Page 67 of Shadowkissed

“She’s worth it.”

Tamsin mutters something under her breath—probably a curse—but there’s no real heat behind it. She’s pissed because she knows I mean it.

“Seraphiel won’t be in his court during the eclipse,” she adds, pushing a mug of something that smells like wet smoke across the table. “Intel says he always disappears during the convergence. Old realm debts. Ancient bindings. No one knows where he goes, but the gate weakens just enough.”

“Then that’s when I go. It’s tomorrow night, isn’t it?”

“You’re going to need backup.”

I shake my head. “I can’t risk anyone else.”

Tamsin sighs like she’s aged ten years in one breath. “Dante, this is suicide.”

I stand, strapping my blades across my back, slipping the bone pendant beneath my shirt.

“Then I’ll die trying.”

The next night, the eclipse bleeds across the sky like ink in water. The Veil shudders.

I feel it in my teeth, in my bones, in the low roar of my blood as I step through the convergence point at the canyon’s edge.

The world shifts around me. One blink I’m in the mortal realm. The next, I’m inhis.

Tier Seven.

Seraphiel’s hell.

The underworld doesn’t burn.

Itsings.

The air buzzes like a low choir, eerie and dissonant. The ground pulses beneath my boots, like it’s breathing. Everything here looks wrong. Angles too sharp. Shadows too slow to follow.

But I don’t stop.

Her scent is faint but steady. Dark silk and misplaced rain.

I move like a blade through the halls. Any enforcer dumb enough to get in my way ends up on the ground, bleeding or broken. Their armor doesn’t hold against what’s woken up in me.It also helps that, according to Tamsin, his most powerful ones are with him, but I still don’t think it would matter.

I’m not just a shifter now. I’m Guardian-born and my old blood has reawoken. This is what I have to do. What I was born for.

And I’m not leaving this pit without her.

By the time I reach the lower levels, the air’s thick with heat and sorrow. I pass cells that shouldn’t exist. Places built to house beings that never belonged in cages.

And then Ifeelher.

Her fear. Her fury. Herhope.

The bond flares bright, as if the final lock snaps off, and itburnsthrough my chest like wildfire.

“Liora,” I whisper.

She’s close.

I round the final corridor, cut down the last warded door—and there she is.

Bound.

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