Like a mother with her children, I offered them love and comfort and the promise that while I was alive, I would do everything in my power to protect them. My creatures had not had that for a very long time. Dannie had lost her way years before I’d been born—probably around the time she’d broken the rules and fallen in love with a royal. For that, though, I could never be upset with her. She’d given me Shadow, and without him, there’d be no me.

I’d give her a pass on that falling in love part… the rest, though, she’d have to answer for. “I’m going to take you somewhere safe,” I told them in a whisper of power. The creatures brayed and called and bellowed out into the world, finally showing life and excitement and their animalistic nature.

“You’re taking them to the outlier island?” Shadow asked in his deep Anubis voice.

I nodded. “Yes, it is best to leave them there while we have to fight Dannie.”

Shadow moved forward as if to open a doorway, but I stopped him with a hand on his arm. “I don’t want you to expend any more energy,” I said quickly. “Do you think I can attempt to open it?”

My well of power inside was raging like a storm. Overflowing, overwhelming, especially in this current form I was rocking, as a giant wolf-bird. This version of me was so much stronger than I’d ever been. Torma would not have had it so easy beating the fuck out of me if I’d been able to access this form back then.

I had a thought. “Are my scars gone?” I asked Shadow. “Did you notice?”

“I notice everything about you,” he said shortly, “and yes, your skin is unmarked from your shifter life.”

An odd feeling filtered through with that knowledge. I wasn’t sure how I felt about my “clean slate.” My scars were part of who I was, memories of what I’d survived, and knowing they were gone now settled uneasily within me. It seemed rebirth always had consequences.

Shadow brushed a hand over my cheek, bringing me back to him. “Your strength will never fade. You don’t need the scars for everyone to know you survived—not just survived, but flourished.”

I let out a deep breath. “You’re right. I know my truth, and that’s all that really matters.”

Shadow looked like he wanted to drag me up his body and remind me that he also knew my truth, and every other part of me, but somehow, he refrained. “You can open the doorway, Sunshine,” he said, keeping that enigmatic gaze locked on me. “There’s nothing you can’t do.”