Rapture

Book 2: Shadowdwellers

by Jacquelyn Frank

Genres: Paranormal Romance; General Fiction; Romance

Synopsis

Magnus is a man of contradictions-a spiritual leader in a warrior's body. To him, laws are for enforcing and visions must be followed-even if that means freeing a beautiful slave and making her his reluctant handmaiden. Betrayed once before, Magnus can barely bring himself to trust another woman. Yet Daenaira's fiery innocence is drawing them both into a reckless inferno of desire.

Daenaira grew up hearing tales of a fearsome priest who seemed more myth than reality. But Magnus is very real- every inch of him-and so is the treachery surrounding them. Beneath Sanctuary's calm surface, an enemy is scheming to unleash havoc on the Shadowdwellers, unless Magnus trusts in a union ordained by fate, and sealed by unending bliss.

Release date: June 19, 2009

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 416

Sample

Magnus understood the nature of evil sometimes a bit too well. There were times like these when he felt as though he had become a mirror for it, his own soul a distant reflection now as other things crowded it out. It was a thick and unwelcome feeling, a little too much like losing faith. At the very least it was a jaded perspective, and because of who and what he was, it simply would not serve.

The priest took a breath and instead focused on the grim task at hand.

Magnus drew the sojourn blade he held in his scarred and callused hand over the carefully laid granite pentagons decorating the plaza. Sparks were shorn from its angular tip as he drew an arc of challenge before himself. Blade makers far and wide would have cringed at the rude misuse of the painstakingly crafted metal, but sometimes evil needed a special invitation. Magnus engraved this one in the granite before him.

“Anthran,” he called, his deep-throated voice echoing in the empty air around him, the wells and hollows of the stone surfaces of the buildings toying with the sound. The stark, abandoned feel of the place was, to his mind, strangely apropos. “Where do you think you can go that I cannot and will not follow, except into Light itself?”

And even there I would follow you. I would consign myself to burn in that hell if that is what it will take to ensure you are forever destroyed and can never harm another living soul.

Magnus’s voice built in power, the boom of it sending powerful echoes of intimidation out all around him. “What do you think you can gain from hiding when you can see the chase is clearly over?”

“Time, perhaps,” a disembodied but familiar voice replied. “Follow all you like, priest, but at least I dictate the path. Nothing can command me now.”

“Except me,” Magnus replied with a feral glare in his golden eyes as he scanned the vast emptiness for a shadow, a sign…

“Yes, always you. A dogged little soldier in Darkness’s doggedly righteous little army.” There was a dramatic, put-upon sigh from behind him, but Magnus knew better than to turn around. Instead, he glanced down into the blade of the sojourn, looking in its reflective surface and finding it empty as expected. He could hear the tinge of frustration in Anthran’s tone once his enemy realized his pathetic tricks wouldn’t work. “You run yourself ragged chasing me down, priest, and you never stop to question it. What does it feel like, being a mindless little lapdog for a god you have never met?”

“I do not have to meet my gods to know They are with me,” he reminded his Sinner.

“Darkness is just shadows, you fool! Light is just light! They are not heaven or hell, and not gods who are rule makers any more than I am a rule breaker. I am just like you, Magnus, a Shadowdweller, a being with special powers given to me by my genetics; powers I am meant to use to their fullest glory!”

“You, my unfortunate soul, are nothing like me,” Magnus countered. “This discussion is pointless. Come out and face me. Force me to hunt you and I promise to make you regret it. I will relish the penance I will earn when I make you suffer, just as your victims have suffered.”

“This discussion is for your benefit, Magnus, not mine. There are no victims, priest. I am just a dream. Whatever I do in this realm is made of fantasy just as easily forgotten as it is remembered. I am ether and mist.”

“If that were true, then you would have no cause to fear me. My blade would never touch you. But you know it is a lie, Anthran. You have illegally crossed into Dreamscape. You have stolen into the dreams of innocents and become their worst nightmares. You have used your Shadowdweller gifts against your own kin and become the worst kind of Sinner. For that, I will make you repent.”

“Blind faith is still blind, Magnus, and I don’t believe in your faith or your laws. You think you have the right to regulate Shadowscape, Dreamscape, and all the others? You appoint yourself and the rest of your religious house as militant protectors. Why? Because of Scripture? Ancient scribblings of our forefathers who might have been diseased or madmen? Or do you do this for those twin dolls you prop up prettily as our king and queen?

“Ha! You fool!” Anthran spat in contempt. “Is this what you sacrifice the pleasures of the mind and body for? It is unnatural, the way you and your eunuchs and those frigid bitches live. Maybe if you had a few real, lusty women to ride your cock, you wouldn’t be so quick to judge the desires of a real man. I have no wish to fight you, M’jan, only to guide you from the errors of your fanatical thinking.”

“Ah, but I wish to fight you,” the priest observed darkly, taunting his foe. “Come, come, Sinner. I will listen to your lecture so long as you give it to me with your sword in hand and sweat on your brow.”

“Deal!”

Anthran came from nowhere, barely giving Magnus the chance to parry the ringing blow of his much heavier two-handed blade. The priest gritted his teeth as the feel of it reverberated into his bones, and then with a slide of metal on metal he shoved his opponent’s weight off himself. Once they were separated, the circling dance began.

“Not bad,” Magnus mused, “but not good enough.”

“I am learning this environment,” Anthran warned, curling a lip in arrogant mocking. “I am better than you think I am.”

“Thank you for the warning. However, you are but a babe in these woods. I have known the ways of Dreamscape for centuries. You cannot think to defeat my experience.” Magnus flung his blade around in a series of sharp sweeps, forcing his opponent into parrying at lightning speed. Once he’d tricked the other man into leaving himself open to it, Magnus booted him hard in the ribs. Anthran stumbled back, barely catching his balance and keeping himself from sprawling onto the granite and leaving himself completely vulnerable. He coughed, tossing back his black hair and grinning at the priest come to hunt him.

“Steel-toed boots,” he noted, taking a moment to stretch out his injured side. “You think small, clever tricks like that will turn the tide of a battle in your favor? Those are linear tactics. Realscape thinking. This world is about power and magic and the vast reaches of the imagination!”

Magnus pressed his advantage, refusing to let Anthran buy recovery time with his chitchat. His lighter blade moved fast, like a treacherous razor, but it wasn’t meant to parry a blade so much heavier. He was forced to use a great deal of strength to fend off his enemy.

“You might be fighting someone who is a perfect equal to you, M’jan Magnus!”

“Faith, Anthran! You ask me what makes me defend and fight so righteously, without proof of divinity? It is called faith! I believe with all of my heart…” He leapt in and crashed blades, dancing out of reach again with speed belying his impressive build. “…with all of my blessed soul that no universe would allow a vicious, low-born piece of filth like you to gain this kind of power and be allowed the freedom to glut himself on sin and wickedness at the cost of others. Not without providing the opportunity for balance. I am that balance. I am that covenant.”

“Covenant!” Anthran spat viciously as he swung his weapon in a crushing overhead blow. “Magnus, you are a brainwashed fool! Your faith enslaves you and you praise it! It oppresses you and you celebrate it! Death is the only way you will take this power back from me!”

“So be it,” Magnus stated roughly. He swung his weapon high, using the overhead swing of the blade to command all of his opponent’s attention as he quickly reached for the bolos in the hard leather pouch attached to his belt behind his left hip. He held on to one end. The silver ball fitted into his palm even as the second ball flew from his fingers and spun out a length of connecting razor wire between the two. The ball and wire nailed Anthran, wrapping around his biceps like a boa constrictor hugging its prey, and Magnus yanked hard and mercilessly to commit the weapon to its place.

Anthran bellowed in agony as barbs cut and tore, the ripping sound of flesh echoing without mercy. Anthran’s heavy weapon went flying, useless now that he had been caught with one arm crippled. The priest flung away the ball still in his hand and the freed end swung around Anthran’s waist, digging in and essentially tying his arm to his side.

Anthran shouted in frustration and then resorted to his only recourse. He closed his eyes and focused as swiftly as he could while Magnus’s deadly blade advanced. The priest sensed the attack a moment before it struck, and he hit the deck to avoid the swarm of throwing stars that whined past. However, despite his dodge, he felt two of them thump into his left shoulder, sinking into his flesh all the way to the bone.

Magnus ground his teeth together as he rolled back up to his feet. He had just lost full rotation in that shoulder, but it would not sway his course. He passed his blade to his opposite hand for the briefest moment and threw up his uninjured hand, using his fury to manipulate the power of Dreamscape to his will. Electrical fire jolted down from the sky in a bolt of jagged lightning, the strike hitting the granite right between Anthran’s feet. The Sinner was blown back, flying several yards before hitting the ground. Regardless of the distance, Magnus was there when he landed, kicking the badly singed betrayer onto his stomach so he could grab him and yank him to his knees.

Once he was kneeling, the priest laid his blade against Anthran’s neck, pausing only to draw a much-needed breath.

“Repent,” he rasped, ignoring the pain and the blood rushing down his back from his wounded shoulder. “Repent and I will recall myself from this course. Beg for mercy and say you will seek penance and guidance back to the path of your people. We understand temptation; we believe in reformation.”

“You are a concubine,” Anthran choked out, his dark eyes like pools of oil as he looked up to Magnus and let them fill with rage and contempt for all the priest held sacred and dear. “You are a whore and a slave to your stupid faith and the idiot children on the throne. I am free!”

“You will die as the law demands!” Magnus ground out, showing his depth of frustration for the first time. “For Drenna’s sake, Anthran, I beg you to come to your senses! Repent!” Magnus shouted as he braced his feet and swung up his blade.

“Fuck you and your law,” Anthran spat.

Magnus swung down his blade, committing himself to his duty. There was the sound of air being sliced, and the smooth follow-through of a blade so sharp, nothing barred its sweeping arc. Not even the neck of a man gone mad.

 

Magnus strode through the antechamber to Sanctuary temple, hurrying across the vast space to the courtyard on the opposite side. He cut through the peaceful rock garden with its ebony fountain and serene statuary until he entered the women’s dormitories. The students, who were the collective responsibility of all of the priests and handmaidens were separated to opposite sides of the complex according to sex, as wisdom and traditional sensibilities dictated. There were no males allowed here, just as no females were allowed in the halls of its counterpart. The teachers and guardians were, of course, the exception to that, although even then it was discouraged for propriety’s sake.

But this was Magnus, the priest who stood closest to Darkness Herself and the most powerful and formidable defender at Her disposal. There was no corner of Sanctuary that could or would bar him.

He made his way to the next story and then back to the deeply secluded rooms in the rear reserved for students who, for whatever reason, needed to be removed from the rest of the population. Usually it was illness or injury or some extreme discipline problem that warranted this isolation.

Tonight it was something far worse.

Magnus did not bother to announce himself before walking into the room. The small area was spare and quiet, its lone occupants a handmaiden who quickly got to her feet from the chair at the bedside, and the young girl in the bed who did not so much as blink when he entered. She simply continued to stare blankly up at the ceiling above her, her covers tucked just as smoothly around her still body as they had been when she was brought there two nights earlier.

Magnus said nothing to the holy woman keeping watch, but she knew to back away into the shadows, leaving the priest alone with his student as best she could without exiting the room. Magnus quickly knelt on a single knee beside the bed and leaned over the vacant and dull child he had failed to protect in time.

“Miranda.” He addressed her in the softest of whispers, believing that his message was the one thing in the entire world she would want to hear. “Your monster is dead, little one. The one who stole into your dreams no longer exists.” Magnus raised his bloodied weapon above her staring eyes. “His head rolls upon the ground of Dreamscape even now, the hands that touched you in violence severed beside it. I speared his heart through with the tip of my blade until its blackness burst and was destroyed. He will never, never be able to harm you again.”

After the longest minutes, for the first time since she had awoken from the ultimate nightmare, the vulnerable young girl blinked. She moved, only a single hand, and reached to grasp the sword around the middle of its blade. Magnus did not flinch or draw away, though he knew how sharp the thing was. Instead, he let her take the battle-battered weapon down against her chest and watched as she slowly embraced the steel, as if it were a sweetly treasured pet. She turned away from him and he relinquished his hold on the hilt. She drew her knees up, hugged the stained sword with all of her heart, and began the slight rocking that seemed to always go hand in hand with the keening pitch of first-shed tears.

Except she was perfectly silent.

Hugging her new best friend.

Two months later…

Daenaira blinked in surprise when the locks on the outside of her room tumbled open sharply. There was almost the sound of confidence to it, which was equally surprising, but then there was a long minute of silence, and that made her smile darkly. The door jerked open and the rotund body of her aunt filled the frame of it.

“Let’s go, girl. I’m finally to be rid of you.”

Dae didn’t know how to respond to that news at first. Winifred had threatened her for years with everything from abandonment to hiring someone to slit her throat, so she narrowed her eyes suspiciously on the bitch.

“And don’t try any of your tricks, you little hellion.”

Winifred shook her chubby wrist, making the wicked cat she held in her fist rustle, the whip’s nine tails giving off an almost musical tinkle as the metal tips clinked together at the ends.

Apparently, Wini was feeling benevolent today. Usually she was compelled to use the hurish to keep Dae in line. The cuffs of the hurish were around Daenaira’s ankles and throat even now, rubbing and chafing them raw, especially so soon after the last dump of electrical voltage Winifred had used on her. It had been so powerful it had burned Dae’s skin, which of course made the chafing even worse.

Winifred usually held the remote for it at the ready, though this time Daenaira could see the outline of it in her apron pocket. Still, Wini wasn’t as fast as all that. She was being uncharacteristically brave; almost cocky, Dae thought, her eyes narrowing even further.

“I said get up!”

Dae shrugged and got up. She was still exhausted after their last go-around, never willing to sleep so long as she knew the household was awake and slithering actively beneath her. When day came and all Shadowdwellers went to sleep for those hours, then she knew she could rest a little easier. Auntie Winifred and Uncle Friedlow slept like two fat, dead pigs once they got started. Although there had been that one time when Friedlow had tried to trick her…so she slept light all the same.

She walked across the room, coming up short when her chains pulled her up to a halt about three feet from the door. Friedlow showed himself then and Daenaira immediately smelled a rat. She stepped back quickly, crouching and readying for whatever the pig had planned. But he rarely made his stupid attempts at her anymore. Too many knees in his soggy little crotch, she figured. When he held up the key to her wristlets, she couldn’t help but arch a brow. His hands were shaking, making the key ring jingle tellingly, and she took satisfaction in that. Safe in the doorway, his wife sneered at Dae.

“We’ve sold you. You’re someone else’s problem now. Maybe they can get a decent night’s work out of you for a change.”

Sold. Gods. They had threatened it endlessly, but she hadn’t ever thought they would really do it. They could be lying, but she sensed all too keenly that they weren’t. Daenaira wasn’t stupid enough to think the next place she ended up in would be any better. Her motto in life? Things could always get worse.

She thought about getting a last lick in as her slovenly uncle unchained her. But there was the cat and the hurish to consider, and she was really damn tired. Besides, she would probably need her energy when she got where she was going. Dae was surprised, though, when he took the entire cuff off each wrist, as well as sliding the chain loose of its loop. Usually they dropped the chain but kept the cuffs on to keep her readily available for lockup in case she decided to start trouble. Still, Wini had that remote, and she was already nervously fiddling with it. The stupid cow was going to set it off accidentally on purpose again, if she knew her.

Daenaira moved forward when her uncle backed well out of her way to let her pass. Just for the fun of it, Dae shouted in his direction at the last minute, making the idiot nearly piss himself. She paid for her amusement, though, when the nasty k’ypruti to her right sent the cat flinging at her with an arm that had gotten a lot of practice over the years. Thankfully, the bits on the end nabbed mostly the fabric of her dress as Winifred yanked back, but Dae caught at least two on her left arm in the back, the short sleeve abandoning little chunks of her skin to it. The sting of the lash she could handle, especially through cloth, but gods, did flaying hurt! Daenaira felt fury rushing through her like breaking daylight, and she rounded on Winifred with a snarl.

She stopped when the remote appeared quickly.

Flaying was one thing, but Winifred held death in her hand, and that was something else. Dae backed off quickly and even let the cow stick her foot in the small of her back and shove her out of the hall with it. What choice did she have?

As usual, none at all.

When she emerged to the front of the house, she immediately noticed two male strangers standing in the front hall. They were uniformed, a livery of some kind fortified with leather. Like most Shadowdwellers, they wore black, but there was a distinctive violet embroidery on the edges of their coats. Probably the mark of their house. A noble house, by the look of it. They certainly weren’t wearing a sari made of quilted-together pieces of Winifred’s old outfits. They looked at her and she saw surprise register on their faces. They traded perplexed looks and she rolled her eyes and sighed. She was used to it, actually. She was the only redheaded Shadowdweller most people had ever seen. Sure, the red was so deep it was close to the usual black the women of her breed were born with, but not close enough. It was just enough difference to trigger Shadowdweller night-vision to read it as black-blood red. She always wondered what it would have looked like if she could have ever stood in sunlight. Or any light, for that matter. But no ’Dweller could bear any light other than moonlight. Maybe a single candle…but anything else and they would burn to ash.

That was what made the hurish so deadly. The higher the voltage, the brighter the arc of the electricity that shot around the metal delivery system. Winifred could have burned off her feet past a certain point, if she hadn’t been afraid of killing her in the process. That much voltage and poof, there went a perfectly good set of cheap muscles and hard-laboring spine. Gods knew their lazy asses never did any of the work. They enjoyed the money made off the sweat of her brow as she did the laundry Winifred took in from the nearest high houses that couldn’t be bothered to do it for themselves. It was a lovely convenience that freed up time for other things.

Lovely for them, at least. Lovely for her aunt and uncle. Not so lovely for her. Especially since slavery, she knew, was illegal. But their isolation from most of the city and the control methods they used on her allowed them to get away with it. They never let her off the property. Never told her about the outside world. All she knew, she had learned before she had fallen into their hands. That and what she had gleaned from the laundry she had done. She would know when someone had sex, lost their virginity, was wounded in a fight, or sometimes even what they did for a living. But it was a small cross section of information from a smaller cross section of the populace, so she supposed it wasn’t all that important.

But this was completely unexpected. They must have gotten an incredible price for her, otherwise why give up the only source of livelihood they had? Unless she was going to be replaced by someone younger and cheaper to feed…easier to whip and beat into submission.

She had never been easy.

However, the fact that her newer owners were wealthy made her stomach knot with apprehension. A noble house willing to get caught owning a slave had a lot more to lose than a merchant laundress did. That meant they had more resources for hiding it out in the open, and far deeper desires for the use of their property than just making her wash clothes to keep them fed. It meant they weren’t afraid of much of anything.

Daenaira quickly began to size up her competition. It didn’t look very promising for her side. Both men were big and well developed. They were both armed in several ways that were obvious, and even a few that others wouldn’t notice right off. They were trained fighters. Guards, if she had her guess. Still, if she was ever going to get out of this bright light, she was going to have to do something before she got to her new location.

And that was when Winifred hit the switch to the remote, getting her last lick in. The voltage was extreme, and Dae knew it right away. Her whole body seized with it, the skin around her ankles and throat burning even as the guards began to move forward to catch her.

Everything went numb and wild and then…blissfully…black.

 

Daenaira awoke to the sensation of being rolled over.

She tried to focus, her eyeballs feeling fat and swollen as they often did when she had been badly shocked. She saw the unmistakable silhouette of a man leaning over her. A really big man. She reacted before she was even fully conscious. She palmed out hard, catching softness and grinding it into the hardness of bone. She felt the answering spray of blood spattering against her and figured she’d gotten his mouth or nose at the very least. She would have preferred an eye, but she took what she was given.

She rolled out from under him, dragging her wobbling, uncoordinated muscles into something like a crawl. She didn’t realize she was on a bed until she fell off it. She grunted and cursed when she hit the floor. A bed! It figures! Well, the perverted prick should have tied her ass up, because there was no way she was going to allow—

Strong hands wrapped around her arms from behind. He hauled her to her feet, for which she mentally thanked the moron as she got her vacillating strength underneath herself. It was probably only a matter of time before he jolted her into a coma, but she would be damned if she was going to be conscious for what he was planning. Grounding herself on braced feet, she windmilled back and around to the left, her elbows rising high and whipping out of his grip. One caught him hard in a cheekbone, and the second came full around to his lower jaw. She heard the harsh sound of teeth clacking together and an angry bellow of pain just before she swung her fist into his throat.

I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m so dead, she thought frantically even as she added insult to his injuries when she watched him fall gagging onto his knees and hauled back to kick him full force in his crotch. But before she could commit, she was grabbed from behind, whirled around, and belted hard across her face.

It was a good punch. Enough to stop her dead, seeing as how she was working on borrowed strength to begin with. She felt blood explode out of her mouth even as fiery pain burned across her cheeks and sinuses. She’d be shocked if she didn’t lose a tooth, she thought, even as her body flung back with the momentum of the punch’s follow-through. Off balance and flying, she hit the floor in a skid. The smooth surface sent her skating several feet before she bumped to a stop against something.

“Sua vec’a!”

The roar burst into the room like holy thunder. Head spinning, stomach sick from it, half blind and half deaf from pain and worse, Daenaira knew she had never heard anything like the power of that voice in all her life. It was like the rising roar of a mighty lion, the power of which you never understood if you only ever heard it from a distance. But this was the voice of a beast who knew he was at the top of the food chain. He knew he was king.

She felt something move against her and realized she had come up against the feet of the voice’s owner. In fact, they had stopped her progress across the floor. She curled her body instinctively, readying for the kick in the ribs or back that would follow, bracing as best she could even though she knew she should relax instead. It hurt less if she could make herself relax.

Remembering that helped and she let herself go lax, though remaining curled to protect her vitals.

“What in the burning Light of day are you doing?” the terrible voice demanded from above her. “Get out of my sight! Go before my katana meets my hand!”

The threat was clear enough, except she didn’t know where she should go. Regardless, the way she was feeling, she didn’t want any more trouble. Dismissal was just as good as winning in her book. She rolled onto her hands and knees and tried to crawl, but she couldn’t support her own weight. Even a baby could crawl, and yet she couldn’t drag herself an inch. Plus, she was drooling blood all over the place, and she had learned the hard way that bleeding on things was frowned upon.

She barely noticed the sound of receding feet, but she did hear the echoing clack of a shutting door that told her she was in a hell of a big room. She still couldn’t move, so she was fairly close to the angry male above her when he crouched down. She saw him looming near her in silhouette only, details blurred completely away. She heard the creaking sound of leather from his clothing, and the telltale tap of wood against the floor. Hollow wood, with something inside it.

A sword. The threatened katana, no doubt. But on the plus side, she hadn’t heard the sound of drawn steel, so she still had time to get her act together if she was lucky. Daenaira tried again to move, and again remained in a motionless pile.

She felt the heat of him as he leaned over her, reaching across her back. Dae should have kept still, just like she always should keep still and never seemed to manage it, but instinct made her grab the arm of the hand about to touch her, her nails gouging deeply into—

Holy Light, she thought with a mental gasp, is all of that muscle?

It was more like flesh made steel! She could hardly get her hand around the width of that thick bicep. Gods help her if he was left-handed, because if what she was feeling wasn’t his sword arm, she was completely screwed.

To her never-ending surprise, she felt his opposite hand come to rest on the one she was digging into him. Winifred liked to cut Dae’s nails off when she was out cold after a battle. She must have forgotten, because Dae made pretty good purchase. The thing was, instead of ripping her away from him, he simply held her fingers under his, keeping her from stripping his flesh but tolerating her injury to him.

This guy could be a bigger degenerate than she had anticipated. If he liked getting hurt…

She took note of the thick, hard calluses on the hand covering hers. There was years’ worth of hard work at something; it was not soft and fat like her relatives’ had been. Not in the least. Yet, she slowly became cognizant of the gentleness of his touch against her fingers. She suspected a trick, but for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what it was. Eventually she just let go, collapsing into an exhausted pile of panting, dizzy flesh. As if she’d never even touched him, he continued to reach for her, cupping her shoulder in his wide palm. Slowly he rolled her toward him, letting her flop loosely onto her back.

On the plus side, she could make out that he was in a low squat, his knees wide apart enough to give her a great shot at his vulnerable testicles.

“I am sorry for this,” he said, the large voice spinning away into a kindness she could almost believe because it was so vastly opposite to the tone of earlier. “That will not happen again.”

Wanna bet? She wanted to sneer at him, but her lip hurt an awful lot. Just wait until she got a second wind. All kinds of shit would be happening again.

Meanwhile, she was pretty much as dangerous as a ball of fluff under the furniture right then. Still, there was that rather attractive testicular target within reach. It could be fun. At the very least it could get her belted into unconsciousness. That’d buy her a few more hours, and she usually healed pretty fast, just like any other ’Dweller could. Provided she could go a few hours without shock therapy, that is. It tended to jar her healing molecules all out of whack or something.

She felt his hand slide up from her shoulder to her throat. Dae swallowed, feeling his fingers on the gold collar to the hurish. Not that she was a treasured pet or anything; the fortified gold was just the best conductor of electricity around. The built-in remote circuitry also had a delightful feature that humans used to keep their dogs within the bounds of an electrified fence—except it was jacked up to less than humane standards. Of course, humans called it something else. Humans didn’t even know Shadowdwellers existed, never mind that they shared technology. Well, lightless technology at least.

She felt him probing at the collar, trying to turn it or have it give way a bit more, she supposed. But she was swollen around it now, not that there was any leeway to begin with.

“What is this? Why do you wear your jewelry so tightly?”

She laughed, a sloppy snort that conveyed she was much less than amused. Her contempt mixed with her fury and the impotence of the moment, making things increasingly dangerous for the idiot touching her. The higher her temper spiked, the stronger she would feel. It was probably an adrenaline thing, but whatever worked…

“Please answer me when I ask you a question.”

“Fuck you. I’m not your parrot, your dog, or anything else.”

Daenaira had never learned when to keep her mouth shut, either. Apparently, she had a sucky learning curve. She felt those fingers come up to close around her face, his heated body closing in as he leaned closer and turned her malfunctioning eyes up to his.

“I do not consider you any of those things,” he told her carefully, “but I do expect a level of respect in my house, girl.”

His house. So he was her new owner after all. She had suspected as much, considering the way he had spoken earlier and the haste with which the other two men had left the room.

It didn’t matter. He could be the president of the United States for all she cared. While humans found that to be an important person, Shadowdwellers did not. This male might scare the hell out of his other servants, but she was a horse of a different color.

She smiled.

Then she spat in his face.

How’s that for respect, asshole?

She wished she could have seen it. She knew she was bleeding really badly, too, because she was constantly swallowing the stuff. Dae would have paid good money to see some aristocratic bituth amec sprayed in red spit, and here the opportunity was, completely free. Served him right anyway. What kind of idiot would lean face-to-face with her after watching her kick his lackeys’ asses all over the place? Now she was thinking she had to take that testicle shot just on principle. Then again, why blow all her tricks at once?

“That,” he said very slowly, “was not only rude, but quite unhygienic.”

Unhygienic? Was he kidding?

“Yeah? I’ve also been known to pee myself on command.” She curled the less swollen side of her lip. “Might want to keep that in mind.”

To her surprise, she heard him chuckle. And it wasn’t some snide or superior mocking laugh either, but a rather genuine, good-natured sort of thing.

“I thank you for the warning. With consideration like that, I am certain we can work up to respect.”

Then she felt him move to slide his hands under her back and her knees. Before she could respond, he had risen to his full height and was carrying her high against a chest made of chiseled rock. Dreading what would happen next, she tensed for any possibility. She was already in trouble, she knew, because he wasn’t the least bit afraid of her. It had taken some time, but Winifred and Friedlow had learned a healthy fear of their caged pet, and she had worked it every chance she could to keep herself reasonably safe and alive. She had no idea how she could work the same effect on a man who seemed so blasé about owning a slave who threatened to leak on him like a baby doll. Also, there was the part where she knew she weighed a good sixty-five kilos, yet he was sweeping her up without so much as a grunt of effort. The muscle closed around her in the form of his chest, astoundingly broad shoulders, and those fearfully thickly developed biceps. There was no give on him anywhere. His belly was hard and flat against her round hip, and as he crossed the floor in a crisp, booted stride, he never so much as shuffled a foot under her added weight.

She was in big trouble. She knew it with that sinking surety she got in her gut right before the most dramatic events in her pathetic life took place. Daenaira was oriented to the room as she knew it so far, though, and she was positive he wasn’t heading back toward the bed where this had all begun. However, without knowing what else was around her in the vast room, she couldn’t say for certain if that was a good thing. She did understand that space in an underground city like this one was a scarce commodity. Once used for deep mining efforts, the caves and caverns the Shadowdweller city occupied were located in the far reaches of an Alaskan mountain range. The small sprawl of the city that existed aboveground appeared to the rest of the world as a wildlife and geographical survey post. Those buildings managed things like winter livestock and other city supplies or technology stations, all managed in a lightless environment, especially during the long, dark winters that gave her people respite from the dangers of daylight. Shadowdwellers migrated to the very edge of the Antarctic for the summer, following the darkness to a New Zealand winter that was far less harsh or dark than Alaska, but still less than eight hours of daylight in a day, which was much preferred to eighteen hours of North American summer days.

But here in the northern city, deep in the dark, it meant an entire culture lived in a slowly developing infrastructure, making space very, very valuable. If the room they were in was truly as large as it sounded, her new “benefactor” was as wealthy as they came. A Senator, she considered, although keeping slaves wasn’t exactly politically savvy. Still, Senators were only useful in bringing the issues and needs of their people to the royals and arguing with them about progress, both for and against. But in truth, the Chancellors were the sole power of their government. Daenaira had once thought it would mean good things for their society when the twins had won the war and taken power about a decade ago. But since she had spent the past eight of those years washing clothes in captivity, she had no idea if it was working out that way. She didn’t much care either. It h. . .