He leaned back in his chair, arrogant as fuck. “I’m the only god around here, Sunshine.”

I wrinkled my nose. “It was ‘god’ with a small ‘g.’ So it could be referring to anyone. Maybe it was referring to you.”

He leaned over and kissed me, hard, not caring that almost everyone in the room stopped talking again and took a moment to stare at us. I didn’t care, either, mostly because I forgot all about them the moment he pulled me into him, his tongue stroking greedily against mine. “Yes, Sunshine. Me and only me.”

My head spun and my reply was slower than normal. “Goes both ways, Shadow.”

He nodded. “It does.”

That shut me up. Now all of us were silently staring at the beast who ruled us all.

40

Before I could combust from the mere weight of Shadow’s scorching gaze, our food arrived, and I was once again thankful for the gift of food and all of its delicious distractions. Angel’s face lit up when they placed her usual tray in front of her, and it was one of those rare treasures that sent my heart into happy flutters.

She must have noticed me looking at her with a stupid goofy smile, which oddly had a dark cloud descending over her features. She went from angelic beauty to badass-who-would-kill-you in a heartbeat. “What?” I said, looking around for the threat.

Angel actually growled, drawing my gaze back to her. “No one will take my family from me again.” Gold glittery power fluttered off her. “Dannie made a grave error in judgement, and even though she’s Shadow’s mother, there’s no redemption for her.”

My throat was dry, and when I tried to swallow, I couldn’t make it work. “She might release the stone,” I managed to say.

Angel’s expression did not soften. “I’m not sure that’s enough.”

My face crumpled, and Angel dropped a hand on my shoulder. “For you, and only you,” she said, “I’ll give her the chance. Maybe she’ll convince me to allow the option of redemption, but I need you to prepare yourself. If she’s anything like the many powerful beings I’ve known, she won’t stop until we destroy her.”

Shadow closed his arm around me, pulling me away from Angel. “You’ll find no resistance from me. Mother or not, she’s gone too far.”

It hurt to think of them destroying Dannie because she was basically the only mother figure I’d had, and maybe, a part of me understood why she’d swallowed the stone to save us all. I wasn’t okay with her choices, far from it… I was fucking furious. But sitting here tonight, with our pack once again whole, I just wanted it all to stay like this. War was the path that would tear us to pieces.