A wail rose in Kathleen’s throat like gorge. She reached out her arms, straining toward her child. So small! Kathleen’s fingertips grazed the mortal world.
But Shadowman held her tight against the wall of his chest. Into her ear, he said, “Forgive me.”
“Please let me hold her.” The separation from her child was a vacuum of pain in her chest. Every nerve screamed in protest. Her marrow burned while her skin went frigid. There was no heart pain like this scoring need, no injury or disease more vicious than tearing her from her child.
His lips moved against her cheek. “You know I cannot.”
How could he be so cruel? Did his cold fae blood spare him this pain? The child was his, too.
Kathleen turned to face Death, bitter recriminations on her tongue. Shadowman looked down on her, his gaze filled with sadness.
“She’ll live,” he said. “Even so small, her lifeline is strong.”
“I want her. She’s mine. Don’t take me now,” Kathleen said. But Death had walked by her side since she was born, holding back the Shadows. She’d always known that one day she’d have to cross. She’d known that bearing her child would part the veil. She’d fought for this very moment.
Kathleen whirled back to view the receding world. Maggie was standing sentry next to the nurse, watching her siphon mucus out of the baby’s nose. Prick for blood. Enclose her in a preemie unit. Her sister looked back once toward the action at the operating table, face gray, eyes aged, but she followed the child out of the room.
“The babe is strong,” Shadowman said. “Like her mother.”
Kathleen would have crumpled to the ground without his firm hold. “I want to know her. I want to be with her. It’s not fair!”
She trembled uncontrollably, gripping his arms for support.
Shadowman was quiet too long, and a new horror bloomed in Kathleen’s mind. She went very still. “Is she like you? Or like me?”
The fae were bound to the Between world, the twilight Shadowlands. They couldn’t exist on Earth, or cross Beyond, like humankind, to the Afterlife.
“She’s both. A half-breed. Our daughter has a foot in each world,” he said. “No one knows what she will become.”
“So I may have lost her completely?”
“I don’t know.”
“And when I cross, I’ll lose you, too?”
His silence answered her.
Pain turned to rage. Strength surged within her. “Nuhuh. No way. I’ll have you both.”
“I warned you before.” His face was in her hair, and she knew he was memorizing her. Taking everything he could before he passed her on to the Hereafter. The trees around them were already stretching into a dark tunnel to oblivion. They had only moments left.
“Yeah, well, I’m not going to accept it.”
She felt a sad chuckle against her body. “Your spirit has always awed me.”
“I’m not letting this happen.”
“It has already happened.” He took her face in his hands, traced her lips with his thumb. “It is the way of the three worlds.”
Kathleen shook her head. “I was supposed to die when I was a kid, and I lived to bear my own,” she said, “so I think I can handle this. What we need is a plan.”
“How I love you.” His gaze searched her face, fierce longing tugging at his black eyes.
“The most important thing first: You look after our girl. Keep her safe.”
Just uttering those words sent fresh pain roaring through her.
He put a hand to her chest, as if to stop the hurt. “Shhh. Yes. How could I not?”
Faery whispers rose on all sides. The air thickened with magic. Kathleen felt Shadowman shift, drawing his cloak around her. They turned together to face the dark canopy, the tunnel to forever. A bright spark glimmered in the distance. The Afterlife.
Kathleen steeled her nerve. “And I’ll find a way back to you both.”
Chapter 1
Twenty-eight years later
Firelight dazzled Shadowman’s eyes. Acrid smoke scorched his nose, throat, and lungs. His hands were blistered by his work, the muscles of his neck and shoulders knotted with strain. But no matter; what Kathleen suffered was far, far worse.
How could it be that she, of all mortals, had been consigned to Hell?
Channeling all his strength, he brought the hammer down and rang the anvil with the force of his blow. The note held, high and piercing, reverberating throughout the cavernous space of the New Jersey dockside warehouse. White sparks flew from the glowing hunk of iron and winked out in the depths of his fae Shadows, now churning around him.
Filtering through his memory, a scrap of talk from the fateful meeting that changed everything, her soft voice laughing with irony: Fancy you being afraid of me.
Yes, fancy that. Afraid. And yet he’d been present nearly every day of her life, the veil between life and death made whisper-thin by her weak heart.