Emon turned, fangs bared.
Dark shadows shifted across the death god's face. "I tire of this."
A swift flick of his hand had the white sands circling around us and within its granular swirl, and white hooded warriors rosefrom its depths. At the same time shadows from the cosmos above descended, their dark purpose obvious and I wasn’t about to watch it happen—not again.
Stepping past my growling soulmate, I had but moments to study his manipulation of the shadows before I stretched my hands out, my heart thudding in my chest.
I could do this.
The darkness would respond, they had to respond, my newfound family depended on it…I depended on it.
I shot the death god a glare, “This is not just your world anymore,” I whispered, wrenching the night sky from his hold and taking back control of my life.
Chapter 2
Istolethenightfromthe death god—the darkened twilight sky, one massive shadow, and I bent it tomywill.
Barely.
I could feel the strain, the threads slipping between my fingers, the shadows rebelling against my command, and the harder I held them the weaker the darkness became.
And Shea knew it.
His emerald eyes watched me, glittering with mocking amusement and a flicker of pride.
“Go on then, little chickadee, bend them, use them against me,” his deep otherworldly voice taunted, rings flashing as he waved at me to continue.
Baring my teeth, I hissed through them, ignoring the bead of sweat on my temple. “I will not stoop to your level, death god. If you had ever been the father you claim to be, you would have known that I am no faeling, and I play by my own set of rules now. So you can take back yourdarkness.” Flinging the shadows back into the cosmos, I withheld the sigh and ignored the fact that I had truly lost all my power, “I never needed it anyway and I definitely don’t now.”
Stepping backwards, I allowed my friends to converge on him, taking Riella off of the back of Asher’s wolf in my retreat—something I had never done before, but my daughter was the most important thing now, not my ego.
Emon slid in front of us and I caught his flickering worry for me before his fangs descended and claws bared in a protective stance. Growling, he commanded Penina’s leopard and Tyr’s tiger with that singular sound to prowl around the death god.
“Xi.” I did not need to evoke a command, we had battled together long enough that I valued her quick decision making and keen strategy. She was a cunning earth elemental and that would hold true today when with just a flick of her hand, the white sand warriors threatening us shattered, their tiny granules of sand suspended high in the air.
Bane grinned, his teeth flashing brightly as he cracked his knuckles, sparks sputtering in his eager ice blue gaze. “I can work with this.” Instantly, lightning crackled all over his body, and ignited brightly in a dazzling spider webbed explosion, targeting every single sandy grain and turning them into suspended glass.
Riley winked at me, latching onto the glassy shards with his air before they fell. “I do so love playing by your rules Rem.”
My lips twitched with amusement, revealing the pride I felt for him and all of them as the glass shards spun in a whirling cyclone around the death god and the shifters followed.
Glaring at Shea through the dark strands of my wind blown hair, I snarled. “Your move,death god.”
Emon flashed me a feral grin.“Savage,”he cooed and I grinned back.
I had never sought the approval of others but for some reason hearing it from the deep growling tones of my soulmate made me want to seek it more.
Through a mask of indifference that I reluctantly had to admit must be a family trait, the death god stared back, past the threat, past Emon, and straight into my own gaze. The look itself was powerful enough to seize my chest, viciously hooking into me from across the white sands unmercifully.
“So be it,” he finally said, crossing his arms in front of his chest, straining the black silk of his shirt while the intensity of his godly gaze still held me hostage.
Perhaps it was the dim light, or the reflection of the glass spinning around him but I could have sworn I saw sadness flicker in his emerald eyes and I snarled, he had no fucking right to playvictimhere.
“Eve, my love, please help our daughter see reason.”
Inhaling sharply, I froze, this time not from the death god’s fierce gaze but from the gorgeous splendor of my mother with her black hair flowing around her like the shadowy past she appeared from.
Fear, guilt, elation, joy. I felt it all in a span of seconds and it was enough to send me crumbling just like the last time I had seen her, in the City of Light, when I cut ties with my family to save them.
