Shadow shut her swollen eyes and pressed her trembling lips together, yet her hand strayed to the other side of the bed, searching…
The emptiness there corroded her heart at the harsh reality of having to endure a life without him.
She lay huddled beneath the thick covers. But nothing could warm her. Not anymore. Even her retribution at finally killing Mammon didn’t ease her agony because it didn’t bring Nik back.
He was her sun.
Her light.
He’d shown her the dawning of an amazing love, only to have destiny snatch it and shatter her apart.
Chapter 33
“What the hell is that creature doing?” a distant male voice tugged Shadow to the living yet again. “It’s destroying the damn gardens…”
A faint whine coasted to her.
Shadow shut her dry eyes, blocking out the dimly lit room, blocking out everything. Too weak to move, she lay there. But awake now, she paid the price of remembering again.
She never realized that horrid day would be their last hug, their last kiss. Or, that she’d never hear his voice again, see his quiet smile. A smile she wanted a million more of before they both took their last breath.
Her eyes burned. She pressed her fist to her hurting breastbone and curled into herself beneath the covers. Not even the piercing throb in her chest at her symbionts gnawing need for feeding made her get up. As their strength waned, so did hers. Weakness swamped her.
In her peripheral mind, a void opened, reaching out with foggy arms, promising eternal peace…
“She’s fading.” Echo’s worried voice followed her into the dark. “This rapid weight loss isn’t good. She needs something more than healing.”
I need Nik.
Gentle fingers swept back her hair, and Shadow reluctantly opened her eyes, meeting Kira’s warm smile and troubled stare. “You must have this, the Oracle insists.” With determination, she helped Shadow up and held a glass of the thick herbal drink to her lips to consume once again.
With no fight in her, Shadow tasted nothing as she swallowed the glop, then she lay down again, curling into herself.
A low whine reached her again.
“It’s that creature,” Echo whispered. “He’s out there again. He’s come every night for the past two weeks and destroys the gardens before he leaves.”
“Sheesh, of course!” Kira burst out. “Give me a minute.” Her voice lowered, “Hey, Heds, could you come up here, please? I need your help.”
Shadow shut them out, willing herself back to sleep, so she could pass out.
A door opened.
Whispers of conversation.
“I don’t think it’s wise, Kira,” Hedori said.
“But the warriors told us what it did. It protected her. Think about it? That’s a dark creature from the demon world. Shadow explained what she needed…”
More murmurs, and Shadow stopped listening. Her mind looped back to the only place she wanted to be right now, remembering Nik’s warm body next to hers. His smile when she woke up. No matter the time, he was always up before her. Memories flooded her…
Her eyes opened. A smile tugged her mouth. “Stop staring.”
“Why?” he asked in a sleep-husky voice, pale eyes tender. “I like watching you awaken. Your smile is my favorite thing in the morning…and all day long. I thank whichever Fate brought you into my life.”
His words seared her mind, melting her frozen emotions, causing the dry well inside her to squeeze out more tears, and she buried her face in her pillow.
“Shadow?” Kira gently stroked her shoulder. “You have a visitor.”
I don’t want to see anyone. She didn’t want to see the pity in their eyes. Then the mattress disappeared as someone picked her up. She gasped, her eyelids flying open, to encounter gentle, orange-green eyes.
Hedori smiled as he carried her, covers and all, like an invalid.
“Wh-what are you doing?” she rasped, her voice scratchy from the lack of use.
“Taking you downstairs.”
“No…” All she wanted was to sleep. “Please…”
“This will be good for you, Shadow,” he said so softly, like the whisper of snowflakes falling in winter.
Shadow shut her eyes, exhaustion taking hold, the gnawing in her chest competing with the pain in her fragmented heart.
Moments later, a cool breeze swept over her clammy skin. She opened heavy eyelids to find herself outside on a low-lit terrace she didn’t recognize. Hedori deposited her on a padded lounger. Kira draped another throw over her, adding to the covers that Hedori carried her with.
Night concealed the forest in the distance, but the LED lights underscored parts of the gardens and the rolling lawn.
Shadow sighed. Now what?
A low growl had her frowning. An enormous obscure shape prowled out of the darkness and into the light, taking form.
For the first time in what seemed to be forever, a faint feeling of lightness to see someone sneaked into Shadow’s heart. Everyone called this being a monster, but it had helped her in a moment when nobody ever could. If nothing else, it caused a glimmer of warmth in her chest.
She held out a shaky hand. “Pithius, veni,” she whispered.
The truck size hellhound leaped up the few steps and onto the terrace. The girls and Hedori hastily stepped back.
The hound sat on its haunches, mere inches away, and still so much taller than her.
She reached out and gently ran her fingertips through the fur on its chest. Pithius whined. As soon as she opened her palms and touched him properly, her symbionts latched on. And like a jolt of adrenaline, they greedily drew on the dark energy, powering her up—
Images flashed through her mind, and she reared back, staring into the hellhound’s burning coal-red eyes… A gloomy night. A dark figure. Mammon flung out his hand, power glimmered in a netlike form, trapping a snarling dark shape. Pithius.
But Shadow already knew Mammon had somehow compelled Pithius to attack her. “It’s all right. I don’t blame you. I never did.”
He whined and gently nudged her face with his big, wet snout.
Moments later, her symbionts satiated and quiet for now, she dropped her hands. A low rumble formed in the hound’s chest, sounding like distant thunder. He lowered to the terrace, stretching out and resting his giant-sized head on her lap.
She scratched his hot muzzle. “Why did you come after us in the mountains?”
Old soulssss. Warrior…return.
“You mean Nik?” she asked.
Tartarusss.
And tears blurred her eyes. “H-he doesn’t have them anymore. I do—I mean I did. I fed off them. Like I do with you…I needed them to survive.”
Silence.
Pithius lifted his enormous head toward the forest.
“Why now after all these millennia?” she asked.
Time…different.
Time moves differently. Okay. Got it. “And you have to go back?”
A low whine rolled out as he gently batted her arm again, and she caressed his muzzle once more. “I’m always here for you.”
With a low chuff, Pithius rose and faded like fog into the darkness.
“Wow.” Kira hurried outside, Echo and Jaden at her side. “That was incredible.” They pulled chairs around Shadow and sat.