His chest shook as he let out a deep chuckle, starting to walk again while I was still wrapped around him. With each step, my need to rub against him grew as tingles of pleasure swirled low. “I can smell your arousal,” he murmured.

I sighed. “Yep, that’s me, always horny around the Shadow Beast. But we seriously have to find Angel, so you better put me down.”

With reluctance, I released my hold on him, and he set me on my feet, both of us focused again on finding our pack mate. If there was anything our conversation had just shown us, it was that we had a lot of future to look forward to, and that meant we needed every power at our disposal to take Dannie down.

There was no other option.

31

The jungle was surprisingly quiet. I’d never been to the Amazon, or to any place with more forests than Torma, but even in the sparse sections of land back home, there had been a lot of wildlife.

Here there was nothing. The silence itself somehow deepening the farther we traversed, and despite the many unanswered questions still running through my head, I didn’t voice them.

It felt wrong to speak.

“Angel likes silence,” Shadow reminded me when we’d been walking for half an hour without saying a word. Clearly, he had no issue breaking through the energy she had over her land to keep it quiet. “She’s designed this part of her territory to be a tranquil oasis, an escape from the rest of the worlds.”

“I feel it.”

The layers of Angel were definitely reflected in the layers of this world she’d built here. Maybe one day my power would create the perfect world for me… Then again, maybe it was already there, in the Library of Knowledge and the lair, both of which I loved.

“We’re finally getting somewhere,” Shadow said. “Her true presence is stronger here than anywhere else we’ve been so far.”

I pressed a hand to my chest again as the flutter kicked harder than ever. Following this was a strong burst of emotion. Rage first, and then the tiniest spike of panic. Angel had just realized there were strangers in her midst, strangers with strong powers, and she had no idea how that had happened.

I felt her energy searching through ours, cataloguing the threat, and when she paused on Shadow, there was confusion and curiosity. Shadow, she remembered, but no doubt she was wondering what the hell he was doing here.

Angel appeared a moment later, dressed for battle, in black molded armor that closely followed the lines of her body. The dark outfit blended beautifully into the mahogany of her hair and amber in her wings. No being had ever looked more like an angelic celestial than my Honor Meadows best friend. Hence the nickname.