Deserted (Shadow Beast Shifters Book 4)

Eventually Reece regained his famous control and got to the point of his and Shadow’s return to the tent. “There’s a celebratory dinner tonight,” he said shortly. “We stopped by to give you the heads-up.”

He was now looking anywhere but at me, and in some ways that hurt more, reminding me of the years he’d cut me from his life.

“I don’t have anything fancy to wear,” Mera said, spinning to Shadow. “I mean, unless you can conjure up the magic wardrobe here?”

Mera could create her own clothing if she wanted, but from what I’d observed, they’d mutually agreed that the wardrobe was Shadow’s role.

“I can,” Shadow said with a slow smile. “But it’s not advised in the deserts. The energy here is unpredictable, and you never quite know what you’re going to create if you overuse magic.”

Like waking up some gods who were hellbent on destroying the worlds.

“It’s official dress anyway,” Reece said in his deep rumble. “I’m having outfits dropped off soon so that you can wear Rohami colors.”

Shadow crossed his arms, looking all broody and scary. “They will leave the clothes outside, so there’s no need to exit the tent until we return.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Reece said shortly. “They will not linger.” The heat grew around him as well, and now the tent was akin to a sauna. “We need to get back into the mix,” he said suddenly. “The unease in my energy grows stronger, and I think we should chat with the princeps of the Yemin dynasty. His response from before was definitely lacking some details.”

Shadow nodded. “Yes, and we also need to focus on Rohami. Your land is the most powerful… and the most power hungry.”

Reece didn’t deny the truth of this. Everyone familiar with the deserts was aware of the dominant traits of each dynasty. Rohami loved their power.

“Is everyone in this world long-lived?” Mera asked.

Reece’s smile was without the animosity he always directed my way. “We do have long lives by Earth standards. Many live the equivalent of a few hundred years, depending on how much energy they can absorb from the sands. But most are not eternal. Only a few of us with strong family lines can continue to refill the well of our lifeforce.”

Before she could ask another question, he turned toward the main doorway. “We really should go now; time is running out.”

Shadow, who was still holding his mate, leaned down and kissed her hard on the mouth. “I’ll be back for you soon,” he murmured. “Please stay in this tent and don’t make me destroy dynasties to find you.”

Mera fought a smile. “Only because you said please.”

Shadow kissed her again; this one went on longer and I left them to it. Standing between those two and the ice king that was Reece was not my favorite pastime. Moving into the bedroom I’d been assigned earlier, I headed straight for the bathing area. Not that I needed this sort of setup to clean myself, but I found great comfort in water. Many of the power layers of my land in Honor Meadows were surrounded by water, and if the opportunity to soak my woes away presented itself, I was always going to take it.

This quirk of mine was an oddity among the transcendents, but it was one that I’d claimed and accepted a long time ago.

The moment I felt Reece’s and Shadow’s energies leave the tent, I stripped away the “human attire” I’d donned earlier. Dropping it to the ground, since I wouldn’t be wearing it again, I stepped into the glassed-off tub. The sand weavers were masters in this world, turning the various colored land into glass and weapons and household goods. This tub was mostly crystal-colored, with streaks of gold swirling in intricate patterns. Crouching down, I ran my fingertips across the swirls, following them to find they all led to a central point that was so cleverly hidden you didn’t even know it existed until you were there.

As I marvelled at the desert art, I thought about how much I’d missed this world. Even after all of these years away, it still felt like a second home—I should never have stayed away for so long.

Shaking off the melancholy, I stood and hit a lever attached to some copper piping that extended high up the wall of the tent, ending in a spout designed to spray liquid down into the tub. From previous experience here, I knew this piping system would be planted deep into the ground, all the way down to where the liforina ran. As this “water” ascended, it would be heated by the land and sand itself since these deserts ran hot.

It took less than a minute before the warm, slightly cloudy water ran over me, and I let out a low groan at the sheer pleasure of this cleansing ritual. Tilting my head back, I stood in silence, my mind busy while the rest of me slowed to a pace I could once again handle. My blood, my energy, the magic in my veins… I calmed it piece by piece, until eventually, even my mind was quiet. Which lasted all of two minutes before Mera’s energy entered the room.

“I tell ya,” she said breathlessly, “if I was into women, you would not be safe right now.”

With a laugh, I opened my eyes to find her perched in the arched doorway, leaning against the frame, her face flushed and pupils dilated. Which had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Shadow and the state he’d just left her in.

“They’ve gone back to the meetings?” I asked, already knowing the answer but needing a conversation opener. It was too easy for me to sink into silence, and I had to stop doing that if I wanted my future to be different from my past.

“They have,” she confirmed, “but they’ll be back soon. Knowing Shadow as I do, it’s going to prey on his mind that someone is leaving outfits at our door and that when we open it, we could be attacked because obviously everyone is out to kill us.”

“You love his obsessive possessiveness,” I said with a chuckle.

Mera shuffled further into the room so she could take a seat on the small ledge along one side of the tent wall. “This doesn’t make you uncomfortable, right?” she said suddenly, as if it had only just occurred to her. “I forget that everyone isn’t as cool with nudity as I am.”

A true laugh burst from me, and I had to marvel at Mera’s ability to amuse me. “You are the most naked person I’ve ever met, friend.” She shrugged because she was proud of that fact. “And it doesn’t bother me at all,” I said truthfully. “I’m too old to care about flesh and skin on display. It’s just the vessel keeping our energy contained.”

“You’re always so covered, though,” she said, no doubt thinking about my usual attire.

“We wear armor for protection, not because we’re hiding our bodies. The last thing I’m worried about is someone catching sight of my breasts and having a moment over it.”

Mera waggled her eyebrows. “Lady, your tits are totally worth having a moment over. Speaking of, I think you should use them and have some angry sex with that bronzed god. You two need to get it out of your systems.”

My body tightened at those words, and the ferocity of that involuntary movement shocked me to the point I had to reach out and grip the side of the wall behind me to keep my legs steady. Memories crashed into me with the same force, and I found myself saying, “We’ve actually had sex before.”

Now it was Mera’s turn to almost fall off her chair. “What the hell, Angel,” she near shouted. “How could you not tell me that? Was it amazing? It was amazing, right? I imagine he fucks like Shadow, and in that regard, you shouldn’t have stopped at once.”

With that reminder, painful memories pushed through the lustful ones. “It was the night before my world ended. First time for both of us, and it was… amazing.” That word didn’t even come close to the truth of it. I’d experienced the sort of pleasure I hadn’t known existed within my body and, for a brief moment, it had felt as if Reece and I were on the cusp of forming a true soul bond.

Until it had all been torn away.

Mera’s face fell, her hand pressed to her chest. “The night before, Angel? Oh, I’m so sorry. That’s so freaking sad.”

It was. “My life was mostly about duty, with Reece being the one part that didn’t fit the mold. Even our parents were allies due to their love of power and fighting, but we… we were true friends.”

“A true friend you were secretly in love with?” Mera guessed.

I nodded. “Oh yeah, I was completely gone over him, but I also had no intention of messing with our friendship. The sex happened after a particularly hard day of battle, when we were both injured and needed some patching up. You know how it is when adrenaline is high and clothes are low.”

Mera sighed. “I swear I’ve read this story in one of my paranormal romance books before, and it’s my favorite kind. Please tell me there was only one bed and you had to share because, damn…” She fanned her face. “That’s my kink.”

My lips twitched. “There was a bit of a bed shortage.”

She squealed before shutting it down in a flash, even as her eyes remained bright. “This is your second-chance romance, Angel. You have to give it another shot.”

Second-chance romance…

“After a thousand plus years?” I said softly. “I think too much time has passed. I’m not sure I could live through having my Reece again—the warm, affectionate, arrogant, funny asshole who was my star in a sea of rocks—only for him to turn cold and brutal on me. The pain of that almost killed me once, and I had to robot myself to get through it. But there’s no more robot, so it’s safer just to do this mission with him, mend whatever fences I can between us, and then move on with my life.”

Mera was silent for a long moment, and I found myself sinking down into the glass bath, my thighs blocking the drain so the water could fill around me. She eventually leaned forward, cradling her stomach. “I believe to truly move on, you need to wipe the memories of the past and create some new ones. Even if it’s only one more night, it could change everything. Maybe then you’ll truly be able to walk away.”

I let her words marinate in my thoughts because there was sense in what she’d said. “Even if it could work, that Desertlandian hates me. Call me old-fashioned, but my preference with sex is to find a partner who’s into me, right? Surely that makes the experience more pleasurable.”

Laughter burst from her, shocking me into silence. “You can’t be serious. Ever since you powered yourself up to fight Dannie, that boy has been obsessed with you. Sure, it’s presenting as anger, but if you truly couldn’t stand someone, you wouldn’t stare at them like they were an oasis in the damn deserts. Shadow the Second has an obsessive personality to match my mate. Not to mention…”

I found myself strangely desperate to hear her next words.

“There’s a fine line between love and hate, Angel.” Her smile was knowing. “And with you and Reece, that line is so fine that it’s barely existent. Don’t let the past dictate your future. We are not doing that any longer.”

The surprisingly philosophical ending to her advice reminded me of the words Galleli had said to me before we crossed into the Desert Lands. He’d told me I needed to fight the darkness that held me.

Two beings I cared about were giving me basically the same advice, and while they were both probably right, it was still easier said than done. The hate between Reece and myself was deeply entrenched, and it had been around far longer than our love had.

Maybe, in the end, the future would always be defined by the past.