I needed him.
Fuck, theworldsneeded him.
Without Shadow, his mother would probably destroy us all in her manic need for order and control. I hadn’t forgotten what Gaster had said… The stone was only going to continue corrupting its host until there was no sign of the Dannie I knew and loved.
If anyone knew how to stop that from happening, it was Shadow. I just had to find him first.
The farther I crept into the room, the colder it got. How the fuck that was even possible, I had no idea, but apparently there was a new level offrozen nipples in Antarcticathat Shadow had discovered.
“Shadow,” I called after creeping for way too long. “Come out of your damn labyrinth of a library and talk to me.”
A moment of silence. A moment before a roar blasted through the shelves, the force knocking me back; I would have landed on my ass if Inky hadn’t caught me from behind. Straightening, I shook off the lingering effects of beast magic, returning his roar with one of my own.
“Listen up, you cranky bastard. I’m not your enemy,” I bellowed, feeling him move closer. I stood my ground. “I get it, Shadow, I really do. I’m fairly pissed at Dannie as well, but your mom isn’t in her right mind, so I need you back inyourright mind so we can help her.”
Despite what Dannie had done to me, I didn’t hate her. I was hurt, but I also understood that she’d been trying to save us when she’d swallowed that stone. She probablyhadsaved me, since I’d been about to grab it, and who knew what that would have done to someone who was half-shifter.
The power corrupting her was not entirely her fault, and she deserved a chance to be saved.
His roars faded as I sensed him stalking closer. The connection I always felt to him burst to life as my fire grew larger, spreading out from me like it was reaching for the beast.
The fire was the only reason I knew when he was about to attack. It deflected the first slash of his power, and as I dove to the side, I slapped back at him with my own energy. As I scrambled to my feet, Inky got involved, swelling up into a large curtain between us. Shadow stepped into the light of my fire, his misty magic sliding away so I could see every naked inch of him.
He was at least ten feet tall. Or somewhere around that. I was shit at judging heights, as had been well documented, but I knew for a fact that his Anubis form stood well above his normal seven feet.
He was still in a humanoid body, with some structural changes so he was stronger and hairier than normal, both of which were totally fine by me.
Wolf shifter, right? Hair was kind of our thing.
The Anubis wolf head was the most foreign part of him, turning him into a being so god-like that it was hard not to just stare at him in awe. My eyes traced down his bare chest, his ink still visible even under the extra hair, not to mention the abs, and…holy dick gods in heaven.Someone needed to say a fucking prayer for that bounty.
“You shouldn’t be strolling around here with your weapon just flapping in the book breezes,” I managed to say, trying desperately not to let breathlessness creep into my voice.
This was a serious situation, with a beast ready to rip my head from my body. It was certainly not the time to be cockmerised, no matter how impressive the specimen in question, or how long I’d been without him.
Shadow tilted his head again, and the way he moved was so animalistic. Just as Gaster had told me… Shadow was more beast than anything else right now.
Inky drifted closer to me again, and I wondered if it was communicating with Shadow or not. Was the beast able to form coherent thoughts, or was it all rage and instinct?
“Any help would be greatly appreciated, buddy,” I said to Inky, my skin prickling as Shadow moved closer to me. His energy was electric, and I wasn’t so stupid that I didn’t recognize the grave danger I was in here. It wasn’t the first time I’d been near death around the Shadow Beast, but it was the first time he could not be communicated or reasoned with.
Right?
Was I making a mistake in assuming that just because his eyes were flaming pools of bloodlust and his claws were mini samurai swords that his brain was not still fully functional? Even when the wolf took over, a part of me remained Mera. Remained my human self.
Unless Dannie had done something else to affect him, the real Shadow was still there, just buried under a shit ton of anger and power.
“You probably don’t remember me right now,” I started in a soft whisper, “but we’re friends. Great friends. I’m most definitely in the top six beings you trust, and considering how long you’ve lived and how many beings you know, that is really quite the fucking achievement.”
Nerves had me babbling, but that had always been a way to get through to him in the past, so I went with it.
“You kidnapped me,” I continued, “which, by the way, you’re not allowed to do with any other shifter. I’m far too jealous and possessive for you to drag another in here by their hair. Nope. I might even beast out myself and put bleach in their shampoo at a high enough strength that their hair would fall out. Not all of it, just… like half of it. I’m not a total monster.”
He’d stopped moving, his head stilling as his depthless eyes devoured me. It was hard for me to believe I’d forgotten that intense stare.
“You don’t remember me, Shadow, but our souls matc—”
Before I could finish my sentence, he roared, a deafening sound that had true power behind it, sending me flying back into a nearby shelf. I hadn’t been ready for it, failing to brace myself and stop bones from breaking. Normally, it wouldn’t be a huge deal, but the few minutes it took me to heal was all the time the beast needed to attack again. Thankfully, my wolf saw the issue as well, forcing the change on us so we healed in an instant.
