And why the fuck was I defending Dannie right now? We weren’t in a school debate where I had to prove my point. Dannie had fucked us hard, sans lube, and we had every right to be angry as hell at her.

“What happened to your true mate?” There’d been no mention of Ixana and I wanted to know where that bitch currently was.

Shadow met my gaze, the gold in his eyes bleeding into red flames. “She had her memory wiped and ended up in Torma.”

It took me an embarrassingly long time to understand what he meant. And it wasn’t like he’d spoken in code or anything. It was just… fuck.

“What?”

He shook his head at me. “I won’t say it again, Sunshine. You heard me the first time.”

“You consider me to be your true mate now.” My words were slow and confused.

His scoff indicated that he was already annoyed with this line of questioning. “I don’t consider shit. You are my mate. Chosen and true. The bond between us would not exist otherwise and since both of us have two sides to our souls, it’s not even a far leap to understand how we’re bonded.”

I waved both hands in front of me, fairly certain he was insulting me again. “Far leap or not, it’s a huge step for you to make a statement like that, and I don’t need no ‘I won’t say it again’ bullshit, thank you very much, Shadow Bastard.”

His lips twitched. “How’s your ass feeling, Sunshine?”

My mouth went dry. “Uh, I mean, I’m all into sexy subject changes, but that one seems like a relatively extreme segue.”

His lips curved further. “It’s not as far a segue as you might think because if your smartass mouth doesn’t stop soon, I’m going to test out your ability to enjoy pain with your pleasure.”

I stepped into him. “Promises, promises.” I said that more than was probably healthy, but whatever. He apparently had no fucking clue how into this side of him I was.

His power wrapped around me, and I was dragged slowly up his body to receive a firm slap of his huge hand against my ass before he wrapped his fingers across the muscle and kneaded it. “We have to find your friend,” he told me softly, “and Midnight, and save the world. That’s the only thing that’s saving you from being tied to my bed for the next month.”

His hold on my ass tightened, and just when it was about to reach the level where I might have had to tap out, his other hand slipped down the front of my pants.