Shadowlight

Matthias caught her arm as she went to the closet. “You cannot go alone to retrieve Drew.”

“You can’t leave Queenie here by herself,” she said. “She’s already noticed the fire doors sealing the tunnels. How long do you think it will take her to figure out that the dome lights open them?”

“GenHance will be searching for Drew,” he told her. “I will send for one of the others to accompany you.”

“They’re all too far away to get to Atlanta by noon.” She heaved out a breath. “Matt, we knew this might happen, and now it has. I’ll be fine.” She eyed the door. “Now would you get out of here so I can change?”

“Come to the library before you go,” he said.

Rowan met him there a few minutes later. She had dressed in her leather garments, and carried her spare helmet and a hard-sided case that fastened to the back of her motorcycle.

Matthias handed her an envelope filled with currency, a disposable mobile phone, and a pair of sheathed blades.

“I don’t like weapons,” she reminded him, but clipped the sheaths to her belt above each hip.

“Neither does Drew. Here is his photo.” He handed her the snapshot Drew had given him when they had first met.

“Wow.” She studied it. “He does have red hair. But he doesn’t look geeky.” She glanced up and saw his expression. “He described himself to me once on the phone.”

“I will send him a photo of you as well, so that he will know you on sight,” he told her. “You will be careful and return as soon as you may.”

“No, I’ll be reckless and probably stop for dinner on the way back.” She grinned. “Don’t worry, boss. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have watching my back than Drew.” Her mouth twisted. “Except you.”

Matthias pulled her into his arms and held her for a moment, and then let her go.

“See you soon,” she promised, and slipped out.

He went to the fireplace to retrieve the blank documents he would need to use to create a new identity for Drew, and saw faint marks on the edges of the false bricks. Jessa had found his cache, and had tried unsuccessfully to open it. Her offer to translate the stories about the dark Kyn had been a lie.

He went out and down the tunnel toward her room, which he found empty. The lingering trace of her scent led him to Rowan’s room. She must have been outside listening to them. She would have heard Rowan speak of the dome lights that opened the fire doors. That meant there was now nothing to stop her from going topside—except him.

Jessa watched as Matthias came out of the library, and as soon as he went around the corner toward Rowan’s room she moved, hurrying inside. She went immediately to the fireplace cache, which he’d left open, and reached into the steel-lined box, taking out a stack of files.

The topmost was labeled with her adopted name, Minerva Jessamine Starret, and contained a complete dossier on her dating back to the year her father had adopted her. Matthias had found copies of the old newspaper articles on Darien’s funeral, the massacre at Oglethorpe Consolidated, and her own disappearance from the hospital. There were also dozens of photographs, all candid shots of her in Atlanta. He must have followed her for days to take the shots; he had photographed her standing by her car, entering her office building, driving downtown, walking through parking lots … and sitting by the fountain in the park.

He had been there that night, watching her. Listening to her.

Jessa tore the photographs out of the file and flung them into the flames, and then threw the entire folder in on top of them before she opened the next one in the pile.

The rest of the files contained the same type of information on dozens of men and women all over the country. Some of the profiles were comprehensive, but four contained only bits and pieces on four people who had not been identified by name: a professor, a zoologist, a cop, and a midwife. Jessa recognized the description of the zoologist—she had to be Delilah. Then she saw that someone had written the name Delilah in the margin of one of the pages.

He knew as much—if not more—about the Takyn as she did.

Jessa’s anger swelled as she focused on the masthead at the top of one of the forms. She couldn’t believe her eyes at first, and flipped through the others to find the masthead the same on each one. Every report had been written on company stationery by one Andrew Riordan, chief technical supervisor at GenHance, Inc.

Matthias had lied to her all along. He wasn’t saving her from GenHance. He was working for them. He’d taken her for them.

She pitched all of the files into the flames, and when they didn’t burn at once she scanned the room. She spotted and seized a small oil lamp sitting to one side, removed the wick holder, and dumped the contents on top of the smoldering heap of folders. The oil caused the fire to roar, scorching the stones around the edge of the hearth before it died down. By the time it did, all of Matthias’s dossiers had been reduced to curls of ash.

She checked the cache again for more information, but found only several stacks of bills and an envelope filled with blank passports, driver’s license forms, and Social Security cards. She emptied the cache, grimacing as she pocketed several thousand dollars. She didn’t want to steal his money, but she’d need it once she escaped. She took the rest and fed it to the fire, taking considerable, savage delight in watching his money and means of changing his identity burn as well.

She knew Matthias might have discovered her ruse by now, so she left the library and followed the route she had planned. Now that she knew they’d been using the fire doors to seal off the tunnels, and how to open them, she made her way to the one that concealed the surface hatch. Rowan had left it open, but as she passed over the threshold a shadow separated from the wall and strong arms grabbed her from behind.

“You did not say good-bye,” Matthias said against her ear.

Jessa kicked and writhed, frantic to free herself, but he kept her locked against him and lifted her off her feet, hauling her back into the tunnels and using his elbow to press the dome light and seal the fire door.

“Stop fighting and I will put you down,” he said.

“Go to hell,” she shouted, thrashing against his arms.

Matthias carried Jessa back to his room, where he placed her facedown on his pallet, straddled her waist, and reached for one of the belts hanging on the wall.

She jerked her head up. “You are not beating me with that.”

“I do not beat women.” Quickly he looped the pliant leather around her wrists, cinching them together before he tied them to the top of his pallet frame. Her heels drummed against his back as she arched and pulled but found she could not free herself.

“Be still,” he told her, putting one hand on her neck and the other flat against her right shoulder. “It will be easier if you are.”

She jerked. “I’m not lying here and letting you rape me.”

His own anger flared; how could she think he would do such a thing to her? He bent over and put his mouth next to her ear. “If I wanted to fuck you, woman, I would have tied you down on your back.”

Her movements stilled, and she dragged in some air. “What are you going to do to me?”

When he did this in the past he found speaking in a soft, persuasive voice helped greatly, but there was no point in speaking to her, not when she was in this agitated state. He would gentle her first, and then they would talk.

Matthias felt the taut muscles in her neck and back, and worked the flat of his fingers against them, rocking his hand as he rubbed until he felt some of the tenseness ease. She was all fight and fire, but one could not battle forever, and even the fiercest flames eventually burned low.

He wished he kept a brush in his room so he could draw it through the blue-black mass of her hair, now spilling all around her face in wild abandon, but he kept his own too short to need grooming. Once he had rubbed both sides of her neck and both shoulders, he went to work on her spine, pressing his fists on either side and moving his knuckles in gentle, circular motions.

“You’re giving me a massage?” he heard her say. “Are you crazy?”

“Shhh.” He made his way down as far as her waist, and then lifted his weight and shifted back onto her thighs. The curves of her flanks tempted him to part her legs and rub her where she most needed the relief, but that he would do later, when she opened herself to his touch willingly. He merely allowed himself to run his hands over her buttocks once before he shifted back again, stroking his thumbs across the bunched muscles of her thighs.

She had beautiful hips and strong legs. Once he reasoned with her, he would use his hands on them again.

Matthias turned completely around so that he straddled her thighs but faced her feet, and lifted the right calf by the ankle. She tried to back-kick him again, but he held her fast and tugged down the trouser to expose her leg.

“Let go,” she snarled, straining against his grip.

“Lie still.” When she didn’t, he added, “I can do this with your legs bound.”

That quieted her at once.

Returning to his task, he wrapped his hand around her leg, beginning just below the knee. With firm, drawing strokes, he worked her calf from knee to ankle, going down a little farther each time, pumping the heel of his hand against the rigid extension of her muscles until that too, softened. He attended her other leg, and when she had gone limp beneath him he took hold of her left foot.

She groaned something, and he heard the leather of his belt creak.

A woman’s foot was a tender, delicate thing, and Jessa’s narrow, gracefully arched sole was the same color as her lips. It proved to be almost as sensitive, he discovered as he found the first of her pleasure points just beneath the center of her toes. Using his fingertips, he caught and squeezed the nerve endings there with just enough pressure to make her twitch, and then brought his thumb up beneath to smooth over the spot.

“Please.” Her words came out in a low plea. “Please don’t do that.”

Matthias found a second point, and then a third, and attended to them with equal care. He had never known a woman to have more than that, but his ministrations revealed another two along the arched inside. The skin was so delicate he feared he might bruise her with his hands, so he lowered his head and put his mouth to her so that he might use his tongue.