“Your hair is spectacular,” he rumbled. “The red draws me in, reminding me of my fire, and I just want to bury my hands…”
He trailed off, but ten to one both of us were thinking of our last sex session, where he’d had a very decent hold on my hair.
“Fuck,” I managed to get out, and he just laughed.
“You need to eat,” he said again.
But did I? Really?
Managing to hold onto my pout, I followed him toward the lair exit, where we found Inky, doing exactly as Shadow had asked. Surrounding the portal to the library, giving us extra privacy.
We’d needed these uninterrupted moments together. “Whenever we have a spare second, we should have sex, okay?” I said to Shadow, taking him by surprise.
“Sunshine?”
I shrugged. “Look, we might all perish when we go up against Dannie. I’m realistic enough to know that she’s Solaris System powerful, and we might all be squished like bugs in the first minute of seeing her, so I want us to find moments to love on each other. If we can.”
His eyes softened, but he refrained from laughing at me. “Firstly, I will never be a bug,” he said seriously, “and secondly, we will have all the eternities together, Sunshine. You’re mine, for now and always.”
Thealwayspart was a nice addition to his growled statement.
When we stepped through to the library, it was as busy and bustling as it had been the first time I’d seen it. Night and day held very little meaning to the beings who ventured here from the worlds, especially since all of the time zones, weather, and hours in the day varied between the ten worlds.
It might have been nighttime in the library, with the view outside the windows dark, and the lovely chandeliers and lights above illuminating everything, but that didn’t mean it was night everywhere else.
Shadow greeted almost all of the beings he saw by name, and it was the usual crowd, mostly from Brolder, Valdor, Faerie, and Karn. Everyone returned his greeting, bowing their heads, and it wasn’t just a show. They might have feared the Shadow Beast, but they also respected him.
A lesson my former alpha, Victor Wolfe, should have learned. Our pack had lacked a true heart because of him, and his son looked set to continue the tradition.
When we entered the dining hall, the noise hit me first, and I actually stumbled. Or would have, if Shadow didn’t wrap his arm around me, keeping me on my feet.
“You’d have to be the first clumsy wolf,” he said with a shake of his head.
I growled at him. “I’m not clumsy; I’m just easily startled.”
He raised both eyebrows, looking like a smug fuck. So of course, I had to add, “If there’s a flaw in the wolf design, you should take it up with the creator.”
Mic. Drop.
He didn’t take offense, though, because he had no chinks in his armor. He just ruffled my hair and led me along the rows of tables toward our pack. As soon as that table came into view, the noise in here made sense; Shadow’s friends were riling everyone up.
“Len ingested so much of the poppy flower,” Lucien said with a snort of laughter, “that he thought he was in his garden, but he was really running naked through his family’s celestial moon party. His mother chased him with a chailis cane. She meant business.”
Everyone laughed, even Len, after which he shrugged. “Look, I wasn’t even five hundred years old at the time and I have regrets. I have many regrets about how I chose to spend my youth.”
Not even five hundred.Youth?Like that was a damn teenager.
Many other beings had gathered around to bask in the glow of the “gods” who ran this world. They filled all the chairs, except for the few around Angel. Maybe it was the way she glared at any who tried to slither into her personal space, or more likely it was the intense glow she emitted all powered up that warned them not to mess with her.
This was how it had always been with her in this dining hall. Separated. Alone. Untouchable. Everyone had heeded her warnings except for me. I’d fucked that up from the first moment I met her, but my mistake turned out to be the very best thing I could have done.
“You’re looking very relaxed,” she said when I dropped in beside her, Shadow taking the seat on the other side of me. Angel had managed to keep two spots free for us.
“You’re not,” I shot back, noting how her hands clenched, as if she wished her blades were in them.
“These lugheads had to choose my section of the dining hall to set up camp,” she seethed. “I told them to move on, but at risk of wasting my energy, I can’t literally move them.”
It was a large dining hall. They could have sat anywhere, but they had chosen to crowd into her spot. Not just crowd, but bring in dozens of other beings, all of whom would normally give Angel a wide berth.
