Page 17

CHAPTER 17

FLOWER

MALPHAS

W herever Shannon goes, I will forever follow.

With the faripoz—the flutterbys… no, butterflies— continuing to lead us deeper into the shadows, I stay in mine, hovering anxiously just a few steps after my mate. I’m prepared to grab Shannon and tuck her behind the safety of my shadows at any moment. Will she allow it? After the bold way she challenged the huigitz before the other human females calmed the raging beast with their song, I am convinced there is nothing that will hold my Shannon back.

I am careful, though. Whoever stole Alana is tricky. Dangerous. It takes a human to think like one of their kind, and though I’ve spent many cycles in Shannon’s world, there is so much I still do not understand.

Taking someone’s spawn? That is not how it is done in Sombra. Nothing will stop me from retrieving her—and I am grateful for the help from my fellow demons and their beloved mates—but, again, it seems as though the shadows and the butterflies are sending us on a wayward path.

I sense Shannon’s fear and frustrations traveling down our bond. The only thing I can do is send her another pulse of reassurance.

Well will find her. We will get her back.

Shannon stopped running once she realized that the seemingly endless shadows won’t welcome such a quick pace. We’re in the lead, with Glaine, Billie, and Lucian right behind us. The rest of the human females—Sierra, Hope, Tandy, and Kennedy—are shielded by Sammael, Damien, and Loki, guarding all of our backs. We’ve formed a circle, our small clan, and it’s only after Shannon lets out a sound of anguish as the butterfly flaps its wings before winking into the dark that one of us breaks it.

It’s Lucian. The powerful seer steps away from where he was flanking Glaine’s mate along with the soldier.

Shannon senses the motion. She turns, eyes accustomed enough to the shadows—and Loki’s faint spell—to find Lucian’s shape, topped with the vibrant purple mage eyes watching her closely.

My hand reaches for hers, enclosing her trembling fingers in my grasp.

Gratitude and pain hit me, and if I wasn’t doing everything a demon possibly could to be strong and brave for his mate, her emotions might have broken me. Just like I thought when she was laboring to give birth to our spawn, I will always do what I can to take her pain from her.

And gratitude? I am her male. I am her mate . She never has to thank me for being there to support her.

“Shannon,” I murmur.

Twisting her hand in my shadows, she searches the corporeal form hidden a few inches past the hazy edges of my form. Squeezing my finger, as much as she can hold my hand at the moment, she quiets me before turning her attention to Lucian.

“You’ve got a roadmap in that head of yours, Lucian. Don’t you?”

My Shannon has always had a unique way of putting things. Even though most of the human females have fallen into the habit of speaking in Sombran while they live in Nuit, she uses mortal words and manners of speech regardless of the language. It’s something else I adore about her, and if Lucian cocks his head slightly, I’m sure he knows what she means.

Just in case, she huffs and explains. Tapping her temple, she says, “In here. You see where we’re going. What we’re supposed to do. Like with that huigl-whats-it. You could tell that Billie, Sierra, and Tandy would need to sing together to get around it. Right?”

Lucian nods. “Yes. So much of the future was red, but when the red moon ended, the shadows took its place. Now that we’re here… I get flashes. My brother… he feels . Even our dear one can tell from our essence that this is it. The end or the beginning.”

From her place behind us, Tandy agrees. “He’s right, Shannon. Trust me. Whatever Lucian’s got in his head, you don’t want to see it. You don’t want to know what might happen if the rain doesn’t stop.”

“And the rain won’t stop until the baby’s tears have dried,” murmurs Damien in his soft, sad, lyrical voice.

Shannon’s breath hitches. I circle her wrist, tugging gently, tucking her in my arms, murmuring platitudes I only hope are true.

She shudders, her wee human hand a brand against my chest as she needs contact with me.

Lucian takes pity on us. “We doppelseers see not how this will end, only that the path to your child is a winding one.”

“No shit. We were going in circles until Freya and the other ungez helped us. Then there was the big moose-lion-looking monster. What the hell is stopping us now?”

Instead of answering Shannon, Lucian glances back at the others. “Ashbalm flower. We need to find an ashbalm flower.”

“What’s that?”

Shannon is just as confused as I am. An artist all my life, I’ve rarely approached the edges of Sombra’s shadows, let alone gone this far into its depths. I thought I knew every type of flower that could grow among the ash fields of Nuit, but I’ve never heard of this one.

The dark-haired human female—Sammael’s mate—lifts her pale hand. “I know.”

“Hope?” My mate doesn’t hide her surprise. “You do? What is it?”

Her gaze darts over to Sammael before she gestures around her. “It’s a flower. I mean, obviously. But it grows in here. In the shadows.” Dropping her hand to her side, she adds, “I had to look for one once.”

Sammael’s purple eyes flicker. “Haures never should’ve sent you to search for the flower on your own.”

“I wasn’t on my own. Loki was with me… for some of it, at least. Besides, none of that matters. The duke was testing me?—”

Billie snorts, a sound that reminds me of the Earth pig. “He likes to do that. Prick.”

My mate agrees with the assessment that Duke Haures acts like a cock sometimes.

“No argument here,” she tells the other women, “but what about the flower? Did you find one? What does it do?”

Hope purses her lips. “Oh, I found it. Loki had to wait outside the shadows, and the duke told me to stick to the edges, but if you follow your nose… you can find the flower.”

“Follow your nose? What the hell does that mean?”

“I didn’t get it myself at first. But the flower… it calls to you. Like, for me, I smelled the chocolate chip cookies my mom made every Christmas. I followed it and that’s where I found the flower.”

I know the delectable scent of a chocolate chip cookie. My Shannon favors them, and though I turned them to ash the first time I attempted to bake them for her in our apartment, I’m proud that I had mastered making them for her while she carried our spawn.

I breathe in deep. “I do not smell any cookies,” I say, regret heavy in my tone.

“Me, neither,” echoes Sierra.

“Nope,” adds Kennedy. “Just the same old mutated rotten eggs stink I remember from this place. No cookies, and believe me… I could go for one about now.”

“The ashbalm flower called to Hope so she smelled her mother’s treats,” says Lucian. “But while she can help you find the flower, the one we seek now is not meant for Sammael’s mate. It’s meant for yours, Malphas.”

“Me?” chirps Shannon. “Why do I need to find this flower? What is it supposed to do anyway?”

“Uh…”

“Hope? What am I missing?”

The dark-haired human worries her bottom lip with her tiny teeth. “The duke said it was necessary to break a mate bond.”

My heart leaps up into my throat.

Shannon’s fingers dig into my flesh. “I’m not giving up Mal. He’s mine.”

I’m desperate to rescue Alana. It never occurred to me that I could truly lose my mate as well, and while my worry is barely tempered by her claim, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t touch me deep inside that my mate… my love… my flower still does claim me.

Just like she did during our first gold moon together, when Glaine and Sammael were sent to put me in enchanted chains and bring me back to Sombra, Shannon announces to everyone gathered that I am her mate.

In the light, I am hers. In the shadows, I am hers.

I strive to be a good male. An honorable male. I like to think that I am, but there isn’t anything I won’t do to keep her. Same for putting Alana back where she belongs: in her mother’s arms?—

“It’s not for the mate bond you share with the artist,” murmurs Damien. “It’s for the spawn. The shadows stole her for one reason. To get her back, we must be prepared to break it. You are her mother. She can’t retrieve the ashbalm flower. You can.”

“Wait.” Shannon releases me, and though I miss her touch as she moves away to confront Damien, I let her go. “Someone took my baby. Are you telling me they took her because… no. Break a bond? No way. She’s not gonna be mated to that kind of monster. She’s a baby .”

Oh, my clever, clever mate. She understood what I’m only just getting now myself. Of course that would explain why someone took Alana from her crib. No one in Sombra will steal a child, but if they believe that child is their one true mate? To guard them, to keep them safe, to watch over them until they’re mature enough to accept the mate bond… that has been done in our history.

But not my daughter. Not my Alana.

“There is a bond,” begins Lucian.

“Well, there won’t be when I’m fucking done. Okay. I’ve gotta find this flower?” Shannon sniffs the air. Her eyes go wide. “Hang on. Either I’m losing it or I just got a whiff of coffee.”

My Shannon loves coffee. In Sombra, I’ve introduced her to javits, and she enjoys the buzz she gets from our brewed drink, but she does admit it’s not quite the same. So if she’s scenting the strong, bitter aroma of human coffee—and the doppelseer is right—it could only be a sign that the ashbalm flower is near.

“Where, my mate?” I ask.

She points. “I think it came from there.”

“I’ll go with you,” offers Hope. “I know what it looks like.”

I join the two females. The others stay back at Lucian’s urging. He tells Shannon that the ashbalm flower is delicate, both before, during, and after it’s been picked from the ash. Hope confirms it, remembering how half of her flower fell apart in her hand.

Shannon is determined. I’m careful to watch the glowing white eyes of the prey and predatory beasts who watch us back, possibly wondering why our clan has split up. If anyone tries to attack my mate and Sammael’s, I will throw my body between them to allow them to get the ashbalm flower, then to get away.

Thankfully, that’s not necessary. Within minutes, Shannon announces that it’s definitely her favorite latte from The Beanery that she’s smelling. I don’t catch it myself, but it doesn’t matter. Her nose led us to it after all.

It’s Hope who sees the flower first, catching Shannon’s attention by snagging her arm and pointing down.

The ashbalm flower is about as long as my hand, from wrist to the tip of my claws. Composed of shadows and ash, the bloom is a dancing flame that dims as Shannon crouches down next to him.

“Careful,” Hope murmurs. “I plucked it too hard and lost the whole bottom part of the stem. Sure, I didn’t need it because I wasn’t giving up Sammael, either, but the duke didn’t tell me why I was going after it when he first sent me into the edge of the shadows.”

“Maybe you didn’t need it,” muses Shannon, eyeing the flower closely. “Maybe you just needed to know how to find it.”

Hope makes a thoughtful sound. “You mean, like, one day I’d have to tell you how to find it to save Sombra?”

“To save Alana.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“No,” Shannon says firmly. There’s no explanation other than that, but there’s none needed. Duke Haures… the doppelseers… they want to defeat the prophecy. They want to see Sombra survive.

But my mate? She just wants our daughter back—and so do I.

Without another word, Shannon grips the stem by its base. She gasps as the flame goes out—even though Hope warned her that would happen—before letting out a sigh of relief when only a small part of the stem becomes ash on her fingertips.

Rising up, my mate searches the shadows for me. “Mal, baby. Come here.”

I’m there.

Shannon jerks her chin at me. “Hold out your hands.”

I do.

Cupping my hands together, creating a valley between them, I’m motionless as Shannon lays the ashbalm flower against my shadows.

“There. I don’t have time to coddle that thing. But Mal is made of shadows, too. We can get back to running if we have to and he’ll keep the flower in one piece to break whatever bond some dickhead kidnapper thinks he has with our girl.”

My clever, clever mate.

“You ready?” she asks me.

I will guard the ashbalm flower with everything I am. It’s only the second most precious one I’ve ever had the fortune to touch, but at the moment? It is everything. “Yes, my mate.”

“Good. Then let’s go.”