Reclaimed (Shadow Beast Shifters, #2)(11)

“Stay back,” I warned, stupidly because I had zero weapons to use against it.

Mine.

The word filtered through my head and since it was not my thought or internal voice, I quite rightfully had a mini freak-out. A cold blast of foreign energy wrapped around me, and almost in the same instant, my arm started to respond.

I lifted it so I could quickly check it over, pausing at the sight of a shimmery purple mark on my palm. In the exact spot I’d just touched Inky Two.

This wasn’t good. This was not good.

Mine.

Again! What the fuck? “Did… you just talk to me?”

It drifted closer, and while not touching me, I could literally feel the power it wielded. I hadn’t been able to do that before I’d been marked with a purple tattoo scarily close in color to the mist itself.

You are ours. We belong to the same land. You called me and now we are bonded.

It swelled larger, its sparking synapses flashing in the same way as Inky.

Wait… bonded?

“I don’t want to be bonded with you!” My words came out shouty, but it was starting to turn into an epic sort of joke how all of these powerful things just bonded to me, or kidnapped me, or rejected me without asking for my damn permission.

You will grow used to our bond. It will be as if you never knew life without this connection.

Yeah, somehow I strongly doubted that.

“I knew Inky could communicate,” I bit out, pissed as fuck.

Like I’d summoned Shadow’s bonded mist, the original Inky burst into sight from behind some shelves, all swelled up and sparking like crazy. Seeing them together it was clear the purple one needed its own name, so I decided on a whim to go with Midnight. Seemed fitting.

They started to circle each other, and in this close proximity, all but facing off against the other, their differences were so obvious that I wondered how my dumb ass had ever thought Midnight was Inky.

They were both clearly mists, though. Had Midnight been part of the huge mist I’d called in my fury on Earth? Was this a section that had escaped my attempt to return it?

“Stop it!” I shouted when they started sending sparks at each other, clearly not friends. The two mists obeyed almost immediately—to my fucking surprise—moving and drifting apart.

Midnight swelled, starting to shake. I’d always assumed that when Inky did that, it was laughing, and sure enough, there was a weird vibration of sound in my mind.

The mists’ version of amusement.

You will come to appreciate me being on your team.

Somehow I doubted that I would ever appreciate having a voice in my head.

“Inky,” I said turning to Shadow’s minion. “Can you please get your bonded bastar—beast. Your bonded beast. I need to have a quick word with him about Midnight.” I jerked my head toward the other smoke cloud.

Inky thankfully didn’t “argue” with me, disappearing fast, and I warily watched Midnight, my pillow held in front of me like that would keep it back.

Midnight?

It didn’t need to be close or touching me to project thoughts, and I shook my head at the invasive feeling. “You have midnight purple in your colors and Inky doesn’t. It helps keep things straight in my head if I name them. I’m sort of human in that way.”

It jiggled again, and I felt the connection of thoughts and realities as it sifted through my memories of Earth. Of human television. Of the past and future as we knew or guessed at. In mere minutes, it had the complete and total knowledge of everything I’d taken twenty-three years to learn.

The mists were scarily powerful, and I wasn’t sure I was capable of handling this new bond, but there seemed to be very little I could do about it. Maybe Shadow would know a way to sever the bond.

Speaking of, where the fuck was he?

Wait… Why had Inky even needed to leave to get Shadow? Could they not communicate over long distances? Supposed I had the perfect entity to ask…

“Can you talk in my head if I’m far from you?”

It swelled. The mark on your palm is part of my energy, and through it, I can feel your life force, but for us to communicate, we have to be in close proximity. Especially while the bond is so new. But if you need me, through time and space, I can feel it.

Then it was similar to the bond Angel thought would eventually grow for us, but with Midnight, it was near instantaneous.

“What exactly are you?”

Midnight rushed forward and wrapped around my arms in a similar manner to how Inky acted with Shadow. There was no pain or numb limbs this time, just a pleasant warmth, my palm tingling hardcore until the bond between us settled. It was the way I imagined owning a snuggly pet would feel… comforting.

Before I could contemplate my new companion, flashes of a world appeared in my head. Memories. But not mine.

The Shadow Realm was created through a collision of two energies, Midnight said, showing me swirling black and purple sparkles. One looked like fairy lights, the other glittering diamonds, and when the two met, it was an atomic bomb in force.

Midnight had been there. At the first creation of its world.

Well, damn.

Way to make a shifter feel somewhat insignificant and infantile.

It took a long time for the dust to settle, and when it did, the mists blanketed the entire land, a living energy that allowed an ecosystem to form below. First came the waters, and then the lands grew above. The creatures, the freilds, who are like humans, and the royals evolved after that. The two mists still war, and it’s only in the place of origin that we are bonded. Here, where the creatures are born, is the one place you’ll find pure and complete creation.