Shadow Play: Read Online Free Page B

stroked him to make her point.
    Cam wouldn’t reject her (dangerous), but he wouldn’t go along either.
    “Stop it,” Ellie commanded her shadow.
    It ignored her. Cuddled closer. Good God. How did someone with zero sexual history know to work him just that way?
    Years ago, when he was a science geek in high school, or hell, even any time during his bachelors, masters, and doctorate, he’d have been embarrassing himself right about now.
    “Stop!” Ellie said, yanking her shadow away without taking it back into herself.
    He blinked hard to clear his mind. Blinked again.
    Interest her in something else.
    “There’s a boy missing,” Cam said, which helped to focus him as well. A life at stake.
    Flesh and blood Ellie gave the slightest nod, though the tension on her face didn’t go away. She knew she could trust him with herself, that he wouldn’t screw one willing part when the higher reason wasn’t present.
    He didn’t admit that his honor was sorely tested every single time.
    Ellie depended on him to hold back while she learned mastery. Sometimes her shadow required drastic action like sedation or, that one time, firing a gun at her flesh and blood self to prevent the shadow from committing murder. The shadow could be unstoppable, its only weakness the woman to whom it belonged.
    “JT,” Cam said, to make the reason they were here all the more personal. “He’s lost in darkness.”
    “My baby,” the shadow said, drawing back. Ellie must have identified with Ms. Parson, felt her anguish. She must have taken on some of that maternal instinct.
    Good. This could help.
    “We have to find JT and bring him home,” Cam said. Simple concepts, primal ones, resonated best with the shadow.
    The shadow drew back, sex momentarily forgotten, and spoke in a series of incomprehensible syllables, foreign words, an alien language.
    Cam lifted his gaze to Ellie, who was clearly surprised as well.
    He smiled, trying to ease away the last of her previous discomfort. “You speak faerie now?”
    In a weird way, it made sense—elemental communicating with elemental. Segue would have a field day with this.
    “Sounds like gibberish to me,” Ellie said. “I wish I could understand.”
    “Ummm …” Cam shook his head in wonder. “I think it’s pretty clear that on some level you do.”
     
     
    Ellie exited the lab unit at Cam’s all-clear nod, drawing her shadow after her. The sound of the waterfall got louder, a sense and smell of spray suspended in the air, even with the research units between them. Her shadow tugged to get away, her interest as changeable as a cat’s, but Ellie asserted her mind, her heart, and kept her shadow tethered to its mistress.
    A leash like this was much easier to manage than maintaining the full merge of shadow and flesh. Ellie was tired, yes, but now that the internal strain was relieved, she could think clearly again without feeling so much, so acutely. Cam had been right to separate them before tomorrow. She could get her bearings again, remember who she was without her personal tormentor coloring each thought.
    Another interview with the fae, this time in his native language, and then she would rest, assisted by a sedative to quiet both parts of her. Tomorrow her shadow would walk into magic. Now that the course had been determined, Ellie’s panic had eased, a kind of calm-before-doom slowing her blood.
    They made their way back down a short pitch of trail to the next bit of flat earth, where the fae’s cell was located. The sun had lowered, muting the vivid red of the landscape. Above, the sunset washed the sky white all around, except where the light hit Cathedral Rock and the atmosphere exploded into fireworks of hot color. Huge floodlights had been erected, but they’d yet to be turned on for the evening.
    Soldiers guarded the cell unit, four by Ellie’s count, others stationed at the falls and the perimeter of the camp.
    Ahead of her, Cam paused. Ellie had already ceased moving,