Page 38 of Shannon in Sombra

Because it’s not anif.

It’s awhen.

CHAPTER16

THR33PEAT REUNION

SHANNON

Ihad hoped that whatever was trying to keep us from following after Alana… the human guy… the Sombran gods… Fate…whatever… had given up once Freya taught us how to find ways around the blocks they’re throwing up.

Sometimes we have to go under. Once we had to shimmy through a ‘crack’ between two walls that nearly had Kennedy and Loki turning back until she figured out how to fit her belly through. It irked the hell out of me that the big demons could fit, though they had the added bonus of being able to turn to shadow and make themselves a little bit smaller. Meanwhile, all of us women are different heights, different builds, different sizes, but it’s her poor bump that keeps giving her trouble.

I’ll give Kennedy credit. She’s determined as hell. She refuses to admit if she’s tired, and she won’t slow us down. If she starts to drag, she allows Loki to carry her before insisting he let her down again so she can leave him free to use his orb to help guide the way.

I asked her after she struggled with the upright ‘crack’. Her answer didn’t surprise me. Though her child will be thesecondhalfling born in this age, she doesn’t know what to expect from them. She’s helping me now because we’re basically family now, and if the time comes that she needs the favor returned, she wants to make sure me and Mal will be there.

Of course we will, but those pregnancy hormones are no joke. If this is something Knnedy has to do, I’m not about to tell her not to. Instead, I bite my tongue when she takes a little longer to maneuver her way around the blocks, all while reminding myself that we’re going as fast as we can—and, if it wasn’t for Kennedy’s bond with Freya in the first place, I’d still be beating the crap out of the bouncy wall that blocked us about two hours ago.

There haven’t been any obstructions for the last twenty minutes or so. Those are rough guesstimates since time doesn’t quite exist in Sombra—especially in the dark shadows—but it seems long enough that I start hoping that we’re getting closer. That they’ve decided we’re worthy and we can catch up to Alana and her kidnapper before something else catches up to themfirst?—

Suddenly a thunderous roar splits the darkness. It’s so loud, I whimper, someone else gasps, and one of the other women shrieks in fright. The ground shakes. The air rattles. Smaller squawks and spooked chattering erupts in the echoes of the roar. The prey beasts leave rustling sounds in their wake as they try to run from whatever the hell made that noise.

—like, oh,that.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!

My hands grab fearfully for my mate. His arm, his side, his shoulder… whatever part of him I can find beneath his shadows, I dig my fingers in and hold on tight.

Malphas wraps his arms around me, murmuring reassurances that I can’t hear over my thudding heart.

“What the fuck was that?” I blurt out.

“Oh, no,” moans Kennedy. Freya’s wrapped around her mistress so tightly, the shadowy squirrel-cat has basically made herself into a scarf.

She didn’t run, though, so good on her for that. If my legs weren’t paralyzed by that roar, I might’ve.

“That wasn’t an arkoda.” It’s Loki that answers, and after his experience living in these shadows, I believe him. I’m grateful, too. Arkodas are like the Sombra version of rabid grizzlies. No way we could get past one of them, and maybe I’m crazy for thinking of a search and rescue mission as, like, a quest to retrieve my daughter, but something tells me that wehaveto. “It’s a huigitz.”

Kennedy’s forehead scrunches. She must be digging into Loki’s essence to get a human reference for the shadow predator because, after a moment, she pales. “Ah, crap.”

I don’t like the sound of that. “Tell me, Ken. How bad is it?”

“Bad,” is her breathless response. “Think ‘moose meets lion’, bad. It’s gotta be eight feet high at least, with antlers and a fuzzy mane. And teeth.” She shudders, stroking Freya’s shadowy fur. “So many teeth.”

Wonderful.

“Fear not, Shannon.” Lucian slips away from his win and his mate, gliding over toward me and Mal before turning to address us all. “I have seen this.”

“Great,” snaps Billie. She started getting anxious after one of the last blocks, almost as though it finally hit her how far her and Glaine have travelled into the shadows. He’s still holding his sword, while she’s been clutching his arm as though she likes to walk connected to him, no gold chains required. “The doppelseer has watched all of us get gobbled up by a shadow monster.”

“Not quite, Tandy’s kin. Before we found our mate, the gods hid her from us. All we saw was red. But since she’s accepted us both into her heart, her bedding, and her cunt?—”

Tandy snorts, not an ounce of shame that her psychic mate is sharing her business like that. “You flatterer, you.”

His lips twitch just enough to break his serious expression for a heartbeat. He recovers quickly, though, before continuing where she interrupted him, “—we see more that involves our dear mate. And this… we have seen this.”

One at a time, Lucian gestures at Tandy, then Billie, then Sierra.

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