willingly and say what you have to say directly to Killian’s face.”
He signals towards the doorway in a sweeping gesture.
“After you, Foretold One.”
I roll my eyes at him and humph indignantly. How did he just make that moniker sound so mocking?
I feel a headache forming between my eyebrows and sag my shoulders in defeat. I could probably beat his ass if push comes to shove, but I suddenly feel so drained—of this conversation, this castle, this cursed war.
“Fine. Lead the way.”
I brace myself for the unpleasant moments to come as Axel opens the door to Killian’s study and practically pushes me through before closing the door with a loud thud.
Killian’s leaning over his massive mahogany desk, his gaze focused intently on a storm of parchments thrown haphazardly over his workspace. His eyes narrow to onyx slits as he lifts his head from the papers and takes me in.
“Took you long enough,” he says in a gruff voice.
Gods, that voice. It used to twist my insides in longing and trepid anticipation, but now I can feel my anger slithering in, combusting every other emotion in its path until only charred ashes remain.
“Well, excuse me for not coming running like a lost puppy when you beckon.” I cross my arms in front of my chest and jut my chin out in defiance.
“Stubborn brat,” he mutters under his breath, but I catch it with my newly developed heightened hearing.
Oh, wow. We’ve resorted to name-calling already?
What are we, like, five years old?
Scratch that. I am not above this either.
“Presumptuous bloodsucker,” I spit through clenched teeth. “What do you want?”
Killian sighs and drags his hand through his dark locks, messing his hair completely. The gesture makes me lose focus for a second, as images of another time flash in my mind.
My fingers caressing his midnight black strands, feeling the softness against my fingertips. His once dazzling smile melting my insides as he whispered sweet nothings in my ear under the covers.
Grief rampages through my veins before I can contain it in my mental vault.
Sweet nothings, that’s all they were.
Emphasis on nothings.
“I’ve secured a rendezvous with the human leaders. I need allies in this war against Morweena, and they’ve agreed to meet and hear me out. But there’s a catch.”
I take two steps closer toward the mahogany desk that separates us, waiting in silence for him to continue.
“They’ve demanded both our presence in Reweroth. The human leaders want to meet the Foretold One,” he says in an exhausted voice.
“Okay.” I nod. This is more important than our meaningless bickering. “When do we leave?”
Killian releases an audible breath, his gaze softening a fraction.
“Right away. The sooner we get there, the better.”
“And how long will the journey be?” I ask with mild curiosity.
“Seconds, I suppose. I haven’t shadow-traveled this far in a while, but it shouldn’t take more than that. If it were closer, I could take us both, but to the other side of the continent it will require your skill too.”
“Shadow travel?” I repeat in disbelief. I know he can do that; I’ve seen it countless times. But how the hell does he expect me to do it?
“Yeah, I assume you’ve been training yourself to do it these past few weeks,” he says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
I stare at him dumbfounded for an instant before a hysterical laugh bubbles up past my lips.
“Gods, you’re so fucking daft! How did I not notice this before!”
His gaze darkens immediately, and any shallow trace of softness disappears from his face. But I don’t care. It’s like an emotional dam has broken inside my mind, and a devastating deluge of outrage sweeps everything in its path.
“How the hell do you think I could train for an ability I didn’t even know I should have? It’s not like you were courteous enough to tell me.”
He grits his teeth loudly, his fists clenching on top of the desk.
“You haven’t deserved my courtesy as of late.”
It’s meant as a slap in the face, but I’m already too numb to feel its sting.
“Oh, get over yourself already, you arrogant asshole! This is about the war, not about us.”
“There is no us,” he says in a rough voice.
“Don’t I know it!” I snort in disdain.
I don’t need a reminder.
“You’re such an insufferable pain in my ass. What the fuck have you been doing training all this time if you can’t even shadow travel?”
The more he spews bullshit from his sinful mouth, the more I see red. No way am I letting him pin this on me, when all I’ve done is prepare for the upcoming conflict, while he’s been sulking in the shadows doing Gods know what.
“Call me whatever you want, Killian. I’m not the one incapable of having an adult conversation.
I’ve been working on my strength and my stamina, actually learning how to hold my own in battle against the onpyrs.
Don’t blame me for not knowing something you could have told me if only you weren’t such a thousand-year-old baby. ”
“Watch your mouth,” he growls in such a way that would probably intimidate anyone else but me.
“Fuck you, Vampire King. You’re not the big bad wolf you think you are!”
I feel more and more wound up, and my shadows hiss against my skin, dying to break from my flesh’s confinement.
“Oh, but I am, you deceitful little girl. I might have been a fool before and mistaken you for something you’re not, but I see your true colors now, Aimee. You might pose as a victim, but you’re just as much a villain as everybody else.”
Little girl? Did he just fucking belittle me again?
“I. Am. Not. A. Little. Girl.” I seethe as I punctuate each word with a step closer until I reach the other side of his desk.
“But you admit you’re a deceitful creature, don’t you?” he says triumphantly, giving me a smug once-over.
That obnoxious vampire jerk! My frail restraint snaps at last, and I slam my hands on the surface of the writing table, scattering papers every which way.
“I fucking hate you, asshole!”
He parts his lips to return the scornful sentiment when my shadows explode from my skin with a dizzying violence.
I sway on the spot for an instant, my vision turning dark and blurry, and I blink to chase the haziness away, only to find my shadowy double, stark naked, facing Killian on top of the workstation.
What the…
I can do that too? Why the fuck is she—am I—naked, though?
Killian’s pupils dilate promptly, and his own crimson shadows jump from his skin, forming his wicked shadow self.
Also naked.
A heartbeat of stillness passes, as if time itself is holding its breath, before chaos erupts.
Both Shadow Killian and Shadow me leap at each other’s throats at the same time, and I prepare for the imminent collision, only to be taken aback when they consume each other with fervent voracity.
Their kiss is a total annihilation of the senses, and my lips burn as if I am the one enthralled in carnal madness.
I am too shocked to react, and I watch dazed as Shadow Killian pushes my double on top of the remaining parchments, scorching a path of bites and kisses down her throat, that I can feel deep in my bones, before he enters her with a sharp thrust.
I gasp, a traitorous moan slipping past my lips as I look past the fornicating shadows and meet Killian’s intense stare.
He’s frozen in place just like I am, the only thing giving him away being his smoldering eyes and the tic in his jaw. He’s as much affected by this raw display of unwanted rapture from our shadows as I am.
“Truce?” he rasps in a gravel-like voice, drinking me in with ravenous pitch-black irises.
No fucking way!
My anxiety bubbles to the surface, needles of hysteria prickling my scalp, and I shake my head fervently before I bolt out the door.
I don’t stop until I barricade myself inside my chamber, my thundering pulse wreaking havoc inside me.
I feel every ounce of pleasure Shadow Killian is wringing out of my double’s immaterial body, and it’s both the best and the worst feeling I’ve ever experienced in my entire life.
Killian’s one-word question lingers in the forefront of my mind, and I can’t help but wonder what insurmountable line we would have crossed if I’d stayed.
This entire ordeal between us has just become infinitely harder.