Without Shadow, his mother would probably destroy us all in her manic need for order and control. I hadn’t forgotten what Gaster had said… The stone was only going to continue corrupting its host until there was no sign of the Dannie I knew and loved.

If anyone knew how to stop that from happening, it was Shadow. I just had to find him first.

The farther I crept into the room, the colder it got. How the fuck that was even possible, I had no idea, but apparently there was a new level of frozen nipples in Antarctica that Shadow had discovered.

“Shadow,” I called after creeping for way too long. “Come out of your damn labyrinth of a library and talk to me.”

A moment of silence. A moment before a roar blasted through the shelves, the force knocking me back; I would have landed on my ass if Inky hadn’t caught me from behind. Straightening, I shook off the lingering effects of beast magic, returning his roar with one of my own.

“Listen up, you cranky bastard. I’m not your enemy,” I bellowed, feeling him move closer. I stood my ground. “I get it, Shadow, I really do. I’m fairly pissed at Dannie as well, but your mom isn’t in her right mind, so I need you back in your right mind so we can help her.”

Despite what Dannie had done to me, I didn’t hate her. I was hurt, but I also understood that she’d been trying to save us when she’d swallowed that stone. She probably had saved me, since I’d been about to grab it, and who knew what that would have done to someone who was half-shifter.

The power corrupting her was not entirely her fault, and she deserved a chance to be saved.

His roars faded as I sensed him stalking closer. The connection I always felt to him burst to life as my fire grew larger, spreading out from me like it was reaching for the beast.

The fire was the only reason I knew when he was about to attack. It deflected the first slash of his power, and as I dove to the side, I slapped back at him with my own energy. As I scrambled to my feet, Inky got involved, swelling up into a large curtain between us. Shadow stepped into the light of my fire, his misty magic sliding away so I could see every naked inch of him.

He was at least ten feet tall. Or somewhere around that. I was shit at judging heights, as had been well documented, but I knew for a fact that his Anubis form stood well above his normal seven feet.

He was still in a humanoid body, with some structural changes so he was stronger and hairier than normal, both of which were totally fine by me.

Wolf shifter, right? Hair was kind of our thing.