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

by Harper L. Woods

A downtrodden hellhole with nothing to offer to the mate of a God—to the mate of a prince of Gods.

As a man stepped out of the shadows between buildings, a tang of iron hanging in the air as he thrust his sword toward my heart, all I could think was, this was such a waste of time.

Making me the villain of her story, when all I wanted was to be her everything.

“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 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.”

I have already waited centuries to feel the love we share. I would wait one hundred more.”

“I don’t want you to pretend to be sweet right now,” I said, the breath hissing out of me when he stared down at the space where his cock pressed against my pussy. One drive forward and he’d be inside of me, spearing me alive with the very thing I should hate more than anything. “You’re a God. So fuck me like one.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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,”

My fingers twitched despite my best intentions when one of them pressed his wet nose against my skin, using his head to guide my hand up on top of it. I scratched the fur there, watching as he rolled his neck in satisfaction like any of the stray dogs I’d seen in Mistfell. “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,” he warned,

“She would do that? But I thought you said the Fae considered their mates to be sacred? A bond worth protecting at all costs? Why would the Queen of Air and Darkness go against something like that?”

“Tell me what you want, my mate. I’ll give you anything.” Grinding his hips against me, he notched himself against my entrance, gliding through my tender flesh until the head of his cock brushed against my clit and sent a shudder rolling through me. “I want you,” I murmured, lost to the sensation as I dragged rough nails down the skin to either side of his spine. “Please,” I begged, reduced to only my need to feel connected to him. Opening my mind had only made me crave the rest of him and the connection that could deepen—both inside our minds and outside of them. I needed to explore one final entanglement of our bond while our minds and emotions danced. To take him inside me and see if he felt even more right than the moments when he’d joined his mind with mine. “You’ll have to be more specific, otherwise I am likely to wander,” he whispered, a chuckle lightening his voice as he moved farther down the bed.

“It is yours. Whether it beats or not,” he murmured, reaching up to cup my cheek with his other hand. “I have felt your desperation coming through the bond all day, Little One. If my death is what brings you peace, then I will pay that price.”

“You’re supposed to fight,” I whispered, sniffling and pulling against his hand. He held me steady and blood welled at the tip of the blade where he guided my hand and pressed it into his skin. “Why would I want to fight with you? All I want is to love you,” he murmured,

“There were two children, two girls brought to us for protection the night the Veil was formed. Fallon is one of them and could very well be the daughter you seek,” Imelda admitted, hanging her head. Caldris stilled at my side, his body tensing with the words Imelda spoke. I only knew he’d believed Mab’s daughter to be with the Resistance because it was the entire reason for his deception and infiltrating their numbers in the first place. What could possibly interest the witches in the way Mab’s daughter could? “Two children?” he asked, tipping his head to the side as he considered the words. His shock was evident in the silence that followed. I cleared my throat, breaking it. “How do you know? That was lifetimes ago.” I studied the woman standing in front of me. She stared back at me, as interested in me as I was in her. “She bears the witch’s mark,” Imelda said, reaching down to take Fallon’s hand in hers. She raised it, showing me the white crescent moon that appeared to be burned into Fallon’s skin—a magical brand. “It is a mark that each clan of witches has the ability to place upon the souls of the people they are tasked with protecting,” Caldris explained, his body remaining tight at my side. “It is not done often, but each clan can only produce the one mark. So the girls would both share the same one, if what Imelda says is true. If the girls were both in the Void at the same time, there would be no telling which was which by the time they were reborn.” “But where...

“It’s worth more than you think. You may not believe you know one another, but you do. The soul remembers, even when the mind does not.”

“You are the only star in my sky.” She smiled sweetly, chasing away the shadows that lingered in her eyes. The green of them shone back at me, blinking back the tears that made her eyes burn. “And you are the only light in my darkness,” she said, sending a shock of awareness running through me. I’d spent so much of my life looking at her as the only thing good in my bleak existence, the thought of her surrounded by the darkness that wanted to consume her sent rage spiking in me.

I’d never been something good. I’d never had someone look at me as if I was the sun shining on a dark day. Our bond was her way of pulling back from whatever was inside of her, and I would never let go.

“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.”

“Your lives are now one. The mate bond will tie your mortal life, assuming you are mortal, to his immortal one, enabling you to live longer. He’s made it so that whether you are mated or not, whether you are mortal or immortal, he will die alongside you. If we lose one of you, we will lose you both. It was a fool’s bargain,” Imelda said, looking toward Holt as if she expected him to back her up. “I think it’s quite romantic,” Holt returned, crossing his arms over his chest with a smirk.