Page 55 of Shadow

For a moment, the tension eased as King took my hand again, his thumb brushing softly over the back of it. The gesture was unexpectedly tender, and I felt the faintest flicker of hope.

“Go train,” he said, his voice quieter now.

Our time was up. It was probably for the best. I forced myself to release his hand and rise.

Maybe, just maybe, he would let me go home someday.

Chapter Twenty

King

My shoulder throbbed, my head pounded, and a raging hard-on added insult to injury. Even after battling hellhounds, enduring a bite, and wrestling with poison all night, she got under my skin. Her effect on the man in me was only one of the problems. Beast’s reaction when she locked eyes with us was equally baffling. Beast’s fixation, whether to kill or initiate sex, was a puzzle I couldn’t solve.

I dragged myself out of bed, ignoring Axel’s orders. The man coddled his patients like a mother hen, and I wasn’t in the mood to be fussed over. Standing was a trial. Pain shot through my shoulder with every breath. Axel had to cut out the necrotic tissue from the hellhound bite, something we’d learned to do quickly to stop the spread. Without our accelerated healing and the antidote, I’d have died a dozen times over by now.

I tugged my pants on, suppressing a groan, and glanced at the door, half-expecting Axel to burst in and berate me. When I was finally dressed, I slipped out of the room. Food, a shower, and a ride, those were my priorities, in that order.

An hour later, I was on my bike, the engine roaring as I rode along the coastline. The pain in my shoulder was subsiding, replaced by the familiar itch of healing. I could handle that.Somehow, I had managed to slip out of the citadel without anyone trailing me. It was a rare moment of solitude, and I savored it.

Pack mentality was our usual status quo, and we thrived on interaction, but there were times when I needed space to think. My warriors had no sense of personal boundaries. Between their constant bickering and Axel’s relentless worrying, I was ready to claw my way out of my skin. It was worse at the citadel. At least at my real home, I could lock the door. Not that it stopped them. Beck, for instance, would knock every ten minutes until I let him in. I had tested him, and six hours later, he was still at it.

The salty tang of the ocean air eased the ache in my dick, but it didn’t help untangle my thoughts about Marinah. I had already shown her enough to put us in serious jeopardy. It was knowledge we’d only reveal if we truly trusted the Federation. The problem was, I didn’t know if trust was possible anymore. What she now carried in her memory were our leverage points. She knew we had hellhounds, that we’d been studying them, what they were, who made them, and that we’d developed an antidote to keep Shadow Warriors alive if bitten. And yet, there was so much more I wanted to share.

I needed someone to talk sense into me.

Beast rumbled beneath my skin.

“Yes, I know, kill her,” I muttered aloud. His rumble intensified, a low growl of agreement, and I twisted the throttle, letting the bike eat up the miles.

The truth was, I was attracted to her. And Beast wasn’t. That was a dynamic that wouldn’t work. No matter how much I tried to separate us, we were one and the same. I couldn’t afford to want a woman he despised. Too much could go wrong. Near an orgasm, Beast was harder to control. It was one of the most difficult lessons we learned as adolescents. Back when welived hidden among humans, mastering Beast was a prerequisite before any of us could have sex.

In my younger years, I had worried about the obvious consequences of losing control, navigating those early sexual experiences with painstaking caution. But now, with Beast’s volatile state, even the slightest lapse could mean Marinah’s death. It wasn’t a risk I could take. She would be leaving soon, and distance was the safest course of action. The bigger question was how I would move forward with the Federation.

I had already accepted that I wouldn’t be killing her. I liked Marinah, just as I had liked her father. She was sincere, but her belief that she could prevent the Federation from betraying us again was naive at best. She was wrong, and deep down, I thought she knew it.

The engine’s roar echoed through the coastal air as I rode, letting the miles slip away beneath me. Without intending to, I found myself pulling up to Cabel’s house. Human workers in the surrounding fields paused to wave as I passed. It was a stark contrast to the wary stares and hostility that had greeted us when we first arrived. It was a scenario I was determined not to repeat. These people were under our protection, and all my warriors took it seriously.

Cabel was in the front field, training a group of human men. Most of them were either indigenous or had roots that traced back to the people who had lived here long before the Spaniards. These men had fought us in the beginning, defending their land and their people, and though human lives had been lost, we had made a point of keeping casualties as low as possible. Cooperation, not conquest, had been our goal.

They had come to trust us, though it hadn’t happened overnight. Tyranny was something they understood all too well, and we had proved early on that we weren’t here to repeat their history. We had earned their respect by sharing the load. Duringharvest, my warriors worked the fields alongside them, asking for nothing we wouldn’t do ourselves. Word spread, and soon others emerged from hiding, seeking the safety of our alliance.

These people had endured horrors most couldn’t fathom. The cities had been hit the hardest, their dense populations offering little chance for escape. The first wave of attacks had devastated their urban centers, leaving only one human in twenty as a survivor. After they learned that hellhounds could tear through dirt and concrete, they had retreated into metal-lined bunkers originally designed to withstand bombings.

The genetically modified formaldehyde that had created the hellhounds hadn’t stopped at U.S. borders. Bodies shipped back to Cuba for burial had carried the contamination, unleashing the monsters here as well. But Cuba hadn’t faced the same overwhelming numbers that had decimated the U.S., and that difference was the only reason any humans had survived on the island at all.

Now, they needed us as much as we needed them. Together, we had managed to carve out a fragile existence in the face of unrelenting danger. It was a tenuous balance, but one that gave us a chance, if only we could hold it.

Without us, they would have eventually succumbed to starvation or been picked off by the hounds when they ventured out to plant crops. Peace had come only when we had proved ourselves by providing food, shelter, and safety.

Now, many of our warriors spoke both English and Spanish, and our lives had become deeply intertwined. Their women had even mated with Shadow Warriors, creating bonds that blurred the lines between our two groups. Someday, when this war was truly over, we would help them establish their own governing body and hand back control of the island. For now, their help was vital as we prepared for the battles to come. Questions about who was in charge couldn’t be entertained.While we might distrust the Federation, the U.S. was still our home, and one day, we hoped to return.

Cabel lowered his sword and walked toward me, his face glistening with sweat. “I didn’t expect you back so soon,” he said in greeting.

“I didn’t expect to be,” I admitted, leaving the bike idling as I tried to figure out what had drawn me here. “It’s good to see you training.”

He wiped his brow with the back of his hand and gestured toward the house. “It’s hotter than usual today. I’ll give the men a break if you want to come inside where it’s cooler.”

I shut off the engine and swung my leg over the bike, standing for a moment to scan the field and the workers moving in the heat. We walked the fifty or so yards to his house, and I noticed Mary, his mate, standing at the stove, stirring a large pot. As I took a seat at the table, her glare was unmistakable.

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