From the Shadows (A Shadow Chronicles Novel) Read online

  Praise for Chasing Shadows:

  “This is the best paranormal romance I've read in a few years, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Highly recommended.” ~ Don Martin, Midwest Book Review

  “The chemistry between Saphrona and Mark was hot from the very beginning. I really enjoyed the plot and was flipping through the pages like lightening to see what happened at the end... The ending was pretty intense. Chasing Shadows was a great paranormal romance that definitely gave a new twist on vampires.” ~ Kym Grosso, author of Kade’s Dark Embrace

  “There were enough twists and turns to keep anyone interested, and the ending was a surprise. I am excited to read her next book, as I know there has to be a part two.” ~ Christin Alley, Read This! Book Reviews

  “The end of Chasing Shadows left me wanting so much more … I feel confident that we have not heard the last Saphrona, Mark, or any of the other wonderful characters. Personally, I want more Lochlan.” ~ Tammy Schweiger-McLaughlin, Ravenz Reviews

  “I enjoyed the characters and how they interacted with one another—there was some great chemistry going on.” ~ Brianna Lee, Brianna Lee Book Reviews

  From the Shadows

  A Shadow Chronicles Novel

  Christina Moore

  Published by Black Room Press

  Kindle Edition

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  From the Shadows: A Shadow Chronicles Novel

  Copyright 2013 by Christina Moore

  Cover design Copyright 2012 Christina Moore

  Model and Cleveland photos courtesy of Bigstock

  www.bigstockphoto.com

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  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual places or businesses, is entirely coincidental.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by any means (electronic mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without prior written permission from the copyright owner.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without permission of the copyright owner is illegal and is punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions. Your support of this author’s hard work is appreciated.

  DEDICATION:

  This book is dedicated to my mother and the readers who clamored for more.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

  Once again, I have to give thanks to everyone who has ever encouraged me. Thanks also to Don Martin for his review of Chasing Shadows and his tips on formatting, and also my fellow indie authors for all those Facebook pep talks.

  Prologue

  “Are you absolutely certain this is what you want to do?”

  Though I continued to look straight ahead, I nonetheless offered the man next to me a weak smile. “I see no reason not to,” I said after a moment’s contemplation.

  My companion scoffed. “Well I can think of several,” he replied tartly, his Irish accent thickening with each word. “Do your Mum and Dad, or the names Mark and Saphrona, ring a bloody bell?”

  It was the same argument he’d given me three days ago when I’d first come to him with my plan. “What, not adding your name to the list this time?” I countered, pointing out that he’d left his own off the list when he typically added it after Saphrona’s.

  “Far be it for me to state the obvious,” he snapped.

  I sighed, turning my head to take in his angry, hurt-filled gaze at last. “Lochlan, we’ve been over this. I need to go. I need to get away from it all for a while. I need time and space to clear my head.”

  “Running away is not the answer, Juliette.”

  “I’m not running away. I’m…taking a sabbatical.”

  Lochlan made a noise that sounded very much like a growl low in his throat. “Why the hell did you ask me for help, hmm?” he queried. “I thought you didn’t like me.”

  I shook my head and reached for the door handle. “That’s what you get for thinking,” I replied softly, pulling the handle and pushing the door open to climb out. Before I’d even stood straight, my vampire driver was out from behind the wheel and blocking my way. With a sigh, I looked up slowly to face him.

  “Look, we’ve been over this, too,” I began. “I asked you to drive me because I knew there was no way in hell anyone else would, and because I knew that while you’d do your best to talk me out of it, you wouldn’t actually stop me from going.”

  Lochlan leaned closer, and I could feel his breath on my face, could see it misting in the cool air of the early-October morning. “What makes you so sure?” he pressed.

  “Because you’ve done it before,” I said. “You didn’t stop Saphrona from leaving when she needed to get away.”

  For a moment Lochlan simply stared at me. Abruptly he turned and paced away, only to once again turn sharply and come marching back. He lifted a hand and pointed his finger in my face.

  “You know something, my fair Juliette, I really hate it when you are right.”

  Before I could formulate a response—I was too tired to be snarky—Lochlan had moved away and opened the rear passenger door of his Cadillac Escalade to retrieve my duffel bags. After he had shut the door I moved to shut mine, and we walked together in silence into the bus station. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to spending hours on a cramped bus, so I was hoping that coming here in the wee hours of the morning would net me a couple of seats next to each other, allowing me to stretch my legs out.

  “You figured out where you’re going yet?” he asked as we neared the ticket counter.

  I nodded. “I have an idea. And before you ask, no I’m not going to tell you. I’ll let everyone know where I am when I get there.”

  “Your family will be worried sick about you—you do realize that, don’t you?” Lochlan told me as I stopped by an empty chair in the waiting area.

  I sighed and pointedly reached for the bags he had carried in for me. Lochlan hesitated for a moment then set them down on the floor, grasping my outstretched hands in his own before I had a chance to draw them away. I stiffened even though I instinctively knew he would never hurt me. But the trauma I had recently suffered had me wary of pretty much everyone, especially vampires.

  Lochlan tightened his grip so I couldn’t pull away. “Juliette…” he began, and then stopped himself. With a sigh of his own, he gave my hands a gentler squeeze and let them go. “Please take care of yourself, wherever you go. I want my favorite verbal jousting partner back, and soon.”

  His remark caused fleeting memories, pleasant ones, to flit across my mind, and so I offered him another weak smile. “You’ll get her back as soon as I figure out how to put her back together again,” I said.

  A look of pain came to his handsome features. Lochlan was quick to dismiss it, but not quick enough—I’d already seen it. Truly sorry to be hurting him, I rose up on my toes and lightly kissed his cheek.

  “Thank you for bringing here,” I said as I settled on my feet again. “You should go on home now.”

  Lochlan frowned. “You don’t want me to stay with you until your bus leaves?” he asked.

  “Thank you, but no. It’ll be easier to think without you brooding next to me,” I said lightly, hoping to get at least a hint of a smile from him. I hadn’t actually told him this, but despite the animosity under which we’d first met—what with his being a vampire and my being a shapeshifter—I honestly considered Lochlan to be one of my closest friends.

  I freel
y admitted that was due in no small part to the fact that he’d ripped my rapists’ heads off with his bare hands.

  Only one corner of his mouth turned up at my words, but I considered that a victory, as Lochlan had not smiled once since I’d come to him with my plan to get away from home for a while. At first he’d tried his hardest to talk me out of leaving, assuring me that my family and friends would help me deal with the trauma of being beaten, tortured, and raped. But I’d persisted, because after just one week all the love and concern was beginning to stifle me, and I didn’t like the feeling that I couldn’t breathe. So Lochlan had, for the most part, given up trying to convince me to stay; he’d helped me by keeping my secret and providing transportation this far, though whenever the subject came up, he always threw in a “You can always change your mind.”

  I hadn’t changed it yet. I wasn’t going to.

  “Alright, I’ll go,” he said at last. “But I expect a phone call the moment you get there—before the bus stops at the terminal, even.”

  I nodded. “I’ll do that.”

  Lochlan took one more last, longing look at me, bent and kissed my cheek, then turned and walked away. I watched him go, my eyes following him until he passed through the doors and back out into the nighttime air, before I bent and grabbed the handles of my bags, then headed over to the ticket counter.

  You’re such a liar, Juliette, my subconscious taunted me. You’re not going to call him. You’re not going to call any of them.

  Stubbornly I pushed the thoughts aside as I stepped in line behind an elderly man with a ratty suitcase. I didn’t really want to think about how much my subconscious was right.

  One

  “Hey Jules—phone!”

  The very first thing that entered my mind at those words was that Karen wanted me to answer the phone, so I immediately headed for the nearest handset. It didn’t occur to me until she was suddenly in front of me and handing it to me that I realized she already had, and that the person on the other end of the line had asked to speak to me.

  Had the coffee shop/bakery/café where I had gotten a part-time job not been busier than Hell on Halloween, the fact that I had been specifically requested would have set off alarm bells in my head. Nobody I knew back home, nobody I was close to, had a clue where I was—it was the way I had wanted it. So it was with the thought that maybe some customer I’d served thought I was a manager (which I wasn’t) that had me saying politely as I put the receiver to my ear, “Cool Beans and Bakery, this is Juliette. How may I help you?”

  “You lied to me.”

  Instantly my eyes were darting around the crowded shop as I moved from behind the counter, making my way toward the office for some semblance of privacy. I should have known, I thought bitterly, that I would be tracked down after giving everyone the silent treatment for two weeks.

  “How did you find me?” I asked.

  “You lied to me,” the caller said again. “You gave me your word that you would call when you got where you were going—before the bus had even stopped at the terminal. It’s been two bloody weeks, Juliette.”

  I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see me. “And I bet you tracked me down in less than two days, Lochlan. I bet that since you found out where I work, you probably know where I live, too. You’ve probably snuck into my room and watched me sleep, or to rifle through my underwear drawer when I’m not home.”

  This actually earned me a chuckle, which was what I had been hoping for. Making him laugh meant, hopefully, that I wouldn’t get a lecture. Besides, we both knew that had he actually been inside my room, I’d have smelled him by now.

  “That hovel is not your home,” Lochlan replied. “And speaking of home, have you any idea how crazy you’ve driven everyone with your disappearing act? Your mother actually asked your brother to ask me if I had seen or heard from you recently—and you bloody know that’s saying something as Monica doesn’t trust me as far as she can throw me.”

  “It’s not a hovel,” I muttered, thinking of the single-room hotel suite I’d been living in since leaving home. There was a full-size bed, a TV with free cable, a small dining table, a mini-fridge, a microwave, a dresser and a bathroom. After fourteen days of microwaved or fast food dinners, I’d been thinking about getting one of those electric tabletop ranges so I could cook small meals, but other than that, I was doing just fine. I didn’t need a lot of space.

  “I notice you didn’t deny knowing where it is,” I pressed.

  Just then Karen stuck her head into the office. “Hey, I know your boyfriend’s got a sexy accent and all, but we’re getting slammed out here.”

  I felt heat flushing my skin, and nearly growled aloud at hearing Lochlan laughing over the phone. Clearing my throat I said in reply, “Sorry, I’ll be right there.”

  Karen disappeared and Loch was still laughing when I turned my attention back to the phone. “Oh, shut the hell up, bloodsucker,” I said tersely. “I haven’t got time to sit here and argue with you. I have to go.”

  “Call your mum, Juliette. If not her, then call Mark. Let one of them hear the sound of your voice,” Lochlan told me, his voice going serious.

  I sighed. Though I hated to admit it, he was right. It’d been too long since I had spoken to anyone back home. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

  “Thank you, my dear. Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  “Goodbye, Vampire Ken.”

  He chuckled. “See you soon, Shapeshifter Barbie.”

  ***

  Lochlan’s Parthian shot stayed with me through the rest of the morning. I feared that not only did the Irish-born vampire know where I lived, but that I would soon receive a visit from him either there or at my place of work. If he walked into Cool Beans I’d never hear the end of it from my female co-workers (and at least two of the males). I knew for sure that it was time to break my silence and call home, which would hopefully get Lochlan to go back there before he could wreak havoc on my new life.

  After clocking out for lunch, I stepped outside to sit at one of the sidewalk tables, thankful that one was actually empty. The day was cool but bright, so customers were braving the mild chill in down jackets with steaming cups of java in their hands. I wasn’t wearing a coat, but then cold weather didn’t really bother me; I am a shapeshifter, and we tend to run hot no matter what. Well, technically I’m one of the werekind, since I can only become one kind of animal, but the werewolves—despite there being others of the two-natured variety that are larger and stronger than they are—have claimed the prefix “were” for themselves. They don’t like any of the other Families to use it, which eventually led the rest of the animal-human community to take on the name “shapeshifter.” It was easy given that there hasn’t been a true shapeshifter—the kind that can take on any animal form they choose—in a very long time. There were no chimaera, as we called them, to challenge the name change.

  I pulled my brand new cell phone out of my pocket as I dropped into one of the four chairs at the little round table, and drawing a breath to shore up my nerve, I pressed the speed dial button for my brother’s home number.

  “Hello?” said Saphrona Caldwell, Mark’s bondmate, when the phone was answered after the second ring. I really hoped I hadn’t caught them in the middle of one of their bond-induced sexual interludes. Of course, if they’d been having sex, Saphrona probably wouldn’t have answered the phone at all.

  “Hi Saphrona,” I said hesitantly.

  “Oh my God! Juliette!” she exclaimed. “Where have you been? Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine,” I told her, ignoring the first of her questions. That she had even asked meant that her brother had apparently kept having discovered my whereabouts to himself. While I was still bothered that he had come looking for me, I was grudgingly grateful that he had kept my location a secret.

  Grudgingly, I noted silently, because it still felt really weird to find myself trusting or appreciating a vampire at all.

  “Do you have any idea how worrie
d we’ve been about you?” Saphrona asked. “We—”

  “Hey babe,” I heard my brother’s voice come over the line. “Who’s on the phone?”

  I fleetingly hoped she would lie to him even while I knew it was futile to do so. “It’s Juliette, she finally called!”

  “Give me the phone,” Mark said gruffly, and I could picture him standing next to Saphrona in the kitchen of her house—their house now, since Mark was living with her—with his hand out waiting and a look of quiet fury on his face. Truthfully I knew I’d earned his wrath, but I was not particularly in the mood to argue with him.

  As she was handing the phone over, I heard Saphrona telling Mark to stay calm, and I almost laughed. My future sister-in-law was obviously still oblivious to just how protective my brother could be, and how unreasonable he could be when he was that peculiar mix of pissed off and worried only a person who truly loves you could ever become. I was proven right a moment later when his voice came more clearly through the speaker of my phone, and he yelled at me,

  “Juliette Geraldine Singleton, where the fuck are you?!”

  I barely managed to contain the instant flash of my temper that arose anytime someone raised their voice at me—a short fuse was a side effect of having a dual nature. So was the defensive growl I could feel building in my chest, but I managed to wrangle that under control as well, and said through tightly pressed lips, “Mark, if you’re just going to scream at me, I’m hanging up.”

  “Oh no—don’t you dare, little sister. You don’t get to play that card,” Mark replied angrily. Though I didn’t hear her speak, Saphrona must have done something to indicate Mark should chill, because I next heard him say, “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I’m will not calm down right now. You know how crazy we’ve all been going over her.”