He didn’t knock my hope down, but I knew that he believed Dannie was too far gone for reasoning. Maybe my hope came from all the books I’d read where the main characters went through some super bad shit, but there was always a happy ending to look forward to. Sure, this was real life, but so far, my journey had been a classic paranormal romance, so maybe I’d get my happy ending as well.

Shadow ran his hand over my body slowly and far more intimately than was probably necessary to clean us up. When he was done, we settled into one of the chairs, watching the stars. I was starving, but there was no way I’d drag myself away from this moment. Not even for food.

Shadow was quiet behind me, cradling my body against his. “What universe is it?” I asked sleepily.

“Mine,” Shadow replied, the burr in his words stronger than usual. “The one I created to form the Solaris System. This is what connects all the worlds and powers the library. It’s from here I drew energy to reform the pathways. Thankfully, I managed not to destroy this in my rage.”

That woke me and I turned to see his face. “Does anyone know that this is what lies behind the power of the system?”

He shook his head. “No one comes back here to the center of my ‘machine,’ so to speak, and I have never trusted anyone enough to share this secret with them.”

Well, if that wasn’t enough to make a girl feel… loved.

I returned my gaze to the stars, still not really sure what was out there. It was clearly a power beyond anything I comprehended, a magic of universes, and the delicate balance of it was on the verge of destruction thanks to Dannie.

“You can’t use this in our battle against Dannie, either, can you?”

Shadow’s breath released slowly, pushing against me as he sighed. “This is the sort of power that the sunburst stone contains, but if I were to utilize it in a way that could defeat Dannie, I would risk all of the Solaris System, and the worlds, since I decided to connect them into this energy. And there’s also a risk that I might lose myself, just as Dannie did.”

He had started to call her “Dannie” instead of “Mother,” and it felt a lot like he was distancing himself from her already. Preparing for the inevitable.

I ran my hands up his arms, savoring in the touch of our skin together. “You already feel so much more powerful with your full energy of the realm. Will you be able to keep this power if you are no longer planning on being the Supreme Being?”