Page 24 of Shadow Spirit

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“I do not believe what I need to know was told under the auspices of a confession.” Decker pressed the blade a little more firmly against the man’s windpipe. “You cannot tell me you did not know of the coven of witches that once shared this valley with you.”

“They are no more,” said the priest.

“They were slaughtered, and their compound razed until nothing but a few burned timbers remain. The evidence of all those who died is gone—there are no corpses, no graves, nothing.”

“What did Reynolds expect? No one goes up against the dark lord, inciting his people to revolt and practice their evil magic.”

Decker snorted. “What are you? Some bad actor from an old horror film? ‘Dark lord?’ ‘Evil magic?’” He moved the sharp edge of the knife against the priest’s throat, drawing a small, thin line of blood.

The priest gasped—more from surprise and fright than actual pain.

“Eoghan O’Shea is not a man to be mocked nor ignored. This village remains because we did not dispute that fact. Those who lived among the trees and rocks did. Does not your own lord know that O’Shea owns most of the western coastline from Cornwall north to Hadrian’s Wall and over to the eastern coast of Ireland?”

Now that was information they didn’t have. Everything they’d learned from Adriana as well as through Colby’s network had indicated O’Shea was the leader of a minor, insignificant pack. His daring move to kidnap and turn a witch of Adriana’s bloodline, as well as his allegiance to Abraham Strode, now made more sense.

“The lynx-shifter and your unholy tribe will rue the day you settled in O’Shea’s territory. He and his men will be making their rounds soon, demanding what they are owed. The witches thought to stand with those at the abbey and were slaughtered as an example…”

“While you and your good flock here in the village did nothing and allowed them to terrorize and chase a small child who was forced to take sanctuary in another village in another church. Thank god my mate was there to thwart their plans. It’s typical of cowards like you and your fellow villagers who would rather ally themselves with someone who represents the worst of our kind than to risk anything at all.”

“You cannot judge these good people…”

Decker chuckled malevolently. “Let O’Shea and his thugs test the resolve of those of us at the abbey. He will not find us so easy a target. Colby holds more power than O’Shea has ever dreamed of. If you see O’Shea tell him we’re waiting. If he comes, we’ll meet him with the kind of force and power that neither he nor you can even imagine.”

Decker let the knife fall away from the priest’s throat as he stepped back. The priest raised his hand to the thin line of blood that had all but ceased oozing out of the superficial wound.

“I need not tell O’Shea anything. He is well aware of your presence, and from what I understand is eagerly anticipating a meeting with the clever king of the Resistance.”

Using his forearm, Decker slammed the priest back up against the wall. “Then your dark lord is doomed, for within our walls lies the seeds of his destruction. He may have been able to terrorize an unprotected coven and a small girl, but he will find my mate has the blood of the banshees flowing through her veins and the army of shifters Colby commands is more than a match for O’Shea and his minions.”

Decker looked at the priest in disgust and turned to leave him. Marking Adriana, ensuring that the tether with O’Shea was broken, and that she was safe had become paramount.

CHAPTER 12

ADRIANA

Adriana had spent most of the day alternating between worrying about Decker and his men and being furious that he’d left her behind. Greg had been needed in the clinic and so had dragged her along with him. To keep her from pacing and railing that she was now being held prisoner, Greg had Wordsworth bring her a computer to help occupy her time.

“I found something you might want to follow up on,” the librarian had said to her when he was setting up the computer in Greg’s office.

“What’s that?” she snarled.

Greg growled low in his throat. “Adriana, we talked about you taking out your ill temper with Decker and me on others.”

When the hell had he and Decker become so buddy-buddy?

“My apologies, Wordsworth. Greg is right. It isn’t you that I’m pissed off at. You don’t deserve my bad attitude. Given that I’m not being allowed to do anything that I could be doing to make the situation better—such as going with Decker or attending to Shadow Sister business, researching something might alleviate the boredom.”

Wordsworth chuckled and turned to Greg. “You have a spirited mate. I suspect it will take both you and Decker to keep her safe.” He swiveled back to Adriana. “There are some interesting things about the O’Shea pack going back hundreds of years, if not longer. I bookmarked some sites that might be of help.”

When the librarian left, Adriana sidled up to Greg, rubbing against him and allowing her growing arousal to travel down the link to him.

“You do know that both of us can feel that, don’t you?” he asked.

She didn’t but that was beside the point. She’d discovered fucking one of them, or preferably one shortly after the other, was often the best way to deal with the growing discomfiture she was feeling.

“Your point being?” she all but purred.

Greg’s hand connected sharply with her backside—something he and Decker had taken to doing whenever they wanted to divert her from something. She should have resented it. She should have wanted to retaliate in some way—but she didn’t. Instead, she found the small, sharp pain had a way of spreading into a comforting warmth which was really annoying.