Reborn (Shadow Beast Shifter, #3)(56)

“The cogarish,” Shadow told me. “They’re native to this world. Their horns are used to reinforce a lot of the armor the transcendents wear—when the cogarish dies, of course, since they’re revered and protected here.”

“How many different creatures live in this world?”

Shadow shrugged. “There’s no way to tell. The layers hide everything, but as far as I’m aware, the only true sentient beings are the transcendents. Otherwise, it’s just these smaller creatures.”

“Do the different families here fight with each other?”

Shadow considered my question. “Again, their secrets are their own, but I don’t believe petty squabbles are part of their makeup these days. Their evolution is old and near flawless.”

Flawless. I liked that. Maybe there was a chance one day, if humans and shifters got their shit together, that we, too, might one day be perfect.

Shadow continued on, only stopping when he reached a particular sparkle of light, and as he had done before, he cut through the layer, taking us from the cloudland into one of water. Huge bodies of water that we used our power to walk above.

“Angel can live in any of these levels?” I asked. “Are they all real?”

He looked around, seeing and smelling everything I did. “Is anything truly real? Or is it all a product of our imagination?” Before he bent my brain further with his philosophical questions, he continued. “But as far as I know, each layer here is as real as the one before.”

To test this, I reached down and ran my hand through the water. It was wet and cool, leaving a residue of liquid on my fingertips. When I touched those fingers to my lips, it tasted a little briny.

“How is it that you still don’t understand the danger of putting a foreign object in your mouth?” Shadow asked with a shake of his head. “For all you know, the water here could kill you in an instant.”

I gawked at him. “You didn’t say anything when I had your dick in my mouth. Where was your concern then?”

He blinked, and then he laughed, a deep, rolling rumble that had many parts of my body sitting up and paying attention. When he finally stopped laughing at me, he stepped forward and cupped my cheek. “I’d kill my mother just for the fact that I might have never heard your inane chatter again. You don’t think before you speak, and it’s… refreshing.”

Forcing myself to swallow the thick swell of emotions, I managed a smile. “She will never take this away from us again.”

He nodded, pressing a lingering kiss to my forehead, and… how was that so freaking hot? I would swear I felt it in my vagina, if the flutter there was any indication.

He turned and walked off before I even had a chance to pull myself together. “Wait,” I called after him, hurrying to catch up. “You didn’t confirm that the water won’t kill me?”

“I didn’t confirm that my dick won’t, either,” he called back over his shoulder. “Guess only time will tell.”

I muttered under my breath as I splashed after him, my magic keeping me mostly dry. Shadow didn’t slow until he reached the next layer, and this time, we stepped into the water, popping out into a new layer.

I straightened to find that this level was what I’d liken to the Amazon jungle. It was humid, filled with millions of plants and trees, some towering over us, others bushy and thick, and the scents. An overwhelming number of foreign smells filled my nose, making my head spin for a second before I filtered them out.

“This is the layer she lives in,” Shadow murmured. “I can feel her energy now that we’re here.”

The flutters in my chest went haywire, confirming that the jungle level was the one. “It’s insane. I literally couldn’t feel her in our bond until we got here. I’m starting to understand Angel’s fascination with your mate’s maze house in the realm.”

Shadow let out a rumble of annoyance, and I had to work hard not to smile. Riling him up was too easy, but I really had to stop mentioning Ixana. Mostly because it still hurt to think about that dumb bitch of an ice queen.

“What actually happened to Ixana?” Okay, yeah, maybe I’d stop after this question got answered, since the last time I’d asked, he’d deflected me rather cleverly.

“She was interrogated and disposed of.”

Oh… okay then. “Short, sweet, and to the point, I see.”

He shrugged. “Sweet might be a stretch, but in the end, her crimes were beyond redemption. And she held no remorse—not even as broken as she was after losing the stone she’d been bonded to for a thousand years. She said she would still do it all over again.”

“How did she even find the stone in the first place?” I asked as we started to move through the jungle.

He took a second to answer, focusing on widening the path as we walked. “During her last confession, she admitted that it was her bond with me.” His fury spilled out in his tone. “She kept tabs on me during my years exiled, knowing whom my friends were and what alliances she could manipulate. Apparently, I grew more powerful than she’d expected, and that was to be used to her advantage.” A few trees singed around us, but he managed not to burn the forest down. “I have full access into Len’s territory in Faerie; Ixana could tap into that through the bonds we had with each other from birth. Using my bloodstone as added backup, she figured out how to infiltrate and steal the sunburst stone during one of the Faerie festivals.”