Shadow Hunt

CHAPTER 3



Ellie heard the door of their suite close behind her. Then Cam’s arms were around her, but no matter how tightly he held on, she couldn’t stop shaking, not even to gawk at the suite’s ostentatious décor—a modern take on Versailles, gold-edged, cream-colored, claw-footed furniture. Geez.

“We need to get you out of here,” he said in her ear, his breath a kiss at her neck. “Find a way back through the wards or contact Adam. I thought that there’d be at least the pretense that we were guests, that they would make at least an overture of goodwill before threats.”

“It’s pretty clear what they think of humans, even freaks like us.” Just the thought of what that Mathilde had said, her tone, redoubled the deep trembling within Ellie.

“Deep breaths, sweetheart,” Cam replied. “That woman is pure evil. I’ll get you out of here somehow.”

Out? As in back to safe Segue?

“The hell you will.” Ellie pulled back slightly from his embrace. “You think I’m scared?” Damn those shakes; they came from her shadow. “I’m not scared. I’m pissed to the bone. I’m not going anywhere until I wipe that snide look off Mathilde’s face. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Up until a little over a year ago, she hadn’t been able to control her shadow at all; her dark self had been a wild thing, more dangerous every day. An angel named Laurence had finally restrained it, for only a few moments, after asking permission. Even then, the sensation of someone else’s will overcoming her own had been nothing less than an assault.

The peace and acceptance she’d found at Segue had made her certain she’d never live in fear again of not being able to control her shadow. She’d reached the end of her tolerance for that kind of terror back on her farm. She was not about to lose ground now. And not to that condescending bitch.

“You can have Slight”—Ellie patted Cam on the shoulder, as if to console him—“but if Mathilde tries anything again, she’s mine. Self-defense all the way, baby; you can still be the murderer.”

Cam stepped back, eyes blacker than ever. “So you’re still angry with me?”

Angry with everyone. A mage had just toyed with her, and the love of her life intended to risk his life needlessly to prevent the possibility of her shadow becoming insanely homicidal.

Okay, in this state, maybe she was a little aggressive—or at least the dark part of her was. Maybe she should take one of the deep breaths Cam suggested. She filled her lungs three times before her tremors abated. Strange how the body fed her shadow. And stranger still that Cam should know it.

Of course he would.

The ring is in his pocket, her shadow said within.

But Ellie wasn’t ready for that. Her shadow might want to merge with him at every opportunity—yes—but her mind was still holding back for some reason.

Instead, she rose up on tiptoe and kissed his mouth, then glanced over his worry-worn face. She loved every single line and ached over each one too. Sometime in the past year she’d kind of lost track of how he looked to everyone else—young, fit, handsome, a little rough around the edges—and now he just looked like Cam. Her Cam. Who’d do anything for her. She’d have to be very alert for sudden heroics; she’d been concerned for a moment downstairs when he’d told Mathilde to stop what she was doing.

But he had to learn to let go and trust her, all of her. She couldn’t wear his ring until they stood on an equal footing. Maybe this visit into magekind was necessary; the future would require her to fight without a keeper, even one with a heart as true as Cam’s.

Her shadow twisted within, and Ellie knew why.

Because true-heart Cam now contemplated murder, which seemed so incongruous with his nature. She’d known he was getting darker. First his eyes. Then all his quiet work. His silences. But she’d paid more attention to the lusty optimism he used with her. Which was the real Cam?

Or did he come in parts too?

The thought unsettled her.

She stepped away from him, walked to the heavily draped windows and looked out. On the west side of the house, tucked in a wide fold of trees, was a series of spartan buildings—white, low, without any of the embellishment of the main house. They were situated in a square, four to a side, with a central plaza, similarly white, but with a scorched center.

Ellie inclined her head over her shoulder. “The Seminary?”

Cam came to her side. “I see Shadow and trees, and if I don’t try to look too hard, the occasional movement of a fae.” A sigh, long in coming. “You should know that I saw Slight while Mathilde was playing her little game.”

Ellie turned to face Cam fully. “And you had to let him go because of me.”

Cam looked down at her. “He was playing the game too—you know, come-and-get-me. He can’t hide from the puny humans for long without losing face. Sooner or later, tonight or tomorrow, we’ll meet.”

Ellie was wondering who the “we” included—something in the delivery seemed to exclude her. Only Cam and Slight, then.

“Just so we’re clear, I’m not hiding either.” No matter what Mathilde could do. The fact of the matter, which Cam had up until now ignored, was that no one was invincible. No one completely safe. Mathilde had proved that by controlling Ellie’s wild and unstoppable shadow. Well, by extension, Mathilde had to have a weakness too. And Ellie intended to find it. And if that woman tried anything else, Ellie would exploit it.

Cam’s black eyes looked tired, but he nodded. “I think I got that.”

Now they were making progress. “Well then, how about we dress for dinner, meet them head-on, and take no prisoners.”

“At a fancy dinner?” Cam was trying for a smile.

So Ellie gave him one back. “Why not?”





Martin’s table was like nothing she’d ever seen. Lavishly set, each place held a central gold plate surrounded by satellite dishes, as well as no less than eight utensils and three crystal glasses varying slightly in stem and breadth of cup, all on crisp white linen. The table was headed at either end by Gunnar and Mathilde, who was taking her absent mother’s place. They were surrounded by seated men in trim tuxedos and women in simple, glittering gowns, each mage with a straight back, careful black eyes, and an inscrutable expression—nothing remotely like Marcie’s dinners at Segue.

At Segue folks showed up in everything from sweats to lab coats—basically what they’d been wearing when their work was interrupted by the thought that something good was cooking in the kitchen.

Food made Ellie think of Marcie, when she’d been trying so hard not to.

Once—a lump formed in her throat—once, a couple months ago, the food never even made it to the big table in the dining hall. Everyone helped themselves and leaned on the kitchen walls debating what the blockbuster release of Shadow in Sin City got right and wrong about magic, and the merits of consulting with Hollywood so that the basics would at least be correct. Marcie had mused that “consulting” would get her close to a certain actor with a well-documented six-pack, and so she had humbly volunteered for the task, seeing as how she knew more about Shadow than anyone since she got bits and pieces from all the departments.

Had Marcie been scared? Ellie blinked back sudden tears and kept her mourning shadow tucked deep inside.

Gunnar and Mathilde didn’t deign to introduce them to the other guests. One or two black gazes flicked their way, but otherwise everyone took their cues from them and did not acknowledge the humans in their midst.

The soup had to be a vichyssoise, served chilled, the scent of leeks mildly pungent and savory, which Ellie could identify only because Cam had once taken her to a nice French restaurant on a date. The soup was ladled by a servant with washed-out blue eyes—therefore, a human—who kept his gaze on his work, his head otherwise bowed. Which reminded her that she was angry. And that she would never bow her head here. When the server finished and spoons dipped low, Ellie spoke.

“Do any of you happen to know a mage by the name of Slight? We were told that we might meet him here.”

The spoons, each held delicately in a mage’s hand, froze midscoop. Twelve black gazes, including her beloved’s, darted to her.

Cam squeezed her thigh under the table.

She tried some soup—got a cold, buttery mouthful of leek and potato—better than the French restaurant’s, but she still had to work hard to swallow over her bravado.

A sharp ding—metal against china—brought her attention down the table, to a mage who sat directly to the left of Gunnar, obviously someone important.

The mage’s upper body was more relaxed than the others’, his left forearm resting on the edge of his seat, and his expression had a strange derisive kind of amusement. “I know Slight.”

Only three words, but Ellie picked up a subtext she couldn’t translate. It made the superplucked eyebrow of one of the mage women lift, however.

Her shadow hissed within her, sensing danger. Who was this guy?

Gunnar’s gaze roamed, but he made no comment and applied himself to his soup.

“We’re here to kill Slight,” Ellie stated matter-of-factly. To see if that would get a rise.

The mage man stretched his face into a smile. “You don’t say.” The subtext was becoming clearer, something along the lines of “Ah, someone to play with.”

Mathilde, at the other end, sipped from her glass to cover her amusement as well. “Zander, you are too much.”

“Does this House protect him?” Cam asked. He kept his hand on Ellie’s leg—always with her.

Zander, his smile steady when Ellie looked back, replied, “Slight is not of Martin House. No one here has either the obligation or desire to protect him. He’s a stray. Like a mongrel dog—good for kicking.”

“I thought he worked for Martin.” Ellie tried her own subtext buried in tone: I know he works for Martin.

“No, of course not.” Zander glanced at Mathilde. “Imagine using a stray.” The black gaze found Ellie again, and he lowered himself enough to explain, though it was clearly tedious to him. “He might work to gain Martin’s favor in some desperate hope to become House, but that is different.”

Different only in that Martin didn’t have to take responsibility for Slight’s actions. Otherwise, the same.

“Didn’t he attend your Seminary?” Ellie skated her vision right-left to keep an eye on both Zander and Mathilde. What Slight could do required training, and he’d very likely found it here.

Mathilde lifted her chin as if she’d just gotten an idea. “Perhaps you’d consider trying your shadow against some of the Seminary’s novitiates.”

“I might,” Ellie said lightly, but she wasn’t about to leave the topic. “Especially against Slight.”

“Of course, I cannot command his presence.” Mathilde took up her spoon again. “He’s not House.”

“You can’t command”—Ellie looked at Zander to ask—“What was it you called Slight?” She looked back at Mathilde without waiting for an answer. “A mongrel dog?”

The amusement dropped from Mathilde’s face.

Zander barked a laugh.

Ellie picked up her spoon as well and mumbled at her soup. “And she hopes to command humans? Huh.” The huh wasn’t supposed to be voiced, and it kind of came out like a ha.

Cam’s hand was warm on her thigh under the table. From that one spot she drew reassurance and strength.

“Be careful,” Gunnar Martin finally said, this time silky smooth in warning.

“Back atcha,” Cam said, not as smooth.

Ellie had no doubt her sweet man was ready to surge up from his seat. She’d kiss him later.

But her shadow, always driven by instinct, urged Ellie’s head up, her eyeballs away from Gunnar’s end and down the table about forty-five degrees. Ellie sharpened her gaze on a mage woman, maybe in her forties, who’d let her carefully composed expression slip—eyes lit, a corner of her mouth tugging upward—to reveal that she enjoyed Mathilde’s momentary discomfort, enjoyed it a lot.

Her, the shadow said from within. The shadow was never wrong. Most people dampened or ignored their instincts, but Ellie knew different. Instincts were survival.

The mage woman must have felt the attention because her gaze flicked to Ellie and met her stare. The mage’s complexion mottled—white and blotchy red all the way down her neck and chest—though her expression was once again closed. She knew she’d been caught naked for a moment and was fighting the flush of distress.

She hated Mathilde and she was afraid?

Even better.

Ellie took another spoonful of soup and relished the creamy snap of flavor.





Cam’s soup was too cold and too slick on his tongue for his taste. He watched the mages for any sign of assault, while his thoughts were with Ellie, wondering what the hell she was up to. But they were a team, and if she wanted to pick a fight after what had happened with Mathilde earlier, that was fine by him. They’d learned what they’d come for: there would be no peace between magekind and humanity, at least not with Martin House. All that was left was dealing with Slight.

The evening dragged on with each course, and when someone spoke, the dialogue was sly and threatening. Shadow roiled in their midst with each barb and thrust. Cam had heard that mages often fought among themselves. Now he witnessed the infighting and came to the easy conclusion that the atmosphere had to be ultimately divisive for the House.

But, as was becoming the norm in Cam’s life, Ellie was way ahead of him. She’d come to the same conclusion, had found a crack, and she took a pry bar to it after dinner was over. The trusted mages of Martin House, Mathilde and that Zander included, joined Gunnar in his office, while the others were left to their own devices.

After the room emptied and the outer hall as well, Ellie drew Cam toward the stairs. “Follow me.”

“Where?” Cam kept a low tone.

“I dunno yet,” Ellie answered, mischief in her eyes.

He understood. She was listening to her shadow.

Ellie went up the stairs. What signs her shadow tracked, Cam couldn’t guess. The wake of a person’s scent? A far-off footstep? A lingering trail of body heat in the air? Something visceral, though; the shadow did not track magic.

Ellie led him down a long, back hallway to a door. They entered without knocking. The room was a bedroom even smaller than their suite, dingier somehow, with heavier furniture and the menace of dark, haunted corners.

A woman was leaning forward to take off her shoes. She wore a black sheath of a dress, tied at her waist. She looked over her shoulder from a semicrouch, hand on a bare heel. Her narrow face had the look of a ferret—and Cam finally recognized her from dinner. She’d spoken little.

Her mouth twitched as she stood, shoulders a little high, defensive, but she wasn’t surprised. “We’re going to kill you.”

Cam closed the door behind him. “That so?”

There were worse fates than death. Worse things that could change a person.

Ellie let loose her shadow; the transparent form separated from her body and took a position even closer to the mage woman.

She recoiled ever so slightly, saying again, “They’re going to kill you.” But they this time, not we. Probably recognizing that her power was no match for the likes of Ellie’s shadow. That she wasn’t going to make it out of the room alive.

What a world.

Cam didn’t want to bully her. Didn’t want to scare her either, if he could help it. He wanted to hold on to what little humanity he had left; he barely recognized himself as it was. “We’re only interested in Slight.”

Her eyes went flat with disbelief.

“It’s the truth,” he said, his gaze flicking to Ellie, who’d walked to a side table with papers on it. Then he looked back at the mage woman to explain. “He killed a friend. I’m here to make sure he doesn’t kill anyone again.”

The mage woman’s gaze had shifted to Ellie.

“Willa?” Ellie said, reading from a page and looking up to see if the name matched.

Willa’s chin rose.

Ellie flashed a friendly smile, then quickly dropped it. “Slight came into our House and senselessly killed someone we loved. What’s the practice among your kind for that type of attack?”

Cam nodded. Yes.

Willa’s eyes grew darker.

Cam followed Ellie’s point, and reiterated, “We’re not here for you or anyone of Martin House. Just for information on Slight.”

Willa’s expression went hard. “Why do you think I’d tell you anything? I won’t.”

Ellie shrugged. “My shadow says you will, and my shadow is never wrong.”

“This time she is,” Willa said. “I’m loyal to my House.”

Cam could imagine what would happen to House members if they weren’t loyal.

Ellie tugged at that explanation. “Slight isn’t House, though.”

That point had been covered well at dinner.

Ellie tugged harder. “Or is he?”

Willa’s jaw cocked to the side, lips skewing as if her mouth had gone sour. “Slight is a stray. I won’t help humans.”

Ellie smiled and followed the dodge. “Oh, come on. Wouldn’t it be . . . entertaining to watch the humans go after a stray? Who would really mind?”

The shadow leaned in, hissing, “Mathilde.”

Willa flushed. And Cam understood what the shadow had to have perceived at dinner: Mathilde, even just her name, brought a strong emotion to the surface within Willa.

He had to ask, “She your sister?”

No answer. Not even a flicker.

Probably not a sibling. The looks were off.

Cam tried again. “Is she involved with Slight?”

A bland look this time.

No, Mathilde Martin would not be romantically involved with someone as low as Slight. That cruel woman was no romantic, nor would she use him for sex. Maybe she had something going with Zander.

“Did she train Slight?” A more likely possibility.

Ellie chuckled. “Would kinda suck for Mathilde if her pupil was taken down by a human.”

Willa glanced at Ellie’s shadow. “That thing isn’t human.”

Cam looked at his sweetheart’s shadow too. “The shadow is quintessentially human, but that’s beside the point. I intend to fight Slight.” He gave a crooked smile. “I’ve been working out for over a year.”

Willa half snorted, half laughed. “He will butcher you. Slight’s been training from childhood.”

“At the Seminary?” Ellie asked, ever stubborn.

Thoughts swam in Willa’s black eyes, indecision and emotion tangling. But Cam figured they had her where they wanted her: Willa had no responsibility toward Slight, and if his defeat would indirectly tweak Mathilde . . .

“Who is he, anyway?” Ellie asked.

Willa made a face. “Who cares?”

Cam raised his hand in answer. “I do. Very much.” He’d like to know whom he was going to kill.

Willa shrugged. “Slight’s family used to live on the other side of the Martin wards, scrounging in the dirt and waiting for an opportunity to win favor. Something happened to his parents, I don’t know what, but he was still young. He fended for himself, though.” Willa’s jaw flexed, as if Slight were owed at least a little respect. “He survived and never crossed into the human world, not for food, not for anything.”

Cam was neither going to pity Slight his unhappy beginnings nor applaud his resolve. The man had become a killer. “What’s his relationship with Martin House?”

Willa smugly shook her head no. Looked like she wasn’t going to even mention her House. At least she was enjoying herself now.

Cam switched up his question. “Okay, then. What’s he want?”

Willa gave a halfhearted laugh. “A stray doesn’t exactly have a lot of options. He can indenture himself to a House and become a servant, but it’s a long way from there to any kind of decent status. Sometimes generations. Or a stray can win the attention of a House by a show of loyalty.”

Slight, as an orphaned child, must have been lonely, and here was Martin House, so rich and strong.

“And Mathilde?” Ellie put in.

Willa shrugged again. “Mathilde nothing.”

Ellie wouldn’t let go. Her shadow had to have pegged Mathilde. “He had to have learned to fight somewhere.”

Willa smiled. “Yes, he did.”

Ellie pulled again. “Can just any mage of a reputable House associate with a stray?”

“No,” Willa answered. “Business with strays must be put before the Council. Only a high-born mage would dare ignore the law.”

If Mathilde had shown an interest in Slight, had hinted at the possibility of acceptance, Slight would have done anything for her approval.

Cam couldn’t help thinking of Ellie, who also had been cut off from the world, orphaned, estranged from the human world, eeking out a life on her farm. She’d had every reason to let her shadow roam, to become a killer, but she’d chosen a different path.

“Would a House defend a stray?” Ellie asked.

“No,” Willa answered. “That would make them responsible for him.”

Cam concluded that Mathilde wouldn’t be able to do anything about their fight with Slight, but he’d bet she would go after the humans for her own—how had Ellie described it?—entertainment.

Willa laughed at Ellie. “Besides, Slight doesn’t need Martin’s defense. Your man is going to die anyway.”

Ellie shrugged. “Then at least make the fight interesting.”

Cam almost coughed in surprise. This talion business was entertainment? Might as well place bets with dirty money as if they were all going to attend a dog fight—Martin’s mongrel against Segue’s good-with-kids lab.

Willa’s face twitched again as she considered. She’d already come around, realizing she’d be safe from her House, yet still able to play the game, get noticed, rise above this dingy back room, even if just for a moment. Be unexpected.

What had Mathilde done to her?

Willa licked her lower lip. Looking mean. “Watch out for the blade Slight carries.”

Cam was familiar with the kind of weapon Slight carried from their first encounter in Sedona: Steel infused with Shadow magic. Slight had lost that knife to him during that mission, and the knife had been taken to Segue. Apparently Slight had acquired another, and Cam could guess from whom: Mathilde. Or at the very least, Martin House.

“Wounds sustained by the knife will not heal,” Willa said. “It’ll carry out the intent of the one who wields it. So if Slight intends to kill”—she smiled now, laughing at them and enjoying herself—“any wound will eventually do the job.”





Ellie sat cross-legged in bed, the heavy gold silk covers nestled around her.

The truth of the matter was now painfully obvious. “Care to revise the plan?”

Willa’s explanation had cleared up a few matters: they’d had no chance whatsoever to save Marcie the night she was attacked. Yes, the femoral artery had been hit, a serious, life-threatening wound, but no amount of pressure would have stopped the bleeding. No extraordinary measures would have saved her. Slight had wanted Marcie dead.

And now the search of their belongings at the Martin gatehouse made sense as well: the attendants had been looking for Slight’s lost knife, still under scrutiny at Segue. Of course, Martin could not allow it back into his House in the hands of humans. One lucky nick backed by a desire to kill . . .

Her shadow should fight Slight. No knife could even scrape shadow skin.

Cam reached for the bedside lamp, and the room went murky gray. Blackness clotted the corners and the furniture took on predatory shapes.

“Nope, the plan’s the same. I’m not going to flinch, Ellie,” he said in the dark next to her. His voice was muffled, so she knew he was taking off his T-shirt to sleep in only his pajama bottoms. “I’ve worked with my sight. It gives me a greater advantage than Slight’s weapon.”

“And if he uses a gun?”

Cam huffed, impatient. “Then, yes, your shadow is welcome to intercept any projectiles speeding in my direction. Happy?”

“Hmm,” she groused, which amounted to No comment. But she’d take what she could get.

She felt Cam’s hand on her shoulder, pulling her back toward the mattress, but there was no way she’d be able to sleep tonight in this house. She allowed her shadow to split from her and remain sitting up, alert for trouble, while her body collapsed back. This was going to be a long, restless night.

“No, Ellie, I want all of you.”

Her upright shadow turned toward Cam at the sound of the telltale gravel in his voice, and Ellie felt desire crackle through the remaining shadow-flesh connection at her hips. A delicious warmth pooled low in her belly. It was painful to keep her shadow from crawling on top of him.

But . . . a little sense, please.

Ellie took a minute to let the first hot throb dissipate, then turned as well. Her eyes were slow to adjust to the dark, but she could make out Cam’s steady gaze. “Here? You can’t be serious.”

“Big day tomorrow.” His earlier expression of resolve was gone, replaced by the ragged aspect of a man haunted. Cam simply saw too much now, and though he’d fixed his interest on her, she had to wonder what dark things flickered in and out of his vision in this terrible place.

“But—” She opened her eyes wide to communicate the relevant point that they weren’t exactly staying in a hotel room on vacation.

“Ellie.” Her name came from deep in his chest, but it wasn’t just made of lust—though that’s what had her shadow responding. The reasonable part of her could perceive a fault line running through him: familiar Cam and something . . . darker.

She put away her arguments.

Something was off, way off, with Cam and maybe had been for a while. The realization shocked her now, even though she’d seen it coming.

She nodded yes in the dark, sure that Cam could see her agreement. Yes. Always. Whatever you want. She pulled her shadow into full union—no parts tonight—and braced against the hot, golden rush of arousal that coursed through her, wondering at the strange combination of worry and lust.

The room was quiet around the bed, a still sea of Shadow, but when Cam slowly flipped her on her back, bracing himself above her, his legs trapping hers, she had the sudden awareness of an impending danger breaking behind him on a not too distant horizon line. The wall of his chest was a barrier between her and the vast uncertainty of the future, from which he sought to protect her. But more frightening still was the potential for darkness in his eyes, Shadow filling her sweet scientist . . . And for a blink, a fraction of an in-drawn breath, he seemed almost a stranger.

Which was what made her reach up—a hand to his shoulder, another clasped around his neck—to pull him down and hold him tight. Her Cam. His weight was always solid pleasure, like coming home. He lowered himself on the bed along her left side from his supporting elbow, to his strong chest, hip, and long leg. Each inhale and exhale was a rough wave of heat coursing through her.

His free hand stroked down to her thigh, lifting it in a silent request to open. She wrapped that leg around him, anchoring herself, while he stroked upward, under her shirt, to cup her breast, the sensation augmented by her shadow to near-blinding pleasure. She arched, lifted by want, to give him more, and her usually split attention melted together into total Cam awareness.

She offered her neck to his mouth, felt the scrub of his beard coming in, a purely masculine stimulus, which made her tighten further, exquisitely. He pushed up her shirt to bare her upper body, while lightly raking his teeth over her skin. That busy hand slid down to strip off her pajama bottoms, then his own as well, without losing the searing contact of his mouth between her breasts. She loved his mouth.

He chuckled and she became distantly aware that she was grinding against him, hands fisted in his hair. Her shadow had zero patience. None. Ever. Or was her shadow just an excuse . . . ? Weren’t her shadow and her thinking self one and the same at the moment?

The questions blurred in her brain as her desire sharpened until only one thing mattered: Him. Inside her.

For once she felt the incredible strength of her shadow, was awed as she harnessed it, and flipped Cam over. The covers slid to the floor as Ellie straddled him, his stroke a senseless kind of bliss. She rocked there, working her hips, until she felt the buzz of a growl from his chest.

She found his gaze again: black, almost angry, definitely dangerous.

“Yesss,” she said, though she didn’t know which part of her spoke. Didn’t care.

His hands were at her waist, demanding, lifting in a midair wrestle, because she wanted badly to stay right there until she found release. And then she was chest down on the silken sheets, Cam at her back, grasping her wrists to keep her in place as he entered her.

He buffeted her senses with long, sure strokes while she fractured with pleasure. The melding of his body and the magic within him mastered her completely. Her one last awed shard of thought was that Cam was somehow stronger than her shadow, which was impossible.

Not that she was complaining . . .