Rejected (Shadow Beast Shifters, #1)(56)

“How is that possible?” I breathed. It had been almost seven months since he’d stolen me from Earth. Simone and Dannie would have definitely assumed me dead at this point—my mom probably hadn’t even noticed I was gone—and I felt sick at the thought of seven months just fading away from my life.

“I need to see my pack!” I bust out, stopping Shadow in his tracks.

He turned, height dropping low enough that I only had to tilt my head back eighty degrees to see his face. “You want to return to your pack? Have I not treated you with respect the entire time you’ve been in my presence?”

There was a warning in those words, like he wanted me to choose my reply very carefully.

So, as usual, I didn’t. “I wouldn’t go as far as respect, but you have been… less of an asshole than I expected,” I forced a smile, because I needed him to give me this, “but my reason for wanting to return to my pack is simply to advise the only two shifters in the world I care about that I’m not dead.

It’s been seven freaking months, and the entire time, they’ve had no idea what happened to me.”

His pupils dilated as he stared me down, examining my face, searching for a deeper meaning. “I could send Inky?”

It was all kinds of amusing that he’d adopted my nickname for his smoke friend, but I’d laugh about that another time. Today, I was focused on one truth only: seven months from my pack lands. “I think that might freak them out, considering Inky can’t speak, and even if it could, they would no doubt run first and ask questions later.”

Shadow shrugged, and I refused to let myself get distracted by his shoulders today. “I’ll take your request into consideration.”

He turned away, ending the conversation, and somehow, I knew that was all I’d get out of him. I’d try again tomorrow. This was too important to just let slide.

“Where are we?” I asked, hurrying to catch up, wiping my brow at the sweat already accumulating in this intense heat. “Somewhere south, for sure.”

He didn’t stop this time, and I had a sneaking suspicion he didn’t want to tell me in case I tried to escape. But why would I? Shadow would find me no matter how fast or far I ran, and when he caught me, my life would probably be forfeited.

I wasn’t about to overestimate my or Earth’s importance to him. Dude barely gave half a fuck about anything, let alone us.

“I think we’re in Columbia,” he said shortly. “If humans haven’t decided to change country names due to land mass shifts since I was here last.”

Uh, excuse me? When the freak had land masses changed last? Was he as old as the dinosaurs or something? And did I really want to know that? I was much more comfortable thinking of him being a young whippersnapper around a few thousand years old.

Time for a subject change. “Why is it so hard to sense the shadow creatures? You’ve felt… like two of them in all this time.”

It had been a month in the library—seven months on Earth, apparently—and this was only the second one on his radar. For once, he didn’t ignore or rumble at me. “I can only sense them when they use their various abilities. Otherwise, they’re virtually undetectable. All of us know how to hide our energy when resting.”

Not only when resting, if Shadow was anything to go on. I could almost never feel him until he was very close, and even then, something told me he was still controlling the flow of power around us.

There was no more time to think about it, because we had apparently arrived at our destination: a ragged green and brown field, scattered with prickly thorns and spots of completely dead grass—like a pack of wild dogs had pissed about the place, leaving perfect rings of death. We stood under one of the only trees, a gnarled and ancient piece that would have looked half-dead, if not for a few sprigs of new growth up high.

Shadow didn’t move, staring out across the land, his head tilted in a way that told me he was searching. The creature was not immediately visible, and just as I started to search with the beast, there was the splat on my skin. I looked down to see a sticky substance drifting across my right arm.

What…? I blinked as more hit me in the face, and as much as I wanted to make a sex joke, now was not the time.

Because what in the gross shit just landed on me?

Shadow dove for me the moment those sticky strands across my body tightened and I was yanked up into the sky. He caught me in time and thankfully was strong enough to wrench me free from whatever had caught me in its tendrils.

“Ah,” he said when we landed safely on the ground, his firm grip around my biceps.

“Ah?” I screeched. “Ah?! What the fuck is ah?”

“It’s a sprecker; a spider demon.”

A whatintheholygodsnow?

Shadow was close enough to block out the sky above, so I leaned back to try to see around him.

The branches spanned out wide above us, and I thought I caught some movement, but it was gone before I could be sure.

“It almost had me,” I said, trying to get my heart rate under control. “Could my wolf have fought it?”

Shadow was watching me closely, his hands still on me, the heat branding my skin.

“You could have tried to fight,” he said, “but the poison in the droplets on your skin would eventually seep into your blood, rendering you too weak. The sprecker only has to wait you out, and it moves at super speed, climbing and dodging in a way that very few can replicate.”