I tipped my head up to see Shadow, enjoying the way his eyes locked on mine, burning into me with their intensity. I remembered that moment on the lounge when his body had been buried deep inside mine, but more than that, it felt like his energy had filled me as well.

“Here’s to the beginning of our new life,” I said, clinking my respectable water with his glass of swill. “Thanks for kidnapping my ass. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. And you, of course, because… Shadowshine.”

He leaned over, and I felt his breath brush across my cheek, sending shivers down my skin. “You belong to me, Sunshine. Now and forever.”

As his lips met mine, all I could think was: Where’s the lie?

Shadowshine.

He’d been worried that one was too dark and the other too light with only destructive storms between us, but that was no longer the case. Now we were both filled with dark and light, and together, we were the storm.

* * *

Not ready to leave Shadowshine and the Solaris System behind? Make sure to pre-order the first spinoff in this world: Deserted (A Shadow Beast Shifters story).

Books2read.com/Deserted

Keep reading for a sneak peek of the first chapter.

Deserted

Angel

The air in the Library of Knowledge was cooler than usual as I stepped through from the Honor Meadows. Or maybe it was simply that the meadows themselves were going through their warm transitional months, heading toward the wet season. It was not like Earth, where their wet season consisted of literal rain for many days. In the meadows, it was about the energy flow. The hotter it was, the less the free power was distributed, and when it cooled down, we all got a boost.

It had been a long time since I’d had to care about such things, but after the battle in the Shadow Realm, where I’d all but stripped my family powers in an attempt to help my best friend defeat the Danamain, our shared family power was at its lowest. I was already waiting for the cooler days to replenish our stash.

I had no regrets about using my power, of course. I’d been willing to die to make sure my family and the rest of the worlds had survived. The fact that I’d been reborn, without the scars of the past dragging me down, was a bonus I hadn’t seen coming. I’d also underestimated the way my Earth-raised best friend would turn all of our lives upside down, bringing her family together for all the occasions we’d missed out on experiencing.

Mostly because they were Earth customs, which in and of itself didn’t make them bad—I was actually really looking forward to today.