Reclaimed (Shadow Beast Shifters, #2)(34)

I jerked, wondering if he’d actually whispered those words. I had no idea if I’d heard it right, and even less idea what he was thanking me for, but I was fighting tears. This felt like a goodbye, and I fucking hated it. I wanted to scream and tear my skin off. I wanted to wrap myself around him like this and never let go.

But… if there was one thing I’d learned, it was that holding on as tightly as you could did nothing if the other person was doing everything they could to shove you away. Jaxson had taught me that with the sort of harsh lesson I’d never forget. It was tattooed on my soul the same way Shadow’s mists were tattooed on his body.

“We’ll have our moment, Sunshine,” he said, pulling away. “And then it will be over.”

I nodded. “I understand.”

And sadly, I did.





16





We left the water, and I felt… wrecked. Maybe it was the orgasms; Shadow seemed to be about to wring more than one from me with next to no effort. Or, more likely, it was the fact that whatever this thing was between us, it was on a countdown clock.

“We still need to talk about the bet,” Shadow reminded me again as we got dressed, neither of us looking at the other.

I jerked my head up, my shirt half over my arm as I shrugged it all the way on. “Are you finally collecting?”

His smile was smug. “I’ve thought about it, and you know… I don’t think I have to. You’ve already stopped fighting me. You had long before your time ran out.”

I felt super offended by that. “Not true. I’ve never stopped fighting you!”

Shadow, dressed in black fatigues with desert-brown boots to finish off his hot jungle man look, strode toward me. I tilted my head back in our familiar dance. “You were fighting with me in a different way, Mera. Before we were adversaries, but then… it changed.”

Jesus, fuck. Did I just die? Because it felt like I’d lost control of my senses as those words left his lips, the stroke of his hand across my face so fast, I wondered if I’d imagined it.

Then he was done, backpack on, all business. This was the Shadow Beast who drove fear into the hearts of all who met him. The Shadow Beast who would kill his family and not lose sleep over it.

The one who would walk away from me and never think my name again.

Hurrying to catch up with him, a figure zoomed over our heads, and I reacted defensively, but Shadow clearly knew it was Angel, since he didn’t even turn his head.

“Find anything?” he asked as she landed gracefully, her wings tucking behind her.

Today she wore a rust-colored shift dress, which was covered in pieces of her armor. Her hair was braided down her back, the striking color shiny in the light here, and I had to marvel at how stunning she was. No one existed with such perfection on the earthly realm, and yet I’d never seen Shadow’s eyes darken or flames appear in them when he stared at her.

Which made no sense at all to me.

Oh, well. I wasn’t about to question the whys of what had happened between us. I was going to enjoy it. Live in the moment.

And mourn tomorrow.

“They have a training session in the field of the village this morning,” Angel reported. “A lot of their armed forces are out of the town.”

“And the creatures?” Shadow bit out, in soldier mode.

“They’re with them.”

I knew that the shadow creatures were mostly under the control of royals, with free ones rounded up by hunters.

“There are royals in this village?” I asked.

Shadow shook his head. “No, the royals of Fraple are a few days’ walk from here. Their compound is near the border of Trinity because we all like to keep an eye on our royal neighbors.”

“So what’s with the creatures, then?”

“Every city and village has creatures,” Shadow told me, looking out into the horizon. “Descendants of royals can control them, as long as a full-blooded royal has tamed the creature in question.”

“Not to mention that those with royal blood are often called into their armed forces,” Angel added.

“Okay, yeah, that makes sense.”

It did make sense, but every time I learned more about the creatures and how they were treated here, an uneasy feeling swirled in my gut. They were nothing more than possessions. Expendable. They were used and abused to keep the royals and the human-like freilds functioning.

“The creatures I pulled to Earth,” I said, “would they have been under the control of a royal?”

“I doubt it,” Shadow said. “I couldn’t feel the energy of another in theirs, so they were probably pulled from The Grey Lands, where the free beasts roam. The point of origin, where the two mists converge, is there. It was once a place of pure creation and power.”

“It used to be known by another name, that land, right?” Angel asked.

Shadow nodded. “Yes. As it changed over the years, parts of it dying inexplicably, it was renamed ‘The Grey Lands.’ But it was, once upon a time, a very different place. Still, it’s where the young royals make their journeys for their first creatures.”

This was what had me so riled. The creatures were just out there minding their own business when some punk-ass fucker sauntered in to steal their freedom?

Kind of made me want to kill a few royals.