There was only one thing on my mind then. Michael.
Before, when he’d followed me into the park, I’d been afraid of him. I was still afraid, but there was something else there now as well.
“I need to protect her,” he’d said.
No. I didn’t want to think about this. Any of it. I pushed all thoughts of Michael out of my mind and began thinking about Romeo and Juliet.
Romeo had been hot, dangerous, and mysterious, too. He was also totally obsessed with Juliet.
But that story hadn’t ended so well.
I had everything I wanted, finally, after sixteen years of life. Other than the mountains of snow, life in Erin Heights could not be better. I was dating Chris now, who was great and brave and all defensive of me, which was nice—during his little confrontation with Michael he’d practically announced to the world we were officially seeing each other, hadn’t he? I wasn’t going to overthink things and chance screwing everything up.
My life was good. And I wouldn’t let letter-writing absentee fathers or crazy, cute stalkers ruin it for me.
* * *
After the test, which wasn’t half as bad as I’d expected—after all, I had seen the movie version with Leonardo DiCaprio at least three times—the rest of the day was a blur. The buzz in school mainly concerned the formal tomorrow night. The social committee was already decorating the gymnasium to look like a winter wonderland. I took a quick peek as I passed by on my way out of the school at four o’clock, and I saw large white paper snowflakes, a ton of tinsel, and what might have been a ten-foot-tall cutout of a snowman.
There had been no sign of Michael since that morning. I figured Chris had managed to get the guy to leave me alone once and for all.
So why was that thought oddly disappointing?
I took a moment to try to hear his voice in my head, like what had happened earlier, but there was nothing. I knew I hadn’t gotten that much sleep last night. It had to have been my imagination, not actual telepathy.
This was also oddly disappointing.
I touched my new bracelet. So many questions and not enough answers.
“Need a ride home?” Melinda pulled up alongside me in her red VW Beetle. Two of her other friends, Larissa and Brittany, were also in the car. “It’s freezing out there.”
She was still so sure that the whole thing with Michael had been a practical joke and I hadn’t tried to convince her otherwise.
I smiled at her. “Thanks, but I need the exercise. I’ll be home in ten minutes.”
Ten minutes because I was planning on taking my shortcut. If Michael was still around, I figured I might find him there.
“Everything okay?” Melinda asked. “You look way distracted.”
I almost laughed at her major understatement. “You could say that. But I’m fine.”
She didn’t look convinced. “Call me later, okay?”
I promised I would and she drove away.
Currently Melinda was obsessed with beating out another girl for Winter Queen and it was a huge deal for her. I was sure our phone convo later would revolve mostly around that subject.
Since my mom and I’d moved around so much in my life I’d always had acquaintances and sometimes friends, but I’d never had a real best friend I felt like I could confide all my secrets to. Even though I felt comfortable with Melinda, I wasn’t ready to tell her about Michael. Frankly, I didn’t even know what I’d tell her that didn’t sound crazy and paranoid.
When I crossed the bridge over the river in Hungry Hollow I noticed that Michael definitely wasn’t there.
But somebody else was.
There was a big guy standing in my path, feet spread, arms crossed over his chest.
Now, when I say big, I mean big. Like huge, massive, tank-like. His hair was cropped so short he looked practically bald. He wore black jeans, big army boots, and a black sleeveless shirt. Despite the fact that it was freezing—I’d worn my mittens, hat, and scarf today—he didn’t look cold. He stood, blocking my path, with his hands on his hips.
I stopped walking when I saw him.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.
My eyes widened enough that I thought I might get frostbite on my eyeballs. “I think you have the wrong person.”
“You’re Nikki Donovan, aren’t you?”
I shook my head slowly as my gut began to twist with dread. “Nope. Not me. I know her, though. She should be coming by any minute.”
He didn’t move. “No, you’re her. You can’t lie to me.”
I swallowed hard. “What do you want?”
“What do I want?” He tilted his head to the side. “I want to kill you, Princess.”
5
A fist of panic clutched at my chest when the guy produced a knife with a big silver curved blade and moved closer to me.
I knew I had to run, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t even find the air to scream.
And then suddenly Michael appeared, walking down the path opposite to me as if he were simply out for a leisurely stroll, his hands in the pockets of his zipped-up sweatshirt. Just a regular guy minding his own business.
Except for his amulet. It was out and it glowed a vibrant green. He pushed the hair off his face and I realized that his eyes glowed with the same color.
His eyes were literally glowing.
When he was ten feet from the thug, Michael stopped walking. “Don’t get any closer to the princess. Consider this your one and only warning.”
The huge guy glanced over his shoulder. “Mind your own business, Shadow scum.”
Shadow? What was that supposed to mean? Did they know each other?
“This is my business.” Michael raised his right hand and I watched with disbelief as a pulse of green light emanated from it, hitting the guy squarely in the chest. The knife flew out of his hand and he lurched to his left, crashing into the trunk of the huge, snow-covered oak tree in the dead center of the park.
“Come on!” Michael yelled, holding out his hand to me.
I wasn’t sure if I was more terrified of the knife guy or what I’d just witnessed Michael do. But I grabbed on to him with my mitten-covered hand. “He was going to kill me!”
“We need to get out of here now.”
Instead of taking a typical route out of the park, Michael pulled me along with him up the side of a steep hill and through a broken fence. After a few minutes, we emerged on a side street near the main downtown area. Before I could say anything else, he yanked me behind him into an alleyway.
I put my hands on my knees as I tried to bring my breathing back to normal. My head was screaming in pain now—it didn’t seem to matter how many pills I took, the headache was here to stay. After a moment, I turned to look at Michael warily, a million questions bubbling to the surface.
He didn’t look so good.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.
His face had turned pasty white. There was a sheen of perspiration on his skin. The amulet wasn’t glowing or even pulsing anymore. In fact, it had gone from an intensely vibrant emerald green to a dull, listless gray. Strangely enough, his eyes had lost their matching color.
He collapsed to his knees. “I’ll be okay.” His voice was weak. “I just . . . I just need a minute.”
And then he passed out, crumpling heavily against me.
“Michael—” I crouched down and shook his shoulder. “Wake up!”
We were tucked into the alley behind a big green Dumpster belonging to a place called Dave’s Diner. I could hear the guy who’d pulled a knife on me—I was sure it was him—as his army boots pounded against the pavement and stopped right at the alley.
I held my breath, clinging to Michael’s unconscious form, hugging him tightly against me, too scared to move.
After what felt like an eternity, the heavy boots pounded again and soon I couldn’t hear them anymore. I let out a long sigh of relief but didn’t feel safe enough to move. When I finally shifted
position so I could see Michael better, his eyes were still closed.
I pushed the dark hair off his forehead so I could clearly see his face. “Michael . . . please wake up.”
The amulet lay heavily outside his sweatshirt. The stone was still gray, but not as colorless as it had been before.
I moved Michael to lay him down on the snow-covered ground completely, cradling his head on my lap so it wouldn’t hit the hard pavement. He suddenly looked so helpless. Not like somebody who’d gone from scaring the crap out of me to saving my life.
What had he done, anyway? The green pulse. I saw it with my own two eyes. It looked like magic, but that was impossible.
I chewed my bottom lip. Maybe it wasn’t so impossible.
Magic or not, there was no doubt in my mind that, based on his current state of unconsciousness, whatever he’d done had almost killed him.
He saved me.
I forced myself to be patient while he slept, sensing that he needed to regain his energy. He was breathing, though. I checked his throat to feel a pulse and it was there. I looked down at him. His eyes were closed and I stroked his dark hair, surprised at how soft it felt sliding through my fingers.
He saved me, I thought again, stunned by this revelation.
His mouth was parted a little and I still couldn’t see his breath in the cold air like my own. Such a small thing seemed so incredibly odd. I moved my hand from his hair to his mouth, tracing a line along his bottom lip. I could feel his breath warm against my skin, but it didn’t leave an impression in the air.
“Who are you?” I asked softly, as my touch moved from his mouth to his cheek and along the left side of his face. When he was asleep like this, I felt much more confident. I knew I wouldn’t be doing this if he were awake.
I looked down at his chest where his amulet lay, and I watched as the stone became greener and greener the longer Michael slept, until it looked like it had before. What was it? I knew the amulet had to have something to do with what had happened in the park. When the emerald-like jewel had lost its color, its power, so had Michael.
I touched the chain, being careful not to touch the stone itself, but studying it closer than I had been able to before. It was very beautiful but very strange. I moved my hand until it was only an inch away from the amulet itself, in the center of Michael’s firm chest. I absently noticed that his heart had begun to beat faster than before.
Quick as lightning, his hand shot out to grab my wrist, squeezing it tight enough to hurt. His eyes snapped open and they were nearly as green as they had been before his little display of . . . magic. Or whatever. When he saw me, his brows drew together and his grip on my wrist lessened slightly.
“I thought I asked you not to touch me,” he said weakly.
My cheeks suddenly blazed with heat as I realized that I’d practically been groping the guy while he was unconscious.
I tried to pull away but noticed that his voice was the only thing that was currently weak. “I . . . I wanted to make sure you were still breathing.”
That’s all it was. I sounded convincing enough, didn’t I?
He let go of me, took a moment to sit up, and then grimaced as if it caused him pain. “Are you okay, Princess?”
My eyebrows went up. “Am I okay? I should be asking you the same question.”
He blinked slowly. “Well, are you?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I let out a long shaky breath. “But you’re going to have to tell me what’s going on because I’m really freaking out here.”
He winced as he slowly got to his feet. “I already told you what’s going on. And we’re wasting too much time. We have to get to the Shadowlands and see your father. He needs to know that somebody tried to attack you.”
“Who was that guy?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen him before.” His jaw tensed. “You’re a demon princess—the first one in a thousand years. This will attract a lot of . . . unwanted attention, now that your existence can’t be hidden any longer. But I don’t understand how he got here. I was the only one allowed to leave the Shadowlands. Your father was right to fear for your safety.”
A shiver ran down my spine. “My father. The demon king.”
“That’s right.”
Same story, different day. But today it sounded bigger, broader . . . and way more possible.
Too much had happened for me to sanely continue to think that nothing strange was going on anymore. Strange and, by the look of that knife, potentially deadly.
“You saved my life.” My throat hurt as I said it, and when I looked up at him our eyes locked. “You saved my life back there and it nearly killed you.”
His expression was firm. “You shouldn’t have stayed with me. You should have gone home.”
“You thought I was just going to leave you here? You were unconscious.”
“I recovered.”
I cleared my throat. “I know I haven’t exactly been all that nice to you—”
“You don’t have to be nice to me,” he said firmly. “I only did what was necessary to ensure your safety, Princess.”
I frowned. “Please don’t call me that.”
He didn’t look angry or impatient with me, instead he looked concerned. “I know this is a lot to grasp. I do. And so does your father. But it doesn’t make any of what I’ve told you less true. You’re the heir to the throne of the Shadowlands. Since you’re part human, you’ve been shielded from this knowledge and any potential danger until your sixteenth birthday.”
“Happy birthday to me,” I said absently.
“Your father doesn’t know how your powers will manifest and he’s very concerned about you. You have to come with me before it’s too late.”
“How my powers will manifest?” I repeated, gaping at him. “I don’t really like those words.”
He bent over a bit and braced a hand against the wall behind him. The green of his pendant was still duller than normal. I could tell he wasn’t feeling up to full strength yet. In fact, by the strained look on his face, I was surprised he was standing. I closed the distance between us and was about to touch him, but I stopped myself.
“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” I asked.
“I’ll survive.” He attempted to straighten up a bit but failed. “Forget about me for a minute. Your powers . . . have you noticed anything?”
Powers? Maybe he was otherworldly in more ways than one, but I definitely wasn’t. “Other than a persistent headache, there’s been nothing out of the ordinary in my life. Well, other than you.”
He actually grinned at that and looked up at me from his hunched-over position. He was even cuter when he smiled. I didn’t think I’d seen that expression on him before.
“Nothing other than a headache?” he asked. “You’re sure?”
“No, nothing. I’m completely normal. I mean, do I look like a Darkling to you?” I held out my arms to either side of me.
Since I’d given permission, he took a step closer and looked at me, starting at my boots and working his way up slowly. Even though I was wearing winter clothes—a thick jacket, scarf, mittens, hat—I felt like I’d just showed up in a bikini and asked him to check me out. When his gaze finally reached my face, he lingered on my mouth for a long moment before meeting my eyes again.
“Not sure.” The words were a bit hoarse and he cleared his throat. “I’ve never seen a Darkling before.”
He moved close enough to me that if I just moved my hand a little I’d be touching him. If I moved my mouth closer to his, I’d be . . .
Oh, boy.
I backed away a little. “The guy with the knife, he . . . he called you ‘Shadow.’ What does that mean?”
Michael’s expression clouded. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
Then he swayed on his feet and I thought he was going to fall down again, so I reached out and grabbed his arm. He leaned fully against me for a moment, enough for me to feel the heat from his body, before he pulled away.
“I don’t think your boyfriend would approve,” he said. “He doesn’t exactly like me.”
“I’m not so sure that I like you,” I told him, wishing I was telling the truth. “Besides, I doubt you’re all that scared of Chris Sanders. You could just do that magic thing and knock him out.”
“I could do worse than that,” he said under his breath and then looked at me, almost guiltily. “If he ever hurt you—” He frowned hard. “Never mind. I guess I just don’t like him.”
Even though he’d just indirectly threatened to kick my sort-of boyfriend’s butt, I felt a surge of emotion fill me. What emotion it was, I wasn’t entirely sure. Michael’s protective behavior was scary, but also oddly . . . exciting.
I was really hoping this crush I might be developing on the weirdest guy I’d ever met would leave as quickly as it had arrived. It was extremely distracting.
Michael was still hunched over a bit and had his back against the wall. His dark hair hung in his face as he studied the ground. “I’m almost fully recovered. We really must go see your father, Princess.”
“It’s Nikki.”
He breathed out. “We still need to go, no matter what I call you.”
“I want to know who you are.” I took a step closer to him and was taken aback when he pressed harder against the wall.
“I told you already.”
“You said my father sent you.” I tried to piece it together. “So that means you know him personally. Do you work with him?”
“Something like that.”
Then I had a terrible thought. “Oh, my God. You’re not going to tell me that you’re my half brother, are you? Because that would be gross.”
The decidedly impure thoughts I’d started having about Michael would take on a whole other level of inappropriateness if that was the truth.
He looked confused for a moment, but then a glimmer lit up his eyes as he studied my expression. He raised a dark eyebrow. “Why would that be gross?”