His Caress of Shadows (The Kaldr Chronicles Book 4) Read online

  His Caress of Shadows

  By Kody Boye

  His Caress of Shadows

  By Kody Boye

  Copyright © Kody Boye 2017. All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art and design by Corey Hollins

  Copyedited by Lori Titus

  Interior formatting by Kody Boye

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronically, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the proper written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  PART 1

  PART 2

  PART 3

  PART 5

  PART 5

  PART 6

  PART 7

  PART 8

  PART 1

  1

  We drove away from the secluded Hill Country ranch with the knowledge that things would no longer be the same. Seated around the motor home’s circular dining room table—Aerick on one side, Guy on the other—I tried my hardest not to falter in the face of what was undoubtedly the winds of change and realized that I couldn’t.

  “Hey,” Guy said, pressing a hand against the small of my back. “You ok?”

  “I… don’t know,” I replied.

  I wasn’t sure what to say. Here I was—a newly sired Kaldr who’d just bore witness to one of the most important events in human history—struggling to comprehend what had occurred an hour beforehand. My thoughts were racing, my conscience was a wreck, my body pulsed with unsung adrenaline from the battle I had not been allowed to participate in. Literally everything about the situation was driving me to one single conclusion: that I, Jason DePella, twenty-six and formerly human, was now part of an elite sub-sect of humanity that would fall under intense public scrutiny due to the battle that had just occurred. It seemed trivial to ask how I was doing—if I was ok—and it was even worse to imagine that Guy would follow up by saying that everything would be just fine.

  No.

  Everything wouldn’t be just fine. Everything wouldn’t be ok. For all I knew, we were heading into a deathtrap.

  When Guy made move to open his mouth again, then faltered and reached up to press a hand against his face, my heart skipped a beat and my mouth dropped open in shock. “Maybe,” I started, “I should be asking you if you’re ok.”

  “Weak,” Guy said, cradling his head in his palms. “Used too much energy.”

  “Guy,” Aerick said.

  The senior of my two partners lifted his head to regard Aerick as he slid out of his seat and walked around the table. Shortly after settling down, Aerick tilted his head back and bared his neck to Guy.

  “You’re sure?” Guy asked, idly stroking the flesh at Aerick’s neck.

  “Do it,” Aerick replied. “You need it.”

  With a nod, Guy leaned forward, pressed his lips to Aerick’s flesh, and fed.

  I, not wanting to dwell upon the moment or distract Guy as he replenished himself from the battle’s stresses, shifted out from behind the circular dining room table and walked to the front of the motor home. Shadow drove, his dark eyes obscured behind sunglasses, while Scarlet Jane idly considered her fingertips and the blood that lingered beneath her short, well-tended nails.

  I cleared my throat. “Hello,” I said.

  Scarlet lifted her head. “What’s up, Ice Man?” she asked.

  “Ice Man?” I laughed. “Is that what you’re calling us now?”

  “Don’t see why not. It’s what you are, right?”

  “I suppose so,” I said, then grimaced as I heard Guy grunt and Aerick moan behind me.

  “Hey! Hey!” Scarlet said, slapping the back of her plush leather seat. “Don’t you fucks get any jizz on my furniture or else!”

  Unable to resist the urge to laugh, I settled down on the pull-out couch that rested just behind Shadow’s chair and sighed as I lifted my eyes to scan the road signs in front of us. “So,” I said as one of the signs came into view. “Why are we going to Dallas in the first place?”

  “It’s where the Agency is,” Scarlet said. “And where we’re going to take your happy asses to make sure you’re safe.”

  “Especially Guy,” Shadow added. “We don’t know how much the cameras might have caught of his face.”

  “He also attacked the Fredericksburg Police Department. That doesn’t help either.”

  No. It didn’t. Nor did it make the situation any less complicated.

  As Aerick moaned one final time, and as Guy rose looking more his usual color, I reached out to press a hand against the man’s ribcage and sighed as I traced the fine fabric of his undershirt. “Feeling better?” I asked.

  “Fucking great,” Aerick managed in the seat behind Guy.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” I chuckled, then directed my attention back on Guy. “Seriously. Are you ok?”

  “I’m fine,” the older Kaldr said. “Why?”

  “I dunno. I was just… well… wondering, considering.”

  “Considering what?”

  “That you attacked the men in blue,” Scarlet said.

  I could’ve cursed the woman. Knowing that it would do nothing more than start a fight, however, I maintained my composure and instead leaned into Guy’s body, sighing as he wrapped an arm around me and allowed me to rest my head against the crook of his neck.

  “To answer your question,” Guy said, his deep voice pleasant beside my ear, “I’m doing just fine. And to answer your remark,” he then added to Scarlet, “I did it because they threatened yours and Aerick’s safety.”

  “Thanks for the air support, Cannon Man.”

  This time, I couldn’t help but growl.

  “What?” Scarlet laughed. “It was fucking awesome.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but people still died.”

  “And I regret their deaths,” Guy said, “but we can’t focus on what happened in the past. What we need to consider is what’s going to occur in the future.”

  Nodding, I settled down on the couch behind Shadow’s seat and crossed my arms over my chest just in time for Aerick to come stumbling, then crawling toward me. “Jason,” he said, his Texan accent a deep drawl. “Help me onto the couch.”

  I reached down, took his hand, and hauled him up just in time to have the man collapse atop me, his body almost dead weight in comparison to how usually light he was.

  “I took too much,” Guy said. “Sorry, Aerick.”

  “Don’t be,” the younger Howler said. “I almost came.”

  “Gross,” Scarlet growled, then turned her eyes back to the road.

  I laughed.

  Aerick moaned.

  I set my hand on my partner’s cool back and traced a hand along his finely-muscled arm. “Why don’t you just lay here and get some sleep?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” the younger man replied. “Just… get some…”

  He started snoring before he could finish.

  After leaning back and allowing Aerick to slump against my body, I closed my eyes and tried, without success, not to fear for what was about to come next.

  We were headed to Dallas, Texas.

  It’d be nightfall by the time we reached the city.

  2

  We breached the threshold of the Dallas-Fort Worth
metropolitan as night fell and the horrors of a new world descended along with it. Flanked on all sides by cars and trucks of various colors—some of which I’d imagined had fled the city of Fredericksburg in light of the recent activity—Shadow meandered throughout the traffic as he continued to guide the motor home into the heart of the city. I, desperate to sleep, forced my eyes shut as tightly as possible in an effort to block out the orange light streaming from the street lamps, but to no avail.

  No matter how hard I tried, and no matter how much I fought, I couldn’t force myself to fall asleep. Thoughts of my fractured present and soon-to-be disjointed future continued to plague my mind, casting shades of doubt and worry across my consciousness.

  Just days ago we had been sheltered within the Winters’ family mansion—living, breathing and fucking like life was all fun and games.

  Now we were on the road, headed toward God knew what while Scarlet and Shadow prepared to report back to the Agency.

  Just like old times, I would’ve said, thinking back on Guy and I’s flight from Austin and our subsequent arrival at the Kaldr ranch.

  Sighing, I pushed myself upright—careful not to disturb Aerick—and raised my head just in time to see Guy watching me from the nearby kitchen table.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” I replied.

  “Couldn’t sleep?”

  I shook my head.

  He patted the space beside him and waited until I shimmied off the couch before scooting over to allow me passage. Once seated beside him, he wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me close.

  “So,” he said, bumping his head against mine. “How’s it feel to be on the run again?”

  “Horrible,” I replied. “I imagine it’s nothing like what you’re going through though.”

  “Yeah,” Guy sighed, his breath a cool presence in the air as his ribs flexed and his lungs contracted. “I’d never thought I’d live to see the day when my childhood home was burned to the ground.”

  Though we hadn’t remained behind to await the house’s final moments, we’d been able to see it from a distance—first smoking, then burning, then finally exploding as what I imagined was the boiler caught fire and ignited in all its awesome power. It’d been a sight to see, even from miles away, and though I’d wanted nothing more than to stop Guy from witnessing the destruction of the home he’d grown up in, I felt he needed to see it in order to properly process the emotions that would come along with it.

  A childhood home—filled with memories both good and bad, wonderful and sorrowful, joyous and heartbreaking. As children, we’re conditioned to believe that home is eternal—that nothing can uproot it and that nothing, not even the greatest forces in the cosmos, can ever destroy it. For that reason, it’s almost impossible to think that it could disappear after a certain point—that, after you’d flown the nest, and after you’d gone to live in the place where you would eventually sow your roots, that it could eventually disappear. Land was brought, property leveled, the old destroyed to make way for the new. In listening to Guy’s struggled sigh, then listening to his sniffles as he likely cried, I’d wanted nothing more than to leave Aerick’s side and hug him.

  But I knew it wouldn’t have done any good.

  In staring at him, and in seeing that he was still struggling to process the emotions that came along with a childhood home’s destruction, I leaned against his body and said, in as low a voice as possible, “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s nothing to be sorry about,” I said. “It was plastered all over the news, the Internet, the world. There’s no telling what or who might have been drawn to the place had it remained standing.”

  “Still,” I offered, “it’s not easy to lose your childhood home.”

  “No,” Guy replied. “It isn’t.”

  On the couch, Aerick startled, then mumbled something beneath his breath before rolling over onto his stomach. I, in response to the sudden outburst, reached down to stroke Guy’s knuckles, tracing the fine hairs along their surfaces and reveling in the strength that years of working in the fields had inspired within his hands. Eventually, we laced fingers; and as we sat there, enjoying one another’s company, I felt compelled to tilt my head back against his body.

  He leaned down to kiss me at that moment—not passionately, but softly. He allowed it to linger for only a moment before drawing away.

  “I know you’re scared,” Guy said, “and I know that life isn’t going to be easy from here on out. But I’m going to make you a promise, Jason.”

  “You don’t have to promise anything,” I said.

  “But I do,” he replied. “Because your life has been anything but stable since you’ve met me.”

  I pulled away, out of his embrace and into the safety of my own personal space, and waited for him to continue, unsure how to respond.

  Nodding, Guy leaned forward, took my hand in both of his, and said, “I promise to do everything in my power, from here on out, to make sure you and Aerick have as ordinary a life as possible.”

  “But—”

  He pressed a finger to my lips. “But nothing,” he said, then smiled, his white teeth shining in the light streaming through the nearby door’s window. “I want to do this for you. For him. For us.”

  For us.

  The words, magical as they were, were impossible to comprehend during a moment when everything appeared ready to collapse around us. I wanted so desperately to say something—anything—to alleviate his conscience, but knew that nothing I could say would tame the fires of passion within Guy’s heart.

  With that in mind, I simply leaned forward and pressed my head against his chest.

  “We’ll be in Dallas soon,” Guy said, once more wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “We’ll get a hotel, rest for the night, then try and figure out how to move forward from here.”

  “All right.”

  With that in mind, I closed my eyes.

  This time, I was able to doze off.

  3

  We ordered shitty dollar-menu food from a nearby fast food joint before we stopped at a motel and arranged ourselves within the only room that was available. Equipped with only one bed and a couch that would only hold someone of Aerick’s size, the younger Howler quickly opted to take the couch, which instantly sparked debate from Guy.

  “You’re tired,” the older Kaldr said. “You should sleep in the bed with Jason.”

  “I’m fine, man,” Aerick said as he collapsed onto the couch. “I’m just tired. That’s all.”

  “You fought in the battle, Aerick. You’re scratched up and bruised all over.”

  To this, the young man had no reply. Having stripped his shirt off shortly after entering the room, the bruises along his ribcage were clearly visible—flowering across his underarm and then around to his back in grotesque displays of black and blue. Just looking at them was enough to inspire pain in my shoulders from where the Harpy had lifted me into the air, but knowing that there was little, if anything that either of us could do for him? That hurt the worst.

  “Take the bed,” Guy said. “I’m not going to take no for an answer.”

  “But—”

  Aerick was silenced as Guy stepped forward. The Kaldr leaned forward, pressed his hands against the Howler’s shoulders as gently as possible, then bumped their heads together before pressing a kiss against Aerick’s temple. “Go,” Guy said. “I’m going to go out and see if I can find a corner store that’s still open. I need a smoke.”

  “That’ll kill you,” Aerick smiled.

  “No worse than anything else might,” Guy replied.

  With that said, Guy shrugged a simple denim jacket over his shoulders, grabbed the room key from the TV stand, then made his way out the door.

  Aerick immediately turned his eyes on me.

  “Come,” I said.

  “You’re sure?” the younger man asked.

  “Why wouldn’t I be? You’re as much a part of this as he is.”

  “Yeah
, but he’s your… well… boyfriend, and I’m—”

  “I consider you my boyfriend as well, Aerick.”

  The Howler blinked, his green eyes incredulous. It was almost as if he hadn’t anticipated the response and therefore was still recovering from the shock of the statement. “You… do?” he asked.

  I nodded. Patting the mattress, I waited for him to seat himself upon it before leaning forward, taking his chin in my hand, and saying, “You’re more to me than just warm flesh, Aerick. You’re… God,” I laughed. “I once thought of you as an enigma—something I couldn’t understand no matter how hard I tired. But now I realize that beneath that cocky, bad-boy exterior there’s a really sweet and genuine man there.”

  “So my jig is up?” he asked, offering that devilishly-sexy grin that could turn my heart to mush.

  “Your jig ‘isn’t up,’” I laughed, gently smacking his shoulder, then sighing when he grimaced and reached up to rub his arm. “Sorry.”

  “It’s cool. I’m just sore everywhere.”

  “Then let’s lay down and go to sleep. Guy’ll be back in a while.”

  “You’re not worried that he’s going to get into trouble?”

  “Why? Because he’s a Kaldr?” When Aerick didn’t respond, I sighed and reached up to part his hair from his face. “I don’t think the world knows anything about us—at least, not yet.”

  “That’ll change,” Aerick said. “When people come forward. When they start talking about what it is to be… well… one of you. One of me. One of… us.”

  Us.

  The Supernaturals—the elusive figureheads of the world who, once shrouded in darkness, had been brought into the light by one single, defining moment. We’d been captured, in the still and moving frames of a camera, and streamed live to televisions first locally, then domestically, then around the world. I could only imagine what our hits on social media sites were like.

  The thought, as juvenile as it was, prompted a smile, one that Aerick wasn’t able to reply in kind with as he lay down and shuffled underneath the blankets.