“So many demons guard this place, and I feel the wards, so where the heck is the entryway?” Ely muttered, lowering her hands from the rough surface and flexing her fingers.
The hellhound butted its enormous head against Shadow’s shoulder. She gave the beast a rub on its huge muzzle and seamlessly dematerialized, searching the rest of the underground for another way into the lair.
Hours later, she coasted back to the three intersecting tunnels and reformed. The hellhound chuffed and gently batted her arm once more.Pithius. Go.
Then she understood.Pithius. Its name.
Her throat still too raw, she simply touched the lupine face.
Its fiery eyes remained fixed on her for a moment, then it dissipated into black smog and vanished.
“That creature does seem to like you,” Ely said, coming closer now. “Tearing that demon apart.”
Shadow didn’t respond as she bypassed the familiar stinky tunnels. The odor of sewer so strong, it made her eyes water, and bile rushed up her throat. As she approached The Refuge, all appeared quiet, the homeless asleep.
In the basement she’d once called home, Shadow stepped into her place through the broken entrance, the door hanging by one hinge. Nothing had remained of her things or Eddi’s. She didn’t care. She lowered to the dirty floor and leaned against the grimy wall, staring at the other side of the room. Memories of Nik sitting there, watching her, and of her taunting him after she’d brought him down, and then him kissing her filled her thoughts.
Now he was gone.
She’d never see him again.
Never feel his arms around her.
Never see that wicked light in his eyes or hear his tormenting teasing. Or taste his heated kisses.
Cracks splintered her numbed heart, pain sweeping through her in a tidal wave. Tears fell. She drew her knees up, lowered her head, and sobbed for her dead love.
“Shadow?” Ely said softly, her fingers gently sweeping her short damp hair away from her face. “I know nothing I say will bring him back. But I’m so sorry, and I’m here for you, for anything you need.”
She looked up at the blurry image of Ely kneeling in front of her, her dark eyes wet with tears. “H-he left me behind,” she hiccupped. “We were one, and h-he left me behind. What’s the point in soul joining, when he left me behind with all this grief?”
“I don’t know why he did that. Maybe he didn’t want you leaving your brother alone?”
When her heart was shattering, anguish embedding every inch of her, she wasn’t thinking of the living. She simply shook her head.
“C’mon, let’s go home,” Ely coaxed.
“Nik was my home.”
“It’s dangerous out here, Shadow.”
“I’m not leaving until I find the bastard.” Her fingers tightened on her obsidian dagger, her glowing skin back to its pale coloring. She reached for her cell in her jeans pocket, but it wasn’t there. “Can I borrow your phone,” she asked Ely, then shook her head. If she spoke to her brother now, he would demand to join her. She didn’t want him in the hellscum’s sight. “Tell Liam, I’m…I’m…I’ll see him when I’m done.”Killing the bastard.
After a second, Ely nodded. “All right.”
Shadow rubbed her burning eyes. “You should leave. That demon has a weapon that can kill immortals.”
“No—”
“He won’t kill me.” Her expression hardened. “He wants me for my powers. The puny human he thinks he can control.”
“Shadow, that’s not what I saw. You half-morphed. You have wings.”
Shadow blinked in bewilderment. Then she remembered the weights on her back. “Oh…” She shrugged. “Some demons have them. It must be because of their blood in me.”
Ely’s eyebrows pulled down in puzzlement. “I admit I haven’t seen many kinds of demons, and none with wings, but yours are beautiful. The way they shimmer. And I’m not leaving you alone.”
Shadow inhaled a shuddering breath, cast Ely a dull look, then lowered her gaze back to her bloodied hands and squeezed her eyes shut. Her head hurt. Her heart had fractured into so many pieces, she doubted it would ever heal.
