Page 27 of Shadows of Fate

Micah let out a breath. “Well, the relaxing evening was nice while it lasted. Let me go postpone the meeting again.”

I chuckled and started to walk the streets of Darkmoor. I had a female to find.

Chapter15

Instigate a Reaction

Silvana

Walking through the door of my room, I immediately felt his presence. Part of me wasn’t surprised, while the other half was quite the opposite. I knew he’d been watching me the last few nights. I could feel his presence whenever he was near and I kept waiting for him to approach me.

He never did, though, he just stayed in the shadows watching me work.

Tonight, though? I did my best to instigate a reaction from him. I figured killing one of his men who’d been a traitor and leaving a note for him would do the trick. It seemed I was correct.

On one hand, the fact that he found me and was able to get into Cedar’s home was impressive. However, he’s the Fates-damned ruler of the court. It probably wasn’t that hard for him at the end of the day.

After a quick scan, I realized that he wasn’t in the sitting room, which meant he was in the bedroom—where he had no business being. I let out a breath. My inner brat begging for a chance here.

Fine. If he wants a show, I’ll give him one.

I’d spent the last two evenings going through surrounding towns looking for any remaining missing women, which I’d had no luck with. It was as if Joel dying sent out a distress call, and they all went into hiding. Tonight, all I managed to do was quickly end two vampires before they could take another young girl who was leaving the docks with her father and then kill Raiden’s traitor.

It was good, but still didn’t feel like enough.

Walking into my bedroom, I quickly saw he wasn’t on my bed, which left the chair in the corner of the room, currently bathed in darkness. He must believe his shadow magic to be powerful—sort of pathetic if I could still sense him, though.

I went toward the wardrobe where my clothes were kept and reached up and slowly untied the back of the corset that held my dress up. Letting the entire minuscule outfit drop to the ground, I stepped out of it. All that remained glued to my body were my sheer tights, boots, the cloth band around my breasts, and panties. Oh, and my four daggers.

I smirked at the thought of how this must look. Oh well, he clearly came for a show. I do nothing, if not provide when asked by our fearless leader.

I leaned down, keeping my ass toward the chair, and unlaced my boots one at a time. With my boots off, it was clear where all my weapons were located.

I pulled the first two, which happened to be my shadow stone blades, from the small holsters on the inside of my ankles and tossed them on the bed to be cleaned and sharpened later. The next two daggers were small silver blades, placed in holsters built into the sides of the cloth band around my breasts. I’d created them myself. Almost all of the hilt was tucked beneath the sides of the band, but the very bottom of the hilt and the cross guard stuck out just enough for me to quickly unhook them and throw them if needed.

Cedar didn’t understand how I didn’t stab myself, but it just took a lot of practice and work to ensure I knew exactly how to move with them against my skin. It also helped that these two weren’t made of shadow stone, so if I managed to get nicked, it didn’t hurt as badly.

I pulled the left dagger out and tossed it on the bed with the first two. Then as I pulled the right dagger out, instead of tossing it with the rest, I spun quickly and threw it toward the chair where I knew he resided.

Suddenly a vast majority of the shadows fell away to reveal Raiden sitting in the armchair, dagger clutched in front of his chest by the tip, a small smile gracing his face. He was dressed in tight black pants and a matching black button-up that appeared to be made of some sort of silk. The top two buttons were undone, though, and I could just make out what looked like tattoos across his chest. Curiosity had me thinking about how he was able to make them stay on his skin without healing. However, he did it, I imagine it was painful.

His long hair was pulled back in a low ponytail, and I wondered what it would look like down, framing his face. I quickly shook the thoughts from my head, exactly as I’ve done for the last few days whenever the vision of him using his shadow magic on Joel appeared in my mind.

He was leaning back in the chair like he was when I first saw him at The Arcane Theater—as if he didn’t have a care in the world. As if it was a normal night for him. Hell, maybe stalking unwitting females was a normal night for him.

“It’s rude to watch people without their knowledge.” I tried to imbue as much indignation into my tone as possible.

“Ah, this is true. But the little knife show I just received tells me you very much knew I was here and continued on by your own choosing.”

I could feel the blush rising across my cheeks as he spoke in that low, gravelly tone. I didn’t turn back to face him when I say. “Suddenly I’m wishing I threw that dagger a little faster.”

I heard him rise from the chair and cross the small room toward me. He stopped just shy of pressing his entire body against mine—his front was almost pressed to my back. I could feel the heat pouring off of him. How long ago did he arrive to wait for me here? I should have asked him. Let him know that I knew he’d been watching me—but I didn’t.

Raiden slowly ran the tip of my dagger down the side of my right arm and then dropped it onto the bed with the others. I could feel the goosebumps rise along my arm as if it were him touching me and not the tip of my own weapon.

“Throw it as fast as you want, little ice queen. It’ll take more than one measly dagger to keep you from me.” His voice was low, and I could feel his body just barely pressing against mine as he moved in closer behind me. I tried to keep my breathing even and controlled—refusing to let him know how much his words and his pure heat affected me. How much hispresenceaffected me.

When we worked together to torture and question Joel, it took everything in me to remain calm and focused. To not leave Joel pinned to the wall to watch as I stripped down and fucked Raiden there amidst the dead we’d killed together. I’d had dreams about doing exactly that.

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