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The Burning Shadow
The Burning Shadow Read online
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For you, the reader
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to my stellar agent of awesome, Kevan Lyon, and my extraordinary editor, Melissa Frain, for believing that Luc needed his own story. Thank you Taryn, for helping to spread the Luc love all around the globe, and a huge thanks to the amazing team at Tor—Saraciea, Elizabeth, Anthony, Eileen, Lucille, Kathleen, Isa, and Renata, and the rest of the excellent team. Thank you Kristin, for stepping in when needed and for helping get the word about my books and me out there into the world. I’d lose what’s left of my mind if it wasn’t for Stephanie Brown, but don’t tell her that; I need to keep her on her toes. Writing is such a solitary experience, so the following friends and people I love have helped in so many different ways—Andrea Joan (except when you incessantly text me about your Prometheus theory); Jen Fisher (especially when you bring me cupcakes); Jay Crownover and Cora Carmack (you’re basically the same person now); Andrew Leighty (when you text about the weird Snaps you receive); Sarah J. Maas (except when I read your books and feel like a loser); my husband (when you’re not interrupting me); Hannah McBride (when you’re not texting me for the ApollyCon budget); Kathleen Tucker (side-eye for days); Valerie, Stacey Morgan, Tijan, Jessica, Krista, Sophie, Gena, Kresley, Brigid, Jen Frederick, and so many, many more.
To my JLAnders, you guys rock my socks. Thank you, for supporting my rock and me, and entertaining me with all your posts.
And finally, none of this would’ve been possible without you, the reader. Thank you for allowing me to continue pursuing my dreams.
1
“Just put it in your mouth already.”
Blinking rapidly, I lifted my gaze from the steaming bowl of tomato soup to where my mom stood.
That was a string of words I sort of never wanted to hear come out of her mouth ever again.
Her blond hair was smoothed back into a short, neat ponytail, and her white blouse was impressively wrinkle-free. She wasn’t so much staring as she was glaring from where she stood on the other side of the island.
“Well,” came the deep voice from beside me. “Now I feel super uncomfortable.”
The woman I’d believed to be my birth mother up until a few days ago appeared remarkably calm despite the fact that the dining room was still in shambles from the epic death match that had taken place less than twenty-four hours ago. This woman did not tolerate disorganization of any kind. However, the taut corners of her lips told me she was seconds from becoming Colonel Sylvia Dasher, and it had nothing to do with the broken dining room table or the shattered window upstairs.
“You wanted grilled cheese and tomato soup,” she said, punctuating each food item as if it were a newly discovered disease. “I made them for you, and all you’ve done is sit and stare at them.”
That was true.
“I was thinking.” He gave an elaborate pause. “That getting you to make me grilled cheese and tomato soup was too easy.”
She smiled tightly, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Eyes that were brown only because she wore specially designed contacts that blocked the Retinal Alien Check—RAC—drones. Her real eyes were a vibrant blue. I’d only seen them once. “Are you worried that the soup is poisoned?”
My eyes widened as I lowered the perfectly toasted buttered bread and melted cheesy goodness to my plate.
“Now that you mention it, I’m worried there’s arsenic or maybe some random leftover Daedalus serum in it. I mean, I feel like you can never be too sure.”
Slowly, I looked at the boy sitting next to me on a stool. Boy wasn’t exactly the right word to use to describe him. Neither was human. He was an Origin, something other than Luxen and human.
Luc.
Three letters, no last name, and pronounced like Luke, he was an utter enigma to me, and he was … well, he was special and he knew it.
“Your food is not poisoned,” I told him, inhaling deeply as I tried to interject some common sense into this rapidly deteriorating conversation. The nearby candle, one that reminded me of pumpkin spice, almost overwhelmed his unique, outdoorsy scent that reminded me of pine needles and fresh air.
“I don’t know about that, Peaches.” Luc’s full lips curved into a half smile. These were lips that I had recently become well familiar with. Lips that were as completely distracting as the rest of him. “I think Sylvia would love nothing more than to get rid of me.”
“Is it that obvious?” she replied, her thin, fake smile narrowing even further. “I always thought I had a rather good poker face.”
“I doubt you could ever successfully hide your rampant dislike of me.” Luc leaned back, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “I mean, the first time I came here, all those years ago, you pointed a pistol at me, and the last time I came here, you threatened me with a shotgun. So, I think you’ve made it pretty clear.”
“We could always go for a third time,” she snapped, her fingers splaying across the cool granite. “Third time’s a charm, right?”
Luc’s chin dipped and those thick lashes lowered, shielding astonishingly jewel-tone eyes. Amethyst. The color wasn’t the only thing that gave away the fact that he was rocking more than Homo sapiens DNA. The fuzzy black line surrounding his irises was also a good indication that there was only a little bit of human in him. “There won’t be a third time, Sylvia.”
Oh dear.
Things were … well, awkward between her and Luc.
They had a messy history that had everything to do with who I used to be, but I’d thought the whole grilled-cheese-and-tomato-soup thing was her waving a white flag—a weird offering of a truce, but an offering nonetheless. Obviously, I’d been wrong. From the moment Luc and I had walked into the kitchen, things had gone downhill fast between the two of them.
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” she remarked, picking up a dishcloth. “You know what they say about the arrogant man.”
“No, I don’t.” Luc dropped his elbow to the island and propped his chin onto his fist. “But please enlighten me.”
“An arrogant man will still feel immortal.” She lifted her gaze, meeting his. “Even on his deathbed.”
“Okay,” I jumped in when I saw Luc’s head tilt to the side. “Can you two stop trying to out-snark each other so we can eat our sandwiches and soup like normal human beings? That would be great.”
“But we’re not normal human beings.” Luc sent me a long side look. “And I cannot be out-snarked, Peaches.”
I rolled my eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“He’s right, though.” She scrubbed at a spot on the island only she could see. “None of this is normal. It’s not going to be.”
Luc’s jaw clamped shut as he returned to staring at his sandwich, his shoulders unnaturally tense.
“There’s only one way you’re going to get normal back in your life, honey,” she said, and I flinched at the endearment.
It was something she always called me. Honey. But now, knowing she’d only been in my life these last four years made the simple, sweet word seem wrong. Unreal, even.
“You want normal? Cut this one out of your life.”
I dropped my sandwich, shocked that she would say that—not just in front of Luc but that she would say it in general.
Luc’s head shot up. “You already took her from me once. That’s not going to happen again.”
“I didn’t take her from you,” she fired back. “I saved her.”
“And for what, Colonel Dasher?” Luc’s smile was razor sharp. “To give yourself the daughter you lost? To have something you knew you could hold over my head?”
My heart squeezed painfully in my chest. “Luc—”
The dishcloth wrinkled under Mom’s fingers as her hand balled into a fist. “You think you know everything—”
“I know enough.” His voice was too soft, too even. “And it’s best you don’t forget that.”
A muscle thrummed along her temple, and I briefly wondered if Luxen could have strokes. “You don’t know her. You knew Nadia. This is Evie.”
The gulp of air I inhaled got stuck in my throat. She was right and she was wrong. I wasn’t Nadia. I also wasn’t Evie. I had no idea who I really was.
“They are not the same,” she continued. “And if you really do care for her—for Evie—you’d walk out of her life and let her go.”
I jolted. “That’s not—”
“You think you know her better than I do?” Luc’s laugh could’ve frozen the Alaskan wildlands. “If you think she’s your dead daughter, then you’re living in a fantasy world. And if you think that me walking out of here is what’s best, then you don’t know shit.”
My gaze darted between them. “Just FYI, I’m sitting right here. Totally present for this argument that is about me.”
Both ignored me.
“And just to be really, painfully clear,” Luc went on, “if you think I’d walk away again, then you’ve obviously forgotten who I am.”
Was the dishcloth starting to smoke? “I haven’t forgotten what you are.”
“And that is?” Luc challenged.
“Nothing more than a killer.”
Holy crap.
Luc smirked. “Then you and I should get along famously.”
Oh my God!
“It’s best that you remember you’re only a part of her life now because I’m allowing it,” she retorted.
Luc kept his arms crossed. “I would sincerely love to see you try to keep me away from her now.”
“Don’t push me, Luc.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been pushing.”
Bluish-white energy flickered over Mom’s knuckles, and I just lost it. All the violent, raw emotions swirled inside me like a cyclone, lashing through every part of my being. This was too much—just too much.
“Stop it! Both of you!” I shot to my feet, and the barstool toppled over, cracking off the floor and startling both her and Luc. “Do you guys really think any of this is helping right now? At all?”
Luc whipped around on the stool, his odd eyes slightly wide while Mom stepped back from the island, dropping the dish towel.
“Have you guys forgotten that I almost died last night because a psychotic and slightly suicidal Origin had a T. rex–sized bone to pick with you?” I pointed at Luc, and his jaw hardened in response. “And have you forgotten that you’ve spent the last four years pretending to be my mom? Which is scientifically impossible because you’re a Luxen, something else you’ve lied about?”
Mom’s face paled. “I’m still your mother—”
“You convinced me that I was some dead girl!” I shouted, throwing my hands up. “You didn’t even adopt me. How is that even legal?”
“That’s a really damn good question.” Luc smirked.
“Shut up!” I swung on him, my heart racing and my temples beginning to throb. “You’ve also done nothing but lie to me. You even made my best friend become friends with me!”
“Well, I didn’t exactly make her become your best friend,” he replied, slowly unfolding his arms. “That happened organically, I’d like to think.”
“Don’t bring logic into this,” I snapped, my hands tightening into fists when the lines of his mouth softened. “You two are driving me out of my mind, and I barely have any of it left. Do I need to remind you of what happened in the last freaking forty-eight hours? I learned that everything I knew about myself was a lie and that I was pumped full of alien DNA courtesy of a serum I can barely pronounce, let alone spell. And if that’s not messed up enough, I found a classmate super-duper dead. Andy’s eyes were legit burned out of his face, and then I was literally just dragged through the woods and had to listen to the bizarre ranting of an Origin who had hard-core abandonment issues!”
Both stared at me.
I stepped back, breathing heavily. “All I wanted to do is eat a damn grilled cheese sandwich, eat some freaking soup, and be normal for five seconds, but both of you ruined it and—” Without warning, a wave of dizziness swept over me, making my chest suddenly feel hollow. “Whoa.”
Mom’s face blurred as my knees went weak. “Evie—”
Luc moved so fast I couldn’t have tracked him even if I were not weirdly seeing double at the moment. Within what felt like half a second, he had a strong, steady arm around my waist. “Evie,” he said, cupping my cheek and lifting my head. I hadn’t even realized it had lowered. “Are you okay?”
My heart was pounding too fast, and my head felt like it was weighed down with cotton. Pressure settled on my chest as my legs trembled. I was alive and standing, so that meant I was okay. I had to be. I just couldn’t get the words out at the moment.
“What’s wrong?” Worry threaded every syllable of Mom’s voice as she drew closer.
“Dizzy,” I gasped, squeezing my eyes shut. I hadn’t eaten anything since sometime the day before, and I’d only managed to get one bite of food in before they had started to argue, so being dizzy wasn’t all that surprising. Plus, the last week … or month had been a bit much.
“Just breathe.” Luc’s thumb dragged over my jawline, making long, soothing strokes. “Take a few moments and just breathe.” There was a pause. “She’s okay. It’s just that she was … she was hurt pretty badly last night. It’s going to take a bit for her to be 100 percent.”
I thought that was weird, because this morning I’d felt like I could’ve run a marathon, and I didn’t normally feel like running unless a horde of zombies was chasing me.
But slowly, the weight lifted from my head and chest, and the dizziness faded. I opened my eyes, and the next breath I took got stuck in my throat. I didn’t realize he was so close, that he was hunched over so we were eye level, his face only inches from mine.
A thoroughly perplexing mix of emotions woke deep inside me, fighting to get to the surface—to get me to pay attention to them, to make sense of them.
His bright gaze met mine as a lock of wavy bronze hair toppled forward, shielding one of those stunning, abnormal purple eyes. I took in the features that were pieced together in an inhumanly perfect way we mere mortals truly couldn’t accomplish without a skilled surgical hand.
Luc was beautiful in a way that a panther in the wild was, and that was what he often reminded me of. A sleek, captivating predator that distracted with its beauty or lured its prey in with it.
> There was a daring twist to the corners of his full lips, tilting them up. Early October sunlight streamed in through the kitchen window, glancing off sharp cheekbones, highlighting them and creating alluring shadows under them.
I was staring at his lips again.
When I looked at him, I wanted to touch him, and as I stared at him wanting that, that teasing grin of his kicked up a notch.
My eyes narrowed.
Only a few Origins could read thoughts as easily as it was for me to read a book. Luc was, of course, one of them. He’d promised to stay out of my head, and I think he did most of the time, but he always seemed to be peeping when I was thinking the absolute most embarrassing thing possible.
Like right now.
His grin became a smile, and a flutter picked up in my chest. That smile of his was as dangerous as the Source. “I think she’s feeling better.”
I jerked away from him, breaking the embrace as warmth crept into my cheeks. I couldn’t look at her. Sylvia. Mom. Whatever. I didn’t want to look at him, either. “I’m okay.”
“I think you should eat something,” she said. “I can warm up the soup—”
“I don’t really want to eat anything,” I interrupted, my appetite nonexistent at this point. “I just don’t want you two to fight.”
Mom looked away, her small chin jutting out as she folded her arms over her chest.
“I don’t want that, either,” Luc said, his voice so quiet I wasn’t sure Mom heard him.
My chest squeezed as I met his gaze. “Really? Seemed like you were more than willing to fight.”
“You’re right,” he said, surprising me. “I was being antagonistic. I shouldn’t have been.”
For a moment, all I could do was stare at him, and then I nodded. “There’s something I need to say, and both of you need to hear it.” My hands curled into loose fists. “She can’t keep me away from you.”
His eyes deepened to a violet hue, and when he spoke, his voice was rougher. “Good to hear.”