on a park bench, hoping no humans approached me while I was sitting here looking like the world’s easiest target in the middle of the freaking night so Allerick and Soren could have their meal.
Okay, I was being dramatic. It was probably nine pm at the latest, but sitting in the dark in public all alone—or alone to the human eye at least—was Bad Personal Safety 101.
Soren went ahead to look for his dinner while Allerick hovered behind me, his claws occasionally running over my hair or neck like he was reminding me he was there.
He was acting odd today. Maybe my whole refuse-to-get-horny act had really bothered him? Too bad I’d gone and ruined it now. I’d gotten too excited at the concept of coming back to the human realm and experiencing a bit of my old life that I’d forgotten to be aloof.
I sighed internally as Allerick’s hand ghosted over my shoulder again. Was it normal to get all hot and bothered over shadowy monster claws? No, but I already knew I wasn’t normal.
If I was normal, I wouldn’t be so goddamn jealous over the fact that Allerick was about to feed on someone else. If I could work up one iota of fear, I’d be shamelessly begging for him to feed from me instead, and I really didn’t need to embarrass myself any further. I was already failing in my attempts to not smell like an eager beaver. Like my beaver was literally eager.
Remember that he’s probably going to return to his many, many lovers the moment we’re in the shadow realm. Remember that he’s likely only showing any interest in you now because you’ve been ignoring him and he’s sulky about it.
A jogger rounded the corner, a young man with his headphones in, probably thinking that this was a nice part of town and a safe neighborhood to go running in the dark.
It sort of was. From memory, this was a pretty low crime area. Just not a low monster area. He was a big guy too, probably not someone used to tiptoeing through life, constantly watching over his shoulder.
Soren appeared in front of the runner with a dramatic flourish, releasing the shadows enough that just his outline and his orange eyes were visible. Just enough to pass as a trick of the light, enough to make the poor human do a double take, wondering if he was seeing things.
I didn’t love watching as Soren moved in closer, his form flickering and eyes glowing, the human frozen to the spot as recognition hit that it wasn’t just a trick of the light—or was it? Maybe it was his own mind playing tricks on him?—but I didn’t feel an overwhelming urge to intervene either. Maybe because I knew from talking to Levana that feeding was about sustenance, not pleasure.
I really was a terrible Hunter.
Soren leaned into the man’s face and though it was dark and I couldn’t see clearly from where I was, I didn’t need fancy heightened Shade senses to know that he was terrified and Soren was basically sucking that fear out of his mouth and drinking it down.
The shadows around Soren’s form grew darker as he gained strength or power, or whatever it was that fueled them, and within seconds it was over. The human stumbled back, dazed and confused, his memory only supplying the haziest details of what he’d seen. Enough to spur him into action as he sprinted down the path towards the streetlights. He’d remember his fear well enough to not jog here in the dark again, that was for sure.
To me, that was why we needed Shades. Humans had a tendency to feel invincible, like whatever bad things happened in the world would always happen to someone else. Sure, one in every four car accidents was caused by texting and driving, but everyone who’d used their phones behind the wheel assumed it couldn’t possibly happen to them.
A healthy dose of fear is what kept us alive, and the Shades ensured that we got one.
Did that mean I wanted to watch Allerick administer that dose of fear to someone else?
No, I did not. Maybe a small part of me worried that it would make me afraid of him, seeing what he was capable of in action. Or maybe I was just a jealous little psycho. Or both.
I sighed dramatically, crossing one leg over the other as Soren floated back to us, doing my best to look bored and impatient.
Soren paused in front of me and I tipped my head up to watch him as he and Allerick had some kind of silent conversation over my head. Despite the fact that I couldn’t see their faces underneath the shadowy hoods, it looked sort of… heated? Soren was waving his shadowy arms, his head turning this way then that way. Allerick’s claws scraped against my scalp and my vagina jumped for joy while my brain pointed out he was scratching me like I was a cat.
That’s probably how he saw me. A silly little pet Hunter to show off and cage away as he saw fit. Meanwhile, I was over here imagining fanning those shadows that always hid his crotch away and spreading myself out like a buffet.
It was very inconvenient that my hormones were more active than my brain cells, but such was life. I knew I was a bit of a horny disaster when I wasn’t actively meditating it away.
Soren threw his hands up in exasperation, though I couldn’t actually see his hands, just flappy shadow cloak sleeves, and did what might have been a dramatic spin before heading towards a darker section of the park.
″What is happening?” I muttered, twisting to look up at Allerick. “Did he just flounce?”
Soren seemed to be more expressive in his shadowy ghost form than he was in his solid one. Allerick pointed emphatically in the direction Soren had gone, and I could have sworn his body language was a little bit irritable.
″Whatever,” I sighed, dragging the heavy bag over my shoulder and stomping after Soren. “This lack of talking thing is a real double-edged sword.”
Soren vanished into the overhanging branches of a tree, and despite my brain reminding me that walking into dark places wasn’t the brightest idea, I felt safe enough with Soren and Allerick to follow. The moment we were all safely ensconced in darkness, Allerick’s arm enveloped my shoulders, dragging me into the in-between. It was a weird place that regular humans couldn’t go, not that they would want to. There was nothing to see, not even anything to hear. It was just swirling darkness, and shadows that seemed to crawl up my body like they were trying to devour me whole.
When I’d walked through it alone, I’d had to concentrate on my destination and walk as best I could in a straight line to ensure I got to the right portal, but without asking, I knew Allerick was doing all the hard navigational work and I was just being swept along for the ride.
The moment we were in the shadows, Soren and Allerick’s forms solidified either side of me, and someone took my heavy bag in what may have been a gentlemanly gesture.
Maybe we’d bonded on our little excursion to the human realm? That’d be nice.
Except the moment we were free of the portal and back in the gray lands of the shadow realm, Allerick wrapped his hand around my upper arm and turned me towards him, stopping me from going any further.
Guess we hadn’t made any progress after all.
″Why did you come here?” he asked, the demand in his voice taking me off guard.
″What?”
″Why did you come here? Why did you agree to the marriage? Did you have a choice?”
Soren easily lifted my bag over his shoulder, dismissing himself with a nod to Allerick before heading back towards the palace.
″You’re not a high-ranking huntress,” Allerick continued. “You didn’t volunteer for this role. You had a life in the human realm. Why did you come here?”
″There is no one reason,” I replied carefully. I’d expected him to be a little curious about my life before, but the intensity of his questions was throwing me off. “I did have a choice, though the advantages of agreeing were highlighted a lot.”
″What were the advantages?” he ground out. Not for the first time, I wished I understood his expressions better. He sounded almost angry. Maybe after meeting Astrid, he was annoyed he’d gotten the dud sister.
″I was never initiated as a Hunter when I turned eighteen. I didn’t get any of the bonuses that other Hunters get like free housing and a paid-for college education.”
″Your motives were… financial?” he asked, sounding suspicious. Or perhaps just confused. Shades did have a currency, but their society seemed to be less financially motivated than in the human realm.
″That was part of it.” I looked down, suddenly finding the ground very interesting. Oh yeah, and they kicked me out of Hunters youth group for the crime of committing my inappropriate monster fantasies to paper, and I was literally the only person willing to come here.
″What else?” Allerick prompted.
″Why do you want to chat now?” I asked, exasperated. “You never want to chat.”
″I’m in a chatty mood.”
″I prefer you silent and brooding,” I muttered, knowing full well he could hear me. “I was hoping this would be a better fit for me, okay? I don’t regret not hunting, the opposite in fact. But knowing that there was more to our world, knowing what was out there… It was hard to live among regular humans like I was ordered to and pretend that I was one of them.”
″They would have never given you a place among them? Never trained you as a Hunter?”
″No. They would have never made me a Hunter, and I’m glad for it. Can we go inside now?”
Maybe I preferred it when Allerick ignored me. Being the focus of his full attention was a little disarming. He was so intense.
″So eager to get away from me,” Allerick purred, dipping down so his breath skittered over my neck.
No. No more horny smell for you.
I hadn’t been particularly successful at suppressing it tonight, but I was determined to get back on track now. Remember, he’s probably banging other Shades. He is possibly attracted to your sister.
″I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I replied airily, boldly turning my back on him to head back to the palace. “I don’t even know who you are, you’re never around.”
He snorted, easily falling into step next to me. “I’m busy. Ruling a secret shadow realm and all. You know how it is.”
My mouth fell open, and I knew I was looking up at him with an expression akin to horror, because who was this guy? Did he get body snatched or something while we traveled between realms?
″Was that a joke? Are you telling jokes now? Did you forget to hate me for a minute?”
″What makes you think I hate you? Hunters are so dramatic,” Allerick drawled and if his eyes weren’t all a solid unmoving color, he would have probably rolled them. “Come along, wife. We are expected at the feast in half an hour, and I expect you’ll want to put your ‘queen’ outfit on.”
Annoyingly, he wasn’t wrong. While it had been nice to chill in leggings for a while, I absolutely wasn’t going to dinner like this. I had a reputation to maintain.
I didn’t know what kind of reputation, but some kind. Hopefully. I didn’t know why it mattered to me, I’d never had any aspirations about having a reputation or leaving a legacy before, but since I’d arrived here it was something that mattered to me. I didn’t want to just drift through this place, existing but not really living the way I had in my faux-human life.
I stomped back towards the palace with Allerick easily keeping pace, his stupidly long legs having no trouble despite the fact that I was attempting to angrily power walk away from him.
Why am I even annoyed?
Hadn’t I wanted him to stop ignoring me? And now the moment he had, I didn’t know what to do about it. Possibly because I hadn’t expected him to be all relaxed and jokey, and it was kind of unsettling.
″You don’t have to sprint, you know. Dinner isn’t that soon,” he commented. I threw him an irritated look over my shoulder, but didn’t reply because then he’d realize how out of breath I was and I didn’t want to give him any more ammunition.
Fortunately, Affra was already at the door to my room waiting for me, and I walked past her with as much dignity as I could muster while she bowed to Allerick.
″I’ll see you soon, wife,” Allerick called, chuckling to himself as he went into his own room. The moment Affra closed the door behind her, I collapsed on my bed face first and groaned into the mattress.
This was meant to be a simple, straightforward trip to grab some vegetables and the rest of my clothes, and it had turned into a whole thing.
″Would you like to get ready for dinner, Queen Ophelia?” Affra asked, sounding far too amused. “Captain Soren dropped off the things you brought back, if you were wanting to wear something from there.”
″Oh, no. All the queen-looking clothes are what I brought with me when I first arrived, that’s just some stuff I couldn’t fit that my sister had been keeping for me,” I explained, rolling over and climbing off the bed. “And more food. Wait, am I supposed to be calling him Captain Soren?”
Affra laughed softly. “You are the queen. I imagine you can call him whatever you like. Captain Soren is not shy about making his displeasure known, he would have told you if he had any objections.”
All the same, I didn’t want him to feel like he couldn’t correct me because I’d been given this title I didn’t really require.
I freshened up before changing into a silky navy dress that had short sleeves and ended above my knees. All of the clothes the Hunters Council had provided for me were pretty modest—this one seemed almost scandalous in comparison. The way Affra’s eyes widened in surprise when I pulled it on didn’t help.
″Is it too much?” I asked, sitting down at the vanity so she could pin my hair up with the enormous raven pin Damen had given me.
Prince Damen.
″You look very beautiful, Queen Ophelia. And very human with all of that skin on show.”
″That seems bad. I should change,” I mumbled, attempting to talk and not stab myself in the eye with my mascara wand at the same time.
Affra hummed, carefully twisting tendrils of hair back with her claws. “I am not royalty, and my opinion is worth very little, but I am old and I have seen many things.”
″I think your opinion is worth a lot,” I cut in, a little sharper than I meant to. Affra had been wonderful to me, and I hated the idea of her thinking she was somehow less than.
″You are very kind, my queen.” Oof. The ‘my’ in front of ‘queen’ really made the title hit differently. It sounded reverent, rather than sarcastic. “My opinion is that you are a marvel—a Hunter among Shades, a human body in the realm of shadows. Everything that you are—as you are—is magnificent, Queen Ophelia. You don’t need to mold yourself into being anything else.”
She delivered all of this so factually, nimble claws still working efficiently to secure the pin in place. I exhaled heavily, breathing past the sudden tight feeling in my throat.
″That’s really lovely, Affra, thank you.”
I wasn’t entirely sure I agreed, but I appreciated the sentiment. Dressed and ready, I had no excuses when there was a rap of knuckles on the door a few moments later.
″I will take your food to the kitchen now,” Affra said gently, all but shooing me towards the door, probably wary about keeping Allerick waiting. “Remember, just as you are.”
I nodded, giving her a tight smile. Being around Affra made me wonder what it would have been like to have a caring maternal figure in my life growing up. Certainly, no one in my family had ever encouraged me to be just as I was.
Who I was had horrified them.
Affra pulled the door open, and I was unsurprised to find not only Allerick, but Damen and Soren flanking him. I inclined my head formally at my husband, wanting to get back to the safe ground we’d been on before our trip into the human realm.
It was difficult to tell, but I could have sworn he frowned.
″Let’s go!” Damen crowed, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “A traveling troupe of performers have come from the other side of the realm, and they’re going to put on a show after the meal. I don’t want to miss it.”
″The meal hasn’t begun yet, so that’s an unlikely risk,” Allerick drawled, staring at me while responding to his brother.
″Well, I don’t want to be responsible for us being late,” I replied, starting down the corridor. “Thank you for bringing my bag up, Captain Soren.”
Damen snorted loudly. “Oh, he’s Captain Soren now, is he? Here was me thinking you’d make progress on your excursion, and you seem to have gone backwards if anything—”
There was a loud oof, and when I glanced back Allerick was pulling his arm back into his side like he’d just elbowed his brother in the gut.
It was oddly endearing. Maybe because it seemed like such a boyish, human thing to do?
″You shouldn’t antagonize him, Damen,” Soren said mildly. “He didn’t feed on our trip.”
″Is that so?” Damen asked. “How intriguing. What possible explanation could there be for that?”
″You two are gossipy old toads,” Allerick muttered. Fascinating. I supposed they’d always been quite informal when it was just them, but their banter was even more relaxed than usual, almost like they were showing me another side of them.
You are reading too much into this.
There was no hesitation in me as we approached the double doors to the dining hall. After a week of evening meals in front of an audience, I wasn’t so much used to it as the court was used to me. Though I definitely got more than my fair share tonight as I made my way up the aisle with Allerick walking close enough that our arms brushed against one another.
I was totally burning this dress. Affra was wrong, no one here needed to be reminded that I was the humanest human to ever human.
Soren broke off from our little group to stand guard, while Allerick and I walked up the stairs to the dais with Damen at our backs. I surveyed the room for a moment as we all paused behind our chairs, noting the ostentatious shadow outfits of the troupe at the back of the room before we all took our seats and platters of food began to appear.
″What kind of performance will they put on?” I asked Damen. Allerick made a discontented sound low in his chest, a growl that was more animal than human, and I jumped slightly in surprise. I wasn’t afraid of him per se, but he usually seemed pretty happy to sit and eat his meal at dinner while I asked Damen any questions I had.
Damen grinned, all savage teeth, looking around me to peer at his brother. “Testy, testy. Perhaps you should have fed today, like you were supposed to.” He turned his attention to me, seemingly happier than ever at Allerick’s annoyed grunt. “The troupe will do some kind of skit they’ve made up, something meant to make the audience laugh. Usually, it’s at the king’s expense.”
I glanced at Allerick, trying to ascertain how he felt about that. Yesterday, I wouldn’t have thought of him as good-natured in the slightest, but he’d been in a teasing mood when we arrived back at the portal so perhaps I’d read him wrong.
He didn’t seem any more agitated than usual, and I took that as a sign not to panic. If he wasn’t worried, I didn’t need to be worried. Right?
Because if they’d historically made jokes about the king, it wasn’t a leap to think they’d make jokes about the queen, and there was a lot to make jokes about. Oh my god, I was basically the dream subject of ire for a Shade comedian. Were they going to insinuate I was some kind of wicked huntress assassin turned wannabe queen? Point out my blunt teeth and fingers? Laugh about my apparently distinctive range of scents?
I forced myself to take a deep even breath as I felt the urge to hyperventilate creeping up, my heart pounding double time in my chest. As discretely as I could, I wiped my now sweaty palms on the expensive satin of my dress, glad that the table hid from the movement from the courtiers, and hoping against all odds that Allerick and Damen hadn’t spotted the nervous tell.
You should have just stayed at Astrid’s house. You could have fought them off in their noncorporeal forms if they’d tried to shadow walk with you, I chastised internally, letting the regret flow through me.
For the first time since I’d arrived in the shadow realm, I truly wanted to go back to my lonely little human existence.
