Shadow Storm (Shadow Riders 6)

She heard the raw need in his voice. The truth. She’d always been able to distinguish lies from truth. That was a gift of being a rider, an essential one. She’d begun to doubt her abilities after being with Val. So many times, she thought he was telling her the truth, that he loved her the way she loved him, and then she would catch him in some terrible deceit. After so many times, she had to believe her eyes, not her heart.

“I found myself compromising my code, my honor—nothing mattered but seeing you.”

“You were careful with me,” she conceded. He had been in those early days. She couldn’t say he hadn’t seduced her—he had.

She had never looked at another man after Val, but he hadn’t done more than kiss her. A lot. There was a lot of kissing. Eventually, there was a lot of touching. He brought her to orgasm with his fingers. He taught her how to bring him to pleasure with her hand. Then her mouth. He did the same with his mouth. He had waited until she was eighteen before he took her virginity.

At first, she barely remembered what was happening with their shadows. She was so wrapped up in the wild, almost feral way they came together. She could hardly stand being away from him. She was obsessed with him. He seemed to be the same way about her. Both of them knew their families would object, and they were careful. Valentino didn’t like that she had to hide from her brothers, but she insisted, knowing Stefano would forbid any kind of relationship between them.

Emmanuelle noticed the expression on Val’s face when they were sitting together out by the lake after they’d made love. He was looking at their shadows, and he looked very satisfied, almost smug. She had turned her head and was shocked at the amount of cords wrapped so tightly around her shadow, as if it were imprisoned by his. She had sat up straighter, turning to him, her heart pounding, for the first time in three years with him afraid. Val had tackled her, laughing, kissing her, distracting her.

That night, she’d stayed awake all night in her bed thinking, realizing she had to tell her brothers. That alone was terrifying. Her confession hadn’t gone over very well. She hadn’t even gotten to the part with her shadow when they all began yelling and threatening Valentino. They forbade her from ever seeing him again. Eloisa began to accuse her of being disloyal to the family. She’d tried to stay away from Val, but in the end, it was impossible. The pull to be with him was too strong, and no matter how hard she tried, she always ended up going back to him.

“Keep going on with your story, Val. I think I understand what you’re saying. I would be able to go into the shadow, spy on a rival with you sitting in a car outside if our tether, for lack of a better word, were short.”

“Something like that, I guess. If it were stronger, you could be at a greater distance from me. You could, say, be across town. I wouldn’t have to be close to you for you to get the information for me.”

“And if we were really tied tight together?”

“The bonds have to be wrapped and knotted so close and so permanently that there is no way to undo them. You already know our neuropathways are connected via those ties and shadows. Supposedly, the more bonds I put on you, the more permanent they become, and the more we’re bound together.”

“Then what would happen?” she asked. She found she was holding her breath. She already knew the answer.

“You would take me with you. I would travel from place to place with you. In the shadows. Those ties have to be that strong between us.”

“That’s what you were doing every time we were together. You were wrapping as many ties around my shadow as you could, as fast as you could. If I noticed, you deliberately distracted me.” She kept accusation out of her voice, just stated it as fact, because it was.

Valentino didn’t deny it. “Yes. I didn’t know what it would take to make us a permanent couple, but your family and mine objected to us, and I wasn’t going to lose you. I knew if Miceli or his sons found out your capabilities, it was possible they would make a try for you, and that would put you in danger. If you were permanently tied to me, there would be no reason for anyone to try to kidnap you or to tear us apart.”

She flicked him a look. “And you could benefit greatly from the uses you could get from having a spy, or being able to move through shadows, if that is all true, right?”