Page 57 of In Your Light

But Salem... Salem gasped and went deathly pale. “Kids,” he said. “Kittens, now! And come to Dadda. Now, now!”

“What is it?” Aurin asked, voice stricken.

All four godlings disappeared into their human clothes and came out as four little kittens. They raced to Aurin and he scooped them up.

“Salem, you’re scaring me,” Aurin said.

“Holy fuck,” Sawyer said, looking out the window. “The fuck is that?”

Salem took Aurin’s face and kissed him, then gave Fray and Tobin an order, pointing at his family. “You protect them with your life.”

“Salem,” Ciaran said, alarmed.

Fyn was on his feet, scared now. He dared to look out the window, and saw...

Well, he wasn’t sure.

A raven, kind of. It was the shape of one, but it was far too big, and it seemed to be made of shadows.

Ciaran and Sawyer went out the door. Kellan, Hendrix, and Dylan followed, and Beau and Hudson did too. Salem backed Aurin and the godlings into the corner, his body a shield between them and the door, and Fray and Tobin were beside him.

For a long moment, Fyn was frozen with fear. His body was screaming at him to run, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the shape of shadows outside in the grey misty rain.

And then the air around it sucked in, vacuuming in the light and sound around it to a point. Fyn’s ears popped, and in the blink of an eye, the raven shape of shadows was gone, and in its place was a man.

A tall man dressed all in black, with pale skin and haunted eyes.

Hadeom.

Chapter

Fourteen

HADEOM

It was ironic that after trying, and failing, to morph for so long, when Hadeom felt it happening, he’d tried to stop it. But, much like wishing the sun wouldn’t rise, he was powerless to keep it at bay.

Cern was right.

The old bastard always was.

Hadeom had needed the right motivation. And apparently that motivation, Hadeom’s true reason, was Fyn.

He wished it wasn’t. He wished anything but that.

Not for himself. For himself, he wanted it more than life itself. His miserable, redundant life. He wanted Fyn in ways he’d never allowed himself to want anything.

He wished Fyn wasn’t his reason for Fyn’s own sake. He was pure sunshine and everything good in this world. He deserved better. He deserved someone who could walk in the light with him.

Not someone made of sinister shadows and darkness. Not someone who scorched the earth with death and misery.

But fate was cruel that way.

When Fyn had come to see him, had looked at him with his moss-coloured eyes and brilliant smile, when he’d told Hadeom he liked him, offered him a home, a place to live, Hadeom almost couldn’t stop the urge to morph.

And then he’d told Hadeom he’d seen humans.... Fucking humans! The worst kind of monsters even getting within sight of Fyn made Hadeom see red, made his bones ache to shift, to take his true form.

To protect Fyn and slaughter anyone who dared to threaten him.