Page 11 of Hunted in the Shadows
A deflection. Good—that was good. One of us had to be strong enough to keep lines drawn.
I let my tracing fingers drift to his throat, easing my vulnerable query into a purr. “Oh, I see. Still afraid of me?”
Jon put his hand over mine, making me marvel at how his hand encompassed my own. He applied a firm pressure to his throat with my hand, shooting me a soft, sinful smile. I was suddenly grateful he usually saved these grins for me, so that no one else would know how it made him glow like a benevolent god—the corners of his eyes crinkling, the dimples that flashed.
“I’vealwaysknown there was a chance you’d be the death of me, Sylv.”
I kissed him for that, crushing our lips together. The spectral plane colors pulsated with every taste of his skin, glistening corals and golds nearly blinding us. When a bright shape arced particularly close to us, I drew off him to observe it. The display was beautiful—not quite fairy magic, but familiar in a strange sort of way. Like a building storm cloud made of light, it ebbed and flowed in a gentle, snaking pattern above and below us.
“I can barely wrap my head around how much you affect this place. It’s incredible,” Jon said, though I felt him grip me to hisside tighter—perhaps the small dizziness he seemed to experience here from time to time, now that I knew heights unsettled him.
“It’s you, too,” I pointed out, thinking of the flashes of his mind I’d seen in the distance. Maybe if he was more intentional about his influence, the images would be less unsettling. “I’d love to see you try.”
He frowned. “Try what?”
I waved my hand at the luminance my passion had conjured. “Taking control.”
“I don’t know the first thing about wielding magic.” There was an edge to his voice. “I doubt I could make it change, anyway.”
I groaned, nuzzling his jaw. “Do youalwayshave to be such a human? Come on—just try. I could get back on top of you, if you think that’d help motivate you.”
He snorted, then fell silent. I glanced up to see a look of concentration shadowing his face.A thrill of surprise ran through me when the soft colors around us were flooded with cool shades of veridian and blue. For a single second, our influence seemed to mingle in perfect harmony. The sight filled me with excitement, but Jon gave a small gasp—one of alarm.
Sudden, vicious clouds roiled on the horizon, fast-approaching. I sat up, glimpsing the house on fire in the distance, much closer than I’d ever seen.
“Jon—” I covered my mouth when I spotted blood trickling out of his nose. That never happened this soon. “Oh, no.”
He sat up halfway with a frown, touching the blood. Without waiting, I chanted the spell to drag us back to reality.
In an instant, we both woke with sharp intakes of breath, lying side by side on Jon’s bed in the motel room in Holly Grove, Arkansas.
I sat up on the pillow, blinking hard to make out the red numbers on the alarm clock:1:54 a.m. Our time in the spectral plane had felt like half an hour at least, yet only two minuteshad passed here. Adjusting back to real-world sensation was still jarring. My ribs ached. My wings were sore. But most painful was the familiar pang of disappointment at losing our equal stature.
I flew up as Jon fumbled for a tissue. Nothing else translated from the spectral plane back with us, but his nosebleeds were real. It happened every time we visited the plane together—Jon left exhausted, a small trickle of blood marking his right nostril. Tissues were always at the ready near his pillow for that reason. He normally bounced back within the hour, but it was hard to shake my guilt that I was left unaffected.
Still, we both agreed that lightheadedness was a small price to pay for the moments we stole together in our secret sanctuary.
“You good?” I asked as Jon sat against the headboard with his head tilted back, the tissue pressed to his nose.
He gave a noncommittal grunt and a thumbs up, but the anxious knot in my gut was not appeased. Having our session cut so abruptly was unusual. I suspected his attempt to alter the spectral landscape must have taxed his human capacity. My flight drooped a little when I recalled thatlookhe’d had on his face—like he’d been afraid of his own ability to control the strange magic there.Unnatural.
Bile rose in me. Two months ago, he might’ve said the very same thing aboutme.
The bleeding tapered off a few minutes later. Jon tossed the crumpled tissue into the bin between the beds, posture straightening where he leaned against the pillows and headboard. A fragile sense of relief took hold of the room as he caught his breath.
“I think I broke our sanctuary,” he announced with a self-deprecating chuckle.
“You did not,” I huffed, rolling my eyes. I fluttered down to sit on his bent knee—one of my many favorite perches. “It was only your first try, anyway. Don’t be a baby.”
Eager to keep that hungry look in Jon’s eyes—and take both our minds off the dark turn in the spectral plane—I rubbed the side of my neck and shot him a vixen’s wide smile.
“I swear I can still feel it,” I murmured. I tapped the spot. “Right…here.”
Fuck,it was worth it just to see that sinful sort of pride flash over his face. Jon cupped his hand behind me, his thumb brushing that sensitive spot between my wings.
“Next time, I’ll mark you hard enough it comes back with you,” he said.
I shivered. “I’ll have to hold you to that.”
