Page 29 of Merciless
“I’ll tell you everything I can remember.” He squeezed his daughter’s hand and looked once more at me and Gunner. “Because you’re my family now too.”
Eleven
SHADOW
“Shadow, I love you.” Warm hands drifted over my face, rousing me gently.
“Mari?” I reached for her before my eyes opened, my fingers finding purchase on the slender, curving waist I’d held so many times before. “Mari!” My eyes snapped open to find that I wasn’t dreaming. Her beautiful face was in front of me in the sharpest detail, from the curve of her lips to the freckles on her nose. She was here! Oh thank fucking everything, she found us.
“Mari, check on Reaper. He’s in bad shape.” I took her hands from my face, trying to look around the dungeon to see if she came alone or with the others, but I couldn’t seem to see beyond where she sat in front of me.
“He’s fine.” She returned a palm to my cheek, her skin so soft and warm, I wanted to rest my whole, weary head in her hand. “I missed you so much, Shadow.”
“I missed you too.” I blinked, waiting for the rest of the room to come into focus. I was fully awake now, but why was it so dark? Did she sneak in late at night? Even with my night vision, I couldn’t make out anything in the blackness beyond her. My stomach clenched with an instinct of warning, and I looked at Mari again. “Are you sure Reaper’s okay?”
“Yes,” she replied quickly. “Shadow, do you love me?”
My stomach clamped harder. “Yes,” I said with a note of caution.
“You would do anything for me?”
I grabbed her wrist and removed her hand from my face again. “What are you asking me to do?”
Mari’s face flickered for a split second, a quick distortion, like an image on paper being folded. I would have missed it if I wasn’t watching so carefully. Despair crushed my relief like a cruel fist and I scrambled to get away from this illusion using my wife’s face and voice. Maybe this wasn’t a dream but it sure as fuck wasn’treal.
“Let the Sha inside your mind, Shadow.” Mari’s voice had deepened, distorting into the Sha’s strange cadence. “Take the leash off of the monster you’re holding back. You’ll feel so much better when you’re free.”
“No!” I scooted away as far as my chains would allow me. I kicked something metallic-sounding, probably a metal water bowl. Empty blackness still surrounded me, so I had no sense of place or proximity.
“You can’t fight it forever,” the Sha taunted me through Mari’s mouth. “All you know is dungeons, blood, and violence. No woman or brotherhood can change what you really are.”
“That’s not who I am!” I hated how desperate and in denial I sounded.
“My brother tried to fix you but you areperfect, Shadow. You would make the perfect instrument for me.”
“I am no one’s instrument!” I roared back. “Especially not one who uses my wife to manipulate me.”
“Oh but you will be, Shadow.” The Sha sounded more than confident, like his victory was inevitable. “And if I must, I will sway you to me through Mariposa’s visage. She is the one weak spot in your defenses.”
“Iknowher,” I bit back. “You won’t fool me using her face again. She would never—“
The illusion of Mari zipped forward at an impossible speed. I flinched, trying to back away again, but I had reached the ends of my chains. She–it–sat down, straddling my waist. I bit the inside of my cheek and shut my eyes, stifling my groan. It felt just like her—the slight weight of her on my lower stomach and the squeeze of her thighs around my body. The physical memory of her was so sweet. I almost unclenched my hands with the need to touch her.
It’s not her. It’s not her. Don’t you ever fucking forget that this isnother.
“Get off me!” I would have shoved the Sha’s illusion away if I trusted myself to touch it again. But the fact of the matter was, I didn’t.
And the Sha knew that. I saw it in the smug curve of Mari’s lips as the illusion stood, lifting away from my body.
“You may know her, but you have not seen her for a very long time. This face,” the Sha traced a hand along the illusion’s jaw—Mari’s jaw. The gesture was odd, even jarring, because I knew Mari would never touch her own face like that. “I could feel your relief, your utter joy when you saw this face. When you heard this voice say,I love you, Shadow.” The Sha’s voice morphed back to Mari’s for those last four words and I flinched as if they physically pained me.
It’s not her. It’s not her.
“You’re wasting your time,” I said. “I won’t fall for this.”
“Maybe not today, but soon.” Mari’s image flicked her hair back over her shoulder, and that was hard to see because shedidoften do that. “You’ll start missing your wife so much, you’ll do anything to see her again.” The illusion traced a finger around Mari’s mouth.” You’ll do anything these lips will tell you to.”
“I won’t,” I insisted, but even I was becoming less convinced of that with each passing minute.
