Reclaimed (Shadow Beast Shifters, #2)(95)

She was death, relishing in the power.

As we bit into one of the freilds, she started to drain their life, stealing it and sucking it deep into the well that was sustaining us and our creatures. I’d done this before, even if I hadn’t quite known it at the time.

Whatever Dannie had created when she’d bonded a mist born with a shifter had formed a being that no one had ever seen before. A being with the potential to destroy worlds.

If it hadn’t been me, I would have feared that being, and I knew that one day someone would come after me. Worried I’d go rogue and be a true threat. I’d deal with that then; for now, I was fighting, all the while hoping that Inky had figured out how to open the door—

I heard the whoosh of air behind me, and that beautiful amazing cloud of fucking smoke had done exactly what I’d needed. It had gotten me into the passage that would lead me down under the mists. Down to my creatures.

Now we just had to get there before an entire fucking army descended on us. Even a mist and a fire wolf would be screwed if that happened.

Ripping out my last throat—the bitter taste of the blood had the human side of us gagging until it cleared from our mouth—we bounced away from the guards and toward the open doorway.

Inky was waiting for me on the inside, and when I leapt in, it slammed the door closed again, shutting off the dying light from outside. My flames were still sprinkled across my fur, brighter in some places, giving us enough illumination to see the stairs that we had to descend.

Another creature death hit me, and then another, and whoever was killing them was going for gold now, sensing I was on my way. Fucking fuck. Inky swept my wolf up and we tried to rip it to pieces—don’t startle the wolf, apparently—but there was no way to hurt the mist. Thankfully.

We settled a moment later, since this was the fastest way down the stairs, all the while trying not to howl at the agony of losing more of my creatures.

The curve of the stairs widened as we zoomed toward the bottom, round and round, until I was dizzy and wondering how fucking deep this chamber went.

Another death hit me. One of my abervoqs.

My howl split the air, and even Inky flinched at the guttural sound, ripped from the center of my being; from my own pain and loss; from my power.

We flew wonky for a beat, but we’d finally reached the lowest level, so I was able to jump off, running toward my creatures.

The heat down here was intense, and it was only when I rounded a stone corner that I understood why. The lava was everywhere, spilling in rivers down the walls, across the floor, and puddling into a huge lava pit. It was also in a curtain separating me from the thousands of creatures, and that was why they hadn’t been able to get to me.

They couldn’t cross the lava barrier.

As I closed in, another one was thrown into the large pool of red, burning lava below, and a cry tore from me. I was a mother losing her children, a part of me dying with each of their deaths.

Stalking across the stone, I had to walk a fine line between lava and rock to make it closer to the massive platform where all the creatures gathered. Only pausing when the bitch of the day stepped into view.

I felt not a single flicker of surprise when Ixana appeared, part of me knowing all along that she was more than Shadow’s poor broken true mate. She had an evil streak, and now we were going to know exactly what her game was.

“If it isn’t the whore who stole my true mate,” she said with a raspy laugh. Truth be told, she did actually look a little pissed off by that.

Wanting to speak, I drew on my human side, and my wolf let me change back. When I was naked and on two legs, I felt my hair fall in long strands to my thighs. Each shift near the mists was giving me vitality and life.

Hopefully it would be enough to get me, and the beings I loved, through this.

“Where is Cristell?” I asked.

Ixana laughed. “Dead.”

Hmm, okay. “When did she die?”

If Shadow was watching this through Inky, then this was important information for him to have.

“She died the day I barred Shadow from the realm.”

This truth did take me by surprise.

It had been her all along.

From the first betrayal, when she must have created an illusion to make Shadow think it was his sister who’d given him the spelled cup. To the spell on the doorway, her energy powering it all.

I held a finger up, furrowing my brow. “You’re gonna have to bad guy monologue for me here because I’m confused about why you’d tear your true mate from this world. You could have just ruled with him.”

Ixana didn’t answer, but she did attack, her power barreling across the lava and into my chest, sending me flying into a nearby wall. She was beyond strong, and the simpering annoying ice queen was nowhere to be seen, her true form blossoming to life. This was the being who had ruled for thousands of years, stealing energy and destroying my creatures.

Inky rushed to help me up, and by the time I got back to the divide, Ixana managed to toss a bunch of my creatures into the lava pool below her. As each died an agonizing death, my stomach swirled, and I turned my head to the side to throw up. There was nothing solid in there, so I got the fun of gagging and choking on bile.

“Stop!” I screamed. “If you kill them all, the Nexus will fall!”

Ixana laughed, blasting more power my way, like a wall of bullets raining across Inky and me. “I want the damn Nexus to fall. No power can stand against mine then, and I’ve built enough down here to sustain us all.”