Reclaimed (Shadow Beast Shifters, #2)(82)

She swallowed hard. “Yes, and it will be okay by then with the creatures under the rule of Mera. The stone’s protection will no longer be required, and my people will make their way to the royal compound when we do.”

She had it all worked out. Oh, boy, did she have it worked out. I could tell that Ixana had been planning this for many years. Dreaming about being the “princess” in the Shadow Beast fairytale. What she didn’t realize, though, was that this was not that sort of tale.

This was one streaked in darkness, with a broken beast both feared and revered by beings that lived in worlds far from here. Shadow, who had powerful friends and two libraries. He was so much more than just being the Supreme Being of the realm.

When they’d kicked him from his home, they’d changed the course of his destiny, and now they had no idea what they were dealing with. He was super independent, and I was almost positive—I’d have bet my favorite dragon shifter series on it—that he didn’t want to share the crown with anyone. He’d waited centuries to claim his throne… his destiny.

She’s his destiny too.

I couldn’t really argue with true mates, but these two were the oddest I’d ever seen. Did it work the exact same way here as it did with shifters? I assumed the reason we had true mates was because the royals of this land did.

Shadow had created what he’d known.

Right?





“How does someone find their true mate?” I asked later that night when we were getting ready to go to sleep. I couldn’t take the unanswered questions any longer. “In Shadow Realm?”

Ixana’s icy gaze warmed up. “It’s a promise at birth. Usually between two royal families. Mine is from Holister, to the northwest of Trinity. I was completely honored to have such a strong and powerful mate.”

Wait a freaking minute…

“Are you telling me there’s no magical connection” I confirmed? “It’s just an arranged marriage?”

Okay, now everything made a lot more sense, especially Shadow’s general lack of interest in her. It gave strength to his assurance that he was only sticking around for reasons that had nothing to do with their bond.

And fuck if I wasn’t secretly doing a little happy dance about that.

“The initial connection is formed by our parents,” Shadow said, and the blaze simmering in his eyes told me this was not his favourite topic of conversation. “Then there’s a bonding between the two children. Like a promise ceremony. Which holds until we come of power-age, and the final bond is cemented at twenty-two.”

“We were robbed,” Ixana said bitterly. “It was supposed to happen the night of Shadow’s ascension to his destiny. We were so close to our final bond.”

“It’s different for shifters,” I said softly. “We find ours at first shift if they’re in close proximity. Our wolves know each other straight away, and you feel this… like shock of lightning in your chest. An awareness of the other. They’re supposed to be your match in all ways: power, strength, soul.”

Shadow’s hands flexed on the piece of rock he’d been tossing from palm to palm, and it was now dust.

Ixana didn’t seem to notice as she leaned forward. “And do you have a true mate?”

I snorted. “A selfish fuck of an alpha. I don’t know what that says about me, but I really haven’t spent much time with him since we recognized our bond.” I jerked my head toward a silently glowering Shadow. “Beast over here kidnapped me just after that, and my life has been in his hands ever since.”

His expression was reminding me that it hadn’t just been my life in his hands. He had all but owned every fucking part of me, and I was a prisoner to the desire he sparked to life within me.

“Why did you take her?” Ixana asked Shadow, and as he finally, finally, tore his gaze from me, I shivered, feeling naked after that penetrating stare.

“She touched the Shadow Realm. I’d been trying to find a way around Cristell’s spell for most of my time on the outside, and finally there was this small hope of another way.”

“He pretended he needed my help to round up the shadow creatures that had escaped,” I said, cutting in. “When really he just needed me to open the doorway between our worlds.”

And I had done that when no one else could. I could claim that as a victory, even if I still wasn’t sure if it was good news or not that we were here. With his damn mate.

Shadow’s lips curled up. “Turned out you could have been an even bigger help, had I known everything you were capable of.”

I shrugged. “Surprised us both. But in the end you got what you wanted from me.”

His shoulder’s lifted as he chuckled. A dark, smoky sound. “So much more than I ever expected.”

Only a moron would miss that innuendo, but apparently Ixana did not want to hear the truth in what he was saying. “I’m very happy Shadow had your help. That in the end, you figured out how to bypass the power of Cristell’s spell. She used a never-ending rotation of creatures, one of the greatest losses in our history of their energy. It near bankrupted our lands, and it contributed to the drought-like conditions across the realm.”

“The spell itself was the issue,” Shadow said. “It was so clever and adaptive. No matter what I did to try to best it, the power would anticipate my next attack. Cristell was good with spell work, but the illusions it created never felt like her work.”