For a split second, he looked completely taken aback. Not just taken aback, but… lost.

The Shadow Beast had no idea how to handle gratitude.

No one had ever noticed the good in him, and granted, they’d have had to look closely since he so effortlessly embraced the darkness. But these slivers of light that filtered through the cracks in his shadowy soul were so blindingly beautiful that they took my breath away.

“There’s nothing I won’t do to make you happy, Sunshine,” he told me, his eyes holding flickers of fire. “You only have to ask.”

I was going to be seriously spoiled if he kept this shit up, which would only make me all the more insufferable. Maybe I should do some charity work to even it out; I was fairly certain it worked like that.

“What should I try?” Angel asked, distracting us as she leaned over to sniff at a few of the dishes. “Give me the absolute best.”

I leaned over with her, weighing them up before I started to rearrange the plates into one long line down the middle of our table. “This is my favorite,” I said, pointing to the rich devil’s food chocolate cake. The sort with thick, creamy frosting, and a cake so moist, you could see it glisten before you had a taste. People could hate on the word moist all they wanted, but when it came to cakes, there was no better descriptor. “And I’ve lined the rest in my basic order of preference, but to make myself very clear, there are no bad choices here.”

Next to the cake was the chewy cookie sandwich, with smooth vanilla frosting in the center, then a chocolate crumble cake, with a gooey mousse filling, followed by a triple deck chocolate block, showcasing the best of dark, milk, and white chocolate.

Angel lifted one of the utensils provided and scraped off the smallest sliver of the first cake. She cleverly knew to take an even distribution of frosting, cake and cream. Overloading on one aspect destroyed the full experience, in my expert opinion.

When she lifted the sliver to her lips, she smelled it first, her face crinkling. “It’s an odd scent,” she said. “Almost earthy.” Her tongue darted out, and why the fuck I was holding my breath, I’d never know, but this felt like a pivotal moment in our relationship.

She licked at it first, and I saw her nose flare.

Leaning back in case she was going to hurl, I waited for her next move. The whole piece went into her mouth and she swirled it around for a beat before letting it settle on her tongue. Then she swallowed it.

A moment’s silence followed.

She was the only one brave enough to taste anything yet, and I knew more than one at this table was waiting for her opinion. Angel was the guinea pig in this experiment.

“Wow,” she finally said, her eyes meeting mine. She smiled broadly. “I can taste some of the undertones that I imagine most wouldn’t, but… it’s good. It’s really, really good.” She clapped her hands together. “I finally found my thing, thank you!”

Her hug was immediate and enthusiastic, and I wondered if maybe the chocolate was going to affect her in another way. It did have a calming, somewhat euphoric effect on humans… Maybe it would do the same for Angel.

Before I could run away with those thoughts, everyone went into action, reaching for plates of food. “Dig in,” Len said loudly, drawing attention as he grabbed some cookies.

Even Shadow chuckled as they started to experiment with the dishes. My heart was so damn full as I watched them laugh and screw up their noses when they found dishes they didn’t enjoy.

It was pure fun escapism. One last moment together.

Whatever happened tomorrow, this night meant everything to me.

I would never forget it.

41

It was later than expected when we finally made it back into the lair. If we weren’t literally going into battle in the next few hours, I had a feeling we’d have talked with our friends all night.

Was this what family and pack life were really like? If so, I’d seriously been missing out. Even before my father’s death, I’d never experienced anything like that, and that might be the first real truth I recalled from my childhood. It had always been cold.

“What are you thinking?” Shadow asked as we strolled toward his room after leaving Inky guarding the lair entrance.

“I had a lot of fun tonight,” I said honestly. “I’ve never sat around in a group like that. Usually, I avoided anything to do with gatherings because it was hazardous to my health.”

Shadow did not like it when I talked about my life in Torma, but I wasn’t one to bottle that shit up. I didn’t dwell, and I didn’t think of it a lot, but I also wasn’t about to pretend it had never happened. To me, that wasn’t healthy, and for my own mental health, I had to talk it out.

“I mean, I do remember the early years, before my father decided that I was a demon child who needed to be torn apart by the alpha, but even then, I was lonely.”

Shadow’s expression grew darker. “I know you told me about your father briefly,” he said, “but I’m going to need you to elaborate again. Now that I’m in my right mind.”

“You want to know why he attacked the alpha?”

Shadow nodded, and I experienced a warm burst of emotion inside—he cared enough to ask for more information. “Apparently, it started when I was five,” I started, before going on to detail everything I’d learned from the Lewisons, and my own theory that my Nexus side would escape when it was about loss or protecting loved ones and not about protecting myself.

Shadow listened intently, his hand on the doorframe of his room that had just appeared before us. “You’re definitely geared more to altruism than self-protection,” he agreed gruffly. “Hence why the abuse toward you never tapped into your Nexus side. You’re too strong of mind and body. You can handle anything thrown at you—fuck, you handled everything I threw at you, all the while tossing it right back in my face. But when your loved ones are hurt, that’s when you crumble.”

He knew me better than I realized. Shadow saw everything, and he was too smart not to piece together. “I’ve thought about this a lot, especially when I was trying to recall what triggered my first bout with fire power.”

“Did you remember?”

I swallowed roughly because I had recently remembered.

It was a painful memory for me, but I’d tell Shadow. “I’d blocked this out because at the time, it was so traumatic for my young mind,” I said softly, “but I’ve had to force myself to delve into the past recently, and with that, the memories returned.” I swallowed hard and he reached out and took my hand, but didn’t say a word, allowing me to speak in my own time.