Shadow’s spell had been designed to draw all the creatures to the same place. Again, in the pack mountain area of Torma. “Why here?” I asked.
“Most of them were already here, of course,” he said shortly. “You being the shadow magnet that you are.”
Gah, there was such a double meaning to that now, and I again forced yesterday from my mind. It had been a one-time deal. One fucking time. I needed to wrap my head around that and move the heck on. Maybe if I continued to repeat it, my traitorous body would finally get on board.
“I hope one day I figure out what it is about me that bypasses the normal rules that govern you and that land,” I murmured.
Shadow just shot me an unreadable look, but there was no time to reply because we had arrived at shadow creature central.
“Holy shit balls,” I said, my breath catching in my throat at the sight of dozens or more creatures captured in a huge circle of fire they couldn’t seem to cross. Shadow’s fire was as badass as he was. “There’re so many!”
He nodded. “Yeah, it seems that this time, you opened a multitude of doorways from the realm. Thankfully, in the high echelons, you appeared to only release Igorna and the two hunters, so the rest shouldn’t be too much headache.”
“What happened with Igorna?”
Shadow’s face wreathed in dark satisfaction. “After a little convincing, he’s having a bit of a nap in one of the cells.”
Nap… Yeah, sure, that sounded plausible.
“How are we going to get them back? To their world?” It was starting to become a larger issue with so many of them on this side of their door now.
Shadow’s expression turned introspective. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the last few days. At first, I was focused on getting the doorway open, but now… What if we’ve been looking at it the wrong way? The spell on the door is clearly no barrier for you since you keep opening your own temporary portals into Shadow Realm. If we figure out how, there’s a chance you can act as a conduit, and a more permanent doorway might be established. Then I can use my power to return the creatures, and maybe even follow as well.”
I nodded as I let the idea marinate in my brain. “Yeah, we haven’t tried that before. It feels like I might have more of an idea how to do that than getting around the spell on the door.”
Shadow’s lips tilted just enough to give him a sinister look. “Once I destroy the one who created the spell, the door will no longer be barred. I just have to get into the realm first.”
He’d have his revenge, and I’d be thrown aside, no longer any use to him.
Hopefully, there’d be more than a shell left of me when that happened, because it was clear that Shadow would do almost anything to achieve his ultimate goal and seek his revenge.
There was no more time to stress on it, because he was striding across the rocky ground toward the creatures. It didn’t really snow much in Torma, but we still had cold snaps, and judging from the iced ground, it had to be close to the winter solstice. Which meant…
Simone was about to undertake her first shift.
I needed to see her before that happened, even if she would probably beat the crap out of me for not trying to get back sooner. I also needed to see Dannie and make sure that she was safe and well. Shadow had said she would be taken care of, but again, I needed to see it with my own eyes.
As we walked, my wolf’s grace stopped me from slipping on the ice and falling on my ass, and I eventually made it to Shadow’s side in one piece. Both of us stood just outside of the ring of flames that was keeping the growling, prowling, fighting creatures at bay.
“Did you want me to try to open the path here?” I asked.
Shadow shook his head. “No. I want to send them all back in one go, and that means the hunters, Igorna, and the others we have trapped.”
“Angel killed the hunters,” I reminded him.
“You can’t kill us with weapons not born of the Shadow Realm,” he reminded me. “Angel’s blades are formidable, but they’re not born of shadow. She just disrupted their physical structure, and here, without the mists, it’s harder to find energy for us to reform. I got them locked away before they managed to regain full power.”
Right. Right. That was the reason he hadn’t killed the creatures in the first place, just locked them away. His mention of “the mists” reminded me of his tattoos, and it stimulated my curiosity in a way that was entirely new and all-encompassing.
The name, it almost felt… familiar. But the flash of déjà vu couldn’t have been more than a random jolt of energy because I had no knowledge of these mists he referred to.
Shadow grasped on to the flames, and unlike a regular mortal, he wasn’t burned to death by handling fire. Instead, it appeared to leap into his palms and lovingly caress him.
Turning from me, he focused all of his attention on the fire. “Thank you,” he murmured to it, followed by a lot of words that were not in English. They sounded almost like a song, the words a soothing rhythmic tune, and magic followed each beat.
It took me a second to understand what he was doing: wrapping up his spell. Shadow stepped back and the flames surged, encasing the creatures completely in a fireball. It was silent in the field now, their braying and roars cut off by the magic of this spell.
The ball rose in the air with the creatures on board, following as we started to walk. When we neared the edge of a rocky outcropping, the doorway to the library appeared, and I briefly caught movement out of the corner of my eye, but it was gone when I looked closer.
Probably a rabbit or fox—these forests were filled with animals, despite the presence of shifters in their midst. I briefly wished it had been a shifter so I could pass a message on to my friends. Once again, I was leaving without seeing them, and every time that happened, a little piece of my soul shriveled up. Even if it didn’t feel like it, it had been a year. A year without knowing they were okay.
“Shadow,” I said abruptly, stopping him in his tracks. “I can’t leave without checking on my friends. I know you said you’d take care of Dannie… Do you promise she’s okay?”
I was watching him closely, searching for the truth in his eyes. “She was gone when I paid Torma a visit,” he told me. “Rumors were flowing that she escaped, and I could not scent her nearby or feel her energy.” His eyes weren’t lying, but I also didn’t feel reassured by this information. Or lack thereof, really. “She’s a crafty one,” he added, like he knew her, “and something tells me they only held her in the first place because she allowed them to. She’ll be fine. You’ll see her again.”
I held his gaze, but he didn’t waver. Not that my stare was going to break Shadow, but I had to show how serious I was. He nodded like he respected the fact, and I wondered if this was another step forward in our relationship. The lines were blurring, and I didn’t know how to manage my emotions about that.
“Let’s get these creatures back to the library,” Shadow said, reminding me what we’d actually been here for.
“Yep,” I said, taking one last breath of familiar air, a mild longing for my pack sliding through me before I shed it as easily as I shed my wolf when we were done with a shift. Part of me couldn’t even remember being in Torma, but my wolf missed her pack, and truth be told, a tiny slice of me did, too.
As we stepped into the white hall, leaving behind the wintery lands of Earth, I followed Shadow, who didn’t waste any time. Fire filled the hall with light and heat until eventually we reached the next prison. Shadow released the creatures into an extra-large room, and after they tumbled from the fire, he sealed the door with his energy. Energy that looked a lot like Inky—a smoke cloud settling over the entrance. Shadow and Inky’s energy were the same, and that didn’t surprise me one bit. I’d already figured out that whatever Inky was, it was tied irrevocably to the Shadow Beast, and they could never be separated entirely.
“I’ll have dinner brought to the lair,” Shadow said once our task was complete.
I couldn’t help my chuckle. “What did you call all of your shit before you met me?”
He didn’t laugh, but his expression was amused. “It’s a human trait to want to label everything. Some things just are, without need of title or proper noun.”
That felt weird to me, but I didn’t argue because it probably was a human trait. When we entered the library of knowledge, it was business as usual. Various inhabitants from the worlds scattered about, researching everything and giving me a small glimpse into cultures I’d probably never get to see myself.
The familiarity was nice, though, like the shadow creature business might have finally been behind us, and we even had a solid game plan going forward.
Everything was looking up. For once.
