Page 51 of Shannon in Sombra

It happens so damn fast. One second, I’m clinging to my mate. The next? He’s carefully, gently,quicklypassing me over to Amy’s. The imposing hunter accepts my trembling body with a solemn nod, my back tucked into his side, a giant shadowy hand pinning me next to him.

That’s what that slight breeze was from. He zipped from where he was with Amy over to me as soon as my mate asked him to. He’s strong in his shadows, so strong I can’t break free of his hold, and when he winks back to his solid form, it’simpossibleto escape him.

I watch as Malphas stands up, straight-backed and brave, the hunter inside of my gentle artist coming out as he moves toward the wall of shadows. Toward Yelios. He doesn’t run, like I had. He doesn’t glance back or even think to grab Glaine’s sword.

It’s just Malphas, hair swaying down his back, sculpted shadow arms starting to glow with the echoes of the golden runes that first appeared when I summoned him so many years ago.

“Yelios,” he calls, his voice careful, yet strong. “Do you hear me? I am Alana’s father. You think she is your one true mate? Then answer me!”

“Malphas,” is Yelios’s sneer of a response.

Shit. I shouldn’t be surprised that he knows my mate’s name. If heisthe shadows, he probably knows everything about us.

The fucker is toying with us!

I hiss, but Mal stares into the wall. “Tell me of your bond. Not the one you have with Queen Alana. But my spawn… does she make your heart skip a beat? Do your claws ache to touch her pretty yellow hair? When she peers up at you, do you know that there isn’t anything in any world that you won’t do to see her smile?”

My mate is asking Yelios about Alana, but the examples he uses… he’s talking about me.

Despite all of the other emotions rushing through me—fear and despair and anger and that sliver of hope—my heart swells. Mal… god, I fucking love him.

He doesn’t want to lose me. Well, I don’t want to lose him, either.

Especially when he lifts his voice and says solemnly, “Does she amaze you every single moment that you’re lucky to be by her side?”

“My Alana did,” Yelios confesses, his answer carrying away on a renewed breeze. “And when I have a bond with the one returned to me, she someday will, too.”

When I have a bond…

Because thereisno bond.

“The seer was wrong,” Haures announces. “Alana cannot be returned to you, Yelios. But I can set you free so you can return to her.”

The duke clicks his claws together. “Malphas. The ashbalm flower.”

It takes a moment for Mal to tear his gaze away from the shadows. I’m watching the same thing he is, and in the depths, I see a pair of white eyes—the size and shape and height revealing they could belong to a Sombra demon—staring back at him. But once Haures clicks his claws again, the spell is seemingly broken. Mal jerks his head, giving Yelios his back, before gliding over to Haures.

His right hand is still cupped, holding the ashbalm flower.

My whole body thrums with anticipation.

I’d given up on thinking the ashbalm would do anything as soon as Haures first mentioned that, as a bondmaster, he could tell that there was none between my Alana and the warped king. But Mal… all this time, my demon mate guarded it with everything he had. Even as he grabbed me, held me close, tucked me against him… he never once dropped it or smashed it.

And now he offers it to Haures.

I don’t understand. “If he doesn’t have a bond with Alana, what do you need that for?”

“It’s not for his imagined bond with your spawn. It’s for the bond he had with his queen that he’s let become twisted over the last two thousand years.”

He holds his white hand over the ashbalm flower nestled securely in Malphas’s palm.

Haures’s blue eyes gleam as he addresses the shadows. “I release you. Go, Yelios. Go to where the shadows beckoning you, and your one true mate has spent ages waiting for you to return to her.”

The ashbalm flower bursts into flame. Malphas doesn’t remove his hand until the fire dies and the ashbalm flower is simply ash once more.

I wait with bated breath. Behind me, none of the others make a sound until?—

A gasp, before the ancient voice croaks out one name: “Alana.”

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