Shadow’s constant presence at my side helped as well, and I found myself pressing harder into him as we crossed under the beautiful stone gates. As we stepped to the other side, the Nexus power flared, which I felt intimately within myself.

“Dannie is returning,” I said with a sigh. “I feel her power.”

The others took it seriously, spreading out in a circle around the streaming lights emerging from what I was coming to think of as the Nexus birth pool. It was in the middle of a grove, gold and red blossoms surrounding it. As the air grew heavy and thick, a figure shot up into the air, coated in the Jell-O-like substance, bright fiery wings shooting out from either side of them.

None of us broke formation or relaxed, waiting to see which version of Dannie we were about to get. Would it be the power-hungry, angry, untouchable version who would have destroyed us all in her need to control? Or would it be the Dannie I’d known before the stone?

And would it make a difference either way?

The light around the figure was bright and blinding, and even with my preternatural sight, I couldn’t manage to make out what version of her was landing. It wasn’t until I caught sight of fire-touched wings, which looked an awful lot like mine, that I faltered. The Dannie from before could shift into a phoenix, but she’d never worn her wings as I did.

The flutter in my chest hit me, and I took a stumbling step forward. “It’s not Dannie,” I whispered, my throat closing over as I started to run. The light faded, the Jell-O disappearing as soon as I slammed into Angel, and she wrapped me up tightly. We remained like that forever, and as our pack and family closed around us, I finally pulled away. “How?” I asked, unable to say more.

She smiled her beautiful smile, and I took a moment to examine her. Her eyes were the same, only slightly more fire-touched. Her hair too, which was now heavily streaked with red and gold. And the wings—the largest change of all—were still angelic in shape, with some fire and phoenix in there as well. Those wings wrapped around us, hiding her naked form.

“I was reborn,” she trilled in the musical voice I’d never expected to hear again. “Honor Meadows have their own afterlife, but I never went there. I went to yours because of our bond.”

Shadow made a sound over my shoulder. “It makes sense,” he said. “You’re warned never to bond with one outside of your brethren, no doubt because it can disrupt the natural order of life, death, and… your afterlife.”