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

by Harper L. Woods

To prepare for what might wait for me when I found my way to the mate who needed my protection.

On another day, in another time, I might have felt sympathy for the people of Mistfell, but this village was where my mate had nearly died. A downtrodden hellhole with nothing to offer to the mate of a God—to the mate of a prince of Gods.

I’d had centuries of time wasted by the Gods-damned Veil keeping us apart. My patience had worn thin.

“The woman,” I snarled, hating that I couldn’t give a description, but could only speak of my mate in feelings. I could only speak of what existed within her, her very soul, and not the vessel that housed her.

In the center of it, resting directly above her forehead and nestled perfectly into her hair, the gem of darkness glittered.

she ignored the motives to focus on the end result. Making me the villain of her story, when all I wanted was to be her everything.

To finally see me beyond the illusion meant to keep her wandering in the dark.

From the moment I’d been created, from the very instant I’d come into this world and drawn my first breath, she’d been in the Void between life and death. Waiting to be born. Waiting to be mine.

She’d fallen in love with Caelum, and from the terror on her face, I knew she thought him dead and gone. Lost to the monster I’d revealed myself to be. “I’m still me, Little One,” I said, holding out a hand for her once more.

“You know me as well as you know yourself, my star. The heart that beats inside your chest is mine. The soul that resides within your body has been mine for longer than you have existed,” I said, keeping my voice soft and gentle as I took another half-step toward her. “Everything you have felt is real. Everything you will continue to feel for me is real. You were made to be mine.”

I longed to give her the comfort a mate was destined for, if only she would accept me into her heart—if only she would allow me into her mind and recognize the other half of her soul. “Min asteren,” I said, the Old Tongue coming out instinctively. With nothing left to hide, I could speak her namesake in my native language, even if it wasn’t one I used often.

Whether she was mine in the realm of the living or the afterlife, I would follow her wherever she went.

I would never return to a life without Estrella, without the warmth of her burning light shining around me. Where she went, I would follow—immortality be damned.

I gave you the opportunity to fall in love with me before you learned the truth, instead,”

“If I am the God of the Dead, then the mirror of my power enables you to raise the dead as I do.”

“It's my birth name. The one my mother gave me when I was born—before Mab stole me from my crib and brought me to the Shadow Court

Caldris was the lie, the name Mab had forced upon him to steal his identity.

The woman he’d spoken of, who had been so cruel to him that she’d ruined his relationship with his father, was Queen Mab.

I wouldn’t even have done this to a Fae. I wouldn’t have degraded and demeaned any living being in such a way, but they did it to me—one of their own. To someone who could have been a friend under different circumstances.

“Should I remind you that my blood is already inside of you? That you’ve taken my cock? That my very fucking soul exists within you?”

“I will not have you suffer needlessly, my star. Especially when, no matter what you do, you will never be able to carve me out of your very bones. I own your soul. Nothing matters beyond that.”

That morning, I’d loved him more than anything. Now, I hated him more than anyone I’d ever known.

“You are mine, and I am yours. But I will not force you to be with me if you do not love me the way I love you, my star. You’ll be safe in the Winter Court, and you will die your true death when your natural time comes,” he said, his eyes dropping to the ground beside me.

“The Fae have different urges. If a human were to lose his wife, he would find another eventually. The Fae have only one mate. There is only one being in all of creation who can make us feel complete. Only one who can bring us the joy of children. What do you think a human man would do if he were placed under those circumstances?”

“We are two halves of one soul. The heart that beats inside your chest is mine and mine alone.”

“Even you cannot escape your fate, my star,” he said, pressing his hand forward until the thread wound its way around our joined hands. “If you die, I will follow.”

You have a lifetime of untruths to overcome, but I can be patient for you. I have already waited centuries to feel the love we share. I would wait one hundred more.”

“Oh, Little One, what I feel when I’m inside of you isn’t about anything as mundane as sex. It’s about being united with you as one. Our bodies moving in tandem and our souls melded as closely as they can be.

“And you are everything I have always wanted and more,”

“You’re a God. So fuck me like one.”

No matter how much I tried to convince myself this didn’t mean anything, I would never want to be like the women who’d come before me. Because he was mine.

“I am the one who worships you.”

“That’s right, my star. I’m your fucking God,” he growled, the words a reminder of a moment of honesty I hadn’t understood. “And you, my mate, are Gods-damned perfect.”

“See how brightly you burn when you lean into all that hatred in your heart? Think of what you could do if you didn’t waste it on the one person in this world who loves you more than anything.”

A mate is chosen to be our balance. You are my balance. Everything good that exists inside of me comes from you. If I lost you, you might as well burn the world to ash,”

He paused to smile sadly down at me. “And then came you.”

“Your essence flows down the bond between us—light and good, tainted by my darkness. But at your core, there is this well of beauty that flows from you. You don’t love easy, but you do love hard. And I have spent centuries feeling you fall in love with men who didn’t deserve you. Feeling your heart flutter for men who would never have been able to give you what your soul craved in the end, and knowing that, I was trapped on the other side of the Veil waiting for you. Just waiting for centuries to be able to hold you.”

“And then it broke, and I met you and you were everything I’d ever dreamed you would be and more. I felt you fall in love all over again, but with me this time. I see in your eyes that you wish you could take it back more than anything, but you can’t. Because you and I both know what you felt; we both know you loved me with everything you were. More than you ever loved your husbands in all your past lives. You still do, and you can’t wish that away, because you were born to love me, whether I deserve it or not.”

“I won’t lose you again,” he said, lifting his head until his eyes met mine once more. “I will follow you, because what remains after you’re gone will be a broken shell that will do more harm than good. All I want is to be with you. Tell me how to make that happen, Estrella.”

“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,”

“With the God of the Dead wrapped around your finger, you can mold the world into whatever you want it to be.”

“You do not assault my mate. You protect her,” he said as Fenrir approached him. He was the biggest of the three, his head level with Caldris’s stomach.

Caelum growled behind me, the low rumble of sound making me jolt in place as I spun to meet him with wide eyes. “Look at him a little longer, my star. I dare you.”

“You cannot kill that which is already dead.”

“Only you would wish for death rather than allow yourself to be loved, my star,”

“I will always treat you well, min asteren. Even when you are too foolish to see the truth right in front of you. You were determined as mine before your soul was ever born. This bond is not a prison. It is a haven from the ugliness of this world, a person predetermined to love you. To belong to you.”

“I will fight this war with you until the day I die,” he said, dropping his forehead to mine.

“You ride with me, min asteren. Always.”

“The only time I want you in chains is when it’s to my bed, with you writhing and willing,” he murmured,

“Do you have any idea how many times I’ll make you come for me?” he murmured,