Dusk Avenger (Flirting with Monsters #3) - Eva Chase Page 0,58

any plans for the rest of the night, so…”

Snap beamed at me with a slyer slant to his mouth than usual. “We have a lot of time to make up for.”

“We do.” Struck by a wave of gratitude and affection too powerful to ignore, I wrapped my arms around him in another embrace. Tears that were mostly joyful this time formed behind my eyes. “In case I haven’t made it clear enough, I’m so glad to have you back.”

And who knew how much time we’d get to make up what we’d lost before the Company or some new catastrophe came hailing down on us.

16

Omen

After spending much time mortal-side, it became obvious just how dreary and amorphous most areas of the shadow realm were. How could any setting have the same impact as even the mortal world’s more mundane sites in a world where our interactions were reduced to vague impressions and ephemeral sensations?

So, it said something that the deep, sprawling hollow of the place where the Highest dwelled still managed to strike me as imposing. The shades of darkness lay somehow thicker and blacker there than in any other part of the realm. The shadowy planes seemed to loom over you and simultaneously threaten to suck you down. If I’d been mortal side, the scent that drifted through the filmy air here would have made me think I’d stumbled onto a rotting old ocean-liner: a combination of salt and rust and wet loam that spoke of the immensity of the sea.

Had this area arisen this way naturally, or had the shadows collected more densely and pungently because of the ancient nature of the beings that dwelled here? Or maybe the Highest had constructed the atmosphere in some purposeful way. They did enjoy wallowing in their self-importance.

I waited at the edge of the depths, the innate scorching heat of my shadowkind form holding off what might have otherwise been a chill in the darkness. The scrap of a demon lackey who’d run off to inform the Highest of my arrival was taking so long I was considering eating him for dinner if he ever returned. The Highest drew in enough fawners that they weren’t likely to notice one minor being missing.

I was equally tempted to turn around and head back to the rift I’d leapt through—to return to the crisper air and the vivid colors and sounds that I had to admit I often preferred to this place even if I wasn’t terribly fond of most of the mortal beings that inhabited that world. But if Sorsha could swallow her pride and turn back to her Fund for as many answers as she could get, and even the damned imp was willing to spend hours scouring the streets for a shadowkind who might have information, how could I shy away from making at least this one attempt to support my greatest cause?

It was a matter of dignity.

The unimpressive demon didn’t return after all. Perhaps one of the Highest had decided he’d make a nice snack. Instead of a lackey coming to usher me in, the call arrived in an echoing swell of a voice that I felt wash through me more than heard.

“Hellhound, you may come.”

So kind of them to allow this meeting. As I traveled forward, I suppressed the snarky remarks my old self would have liked to make. I wasn’t sure I would have made them, even back when I’d had a hard-on for making trouble. Not after my first meeting with the Highest, anyway. I’d been smart enough even back then to prefer toying with beings who couldn’t turn around and bite me in two.

The attitude that came over me when I sensed the massive, ponderous presence of the Highest ahead of me was more than shrewd caution, though. There wasn’t much dignity in it at all.

I’d heard one of the humans I’d conned long ago speak about how he reverted into the postures of his childhood when he visited his parents, as if their expired authority over him could reduce him from his current status as an adult. While I’d never been a child in the same way as mortals, and the Highest had nothing to do with my existence, confronting their enormity made me contract inside myself instinctively, as if I wasn’t one of the oldest beings in the realms besides them. My hellish heat shrank back beneath my skin; my fingers curled their claws against my palms. I didn’t quite tuck my tail between my