The Darkness Within Us (The Shadows Between Us, #2)

by Tricia Levenseller

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A BAD IDEA, JUST POORLY EXECUTED AWESOME ONES. —Damon Salvatore, The Vampire Diaries, Season 2, Episode 15

My husband is taking too long to die. I sit at his bedside, ever the dutiful wife, watching his breath squeeze out of his chest, praying that each one will be his last.

And what men want most, I’ve discovered, is someone they think they can control. So I pretend to be docile. I pretend to be obedient. When men think they can control you, they don’t watch you as closely. When they think you’re stupid, they’re not so careful about the things they’ll say in front of you.

We live in a world where men decide everything. Where we live. When we receive money. Who we will marry.

My little sister is wedding the damned king. He didn’t want me, but he wants her. Her! The murderess.

“Edicts?” Alessandra is making laws? Her? “Oh yes. Women don’t have to wait for marriage before taking part in … intimate relations. Fathers are no longer allowed to accept brideprices for their daughters. In fact, they’re required to pay their daughters dowries upon their marriages to whomever they please, a sum reasonable to the father’s yearly wage.”

The people say he’s utterly smitten by his future bride and would never deny her anything. They’re already calling her the Shadow Queen.”

Yes, because everyone thinks I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot while Alessandra is a powerful monarch.

“Oh, that’s another thing the future queen has done away with. Women don’t have to undergo a mourning period. Nor do you have to wear black.”

When living with the duke, I always escaped to literature. To fiction, where I could pretend to be going on grand adventures or solving an intricate mystery alongside my favorite heroines.

“I will try them all, starting with this one.” I point to the man who spoke. “What’s your name?” I ask. “Sandros, love, and what shall I call you?” I rather like that word on his lips, so I say, “Love works just fine.”

Perhaps it’s just my imagination, but for the briefest moment, I swear I see the supposed duke’s eyes change color, lightening from a deep brown to bright amber, but it must just be the light, because I blink and there is no change at all. Eryx looks impossibly more tired than when I first spotted him in the room.

I can sit at the other end of the table and show my defiance. I refuse to pretend for a second longer in my own home. So I ignore the duke’s invitation, and I take the other end of the table, where I can sit and be Eryx’s equal.

“I was not scared,” I lie. “No? Because you often find strangers in your bed?” He thinks himself funny. His face hasn’t changed, but humor lights his eyes. “I only invite attractive strangers to my bed, so you were clearly out of place.”

What he doesn’t realize is that since letting the real Chrysantha out, I cannot hide her away again. I will not play the fool again. I will not cater to the men around me again. I did my time, and now it’s time for me to shine.

But with the glasses? He looks studious. He looks smart. He somehow looks the part of a wealthy duke. I hate them. I hate him. Attractive and man standing in the way of everything I’ve ever wanted should not go together.

“Duchess, I have spent the last five years in the king’s army, killing and conquering in the name of Naxos, out on the front lines. The fact that I’m still alive should tell you several things. First of which, that I’m a damned good soldier, and second, I don’t give a damn what you think. Third, I’m sick of killing and quite eager to take up a quiet life at this country estate.

“Why?” he asks, clearly dumbfounded. “Have you seen yourself? A woman like you doesn’t need to pay for such things.” I let a smile grace my lips. “Is that your way of offering?” His eyes dart down to my mouth at the same time he barks out a vehement “No!”

If those two men are valets, then I’m the empress of all seven kingdoms.

When I stroll through the library during the day, I’ll find some tomes missing and then returned later in incorrect locations. I know exactly what he’s reading, and it irritates me that we have the same taste in books. Or that we both read so voraciously.

“He’s impossible to follow,” a groundskeeper says. “It’s like tailing a ghost.”

“Yes, thanks to our soon-to-be Shadow Queen, dowries, instead of brideprices, are exchanged upon marriage agreements. I needed Vander’s advice on a sum appropriate for you.”

“I do not hate you.” “Lies! You barge into my home. Steal my room, despite not sleeping in it. Steal my money, despite not needing it. You’ve fired half my friends, left the place in a complete state of disarray. Now you wish to pawn me off on someone else, just so you can have this enormous manor to yourself. Did I wrong you in some egregious manner that I’m unaware of?”

I place my slipper under the seat and tilt the frame back far enough for gravity to do its job. Eryx’s arms windmill, but he can’t right himself in time. Both he and the chair slam to the ground. “Oh, you’re dead!” he says, scrambling to his feet, and that thing happens to his eyes again. They lighten to amber as they zero in on me. There you are.

He’s not angry now. No, he’s playful, if anything. Playful and … something else.

“Surely even you can admit she’s the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen.”

Fair? Fair! Men do not get to utter that word in a world that favors them in every single space of life.

“Very well. Let me assure you I will not touch you again unless permission is given.” “Oh, it shan’t be given.” “No? Then how are you to teach me to dance?”

“I know. Sometimes it’s terribly fun to prod at you. No need to be so lifeless.” “If I wished to be prodded at, I would get myself a husband.”

The history of women is barely recorded, which is why I retreat to fiction, where we’re finally given our due. Though I suppose Alessandra will make a grand appearance in the history books for generations to come.

The motion lifts a section of hair, revealing the shape of an unusually pointed ear, before my hand snags on a tangle, and amber wolf eyes shoot open. When they catch sight of me, Eryx rolls away, nearly landing himself on the cloud floor.

My subconscious has transformed him into a monster. An incredibly attractive one, but a monster nonetheless.

“What are you hiding from me under that blanket?” I ask. “Did you grow an extra leg?” “No.” “Are your feet webbed?” “No.” “Do you have a tail?” He hesitates just a heartbeat too long before saying, “No.” “You do! You have a tail. Let me see it.”

“Only you would say you couldn’t be happy. You live in complete luxury. You’ve never gone without shoes to wear or food to eat or a roof over your head. You want me to feel bad for you because you no longer can pay a man to suck your p—”

What I’ve always wanted most was freedom, yet you try to convince me to marry again—taking away what little freedoms I have now. As it is, I’m beholden to you in too many ways. Just like your grandfather before you.”

I am not content to live a life that is not wholly mine. I would rather die.

“No, but I’m the center of my world, which is why I have to look after myself. No one else will.”

You are a man, and you will never know what it is to suffer as only a woman can!”

After unfolding the tissue paper, I find only a short note nestled against the velvet. So you did want a gift from me. I hurl the box across the room.

“Great, now I’ve got his bodyguards trailing me, is that it?” I see the man’s lips turn up out of the corner of my eye. “You’ve got it all wrong, Your Grace.”

“We were in the army with Eryx. Same regiment. He saved both our lives.”

“Did it ever occur to you that we’re not here for his protection, but yours, Your Grace?”

What I do know is that Ophira had an affair with the late Shadow King.”

Whatever the reason, it seems as though grief took her.”

It seems careless to poison the duke so close to when I went picking wildflowers. No, I need to wait just a bit. Let no one be able to put this together. I am not like Alessandra. If I kill a man, I’m not going to be caught.

Because it isn’t a liquid at all. Smoke. No, not smoke. Shadow. I’ve been close enough to the Shadow King to recognize what that is.

For the best way to get him to reveal his secrets is to convince him he’s helplessly in love with me. I wouldn’t even consider it, except I already know he finds me attractive. He’s lost himself in my looks before.

I must continue to act like I hate him but make him see me as the thing he desires most because he can’t have me.

I really ought to be afraid. I was when Argus suggested killing me. But right now, looking at him like this, I don’t feel fear at all. I feel … butterflies.

It’s as though he has no idea how handsome he is. Thank goodness.