Return to the Shadows (Shadows #2) by Angie West
Chapter Eight
The Ruins
The fog was thick. I watched his shadow move through the mist. There were others with him, and I drew in a sharp breath of thin mountain air, staying still and silent in the gloom. I knew we were hidden from view of the group that danced before us…warriors that moved in such a way as to be termed beautiful. Most carried a sword or what looked to be kendo sticks. It was difficult to see much more than basic outlines at that distance.
“Aries, that’s him; it’s really him.” I couldn’t drag in enough air. I couldn’t seem to help the sudden case of nerves. “It’s Mark,” I whispered. She didn’t respond and I didn’t look back at her. It seemed I couldn’t take my eyes off the man in the shadows.
I would never be able to say how I knew it was him, but I did. I had dreamed of him, of the moment I would see him again, for so long that I half expected to wake up at any second. I would find that this had all been a dream. The sunlight would be streaming through the tall windows and spilling over the Navajo rug in my bedroom like it always did. Ashley would be snuggled at my side because she’d had another bad dream and had climbed into bed with me sometime during the night.
But when I opened my eyes, Ashley was not there and neither was my bedroom. I blinked hard against the fog. The ruins rose majestically in the distance where the men had ceased their practice. I took an instinctive step back, nearly bumping into my companion. Mark was advancing through the mist, and I hastily turned around and pushed Aries toward the path that lay behind us.
“He’s coming, let’s go!” I hissed.
“We came to find him,” she reminded me.
“Well, now we have. Let’s go.”
“No.” She turned me around and gave me a gentle nudge toward the ruins. Toward Mark. I gulped and took in a pair of muscled legs clad in dark leather, a nude chest, and finally, a pair of eyes that held all the warmth of ice as they stared back at me.
“Claire.”
“Hello, Mark.” If I had hoped that Mark would be glad to see me, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Because Mark didn’t exactly look thrilled at my presence. If anything, he looked quite the opposite. I felt like something under a microscope as he continued to stare me down in silence. It was hard not to think about turning around and walking back down the mountain, but I quickly discarded the idea. For one thing, I knew that Aries wouldn’t let me. Not to mention I was tired and not at all eager for another run-in with God only knew what on the treacherous mountain trails. Besides, Aries was right. We had come to find him. More than that, we had traveled a long way to find the Warrior of the Ruins, and for good reason. I thought of Ashley and the fences, and of Bob and Marta, and I met Mark’s eyes with a steady gaze of my own.
“You look good, Mark.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to find you. We came here to find you,” I explained, gesturing behind me to Aries.
“It’s been over a year. You’re the last person I expected to see here.”
Now what did I say to that? Memories of the two of us standing together in Marta’s kitchen the morning we had been separated stood between us; a lifetime had lay ahead of us. I could still see his eyes as he told me he would be back soon. As he asked me if I thought he could ever belong in my world. Or better yet, if I would stay in his. He left that morning expecting…
“I asked you what you are doing here, Claire.”
Aries stepped forward then, effectively saving me from having to answer Mark’s question.
“There have been some changes since you left Grandview. The attacks are becoming more frequent and the fences are failing, Mark.”
His eyes cut to her immediately and I could feel the tension that surrounded the three of us.
“Bob and Marta?”
“Are doing fine,” I was quick to reassure. “The fences are still intact in Grandview. So far. But failures have occurred further south from Coztal to Bellview. Grandview will be next, Mark. Along with a lot of other places.”
“How did this happen? Where are the Matrons?”
“We don’t know. But we need your help. And the help of your men.” I gestured to the ruins behind Mark where his men had gathered, watching and patiently waiting.
“Will you go back and fight with us?” Aries didn’t bother to mince words.
“What of the towns that were left unprotected?”
“Lives were lost,” she told him quietly. “Some of the people are believed to have taken to the woods or the cliffs in hiding.”
“But they won’t last long without help,” I added.
“We leave tonight, as soon as the moon rises. Come on, you can rest in our camp until then.”
Was it my imagination or did his voice thaw a degree? Imagination, I decided as he turned swiftly and led us through the ruins and across a flat, grassy plateau. The area was more narrow than wide, and the only foliage looked to be little tufts of crab grass scattered across the ground. He nodded to his men as we passed them, and they automatically turned to follow us.
“How many men have gathered here?”
“More than one hundred were already here when I arrived.”
“One hundred men will be of great use.” Aries nodded her approval.
“We have since recruited two hundred more.”
“Three hundred men,” I gasped, astonished. A quick glance of our surroundings revealed maybe fifty men tops, and I wondered where the other two hundred and fifty were hiding. The mountain didn’t look all that big.
“Yes. Three hundred men.” It was hard not to miss the contempt in Mark’s voice as I swung back to him.
“For the battle, of course,” I quickly added. One of the men behind us snickered, and Mark and I turned as one to glare at him. Aries seemed to develop a sudden fascination with her fingernails.
“Camp is this way,” he bit out, and our procession through the flatland continued.
We stopped at the edge of the mountain, where a narrow opening was partially hidden by coarse brush.
“Watch your step and stay close together,” Mark warned us. “The cave cuts to the left, and there are two sets of steps that will take us around the side of the mountain and down to the camp.”
“Do you wish us to change guards now, boss?” one of the men questioned from the entrance.
“Yes. Full staff at the ready. We leave tonight. Be ready,” he emphasized and turned to lead us through the wide opening in the side of the mountain and through a crudely cut tunnel that probably would have incited claustrophobia in most of the broad-shouldered soldiers that occupied the camp, had they been the sort to let such things bother them. As it was, I was willing to bet that Mark’s men didn’t let much of anything get to them. Mark himself had grown a hard shell since the last time he and I had been together.
I remembered with startling, vivid, bittersweet clarity the young man who’d rescued me from lake monsters and slain demons in my honor. Well, maybe he hadn’t actually done any demon slaying, but he would have, had there been any. He had rescued me from danger more than once, though, and had offered his aid—and repeatedly put himself in danger—when he really hadn’t been required to do so. And…he was sweet. At least he had been. This new Mark, who led us through set after set of steeply winding stairs that cut through the interior of the mountain, looked more like the demon than the gentle-hearted slayer who had occupied my dreams for the past year. There didn’t appear to be any softness in him now. He was bigger, harder, and…meaner than I remembered. I didn’t know what I had expected to find, really, but the almost imperceptible nod from Aries as we continued our descent told me that I probably shouldn’t have been all that surprised to find…well, a warrior.
My mind struggled to come to grips with the past thirty-six hours. It was true—the Warrior of the Ruins was Mark. Of course he had changed, I tried to reason, my eyes squinting against the darkness that rendered the single torch Mark
Well…
I lifted my chin and looked straight ahead for a brief moment before once again fixing my gaze on the narrow stone steps in front of me, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. There didn’t appear to be any tender feelings in Mark at all now, let alone when it came to me.
After what truly seemed like hours, but in all likelihood was no more than thirty or forty minutes, Mark halted in front of us and I nearly bumped into Aries on the last step.
“This way,” he ordered, ushering us down yet another poorly lit crude hall that some long ago people had carved into the belly of the mountain. The stone was cold and damp and the air smelled dank. I took a deep breath and reached out to catch the tail end of Aries’s shirt, suddenly anxious for human contact.
“This is yours to use while you’re here,” Mark informed us a moment later, showing us into a slightly less damp eight-by-ten stone box of a room. It was still cold, but at least the chamber sported two halfway comfortable-looking cots and a handmade dresser, complete with ornate brass knobs. There were even two large wall sconces, one by the door and another on the opposite wall between the two cots. Mark lit both off his torch before turning to go back the way he came.
“Wait,” I blurted, without knowing what to say.
“Yes?” His eyes met mine, and for a moment, something flickered in their cold depths.
“How long are we staying here?”
“Like I told my men, we leave this evening. Neither of you are prisoners here, you can come and go as you please. This room is yours to rest as you see fit until we leave here. We eat in a couple of hours.
I’ll send someone to fetch you and your companion then. Unless you would rather eat in this room.”
“No,” I quickly told him. “Aries and I will go back to the surface and eat with the men.”
“Of course,” he snorted, turning to go.
“Because it’s cold down here,” I told his retreating form a second before the door shut firmly behind him.
“Well,” Aries said brightly. “We found him. How about that?”
“Yeah,” I muttered, sinking down to the cot nearest the door.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.” I cupped my hands and blew into them. “I’m fine. We found him and that’s what matters. Lord, it’s so cold in here!” I shivered and rubbed both hands together, not wanting to talk about Mark and his surly attitude right then. Not when I was still reeling with it. No, I decided, it was better to stay on safe, normal subjects—like freezing to death. “Aren’t you cold?” I demanded, glaring at Aries. She wasn’t even shivering.
“Yes, it is chilly down here.” She exhaled, and I took small, petty comfort in the icy puff of breath. I wasn’t the only one that was damn uncomfortable.
“I don’t suppose there are any blankets stashed down here.”
“No, it doesn’t look like it,” she smiled apologetically. “Unless you want to go investigate?”
“Not on your life.” I shook my head. “The last thing we need is to get lost inside this mountain, or run into who only knows what. No, I guess we won’t freeze to death in two hours.”
“Let’s hope not.”
We spent the next couple of hours in silence, each of us seemingly lost in our own thoughts and half-heartedly trying to sleep; though of course, neither of us did. But we did get some much needed rest…or rather, Aries probably did. While my body got some badly needed down time, my mind was anything but restful. My thoughts churned with an inner turmoil that made it difficult to concentrate on any one thing and all but impossible to hold still for more than a few minutes at a time. It seemed I was constantly shifting around on the cot in a hopeless attempt to get comfortable, and things didn’t improve when later that night, we sat across a clearing from Mark, surrounded by his men, to share the evening meal. I could feel all eyes upon us as we dined as a group, cross-legged around several small fires. A few times I thought I felt Mark staring at me, but when I turned to look at him, he was never so much as glancing in my direction. It was as if I had ceased to exist for him. No matter, I told myself, a trace of iron creeping into my spine.
Who needs him anyway?