Naps were a god’s work. What god, I had no idea, but surely, even Shadow loved to nap. I had to believe that even sociopathic beasts needed downtime too.
For an unknown period of time, I remained in my cozy snooze fest, and it wasn’t until a warm hand pressed to my cheeks that consciousness returned. Still disoriented, I groaned softly as that hand moved along my neck, down the center of my chest, and over the planes of my stomach, stroking the bare skin where my shirt had risen.
Fire burned along with that touch, heating me to my core, and as my back arched, a breathy groan escaped. In the same instant, my brain clicked on to the fact that I was being touched by someone… or somethingunknown.
My eyes jerked open and in the second it took me to look around, I found I was completely alone. Or… I choked back a gasp as Shadow came into sight. He was nowhere near me, and even as fast as he was, I didn’t think he could have moved that quickly. He was back at the entrance, sheltered between the sentinel plants, his hands pressed to each of their trunks, like he was greeting his favorite puppy.
What was it with those guys treating these plants like favorite pets?
“Shadow,” I called out breathlessly, my body still burning and aching. It felt deprived, like we had gotten so close to the good part just as it had been stolen from us. “What are you doing here?”
With a final pat on the killer plants, he strode toward me. It took him a couple of minutes to reach me, cementing my thoughts that he couldn’t have touched me.
Since he was in his most giant height, I had to crane my neck back to see his face. It felt like weeks since I’d glimpsed his darkly masculine features, and just the sight of his mop of hair and full lips had me getting up to my knees and throwing myself forward toward him.
“I thought you were dead,” I said, my voice husky and muffled as I collided with his chest. “The fire was out.”
Shadow remained statue-still as I held him, and a moment later, sanity caught up to me—I was hugging the fucking Shadow Beast. Just as I went to jerk back, his arms moved, and he enclosed me in a hug.
Wait… what?
My soul screamed as he squeezed me in his firm grip, and I found myself a little choked up. A hug from Shadow was like finding the rarest, most desirable stone in the world, and for the briefest moment, I’d held it in my hand.
He pulled away just as fast, but it had happened, and as my heart pounded against my chest, I knew there was no way I could deny being affected by him. I mean, he’d always been the cause of a raging fire in my body, hormones going buck wild at his mere presence. In the early days, I’d written it off as Shadow being the most badass, sexy ass dude I’d ever seen. I mean, anyone would be into that, but it had been a superficial interest.
What I was feeling right now was more. Deeper.
The hug meant something to me.
How stupid was I to care about a fucking god who could never care about me outside of my usefulness to open the doorway to his realm? Yeah. Super stupid.
Surely, once he went back to being a total asshole—and we all knew he would—I could return him to a place of hate in my heart. That was safer and healthier for everyone involved.
Shadow appeared to be watching me as closely as I was watching him, but hopefully none of my softer feelings for him were showing on my face; he already had too much power over me, based solely on our station in the world. God versus shifter was a no-brainer. Everyone would put their money on Shadow. It was logic.
And the absolute last thing he needed to know was that my emotions were now involved. Emotions made people do stupid shit and sacrifice their morals… I’d never give him that power. Never.
“You noticed the fire was gone from the library?” he asked finally.
“Of course I did,” I exclaimed, ready to jump into this topic. “The lair is positively cold and barren without it.”
My words surprised him, if the slight flare of his pupils followed by those sinful lips pressing together was any indication. “I needed to use it for a spell,” he said, and I paid close attention because when Shadow was in a sharing mood, I learned a lot from him. “The flames will call the shadow creatures to one place, saving me the energy of tracking them individually. Easiest way to minimize the damage.”
Whoopsie.I really had to stop damaging shit. “Why didn’t you use the fire the first time I touched the shadows?”
Enigmatic stare.
Should have guessed that was all I’d get, but this time I didn’t let him get away with it, setting my face and crossing my arms—I was serious about wanting an answer.
Shadow released a breath before he shocked the crap out of me—again—by sitting next to me on the stone ledge. Was this the real Shadow Beast? Should I have been asking him some security questions only he’d know the answer to? Maybe we needed a secret code word, because he was acting way out of character.
“The fire protects my lair when I’m not there,” he said, his accent deeper in his rumbly voice. “I’ve never let it go free, especially in a situation I could handle on my own. This new development is a little more complex, though, and to save time and energy, I decided to break out the big guns.”
“And why are you here and not following up on the fire?” I pushed, hoping his sharing mood would continue.
He focused on me in that disconcerting way of his. “The spell to draw all creatures from the Shadow Realm would affect me as well. It’ll infiltrate almost every world, except for Faerie. Shadows are not welcome here, so here we’ll remain until the spell has run its course.”
A chuckle escaped from me. “Are you telling me that you could have been swept up in the spell as well, even though you cast it?”
