Page 16 of Madness Behind the Mask
“Is she awake yet?” David Shadow asks as he settles in the chair beside me. It’s been eight days since we rescuedmy wifefrom the wolves. When David brought her out of his shadow –his family able to use it as an etheric storage unit– I thought she was dead. She was so still, and the amount of blood covering her looked too much to survive losing.
Buthermamaand two otherhealers worked on her for three days, and on the fourth, they assured me she was stable and all her injuries healed. They even managed to put her hands back together so shecanaccess her magic without it killing her.
And yet, she hasn’t woken.
Hasn’t once fluttered her green eyes open, them havingchanged from thebabyblue of her birth, before going back to sleep.
I slouch in my chair, staring at her blank face, mylonglegs stretched out in front of me in the most comfortable position I can manage, yet still my muscles ache, cramped from being in this sameblackchair, in roughly this same position for thelast eight days.
“You need to get some rest, Caden,” David says.
“I have been.”
“In a proper bed.”He turns to me. “Delun’spassingis tomorrow, and you’re expected to give a speech.”
I glance at him, my eyes narrowing.The Shadows don’t do funerals,instead sucking the bodies of their fallen into the Plane of Monsters, then hosting a service afterwards called a passing.
“My Family will not join yours until we have an heir,”I say.I’m not going to let this situation manipulate me into turning my Family into disposable soldiers. Until my seat on the Shadow Domain throne is secure, they will not get our undying support.
He raises a brow.“You’lllet the werewolves’ crimes go unpunished?”
Anger rises at the dishonor he’s hinting at.“This is your war.”
“She is your wife.”
My fingers twitch with the urge to use my magic to snap his neck. His shadows won’t save him from me; my power affects the atomic levels, so whether he’s man or shadow, I can kill him.
But he is Sau’s beloved uncle,and my Family will not win a war against them. The humans have started to take overour home turf inNew Yorkaswe cannot competewith their numberswithout revealing our magic. We have suffered too many losses as is.
And despite what I told David, I will not let Antonio getaway with hurting my wife. I will kill him; it just won’t be for the Shadow Domain. No one hurts what’s mine.
And Sau is now mineinevery sense of the word, not just in a future promise between our fathers.
“I know what she is,”I say slowly, letting each word ring in the air between us. “And I know what sheisn’t.And what sheisn’tis something for you to try to use against me. Treat her as a pawn again, and I will kill you with my own fucking hands.”
His jaw locks, and my magic hums in my every vein, waiting for him to do something stupid. He has at least fifteen years on me, all of that hard experience, but he is a second son who’s found himself in the role of leader. I was trained for it since the moment I was born. He will not kill me easily even with his infamous shadow magicand his illusionary spells – spells that won’t work on me given I can use my telekinesis to discern what’s real and what’s not, and he knows it.
Relaxing his clenched teeth, he bares them in adevil’ssmile. “I only wish to protect my family. I’m sure you can respect that.”
I nod subtly, not giving him anything moreas my gaze moves back to my wife. Whether I can respect his reasons or not, that will not stop me from killing him.Something he now knows.
“If youbedher now,” he sayscasually, shifting in his chair to face mefully, “we can tell if she’s pregnant in a fortnight.Then will you pledge your loyalty and those of your Family to the Shadow Domain?”
My eyes snap to him.My jaw clenches at what he is suggesting. “She is still in a coma,” I growl.
“She would be willing if she were awake. It is what she is for.”
“What the wolves did to her –”
He leans forward.“And that’s exactly why you should doit now.So she doesn’t relive any of that trauma.”
My jaw starts to ache with how tightly it’s locked. I saw the horrors of her experience through that scry. Saw Vance fucking her mouth as she cried around him. Even though Antonio would have been the more strategic kill, I couldnot leavethe white wolfaliveafter watching him take what’s mine.
My hands clench, my fingers wishing they were around that fucker’s neck.I wanted to jerk his corpse out of the woods with my powerso I could desecrate it further, but Antonio destroyed my ‘eyes,’ and using my telekinesis that far out requires me to ‘see’ in one way or another. Otherwise, it gets too hard for me to distinguish what’s whatwithtoo many atoms in my way.
“We need your support soon if we’re to survive this,” David presses. “Antonio has lost his entire family, and he will come for us. I’m surprised he hasn’t already.”
“He’s not reckless,” I say. “He’ll make a plan first.”
