Shadow Flight (Shadow Riders 5)

She hadn’t told a single member of the Ferraro family about that experience—or any of the others that had happened to her—because the idea of it had been so bizarre. She already thought she looked like a crazy person to them. She wouldn’t have blamed them if they wrote her off the way Eloisa, Taviano’s mother, had. Nicoletta was familiar with the strange pull of the shadows on her body, and for her friends and especially for Taviano, she would definitely endure it.CHAPTER THREETaviano knew he was out of his fucking mind for letting Nicoletta look at him with her big dark eyes and wrap him around her little finger the way she’d been doing for nearly three years. He was risking everything bringing her with him on a hunt like this one. Why? What in God’s name was wrong with him? He knew the answer. He’d better have that answer when Stefano demanded it of him, because he was going to be stripped of his right to be a rider for breaking every sacred rule they had.

What he was doing went against his family’s code. He was risking being banned from riding, something that would kill him. He couldn’t imagine existing if he couldn’t use his talent, but he couldn’t deny Nicoletta, not when he knew what she’d been through. Not when he knew what these men had done to her. Not when he loved her with every breath he took. He wasn’t a man given to love many people. That kind of emotion was reserved for his family.

His shadow had tangled with a young girl’s three years earlier and sealed his fate. He had known even then that he belonged to her. She hadn’t known it. She’d been wild with grief at the loss of her parents and the sexual, physical and emotional abuse heaped on her by three men who had been virtual strangers to her and then by a brute of a man, Benito Valdez.

He remembered the rage welling up in him that had never quite receded. He had wanted to wipe out the other members of the gang, but Stefano had been the voice of reason. The Ferraros weren’t about that. They brought justice. The gang knew nothing about the Ferraros. They’d never heard of them. They had no way of knowing what happened to Nicoletta or even if she was alive.

Taviano didn’t want to leave her vulnerable, there in the hallway with only a shadow to protect her. Anything could go wrong. She was fragile. Anyone could see that. She was pale beneath her beautiful olive skin, swaying on her feet, one hand clamped over her mouth to prevent another round of vomiting, and she kept closing her eyes against the dim light.

Traveling through the shadows was hard on an experienced rider, let alone one who had never done it before. She had no business moving through the shadows without being trained. It was far more dangerous than he had explained to her, and it had certainly taken a toll on her. The only reason he believed she could safely travel through with him was because she’d done it before, and every member of his family had noticed the way her body reacted whenever a shadow fell across her.

Typically, one capable of riding, if untrained as they grew older, became almost immune to the pull of the shadows until eventually it was impossible to actually use what had been the ability. That hadn’t happened with Nicoletta. If anything, the gift had seemed to grow, not lessen.

Cursing, knowing he was absolutely wrong for allowing her to be with him, riding the shadows and chasing after the men who gave her such nightmares, he leaned forward and brushed a kiss on her forehead. “Don’t move,” he reiterated. He couldn’t be in two places at one time, so he had to hurry.

Taviano chose a slender shadow, one of the feeler tubes that was slick and fast, felt like lightning and could rip one’s body apart into millions of pieces. He would have never taken Nicoletta with him into one of those tubes. Even experienced riders were sick after using them to travel in, but they were fast. This one delivered him beneath the door and right into the suite.

He’d gotten one of the best the hotel had to offer for the four girls without being too outrageous. He wanted Nicoletta to have fun with her friends. The suite was thirty-three hundred square feet of luxury and was located exclusively on the hotel’s top floor. Drago and Demetrio had told him that made it easier to provide security for Nicoletta, not that he’d been worried at that point. There hadn’t been any reason to think that she was in any danger.

There was a full kitchen, a library and a wet bar, as well as two bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms. The luxurious living area gave the suite a very upscale homey ambiance, and the wraparound balcony offered exceptional views of the city.