in there.
The craw cawed. I took in the beautiful, black feathers and dark eyes. Something—like black fog—lifted off my mind, clearing my thoughts. What was wrong with me? That mansion was my safe fortress. I had to run back, but would I make it?
My muscles started to work hard as I traced the way I had come through the trees, heading for the safety of the mansion's wall in the distance. For a moment, I thought I picked up the sound of a child's voice calling my name. Was I abandoning my sister who needed me in her hour of need? I clenched my teeth and ran faster when something hit my back and I stumbled forward, twisting my ankle in the process. I scrambled a few feet away, then turned slowly and noticed he was still standing in the same spot.
With dread filling my heart, I looked into the one face I had been dreaming of my whole life, always forgetting upon waking up, only to remember later. It was one and the same reoccurring dream of an old woman and the pact she had signed. His face was more beautiful than I remembered it, his voice sounded as smooth as dripping honey, dark and melodious, and so very deadly. His dark eyes stared me down. They remind me of the dark puddles I avoided at night as a child in the fear I would fall into them and never get out.
"Shadow," I whispered to myself.
"I'm impressed that after so many centuries you still remember me." He inched closer and reached out. I stared at his outstretched hand but didn't take it, noticing the sheath bound around his hip, hiding a sword. I almost expected him to lunge at me and pull me up, maybe even drag me away kicking and screaming. But he didn't. His hand hovered a few inches away from me, brushing through the air as though to touch an invisible wall. A frown crossed his beautiful features, all pale skin smooth as marble and shiny, black eyes. His hair had changed from shoulder-length to a more contemporary cut, still black but with blonde spikes. It suited him, made him more ordinary looking, which was a dangerous combination because it made me feel as though I could outsmart him. But no one outsmarted a Shadow—and surely not Devon.
"What do you want from me?" My attempt at infusing confidence into my voice failed.
Devon smiled but it didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Do you want to kill me? Is that what you came for?" I continued.
"No blade of mine could kill you, Sofia," he said. "Or should I call you Esmeralda?"
The name rang true. That's how I had been called and yet I felt it didn't suit me anymore. I was the same soul, but my life had shaped me into a different person. Or maybe it was my mate's existence that made me strive to be someone else. I scrambled to my feet when a sharp pain pierced my swollen ankle. I winced inwardly and hoped the emotion wouldn't show on my face. "What are you here for?"
He kept staring, his black eyes irritating the hell out of me. Eventually, he reached beneath his cape and pulled out a shiny object dangling from a long chain, then tossed it toward me. I caught it in mid-air and twirled it around my fingers as I peered at the tiny moonstone carved in the form of a butterfly.
"Wear it," he said.
I cocked a brow. "Why?"
"Because it'll protect you."
"Who said I need protection?"
"Trust me, you'll do soon." His face remained unreadable, as though he wasn't even capable of feeling emotion.
My insides turned hot and cold. "What do you see?"
"That I can't tell you because it is not I who sees but our Queen. Deidre is the Seer. Don't you remember, Esmeralda?"
He was using my previous name deliberately, maybe to mock me, maybe to trigger the trust I had once felt toward me. I remembered him, but the trust I had once felt toward him was long gone now. "Queen Deidre."
More memories flooded my mind. I saw she had been beautiful, the only Shadow with black eyes and snow-white hair, which defied the Shadows' nature of black hair and black eyes that shined like liquid oil. I only glimpsed her once in her true form, many years before my fate befell me, but not long before she was turned into something abhorrent—a soul transferred into the body of a dying girl, trapped