But my main focus was on the figure.
Like she hadn’t wanted me to see her until the absolute last moment, we were mere feet apart when the light finally eased. I stared into beautiful andfamiliareyes.
My heart slammed against my chest as I tried to figure out if I was hallucinating.
Could this place cause you to hallucinate? To see loved ones?
“Dannie?” I whispered.
She didn’t look exactly the same as she had on Earth. This version was a little taller and slimmer, a lot younger, with a mass of messy blonde curls trailing down her spine. She wore brilliant red robes that both blended in and contrasted with the Nexus.
Here she was, looking like a sun goddess. A very alive goddess, right down to the scolding look on her face. “My little Mera. You had no idea if I was friend or foe, and you just walked right into my orbit.”
My lips trembled, my throat tight as my eyes burned. “How?” I said hoarsely. “How are you here?”
She took my hand, and the tears I’d been trying desperately to keep at bay broke through their barrier. “We have a lot to discuss, Mera.” Her voice was calm and warm. “I just wanted a moment to see you first before I allowed the others in.”
I swallowed hard, painfully, my desire to curl up and bawl my eyes out so strong even as I fought against it. “Please let them in,” I choked out, “and promise not to disappear on me again.”
“I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart.”
Tears slipped free, and she brushed a hand over my cheek before she crossed to the archway. She did something to the energy barrier, and as it dropped, Shadow—furious and covered in flames—stormed through. He didn’t give Dannie a second look, his focus all on me. “Are you okay?” he demanded.
I nodded, lifting my face toward him, the moisture I hadn’t bothered to wipe away still on my cheeks. “They’re happy tears.”
This finally seemed to penetrate his worry, and I had a feeling we’d been minutes from seeing him all Anubis-a-fied again. Sweeping me closer to him, he positioned himself in front of me as he finally turned to acknowledge Dannie.
She was walking toward us, her long, red robes trailing behind her. He tensed further, and I was confused. “It’s Dannie,” I said, pressing my hand to his back.
I felt a spark of his power, but it didn’t hurt me, so that was not a warning. Shadow was reacting to something else. Dannie’s face softened as she stared at him, and I hated not knowing what the fuck was going on here.
“Your energy did not feel like this on Earth,” Shadow rasped, and I had never heard him sound so… sad. “I felt flashes of the realm and the royals. I figured you were from one of the kingdoms. I didn’t know it was you.”
She reached up toward him, and just as I was about to warn her of the dangers of touching him without his permission, he met her hand with his own, wrapping that huge palm around her much smaller one.
“I have missed you,” she said.
Just as I was about to freak the fuck out and start demanding answers, Shadow replied. “I missed you too, Mother. So fucking much.”
Mother?
The world spun and for a brief moment, I wondered if I was about to embarrass myself and faint. Dannie was Shadow’s mother?
Who and how and why and what the fuck was happening here?
42
Angel must have seen my confusion, reaching my side in an instant. Her support was given freely, an arm wrapped around me, which I was a touch ashamed to admit, I needed. The truth of what I’d just heard had knocked me over, and I wasn’t sure which part was the hardest to handle.
Shadow’s focus was on hismother—the fuck?—but I sensed that he was aware of me as well. Dude was very good at multi-tasking.
“We should sit down,” Dannie said, sweeping her arm wide like she wanted to take in the beautiful land of the Nexus. Unlike the rest of The Grey Lands, here there was a plethora of energy and life. A taste of what used to span out across all of this land when it had been Paldeena.
No one said a word, not even Ixana, as we followed Dannie. She moved through what I would compare to a field, but there was no grass. The golden matter beneath our feet was soft, cushioning my boots, and as I leaned over to run my hands across the velvety, cloud-like substance, I wondered what it was.
It wasn’t sticky or weird to touch… It felt nice. Like I could comfortably curl up in a ball and sleep on this field that morphed from gold to red and back again with careless abandon. It was so much like Shadow’s eyes that I felt an odd pang in my chest.
Pushing that aside, I fell into the back of the group. Shadow and Dannie were up front, talking to each other, but I couldn’t hear what was being said.
