Reclaimed (Shadow Beast Shifters, #2)(83)

Ixana jumped in quickly. “Cristell is a royal of many hidden strengths. Truthfully, her skill in spell weaving is second to none; it’s been the one thing that has kept her on the throne all these years. The royals and freilds in your area didn’t want to accept an interloper, at least not at first, but she eventually silenced any who stood against her.”

“This spell weaving,” Angel interjected, and as always, everyone paid attention when she spoke, “is going to be the biggest issue we face in taking her out. No doubt she has woven some intense and complex securities over the years.”

“Inky told me you learned a little from Kristoff about what we’re up against?” Shadow said to her. It had been some time since he’d mentioned his friend who was possibly missing… and had possibly betrayed us.

Angel shook her head. “He didn’t have a lot to offer, since it’s been a long time since he visited her compound. His one warning was to expect the unexpected. Cristell has an ever-changing security around her, and you never know what you’ll come up against. His best advice was to interrupt her power source; cut her off from the creatures she controls.”

Well, if there was one thing I was good at, it was stealing creatures from megalomaniac royals. Speaking of…

I turned to Ixana. “What happened to Kristoff after your goons snatched us up?”

She cleared her throat, but Shadow answered instead. “She assures me that he’s still safe where we left him.” He’d clearly already asked her that question, in one of their private chats, but he wasn’t satisfied with her answer. My clever beast knew she was full of shit, and it was only a matter of time before he uncovered all of her secrets.

I couldn’t wait.





40





We were a silent group the next day. The strain from the creatures I’d gathered was getting to me, and I lagged at the back of our group. It was a weird exhaustion, not the same as I’d felt holding the creatures back on Earth, but enough that my legs were heavier than usual.

“We’ll reach the Nexus very soon,” Ixana said. “I’ve never been here, obviously, since I would have been destroyed by the mists and creatures long before making it this far, and I’m just as interested as you all to see what we will find.”

“To my knowledge, no one has been to this sacred place, correct?” Shadow rumbled.

“As far as I know, there has been none strong enough,” Ixana confirmed.

“I can feel its energy,” Angel said, her head tilted back, wings expanding like they too were scenting the air for power. “It’s a spot of life in a land of death.”

It was calling me. It had been the entire time, really, and this close, I was a magnet dragged toward its polar opposite.

“Mera?” Shadow asked.

I shook my head in an attempt to reorient myself. “It’s calling me.” I breathed. “I felt the same pull the first time I touched the realm. The first time I saw you. The first time a creature appeared in my life.”

Shadow’s pull was the strongest of all, and I’d tried ignoring it, hating him, even fucking him, but nothing had changed that feeling deep in my body.

Our demons matched.

Our souls matched.

It was an absolute truth that was set to destroy me any day.

“I can see the Nexus,” Angel said, lifting herself up to fly above us.

I gestured to one of the abervoqs that were rarely far from my side. It knew without me having to say a word exactly what I wanted. Pawing at me with his bear-like claws, I was lucky not to be disemboweled as it started to lift me.

“No!” Shadow raged, cutting its movements off.

Ixana put her hands on him in an attempt to stop him from striding forward. “Lover, she has her army to help. You’re not needed any longer.”

Shadow and I did our thing, a long, drawn-out stare-off, where a fuck-ton of shit went unsaid, and I was mentally begging him to insist. For some reason, this felt like the moment where he had to choose sides. Mine or Ixana’s. Words were all well and good, but it was actions that said everything.

“Mine,” he rumbled softly. My heart lurched. “Until such a time I say she’s not, Mera Callahan belongs to me.”

Two steps and he stole me from the grip of the abervoq, and like any quasi-intelligent creature, it didn’t fight. Especially since it knew I was more than a little okay with this arrangement. I’d take as many of these moments with Shadow as I could. Even if eventually life tore us apart.

Shadow’s grip around my waist softened as he lifted me like I weighed nothing, hoisting me up to sit on his shoulder. I was perched on one side, awkward at first, but as he walked, his size grew. Bigger and bigger, until he was massive, and I could comfortably sit, able to see for miles.

Angel drifted in at my side, and the creatures let out their calls below. “Wow.” I gasped as the Nexus came into view. It was an oasis in the center of a desert. Not green as it would be back home, but bright yellows and reds. Like a plume of fire had sprung up, only the fire was built behind an impressive stone fence, with just an arched red stone entrance.

“The last of the power,” Shadow said, able to see it as well.

“We have to restore this land,” I told him. “It must have been beautiful at one point, all wild and untamed with creatures roaming. When the two mists were strong and intertwined.”