Shadow's Stand by Sarah McCarty Read Free Book Online Page A

carried on a couple more steps. Fei turned in the saddle so she could meet his gaze. There was no emotion in his expression, no emotion in his eyes, but Fei understood the type of anger that came from that kind of pain.
“My mother was white, my father Chinese, of a good family. I know what it is like to have the ancestors frown upon you. It is a curse that doesn’t leave and taints the fortunes of all around.”
Shadow urged his horse closer. “Damn it, Fei. I’m sorry.”
The horse whickered. He seemed such a nice horse, with soft brown eyes. How did he feel being ripped from his life? Leaning over, she patted his neck. “But it is not an excuse to do what you will.”
“Are you about to lecture me?”
“Where did you get the guns?”
“I told you.”
“This horse is well cared for. He was happy in his home. You can see it in his eyes.”
“You’re upset because you think I stole a horse from its happy home?”
“It is not fair to him.”
“Maybe I’m his destiny.”
“And maybe not.”
“Haven’t you ever done anything you weren’t proud of simply because you had no other choice?”
She had. Like leaving her father alone in the room beneath the barn. The room was a sanctuary. It had a well and they kept it stocked with food. Originally, the door only locked from the inside, but she’d been forced to add the bar to the outside. She’d debated bolting the door behind her, but she feared too much that, if something happened to her, her father would never be able to get out. So she’d bound him to the room with lies, telling him the emperor’s troops had located them and they were scouring the area for their hiding place. Hopefully that would keep him in that room and she wouldn’t return to find all her plans broken around her.
“Fei?”
She glanced up to find Shadow studying her with those too-seeing eyes. “Yes?”
“I really can take care of whatever your problem is.”
She was gambling on that very thing, and for that to happen, she had to trust him, but it was hard to trust a man who made his own rules, lived his own way, a man she couldn’t read. Yet he was following her lead without question. She had to know why.
“Why are you doing this?”
“What?”
She motioned with her hands, at a loss for the phrase. She finally settled on, “Doing as I say.”
“You saved my life. That gets you a certain level of cooperation on my part.”
A certain level. That implied an end. “For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
“You are not curious as to my need? What if I want you to kill someone?”
“Then I’ll kill them.”
The shock went through her like a bolt of lightning. “Because I ask?”
He shrugged. “I owe you.”
He would kill someone for no more reason than that she wanted it. Fei didn’t know whether to be grateful or horrified. She’d prayed to her American ancestors for help. This is who they had sent? A man who made promises to kill as easily as other people promised to pick up the post.
“Xei-xei.” Her thanks came out breathless and timid. Everything she didn’t want to be. Shadow stopped her with a hand on her horse’s reins. His eyes were little more than dark shadows beneath the brim of his hat.
“Honey, I’m damn good with a gun and even better with a knife, but I can’t fight enemies I can’t see. You need to tell me where the threat is.”
Yes, she did. For better or worse, her destiny was tangled with his. The time for secrets had passed. She took a breath and held it, controlling the panic. Just this much could ruin everything. “I do not know the threat, but I know it will come to be.”
“Explain.”
“I have found gold.”
“Gold?”
This was not the first time she’d encountered skepticism. When she’d first brought a trace to the assayer in town, just to see if it truly was gold, he had not been excited. But she had been, because she knew how much more there was and her first instinct had been to run home and bring back the nugget, but as she’d