I was done, exhausted to the point of delirium. Shadow saw me swaying on my feet and nudged me toward his lair. “Get some sleep. I need you fully functioning when we make our way into the realm.”
I just nodded or shook my head… I might have even been drooling as I mumbled something about Simone, and was assured she would be secured and brought to the library. Then, with the help of Angel, who half-carried me, I made my way to the barrier between the lair and library.
“I’m coming with you to the Shadow Realm,” she said shortly, her face set in hard, determined lines. “I don’t trust Shadow Beast to put your safety above his own agenda.”
Our eyes met, and the magenta in hers was the pinkest I’d ever seen. That color felt like it was penetrating into my damn soul, but in a good way. Warm and fuzzies. “I feel the same way,” I said softly. “He’s proven more than once that I’m only a means to an end. But I need to know who I am as well, so I’m not going to fight him.”
Angel nodded once. “You must discover your truth so that, moving forward, you will be at the strongest you can be.”
She pressed her hand to the spot above my breast, where she’d previously bonded us, and I could have sworn I felt her emotions for a brief second. A mix of worry and determination to get us both through this alive.
Following this was a definite boost to my energy that would give me enough juice to make it into the lair and my bed.
“Our bond grows stronger,” she said, sounding surprised. “What should take decades appears to be maturing much faster.”
I blinked at her but didn’t bother to ask why. No one knew what the heck to expect when it came to me and my energy. We were just going with it.
“Get some rest,” Angel said softly, a heavier accent slipping through before she tucked her true self away again. Angel was excellent at blending—quite the achievement for a near supermodel-goddess. Occasionally, though, I caught a glimpse of the being she’d been before her family had been lost to her. Before she was alone and broken.
I got a glimpse of the true heart of Angel. And it was so fucking pure.
“I’ll see you soon,” I promised. “And thank you for taking this journey with me. Together, we will keep an eye on Shadow.”
“We certainly will,” she promised.
She left and I made my way into the lair. It was warm and welcoming inside, and I felt the oddest urge to run to the fire and give it a hug. Maybe it wouldn’t even burn me now that I’d found some unknown source of internal fire that I could produce on my skin.
On a whim, I tried to turn into a fireball again, but there wasn’t the faintest ember. My energy might have been too drained, or just like everything else, I could only channel that shit when I was rocking a fury so complete, it was its own entity.
Dannie… She was still on my mind, and just the memory of her “death” had my hands trembling. Every part of me was hoping that Shadow was right, that she was alive and reforming somewhere, and I would see her again. That was the one hope getting me through.
Not wanting to be alone with my messed-up thoughts, I ended up crashing onto one of the couches before the fire, snuggled down until my entire body let out a sigh.
Here, wrapped in the warmth of the fire’s embrace, I felt safe. So I let myself rest.
Inky woke me some time later, its energy a distinct tingle of power. As it drifted closer to my face, my eyes shot open, the wolf in my chest stirring as a low rumble spilled from my throat. It was instinctive after being woken by a powerful entity, even if I’d known exactly what was here with me.
Blinking, I cleared my throat. “Inky?” I rasped. “What are you doing?”
The smoke swelled larger, and in the same instant, I backed right up on the couch because it looked different. Inky was now more of a midnight purple, swirls of green breaking up the endless darkness. “Did something happen to you when I opened the doorway?” I asked. Stupidly, because I couldn’t communicate with Shadow’s bonded mist.
Mist. I finally had an idea of what Inky was, and the reason he was bonded to Shadow. The beast had taken a small part of the creation energy of his land and tied his soul to it. Weird, but what an awesome boost to his own powerbase.
“Inky?” I pushed. “You’re weirding me out. What do you want?”
Reaching toward it, I let my hand brush across the tendrils flickering around the dark edges. Inky hadn’t shocked me in months, so I was taken completely by surprise when a heavy jolt shot up my arm.
With a yelp, I almost fell to the floor as my arm went completely numb. Panic kicked in hard, and at the same time my wolf surged forward pushing us to change. She slammed against an invisible barrier, my body unable to shift with Inky’s power surging through us.
There was another pulse in my aching arm, and I tried to lift it to cradle it closer to my body, but I couldn’t even move a finger. Whatever Inky had done, my limb was no longer responding, and that was not good news. Especially for a shifter with excellent healing abilities.
There was one of two explanations for its current behavior: Inky had gone rogue or this wasn’t Inky. Both options were equally horrifying.
My legs still worked, so I pushed myself up, backing away from the clearly different-colored cloud of mist. My useless arm dragged beside me as I growled.
“Stay back,” I warned, stupidly because I had zero weapons to use against it.
Mine.
The word filtered through my head and since it was not my thought or internal voice, I quite rightfully had a mini freak-out. A cold blast of foreign energy wrapped around me, and almost in the same instant, my arm started to respond.
I lifted it so I could quickly check it over, pausing at the sight of a shimmery purple mark on my palm. In the exact spot I’d just touched Inky Two.
This wasn’t good. This was not good.
Mine.
Again! What the fuck? “Did… you just talk to me?”
It drifted closer, and while not touching me, I could literally feel the power it wielded. I hadn’t been able to do that before I’d been marked with a purple tattoo scarily close in color to the mist itself.
You are ours. We belong to the same land. You called me and now we are bonded.
It swelled larger, its sparking synapses flashing in the same way as Inky.
Wait… bonded?
“I don’t want to be bonded with you!” My words came out shouty, but it was starting to turn into an epic sort of joke how all of these powerful things just bonded to me, or kidnapped me, or rejected me without asking for my damn permission.
You will grow used to our bond. It will be as if you never knew life without this connection.
Yeah, somehow I strongly doubted that.
“I knew Inky could communicate,” I bit out, pissed as fuck.
Like I’d summoned Shadow’s bonded mist, the original Inky burst into sight from behind some shelves, all swelled up and sparking like crazy. Seeing them together it was clear the purple one needed its own name, so I decided on a whim to go with Midnight. Seemed fitting.
They started to circle each other, and in this close proximity, all but facing off against the other, their differences were so obvious that I wondered how my dumb ass had ever thought Midnight was Inky.
They were both clearly mists, though. Had Midnight been part of the huge mist I’d called in my fury on Earth? Was this a section that had escaped my attempt to return it?
“Stop it!” I shouted when they started sending sparks at each other, clearly not friends. The two mists obeyed almost immediately—to my fucking surprise—moving and drifting apart.
Midnight swelled, starting to shake. I’d always assumed that when Inky did that, it was laughing, and sure enough, there was a weird vibration of sound in my mind.
The mists’ version of amusement.
You will come to appreciate me being on your team.
Somehow I doubted that I would ever appreciate having a voice in my head.
“Inky,” I said turning to Shadow’s minion. “Can you please get your bonded bastar—beast. Your bonded beast. I need to have a quick word with him about Midnight.” I jerked my head toward the other smoke cloud.
Inky thankfully didn’t “argue” with me, disappearing fast, and I warily watched Midnight, my pillow held in front of me like that would keep it back.
Midnight?
It didn’t need to be close or touching me to project thoughts, and I shook my head at the invasive feeling. “You have midnight purple in your colors and Inky doesn’t. It helps keep things straight in my head if I name them. I’m sort of human in that way.”
It jiggled again, and I felt the connection of thoughts and realities as it sifted through my memories of Earth. Of human television. Of the past and future as we knew or guessed at. In mere minutes, it had the complete and total knowledge of everything I’d taken twenty-three years to learn.
The mists were scarily powerful, and I wasn’t sure I was capable of handling this new bond, but there seemed to be very little I could do about it. Maybe Shadow would know a way to sever the bond.
Speaking of, where the fuck was he?
Wait… Why had Inky even needed to leave to get Shadow? Could they not communicate over long distances? Supposed I had the perfect entity to ask…
“Can you talk in my head if I’m far from you?”
It swelled. The mark on your palm is part of my energy, and through it, I can feel your life force, but for us to communicate, we have to be in close proximity. Especially while the bond is so new. But if you need me, through time and space, I can feel it.
Then it was similar to the bond Angel thought would eventually grow for us, but with Midnight, it was near instantaneous.
“What exactly are you?”
Midnight rushed forward and wrapped around my arms in a similar manner to how Inky acted with Shadow. There was no pain or numb limbs this time, just a pleasant warmth, my palm tingling hardcore until the bond between us settled. It was the way I imagined owning a snuggly pet would feel… comforting.
Before I could contemplate my new companion, flashes of a world appeared in my head. Memories. But not mine.
The Shadow Realm was created through a collision of two energies, Midnight said, showing me swirling black and purple sparkles. One looked like fairy lights, the other glittering diamonds, and when the two met, it was an atomic bomb in force.
Midnight had been there. At the first creation of its world.
Well, damn.
Way to make a shifter feel somewhat insignificant and infantile.
It took a long time for the dust to settle, and when it did, the mists blanketed the entire land, a living energy that allowed an ecosystem to form below. First came the waters, and then the lands grew above. The creatures, the freilds, who are like humans, and the royals evolved after that. The two mists still war, and it’s only in the place of origin that we are bonded. Here, where the creatures are born, is the one place you’ll find pure and complete creation.
I was following along with the images and words, the place of origin Midnight showed me, looking like my imagined fantasy of the Garden of Eden. Flush with life and bursting with red and gold colors.
Your Inky is from the leicher mists, those that blanket from below, and technically, we are warring entities.
The images were so vivid as they detailed a brief but complete history of the Shadow Realm. I could see that in lots of ways, it was similar to Earth, but what had taken millions of years of evolution in my world, the mists had done in the realm in much less time.
“Why are we bonded?”
Shadow had implied it was very rare, and considering I was a damn shifter with no obvious origins in their world, well… I had a lot of questions that needed answers.
Midnight swelled larger, lights shooting around it faster than ever.
It is not common, but I was called to you. There will be a reason, but the time has not arrived for us to know it.
Great.
Before I could freak the fuck out—and let’s be real, I was overdue—Shadow stormed into the room, his face awash in fury.
I stood and my smoke cloud wrapped around me. Inky did the same to Shadow, and I had to stop and wonder… if they were competing energies, did that mean Shadow and I would be enemies as well?
Were our powers set to fight the other’s for eternity?
