SHADOW WORLD
BOOK FOUR
PART ONE
1
Everything has slowed down. The adrenaline pumping through my veins has me—and all that’s around me—dragging through time.
Stunned, I watch as the blast of the shotgun sends Cliff sprawling back through the air. The gun must be close, right at the door.
In the slow wave of time, his arm reaches down to his weapons belt and his hand grips the engraved hilt of a short knife. He has it raised before he even hits the floor.
Breath trapped in his chest, the rope tying us together jerks my wrists forward as Cliff lands with a roll backwards until he’s crouched on the floor—and he spears the knife through the air.
It connects—I hear its landing, sinking into flesh and the surprised grunt of a man out on the porch. There’s a moment’s silence before the clatter of a gun then the crumple of a body to the porch.
The rope has me spilling over the floor, wrists stretched out in front of me. My face twists with a grimace as I smack down on the carpet.
I roll onto my side, eyes alert and restless, darting between Cliff and the porch.
It’s dark out there, but in the shadows I spot a limp body at the mouth of the door, and another shifting behind it. Someone is leaning over the corpse for the shotgun.
Cliff doesn’t buy them any time.
In a blink, he’s lunging to his feet and running at the silhouette. Before the rope can yank my wrist bones into breakage, I scramble to my feet and race after him.
I slam into the doorframe just as Cliff barrels into the shadow. The dark clears with orange light rising and I can make out that the last survivor is a woman. Her brown hair lashes around her like a whip as she staggers back and holds up her hands—
Cliff shows no hesitation, no pity. His hands are around her neck before she can utter a pleading word and, crrnncchhhh, he snaps it so hard that her face does a 360-spin.
Leaning against the doorframe, I slump, a breath sagging me. For a moment, I think it’s all over and the early snares of nausea are starting to settle in, climbing up my throat with that familiar acidic taste.
The orange hues are clawing their way up the walls with a hunger to devour. Frowning, I look over my shoulder at the dropped torch—and my veins flood with ice. It fell onto the carpet and now, a fearsome fire has caught, starting its blaze mere metres from me.
I should snatch up the torch and race out of here now, but Cliff is blocking my way out of the cottage and the rope is too tight for me to reach the torch.
Then an awful, foreboding creak comes from the porch.
Heart clenching, I crane my neck and, around Cliff’s shoulder, trace the sound to the steps where the darkness lurks. From there, a bulky man steps out of the shadows, a sharpened samurai sword in his hand.
He’s no samurai with his pale sawdust hair, but he sure has kept up with the body-building in the middle of the apocalypse. His muscles bulge against his grey t-shirt, his jeans cinched at the waist with a thick, over-worn belt, and he rises up from the steps, sizing up Cliff.
Cliff is an immovable statue. He simply watches the new survivor with a glint of curiosity in his tarry eyes and, slowly, he lifts his hands away from his weapons belt. A small smirk ghosts over his mouth.
He wants this. Of course he does, it’s in his blood, his bones. It’s who he is. But it’s more than that. I suspect it’s got more to do with unleashing his fury about what happened between us onto someone.
The moment shatters and, with a roar from samurai-guy, they go running at each other. Cliff ducks before the blade cuts through the air above him. He smacks into the man’s chest—the impact sends the guy flying back through the air.
Cliff doesn’t follow him to finish the job. He stands tall, taking two silent steps back, and lets the man get to his feet.
Samurai isn’t playing around. He stumbles to a stand, staggering only for a second before he’s sprinting at Cliff again.
The fae spins out of the way with brutal elegance just as the man brings down the winking blade on the doorway. The sword cuts the air at my nose and, with a squeal, I drop to the floor to avoid it.
Cliff’s eyes blaze suddenly, looking wild and savage. He looks from me on the floor to the fire growing behind me, as though just now really grasping that I’m here, tethered to him.
Amber hues crack through his black eyes like spears of realisation. He can’t draw this out, not with me trapped between a sword and a fire.
Cliff ends it, fast. So fast that I realise this man was never a challenge to him, even with all his muscles and determination, he was nothing to a dark fae, because in a mere blink, the man is collapsing to the porch—missing his jaw.
Cliff stands over him, holding that missing piece in his bloody hand.
The man’s screams are distorted by a sagging tongue and that’s all it takes before I’m crouched over on the floor, vomiting all over the place. I could have gone my entire life without seeing anything like that.
Somehow, it’s much worse than a decapitated head or severed body. The image is burnt into my mind when I hear the sinking of a blade crunching into a skull, and I know Cliff has finished the job.
The screams stop abruptly.
I stay crouched on the floor, beside the growing heat of the fire, in danger of being consumed by ravenous flames. I try to catch my breath post-sick, spitting out the bitter flavour from my mouth.
Bootsteps storm by me.
Through teary eyes, I look up as Cliff marches through the lower flames and snatches up the torch. He turns on me, his brow furrowing as our gazes lock, and he pauses for a mere heartbeat before he advances on me.
Scooping me up by my underarm, he hauls me out of the door and down the porch steps.
At the edge of the firelight, he stops and looks over his shoulder at the cottage. The flames have reached the door and are starting their ascent up the frame, devouring.
I throw a glance up at Cliff. His mouth is turned down at the corner, the frown still etched into his face. Black eyes reflect the flames.
Now, I’m no dark fae-reader, but it looks as though he regrets that this cottage is burning. It looks as though this is the last thing he wanted.
Loosening his grip on my arm, he turns his face to me. His hand slips away then reaches up for my jaw. A moment’s hesitation snares him before he presses his thumb to my damp lips and, slowly, he drags it along a droplet of sick, wiping it away.
I drag myself closer to him. His fingers slip away and shift to the nape of my neck as I bury my face into his chest and nuzzle into him.
Frozen for a moment, he’s stiff against me. Then his arm comes to loop around my back and he holds me to him.
We stand there as the cottage burns. He watches, I stay huddled against him. Neither of us speaks.
He holds me the whole time.
2
Of all the things I could say about Cliff, being predictable in his unpredictable behaviour is one of the most honest. I honestly expected him to shut down after he held me at the cottage—but for whatever reason, he hasn’t.
I mean, he’s still what and who he is. There’s no warm cuddly moments to be found with him. He doesn’t kiss me in the dark, tell me how much of his heart I hold in my grip, or caress me.
What he does do is let my hand clutch his as we trek through the rocky plains leading to Perche National Park. Already, some lots of thinning trees have sprouted around us in the blackness. And all the while, I hold his limp hand in mine, my fingers clenched tight where his are relaxed.