The darkness slowly receded but her presence remained.
“Was that her, or an illusion?” I asked, tears falling down my face when I glanced at Dante again.
“It was Starlight,” he reassured, his voice captured by emotion too. “I just created a ‘bridge’ for you to meet through my darkness. It was real.”
“Thank you,” I sniffed, wrapping my arms around him fiercely, just like I had with her.
Dante just held me, his fingers gently stroking my back while the remarkable feelings lessened in me.
“Are you okay?” he finally asked, glancing into my eyes before kissing the tears off my cheek.
“I’m okay.” I nodded, placing a soft kiss on his lips. “I just thought I wouldn’t get to meet her now that I’ll never shift.”
“Never say never, Natasha…Fire ceremonyor not, wewillfind a way,” he vowed. Naughtiness filled his expression the nextmoment, and I already knew why. “Now, can we return to the whole ‘make love to me’request?”
A few chuckles escaped me while his hands pulled me closer.
“I’m just saying. I’m ready when you a—” Dante’s eyes abruptly widened, his expression hardening with alarm just as something rushed over the glass wall. “Get back!” he ordered, pulling me off the bed with him, like I weighed nothing, and pushing me far behind him.
“What’s happening?!” I asked while two more creatures ran impossibly fast along the building. Their forms blurring.
Those werenotWolf Shifters.
“Fuck!” Dante cursed when something ran into the glass doors, shattering through them and sending shards all around us while it lunged forward.
“Aaah!” I jumped back against the wall as a reflex, but Dante shot a stream ofTwilightat the creature before it could reach us, exploding it into a million pieces and splattering its black, putrid blood all over the walls.
Another came at him, then another, and another, then a few more, but his streams shot at them without failure. Still, many, many more inched over the balcony railing. Noises came from the rest of the penthouse, saying the others were facing the samethingsjust as Dante attempted to shoot again… Unfortunately, the shadows failed him.
There wasn’t enough darkness in the bright light of the new day for him to wield.
“D, I need power!” he roared, but the seconds it took for him to somehow help Dante, the creatures snuck inside the room.
Dante ran to me, shielding me with his body while trying to summon hisTwilight. The breath caught in my throat as I watched deformed creatures, deprived of thought, logic, or feeling crawl over the walls, floors, and ceiling like spiders.Venom dripped from their fangs as they hissed, crazy, dead eyes focused on me.
Their bodies were humanoid with arms and legs, but the skin seemed carved over the muscles, reminiscing of an anatomy drawing of the human body.
I knew what they were before Dante answered.
“Force-fed creatures called the crawlers,”Bjørn’s voice echoed in my ears.“Trust me, youneverwant to see one of those…”
Were those the “Vampires” my uncle had warned me about? Using them to manipulate me through fear my entire life? Were those the creatures that really killed my parents?
Something slammed against the other side of the wall, in D’s room, and a shriek of pain echoed, calling the creatures’ attention for a split second before it returned to me. They were taunting us, getting dangerously close to us.
“I got you!” D finally replied, and the next second, the sky outside the window darkened—like a cloud had suddenly chosen to hide the sun.
“About fucking time!” Dante retorted sucking bands of shadows toward him like a vacuum, and then darkness exploded from him.
The blast swept over the dozen crawlers in the room, literally vanishing them—not even a single particle left of them. I realized then what Dante truly meant by having hisTwilightconsume someone.
He whirled around to face me. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, although my blood felt frozen inside my veins, my breaths were barely reaching my lungs, and I wasn’t exactly sure my heart was still beating. “Yes.”
“Helipad, now!” he shouted, glancing at no one behind him, so I assumed he was calling to the others.
A blanket ofTwilightsurged from his core, extending along the balcony just as a new wave ofcrawlersappeared. They slammed against it like it was an iron wall, causing their screams and shrieks of rage to echo through the air.
