Ecstasy: The Shadowdwellers - Jacquelyn Frank Shadowdwellers

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the silky fabric. She gathered the hem of it and yanked it up, making Trace’s entire body stiffen in shock and, undoubtedly, a rapid-fire response of eager anticipation that he had absolutely no hope of controlling, never mind expecting it in the first place. Trace watched as she swept the midnight blue fabric up between her breasts, keeping her modesty somewhat intact even as she bared her entire midriff from the bottom of her sternum to the low line of her panties where they crossed her hips just barely above her pubic bone.

      And while that tempting little flash of feminine decadence snared his attention almost instantly, it was quickly disrupted with a scream of subconscious denial in his own brain as information glimpsed from the corner of his dark-sharpened eye roared for notice.

      Trace held himself still as a statue as he let his gaze creep up the amazing light and pale plane of her belly, raw emotion roiling to a head the moment he saw the first angry furrow of a wound marring the delicate canvas. Then there was another and another; jagged evil things, fresh and wildly cut as though without rhyme or reason.

      And yet…

      Trace knew the pattern far too well.

      He had hold of her in an instant, lurching back onto his knees as he drew her up off the ground. He heard her suck in a single breath and then there was just the fierce grinding of her teeth as she clenched her jaw. She stoically bore him reaching for the back of her dress and stripping it down, her eyes tightly closed and her cheek resting against his biceps where, unknown to her, dual metal bands tried to contain the swell of muscle he was using to support her weight against himself. Ashla let him do these things to her because she knew what he was looking for.

      They both knew what he would find.

      There, as sure as sunlight, was the exact same dagger wound that had once been in Trace’s flesh.

      Chapter 5

      “Aiya.” Trace whispered the exclamation in horror and in the hope that his eyes and thoughts were deceiving him. Was this really happening? Was any of this truly existent? His entire psyche’s first instinct was to reject every single morsel of information. She wasn’t real, therefore the injuries could not be valid, and therefore he should feel no guilt because there was no actual pain inflicted.

      The logic should have been a comfort, but it simply was not.

      Not while he could feel the smooth, bare warmth of the skin of her back beneath his fingertips and against the whole of his palm. Not while the drip of her tears stained and wet the fabric of his coat. And, he would swear by both the blessed Dark and the burning Light, never could that logic survive when her sweet scent, so laden with the aroma of spring lilacs, drifted up to embed itself into his sensory memory so deeply he knew he would never be able to forget it.

      “Why?” he demanded hoarsely. “You had to know this would happen! Why would you do something so stupid? Why would…” Trace’s voice broke along with the last vestiges of any attempted bravado and composure. He sat down hard on the pavement, his legs sliding beneath her as he drew her up tighter against his chest. He hugged her to himself far too strongly, but he couldn’t seem to curb the need or the impulse. His heart was racing until his blood hissed like steam being forced through metal piping. The sound of it all thundered in his ears.

      “The wound was mortal. You could have died,” he managed at last, his words spurting out between hard, harsh breaths. “And you so small…so…”

      “Weak,” she finished for him, the word muffled against his shoulder.

      “No! By the life of my liege, no! Who that is weak would do such a thing? Who, if they are so weak, would survive the doing? How can that logic stand?” Trace’s hand curved up over the back of her head, his fingertips lost amongst roots of gilding and glitter, the possessiveness of the hold wholly intentional this time. “You saved my life, and now I know it was at risk of your own.”

      Yes. He was sure of it. Even if nothing else was true in this realm for her, the fact that she had intentionally put her life on the line, while believing the whole while that she could die, meant everything. That she had succeeded and survived meant everything to him. Now, at last, he understood the wild rip and ebb in the tides of his emotions…as well as hers.

      In Trace’s faith, it was believed that to willingly risk one’s life to save another was the ultimate in sacrifice. If, by some chance, they survived the circumstances of the event, the sacrifice and the saved would be forever bonded to one another. Trace had been witness to several ’Dwellers who had formed bonds like this during the clan wars. Like the ethereal force of connected spirits that accompanied twin-born children, the bonded became a rhythm in specific tune with each other. They always became fast friends, no matter if they had been beforehand or not. They always knew when the other was in need.

      Magnus and the other priests called them the Sainted.

      But all of this applied to the Shadowdwellers only, as far as Trace understood it. What did that make of his undeniable connection to the spirit of a human woman? And even if he stretched this explanation to define that much, what explained the wholeness and dimension she presented in Shadowscape when no other human could?

      There was also one other thing about the injuries she had sustained Trace needed to consider, but he closed his mind off to it for the moment.

      He was afraid of all he didn’t know about what it meant to be Sainted. For all he had been raised in Sanctuary with a priest for his foster father, the topic of the Sainted was one of the mysteries of his religion. Magnus would know. As always, his father would have answers where Trace did not. But at the same time, Trace knew what he was feeling, and the surety in his mind that he was on the right track was undeniable.

      “I couldn’t watch you die,” she whispered softly. “I could never be that cold.”

      She shuddered against him, and he immediately understood that she believed that he was that cold. After all, she had watched him murder a man with deliberateness, even while verbally flouting the laws of his own society. It took no imagination for him to understand what she must think of him.

      “But even you must have a sense of self-preservation, Ashla,” he said quietly. “Where does the risk outweigh the value you place on your own life? If not in the saving of a stranger you consider no better than a common murderer, then where?”

      Her reply took time in coming.

      “I learned a long time ago not to judge anyone too quickly or too thoroughly, Trace. What I saw as murder, you saw as justifiable homicide…at least from what I heard.” She lifted her head with a little sniffle and met his gaze, displaying the deep carving of wisdom within her eyes that he had somehow overlooked. “I know nothing about you or the life you come from. I am hardly qualified to pass sentence on you at a whim just because I stumbled into a five-minute cross-section of it. Can’t you see how wrong that would be?”

      “Yes,” he said softly, his hand sliding around the side of her head until he cupped her ear against his palm and stroked his thumb along her distinctive cheekbone. “Especially when your sense of fair play saved my life. Others would not have done what you did. I’m not certain I would have done what you did, and I like to consider myself a man who is well versed in seeing all sides of an issue.”

      Trace set her back a few inches so he could gently revisit the ugly wounds on her body that matched the ones still healing on his own. He inspected each unsightly place with feather-soft probes of his fingertips. None of them bled, none of them were swollen with infection, but all of them were tender enough to make her flinch in spite of his extraordinary care.

      “They are just sore,” she explained with a placating touch on his hand. “It’s nothing like they felt when you received them.”

      Now.

      The addendum of that single word floated insidiously through his mind, and Trace knew instantly that she was editing the truth to ease his conscience. Trace was fiercely thankful for whatever it was between them that was tattling on her omission. He reached around her slim body to splay his fingers over her entire back, her smallness

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