Master of the Shadows

He dressed, collected the day’s mail from the slot in his door, and skimmed through it. Among the various business letters, purchase orders, and reports was a postcard from the county courthouse, stating that Robin Archer was scheduled to appear in court for jury selection in two weeks.



“Not again.” He crumpled the postcard and made a mental note to speak once more to their human friends in the Atlanta Police Department about permanently removing Rob’s alias from their computers.



Will walked through the connecting door to the penthouse suite. Immediately he smelled the dark ginger scent of the red-haired mortal from the nightclub whom Robin had brought to his bed. Mild irritation set in as he tracked her path and found that she’d been all over the rooms. He’d have to arrange to have the entire suite cleaned to rid it of her scent.



Will didn’t understand why his master had brought the woman here. He’d always preserved the privacy of his city home as a refuge, a place of retreat from the mortal world and the responsibilities of the jardin. Certainly it hadn’t been for convenience’ sake; the rooms they kept reserved for their use at the hotel had been closer.



At least she’s gone, he thought as he straightened a pillow and moved into the kitchen. He’d been obliged to watch the security cameras until she had left the building, which she had done shortly before dawn.



He couldn’t see what Robin found so interesting about her. She had been a pretty thing, well dressed and pleasantly mannered, but they hadn’t trailed her to the club for her charms. She possessed a great prize, the book Robin had coveted for centuries, and the only true reason Robin had to trifle with her was to help him obtain it—and yet he had brought her here and used her for his pleasure.



Surely there would be complications now. With mortal females, there always were.



Will eased open the door to Robin’s bedchamber, saw the surprising fact that his master was still at rest, and silently gathered the glasses left by the bed table. He took them into the adjoining bath in order to dump the dregs left in them in the sink. He should have persuaded Reese to come to his rooms last night. Even holding her in his arms through the long daylight hours would have greatly improved his rest—and his mood.



“Will?” Robin came to stand in the doorway and looked into the room. “Where is Chris?”



“Do you mean the human female from last night? I cannot say, my lord.” Will shut off the taps and dried his hands. “I assume that she returned to her home after she departed.”



“She left?” His master sounded puzzled. “When? How?”



“’Twas near dawn; I secured the elevator after she used it. I saw no car, so I presume she went on foot. I sorted through the mail, and it seems you were summoned for jury duty again. We can hide from mankind for near a millennia, but try as I may I cannot seem to purge your name from the county courthouse mailing list.” Will’s wry frustration faded as soon as he turned and saw his master’s expression. “What is wrong? Did something happen with the female?”



“Yes. No.” Robin walked away.



Will followed him into the bedchamber, where his master paced around the bed, examining the carpet before he went out to the front rooms. He returned muttering under his breath and disoriented, as if someone had clubbed him over the head.



Will set the glasses aside. “Rob? Why do you look that way? Did she take something?”



Robin ignored him, wandering about the room listlessly, as if lost in it.



Whatever had happened between the mortal and his master, it had not left a favorable impression. Will was just about to inquire of him again when Robin focused on him.



“How did she appear to you when she left?” he demanded. “Was she disoriented? Did she seem upset?”



Will thought back to what he had seen the night before. “I watched her through the security monitors only long enough to assure that she left the building, but she seemed well.”



“How well?”



“She was tidily dressed and moved with purpose. She did not weep or drag her steps. She did not take anything, and she did not look back.” Will didn’t like the change in his master’s expression. What the bloody hell had that female done to make him like this? “Did you not send her down?”



“No.” Robin caught a glimpse of something and moved to the bed, taking from the linens a short length of gold chain. He held it as if it were made of copper—the one metal that could wound the Kyn—and yet examined it as closely as if it were fashioned of priceless diamonds. Then, even stranger, he twined it about his fingers like a lock of a woman’s hair. “I never bade her to go.”



“You…” Will stopped as Robin’s meaning sank in. “I do not understand, my lord. You never allow humans to stay the night.”



“This one I did. Or should have.” Robin put his hand on the bed, smoothing it over the rumpled silk sheets. “I slept with her, and she left me.”



“I’m sure it was for the best. Had she remained and awoken before you—”



“You do not understand me,” Robin snarled. “I fell asleep with her. With her in my arms. I slept with that woman and did not wake, did not dream. I slept as I have not since my human lifetime.” The golden chain disappeared inside his fist. “How could she go like that?”



He was, Will saw, entirely besotted. Utterly enraged.



“You must have compelled her to leave before dawn,” he assured his master. “She would not have departed herself, not while be spelled.”



Robin made a contemptuous sound. “I begin to doubt that she was ever under my power.”



If the female had been impervious to his scent and his charm…“Could she be a Brethren operative?” Will asked. “We have known them to be resistant to l’attrait. ’Tis said they are bred that way.”



“Why would one of those zealots seduce me,” his master countered, “much less leave me alone and sleeping in my bed, when she could kill me or have me taken?”



Will’s worry eased. “True.”



Robin seemed to notice something, and walked over to the bedside table. He lifted the lamp and removed a small square of paper. He unfolded it slowly and, after staring at it for some time, said, “She wrote a note.”



The gingery scent of the woman still radiated from the bed, the strongest concentration of it in the room. Will went over and pulled the coverlet over the sheets to mask some of it. “You would be wise not to contact her again, my lord. A mortal who cannot be compelled is unpredictable, even dangerous.”



“She does not offer me her phone number or contact information,” Robin said in a blank tone. “She thanks me.”



Christ Jesus, she’d used him and left. Will almost laughed at the irony of it—Robin had done the same thing to countless mortal females—until he saw the glitter in his master’s eye and instead cleared his throat. “That was very, ah, polite of her.”



“Am I no one to her, then? Someone she must thank in writing? For what? A mistake she never intends to repeat?” Robin crumpled the paper and tossed it away. “She used me. A mortal. A mortal used me.”



“The stone-hearted bitch.” Will busied himself with tidying the bed pillows. “Shall I track her back to her lair and offer her a sternly worded rebuke, my lord?”



His master kept speaking as if he hadn’t heard him. “She did not purchase anything at the auction last night, but she did register as a bidder. She would have had to show her identification and give them a credit card. You will go to the auctioneer’s office and obtain whatever information they have for her. I particularly want her full name and where she resides.” He frowned. “She told me that she recently transferred here from Chicago. Once you have her full name, call Jaus and ask him to run a background check on her.”



Will often performed background checks on the mortals who did business or came in regular contact with his master; it provided a measure of safety for his lord and sometimes identified potential conflicts before they could happen. But never in all the centuries of serving Robin of Locksley had he investigated one of the females he used for sex. His master’s habits had not changed in seven hundred years: He spent one night with a woman, pleasured her, and then never saw her again. The females he slept with simply didn’t merit any sort of attention from Robin, other than now and then using l’attrait on those who became too spellbound, but only to remove their memories and assure that they would not return to bother him.



“Rob.” He stepped into his path to stop his master’s pacing. “It was ill-mannered of this mortal to leave in such haste, but her actions are hardly worth so much trouble. Forget this.”



“No. I was not finished with her.” Robin went around him, opened the closet, and ripped a shirt from its hanger, rending a sleeve from it in the process. He tossed the ruined garment aside before taking another.



The display of anger startled Will; he decided to choose his next words with more care.



“You know that women of this time are not like Kyn females. They have much freedom and independence, and they do as they wish. They do not respect men as we expect they should, but that is how things are in this society—”



Robin turned on him. “When have you known me to sleep the day through, from dawn to dusk? With a mortal in my bed?”



“Never.”



“Just so.” Robin pulled on the second shirt. “She did something to me, this female. I shall learn exactly what it was.”



He would not allow that the bloody female had simply taken what she wanted and left satisfied. Robin had never dealt very well with resistance or rejection; both reminded him of Marian, the great love of his life, who had neither wanted nor loved him in return.



“She could not drug you or exhaust you.” Will collected the torn shirt from the floor. “Could it be that she made you happy?”



Robin turned on him. “Do I look happy to you now?”