Shadow held me tightly, and with my avenging Angel above, her weapons out as she flapped those powerful wings, we were racing across the land. Just the three of us and our mists.
Dannie had to stay with the Nexus, keeping it powered as long as possible. Once again, we would be on our own, trying to save the damn world.
“Mera!” Shadow snapped, attempting to keep me conscious.
At some point, it registered that I was actively dying. After all of the years expecting it, this was the moment it happened, and I found… I was not ready to go. Not when I’d finally discovered my true purpose. I also needed more orgasms with this sexy beast of a god.
“I have to save my creatures,” I managed to choke out.
They were already hurting them. There was no other explanation, and it was slowly killing me. That was the risk when one bonded a few thousand beings to their energy.
“Stay with me, Sunshine,” Shadow growled. “And I promise we’ll save your pets.”
“Shadowshine,” I slurred, my head cloudy as the exhaustion pressed down on me like a cloying material designed to snuff my life out. “Told you we’d have a couple…” I coughed a few times, my lungs seizing. “Name.”
“Quiet. You are ordered to keep breathing and nothing else.”
When we arrived at the ice city, it was to find it completely empty. Not just empty, but as dead and desolate as the rest of the land.
“Illusion,” Shadow raged. “That was always her specialty.”
“That bitch had it all planned,” Angel spat out, and she was as furious as the rest of us. “We have to catch her.”
“We will,” Shadow rumbled.
He was moving again, knowing exactly where Ixana was heading. Using his powers, he jumped all of us in a burst of misty smoke, straight into The Concordes.
The time for stealth was apparently long gone.
We ended up over Trinity, and from here, Midnight and Inky carried us toward the royal compound. My bond to the mist was basically the only thing keeping me alive. Well that and the way Shadow was losing his shit, shouting orders at me to keep fucking breathing.
As we closed in on my creatures, a small surge of my energy returned, allowing me to lift my head. “They’re here, but how did she move them all so fast?” I asked in a breathless whisper.
Shadow’s flaming face, a very Anubis-looking face, twisted toward me. Now that I’d seen his beast side, he appeared to be much more relaxed about letting it free.
“I have no idea,” he bit out, “but it’s clear her plan all along was to usurp the creatures from us. Whether it’s to join forces with Cristell, or to try to best her so that Ixana is the next queen, I don’t know.”
My anger bloomed as more of my strength returned. “I think she’s working with her. That’s why she had the staff and stone. And my creatures…” My chest tightened. “She’s destroying them. We have to hurry.”
I was just managing to function, but as my creatures were killed off, I would be too. The smart thing would be to release them, but I honestly didn’t know how to.
And even if I did know, it was my duty to save them; I had promises to keep.
As we crossed above Trinity, the mists concealed our position. From this bird’s eye view, I could see how widespread the lava fields were, not to mention the lava chasm that nearly divided the land in half.
“We’re almost to the royal compound,” Shadow said, his hand grasping mine. “And I expect you to be alive and functioning when we get there, or I will release the lava and let it wash this world clean.”
He’d do it too; the truth was written across his face.
“You’d burn The Concordes down for me?” I swallowed roughly.
“I’d burn the entire world down for you, Sunshine.”
It hurt in the best way to hear him say that. In my pack, everyone outside of Simone had turned their backs on me out of fear of being shunned. No one supported me, not my alpha, or Jaxson, or my true mate, or my mom. But Shadow, he would literally let it all burn.
“I lov—” I started, needing him to know how I felt if this was our last moment together, but before I could get more than half a word out, a massive explosion from below rocked into us.
Shadow shot me a look, and I had no idea if he’d heard me or not because there was no more time to delve into our softer emotions. The world he’d just threatened to burn down was already on fire.
Inky and Midnight slowed their journey since we’d clearly arrived. I leaned over the side, trying to take it all in, only turning away when flapping wings brought Angel to our side.
Her magenta eyes were burning as they clashed with mine. She would have known I was alive through our bond, but she looked relieved to see me somewhat awake and functioning.
“What’s the plan?” she asked as we stared at the chaos below.
“I have to get to Cristell,” Shadow said. “We need to break her bond to the creatures and find my damn bloodstone. Without both, she should be rendered weak enough to destroy.”
“As easy as that,” I joked, knowing that it was going to be anything but.
Shadow shot me a look, his eyes hooded as he stared for a beat longer than I’d expected.
“Can you see Ixana?” Angel asked, drawing our attention back to what was happening below.
There were beings everywhere, running and shouting, while a huge wall of flames burned. It looked like chaos, but it might actually have all been planned.
“I can’t see her,” I said, having another decent look. “But I feel my creatures are here somewhere.”
Here and being slaughtered. My hand pressed to my chest as another was stolen from me, and the urge to scream filled me so strongly that I barely managed to keep it down.
“Royal guards below—she’s prepared for us,” Shadow observed. “We’re going to have to fight our way into the compound, and as soon as I enter her securities, she’ll hit us with everything she has.”
Angel flapped her wings, blades spinning around her hands. “I’m more than ready to fight my way through. Sheer numbers won’t keep us from that bitch.”
“I need to get my creatures back,” I said suddenly. “If Cristell’s main focus is on Shadow, maybe I can sneak in and find where she’s hiding them. If I get close enough, I’ll separate them from her and she’ll be weakened.”
Ixana or Cristell. We were about to find out who was the true queen of illusion, playing her war games.
“Not a fucking chance,” Shadow said shortly. He didn’t even sound mad; it was just a matter-of-fact response.
“You know that if you’re the target, it will be easier for me to sneak in,” I reminded him. “You’ll be the one in danger.”
He set his jaw, shaking his head, not giving me a chance to reply before he was ordering the mists to take us down. “Stay with me, Mera. Keeping you safe is all I have to worry about.”
We all knew that was a lie, but I couldn’t leave now even if I’d wanted to. This was my world too. My energy. And my creatures being slaughtered.
I wasn’t leaving without making it right.
