Page 30 of Shannon in Sombra
“Exactly! That’s my point. You’re not dead. You made it out.”
“Well, yes?—”
“What about the human?” Shannon interrupts. “She made it out, too. That’s what you said.Wenearly didn’t survive. If she could do it, so can I.”
Dagon’s fierce red eyes shadow over. “Susanna is the reason I survived. She saved my life in the shadows.”
Shannon’s vindication slams into me. “See? Wait— hang on. Susanna? Like, the duke’s mate?”
“Yes.”
“Then there you go. If she survived whatever is in there, why can’t I? And if I can’t? At least I died trying to get my baby back.”
Every ounce of me… every ounce of who Malphas was, who he is, and who he’s become since I took Shannon Crewes’s essence and willingly gifted her mine… every last part of me wants to bellow at the idea that there could ever be another moment in time when I existed but Shannon didn’t. A thousand years waiting for her was enough. I can’t ever go back to that.
And yet… I suddenly understand that, if I stop her from going after the male who stole Alana… she might still exist, but she’ll never bemyShannon again.
There is only one thing to do.
“You need coverings,” I tell her. “More than my shadows since they might not hold inside of there. For your body. For your feet. And one of Loki’s light spells to help guide our path. Once we have those?—”
“You’ll let me go after Alana?”
“No, my mate,” I say before following with a vow with as much solemnity as I had the night I made my mate’s promise to my Shannon: “I will go with you to find our daughter.”
“We’ll go together? Really?”
Her hope burns inside of me, even hotter than the rain scalding my back. And the idea that she might have doubted her mate…
I tuck my pointer finger under her chin, lifting her face again so she can see the promise in mine. “We will find her. We will bring her home again. I vow it.”
And nothing will stop us.
CHAPTER13
FARIPOZ
SHANNON
The shadows.
Why did it have to be in the shadows?
That’s all Sombra is. Fire and magic and black shadows everywhere you look. The ash under our feet is a mix of black, white, red, and grey, while the lava pools add shades of orange to the color scheme. In other parts of the realm—the capital city, in particular—you can see different colors. Mavro is blue, for example, and full of flowers that would turn to ash in a village like ours.
I always knew that Nuit is one of the furthest villages on the outskirts of Sombra. We live here because it’s been Mal’s home for more than a thousand years. While some demons move from clan to clan—or even to other demon realms—my kindhearted, gentle demon artist had a loyalty to where he was born.
But theedge of Sombra’s shadows…
Malphas wants to protect me. He always does, but I see it now. In obvious ways, like how he physically moves himself to keep me from running right into the shadows, but in more subtle actions, like the way he keeps nudging any of the demon skulls surrounding us deeper into the ash so that I don’t see them.
As if I canmissthem.
I know what this is. This deep, dark, impossibly black wall of shadows whose entire existence is a warning to the villagers that live within its reach. It’s not just the beginning of the end of the world. It’s a place that no sane demon can survive for long.
It’s a place they go todie.
After hearing the stories from Kennedy about her time in there with a fully demonic Loki, I told myself that I’d never go inside of the shadows myself. There’s no reason for me to. I’m not a hunter, and Mal’s eyes have never gone white; a sure sign that a demon has lost all their control. Even hunters rarely go more than a few steps inside. The prey beasts that they capture for the village lurk on the edges on purpose, as though even they are trying to escape what’s inside of the shadows.
