Shadow’s fingers tightened on his sleeve, but it was his gaze—glistening like crushed rubies—that kept Gray listening. “I… I’m trying to connect with you. Only with you. But it’s like trying to speak a language I don’t know.”
Gray stared, transfixed by the sincerity of Shadow’s words. His feet were firmly on the ground, but their bodies were close enough for him to sense the scent of unlacquered wood, dubbin, and darkness that clung to Shadow like the echo of the elements he’d been made of. And Gray couldn’t help reacting to the masculine mixture of aromas that he still remembered when he’d given Shadow that blowjob.
“You are not trying to connect. You are trying to fuck me. Dick pizza? Seriously? You barely know anything about me, so how could we connect?”
Shadow stilled, and his grip became weaker. “I’ll do better.” But there was unexpected hurt in the red eyes, and it threw Gray off. Should he worry about the feelings of a personified shadow? An over-eager monster?
Were those feelings even real?
His phone buzzing loudly was a welcome distraction, and he pulled away from Shadow to pick up the call. It wasn’t anything special, just a request for Gray to come by the new workshop. Gray wasn’t sure whether he was glad when Rev had stopped speaking to him or sorry that he would have to face Shadow again.
“Do you need me?” Shadow asked, looking beyond deflated with his slumped shoulders. He normally wouldn’t miss any chance to hang out with Gray, so to see him indirectly asking for permission to leave made Gray not only uneasy but also reluctant to leave him alone.
“We’ll go to the basement. You can catch some snacks there,” he said, increasingly uncomfortable with the light dying in Shadow’s eyes.
Shadow nodded, and grabbed his light-proof jacket on the way out. It fit him perfectly and somehow made him even hotter, but this time he covered his face with the hood before they even left the room. He moved behind Gray without a word, and without the usual attention-seeking goofiness, his tall presence was giving Gray goosebumps. But as uncomfortable as Gray was with having to disappoint Shadow, he couldn’t give in, because what then? If he gave Shadow what he wanted, would he have to once again deny him later, or just fuck him without thinking of consequences until it all ended in drama?
He had his own heart to protect, too.
He led the way to the oldest part of the clubhouse, which had started as an eighteenth-century country mansion. Many of the period features had been removed during the building’s time as an asylum, but others remained like a creepy reminder of its bloody past.
Gray never failed to cringe when he entered the former main hall and faced the huge statue depicting the same gargoyle Jake turned into from time to time. It was not a perfect likeness, as Gray didn’t think the artist had gotten to meet the beast in the flesh, but it was realistic enough to make one’s skin crawl.
And just last year the statue had been where King, their former club president, had died when he fell through an old railing and died draped over the monster, with stone horns piercing his flesh.
William Fane, the infamous former owner of the estate that now belonged to the Kings of Hell MC, used to have many secrets, some of them hidden away in a cellar accessible through a secret door behind the statue. After the original workshop and vault had been damaged by the fire, the cellar seemed like the obvious space to continue the club’s not-so-legal endeavors, and even though the narrow staircase hidden behind antique wooden panels was now illuminated, Gray still felt unease walking down the same stairs that had led so many young men to torture and slaughter.
Carved in stone and partially finished with old brick, the passage exhaled moldy air into Gray’s face. He lowered his head and stepped underground, toward the rooms where Fane used to imprison his victims—men like the footman whose bones had been granted to Shadow. Had the poor soul been killed down here? And if so, could Shadow have any memory of those events? Along with the basic knowledge of the world, the accent and language that he’d absorbed from his new body, he could have also inherited the baggage of the footman’s death.
What would Gray do if Shadow remembered something in this pit crawling with bugs and so damp that mold covered the walls? He already knew that Shadow’s childlike mind did not cope well with intense unpleasant sensations.
As they reached the end of the staircase, Shadow pulled off the hood and glanced down the short corridor lit with lamps and the crude wiring that Knight hadn’t yet had the time to finalize. In the jacket and with his black hair loose, Shadow reminded Gray of characters one might find on the covers of fantasy literature. Romantic and brave, they were untouchable. Unlike Shadow, who’d held Gray too tenderly with all three arms when they lay in bed after the brief yet fantastic sex that shouldn’t have happened.