From the Shadows (A Shadow Chronicles Novel) Read online

  To me he said, “And I mean that, Juliette. You’ve driven everybody fucking insane with worry. You do remember what the hell happened the last time you went missing, don’t you?”

  “As if I could forget,” I snapped bitterly. Fact was I still had nightmares about being tortured by the henchmen of Saphrona’s bat-shit crazy sister. I broke out in cold sweats at the mere thought of what they had done to me that horrible night, and my super-heated blood turned to ice every time I remembered being tied to a bed and raped by both of them not 24 hours later.

  My brother groaned. He then took a breath and said, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just pissed at you because you had me so damn worried. Believe it or not, Mom actually asked me the other day to ask Lochlan if he’d heard from you, and even I can tell she still doesn’t quite trust him. Where are you, Juliette? I know you left your car at Mom and Dad’s, so if you can’t get home just say the word and I’ll come get you.”

  My throat closed up tight to listen to the worry and the hope in his voice. There were five years between my brother and I, but there was a time I’d felt as close to him as though he were my twin. I used to share nearly everything with him (except, you know, girl stuff…and the shifter thing). And it wasn’t as if Mark hadn’t had his fair share of PTSD to deal with, what with having been a Marine Corps sniper for 11 years of his adult life and learning not even a month ago that the monsters in his boyhood closet were living next door.

  Actually, right down the hall would be more accurate.

  I drew in another deep breath to control the swell of my emotions. “I’m sorry to have made you all worry, I truly am,” I said, once again studiously avoiding the question of where I was—I wouldn’t put it past Mark to come up here looking for me no matter how much I told him to stay away. “But I needed to get away. I felt like I was being smothered with all the damn concern for my welfare. I mean, it’s not like I was the only one who went through hell that day. I just…I needed room to breathe without constantly tripping over somebody who was making sure I was okay.”

  “I understand that, believe me,” Mark said. “But did you have to do all that free breathing in a whole other city—or state, or wherever the hell you are? My God, Juliette, the least you could have done was to tell someone you were leaving so we wouldn’t have worried about you.”

  My respect for Lochlan Mackenna’s ability to keep a secret rose up a notch. He’d known three days before I left that I was planning to take off—I’d even convinced him to drive me to the bus station. I knew that he was particularly close to his sister (his sire—the vamp who’d made him one—was Saphrona’s biological father), so the fact that he hadn’t said a single word to her about my plan to leave home for a while meant that he really did hold me in high esteem. That he, a vampire, cared a great deal about me, a shapeshifter—his natural enemy—enough to keep a promise that he had made to me despite my having failed to keep my own to him…

  Yeah, I was kinda feeling like a jerk right then.

  I sighed. “I’m probably never going to be able to apologize enough, but I really am sorry,” I told my brother. “Please tell Saphrona that, and Mom and Dad, too. You can even tell Lochlan if you want, that is if he’s even asked about me. Tell them I’m okay and that I’m fine. I’m just dealing with everything that happened in my own way, is all, and I need time away from everyone to do that.”

  “Why don’t you tell them yourself? You know it would make Mom and Dad feel a whole lot better about you being gone if they could just hear your voice, sis,” Mark said.

  “I can’t,” I replied. “And before you start yelling at me again, I know that I should. I just… I can’t. Calling you was hard enough.”

  A moment of silence followed, and then Mark said, “I guess this means you’re not coming home anytime soon.”

  The hurt in his voice felt like a punch to the gut, and I was starting to hate myself for causing his pain. I hated that I had frightened my family by running away without leaving word, but I felt I had no choice. Had I told anyone but Lochlan my plans, they’d have tried to stop me.

  “I’m sorry, Mark,” I said, wiping furiously at the tear that had escaped my left eye. “Please don’t be mad at me. I love you, all of you, and God knows how much I miss you. I just can’t come home right now. I need to be by myself for a little while longer.”

  “Alright,” he said. “I know how you can dig your heels in when you’ve made your mind up about something. Please, just promise me one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  Mark sighed. “Be safe, little sister. Wherever you are, be safe.”

  “I will, big brother. I promise.”

  I bit my bottom lip as I pressed the End button, then I laid my phone on the table, braced my elbows on the edge, and dropped my head into my hands.

  ***

  After sitting for another ten or fifteen minutes just brooding over the conversation with my brother, I went inside to order something to eat. I hadn’t shifted in a while, but that didn’t mean my metabolism was less a furnace than it usually was, and I needed fuel. Of course, I’d lost my appetite by then, but I still ordered a mocha frappé and a cinnamon pretzel with cream cheese in the middle. I then returned to my table outside, where I mostly picked at the pretzel and barely sipped the frozen coffee. A moment later, Karen—the assistant manager who had come in shortly after I was hired and was close to becoming a friend—came and sat in the chair to my left. She said nothing at first, but I could feel her eyes on me, assessing me.

  “Is everything alright, Juliette?” she asked finally.

  I shrugged, trying to re-form the wall of indifference around my heart, which after talking to Mark had begun to crumble. “I’m fine,” I replied. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, far be it for me to pry into someone’s personal life, hon, especially someone I don’t know all that well, but ever since you got that call from the English fella this morning—”

  “He’s Irish,” I corrected her automatically.

  Her lips twitched. “Okay, the Irish guy. Ever since he called you’ve been a bit…twitchy. And just now I observed you on a phone call that made you cry.”

  I stiffened and looked away from her, now even more angry at myself for having allowed my moment of weakness to be observed. Karen sighed, then said, “Look, I know it ain’t none of my business. I’m sorry I asked. But I kinda thought we were becoming friends, so… I just want you to know that if and when you are ready to talk about whatever’s going on, I’ll listen. And I won’t judge you.”

  Internally I had to laugh. If only she knew that she was talking to a girl who could turn into a dog, and that I had not only recently added an actual vampire to my list of friends, but that his half-breed sister would be joining my family within the next year. Oh, how that story would freak her out!

  But I reminded myself then that Karen seemed really nice. I could tell she just really wanted to help me. And maybe I couldn’t tell her about shapeshifters and vampires, but I could, if I had the nerve, tell her I’d been kidnapped and raped, and that I was not having the easiest time dealing with that. During my waking hours I had quickly become adept at not thinking about it because I kept myself busy with work and constant exercise. I had even taken to putting large puzzles together and then taking them apart just to do it all over again—anything that kept my mind focused on something other than the memories of what I’d been through.

  At night, however, when I was too exhausted to stay awake, I could not keep those memories at bay. My subconscious never failed to draw them out, forcing me to relive the hell of being beaten and tortured, of having been forced to endure two vampires pushing themselves into me for their own sick pleasure while I was tied down and too weak from an injury to fight them off.

  “Thank you, Karen,” I said at last, chancing looking at her and seeing simple concern in her eyes. It reminded me a little too much of that which I’d seen in the faces of my family and Lochlan before
I’d left, but somehow it was easier to bear because I still didn’t know her very well. “I… I had some horrible shit happen to me a few weeks ago. I’m not ready to talk about it—I don’t even like to think about it.”

  Karen gave me a sympathetic smile. “Honey, I understand completely how you feel. Like I said, if you ever feel like letting it all out, just say the word and my ear is yours to talk off, okay?”

  She looked at her watch then. “Oh, I better get back inside before JayReese burns the place down.”

  I looked up at her as she stood and thanked her again. Realizing as she walked away that I actually felt a little better knowing someone who didn’t know me from Eve was willing to listen to my sorry-ass tale of woe, my appetite suddenly returned. I wolfed down the rest of the pretzel and then practically chugged the frappé through the straw. I gave myself a brain freeze for my efforts, which made me feel like laughing.

  ***

  As the day wound down and the end of my shift neared, I looked forward to going home to my room at the hotel, where I would change into some sweats and go for a jog. Given the emotional rollercoaster I’d ridden, I felt the need to exert myself. A part of me wanted very much to shift into my animal form—I’d not done so since the Day of Hell, and as if the Siberian Husky I turned into had a mind of her own, the dog within me wanted to run free. I had to admit that I kinda missed her, but I didn’t know any place in Cleveland where I could go and just be my canine self. I decided then and there to look for a dog park near where I lived so that I could let my girl loose.

  After saying goodbye to all my co-workers and receiving a meaningful glance from Karen, I clocked out and headed for the bus stop. After catching and riding the number eight to the stop closest to the Motel 6 I had been staying in, I hopped off and started the four-block trek. As I was approaching the alley separating the first and second block, a scent on the air had me freezing in my tracks.

  Vampire.

  Shit! I thought immediately, looking around to see if I could find the leech. Two weeks I had been living here, and not once had I smelled that awful identifying stench of theirs. For that matter, I’d not met a single werewolf or shapeshifter, and I was fairly certain that a city the size of Cleveland had a few of each supernatural species. I knew two full vampires and one half-vampire personally, and the one I’d just detected didn’t smell like one of them. I’d suspected since this morning that Lochlan was in town spying on me, but if he was he hadn’t shown his face yet, and I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that now would have been a good time.

  People on the sidewalk, though there were few, were beginning to look at me funny so I forced my feet to keep moving, wondering as I did so why this particular vampire had decided to venture out in the daytime. I knew from my association with Saphrona that despite the fact that vampires didn’t actually burn in sunlight, few ventured out in the daytime because of what could happen—they could up and fall asleep in an instant as if they were narcoleptic (which, I suppose, they really were given how much melatonin they produced during daytime hours). Falling into that coma-like sleep made a vampire extremely vulnerable, and they abhorred vulnerability. Stemming from the persecution they had faced centuries ago, most vampires had found it easier to accept and embrace their nocturnal physiology and they stuck to living the night life (the real reason, of course, being that it was simply safer). Usually only “pretenders”—those that chose to work amongst humans—would go out in the daytime, and even then most of them preferred to work night jobs.

  I very nearly passed the alley between the two blocks, but as I was stepping into the road to cross to the next one, it dawned on me that the smell was actually coming from down the alley itself. I backed up and flattened myself against the building, utilizing my sensitive hearing to listen for tell-tale sounds.

  “Where the fuck have you been, boy?” I heard a gruff male voice say.

  “Look, Merrick, I’ve already told you—I’m done. I’m not going to help you guys anymore,” said another male.

  A callous-sounding laugh, presumably from the one called Merrick, erupted at the same moment I heard the rustle of clothing and the scraping of feet. I chanced a peek around the corner and saw a large, mean-looking dude holding up another guy by the shirt. Instinct warred with caution inside me: my animal half wanted to run in and save the guy who was clearly being harassed, but my other half reminded the Siberian that I wasn’t sure yet which was the vampire. Sure it was most likely the one who had picked up the other guy, but even I knew there were some human men who could lift another, and if the big one was human, as my nose told me one of them was, he was probably high on something.

  I was going to have to get closer to them to figure out which was which.

  Carefully, I eased myself around the corner and into the alley. The two men were about halfway between where I’d come in and another alley that crossed perpendicular to this one. There were dumpsters filled with trash and who knew what else on either side of the narrow passage, and I made my way as silently as I could toward the two men.

  Merrick, who had both hands fisted in the other man’s shirt, shoved him against one of the trash bins loud enough to draw attention from either end of the street. Of course, no one actually paid any heed to the noise. Humans, more often than not, simply chose not to get involved. They were too afraid for themselves to help someone else. As to whether or not it was a good thing I wasn’t entirely human…well, that remained to be seen.

  “You don’t seem to get it, do you, mutt?” Merrick with a sneer. “There is no ‘done’ where you’re concerned. You don’t get to walk away. Or slither, or run, or fly. You fucking do as you’re told.”

  What the hell is he talking about? I wondered at the same time the fellow in the air said to his captor, “I don’t give a damn how much you intimidate me, bloodsucker! I’m through being your fucking errand boy!”

  So Merrick was the vampire, I mused, inching closer and wondering why it was that so many asshole vamps had names that began with the letter M. Sniffing the air, I did my best to separate the vampire’s scent from the stink of the overflowing dumpsters, and finally was able to zero in on the source—it was definitely Merrick. At the same time, I was also noticing that the guy I’d assumed was human smelled more like a mixture of human and animal, and began to wonder if perhaps he was werekind. But just as quickly as I had the thought I dismissed it. I was rather adept at identifying one of my kind by their scent, and he certainly didn’t smell like any of the breeds I’d ever encountered.

  “The only way you get out is if you get dead, freak! And believe me, I’d be more than happy to help you out with that!” the vampire growled.

  His prisoner laughed. “I’d love to see you try, when you ain’t had the stones to take me on yet. Does your mommy know you’re here, vampire?”

  Oh my God, was the idiot trying to get himself killed?! I wondered in amazement. Realizing then that if I was going to do anything at all it had probably better be soon, I knelt and did a quick breathing exercise to prepare myself for my first phase in three weeks, and said a silent prayer of thanks that the light breeze on which Merrick’s scent had been carried to me was still flowing my direction, as he apparently hadn’t yet noticed I was there. For that matter, I was surprised he hadn’t heard me, given that a vampire’s hearing was even more exceptional than that of a shapeshifter.

  Of course, his not hearing me was about to change…

  Widening the stance of my crouch, I planted my hands on the ground and phased. Given that there was a human involved and I had no ability to make him forget something that big, I couldn’t shift into my battle form, which was a husky about as big as a horse. Hell, even the other humans passing by would notice that! I just had to hope that the innocent-looking, normal-sized dog that was my usual alter ego was enough to distract Merrick so the man he held nearly a foot in the air could get away.

  Merrick might not have smelled me, but when I shook myself out of my work clothes after I
transformed, he certainly heard me. The rustle of the fabric being kicked away sounded exceptionally loud in the relative confines of the alley even to me.

  “Who the fuck is there?” Merrick shouted. “Better show yourself, asshole!”

  Emitting a whine from my throat, I stepped slowly around the dumpster I’d hidden behind. I’d had to pretend to be a dog for most of the last year when I was Mark’s guardian, so I had the act down to a science: Whine, lower head, and walk slowly as if wary of being reprimanded. Merrick appeared to buy it; he started laughing as he all but dropped his companion to the street.

  “Will you look at this?” he queried rhetorically. “Is this thing yours? Did the pet get himself a pet?”

  I didn’t have time to wonder at the oddity of his words—I was too busy praying he didn’t take more than a cursory sniff of the air, for if he did, Merrick would surely catch on that I was no ordinary dog. I paused in mid-stride and whined again, lifting my head slightly to look between the two men. The vampire laughed again, then turned his attention back to the slightly smaller human and pointed his finger in the man’s face.

  “Better rethink that attitude of yours, freak, if you want to keep breathing. I’ll be in touch…real soon.”

  After shoving his victim again, Merrick took off at vampire speed, his form a blur as he raced toward the perpendicular alley. When he had disappeared around the corner (he obviously didn’t care about being seen), the human and I were alone.

  He turned to look down at me and I backed away. In part because I was still acting, and in part because now that I could see his face, he looked disturbingly familiar—though for the life of me I couldn’t place where I might now him from (my only guess was that he had come into Cool Beans sometime in the week that I had been working there). The stranger was tall, though not quite so tall as my brother, who was six-one; I pegged him at no more than two inches shorter. He had blond hair paler than Mark’s straw-colored mop, and a pair of hazel eyes that seemed bottomless. If I knew him, how could I ever have forgotten that face?