Page 56 of Shannon in Sombra

Knocked her up… it’s such an odd expression. Growing up in Nuit, I knew what the gold moon meant for bonded mates long before I had any understanding of what the act of mating was. Now, at a quarter of a century, I do, even if it’s the mechanics only. Still, just because I’m a virgin waiting for my mate doesn’t mean that Rafe and Dani and I don’t fantasize about the demons or demonesses who the gods have chosen for us. Butknocked up? Loki didn’t hit Kennedy. Hefuckedher, and if that’s another word I’ve learned from my mother’s native human language, I like the sound of it better thanmated.

If it’s up tomymom, I’ll neverhavea mate?—

“Alana? Alana. Ah. There you are.”

Another sigh, and I brace myself before turning to look over at Mom. “How did you find me?” I ask, the words out before I can even think to hold them back. “Binx?”

She doesn’t seem to mind. Her pretty face eases as the worry slips away. Moving purposely toward me, plopping down on the log beside me, she bumps my shoulder with hers. “I followed the butterflies.”

That makes sense. Binx is too loyal. He would lead Mom all around the village before he brought her to me when I obviously wanted to be alone.

But the butterflies? The don’t know better, and now I have more company.

To outsiders, most might consider us sisters instead of a mother and her spawn. My father’s essence has frozen my mother at the moment they finalized their mate bond. She’s closer to sixty in human years, but looks to be the same age as I am.

When she gives me that knowing look of hers? She’s pureMom.

“I missed you today, baby,” she says, and I don’t even bother reminding her that I’m no longer a spawn. I’m Shannon’s ‘baby’, and even after centuries have passed, I’m sure I always will be. “Where did you go?”

Shit. It’s another human word, a curse from her old life that doesn’t have a direction translation in Sombran, but it matches my feelings well.

I don’t lie. Not to my best friends. Not to my parents. Not to the clan leader and his mate. Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes improve the truth a little, but if Mom asks me a question like that, I’ll answer her even if I really, really don’t want to.

Trying to tell her that I didn’t use my special power to go exploring is useless. She knows.

She always knows.

With a casual shrug, I tell her, “Just for a walk.”

Ashadowwalk.

Mom nods. “I thought so. You didn’t go to Earth, though, did you? ‘Cause I’m sure I mentioned that it might’ve changed since I lived there.” Under her breath, she says softly, “Every time I go back, it does.”

I give my hand a tiny shake, letting the butterfly take flight so that I can lay my fingers gently over my mother’s.

Mom has always wanted me to have some idea of the world that half of me is from. That’s why, over the years, she would go back with Dad and me, showing us around while we followed the duke’s decrees and stayed hidden in the shadows. I used to enjoy those trips as a family, but the last time we went, Mom discovered that her parents were gone.

Humans don’t live forever. Neither do demons since, one day, we might choose to end our endless existences on our own. But humans? They barely get a century, and my mother’s parents didn’t even have that before they were gone.

That hurt her, but she admitted to Dad that she always knew that was a possibility. Actually, what upset Mom almost as much was finding out that something she called the Beanery had disappeared as she was once again walking the same streets she’d left behind before I was born.

The Beanery… I don’t know why a shop devoted to selling only legumes would’ve left such an impact on Mom, but there are sides to her that I’ll never understand, even half-human as I am.

She mourns a world she’s no longer a part of, even though she swears—and shows—that she’s happy living in Sombra. And yet, as worried as she is that I’ll run off to the human world alone, she slips her hand out from under mine, patting the top of my fingers, and says, “If you ever want to go there, just tell me. I’ll go with you. Probably not back to Jericho… not like I think anyone from the old days will remember me…” She pauses thoughtfully. “It’s been twenty-five years, but you know what? Mrs. Winslow is probably too nosy to die yet so, with my luck, she’d see me if I did go back again.” Mom shakes her head, soft yellow, nearly white hair the same color as mine swaying with the motion. Behind her, a butterfly flutters at the same time, mesmerized by the sway. “Screw New York. Let’s try Paris. Or London. You’d like that. With your powers, Alana, we can go anywhere.”

That’s another problem right there.

Not that Mom is trying in her heavy-handed way to appoint her and Dad—because wherever Mom goes, Dad will surely be right there, forever her shadow—as my chaperones. She is, and this isn’t the first time even if she insists that she doesn’t mind my adventures with Rafe, but it’s the idea that my gift makes it so that I can visit any and all worlds.

Until today, I thought that was possible.

And then, on Rafe’s urging, I tried to open a shadow portal to a new world we heard about while we were in Brille Rouge. In between his flirting with one of the seamstresses he thinks he might convince to be his fated mate, she told us all about how a cadre of soldiers from a nearby fire realm have been marching through their villages, searching for… something.

Katrin thought they were looking for mates. She wasn’t sure, and with a shy smile sent toward the charming Rafe, she admits that the demonesses in Brille Rouge prefer Sombra demons if they can’t find a partner among their own people.

Hearing that part of my confession to where Ididgo today, Mom’s smile returns. “Everyone wants to belong to a Sombra demon.”

She’s a prime example. My parents have been mated for nearly three decades—almost as long as my human mother was alive before she summoned my demon father to her—and they couldn’t be more in love.

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