Page 35 of Shannon in Sombra

CHAPTER15

FREYA SAVES THE DAY

SHANNON

“No.” It’s a whisper first before the next one rises in pitch again and again until I’m shouting as I run back to where everyone is still standing there, unsure what to do while my world falls apartagain. “No, no, no, no,no!”

I throw a punch at the wall. Proving my point, I hit it, but as though it’s made of rubber, my hand comes flying back at me.

It’s no shadow. It’s a goddamn sideways trampoline!

“What the hell do we do now?” I don’t expect anyone to have the answer. Malphas is already moving in, ready to embrace me so that, when I shatter once more, I don’t end up among the bones in the ash. I need him, but I need someone to know what to do.

Because giving up? That isn’t an option.

“We go forward. This is the way.”

Doesn’t Lucian think that I would if I could? “How? Look!” I hit it again, my fist bouncing off once more. “It’s a wall.”

“It’s a block.”

I don’t have time for semantics. “There has to be a way?—”

He has to know. He has to have seen something else. I heard Tandy ask during one of the tense lulls when I thought I lost the butterfly earlier, and all he murmured to his mate was that we will all see the prophecy through to the end… whateverthatmeant.

But how? How can we do that is something is stopping us? And why, as I fist my hands, searching for something,anything,to give me an idea to move forward, do I get the feeling that it’s not just the shadows fucking with us?

That someone is helping the human steal Alana—or that the human is stealing her for someone else?

I don’t know, but suddenly my words cut short as I notice something that no one else does.

Moments ago, I had turned from the wall… block…thing. In my panic, I’m looking at everyone gathered, hoping that someone will have a better idea than Lucian. There are plenty of us—because Lucian said we all had to come as ifthat’s helped at all—but the women give me apologetic looks. The demons all seem to think that Malphas should be doing something to calm me down.

How can he when, through our bond, I can tell he’s as close to freaking out as I am?

They don’t understand. We’re her parents, so of course this is affecting us. I have no illusions. Kennedy is here for me. Maybe even Billie since she swore she would never go back into the shadows again after that feral demon attacked her and Glaine, but she’s here. Sierra would’ve probably come because I needed Dagon, but everyone else? If Lucian hadn’t used his position as the doppelseer to have all of the human-demon mated pairs join us, there wouldn’t have been a reason for them to come.

Or is there?

I don’t know, but frustrated that our journey is already stalled, I’m staring at them all when I notice that one of the shadow creatures has grown bold enough to approach our group.

No, not just approach.

One of the creatures is running right toward two of them.

I see its eyes. Glowing white and barely a foot off of the ash, they move like a pair of headlights on a child’s toy car. For a moment, I’m distracted as I watch it, expecting it to veer off. When it doesn’t… when it becomes clear it’s targetingoneof us, I call out her name.

“Kennedy! Watch out!”

The creature leaps. Flying higher than I ever would’ve expected it to be able to, it launches itself at Kennedy before landing perfectly on her shoulder.

Perfectly, like it’s made the same move a hundred times.

Perfectly, like she knows her mistress.

“Freya!” Kennedy nuzzles the ungez’s shadowy fur as the squirrel-cat chirps up at her. “You naughty girl… what are you doing? You know better than to follow us into the shadows. You could’ve been gobbled up!”

She’s not wrong. In Sombra, ungez are the most common prey animals. In fact, Kennedy told me that she kept Freya as a pet after Loki hunted the ungez, hoping to feed her to Kennedy. It’s way too dangerous for her to be in here.

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