Rejected (Shadow Beast Shifters Book 1)

Stomping my way into the library, I had my resting bitch face ready for anyone who even glanced in my direction. Thankfully, Shadow had prepped the room for that, with every being who had been in there scattering the moment I appeared in their view. I’d temporarily forgotten that I was off-limits in a whole other way, but it didn’t even matter.

What mattered was the door.

The Shadow Realm.

It called to me and I was going to figure that fucker out.

Marching toward it, heels clicking on the hard floor, I never let my focus waver. Rounding the corner, I stopped short at the sight of the door itself. No longer was it non-descript. Instead, the darkness I’d seen in my double vision was clear as day for everyone to see. Like a swirling portal of smoke, sliding up and down, blocking the actual door.

Reaching out, I stopped myself from touching it, instead just skirting my hand over the top, getting a feel for the energy. I could almost taste the cold, metallic spell on my tongue, and with it came a triggering memory of being locked in the throes of darkness, unable to break free.

“Heard you had a little adventure.”

I recognized Reece’s rumbly voice and raspy accent.

Not bothering to turn, I growled. “If you’re not here to have sex with me so I can win the bet with Shadow, then fuck off.” Not that I was particularly attracted to Reece, outside of admiring his pretty lashes, but at this point I’d take almost anyone to beat Shadow.

A deep chuckle sounded behind me. “It all makes sense now,” he remarked. “So much sense.”

Pulling my hand from the darkness, I waved it at him. “You aren’t making a lick of sense. Please just go away. I don’t need the distraction.”

He didn’t move. I could feel his powerful presence in the same way I felt Shadow’s, like I was standing too close to a power plant, surges of energy traipsing across my skin.

“What if I told you about the spell that holds this world hostage from us?” he said casually.

My curiosity was too great to ignore any possible information, so I spun, reaching out to grab at him before remembering it was a super bad idea to touch these guys without their permission. It was too late, though, as my hands landed on his chest, but thankfully, unlike Shadow, I felt nothing from Reece except an exceptionally firm pec muscle, and a whiff of something dry and earthy.

He looked down at my hands, not saying a word, and despite the laugh I’d thought I heard, his gorgeous face was once again stoic. Yanking my hands away, I swallowed roughly. “Please, I need to understand.”

He nodded. “You will understand as much as I can give you, but I don’t have all the answers. Shadow’s secrets are his alone. I can only tell you about this spell.”

Disappointment almost dropped me to my ass until I remembered that the spell itself was still pretty damn important.

“This spell is a living entity,” he said, those dark blue eyes turned toward the shadowed door. “It’s powered by an unknown source that we believe is in the Shadow Realm.” His voice lowered, caressing my senses. There was an innate sensuality about the one they called a desert deity.

Shadow the second.

“The spell is incredibly intelligent,” Reece continued. “It adapts. Every single time we figure out a way to cut through its hold, we’ll be mere seconds from opening the door, and it’ll regroup and reform, shooting us back to the very beginning of our investigation. Worse than the beginning, because whatever means we used to best it will now be rendered useless. It counters everything. It adapts and learns.”

Great. A precocious, genius-level spell built of eternal darkness. Just what we all needed in our lives.

“Has it ever done to another what it did to me?”

Neither of us pretended he didn’t know about my dance with the darkness. Shadow had clearly gone straight to his friends for advice, and I didn’t blame him—I would have followed that exact same path. “Never. And from what I can tell, it didn’t adapt to you or your energy.” Reece eyed me closely. “If anything, you did some damage bringing it to view like this…” He waved at the swirls of smoke. “It’s unable to hide any longer and that’s a good sign.”

I made a growly sound. “But is it? As far as I can tell, we’re no closer to breaking through. I can’t touch it without my soul going all goth, so what’s the next step?”

He patted me on the shoulder, and I was surprised by that reassuring sort of gesture. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Change is a good sign, even if we don’t know why yet. One thing is for certain: having you around is certainly going to make life very interesting.”

Closing my eyes briefly, I tried to calm my frantic mind. “I still don’t understand why I’m the one. Why is this happening to me when I’ve been insignificant my entire life?”

Reece’s face was expressionless, but his eyes were warmer than I’d ever seen, those incredible lashes framing them like twin portraits into his soul. Reaching out, he pushed a strand of my hair back. “There is nothing insignificant about you, Mera Callahan. From the first moment you stepped into the room, wearing Shadow’s signature color, I knew you were going to turn my friend’s life upside down. It was a worry, at first, but now…” He tilted his head. “Now I’m curious to see where this all goes.”

Shadow’s color…? Well, that explained a lot.

Reece nudged me gently. “No one is called to greatness until the time is right, Mera. This is your time.”

“Greatness?” I breathed.

He nodded. “Greatness comes in many forms. Some obvious, others not so much, but there is one constant everyone called to greatness has in common: you will be pushed beyond your comfort zone, broken down and reduced to ash, but from this, you will rise and be more than you ever thought you could be.”

From the ashes, the phoenix will rise.

The fact that he’d chosen that exact analogy to use had to mean something.

“I’m not sure I’m ready for whatever this world has in store for me,” I said, my fears spilling out. “But since I’m still breathing, and I’m still fighting, I’m going to figure out this door. I will discover my connection to the Shadow Realm—”

I was cut off when Shadow appeared in a cloud of smoky darkness. “We must return to Earth,” he said, burning energy surrounding him. “Multiple shadow creatures have amassed. Move your ass, Sunshine. We’ve got some hunting to do.”

If the fate of the Earth wasn’t hanging in the balance, I’d have told him where he could shove his order. But, unfortunately, since I was the dumb bitch who’d released these creatures in the first place, I really needed to take some responsibility for returning them. And despite my knowledge that Shadow was really the one doing all the work to take them out, if he wanted me there, I would go… just in case. Maybe it helped that the creatures had shown an unexpected level of interest in me.

“The abervoq and sprecker both paid a lot of attention to me,” I said, my mind putting the pieces together. “It can’t be a coincidence that both times they targeted me.”

Shadow crossed his arms, still looking somewhat harried. “You were the natural target, being weaker and non-threatening.”

“Yes, true,” I said, “and that’s what I initially thought as well. But the abervoq wasn’t interested in attacking me. Truth be told, I don’t think the sprecker was, either. And while I’m no shadow creature expert, didn’t they almost seem curious versus murderous?”

Two sets of eyes were locked on mine, and I had to say, it did wonders for a girl’s self-esteem to keep and hold the attention of a couple of gods. Sure, it might have been because I was some sort of shadow magnet, but whatever it was, I could pretend for a little longer that it was my shining personality.

“She has a point,” Reece finally said, nodding as if my words were making more sense than he’d expected. “Is there a possibility that someone from your world slipped across the veil in the last twenty-two years?” he asked Shadow.

Shadow tilted his head, arrogance creasing his brow as he looked me over. “She’s so human, though. Frail and powerless. There’s no way she’s from my realm.”

I forced a bright smile. “You should take this frail, powerless human and get to Earth, hey? Since we apparently have a world to save and you can’t do it without my frail, powerless help.”

Shadow’s lips twitched, and I received a smile from Reece.

“Come on, wolf,” the beast said, turning to leave.

“You forgot ‘frail and powerless,’” I called after him.

Reece continued to stare at me, a tiny half-smirk still etched on his lips. “What?” I asked, wrinkling my nose. “He said it.”

The deity shrugged. “You’re right. It is interesting, though…”

Don’t ask. Don’t ask.

“What’s interesting?”

“That he lets you push him that far. The last few shifters learned fairly quickly that Shadow doesn’t suffer insubordination for long.”

I swallowed hard, thinking of Victor. “Does he regularly murder shifters who don’t obey his every command?”

What kind of fucking psycho did that?

“He doesn’t randomly kill for fun,” Reece said, like he was personally vouching for Shadow’s character. “Only if they fight against his control.”

I… just. That was basically the same thing.

“You two need help,” I choked out. “Your brains don’t work normally.”

Reece just laughed, seemingly not offended, and at least this little moment had apparently warmed the desert deity up to me.

I was all about small victories these days.