The Hollow Ball

Chapter 15

Mist swirled across the garden like an infernal serpent. The warmth of the garden caressed my cheeks beneath my mask, moonlight forming spotlights between gaps in the trees. Just over the tallest hedge, the orange fire glowed from Artemis Hall.

Nowhere for me to run. Nowhere for me to hide.

"Leave me alone," I whispered. The words slipped from my tongue quicker than my mind could register. I expected to feel regret next, but the warmth crawling over my skin flared, encouraging me. "You can't have me yet."

Not when West was nowhere to be found. Not when Maeve needed me. Only when I uncovered the mystery of Ronan, my dreams, and the opal that whispered to me now, telling me to get away.

"Leave you alone?" the silky, arrogant voice asked. In a swirl of glittering black mist, a broad-shouldered figure emerged from the aether, dressed in an immaculate white suit, the moonlight highlighting the tops of his cheekbones and aquiline nose. Beautiful didn't even begin to describe the black-haired Shadow. "You come to my party and then refuse to participate?"

"Forgive me, Lord Shadow," I said quickly, that boldness dissipating beneath his piercing red stare, replaced with the urge to submit to the ones we worshiped. It was not my place to question what happened next. I was not supposed to fight or resist.

Yet everything inside of me screamed of the wrongness. It screamed that I needed to fight and run and live.

"And now you ask for forgiveness?" He chuckled. "I expect you'll ask for mercy next."

My heart pounded in my chest.

"Luckily, I have other plans," the Shadow continued. "Would you like to play a party game with me, pet?"

He did not wait for my answer. Instead, the creature melted into elongated shadows that painted the stony pathway like remnants of a fire. Frantically, I followed his movements, the lines of what was cold darkness and where the Shaodw moved blurring in the night.

"What is the game?" I asked. My back was still pressed against the prickly shrubbery—thorny leaves digging through my dress like needles—and I prayed the garden didn't move again. "And your name, Lord Shadow?"

"What sort of question is that?" the Shadow asked. "Who are you to ask my name?"

"We are playing a game, my lord. It's proper the players know each other. My name is Hayley."

A beat of silence.

"My name is Loeki."

"What is the game, Lord Loeki?"

Loeki, whose face shimmered in and out of the darkness enough to display his wolfish, white-teeth grin, laughed. That smile moved closer until I knew that the Shadow stood in front of me, and a bony-white hand emerged from the darkness to stroke the edges of my mask.

"Such a pretty mask," he murmured. "Such a pretty girl beneath it, I'm sure. Tell me, sweetest one, is your soul just as delicious as the color of your lips?"

In the blink of an eye, the Shadow revealed himself again, white suit replaced with wispy black robes, his face human, and he pressed his body against mine, caging me against the foliage. A different sort of fear coursed through me—one that felt worse than the prospect of losing my soul.

"I thought you wanted to play a game, Lord Loeki," I rasped. "Please I—"

"How about this one?" he asked, closing the distance between our faces until my focus dissipated and I tasted his every cold, bitter breath. "You run and then I kill you?"