What Hunts Inside the Shadows (Of Flesh & Bone, #2)

by Harper L. Woods

“I hate you,” I whispered, fresh tears burning my eyes and nose. His face softened further, pain lancing across his brow as he pursed his lips and hung his head forward. “I know,” he murmured.

“It is time for the stars in the sky to rest for the day, Little One, and that means the star I hold in my arms must rise,”

The smile slid from Caldris’s face, a look of irritation crossing over it briefly before his jaw clenched. “Fuck,” he grunted, tearing his arm free from my hand. The first of the wolves leaped and struck him in the chest the next moment, knocking him back a step as he caught the massive creature. Its hind legs dropped to the ground, the front paws bracing against Caldris’s shoulders as he stared at the wolf that was nearly as tall as him. “Don’t you fucking do it—” The wolf yipped happily, licking a long line up the side of Caldris’s face and making a shocked gasp break free from me.

“They have been completely insufferable,” the leader of the Wild Hunt said, steering his skeletal horse closer. He stopped just in front of me, but his eyes remained pinned on Caldris at my side. “The next time you think to leave them with me—don’t,”

“Fucking mated pairs. I swear to the Gods, you lot are the stuff of nightmares. It’s not like I’m suggesting she take one of us for a ride—” “This would be the part where you should shut up!” Holt called back without even glancing toward his companion.

I felt like anyone who smiled during a battle was not someone I felt particularly motivated to attack, even before understanding that he couldn’t die.

“Fuck!” Aramis yelled, dropping to his knees in the snow, making himself submissive. “You can’t even fucking die!” I yelled, watching as he bowed his head and lowered himself to the ground. “That doesn’t mean it won’t hurt like a fucking bitch, you menace.

I was most definitely not his favorite person. I wondered if it was because I’d stabbed him multiple times, or if it was just an issue he took with my personality. It hardly mattered either way. The man was a dick.

“If you are able to imagine your life, your future, without me in this world, then why would I want to live?”

I was not made for war. I was made for peace and a cuddly blanket in a comfortable chair in a library with a book in my hand. And I was so tired of the fucking cold.

Sometimes, love meant humoring someone, even when they were wrong.

I hated snakes, so of course by the force of her nature my mate had to treat them like pets. Her gentle care as she watched the basilisk swallow her enemies whole both delighted me and horrified me. Why did it have to be snakes? She couldn’t have had an affinity for puppies?

“I am going to love you until the stars disappear from the night sky and the sun ceases to shine. Until the world returns to the void from whence it was born and chaos reigns once again.”