Page 47 of Shannon in Sombra
“You couldn’t have known,” cuts in Susanna. “You couldn’t have known that Yelios has spent ages waiting for his mate to return to him.”
Come again?
Suddenly, the air crackles. It sounds like something’s being rent apart, torn,broken.It rips, echoes, and though nothing looks different at all, the wind rushes past again, sending my hair flying around my face.
Kennedy stumbles. Loki catches her.
Malphas crouches down at my side, hands folding over to protect the ashbalm flower in his hold.
Amy turns into Nox’s chest. He goes from a solid demon like Haures to shadows like the others, though I know it’s not on purpose. Nox lost control of his shadows long ago when he sacrificed most of his essence to escape the dungeon Haures put him in so he could save Amy from her human ex in the mortal world. The wind must have triggered his switch, though that does nothing to stop him from shielding Amy from the wind.
But Susanna… she stands tall and proud as she shifts on her heels, facing the wind.
“Yelios. Can you hear me? I know you can. And I know what you’ve done.”
In response, a voice that sounds like it belongs to someone who’s lived for two thousand years and smoked a pack a day for each and every one of them calls out, so loudly I feel the rasp all the way down to my bones.
Holy shit. Tandy wasn’t kidding. The voice comes from all around us, and there is no doubt in my mind that it’s coming from the shadows.
Coming from King Yelios.
“Ah… so at last you return to me, Susanna. You did not bring the child to me as you vowed, but I am a merciful king. I have my mate. I consider our bargain complete. I have that which is important to me. And now… I return to you what I took.”
He spoke in Sombran. His voice is so aged, it takes me a second to understand what he—Yelios—said to the duke’s mate.
A second is all it takes from the large block in front of us to crack open enough to spit out a body before it crumples on the ash.
A human male-sized body that groans before flopping to his back.
CHAPTER19
REVELATIONS
SHANNON
That’s not Alana.
That’s all I care about. It’s not Alana, and because it isn’t, I couldn’t care less what the identity of the human who took her from her crib is. He’s dead, that’s what he is, whether Yelios killed him or I’m about to. But, to me, he’s just some guy.
But not to Susanna and Amy.
“Daniel? Dan? Is that you?”
“Dad? Oh my god. Dad!”
Target.
He should be dead. However, no one is making a move toward the man except for Amy and Susanna, and they’re not going to kill him. Shit. Sammael might not be able to conjure a shadow portal in here, but what about chains?
No?
That’s okay. Let this human chick handle it.
“Hey, if you’re not about to get on with the stabby-stabby,” I snap, Glaine’s heavy sword suddenly in my grasp, “then I will.”
It was easier than I expected it to be to steal it. The only reason I could was because—like the rest of us—the practiced soldier is stunned to realize that Yelios has been working with a human. Amy’s father… Susanna’s brother-in-law… is the man who took my baby to give to the shadows.
But he’s not a mate, so that means his ass ismine.
