Light Shadows by S. L. Jennings
I nod, torn between the urge to gather him in my arms and comfort him, and to respect the silent alarm going off in my head. “So it’s true? You were an addict?”
Niko snorts and shakes his head. “I wouldn’t go that far. I’ve seen what true addiction looks like, and nothing but death can stop it. But, have I killed more people that I can count? Yes. Will I forever live in self-loathing because I’m too fucking weak to control myself? Hell yes.”
I give him a tight, sympathetic smile. “It’s not all your fault. You were drained and delirious. I should have just healed you.”
“No. I didn’t want you to. The process of healing one of us requires you to absorb energy. You would have taken on all of my fatigue. I couldn’t do that to you.” He spits out a sardonic laugh. “So instead, I did something far worse.”
Hating the distance between us, and the sorrow in his voice, I scoot toward him. “Hey. I’m fine, Niko. The only thing that got hurt was my dress. I’m more upset about that beauty getting ruined than anything else.”
“You don’t get it, Gabs—”
“I do,” I interject, laying my hand on his. He trembles under my touch, as if he’s afraid of what he could do. “Accidents happen, and that’s exactly what that was—an accident. I can see how this is eating you up inside, so I won’t ask you why, but I know that you need to forgive yourself. Whatever happened out there—or before—you have to let it go, Niko. You’re not that person anymore.”
Niko’s hand slowly turns until his palm meets mine. Our breaths falter when his fingers move between mine until our hands are locked together in an intimate embrace. Simultaneously, our gazes meet, and we smile as heat invades my cheeks.
This is…nice. Like the first time we held hands last Halloween while sitting in his car in an abandoned parking lot. Another girl had just been killed, and we’d run into Solara, the Light Enchanter who’d secretly been looking out for me. Emotions and adrenaline were high. And touching him…him touching me…it was comforting, even if it wasn’t entirely innocent.
His lips part at the same time mine do, but whatever it was that we intended to say falls dead on our tongues the moment we hear an anguished groan.
“Oh my God!” I jump, dropping Niko’s hand without a second thought. He’s not offended. We both flash to the head of the bed, just as Dorian lets out another painful groan that ends in a cough. “I’m here, Dorian. It’s ok, you’re safe.”
He coughs again, and the harsh sound makes me cringe. I’ve never seen him sick before. Come to think of it, I’ve never even seen him physically hurt. Yeah, I may have drawn blood when I slapped him across the face—not my finest moment, I should add—and yeah, I saw his chest ripped open when he and Alex fought. But he still seemed like Superman to me: invincible.
Eyes still closed, Dorian slides his tongue over his dry lips and gasps. For some ungodly reason, I feel my sex clench. Really? Of all times for me to be aroused, my hormones pick this moment to stir awake?
I shake my head and squeeze my thighs together, refusing to acknowledge the little quiver below. Taking one of Dorian’s hands, I focus on just being here for him. Yet, I acknowledge that I’m secretly praying that he still wants me here whenever he opens his eyes.
“D, we’re here, man. We’re all here.” At the sound of Niko’s voice, Dorian’s eyelids begin to flutter rapidly, as if he’s struggling to peel them apart. When they finally do open, he blinks a dozen times, trying to focus them in the direction of his brother’s relieved sigh.
“Damn, man,” Niko smiles. “You scared us. Do me a favor—the next time you’re starved for attention, just say so. You don’t have to go pissing off the old man.”
Dorian frowns with confusion. “Nikolai?” His voice is so weak, and, oddly enough, different. Like, heavily accented, more so than I’ve ever heard it.
“Yeah, D. I’m here. I got us out of there as soon as I could.”
I squeeze Dorian’s hand gently, letting him know that I’m here too. I want him to know that I never left, no matter what he said. The movement prompts him to slowly turn his head toward me, where I smile at him lovingly. Overwhelming relief floods my eyes, and I bring his hand to my lips just as the first grateful tears fall.
However, the second a salty drop slides down my cheek and touches his fingers, Dorian flinches, pulling his hand away as if I’ve just shocked him. He frowns, disgust clearly reflected in his face, and opens his mouth to speak again in that foreign voice that I don’t know. Hope deflates me like the air out of an old balloon.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“THIS IS SO fucked. This is so fucking fucked.” Niko paces the floor, shoving his hands in his hair every few seconds to tug on the long front layers in frustration. “So fucked.”
“You said that already. Now tell me what happened.” I nearly have to yell over the sounds of Dorian’s irate screams—a mix of Greek, accented English and the Dark tongue. I look over at him as he thrashes on the bed, bound by invisible restraints. Seeing him so furious and disgusted with what we’ve done to him makes my heart hurt, and I quickly turn back to Niko.
“A reversal,” he says answers, grimacing. “Stavros did a reversal spell.”
“Wait…what? Like you did for Chris? And what Dorian did to Jared? But why is he…different? I saw Jared and he was the same—kind, sweet. But that?” I wave in Dorian’s direction just as he threatens to dismantle Alexander limb from limb for spelling him to the bed. “That isn’t Dorian. It doesn’t even sound like him.”
Niko shakes his head before stopping mid-stride and looks at me with that same look of regret from earlier. “That’s because Stavros didn’t reverse his memories. He reversed him. He isn’t the same person. And judging by the fact that he doesn’t even recognize Alex, I’d say he shaved off at least an entire century. Which would explain why our father was so weakened afterward.”
A century?
This was Dorian a hundred years ago? Vile? Belligerent? Cruel?
“We have to come up with something else,” Niko says to Alex, who is staring daggers at the stranger who was once his best friend. After hearing the commotion when Dorian woke up, Alex walked in to find Niko shielding me from his older brother, who was hell-bent on slaughtering me.
“She reeks of filth and humanity, but she isn’t human,” he sneered, circling us like a predator. “Give her to me, brother, and I’ll make her tell me what she is.”
“It’s me, Dorian!” I tried to shout around Niko, but he instantly shoved me behind him. “It’s Gabriella. You know me.”
“How dare you address me, you degenerate whore! I should cut out your tongue for speaking to me in that manner, but I’ll save you for Aurora. She’ll have fun with a little bitch like you. Maybe we’ll defile you together.”
His smile was off as he looked at me, raking those pale blue eyes up and down my body. Less seductive, more disturbing. And the dialect of English he spoke wasn’t Americanized, as if he hadn’t lived in the U.S. Initially, I thought Stavros had done some weird switcheroo thing, but it was obviously Dorian. He knew that Niko was his brother. He just didn’t know me.
When Alex burst through the bedroom door, he instantly immobilized Dorian, freezing him where he stood. “What the hell happened to him?” he asked, alarm in his usually calm, level voice.
“I don’t know,” Niko said. “But whatever it is, we have to get Gabs to safety. She’s not safe around him.”
“Bullshit,” I challenged, stepping around to face them, hands on hips. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Baby girl, he’s a danger to you. You need to—”
I held up a hand, refusing to hear anymore. “I’m not going anywhere. And I’d appreciate it if you treated me like I’m not some kid who can’t defend herself. If he comes at me, you know I could seriously hurt him.”
He looked at me, a small frown etched over his brow. “I know that. But we both know that you don’t want to.”
The immobilization spell o
“Dude, enough!” Niko grumbles, throwing his hands up. “Does he ever close his fucking mouth? Hell, I liked him a lot better when he was knocked out cold.”
Taking the hint, Alexander throws an imaginary gag in Dorian’s direction, causing his incessant threats and insults to instantly be muffled.
I take a moment to catch my breath and flop into a white leather armchair in the corner of the room. “We can’t leave…him…like that forever. It has to be uncomfortable for him. And won’t they come looking for him?”
Him. That’s what the man I loved—love—had been reduced to. Him. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t try to see the person I had fallen in love with inside the monster who had threatened to rape and torture me until I begged for death. Whoever this person was, he wasn’t Dorian.
“I guarantee he’s summoned Aurora already,” Niko replies, rubbing the dark scruff on his chin. He looks up at Alex who is staring at his former friend like he’d be willing to rip..his…head off at the word Go. “Alex, how long can we hold him?”
My father tips his head from side to side. “A day, day and a half tops. I’ve bound him pretty tight, but he’s strong.”
“Shit.” Niko scrubs a hand over his weary face.
“Is there anything I can do?” I ask. “You know, maybe if I give it a go, it would be enough to hold him for longer.”
He shakes his head, resuming his pacing. “You aren’t trained. You could end up releasing him instead, and he’d have your severed head in his hands in two seconds flat. Too much of a risk. I’ll tighten up the wards around the house, so that’ll keep anyone he summons from getting in.”
“Until Stavros decides to have us over for tea again,” I mumble.
“No. He won’t have enough strength to do it. Not for a while at least. You saw how weakened he was.” Niko stops pacing abruptly and comes to kneel in front of me. “Just promise me you won’t give up. He’ll say things to you—he’ll try to coerce you into letting him go. But you can’t, you know that, right? You can’t let him get inside your head and make you think he loves you. Because that man over there does not love you. He doesn’t love you, Gabs. He wants nothing more than to see you bloody and beaten, writhing on the ground like a dying animal. And that’s exactly what he’ll do to you the minute you free him.”
“I know that.” The feeble sound of my voice doesn’t match the conviction of my words.
“I just need to know that I can trust you to do whatever it takes to bring him back to how he was. It won’t be easy—hell, I’m not even sure it’s possible—but we have to try.”
I nod once. “You can trust me.”
“Good,” he replies jumping to his feet. “Alexander and I need to strengthen the wards and patrol the area. I need you to just…watch him. He’ll be able to talk soon, and I need to know that you’re strong enough to handle whatever he says.”
“I am.”
“Atta girl,” he says, making his way to the door. “And keep Morgan out. One sniff of her, and he’ll be delirious with hunger. Not even you could stop him.”
I nod enthusiastically, remembering how wild with blood-lust Dorian had become when Morgan had tried to enter the room. Just smelling her essence from yards away was enough for him to nearly break through the invisible restraints. Now she was banished to her room in the far end of the mansion.
Niko and Alex disappear into the wooded area around the house, looking for any weak spots in the ward that protected the property. Niko told me earlier that it was one of the strongest and complex wards ever created. He said it took several months to get it just right, and any adjustments could be tedious.
“Why is that necessary, when no one even lives here?” I’d asked him.
I’ll never forget the lost look in his eyes when he’d answered. “I failed to protect something I loved. I’ll never make that mistake again.”
“Amelie?”
He tipped his head just once before looking away, ending the conversation. I didn’t dare press for more. I wouldn’t put him through any more undue pain.
I sit in lonesome silence for hours, refusing to turn my gaze to where Dorian lays. He’s given up on screaming, his voice successfully muffled by Alex’s spell. However, I can feel his eyes burning into me. Watching me. Daring me to turn to him. They taunt me from across the room, reminding me that no matter what he is now—and what he’s always been deep down—I am under his spell. He owns me. And while I may just be a broken toy to him, he is still every star in the sky to me.
“Gabriella.”
I’m not sure that I even really hear my name on his tongue. Like maybe my desire for that sense of familiarity was so strong that my imagination created a variation of it. A heavily accented version that I know, yet I don’t know.
“Gabriella.”
The voice is richer now, less raspy. I hear him clear his throat and he repeats it a third time with perfect clarity. I let myself look at him, or maybe I’m actually forcing my gaze to drift over to the man on the bed. Because even as my eyes find his in the dimly lit room, they burn like I’m looking at the sun.
“That is your name, correct?”
I nod slowly, as if the movement pains me.
“You’re a little thing. How old are you, child?” I can’t tell if there’s malice in his tone, or genuine curiosity.
After a long beat passes as I internally debate whether or not to answer him, I whisper, “Twenty-one.”
“And you aren’t human, correct?”
I shouldn’t tell him. Niko had warned me that he would try to get into my head and manipulate me into letting him go, but I honestly don’t see the harm in talking with him. This is Dorian. This isn’t some stranger on the street. Hell, just less than 48 hours ago, we were both on this bed, and I was straddling his face as he composed a symphony between my thighs.
I know this man. I love this man. And maybe…maybe if I can just remind him of that, he’ll come back to me.
“I’m not,” I squeak, not fully confident in my decision.
“But you’re not like me.”
“I’m not.”
He ponders my answer before raising a brow. “So…what are you?”
“Different.”
“Different how?”
“Just different.”
He purses his lips at my answer, yet accepts it. A few strained moments pass as I fight the urge to crawl inside his head and unearth whatever block is on his mind.
“Come here, girl. Let me have a closer look at you. I promise, I won’t bite. Unless you want me to.”
I swallow against the dryness in my mouth as I stand on shaky feet. He’s only yards away, but every step feels like I’m being torn in half. I can feel him luring me, pulling me into his trap. And while I know he’s dangerous, and his only interest in me is devious, I want to go to him. I want to hold him and kiss him and tell him how happy I am that he’s alive. Then I want to slap him for scaring me like that.
But this Dorian…this Dorian wouldn’t kiss me back. He wouldn’t laugh while I tackled him to the bed. And when I slapped him, this Dorian would surely slap me back hard enough to make me go flying into the wall.
Still, I make my way to the bed where he’s bound, his magic stifled to hinder his escape.
“There you are,” he smiles in that wrong way again. “See, that wasn’t so hard, now was it?”
I shake my head. “What do you want?”
His shoulder twitches as if his intention is to shrug, but his restraints won’t let him. “Just the pleasure of your company. You said you know me, and I know you. How?”
I nearly chew through my lip as I try to find a way to explain what he is to me… what we are to each other. There is no definition for it, no term to ful
Dorian had become more than life to me. But right here, as I looked down at the imposter taking up space inside his body, I couldn’t find the words to tell him. And while I hoped to bring him back with those memories, they weren’t for this Dorian. And wouldn’t let him have them.
“We were…we dated,” I settle on.
He barks out a laugh that sounds anything but humorous. “I dated you?”
My face heats with aggravation. “Yes. Why is that so hilarious?”
“No offense, but I wouldn’t date you. I don’t think I would even fuck you.”
I take a step forward, bold on hurt and anger. “And why’s that?”
“Well, for one, you’re not one of us. And do you know what I mean by that?”
Crossing my arms in front of my chest, I twist my lips into a partial grimace. “You mean Dark.”
“Correct. And if you are not Dark, you might as well be Light. We don’t mix. Ever.”
“But you know I’m not Light.”
Dorian rolls his eyes with boredom. “Doesn’t matter. On the supernatural food chain, my kind is at the top. And you, child, are most likely somewhere in the dirt, hiding under rocks, along with the other grubs and rodents.”
Ouch. “Is that right?”
“It is. It’s the order of power. The divine powers will always rule. All others will remain docile or face death,” he replies matter-of-factly.
“Yet, you’re the one bound to this bed, being held captive by a tiny, insignificant grub.”
Dorian smiles crookedly, and for a minute, I imagine that it’s for me. “Ironic, isn’t it?”