Shadow Kissed 03 - Shadowman

aloud?
    â€œNope.” He took a huge bite.
    Layla carefully put her fork down. He read my mind.
    Mouth full, Custo gave her half a grin and a howdy-do nod, confirming her suspicion. Marcie had gone quiet, stealing a quick glance at them both, then put dishes in the sink. Her sudden retreat set the butterflies flying in Layla’s belly.
    Custo looks weird and he can read my mind.
    â€œI can’t help the way I look,” he grumbled and shoved another bite in his mouth. He chewed casually, at home, without care. As if this wasn’t a huge deal.
    Layla slid off her stool and backed away from Custo, who went on eating. First Khan, the sudden pain from the gate, then the ghost, now this. She put her hands on her skull to smother her thoughts. Any thoughts at all, but still they came. So invasive, but don’t overreact. He looks weird, yes he does, weird. These people are freaks of nature. I can’t help my thoughts, and anyway it isn’t how he looks that bugs me. It’s the mind-reading thing. No privacy. I have a right to think what I want. Feel what I want. It’s what a person does that’s important.
    â€œI hate it myself, and my wife has banned me completely from her brain. I keep telling her that there are times when it could be useful”—he waggled his eyebrows—“but she won’t budge.”
    â€œCan I ban you from my brain, too?”
    He wiped his mouth on his napkin. “Sure. I found out what I needed to know anyway.”
    What? What did he find out? What terrible thing has he learned about me?
    He strode to the dishwasher with his empty plate and placed it sideways in the rack. Dropped his fork and knife in the silverware caddy, too. “That it’s best to be up front and that what a person does is most important.”
    Oh. Okay. That didn’t make her sound so bad. But just because he had the ability to read her thoughts didn’t mean he had the right. How could Marcie stand it? Layla knew she herself couldn’t. With so much power at Segue’s disposal, how could they ever have thought she’d be a threat to them? The mind reading alone ensured that she couldn’t act against their wishes without their knowing.
    He stopped at the doorway. “You’ve got one thing wrong, though, and it’s bound to become a huge problem for you. Considering the players involved, it might even cost lives. Or worse, souls.”
    What the heck was he talking about? She had neither magic, like Khan, nor extraordinary ability, like Custo.
    Custo’s gaze darkened. “You’re at the boundary of Shadow now. Segue straddles it more than it ever has, even as Adam strives to hold the darkness back. What you think and what you feel here are just as important as what you do. Maybe more. Temet Nosce. ”
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    â€œIt’s the best advice I can give you, and, sister, you need it. Know thyself. ”
    Now she was angry. “I do. I’m Layla Mathews. I know who I am.” Where did he get off suggesting otherwise?
    â€œOh, okay,” he conceded easily. He turned to leave, pushing open the swinging door and tossing over his shoulder, “Then you know you’re one of the weird ones, too.”

Chapter 7
    Once in Twilight, Khan trembled as Shadow dissolved the mortal body he’d worked so hard to hold. He strained to retain a semblance of Kathleen’s Shadowman but was too weak to stop the cyclone of his dissolution. The cold, wild tendrils claimed him again, and he became the Reaper, a Shadow-fae consciousness wrapped in darkness. Instantly, the keening of his scythe filled him, the curved blade a hated extension of himself, paining him like a ghost limb.
    â€œSo lift the blade again,” a soft voice said.
    Moira. He didn’t look upon the lie of her lovely face. The long fall of gold hair, the youth shining from her sunny skin, eyes that matched the earth’s blue sky. Of her three faces, this countenance promised life and health, but her nature was age old and rotten with it. Fate.
    She’d cut Layla’s lifeline from the fabric of humanity, and he’d stood by and watched her do it. Moira was the inevitable.
    â€œAll mortals must die,” she crooned. “Even your woman. Only the blade is eternal.”
    His scythe, his fate. A legacy of death.
    No. To take up his blade again would sever him forever from Kathleen. He’d take what little time he