Shadow Rising by Cassi Carver

to let him hurt me, but I have to know for sure before I can let him go.”
    “Heaven help you. If you go down that road, mistress, I can’t protect you—not from a black-wing.”
    She leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to his temple. “I love you, Jaxon. Your friendship is worth more to me than your protection ever will be.”
    “I made a vow to you. I won’t go back on it now.”
    “I can’t tell you how thankful I am for all you’ve done for me. But it’s time for you to follow your heart.” She cupped his cheek and pressed her forehead to his. “I release you.”
    “No, mistress.” He rejected what she was saying with a weighty breath and a shake of his head. “You can’t.”
    “But I do. I don’t have to be your mistress to be your friend. You’ll always have a place in my life.”
    He nodded and stood, but his heart seemed heavy. “And you will always have a place in mine.”
    Kara narrowed her eyes and grinned. “Now go. Abbey’s probably tossing and turning in that big bed all alone. And do me a favor…”
    He turned to her expectantly. “Anything.”
    “Next time you come through that door, have some clothes on. A body like that needs to be covered for the sake of female sanity.”
    Jaxon laughed softly and posed by the door, every inch of his thick thighs and sculpted pecs on display. “You don’t know what you’re missing,” he teased.
    Kara threw a pillow at him right before he slipped out the door, then she fell back into bed with a groan. “I have an idea.”

Chapter Six
    The messenger’s heart raced, but he focused on diffusing his energy and fading into the background, leaving as small a ripple as possible in Brakken’s kingdom.
    Even hand-chosen by the captain of the Mercury warriors, he wasn’t sure his powers were strong enough to deliver the news without alerting the royal guards. Royal guards , he mused, what a fancy name for creatures that were little more than flesh-eating monsters.
    He cast out his awareness, probing ever so carefully until he found Lord Gavin. Then, just a wisp of imagination, the messenger followed the trail of the lord’s essence to a small square room no more than eight feet by eight feet—a seemingly impenetrable stronghold, where the king must have woven the walls of iron will.
    The messenger’s body flowed over the structure, testing, trying every crack and fissure for a way through. How much effort had Brakken put into constructing this place, and why? Was it to keep someone like him out, or to keep his son in?
    With a silent growl, he flattened his essence to the planes of the room when the winged dogs passed by. Each of the three guards sported two heads, enormous mouths and eyes covering their bodies from the tops of their muzzles to the tips of their barbed tails. Their coats bent like short stubs of wheat, but they were hot to the touch, scorching like fire. Whether Brakken had conjured them from mastiffs on the surface was unclear, but they now bore little resemblance to their mortal cousins.
    He calmed his thrumming pulse. I am mist. I am nothing but the shadow of passing clouds.
    But he almost made the mistake of releasing an audible breath when the beasts continued on. If he was discovered, he couldn’t flash quickly enough to evade guards that moved faster than thought.
    He twisted over the room, searching for any gap in the façade, any lapse of Brakken’s concentration long enough to allow entry. And then he found it!
    Thinner than a forgotten memory, he filtered through and emerged again on the other side of the barrier. The room was so much larger once inside, a dozen or more of the square structures could have fit inside it.
    He knew Lord Gavin was a prisoner here, and he had prepared himself for the sight of whatever torture Brakken had devised for his son. So when the massive collection of silken pillows and blankets before him writhed with tangled limbs and the scent of ripe females assailed him, it took a moment