“Look at me, James,” Gordon said slowly. “Your mind is clear and focused. Nod if you can hear me.”
His vision cleared. He could see and hear perfectly. But his head jerked down against his will. Tears burned without falling. His muscles trembled and shuddered as he fought to control himself. To be calm, as Gordon demanded.
His awareness split into a hazy sense of dissociation. Deep inside him, he knew the truth. He was not calm. He was enraged and desperate. His nose burned as blood slowly dripped down onto his lips.
“What are you doing to him?” Riley’s voice sounded panicked. “He’s bleeding. Stop it!”
Something warm trickled out of his ear as he fought against the Shadows burrowing through him. His eyes met Riley’s. She was terrified for him, but her hands were coming up, ready to fight. Ready to go to battle with Gordon for him. Beside her, Kay was lifting her hands and calling her Shadow blades.
James shuddered. He wasn’t alone. It gave him the strength to push even harder. With a hoarse grunt, he slowly turned his head to the side and back again, fighting against the command to nod still screaming inside him.
Gordon twisted his wrist in retaliation, turning the shard of Shadow in James’s chest until it felt like the entire world was made of pain. His heart thudded, his pulse bouncing erratically.
“The stone dagger!” Emma’s voice thundered down the stairs.
She and Zach must have arrived just in time to witness Gordon’s twisted Shadows. Did that mean they’d found Finn and uploaded the video? God, he hoped so. If James was going down, at least the others would be protected.
“Yes,” Gordon answered, his voice resonating weirdly through the blood hammering in James’s ears. “The blade of our ancestors.”
“You used that dagger with the bowl,” Emma whispered, horror winding through her voice.
James flinched at a sudden memory. It was faded and distorted, but he could almost see Gordon using the dagger to stir something dark. The dagger and the bowl and darkness.
Gordon chuckled. “You took my blood Shadows, but you forgot the knife that helped create them. Thousands of years of blood memory are stored in this stone. With it, I can concentrate my Shadows in ways you can only dream of.” He laughed outright, and the sound grated along the fire burning through James’s nerves. “Did you forget how well I know your blood, James? Did you forget that you were already mine?”
This was what Gordon had always done to him. Coerced him. Manipulated him. Took and took. And it was too much. James groaned, muscles screaming as he fought to reply. His voice was nothing more than a rasp, but he forced the words out anyway. “Fuck. You.”
There was a scuffle and disturbance behind him, and then Riley strode forward, her eyes flashing and jade Shadows billowing as she lifted her hands. “No, Gordon.” Her voice was quiet but deadly. “He’s not yours. He’smine.”
Her fingers curled as she dragged her hands through the air, her fists clenching as if she was drawing lightning into herself from the storm of Shadow clouds that roiled around her.
She was magnificent.
And her blatant disregard for his authority had captured Gordon’s attention enough that his focus lifted ever so slightly from the blood Shadow wrapped around James’s mind.
James caught his lip between his teeth and bit down hard, letting the physical pain pull his mind back into his body as he fought to call just one small, distorted throwing star into his hands. It was twisted and damaged, but it was everything he had. There was no way he was leaving Riley to battle his uncle alone.
Gordon sneered at Riley, his eyes cold as he took a menacing step toward her. He held the stone blade high in his hand, dark Shadows leaping between the dagger and his palm.
She didn’t seem to care. She lifted her chin and sneered right back, her hands almost glowing with the teeming Shadows she held. She lifted them, paused for one frozen second, and then flung them wide.
Shadows poured from her in a violent stream. But not toward Gordon. They came straight for James, flooding through his body in a scouring tide, smashing into Gordon’s splintered tentacles and crushing the darkness into wisps of steam and smoke.
The burning in his veins disappeared as if it had been blasted away by a clean, fresh wind. And his Shadows joined with Riley’s, dancing and spinning.
She was absolutely right: he was hers. Utterly and irrevocably hers. The torturous fog lifted, and for the first time in months, he truly was himself.
James looked at Riley and, despite everything, he smiled—his first truly joyful smile in so very long. “And you’re mine.” He reached out and took her hand, joining them skin to skin as their Shadows rose ever higher.
“Now!” Kay called from behind them. “Take them down!”
A storm of Shadows poured out across the room. Midnight and ocean blue, cobalt, ruby, and mulberry red. A blizzard of Shadows and power swept over Gordon and the Council.
“Destroy them!” Gordon roared in retaliation, sweeping forward.
The Council lurched from their frozen corner, hands rising tentatively. And their hesitance enraged Gordon even further. “Do you want to be held at the mercy of these fools?” he bellowed at them. “Do you want them to demote you, imprison you, and strip you of your Shadows like common criminals?”
The threat snapped whatever last vestiges of restraint had been holding the Council back, and with a hiss and below of outrage, they flew forward.
