“She is my wife in name only,” he spat. “The marriage was not consummated.”
Gods and demons, the memory of those hours in the wedding cottage…the way Elena had gazed up at him with a poisonous mixture of coyness and avarice…it made his stomach roil. Then, he’d attributed the depth of his repulsion to his grief at abandoning Katerina, his belief that his Dimi was his soulmate in both bond and body. But now, he knew better. Something deep within him had recognized that Elena was corrupted. The Light in him had flinched from the Darkness in her.
Shadow Berezin scoffed, drawing him back to the present. “If that is true—and I take leave to doubt it,” he said, his gaze sweeping over Niko with as much scorn as if he’d found a slug in his breakfast porridge, “it is only because you were consorting with your Dimi, and Vila Lisova sensed your betrayal. She rejected you, and you fled to Dimi Ivanova, to continue your illicit affair with your Dimi’s full consent. Neither of you ever intended to honor your vows.”
Niko couldn’t help it; he laughed, a harsh chuckle that was equal parts amusement and resignation. “You’d like to think that, I suppose. But, no. That was not the way of things.”
“You expect us to believe that you refused Elena Lisova’s advances?” Disbelief filled Berezin’s tone, as if he thought Niko a beast who’d taken his fill between the Vila’s legs and then skipped off to rut with Katerina, without so much as a second’s thought. As if this disaster had been fueled by lust and wickedness, rather than love that had the power to fuel the stars.
“I don’t care what you believe.” Niko shrugged, the chains rattling as his shoulders rose and fell. “It’s the truth.”
Berezin’s blue eyes narrowed, his thick brows drawing downward. The man resembled a bear; Niko had always thought so. Dark hair dusted his knuckles, which whitened as he gripped the blade tighter. “Let us play out this little scenario of yours, then.” Condescension coated every syllable as he ticked his points off on the fingers of his free hand.
“You wed the loveliest, most pious Vila in the Seven Villages.” One finger popped up from Berezin’s clenched fist. “Afterward, the two of you repaired to your nuptial cottage, where she offered herself to you with perfect trust. And then you, upstanding citizen of Iriska that you’ve shown yourself to be, told her you couldn’t possibly lie with her under false pretenses. Instead, you tucked her into bed and read her a bedtime story.” The second finger was at it now, meaty and accusatory. “And then what occurred, pray tell?”
Berezin didn’t deserve to know the details of what had happened in that whitewashed cottage, where Niko had failed to honor his vows. He didn’t deserve to know how Niko had gripped the doorframe until the wood creaked, clinging to the doomed hope of a life with Katerina with a desperation unfitting a Shadow. Or how the scent of roses, meant to be romantic, had wafted through the open windows, staining the air like a dark, deadly perfume.
He had no right to know how Niko had lain beside Elena in their marriage bed, riddled with guilt and a rage at his circumstances so potent, he wanted to tear the cottage apart board by board. How he’d felt Katerina in the woods, grieving him, her presence a beacon that drew him from the bed, through the door, and into the elderflower clearing, where he’d begged her to forgive him. The hurt he’d felt when she’d summoned a ring of fire to keep him—him, sworn to protect her!—away. The despair that had swept over him when she’d told him she wished she’d pledged herself to a different Shadow; the terror that had seized him when he’d feared he could never make things right between the two of them again.
And his joy, short-lived, when she’d agreed to run away with him. One pure, shining moment of happiness before Elena appeared, her pet demon at her side, setting into motion a chain of events that would change everything.
No, he would never share such things with Berezin—nor with anyone else, save Katerina, should she ask. But as for the rest, he would clear his Dimi’s name.
“Think whatever you like about my choices. You will anyhow, no matter what I say. But Katerina did not know I would join her in the clearing. She was innocent; she expected that once I wed the Vila”—he refused to say Elena’s name, after the ways she’d forced him to scream it—“the relationship between us would return to that of mere Shadow and Dimi once more. She is honorable.”
Next to Berezin, Shadow Morozov gave a choked cough, as if he had a piece of gristle caught in his throat. “Is that what they’re calling it these days,” he said. “Spreading her legs for you, like a common whore rather than a warrior?—”
The epithet did what the chains, the ice water, and the insults to his own honor could not. Red rage darkened Niko’s vision, flooding every sinew of his body. Heedless of the knife pressed to his throat, he lunged for Morozov, the onyx chains burning where they bit into his skin, the rings that held the chair threatening to rip from the floor. And with the rage came the shades, streaming from his hands with the same pure, focused intent he channeled when he wielded a blade. They arrowed straight for Morozov, whose eyes grew wide. The Shadow let out an undignified gasp of horror and stumbled backward, pressing himself against the door as if trying to dematerialize and come out on the other side.
“Say what you want about me,” Niko growled. “But you will keep her name out of your mouth, if you wish to keep your life.”
Morozov steeled himself, his lips moving in a prayer to the Saints. But there were no Saints here. And if prayer were enough to save a soul from the Darkness, Niko would’ve been liberated from Elena and Sammael’s clutches long ago.
The shades twined around Morozov’s form, an inch from his skin. As if they were an extension of Niko’s body, he could feel what they felt, sense what they sensed: the acrid, delicious scent of Morozov’s fear, the salty sweat that slicked his spine, the Light that burned within him, a feast for the taking. The shades hungered, and Niko hungered with them.
Eat, they urged. Take from him what you need, and break free from these chains. Become what you are meant to be, and nothing can hold you against your will.
Deep inside Niko, in a place untouched by Darkness or fury, a warning surfaced. If he did what the shades demanded of him, perhaps he could truly gain his freedom. But at what price? If he took the life of a fellow Shadow, feeding on Morozov’s Light, what would that mean for his own soul?
The shades were him, and yet they were not. They had a will of their own, desires of their own. He could wield them as a weapon, true, but he would pay.
There was a frozen moment where he could see it all: Morozov, flattened against the door, chest heaving, eyes so wide the whites were visible all around. Berezin, blade in hand, roaring something that Niko couldn’t make out over the storm raging inside him. Himself, chained to the chair, straining to tear it from the iron rings that held it down. And the shades, weaving around Morozov, climbing inexorably upward: legs, stomach, chest. Not touching him—not yet. But…tasting him. The flavors bloomed, unbidden, on Niko’s tongue: salt, strength, power, and Light, all there for the taking.
They deserve to fear you, the voice whispered, and Niko could no longer tell if it belonged to the shades, to Elena, or to his own convictions. Make them beg.
And ah, gods, he wanted to. He wanted to force Morozov to his knees and command the shades to choke the life from him, then take hold of Berezin’s stolen blade and plunge it into the man’s chest. To do to Berezin what had been done to Niko himself, and see how he liked it.
But no. That would be wrong. He should stop. He should?—
“Control yourself,” Berezin snapped. It was the command of an alpha, thrumming deep in Niko’s bones.
As the head of the Druzhina, the man held enough power that the shackled black dog within Niko took notice. The force of Berezin’s will pressed down on him, demanding compliance, as if anything else were unthinkable.
He could have fought it. He was still an alpha himself, after all, though his pack had been taken from him. But deep inside, in the part of his soul that wasn’t consumed by blind fury and hunger, he knew he should obey. And so he did what he hadn’t done for years, not since Baba Petrova had named him alpha Shadow of Kalach: he surrendered to another Shadow’s will.
Enough, he told the shades. Your work here is done.
They didn’t want to stop; he could feel it. But they obeyed, just as he himself had obeyed Berezin. Inch by inch, they unwound themselves from Morozov. They hung in the air for a moment, as if taunting the other Shadow. Then Niko crooked his fingers, calling them home, and they came, flowing toward him. A moment later, they had absorbed into his skin and were gone.
