Read Shadowlark for Free Online Page B

before us in the mouth of the alley, framed in the moonlight. I could only see its white eyes glittering, fixed on us, burning with hunger.
    Tansy and I lurched back and to the side until our backs hit the brick wall of the building. The fifth shadow advanced on us, its harsh breathing labored and thick with wanting.
    The shadow family caught up, the largest stepping up to corner us. Brandon , I tried to remind myself, my brain clinging desperately to the knowledge that just an hour ago these had been people, kind and decent, and oblivious to what they really were.
    The other three members of the family sent up a low, sighing wail, and I turned my face away, willing my stolen magic to change them back before one of them pounced on me or Tansy.
    The Brandon-shadow growled low, the sound building—I knew he was about to snarl and leap.
    When it came, I shoved back against the wall, instinct trying to find a way to escape.
    But where I’d expected pain and blood and the crunch of my own bones, I heard only an answering snarl of rage.
    I opened my eyes. The Brandon-shadow had leaped not for me, but for the fifth shadow. They were no more than a tangle of teeth and muscle and sinew, feral screams. Blood splashed onto the pavement, inky-black in the moonlight. The Brandon-shadow broke away with a cry of pain.
    No longer silhouetted, the fifth shadow was easier to see.
    I stopped breathing. No. It can’t be him. My mind refused to believe what my eyes were telling me.
    The other shadows jumped on him, the children and mother together, and my eyes blurred with tears of shock and confusion and focus as I tried to concentrate. Tansy slumped to the ground, overwhelmed, still shaking violently from the aftereffects of being harvested.
    The knife was still in my hand. My fingers tightened around it, but the fight was moving so quickly I couldn’t track who was where, only that it was still going, that the fifth shadow was still fighting. One of the smaller shadows was flung free, stumbling against the opposite wall of the alley.
    The Brandon-shadow barked a short command, wordless and wild, and the remaining two shadows broke away and backed up, limping and snarling their rage. After a few more wails and whimpers, the family turned and loped away, vanishing down the other end of the alley.
    The fifth shadow turned toward us, its breathing harsh and irregular. I heard Tansy gasping for breath at my side, trying to rise despite the way her legs and arms shook. I put a hand on her shoulder, my own fingers trembling.
    Though she could not have understood, Tansy slumped back, too weary to try again.
    I summoned every ounce of courage and stepped forward. The shadow snarled a warning, half-fury, half-anticipation. The hunger in its voice was unmistakable.
    I swallowed, licked my lips.
    “Oren?”
    He didn’t react, his white eyes fixed on my face, his teeth bared and bloody from the wounds he’d inflicted and received. His hands clenched and unclenched, the muscles in his legs quivering as he stood there, struggling with himself. He twitched forward only to jerk back, the tendons standing out on his forearms, in his neck.
    I started to lift my hand and too late remembered that it was the one holding the knife.
    The shadow leaped forward, raging, grasping at my shirt and jerking me in close so that I felt the heat of his breath, smelled the grass and the wind and the metallic tang of blood. He growled a low, desperate, drawn-out sound.
    The growl turned to a gasping groan, the breath shuddering in and out of him. He stumbled forward, his body heavy against me. Suddenly the hand twisted in the fabric of my shirt wasn’t holding me close—it was holding him up, and my knees sagged with his weight.
    He coughed and reached out with his other hand for me, trying to keep himself from falling. He lifted his eyes, anguished—for the briefest instant I saw them flicker from white to palest blue.
    Then his grip failed and he dropped like a stone,