If someone had told me I was going to grow wings overnight, I’d expect to be clumsy and weak using them for the first few times, but there was no transition period at all. They flapped when I wanted to move, and as I sailed smoothly over the water, I instinctively knew how to catch wind drifts and glide along.

It was as if I had inbuilt knowledge of wings, an evolution of those who were born of the Nexus.

Those of us who could never die, for we would always be reborn if we chose to enter the light.

This was another truth I knew, along with the fact that my rebirth had unlocked the final tendrils of my strength, an elemental power of creation that I hadn’t been able to access before now.

In the place my wolf once rumbled was a pit of energy, and it felt like Inky and Midnight. Which made sense since the true Nexus was the point where the leicher and ether mists collided and created life.

I was a product of that.

And this product was on her way to find her mate and save the goddamn day.

50

I felt him before I saw him, his raging energy so widespread and strong that it hit me before he did. This spurred me on faster, desperation to see him again filling me until I could barely breathe. We could have opened portals and moved between the layers of energy in this world, but instead, we chose to come at each other the old-fashioned way.

Like a goddamn romantic movie. All Shadow needed was a boombox over one shoulder and some unsent letters clutched in his hands, and we’d be our own Hallmark Channel special.

As his power grew stronger, I reached out to drag mine along it, wanting to feel the sparking flames. I barely got a second of touching in before his energy wrapped around me, caging and locking mine down, dragging me toward him.

I could have fought back, and I might have even won this time—okay, probably not, because Shadow’s level of badassery was unmatchable—but I didn’t even try. Powerful or not, my soul belonged to Shadow, and I wanted him to claim and possess it, exactly as he was currently doing.

When he came into sight, I found his eyes first, those twin pools of flames spilling from the irises and down his cheeks. There was fire everywhere, but since I’d been born of the same flames, it only made me feel at home.

He didn’t say a word as he continued to drag me into his orbit, his very naked orbit, which I only had a second to notice before his rage captured my full attention again.