Shadowstorm (The Shadow World Book 6) Read Online Free PDF Page A

violated, but at having his one respite from reality ruined. He wouldn’t be able to relax there now, thinking someone might ignore the door marker again and he’d wake up being gang-banged or worse. That, too, had happened before. Now he had to find something else, something else to make it all go away, before…

    He paused, dizziness rocking him back and forth.
    …before he started to feel. Before he felt the barrier he had built with the steel of his will start to crack; before he could feel the sadness and isolation he had inflicted upon the pure and beautiful soul on the other side. He had to make it stop…or it would build, and build, and destroy him again.
    He returned to the Black Door and tried a few other drugs, but none of them worked like heroin. He had to settle for another clinic, this one less comfortable and its staff less professional; but its rooms had doors that locked.
    The drugs, at least, were grade-A quality, and as soon as he was hooked back up, he shut his eyes and started to slide…
    …until he ruined everything.
    “Seventy years,” came the voice, “And in all that time I never realized what a fucking idiot you are.”
    Deven spun around, confused—but this wasn’t reality, it was dreamtime. He shouldn’t be here—the drugs should have sent him deeper into unconsciousness, past the reach of either memory or dream. He didn’t want either. He didn’t want…
    “Me,” Jonathan said, crossing his arms and leaning against a tree—a redwood. “You didn’t want me.”
    Deven backed up, shaking his head, shutting his eyes against that face, slamming his heart shut against that voice. “No. Go away. If I can’t see you in the real world I don’t want you here.”
    “Are you sure you aren’t just ashamed of your spectacular lack of coping skills?”
    He had expected, if he dreamed about Jonathan, it would be full of longing, tears, and the comfort of the Consort’s arms; instead, he felt only anger. “ You left me, you bastard. You knew you were going to die and you left me alone—alone, in this world I wanted more than anything to leave. Now I’m trapped here for God knows how long—forced to fight, every waking moment, for sovereignty over my own soul. How I cope is none of your goddamn business anymore. You gave up all right to approve or disapprove.”
    “Hate me then, do you?”
    “Yes!” Deven took another step back, both hands fisted at his sides. “Yes, I hate you. I hate you for loving me. I hate you for showing me I could be happy when you knew you were just going to take it away!”
    “No,” Jonathan said reasonably, “you’re the one who’s refusing happiness now. You could take that barrier down at any moment, open yourself up to him—to all of them. You could have a whole host of Consorts, every last one loving you as much as I ever did, if not more. Listen to me, Dev...” He stepped away from the tree, coming closer—like all the ghosts of this plane, he didn’t have feet, but glided, his form just translucent enough that the wisps of trees beyond showed through him. “I loved you with all my soul, but you could never give me all of yours—and that’s how it was supposed to be. I wasn’t your ending.”
    “You were to me!” He found himself batting at his eyes, and realized he was impatiently wiping back tears…of shame…of anger…and above all, of sorrow, that he had once been happy, once the most powerful of his kind, and now here he was, a drug addict and pathetic mess. “I don’t want any of them. I just want you.”
    He was still, now, and felt the ground hit his knees; the scent of dust rose up though there was no dust here at all. He looked up through his blurred vision to the man towering over him.
    “Well, you can’t have me,” Jonathan said gently. “I’m gone, my love. I’m gone. And you can hang on to that hate you have for yourself, for the world…but please…for me…don’t punish the others for it. If you had any idea