Free Taken By Storm by Emmie Mears Page A

no street lights, but I can see him. He's tall and pale, his hair shaggy and dark. Handsome, like they all tend to be. Symmetrical, muscular, feral.  
    He doesn't answer, but circles me, his indigo eyes assessing me. I meet his gaze, let him take in the fact that my eyes match his.  
    "What is your name?" I ask him. They all pick their own. So far I've yet to meet a shade who didn't use his mother as the point of reference for his name. Saturn's mother was Lena Saturn. Jax's mother was a man called Jack. Mason told me he got his from a jar, but his mother's name was Mae. Mae's son. Mason. Even Evis. Our mother was Eve Storme.  
    The shade doesn't answer. He darts at me, and again I dodge, feeling his heat pass me by. He comes at me again, twisting with a punch aimed at my kidney. I dance away, kicking his arm with a left crescent kick.  
    He smells different than my shade family. We circle one another again, and his eyes meet mine. Still he doesn't speak.  
    When he leaps for me, I jerk out of the way, slicing him again with my blade. The first cut is already healing, and the second isn't quite as deep.  
    I'm going to have to kill him.  
    Grimly, I attack, landing my saber between his ribs. Not even a hint of expression crosses his face as he jumps backward. He spins around, dripping blood. I need him to attack again, so I feint, flowing forward into a crouch and hitting him with a side kick to the chest.  
    His hands grab my ankle at the second my foot impacts him and he flips me backward. My back hits the pavement with a slap of leather, and my breath leaves me. Throwing my weight, I get myself to my feet in one movement. He could have attacked while I was down and didn't.  
    He's not trying to kill me.  
    He's studying me.
    Warier now, I watch him watch me.  
    My grip tightens on the hilts of my swords. I've never had a shade do this. He is very, very different.  
    And then, as suddenly as he appeared, he turns and sprints away.  
    His movement is almost a blur, and I know there's no way I'll catch him, not with the way he's learned to somehow disguise or hide his scent trails.
    But I do know that he wanted me to find him.

CHAPTER NINE

    I arrive home to more bad news. A double murder — shade work — happened while I was out. And as the primary suspect was at that moment otherwise occupied with me and these two people died five miles away, it has to be a new one.  
    Thankfully, Carrick has some good news, too. "I was able to find out who the new host is, the one whose blood we found in Edison's house."
    "How did that happen?"
    He gives me a wry smile. "The police are good for something. They ran DNA on that room and it hit someone with a long record. Assault, more assault, felony theft, fraternizing with hells-zealots, pretty much anything that would make a person a candidate for becoming a hellkin easy-bake exploding oven."
    Carrick's referencing children's toys. Today is a strange day.
    "You've got his name and address?" I ask.
    Jax nods. He's sitting at the dining room table with a yellow legal pad, looking studious, if naked.
    I think back to my hunt for Lena Saturn. She wasn't being kept at her place — she shared a hovel with her band, who seemed little more than squatters and all ended up splatted.  
    "Your mothers," I say. "Where did they stay while they were pregnant with you? I'm guessing not at home."
    All three of the shades shake their heads.  
    "My experience is likely less than helpful," Carrick says. "It was in the English countryside four hundred years ago, and isn't particularly analogous."
    "Mine was in a basement," Jax says. His eyes stare off into the wall as if he's looking into the face of the past. "It felt familiar, like he'd been there before. There were other people there, other hells-zealots."  
    The word sounds strange from his lips, because it's mine and not his.  
    "My mother, she didn't leave that place for weeks. They brought her food." He pauses, looking at me. "They