His smile was nothing short of freaking terrifying. “If I win, you will submit to me in a way you haven’t so far. No more fighting. No more research. You will return the books you think you’re hiding under your bed and accept your place here. At the bottom of the barrel.”
Jesus. The prospect of that sent a bone-deep chill through my body. My soul actually ached at the thought of losing my will to fight. He would take it from me, I saw that in his gaze, but I’d laid that bet out, and now I couldn’t back down.
“You’re asking too much,” I choked out. “The stakes are uneven. It’s not fair.”
His head angled to the right as he considered my words. “Who told you life was fair?”
I scoffed. “I know better than most that it’s not, but in this situation, I won’t take a betthatskewed in your favor.” I shook my head. “Nope. If you win, I will stop fighting as hard, but I won’t submit to you completely. Not the way you’re asking. You’ll just have to accept as much as I can give.”
His lips pressed together, thinning out their fullness, eyes still assessing me. “Fine. You’ll never win anyway, but I’m curious to see you in fight mode. Let the games begin.”
He released me, but I didn’t let him have the upper hand this time, wrapping my arms around his neck and jerking his face closer to mine. “You’re going down, asshole,” I seethed, my legs wrapped as tightly around his waist as my arms around his neck. I ground myself against him, feeling the hot pulse of pleasure inside. “I’m ready to fuck my way out of this state, and I won’t let anyone stop me.”
His growl was low and furious, and before I could think through my combative actions, he spun and crashed us into the shelves behind me, so his big body could completely engulf mine. My back ached, but not enough to stop the moan from emerging at the vibration in my pussy. His power was like a high-quality vibrator, especially when I was feeling it through every line of my body.
“You belong to me,” he rumbled. “Every single part of you. Until I decide it doesn’t.”
His hands were under my ass to jerk me harder against him, rubbing my clit in a way that I knew was deliberate. Another moan escaped, even as I wanted to rip his face off.
“Are you going to be the one who wins me the bet?” I gasped, on the verge of coming.
He laughed. Actually fucking laughed, and if it wasn’t for the hard cock pressed against my core, I might have thought him completely unaffected. Physically at least, he wasn’t as blasé as he often appeared.
Not that it mattered. He’d do everything in his power to stop me winning the bet, and I would do everything in my power to win it. As he’d just said: let the games begin.
34
Later that night, as I lay in my bed, my breaths still harsh and uneven, having just made myself come so hard that sweat coated my body, I tried to figure out what had happened in the lair. One minute fighting, the next dry humping, and the bet…
What was I actually thinking challenging him? Everyone here feared that bastard… everyone! I didn’t have a hope in hell. But I had to try. It wasn’t in me to just roll over and accept defeat, even if my stupid ass deserved it.
The rest of my night was filled with restless sleep, and I ended up switching on the light to dig out the books I’d stored under my bed. Books I really didn’t need to hide since Shadow appeared to know everything I’d been up to since I’d stepped foot in this place. Probably due to that little snitch, Inky.
I glared at the puff of smoke who’d materialized a few hours ago, thankfully after the orgasm, and had proceeded to hang around like a bad smell. “You betrayed me,” I said, glaring at it. “Snitching to Shadow about me.”
It swelled into a great puff of black cloud, and as the synapses sparked at me, I had the weirdest thought it was trying to communicate. “I can’t understand you, no matter how huge you get,” I said with a snarl. “Why don’t you just run off and tell your master that I’m reading again?”
Truth be told, these books were from Shadow’s library, and the controlling bastard no doubt knew when anything was touched in there. But in my cranky, sex-deprived, hungry-because-there’d-been-no-dinner state, I was looking for a fight. Inky was the only one around for me to grouse at, so it could just deal with it.
It swelled even larger, so I turned my back and pretended it wasn’t there, all the while reading through my stolen tome about the Shadow Realm. From what the directory told me, there were exactly zero books about the Shadow Realm in the Library of Knowledge. At least none without a lock. In Shadow’s library, on the other hand, I’d discovered five whole books on that realm, and there was no doubt more hidden away—it was much harder to search without a directory.
In the ones I’d found, though, the details were quite sparse.
A few facts Ihadlearned: the Shadow Realm was actually the most similar realm to Earth, in regard to structure. They had masses of land, bodies of water, and lots of inhabitants who enjoyed sun, surf, and snow. Depending on where they lived. But there was a darkness in this land that was not in ours. An actual underbelly of shadow creatures that were considered lower level, controlled by the royals. Those with the magic and power—like Shadow himself—kept them as guards, pets, and amusement. Which made my theory about him just pretending to need my help to contain them way more plausible.
Not knowing Shadow’s real name, I couldn’t tell if he was referenced in these books, but there were a lot of mentions of the royal family, their arranged marriages, and the duties they undertook in each of their lands. He had to be a royal; there was just no way he could have the power he did otherwise, unless Inky somehow powered him.
The worst part was none of the books detailed the spell on the door or why the Shadow Realm had been cut off from the Solaris System.
Someone knew, though… I wasn’t asking the right questions.
How did I touch it?
That in and of itself might have been the greatest mystery of all, since it was fairly clear that only those born of the Shadow Realm could usually access its powerful underbelly of energy. But I did have one working theory that it was my connection to the Shadow Beast. Shifters were born of him, and maybe in my pain, my soul had reached into an ancient connection between shifter and beast. And then between beast and the world he’d originated from.
Dropping the book, I closed my eyes, searching for a way to touch the realm again. Recalling the pain of Torin’s rejection, it was less intense; I’d grown accustomed to living with the loss, so how could I replicate those emotions and the way my vision doubled over, as it had been known to do in the past...
I slammed upright in bed, books scattering everywhere.
