I frown, wiping sweat from my forehead despite the cool air. “Is that bad? Will it give me away?”
“Not if you’re careful. Most won’t notice the subtle difference unless they’re specifically looking for it.” He studies me thoughtfully, his gaze making my skin prickle with awareness. “Your natural affinity for the shadow realm could be advantageous, actually. You can travel farther with less effort.”
We move on to the next exercise—using shadow tendrils as scouts to gather information. I sit cross-legged in the center of the room, the cold marble seeping through my jeans while Bael places objects in distant corners, challenging me to identify them using only my shadow extensions.
“Extend your awareness, not just your shadows,” he instructs. “Feel what they encounter as if through your own fingertips.”
I send a tendril sliding across the dusty floor toward the first object, trying to sense its shape and texture. The shadow touches something cold and metallic, with ridges and a circular shape. The metal tastes of age and tarnish through my shadow’s senses.
“A coin,” I guess. “Old. Silver, maybe?”
Bael nods, impressed. “Exactly right. Try the next one.”
As my shadow scouts become more precise, I discover I can sense not just objects but energies. The room holds layers of emotion—decades of joy from long-ago parties, sorrow from abandonment, and something darker that makes my shadows recoil. When my tendril approaches the door, it suddenly snapsback as if it’s been burned, sensing someone in the hallway outside.
“Someone’s coming,” I whisper, alarmed. My heart hammers against my ribs.
Bael goes still as death, extending his own shadow awareness. The temperature in the room seems to drop several degrees. “Light Nephilim. Two of them on patrol.”
My shadows instinctively gather closer, responding to my fear without conscious command. They form a protective shroud around me, darkening to better conceal my presence like living camouflage.
“Your shadows are becoming protective,” Bael observes, moving silently to my side. “That’s good. It means your bond with them is strengthening.”
The patrol passes without entering the ballroom, their light auras creating brief flashes under the door that make my shadows flinch. But the momentary danger highlights the risks we’re taking with these nightly sessions. If caught, I’d face tough questions at best, exposure, and death at worst.
“We should practice shadow-walking through walls,” Bael suggests once the danger passes. “For quick escapes if needed.”
This proves significantly more challenging. Moving through solid objects requires compressing my physical form into pure shadow essence—a process that feels like squeezing through a too-tight opening while every atom in my body screams in protest. My first attempt ends with me halfway through a wall, stuck like a bug in amber until Bael pulls me back through with hands that shake slightly.
“Commit fully to the transition,” he advises, his hands lingering on my shoulders as he steadies me. His touch burns through my shirt, warm and solid. “Hesitation leaves you vulnerable.”
After several more attempts and near-disasters that leave megasping and disoriented, I finally manage to shadow-walk through the ballroom wall into the adjacent corridor. The triumph is short-lived, however, as the effort leaves me dizzy and weak-kneed, like I’ve run a marathon.
Bael appears beside me instantly, his arm around my waist keeping me upright when my legs threaten to give out. “Enough for tonight. You’re pushing too hard.”
I want to protest, but the room is spinning alarmingly, and I taste copper in my mouth. “Fine. Just... give me a minute.”
We slide down the wall to sit on the cold stone floor, my head dropping to his shoulder as I wait for the dizziness to pass. He smells like winter nights and something uniquely him that makes my pulse skip. His shadows curl protectively around mine, creating a comforting cocoon of darkness that soothes my frayed nerves.
“Our shadow connection grows stronger,” he observes quietly, his voice rumbling through his chest. “Your abilities are developing faster than I expected.”
“Is that because of the mate bond thing?” I ask, still not entirely comfortable discussing the mysterious connection he described in the observatory.
He’s silent for a moment, and I can feel the tension in his body. “Partially. But it’s also the crimson influence. Your wings—how far has the color spread?”
I consider the question, thinking of the last time I dared to release my wings in the privacy of my room. “The crimson covers about a third of each wing now. It was just the tips before.”
Bael nods as if confirming a suspicion, and his arm tightens around me slightly. “The prophecy is accelerating. Your powers are developing in response.”
“That sounds ominous as fuck.”
“It’s not necessarily bad. But it means we need to intensify your training.” His voice turns softer, more intimate in thedarkness. “It also means decisions may be forced sooner than I’d hoped.”
“Decisions about what?”
“Everything. Your place here. Your role in the prophecy.” He hesitates, and I feel his jaw clench against the top of my head. “The mate bond.”
My heart skips a beat. Since our near-kiss in the observatory, we’ve maintained careful physical boundaries during training. But the shadow raven he created still watches over me each night, a constant reminder of the unresolved tension between us.
