Dannie, having proven her point, shifted back. Unlike me, her red robes appeared the moment she returned to her humanoid form.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and she was talking directly to her son. “For keeping this from you. But you were so young when they stole you from me, and I could not escape this realm until I figured out how to release Mera into your world.”
“Excuse me,” I cut in, blinking near a million times as I tried to figure out what she’d just said. “You released me into… What the actual fuck, Dannie?”
Now it was my turn to get an apology. “I have a lot to tell you, my sweet little wolf. And I’m sorry for the many years that you didn’t know your true self, but you are exactly the magnificent creature I expected when I sent your energy into a shifter pup.”
I shook my head, waving both hands in front of me as I refused to believe what she was saying. Shadow’s nearby rumbles were ominous; he was absolutely unhappy with his mother. “You better tell us everything from the start,” he said. “Leave nothing out.”
Dannie nodded, and then she directed us to sit at the water again. “The mists will restore your energy,” she said, “and this is a long tale. Take the restoration, trust me.”
Nobody was trusting her, that was for sure, but in this regard, they complied, sitting. I placed my feet into the Jell-O water and almost instantly felt better. Dannie and her freaking remedies.
“I was the first to emerge from the Nexus,” Dannie said, getting right to the point. “The first creature. The firebird. My place here was one of guidance. I brought the creatures into the world, a mother of sorts, and every single one has some of my energy in it. Only a sliver, though; most is the raw power of the mists. Here they do not fight or battle, they are not opposites.”
She waved her hand. “Once upon a time, everything in this land looked like this, but then the leicher mists in the chasm created the royals and all the beings under them, and after that, we have known no peace. The royals stole my children, controlling and using their pure energy, and there was little I could do to stop it. I was duty bound to stay near the Nexus and maintain the balance.”
I mean, we all knew that wasn’t strictly true. She’d been in The Concordes when Shadow had been born, and she’d been on Earth. Clearly, we weren’t up to that part of her story, but it better get there soon.
No one interrupted her as she continued. “Eventually, I grew strong enough to leave the Nexus for short periods of time while still maintaining the power balance. When I saw the way the royals treated my creatures, I had to figure out a plan to save them. Only, there was so many being controlled that it would have destroyed the entire balance of the mists if I just took out the royals.” She looked between all of us. “The balance is so important.”
She’d mentioned it enough times by now, that I was sure we’d all gotten the point.
“So you decided to take them out from the inside?” Shadow finally spoke up, his voice a dark mist of anger and confusion. “Change them by taking your place among them?”
Dannie’s face crumpled as she forced a sad smile. “I did. And here’s another truth you’re owed: Cristell is not my child. She was adopted from another royal family, after they were killed in a lava blast.”
Shadow’s expression didn’t shift. If anything, that was probably welcome news, after what his sister had done to him.
“How did I come to be born?”
Solid question from the beast himself.
Dannie cleared her throat. “I fell in love with your father. I got to know the royals and figured out pretty quickly that a lot of them weren’t the monsters I’d expected. They also didn’t treat my creatures badly, for the most part.”
She’d been Stockholmed. Couldn’t blame her. Shadow had basically gotten me in the exact same way.
“So you eventually wanted a royal child of your own?” I asked, unable to swallow down my worry that I was about to find myself in the same family tree as Shadow. “Please tell me Shadow and I are not related.”
“You’re not related,” she said without hesitation.
Thank. Fuck.
“You are what I am, which is a creature born of the Nexus.”
I blinked at her. “I’m sorry. What did you just say?”
A creature born of the Nexus.
She continued on like she hadn’t just dropped a fucking bomb on my head. “It took me near two thousand Earth years to figure out how to do it; I had to come close enough to death that the Nexus believed it needed to create another mother. You appeared right when I was giving up hope.” She smiled at me. “You can call yourself Mother Junior of the Creatures. You and I are born of pure creation.”
I was on my feet, and I wanted to scream. I wanted to tear my skin off, turn into a firebird and leave, never to have to see these beings who were ripping at the foundation of who I was.
“How?” Shadow bit out. “How did Mera come to be on Earth then? In my shifters?”
This distracted me from the volcano of emotion about to explode from me because I needed that question answered.
Dannie sighed. “There’s no easy way to say this, but… I kind of destroyed her first form, which freed her from the confines of having to stay at the Nexus. I sent the remaining energy into the shifters, through my connection to you, Darkor. It’s complex, but basically my bond to you and your bond to the shifters allowed me to bypass the spell on the door, and then I could place Mera where I needed her. She was always going to be the one who would open the Shadow Realm door, since her energy was destined to return home. This Nexus would call her until she returned.”
“Did you make Shadow and me have feelings for each other?” I choked out. Nothing I hated more than being manipulated, and it appeared she had done it with every part of who I was.
Ixana lost it at that point and tried to push me into the river. “I knew you were trying to steal my mate,” she screamed, only to be stopped by Shadow’s huge-ass hand shoving her away.
“Do not touch Mera,” he warned the ice bitch.
Dannie got between us, her half-smile reminding me of her knowing look I’d seen a hundred times. “I did not manipulate any emotions. You and Shadow are both powerful beings, with the mists of creation in your veins. It makes sense that if they didn’t kill each other, you’d do something else…”
Ixana stormed off in the direction of the gate, and for a brief moment I thought I caught sight of a smile on her face, but I must have been mistaken.
Shadow didn’t bother to follow, his focus on Dannie. “How did you get to Earth then?” he snapped. “Since Mera had to bypass the spelled door in energy form.”
“Mera called me the day her father died,” she said softly. “She allowed me to leave this world, and in our absence from the Nexus and mists, the land perished to what you see now.”
I’d called her…?
“Not literally of course,” Dannie assured me, “but your pain was so strong that I believe it was the first doorway you opened between the worlds. I took advantage and stepped through.” She eyed me closely. “Thankfully, because you needed someone on your side in the years that followed.”
“I am still part shifter, then?”
She nodded. “Of course. That’s the reason you have a shifter mate and can turn into a wolf. The reason you can be without the Nexus and not fade, like I would eventually. I’d been growing weaker on Earth, hence why your pack mates were able to hurt me. You have a true dual soul, and one day these two sides will collide in a spectacular manner. You’ll be reborn into the Supreme Being with the power to rule both worlds.”
Her words were too much for me to truly comprehend. I would need a few hundred years, and some serious alcoholic beverages, before I could touch that statement.
She paused briefly. “I am truly sorry I destroyed the first vessel, Mera, but I promise, your energy is still as pure and beautiful as the first time I held it in my hands.”
This was a lot. It was more than a lot, it was near unbelievable, but it also made sense. It explained away all my stupid shit, and the reason I could call and control the creatures. I was apparently a Mother of Creatures, like this spectacular woman before me, and I supposed I knew now why my hair was the color it was. Like a sunset. Exactly like Dannie’s phoenix, and my fire touched wolf.
Like the mists.
Midnight drifted down and wrapped around me, comforting. Do not fear your power. We are creation, but we are also more than that. Sentient in a way the pure mists are not. You have nothing to fear.
“This is why the mists bonded to Shadow and me,” I said softly. “Both of us are partly the same as they are.”
Dannie beamed. “You always were clever, my girl. It’s also why Shadow could create shifters. Because he’s born of my energy. We are all connected, but not related,” she added with a sharp smile at me.
It was a fine line, I was honest enough to admit that, but hopefully Dannie was right. There was no literal blood or direct energy connection between Shadow and me. Therefore, no need to scrape all the sex we’d had from my brain, and that actually made me feel a lot better.
It also explained why Shadow and I fit together. We were a match, an even bigger match than the one I had with Torin, and that gave me this stupid sense of hope I had no right to have.
Was there actually a future where Shadow and I could truly be together?
