Reclaimed (Shadow Beast Shifters, #2)(26)

I snorted. “Isn’t he always out of control, bursting into flames, growling and grumbling at everyone?”

She actually laughed out loud. “Firstly, you’re probably not going to believe this, but Shadow was rarely out of control before he met you. And secondly, most of the time, even when he’s using his power and rumbling his words, it’s still controlled. The smoke show is all deliberate to achieve whatever end he’s after. But with you, it’s an actual loss of control.”

“He’s not the only one,” I admitted. “How can I hate him so desperately one minute, and then the next, feel like I’ll die if I don’t kiss him?”

My fingers lifted to brush across my lips. “That was my first real kiss,” I whispered. That bullshit with Torin didn’t count. Fucker. “How pathetic.”

Angel ground to a halt. “He kissed you?”

In my surprise, I stumbled forward as well. “Uh, yeah, he did.”

She swallowed roughly. “Are you sure?”

What? Whaaat?

“Uh, yeah, pretty sure. I mean, I’m inexperienced, but even I know what a kiss is.”

She was starting to worry me now as she paced back and forth, her blades finally relaxing in her hands.

“Angel!” I snapped. “What are you trying to tell me? Why are you so shocked about Shadow kissing me?”

I mean, yeah, I got that I wasn’t his usual type, but surely, the idea that he might have kissed me wasn’t insane enough to merit this reaction.

She stopped moving, meeting my gaze. “Did you know that the royals of Shadow Realm have true mates?”

I shook my head because I was pretty sure that hadn’t come up.

“They do,” she continued. “Sometimes they are betrothed at birth, and sometimes it happens when they find the perfect match and perform the ceremony. Before they find this one, they will be open sexually, but they never…” She swallowed roughly. “And I can’t reiterate the never enough. They never kiss someone who is not their mate.”

“What?” I breathed.

I searched her face to see if she was joking with me, despite knowing it was not her style to joke about something like this.

“Why?”

Her smile was full of secret thoughts. “There’s an intimacy in kissing that not even sex can replicate. In the moment of a kiss, you share energy, power, the essence of you. You share a part of your soul, and in the realm, they reserve that for their true mates.”

“I’m not his mate.”

I wasn’t. Torin was my mate. Shadow and I didn’t have a bond between us like that of a true mate.

“You aren’t,” she confirmed, and my chest squeezed at the blunt statement. “As the Darkor, the Supreme Being, he was assigned a true mate at birth. They were set to be bonded on the day he was crowned to his power and position. He hasn’t seen her since the door was sealed.”

“He never said anything,” I whispered, resisting the urge to press a hand to the ache in my chest. “Is this the true reason he was so desperate to get back here? To get to her?”

Angel shrugged. “I’m not privy to Shadow’s inner thoughts. I have no idea of his motivations, outside of his obvious need for revenge. That one is the complete truth, but the rest… only he knows.”

I wasn’t privy to his thoughts, either, but I’d always wondered if there was more pushing him than just the need to destroy his sister. He hid so much from me, a plethora of secrets and intrigue. And the kiss… I had no explanation for that, but now I understood why he’d refused to let me touch him last time.

“He initiated the kiss today.”

Not just initiated but consumed me. Taking everything and leaving me both horny and broken. Angel didn’t say anything, but she was pondering it.

“I can’t believe that was Shadow’s first kiss too,” I said, blinking at the absurdity of it. “Unless he’s secretly decided to take up kissing chicks in the last thousand years.”

Angel shook her head. “Never. I know females whom Shadow was with, and none of them have gone near his lips. It’s just sex—mind-blowing sex, apparently—but no intimacy and definitely no kissing.”

A surge of anger rose inside me, and as irrational as it was, I could barely stop myself from demanding more details so I could kill these “females.” Since I didn’t own the beast, and sadly never would, I forced myself to focus on the situation I’d found myself in. The complete and total insanity of what she was saying.

He’d kissed me. He’d given me a part of himself that no other had ever had.

“Shadow’s going to break me,” I told her, my throat unexpectedly dry. “Torin almost did, his rejection splintering off a part of my soul that I’m almost certain I haven’t gotten back. And Shadow…”

Could I ever let him go? Allow him to return to the true mate who owned his heart and soul? And if I did, would she try to murder me for stealing their first kiss?

There was no more time for my current crisis because Inky appeared on the horizon, a huge, black cloud tearing toward us. It was thankfully too far away to have heard our conversation, but it was clear that Shadow had had enough of waiting for us to catch up.

The smoke cloud swept around the pair of us, lifting effortlessly. Angel was having none of that shit, though, her wings sweeping out as she rose out of Inky’s embrace. “No one carries me,” she fumed. “Tell Shadow to keep his fucking hands to himself.”