Our vision was no longer in shades of black and white with grey tinges, and there was no longer a double view of the landscape that we just couldn’t quite touch.
Now we remained suspended in an eternal darkness.
This darkness was a living, breathing entity, one that had existed in the beginning and would be there long after the rest of us were gone. The first touch on my fur was icy and invasive, making my wolf want to simultaneously run and hide, but there was also a part of us… this tiny, curious part… that didn’t rebel at the sensation. It embraced the dark, opening up our soul to let slivers of it creep inside. It was so slow that we didn’t even realize it was happening at first, and by the time we did, well, let’s just say, neither of us cared.
“Mera!” He said my name with a snap of command. “You must not embrace the darkness.”
I understood the individual words, but the true meaning was lost to me. The new darker reality was all I knew… and I craved it.
“For fuck’s sake,” a rumbly voice muttered from nearby. “At least open the damn door before you let it consume your soul.”
Maybe it was the asshole statement, or maybe it was just a moment of clarity, but Shadow’s growl snapped us out of our dazed state long enough that I latched on to what remained of myself and my wolf, rolling to the side and calling on the change back to human.
For the first time—in our very limited shifting experience together—my wolf truly fought me. She didn’t want to relinquish control, and our silent battle continued for much longer than I’d expected.
“Shift!”
There he went, commanding me again, but this time, I appreciated the help. My wolf dug her claws in, though, as Shadow placed his hands on me. “She belongs to me! Release her.”
My scream was low and guttural as the change ripped through me, tearing, searing, and burning me alive. The pain I felt when I touched Shadow without permission had nothing on this new form of torture. But when it was all said and done, I returned to myself, panting and sobbing on the spotless floor, naked and exhausted.
Shadow was still touching me, his power surging across my skin. “You have some explaining to do, Sunshine. If you don’t die before I get you warmed up.”
Shivers wracked my body, almost to the point of convulsions. Shadow must have lifted me because the next thing I knew, crashing rivulets of hot water poured over my frozen skin.
“Stop,” I cried. “It hurts.”
I was struggling, but the steel trap that was Shadow’s hold didn’t give an inch. “Let me go.” I sobbed on his chest. “It’s too much. Return me to the darkness.”
“I will fight the darkness to keep you,” he murmured against my skin. Maybe it was my delirium, but for once, he sounded possessive in the way a man would toward a woman.
Not the way a god did with his pet.
Or maybe I was just a really important pet.
“Shadow.” I groaned, my head clearing as the bone-shattering chill eased from me.
“You just need to warm up,” he said softly, and my aching head appreciated the low rumbles of his voice.
When he released me, I expected to fall to the floor, but instead, he wrapped one arm around my waist to stabilize me, while the other rubbed against my back, sending more heat circulating through me, using his particular brand of fiery power.
It was then that I realized I was naked as fuck, and he was in the shower with me, completely soaked. “Your clothes,” I murmured inanely.
“Not important,” he replied. “You almost died; might be worth focusing on that.”
“Asshole,” I muttered back, my eyes fluttering closed as an exhaustion, pure and consuming, sent me to the land of dreams.
“You know it, Sunshine,” was the last thing I heard before everything went completely dark.
I’d woken up with a few hangovers in my time. Not a lot because an alcoholic mother did kind of deter me from drinking to excess, but Simone had managed to sneak—from her parents’ collection—a bottle or two. Both times we’d finished it all, and since it had been before our first shifts, we’d definitely suffered the aftereffects.
Waking from the Shadow Realm door trying to possess me was nothing like that. It was more like death was tugging me closer to the afterlife, one painful drumbeat of my brain at a time.
As I opened my eyes, the light split my head in two, and I rolled over to vomit off the side of the bed. Vomiting with a raging headache only made the pain worse, so of course, I threw up again. Vicious cycle right there.
“You’ll be cleaning that up.”
He sounded unamused, and I felt the same way as I propped one eye open to glare fucking death at him. “What did you do to me?” I croaked, wiping at my mouth as I hung listlessly from the side of the bed. A bed that was most definitely not mine.
I should have known straight away because while there was nothing wrong with my mattress—it was amazingly comfortable—this one was a cloud of luxury. The sheets were too soft to be any material on Earth, and they smelled so good, like…
I jerked upright, groaning as I did. “I’m in your bed.”
Looking around as quickly as my broken head would allow, I attempted to see everything in the “forbidden bedchamber.” I’d searched for this multiple times, but there’d been no sign of another bedroom in the entire lair.
“This was the closest room to get you into,” Shadow said. “A few more seconds, and the dark spell on the Shadow Realm door would have consumed you.”
He was sitting in a wide, olive-colored leather chair, with a back so high, it was even taller than him at his eight-feet height. His arms were relaxed on the armrests, a white long-sleeved shirt wrapped around the impressive muscles. His long legs were clothed in faded denim, man-spread before him. And all the while, those gold-and-red eyes examined my face.
He looked like a man who’d been sitting there for many hours, patiently waiting.
“What actually happened?” I asked, relieved to feel a slight decrease in the pounding in my head.
“What happened is you’re weaker than I expected, and when you had a chance to break through a very powerful spell on the Shadow Realm door, you only managed to almost die.”
Right. “I’m good at almost dying,” I said conversationally, choosing not to bother being angry about him acting like a piece of shit. “But maybe, if you’d been a little more forthcoming about the Shadow Realm and what sort of spell is on the door, we wouldn’t be in this position.”
Shadow shook his head, leaning forward to draw me in with his intense stare. “You see, there was no reason you needed to know that information to do what was needed. You just had to be strong enough to break the spell without it consuming your soul.”
Consuming my soul. Well, that didn’t sound like fun. Running my hands across my body, as if I could check if everything was still intact, I felt only naked skin. Blinking down at the silky sheets pooled around my waist, my tits hanging out for the world to see, I shook my head. “Well, damn. Why didn’t you tell me I was butt-ass naked?”
Shadow’s chest rumbled as he actually laughed. “You act nothing like any virgin I’ve ever met.”
I snorted, still not attempting to cover myself. At this point, I’d been sitting here for who-knew-how-long and covering up now would just be redundant. “Had a few sacrificed to you over the years, I’d guess.”
With a shake of his head, he stood, unfolding his long length from the chair and stalking closer to me. I swallowed at the dryness in my throat. How one could go from near death to horny as fuck in a few minutes was beyond me, but, hey, at least I wasn’t boring.
When he stood above me, I tilted my head back. “Mera,” he said, his voice not giving anything away.
“Shadow,” I replied.
“You need to get the fuck out of my bed, get dressed, brush your teeth, and find the damn path back to the Shadow Realm. Before it’s too late.”
Ouch. Well, okay then.
Avoiding the vomit, I dropped my legs off the side of his massive bed while taking a moment to look around, since this would probably be the only time I’d be invited into his secret chambers.
The room was darkly masculine, of course—king of darkness wouldn’t be caught dead with anything else—and appeared to be mostly dominated by the huge bed. Outside of that, there was a television, and I stared longingly at it. It had been months since I’d indulged in my love of old movies and cheesy sitcoms, and to know Shadow had one just chilling here was such a jolt of reality.
I felt homesick.
“How many channels do you get down here?” I said half-jokingly, jerking my head toward the massive flat screen.
Shadow’s expression was deadpan. “All of them.”
All. Of. Them?
“Jealous,” I cried, in a poor Napoleon Dynamite mimic, and what do you freaking know… he actually smiled.
“Maybe, if you can figure out how to do the one task I’ve set for you, then I’ll give you some screen time.”
“Like a toddler,” I drawled. “Should I call you ‘Daddy’ too?”
The red and gold in his eyes shimmied to black, and I didn’t even try to pretend I’d misunderstood the double entendre of what I’d just said. I had not forgotten Angel’s plan, and almost dying wasn’t going to stop me from fulfilling my part.
“Get the fuck out before I take you over my knee,” Shadow rumbled, his voice deeper than ever. “Calling me ‘Daddy’ will be the least of your worries.”
Of course, that jolted through my chest like an arrow shot from a magical blade, one that would never miss its target. My father. He was what had started all of this and almost gotten me killed by a dark realm. Was this the last time I’d sidle close to my final breaths for that man? Should I just say “fuck it” and let him go now? Kind of felt like I’d fought for my dad as much as possible, and yet I couldn’t quite release my last shred of hope for answers. My last hope to see him one more time.
My head was a mess of father drama as I stumbled from the room, only to realize I hadn’t paid attention to where I’d exited, and when I looked around for Shadow’s door, there was nothing to be found. Just a set of familiar shelves near the fire. Well, apparently, his room was like the hallway to Earth: only Shadow could find it.
My bedroom, thankfully, wasn’t playing musical rooms, and when I entered, I sank against the door, wishing that the weakness in my body would fade. My wolf felt like a shell of herself today, and it was so out of the norm that I was genuinely worried.
Sucking up as much strength as I had, I pushed off from the door and made my way into the bathroom, where I half-drowned myself in an attempt to get clean and clear my head. By the time I was done—never-ending hot water, bitches—I felt much more like my usual self. My usual self with a lot of questions and a new burning desire to discover what had caused that door to the Shadow Realm to react like that.
Why was it closed off to everyone?
I pulled on the clothing that I liked to think of as my “get the fuck out of my face or I’ll kick your ass” style, including black leather pants, thigh-high leather boots with a decent heel, and a white tank that I tucked into the pants. I braided my hair—poor attempt but better than Simone’s—and headed out to get some answers.
