Page 17 of Malice
Grim swallowed hard, concern etched into every line on his face. “It can’t be me.”
“It’s you she wants.”
“There’s nothing I can do for her.” Panic replaced the concern on his face as he took three rapid steps backward toward the door.
“No!” she shouted, her voice cracking through the room like a whip.
“I’ll ruin everyth?—”
Merri screeched in frustration, throwing out a hand before making a fist and yanking at something none of us could see.
Grim grunted, then his eyes went wide, and, for a beat, everything fucking stopped. I had to blink to ensure I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing. Then I blinked again, because I still didn’t believe it.
“Did she just—” Malice started, shock rendering his voice barely above a whisper.
“She did,” Sin confirmed.
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
Where Merri had been holding nothing but air now stood a very discernible shadow form.
Grim’s shadow form.
Chapter
Five
GRIM
Merri’s enraged cry drew me up short, and I froze just as she threw her hand out. For a heartbeat, I couldn’t tell if she’d made me stop or if I’d consciously decided to do so. Before I could land on an answer, my breath caught in my throat and a foreign weight sat in my chest. Not on top of, butinsidethe very marrow of my bones.
There was a tug, like that weight had somehow latched on to something tangible, and then the strangest sensation of being peeled away from myself washed over me. I didn’t have any other words to describe the feeling. I’d never experienced it before, nor had I ever heard someone else mention it.
I released an audible gasp as I struggled to process what I saw before me and marry it with the sensations I could feel in my physical body. Warmth encircled my wrist. It was undeniably Merri’s soft skin against mine, but she wasn’t touching me. In fact, Merri wasn’t within reach of me. She was perched on her knees on the end of the large bed, eyes trained on me, fingers wrapped around the wrist of a fully manifested shadow figure.
I’d seen my shadow enough times to recognize it as my own. But never like this. Never when it was completely severed from me, as if it was now its own unique entity.
A sudden pang of fear had me instinctively sending a testing bolt of my will its way. Merri made it manifest. Did that mean it now answered to her? Or was I still in control?
My relief was potent when the shadow form moved as I’d intended, the fingers on its right hand flexing. Her reaction was immediate, a tightening of her grip that sent a shiver of excitement chasing away any residual fear. She could touch me this way and not suffer the consequences. More than that, she could feel my touch every bit as much as I was experiencing hers.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” Malice murmured from the bed.
I shook my head, reaching up with my shadow hand and cupping Merri’s face. Her skin was just as soft as it had been in my dreams. I’d never imagined this was possible. After things failed so spectacularly with Hel, I’d completely given up on the possibility of knowing a lover’s touch again. Of being able to touch her in return. And then Merri had stumbled her way into my dreams, teasing me with a loophole.
But this? This wasreal. This was her and I, awake. Together.
A disbelieving laugh escaped me. “Neither did I.”
“He didn’t do it,” Chaos added belatedly. “Merri did.”
Malice frowned, his eyebrows furrowing. “How?”
“Horsewoman power,” Sin answered, shocking all of us.
“And how do you know that?” Malice demanded.
“I’ve seen Sabine do something similar. She has the ability to interact directly with her prey’s life force. Usually she chooses to drain them instead of feed. She calls it her deadly kiss.”
