bedroom, but there was way more to worry about than our mess of a relationship. The pack lands were under attack. We didn’t know how or why, but it was clear that something was very wrong.
“Where did everyone go?” Jaxson muttered, guiding me out into the hall. We still couldn’t see anything, and there was no sound of life in the corridor.
“Why were you out of pack lands anyway?” I asked, staying near him.
“I left to run an errand in town,” he murmured. “And as I said, when I drove up, everything went dark.”
Great. So neither of us knew a fucking thing except the world had gone dark when it wasn’t supposed to. “I think this might indeed be my fault,” I admitted.
I’d been trying my best to ignore the deep, panicked part of me that knew I’d done this by calling the Shadow Beast. Could it really be a coincidence that the light had fled minutes after I’d said his name?
But, seriously, what the fuck? I’d heard other people curse and call out to him. It was like a figure of speech, right? Not a literal invitation to pop his ass Earthside and shake shit up.
“It’s not your fault, Meers,” Jaxson replied, almost instinctively defending me. I didn’t bother to argue since we were now outside, the fresh icy air slapping us in the face, and we could finally see a little in front of us.
Out here was a source of light I couldn’t identify, but it was enough for our shifter vision to kick in. “This is not like nightfall,” I breathed. “It’s like a shadow has blocked out the sun completely.”
A shadow.
Mother fucking fucker.
“I can scent pack over here,” Jaxson said, and for once, those words were a relief.
He led me around the side of the house, toward the front entrance with its circular driveway. Jaxson’s fancy blue sports car was awkwardly parked there, driver’s side door still open like he’d exited in a rush. And right behind it was…
“The fuck…” Jaxson muttered, seeing them at the same time as me. “They weren’t here when I arrived.” His hands trembled as his voice wolfed out.
Hundreds of pack members were out in front of the pack house, statue still, staring up at the sky. At a tiny point of midnight shimmer to be more accurate. Shimmer that was the source of light.
Jaxson angled his body in front of mine. “It’s magic.”
We might have been shifters, but that wasn’t really magic. We shared our souls with beasts, and they lent us their energy and senses, giving us extra abilities. Magic, like waving wands and casting spells, was the stuff of legend.
No supernatural creatures we knew about could do this.
“Stay behind me,” Jaxson said, creeping closer to the pack.
No way did he get to order me around, so I moved forward at my own pace, by his side. When we reached the front of the group, where Torin and Victor stood, I could really see the spot of darkly shimmering mist. A mist that every single shifter stared at.
It was about eight feet tall, flickering gently in the night air; a portal of midnight glitter that shouldn’t have been visible against the black backdrop, but it was.
“Mera,” Jaxson hissed, pulling me to a stop. “Don’t move a muscle.”
I jerked my arm free. “Muscles move whether I want them to or not. You really shouldn’t have slept through biology.”
He glared at me. “Not the fucking time, Sunny. Not. The. Time.”
I smiled sweetly, hoping that it wasn’t so dark that he would miss the murder in my eyes. “If you call me ‘Sunny’ one more time, there will only be one functioning member of this pack remainin—”
My threat was cut off by an icy rush of air. So cold that even with a shifter metabolism, I shivered uncontrollably, my skin covered in goosebumps.
“That’s why I said not to move,” Jaxson murmured so low, I could barely hear him. “That sparkly mist is hiding something.”
The icy air ramped up, and maybe it was that I was staring directly into the shimmering darkness, but I saw the exact moment the shadows abandoned their master, revealing a being that could only be described as beyond this world.
My mouth went dry as I stared, frozen by more than the arctic winds.
He was touched by light. The only light that currently existed in the world. Raven hair tousled in curls atop his head—a hairstyle that could have made him appear angelic, but there was nothing further from