Shannon > Recent Status Updates

And the truth is that this bloodfate is nothing but cruel. It shouldn’t be this way. I shouldn’t need something so sacred from the one person left to betray me. I’ve killed nearly everyone to sell me out across the millennia. Yet, the one that hurt me most deeply is here, with his arms wrapped around me… No, it shouldn’t be this way. Not with this enemy. Not with the man who should never be mine. 

“Who knows?” Bianca says with a shrug. “Two ancient creatures, who trace back as far as we can map immortal existence, restless in themselves and in the world. Both broken and alone, now bound by blood in a bond that surpasses the confines of reason or magic. Two fates spiraling closer together with every drop of life shared. It certainly seems like a myth breathed to life, does it not?” 

“Ashen is a demon, Lu. If you give your heart to a creature of the shadows, you have to learn how to love the darkness as much as the stars.”

I hold my arms up and scream with terrified delight even though no sound comes out of my mouth. And normally that loss would grip my heart in a tight fist of sadness, but there’s no time for that. Not with Eryx absolutely shrieking next to me. All I can do is laugh and laugh and laugh.  And that’s how we spend the morning. Shrieking. Laughing. Maybe seizing once or twice. Okay fine, three times.

With a smirk that could be mistaken for sweetness if you didn’t know better, she raises her glass toward us. It’s a challenge—pure and simple. A silent declaration that she won’t be playing the obedient wife. I raise my glass in response, meeting her challenge head-on. She’ll know I’m ready for whatever she’s planning. Connor chuckles softly, shaking his head.

Declan steps closer, towering over me, his hand cupping my jaw. His touch is firm, sending a shiver down my spine as he tilts my face up toward his. “You look stunning,” he murmurs, his voice low enough for only me to hear. Before I can respond, his lips capture mine. It’s not gentle or soft. It’s a statement, a declaration to everyone in the room that I’m his, all I feel is the possessive heat of his kiss.

I watch Viviana throw back another drink, her olive eyes scanning the room with a look that is equal parts boredom and contempt. She doesn’t belong in the crowd of sycophants, but she doesn’t seem to care either way. She’s a problem, a challenge, the kind of woman who’d rather set the world on fire than be told what to do. Perfect.

“Lu…Come on Lu. It’s already done,” Cole says, catching my wrist. He squeezes when I try to pull away, but not enough to force the blade from my fingers. I turn to him with a fierce glare, my whole body shaking with fury, but he leans in closer. “Get your revenge by living.” His words slap me out of my rage.

My voice that once steered ships onto rocks, that brought the most powerful men and women to their knees. It gave me joy, even when I had to hide the sound of it just to stay alive. It became something precious and rare and exquisite. Now it just… doesn’t exist. It’s been erased even though I still hear the faint echo of it in my mind. But like ink corrupted by water on a page, the edges are blurred and warped.

Ashen's voice in my memory pulls a tight cord across my heart. If you're trapped in the Realm of Light, I will still find you. I close my eyes and lay my head on Ediye's shoulder, replaying those words in my mind, imagining the warmth of his touch on my skin. My heart is as sick as the rest of me, I think. I drift to the brink of sleep but it's an island I never reach in a dark and desolate sea.

My challenger stood across from me. I chose to fight in human skin, and he took it literally, tearing off his shirt… I had half a mind to ask him if he wanted to pound on his chest a bit or maybe go find a broadsword to complete the look, but then I remembered the night we fled from here and that someone had been carrying a battle-ax as they tried to stop us, and I thought I better keep my mouth shut…

I looked at Michael out of the corner of my eye, wishing I could open our mental channels and warn him. For all I knew, I might actually be able to do that without anyone else detecting it, but we hadn’t tested that theory yet, and I had no one to ask about it. If I ever saw Anna again, I would grill her. Carefully, politely, because she had answers, and I desperately needed them. What a weird turn of events.

He nodded, gaze latching on to the bite mark half-hidden by my robe. The wilderness. My mate. A ward strong enough to hide whatever Michael and I did out there. Oh, sweet Goddess, yes. I turned my back to him and shrugged out of the robe. “Get this spell on me, and let’s get out of here.”

Michael set the last dish in the drying rack. We said good night—er, good morning—to my parents and then headed out back to crash for a few hours. Yes, the road ahead of us would be difficult to navigate, but I trusted that the Goddess had put us on it for a purpose, and that if we worked really hard, we’d make our way through. I fell asleep wrapped in his arms, happy, sated, safe. And woke up to a nightmare.

I nodded at him in the mirror. He sighed and tugged his tie free from his collar. I returned my focus to the road when he undid the top button of his shirt. Dying in a fiery car crash because I was fixated on these rare glimpses of my mate’s exposed flesh would be a stupid way to go.

I grinned at him, feeling the sharp prick of canines against my lips. Home. He felt like home to me. And now I knew that I felt like home to him, too. That I wasn’t the only one struggling to figure out what that meant or how I felt about it. There was something incredibly comforting about that. It reminded me that I wasn’t as alone here in the city as I thought.

“Well, fuck.” “We’ll figure out how to spin it in the morning.” Ronald clapped a hand on his shoulder and cracked a smile. “Sure we will, boss.” He turned and walked away, pulling his phone from his pocket. “Code orange,” he said into it. “Call the enforcers in. We got a big-ass problem in a tiny-ass body.” “I’m not that small,” I muttered at his back. Just because he was a damn giant.

I turned back to the head of the table. “If I have this much control over my shift, imagine the rein I have over my more problematic instincts.” Michael’s mother smiled at me, the first warm look I had seen on her face. “In that case, welcome to the family, Layla.”

I spent the rest of the drive trying to remind myself of all the things I had always believed in. This wasn’t just some random thing that happened. The Goddess had Her reasons. There was a point to it all. Michael and I had always been destined to be together. I almost succeeded in convincing myself by the time we reached the city limits.

What had the Goddess done to me? Why had She forcibly bonded me to a man who had no sense of humor? I couldn’t think of anything more uncomfortable than cracking a joke and having the person it was aimed at not laugh.

Ashen rests his forehead to my shoulder and I run my fingers through his dark hair, every inhalation filled with his scent. I think I could stay here forever beneath the weight of him, feeling his heart as it thunders in his chest, listening to his whispered adorations. “You are a goddess,” he says to me. “An elemental force of nature.” 

My whole life, I’ve been waiting for someone else to choose me, and I constantly let myself down, holding out for others’ approval. But why am I waiting around for someone else to make me a priority when I can do it myself? I can choose myself.