Everyone laughed, even Len, after which he shrugged. “Look, I wasn’t even five hundred years old at the time and I have regrets. I have many regrets about how I chose to spend my youth.”

Not even five hundred. Youth? Like that was a damn teenager.

Many other beings had gathered around to bask in the glow of the “gods” who ran this world. They filled all the chairs, except for the few around Angel. Maybe it was the way she glared at any who tried to slither into her personal space, or more likely it was the intense glow she emitted all powered up that warned them not to mess with her.

This was how it had always been with her in this dining hall. Separated. Alone. Untouchable. Everyone had heeded her warnings except for me. I’d fucked that up from the first moment I met her, but my mistake turned out to be the very best thing I could have done.

“You’re looking very relaxed,” she said when I dropped in beside her, Shadow taking the seat on the other side of me. Angel had managed to keep two spots free for us.

“You’re not,” I shot back, noting how her hands clenched, as if she wished her blades were in them.

“These lugheads had to choose my section of the dining hall to set up camp,” she seethed. “I told them to move on, but at risk of wasting my energy, I can’t literally move them.”

It was a large dining hall. They could have sat anywhere, but they had chosen to crowd into her spot. Not just crowd, but bring in dozens of other beings, all of whom would normally give Angel a wide berth.

“Whose idea was it to sit here?” Shadow asked her, leaning back in a relaxed manner, watching the antics of his idiot friends.

Angel glared daggers at him, even though he wasn’t looking her way. “Reece, of course. I thought we’d given up on this stupid dance years ago, but apparently, he still has a need for punishment in his system.”

Shadow finally met her gaze, his stare as hard as hers. “You should consider yourself lucky that he ignored you for the last few millennia. You know how long his memory is. He rarely forgives and never forgets.”

She scoffed. “I did consider myself lucky. But what has changed? I was perfectly content with the ‘pretend we don’t know each other’ thing we had going on. He’s messing with the status quo.”

Shadow turned his gaze toward Reece, who was sitting at the farthest table from Angel. “It’s your power,” Shadow said. “It reminds him of long-ago events. Lives lost. Hearts shattered.”

Angel went super pale. Super, super pale, and I elbowed Shadow quickly so he would shut up and give her a break. Then I threw an arm around my best friend, maneuvering the hold so I didn’t crush the feathers of her wings. “Don’t worry about Reece,” I said. “If he wants to be a petty asshole about shit that happened millennia ago, that’s on him. You’re above that, especially while we have to focus on saving the damn world.”

“I can hear you, Mera Callahan,” Reece shot out, his voice hard and clipped. “And you should not speak about what you don’t know.”

Shadow slowly got to his feet, and the noise died off near instantly. My beast didn’t have to say a word because the flames that sprung to life, followed by the darkness in his expression, did all the talking for him.

Reece stood slowly as well, and for a moment, his fury faded into sadness. “Sorry, old friend,” he said formally. “I did not mean to speak in such a tone with your mate. It’s just…”

Shadow’s flames lessened. “I understand,” he said. “But understand or not, if you ever speak to Mera like that again, I’ll enjoy making you regret it.”

Reece gave a short, sharp nod. “As it should be.” He turned to me. “Apologies, Mera. I’m not myself today. I think I’ll seek some mental guidance before we depart tomorrow.”

Without a glance at Angel, he turned and walked off, never looking back once.

The room felt smaller and emptier without his large frame and even larger energy presence, but some of the tension eased at least, and that was worth the trade.

Angel even seemed happy, ordering food with me when the robot servers rushed by. Shadow didn’t order anything, but he did smile at the six dishes I requested.

“I wondered where all the salmon and beef were going,” he said with a low chuckle.

I shrugged. “Look, I’m not gonna lie, the food here is amazing. And a lot of it is similar to Earth food, so I feel right at home. My favorite is the stew, though. My god—”

His glare cut me off, and I shrugged. “It’s a turn of phrase, damn you,” I said. “Stop editing my words.”

He leaned back in his chair, arrogant as fuck. “I’m the only god around here, Sunshine.”

I wrinkled my nose. “It was ‘god’ with a small ‘g.’ So it could be referring to anyone. Maybe it was referring to you.”

He leaned over and kissed me, hard, not caring that almost everyone in the room stopped talking again and took a moment to stare at us. I didn’t care, either, mostly because I forgot all about them the moment he pulled me into him, his tongue stroking greedily against mine. “Yes, Sunshine. Me and only me.”

My head spun and my reply was slower than normal. “Goes both ways, Shadow.”

He nodded. “It does.”

That shut me up. Now all of us were silently staring at the beast who ruled us all.

40

Before I could combust from the mere weight of Shadow’s scorching gaze, our food arrived, and I was once again thankful for the gift of food and all of its delicious distractions. Angel’s face lit up when they placed her usual tray in front of her, and it was one of those rare treasures that sent my heart into happy flutters.

She must have noticed me looking at her with a stupid goofy smile, which oddly had a dark cloud descending over her features. She went from angelic beauty to badass-who-would-kill-you in a heartbeat. “What?” I said, looking around for the threat.

Angel actually growled, drawing my gaze back to her. “No one will take my family from me again.” Gold glittery power fluttered off her. “Dannie made a grave error in judgement, and even though she’s Shadow’s mother, there’s no redemption for her.”

My throat was dry, and when I tried to swallow, I couldn’t make it work. “She might release the stone,” I managed to say.