Page 33 of Shadow Caster
Nice.
I handed the goblet to Nettie, who swigged and handed it to Oberon.
“Fuck!” Harmon grabbed his forearm and shoved his sleeve up to reveal a crescent-shaped mark with a line through it. “Oh, shit.”
Thomas looked up at his lover in shock. “Harmon … I’m so—Ouch.” He grabbed the back of his hand, his eyes wide.
“Show me,” Harmon said.
Thomas revealed the back of his palm, which had an identical mark to Harmon’s on it.
They could both be arseholes, but they didn’t deserve conscription. My heart sank on their behalf.
Around us, more and more exclamations filled the air. Most were celebratory. I guessed not everyone understood what being a shadow knight would entail, or maybe they did and were just uber brave, like the man who was weaving in between the tables, taking a mental note of all those exhibiting a mark.
Oberon cursed softly.
“You too?” Thomas asked him.
He shook his head. “No. I … I don’t feel anything.” His eyes widened in panic. “What the fuck?”
“You’re lucky,” Harmon sneered. “You get to live.”
“It’ll be over soon.” Minnie smiled. “Then we get to eat cake. Lloyd said last year they had warm blood as if it had just been tapped from the vein.”
My stomach grumbled again. I needed blood. I squeezed my eyes shut. It would be fine. It was bagged, so it was fine.
Heat bloomed across my collarbones and then coalesced at a single point above my right breast in an intense burning sensation.
“Fucking hell.” I slapped a hand over the spot and rubbed it through the material of my tunic.
“You okay?” Minnie reached for my collar.
“I think something bit me.” I tugged at my tunic, wanting to get at the offending insect and stop the pain. There was a slight rip, and then the material was loose enough to look down.
There was something there. Something black. Unmoving. Ice filled my veins.
Not an insect.
“Indie?” Minnie leaned in and peered down my top. Her head whipped up so fast she almost smacked me in the chin. Her face drained of color. “No …”
A shadow fell over us.
“What’s going on?” Archer Hyde asked.
Minnie stepped back, her mouth parted in shock.
I looked up at Master Hyde, my pulse pounding in my throat like a tribal drum. “I don’t understand.”
I pulled down the top to reveal the mark that now marred my skin.
He reached out to graze it with his fingers, searing me with a new kind of heat and sending my pulse galloping.
“What is it?” My voice was a breathless whisper.
He locked gazes with me, his green-blue eyes boring into my soul. “It’s the mark. The mark of a shadow knight.”
Twelve
