Reborn (Shadow Beast Shifter, #3)(96)

“Don’t let it touch you,” Shadow warned, his voice an annoyed snap. “It’s a lot like the tar that almost killed you last time we were in the realm. Only this is worse. The porous underside of this creature is filled with razor-sharp needles that dig into your skin to suck your energy out.”

“It shouldn’t infiltrate my skin now,” I reminded him, while still sidling closer because the thought of being coated in a layer of bitey moss… Yeah, no thanks.

“No risks, Sunshine. No more damn risks.”

I nodded because it was a good plan.

As we walked through slowly, I was relieved to see that the moss was wary of our fire and didn’t venture closer. It slid across the walls, showing just how quick it could move to attack any normal being entering or leaving this castle. A second layer of defense, in Dannie’s insane plan.

“She must have had a reason to keep the creatures locked in here,” I said softly, finally breathing freely once we’d made it past the entrance. “Something to do with her plan once she had the Nexus complete.”

“No doubt they would form part of her new world,” he said shortly, before focusing on the next obstacle in our way.

I did the same, eyeing the window-lined hall, which was clearly a thoroughfare into the rest of the castle. It looked fairly innocuous when we first stared down it, right up until Shadow sent a small ball of power along it and a bunch of arrows fired in unison.

“What the fuck?” I exclaimed, shaking my head. “This is due to all the times Dannie made me watch Indiana Jones. She loved the ancient booby traps.” The bitch had created her own pyramid of disasters to keep her prisoners in their cage. It was fitting that she herself was also in a cage.

Shadow wasn’t worried about this hall, his power shielding us as we walked along. This particular set of traps was definitely geared toward regular inhabitants of the realm, not those of us who were a touch more powerful.

“This is really not as impressive an Indian Jones adventure as I expected,” I grumbled to Shadow as we made it through the hall. “Just… moss and arrows. Not very inventive.”

His chuckle was low. “One day, in the very near future,” he said, his deep voice a caress on my senses, “you and I will spend a week in bed, where I destroy your body, and in between, you can let me be part of this world of movies you enjoy. Like Indiana Jones.”

I coughed. “I legitimately heard nothing after the destroying my body part, but it doesn’t even matter what you said. My answer is yes. Always yes.”

“Now you’re getting it, Sunshine,” he said with a small smile.

Shaking my head to clear the lust from it, I focused again on what was awaiting us next, but it appeared that Dannie had run out of boring ideas after the first two.

The next room was an outdoor courtyard. In my head I was arranging the castle layout, seeing that the outer thoroughfare of a hall led around the outside, while at the center was this large, open space with no roof and plenty of room for recreational activities.

This was the gathering point for all who made their home here. Market stalls and socialization and parties. Made sense that this was where we’d find them—not just my creatures, but thousands of royals and freilds and other inhabitants.

I blinked at the sight, not expecting to see so many Shadow Realm beings here. And clearly, they returned the sentiment, gaping at the two fire-coated weirdos who had wandered into the middle of them.

The murmurs were immediate, and I noted how bedraggled they all looked. Thin, dirty, and more than a little broken. Dannie hadn’t killed them yet, but she also hadn’t treated them like anything other than trash waiting to be tossed to the dump.

“We have to help them,” I whispered to Shadow, barely able to look at their poor faces, terrified but also resigned. They were preparing for the worst.

“Yes,” he snapped, seemingly unable to get more words out through his anger. At least until he said, “Are your creatures here as well?”

“I don’t actually know. I feel their energ—” I didn’t get to finish my sentence because that was the moment they crept into view. Maybe I’d somehow called them with those words, or maybe they’d just been slower to appear, but as the hundreds of shadow creatures made their presence known, my power exploded.

I hadn’t done anything to initiate the explosion, the power reacting of its own accord, in a similar way to how my wolf used to occasionally burst free from my skin. This time, it was the change, washing over me so I went from human-looking Mera to phoenix wolf Mera in a heartbeat, flaming wings and all.

Shadow’s chest rumbled, his energy reacting too, as he shifted into his Anubis form, flames still surrounding us both. Our clothing was destroyed again, the energy of our shift always leaving us naked, but in this form the extra hair covered us.

There was a beat of stunned silence, and then the royals rushed forward, bowing and chanting at us. They called us “Nexus gods” and offered up every sacrifice one could think of in worship. I had no idea what I was going to do with fourteen thousand barrels of “gre gre,” or what gre gre even was, but apparently, I was going to have more than enough of this unknown item coming my way soon.

As immensely uncomfortable as this entire situation made me, I didn’t belittle their actions or beliefs in any way, nodding and thanking them before focusing my attention on my creatures.