Page 87 of Bright Soul

When he wasn’t searching for any sense of normalcy in the modern world, Phaeron was in that alleyway, contemplating. Lanie had just died, and he saw me in his mind’s eye, all grief and ugly tears and incorrect conclusions.

He had no place on Earth. No people, no mate…nothing but the ear of the shifter next to him, who drank to muffle the pain of his soul damage. He spoke in depth about a place called Aurora Heights, where shifters rejected by their mates gathered for second chances.

“Why don’t you go to this place?” he’d asked.

“I dunno, man,” David slurred, knocking back the rest of a nearly empty bottle. He looked into its depths, and his expression darkened. “I guess I keep expecting someone from my sleuth to come find me.”

“Your family?” Phaeron guessed.

“Yeah. Maybe they’re just ashamed of me now. My perfect match rejected me…so there has to be something wrong with me.” With a shrug, David placed the empty bottle aside and transferred the paper wrapping to a new one. He turned the cap toward Phaeron.

“While you yet live, there’s nothing to stop you from finding a new path.” As he spoke, he used his shadows to remove the cap with an effortless twist. His shadowborn abilities…reduced to a party trick.

Yet David barked a laugh. “You’re like a fortune cookie, man.”

His eyes narrowed. “What is a fortune…cookie?”

David just laughed harder. He seemed to think Phaeron was hilarious for some reason. They shared the bottle, and Phaeron cringed after the first few sips. Had distilleries not improved while he rested in stasis?

“You know, like from Chinese restaurants.” Sometimes he took pity on Phaeron and tried to explain. “You break the cookie open, and it tells you your fortune. Sometimes they’re all mystical like you are.”

“The cookie tells… You know what? Never mind.” He leaned back, his head full of fuzzy warmth.

There was nothing to stop him from trying to find a new path, too. He saw me again when he closed his eyes, this time walking side-by-side with Lanie. We’d been dressed nearly identically, something my seer friend had done methodically.

Phaeron was sure she’d been targeted because of me. My proximity to his release meant it was a miracle the Hungering Darkness hadn’t immediately killed me and eaten my soul to soothe the edge of its starvation. But if it had a sniff of me, then it would hunt me tirelessly until it was my eyelids he was forced to close.

As the only one who could go toe-to-toe with his undead brother, he had a duty to try to protect me, even if I hated him in those days for assuminghewas the monster.

I’d lived most of the memories that passed by next. He didn’t find much purpose until he was kneeling in the dirt, bleeding out from protecting me and my friends from our ill-fated first fight with the Hungering Darkness. As Áine healed him back from the brink of death, he’d asked, “Do you see now that I am not a monster, bright soul?”

My shaky “yes” had meant much more to him than I’d ever expected. There was a chance we’d make amends, even become allies, now that it was understood that we had the same enemy.

He began to think of me as lovely and often triggered his soul sight to see my form haloed by it. Light was anathema to a shadowborn…but not the kind I put off. My soul flickered around me like liquid gold, an eternally flattering light source that limned my cheeks and put a shine to my purple hair. My brown eyes turned honey-toned, shining with reflected light.

He’d been admiring me for longer than he’d admitted to. I was soft and rounded compared to the females of his own species, confusing his attraction. Fate reminded him when it was my voice to bring him back from Endaeron’s control twice,helping him shake off his cravings to bite into my soul since he admired it so.

As early as the evening he’d walked me to my dorm room, he’d known I was supposed to be his True Light. From then on, he’d taken the duties of my Shadow and embraced new purpose gladly in training and spending time with me and my friends. Tempering Geo’s stone form and protecting Ben with his presence were merely a part of it.

With the tug of hunger in him every time he glimpsed my soul, his role as protector was all he felt he could offer. That didn’t prevent the little touches and teases as both of our feelings deepened, but each was a test of his control. One slip, and he’d hurt me beyond repair…but he couldn’t bring himself to stay away.

If I could’ve caught a breath, I would’ve at the feeling of yearning that deepened in him with time. He’d ached with unfulfilled need so acutely each time he denied both of us more. Enough to have a spike of shadowborn rage toward his oldest friend when Auric called me “a mate in name only.”

I saw a closed-door conversation between him, Geo, and Ben; then with the finality of a last glimpse, the memories took a single step back in time from his diplomatic request for peace between my three men. “It is easy to love Cress” in a conference room became the soft slide of covers against his naked body and my slight form so close to his.

“I have missed you far more than words could convey.” Underneath the tender whisper was the horror he’d barely staved off, the control Myuna had failed to fully exert over him. He’d refused to give in to her with me on his mind, my name on his lips. Knowing he would one day return to me kept him awake, aware, and alive just long enough to save his life and soul.

I’d comforted him and run my fingers through his hair, blunted the disjointed edges that existed within him after historture at her hands. But it was my reaction when he’d tried to pull away again that’d tilted his self-control straight to possessive desire.

I will not go quietly into eternity without lying with you,he’d thought.

That had truly been lovemaking in the dark. My skin glowed to his sight alone when I was surrounded by his shadows, and he’d touched my face enamored by the sight and the utter trust I’d surrendered to him.

From that night on, I was fiercelyhisand the one to complete him in his new Earth life. I was his mate, his future, his purpose, and his much-longed-for peace.

32

CRESS

---