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

by Harper L. Woods

How far even my brother had been willing to go. She cannot have you. The words were an unbidden memory, bursting free inside of me and drawing a shocked gasp from my lips. He’d given me the answer, all but the name of who he needed to keep me from, in his last confession before he’d tried to plunge the knife into my heart.

away from the scathing glare he settled on me. He swung his leg up, mounting the horse behind me and squirming away from my body uncomfortably. “My teeth aren’t attached to my ass, you know,” I said, facing forward and biting my bottom lip to control my amusement.

Your mate is the reincarnation of Princess Maev.

Where she went, I belonged—in this life or the next.

“I don’t make promises to anyone but her,” I said, nodding my head to my mate.

“But if you fail to do that, if Estrella is lost to the darkness, promise me you’ll help me end it.”

“I love her. I have adored that girl in every one of her lives, and I know her well enough to know that she would want someone to stop her from becoming the monster she would hate.

“I would gladly sacrifice this world and everyone in it for her.

She wanted to be serviced, driven to pleasure, and then fucked by a God for all to see.

“I want you to show them you’re mine,” she growled, that jealousy pulsing down the bond between us. “I want them to see how you worship me, and not just the other way around.”

I laughed, seeking a moment to stall the monster I’d created. She’d be the death of me, but it was the greatest end I could ever imagine.

Even then, it had been the image of blue eyes gleaming in the darkness that brought me to orgasm, imagining my fingers as the bigger, more callused version of the male I now knew to be my mate.

All this time. He’d been with me always, existing within me even when I couldn’t be with him. Even when I couldn’t feel those arms wrapped around me.

“It was always you,” I murmured, feeling the ridiculous sting of tears in my eyes.

All that mattered was his cock as he slid it inside of me with a tilt of his hips, joining our bodies as my soul hummed with the first true acceptance of the fact that I’d known him for centuries before I ever met him.

Another scream ripped through the air, and something in the sky shuddered. I knew that sound. I knew that torment. Even if I didn’t recognize the voice itself, I recognized the fear.

Why did it have to be snakes? She couldn’t have had an affinity for puppies?

A match for me. Something in perfect harmony for my soul.

There had only been two pairs who’d both been Gods in the past: my parents and the King and Queen of the Spring Court. Their daughter and I were the only second-generation Gods in existence to my knowledge.

toward where Fenrir watched. He sat on his haunches, licking his paws clean as if he cared very little for the conversation that was coming. The fucker was a terrible influence. Unruly bastard was too bloodthirsty for his own good.

Her body spread around mine, accepting me inside of her like she’d been born to do. This was her place, beneath me with her body sprawled out. Taking me and meeting me thrust for thrust. She knew it as well as I did, greedy and desperate, a hunger like I’d never seen existing inside of her.

“You’re my fucking mate. Nothing matters outside of that, min asteren,”

The animalistic need to fill her with my cum at all times of the day was maddening, pushing me closer to the edge than I’d thought possible. If we had a safe space to spend our time, if we’d been able to spend our days in the palace at Catancia, she’d spend most of them impaled on my cock with her eyes on mine.

“Es to un caoin asteren en min awyr,” I murmured, watching as her eyes lit with the words that she tried to translate in her mind, attempting to focus on them beyond the slow drag of my cock through her flesh. “You are the only star in my sky.”

“And you are the only light in my darkness,” she said,

“I love you, Little One,” I murmured, leaning forward to touch my mouth to hers as she came around me. “Until chaos reigns.” “Until chaos reigns,” she whispered as she breathed through her orgasm. I released her hands finally, letting the ice melt back into snow. She wrapped them behind my head, holding me so that my breath mingled with hers. “I will love you long after.”

She turned her eyes up to look at him, never shifting her face toward him as their gazes connected. Something passed between them, a brief moment of understanding when Imelda’s chest filled with air and she never released it.

When the child was stolen from the tunnels, a group of our ancestors set out to find her, seeking to protect her through the lifetimes until her final life when the Veil would fall.”

We were able to pour what remained of our magic into you, Estrella. You and your mate did the rest,”

“She uses a wheeled chair to get around. Her legs aren’t strong enough to support her for long, not since she had me.” “Humans were not meant to bear Fae children,” Caldris said, and the statement made me turn a curious stare toward Fallon.

Any chance you had of walking away alive vanished the moment your men put their hands on her. Now you can spend your last moments knowing that my face will be the last thing you see before I send you to The Father for final judgment.”

I would die at the Veil. Give my life to the formation of the new one to save my mother. The villain of my story might have changed, shifting Lord Byron from my worst nightmare to someone barely worth a thought, but some fates were written in stone. All the threads of my fate led me here.

My only regret in my death was that it would be at his hand. That I wouldn’t have the satisfaction of watching the life bleed from his eyes.

His pain was a deep anguish, the surge of emotions overriding the burn of iron in his arm where he’d been injured.

Please, don’t leave me alone again. I squeezed my eyes closed, shoving back the burn of grief in my throat. Where you go, I will follow.

I felt it in my flesh, whatever came when I crossed the barrier would be horrible. It would be a fate worse than death—all the things Brann had promised.

He held my gaze as he placed his hands in front of him, allowing them to shackle his wrists in iron while he grimaced. His skin sizzled inside them, nearly dropping him to his knees as the force of it weakened him.

No!!!!!

The Veil was created to keep me from her. Maybe this is how it was supposed to be, Caldris,” I said, touching his cheek with my other hand. “This is where my life was always meant to end.” “Don’t you dare ask that of me,” he growled,

“I wanted to spend eternity with you.” “Don’t.” “I love you,”

“I’ll do anything to keep you safe,” he said, taking a single step toward me.

I don’t understand what’s waiting for you in Alfheimr or why he swore everything would change the moment you stepped foot on Faerie soil, but I know that he loved you more than anything.

Caldris smiled, stepping toward me as he unlaced the ties on the leather and metal covering his chest. He dropped it to the ground as he took another step, moving closer until the tip of my sword pressed into the fabric of his shirt. “I told you once before, I would rather die than go on without you.”

“Just promise me that your face will be the last thing I see before the darkness claims me.” “You aren’t supposed to accept it,” I said, barely resisting the urge to drop the sword so I could punch him. “You’re supposed to fight me.”

“Why would I want to fight with you, my star?” he asked sadly. “I just want to love you until my last breath. You were worth every century I waited, even if I only had you for a short time.”

:((((((

Accept me as your mate as you already agreed to do. We’ll stand a chance of breaking the bond she placed on me as a child. If she can no longer command me, then I won’t need to bring you to her at all. We could be free.”

I wanted nothing more than to be free, except to be with him.

The smile that lit his face would hold in my memory for the rest of my days, the shock of relief crashing into my chest making my heart skip a beat.

“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.”

“Until chaos reigns and eternity begins anew, and for every moment after,”

“My soul, my heart, my flesh, and my sword are yours, and if ever there should come a day when your heart ceases to beat, I will follow you into the Void.”