RISING SHADOWS (Shadows Book 2)

Chapter 15

The stench hit me first. A stomach-turning mix of rotting meat, damp and decay.

I'd smelled it before.

The deep bowels of the Iron Moon fortress had never truly left me, and I could be triggered by the simplest of things. Arden cooking bacon in the morning. Scorching tires screaming to a halt on tarmac.

Burnt toast.

I pushed myself up from the cold, stone floor, groaning as aches bloomed everywhere and my whole body trembled. The puddle of stagnant seawater I'd been lying in had soaked right through my t-shirt and bra, chilling me to the bone. I'd worn my coat to the forest, I'm sure I had, but couldn't find it anywhere.

The haunting melody of dripping water echoed down the stone hall. Beyond that, there was the roaring ocean but nothing else. No voices. No footsteps. No movement at all.

I edged my way to the bars, wincing with each step and curled my fingers around two of them. Gloom greeted me from the narrow walkway that separated the two rows of cells. There were no doors or windows, the only light afforded me was the beam of moonlight sneaking in from a broken stone block in the wall.

Idly, I wondered if the creature who'd grabbed me still lay in darkness beyond the full-length metal bars or if this was the cell Leda had fried the demon who'd threatened her. They were nothing more than distracting thoughts though, truthfully I couldn't care less, I just didn't want to think about being here.

Or how much it had hurt what Kat had done- I took a sharp intake of breath. No, no, no no. I smothered a sob with my hand, my legs folding beneath me. My body shook off the remnants of stiffness, my shoulders quivering uncontrollably.

Kat was dead.

"Stop your snivelling." A voice slithered against the darkness. "Do you want her to hear?"

I clambered against the bars again. "W-who's there? Hello?"

"Beware," another voice cautioned, each syllable cut through the stillness like a sharp blade. "The Dark Lady is near."

The warning sent shivers down my spine, and my heart quickened its pace. The creatures beyond the shadows and swirling dust neither comforted nor concerned me. They were something wholly different, just another presence in the pit of the Iron Moon castle.

"I don't care about her." I wiped my tears away on my arm. "I want a way out of this cell."

One of the creatures laughed, low and sad. "Stupid witch. Do you think if we had a way out of this hellhole then we'd be sitting here languishing in our own shit? You're not getting out of here until the wind blows your bone dust out of the door."

We were interrupted by the sound of heels resonating through the dungeon, punctuating the otherwise stifling silence. I strained to see, but then with an ominous grace she materialised: Nova, my grandmother, a figure cloaked in malevolence.

The demons had now snuffed out their warnings.

A twisted gleam of triumph blazed in Nova's eyes, as she leaned on the iron bars encasing me. A predator observing its prey.

"Finally," she said with a twisted smirk. "You have come home. I'll admit I thought the circumstances would be different to these." Nova tapped the bars of my cell. "But nevertheless, this is the end of nearly two decades of searching for you."

"I'll never be Iron Moon."

Nova chuckled. "I don't care. I told you last time, it's that angel I want."

"No."

"No?"

I forced my chin up, standing firm on my own two feet. "You can't have him."

Nova's eyes scanned my cell from floor to ceiling. "Not much you can do about it now, is there?"

"Kat."

Nova rolled her eyes. "A means to an end. I needed someone who was close to you, who wasn't a witch. Someone who was easy to manipulate." Her attention landed back on me. "She missed you terribly. While you were off making new friends and ignoring everyone who had meant something to you, all she wanted was to be in your life again."

Her words gripped my heart and twisted and twisted until it hurt to breathe. "And you killed her."

"She was no longer needed. What else do you do with rubbish except dispose of it?"

Her head snapped to the side down the corridor. It was only then I heard the clipping sound on the flagstones. Eventually a witch materialised with hair the colour of bone spiking up out of her scalp. Her eyes were dark and narrow and her lip curled into a scornful sneer.

"Aah, Fasia. Welcome."

Fasia came to a stop next to Nova, and suddenly my skin prickled with unease.

"Before Fasia begins, I'd like to ask you about this interesting trinket," Nova lifted her hand high up, staring at the object twisting in the air. There dangled my pentagram pendant, its chain draped gracefully around Nova's fingers. "Obsidian I believe."

I gasped, my hands flying to my neck desperately feeling for the necklace.

She looked back at me. "Do you know what this is?"

"A necklace. It was a gift."

She pursed her lips. "From who?"

I didn't miss a beat. "Gran."

Nova's thin lips twisted like wire. "Your mother became a liar too near the end. This is not an ordinary necklace, my darling. No, this is something much rarer. It is part of a witchstone designed to grant the wearer protection from demons."

I tried not to show anything on my face, but inside, my heart swelled. That is what repelled the demon. The pentagram had protected me and Rafe had granted me that protection knowing he wouldn't be around.

"My coven will come for me."

"I would say that's definite. Problem is, without Darkmore blood, they won't be able to see my castle. No walls, no windows, no doors. And they can't grasp what they can't see. You'll be so close and yet so far." She waved a hand. Vines shot out of the castle wall pushing me up to the bars, Nova ran a sharp fingernail down my cheek. A stinging pain prickled down the slit she'd made in my skin. A warm trickle of blood ran down my cheek.

"Will he come for you, do you think?"

My body jolted, my mind instantly transporting me back to the night of my High Witch ceremony. She'd been interested in Rafe then too.

"I have to admit, he is delicious. Were his heart not more valuable to me out of his body then inside it, I'd be tempted to keep him for myself."

I shuddered. I wasn't thinking about that in front of her. I wasn't thinking about him in front of her.

"Will he come?" she asked, wistfully and to no-one in particular as she gave me a matching cut on my other cheek. "I'm hoping he will, and then his heart will be all mine. An angel heart in itself is more magical than anything in this world, but the heart of an angel in love-"

How the hell did Nova know about Isobel? But she wasn't paying attention to me. Her eyes had rolled back into her head. "The possibilities are endless, I will be invincible."

I managed to force my head up. "You're wrong." The scratchy dryness of my throat made my words catch. "He won't come. Even if he wanted to, the angels will not allow it." The thought of Rafe anywhere near Nova brought nausea down upon me in violent waves.

"Then we'll just have to make you scream loud enough that he cannot ignore it. You may begin, Fasia." she instructed the white-haired witch. A ball of swirling red fire ignited in her hand.

I braced myself.