Shadow Born (The Dark Shade Book 1) Read online

  Shadow Born

  THE DARK SHADE - BOOK 1

  D.N. HOXA

  Contents

  Also by D.N. Hoxa

  Untitled

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Also by D.N. Hoxa

  Copyright © 2022 by D.N. Hoxa

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of

  America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or

  artwork herein is prohibited. This is a work of fiction. Names,

  characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s

  imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely

  coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  Also by D.N. Hoxa

  Smoke & Ashes Series (Completed)

  Firestorm

  Ghost City

  Witchy Business

  Wings of Fire

  * * *

  The New Orleans Shade Series (Completed)

  Pain Seeker

  Death Spell

  Twisted Fate

  Battle of Light

  * * *

  The New York Shade Series (Completed)

  Magic Thief

  Stolen Magic

  Immoral Magic

  Alpha Magic

  * * *

  The Marked Series (Completed)

  Blood and Fire

  Deadly Secrets

  Death Marked

  * * *

  Winter Wayne Series (Completed)

  Bone Witch

  Bone Coven

  Bone Magic

  Bone Spell

  Bone Prison

  Bone Fairy

  * * *

  Scarlet Jones Series (Completed)

  Storm Witch

  Storm Power

  Storm Legacy

  Storm Secrets

  Storm Vengeance

  Storm Dragon

  * * *

  Victoria Brigham Series (Completed)

  Wolf Witch

  Wolf Uncovered

  Wolf Unleashed

  Wolf’s Rise

  * * *

  Starlight Series (Completed)

  Assassin

  Villain

  Sinner

  Savior

  * * *

  Morta Fox Series (Completed)

  Heartbeat

  Reclaimed

  Unchanged

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  One

  There is no daylight in the Dark Shade.

  The people are afraid in the Dark Shade.

  Red-eyed beasts are always watching you in the Dark Shade.

  * * *

  The darkness spread around me, consuming the sky and the ground, keeping me in place. I tried to move, I willed my body to take a step, but I couldn’t. My own mind stopped me. My limbs stayed frozen, even when panic spread over every inch of me. Instincts failed me, powerless against my fear, and a bloody war went on in my head.

  Part of me insisted that now was the time to run.

  Another stronger part claimed it would be useless to bother, that I should save the strength to fight instead.

  But the strongest of all whispered in my ear that it was already over.

  Red lights slowly began to glow into existence ahead of me. There weren’t as many as I’d hoped, and they hovered about eight feet over the ground. Even though they didn’t give much light, it was better than nothing—the nothing that was behind me. If I was brave enough to turn and look, it would be right there. Just a void—spaceless, timeless.

  And they would be there to guard it.

  How had I gotten myself in this situation? How had I ended up out here in the dark, all alone, with only the red lights showing me bloody silhouettes of structures that made no sense to me at all?

  Think, I urged myself. I needed to think. I needed to find a way to get to safety.

  My own voice mocked me in my mind. There is no such thing as safety here.

  And I was most definitely not alone.

  The sound of movement reached my ears first, and my eyes closed involuntarily. My instincts demanded I move, but my body was as stiff as ever. A spell had been cast on me—that would make the most sense.

  Except the only magic I felt on me, inside me, was mine.

  Through the corner of my eye, I saw the shadows surrounding me. In my mind, I’d already pictured the beasts. Their heads reached over my shoulders and their terrifying antlers, like branches on a dead tree, a couple of feet higher. Their eyes were as red as the lights ahead, and their teeth as sharp as the tip of my sword.

  I screamed, but no sound left my lips. Their hooves hit the ground—loud and hard, right behind me. I felt the warmth of their bodies as they passed me by. There were three of them, and the smallest weighed at least four hundred pounds, and it was so easy to imagine them swallowing me in a bite, and so easy to surrender myself to the fear…

  There was nothing I could do but wait.

  Their breath left their nostrils in thick tendrils of steam. They were so close I could touch them if I just reached out a hand. One on the right, two on the left, and I had to watch them come closer, sniff me, and shake their massive heads like my scent disgusted them.

  One of them grunted. My eyes squeezed shut. I knew what they were—the beasts who guarded the darkness, who didn’t let anyone come or go. They were merciless to those who tried.

  Those like me.

  Maybe that’s what I was doing out here in the open, alone. Maybe I was the fool trying to escape.

  And the beasts smelled it on my skin.

  Another scream went on in my head, but my lips remained sealed. The beasts growled in unison, and the taste of death coated my tongue.

  Darkness swallowed me whole.

  My eyes opened to an unfamiliar ceiling. My hair stuck to my cheeks, my chest moved up and down fast. My muscles were still locked, my blood infused with fear.

  A dream, my mind whispered to me. Only a dream.

  But that didn’t mean it wasn’t real.

  Sitting up, still completely disoriented, I took in my surroundings. The bedside table, the white wardrobe, the clothes all over the floor, and most importantly—the windows. It was still daylight outside, by some miracle. The breath I didn’t know I was holding left me in a sigh.

  How had I allowed myself to fall asleep here?

  I jumped off the bed, gathered my clothes, and went to the windows, as if I could stop the sun from setting if I just kept staring at it. My mind spu
n with the dream, still too shocked by the images I’d seen a hundred times before.

  There is no daylight in the Dark Shade.

  The people are afraid in the Dark Shade.

  Red-eyed beasts are always watching you in the Dark Shade.

  That was all I remembered, everything my mind was able to come up with when I thought of those three words: the Dark Shade.

  Home.

  I strapped my bra and put my shirt on, already impatient for nightfall. A few more minutes were all I had.

  “Who are you?”

  The voice coming from behind me stopped me in place for a second. The hair on my arms stood at attention. Slowly, I pulled my shirt down and turned to look at him.

  The man lay on the same bed I’d woken up in, stark naked still, all his assets on display. His cheeks were flushed, his brown eyes glistening, a lazy, satisfied smile playing on his wide lips.

  The rush that went through me had nothing to do with him. It was just that question that turned the blood in my veins ice cold.

  I hated that question.

  “You know who I am.”

  Jeans—where were my jeans?

  I found them near the bed’s leg and put them on, all the while reminding myself to take in deep breaths.

  “No—I mean, who are you really? Because I feel like I don’t know you at all, Kal. You never even talk to me,” the man complained.

  My back was turned to him, so he didn’t see me flinching.

  “I’m talking to you right now, Tom. You shouldn’t have let me fall asleep.” Where the hell were my sneakers? Probably somewhere in the hallway. I’d toed them off as soon as we’d come into Tom’s apartment. “You know who I am. You know my name. You know what I do for a living.” What more did he need to know?

  My sneakers were by the door, one on either side of the narrow hallway. Tom wrapped the blue sheets around his hips and stood up while I picked up my purse and ran my fingers through my hair.

  “You barely slept for five minutes. Stay a while,” he said, and it was all I could do not to move away in disgust. I wasn’t trying to be a bitch, but this was not that kind of a relationship. “This is the third time we’re doing this and you leave right away.”

  The third and last time, apparently. This had been a mistake. My need to feel something, to try to awaken a side of me I didn’t even know existed for sure, had gotten me in trouble before. If I let it, it would get me in trouble with Tom, too.

  “Actually, I can’t stay. I have to get to work. See you around?” I said, a bit freaked out. It wasn’t him—I could handle people just fine. It was that stupid dream that wouldn’t leave me alone, even when I didn’t sleep at night just to avoid it.

  But Tom wouldn’t hear it. He came closer to me, holding onto the sheets around him with one hand, reaching out the other to push my hair away from my face. I gritted my teeth and let him. It made no sense that I didn’t want him to touch me now. Hadn’t we just been in that bed together? I’d even slept next to him. For five minutes only, but still.

  “I thought you were the cute tailor from the witch shop. Where does she go when night falls? Where do you go, Kal?”

  Chills ran down my spine.

  The girl he knew was nothing but the facade I allowed other people to see. It was my avatar, my face to the world. But the real me only came out to play after dark. It had been that way for five years now, and I thought I was careful in keeping that part of my life concealed from the rest of the world—or at least most of the people who knew me. Guess I’d gotten a bit rusty. I hadn’t taken a man to bed in a long time, but the longer it gets, the easier to fool myself, to trick myself into trying again.

  Because what if this next time, I’d feel it? What if this next time, there was something there—a spark, a memory, anything?

  There never was.

  I picked Tom up because a friend introduced us and he seemed like a nice guy. An inattentive guy. My sense of judgment was apparently rusty, too. I’d have to work on that.

  I moved away from Tom. “I really have to go now.”

  He smiled as if he’d expected nothing better from me. “Sure, Kal. I’ll see you,” he said, and before this got even more awkward, I slipped out the door and closed it behind me.

  With my head down, I walked out of the apartment building and hurried down the street to mine. I hadn’t lied to Tom—I really had work to do. Helena had been nice enough to stay for a couple of hours after her shift ended today, but she had a family dinner to get to, and I’d promised to be there before seven p.m. to close shop.

  It only took me three minutes to get to it and my apartment that was a floor above. It wasn’t a big shop, and it didn’t stand out from the rest of the stores lining the street, but it was mine, and I loved it. I loved every dress in it, too. They were the ghosts of the memory of who I used to be. Of a life I didn’t remember. I liked to think that it had been a good life. Surely a better life than this, but I didn’t know for sure.

  Helena was out the door as soon as I stepped in. The shop was empty, and even though it was still a bit early, I locked it and turned the sign over. With a deep sigh, I tried to let go of the fear that tightened my chest.

  It worked because my dresses distracted me. I took a second to admire the fabrics, the magic in them. They were all black. I didn’t work with colors because black was the only one my magic stuck to for whatever reason. My dresses were made for supernaturals, anyway. I didn’t sell to humans. Not one of my customers had complained about the lack of colors so far.

  As I went through the motions of closing the register, checking the shelves, cleaning the floor, my mind was at ease again, the fear already faded. That dream got to me like nothing else, even though I didn’t have it as often ever since I started staying awake at night. Not ideal, but I’d do anything to keep as far away from it as possible.

  The door at the back of the shop led to a narrow stairway and the second floor. I walked into my apartment that didn’t feel like my apartment at all, even though it was. The man it belonged to before passed away almost a month ago. Everything he’d owned was now mine. It had shocked me just as much as when he’d taken me in, but Augustus Nix had never really made much sense to people—and he’d liked it that way.

  I dropped the keys on the dining table and began to take my clothes off. By the time I was in the bathroom, I was naked, and the change began. The square mirror over the sink showed it to me, and I watched, even though I didn’t really want to see it.

  My skin was pale, my eyes wide and silver, the eyes of an elf. But I was no elf. Their hair was silver and mine was white—the kind of white only magic can create. Their ears were pointed at the tip; mine were perfectly round. Their canines were on the sharper side; mine were very ordinary.

  My hair reached below my breasts, and the tips of it were already turning black. I watched the color crawl up to my roots, almost hypnotizing me as it went. And when the minute was over, every strand of hair in my head looked like it was woven by the night itself.

  I leaned closer to the mirror like I’d done a thousand times before and inspected my face. Round cheeks, tiny mouth with full lips, straight enough nose. Nothing else was different about me. Everything remained the same—even my dark brown eyebrows. Only my hair ever changed. White, as soon as the sun rose; black, when it set.

  It was pointless to wonder why now, just as it had been the first time I’d seen it happen, so I didn’t bother. Five minutes later, I walked to my room wrapped in towels. My closet didn’t have any colors in it, either—just black and a few white shirts. Augustus said that because I spent all my energy making dresses, I didn’t have any left to wear them—or at least dress better than I did. He did like the white gold rings I kept on my fingers, though. They were a gift from him, given to me on the first anniversary of our shop, and even though I’d only put them on because of him at first, they’d grown on me. Now, I never took them off.

  The itch in the palm of my right hand became m
ore and more persistent until I finally spread my fingers and let out my magic. Ribbons made of shadows slipped out of my skin, merging together into a ball first, before they began to give shape to four legs, a tail, and finally, a head. The head of a panther with a pissed off look in her lime green eyes. My shadow pet, even though I’d never dare to call her a pet to her face.

  “You know better than to keep me locked for so long,” Zahara said, cranking her neck to the sides, as if she had muscles and bones. She didn’t—she was made of shadows, a manifestation of my magic. It was what made her, what sustained her.

  “Sorry. I had no choice. Busy day at the shop, and then I was with Tom,” I said on my way back to the bathroom to dry my hair.

  Zahara followed me, her footsteps silent because they were no footsteps at all, just shadows.

  “Tom,” she said with a flinch, showing me her sharp teeth as big as my fingers. “What is so special about that guy?” She moved around the small bathroom, almost pushing me into the sink. I could touch her like she was made of physical matter, but no other living thing could. Anyone who had ever tried went right through her.