A ripple moved through the space, faint but definite, like something breathing beneath the surface.The mists curled tighter around them, whispering in voices that weren’t quite words.Myanin froze.
Shade straightened slowly, the lazy amusement leaving his face.“Did you feel?—”
“Yes.”She didn’t want him to say it out loud; naming things here felt dangerous, like drawing attention from an audience she couldn’t see.The air tasted metallic and felt charged with something malevolent.
“Myanin,” Shade said quietly, “we’re not alone.”
She rolled her eyes, because that was easier than admitting her pulse jumped.“Obviously.I? have the pleasure of your shining personality.”
He ignored that.“The book is alive.Raja made sure of it when he bound his essence to it.If he’s free, something else has to keep the balance.Something to keep the cage from collapsing.”
Myanin’s gaze swept the nothingness until it landed on a thin line of light far ahead, like the first tear in paper.“You’re saying this place is trying to replace him.”
“Yes.And it will start with us.”
For a heartbeat neither spoke.The faint rustle of turning pages came again, closer this time, accompanied by the scent of scorched ink.Myanin rubbed her arms, hating that she was shaking.
“Well,” she muttered, “that’s just great.Trapped in a homicidal scrapbook.”
“Stay behind me,” Shade said, stepping forward.
She barked a laugh.“After you, hero.Let’s see if hell wants you more than it wants me.”
The light trembled, widened, and the gray world peeled away in shreds of parchment.Something inside the glow moved–too tall, too thin, too unfinished.And it was coming straight toward them.
Myanin’s mouth went dry.“Shade.”
“I ?see it.”
“Good.Because if this page monster eats me, I ?am haunting you.”
The figure stopped at the edge of the light.For a second it looked like a reflection, Myanin’s own outline, but hollow where her heart should be.When it spoke, its voice rasped with the sound of turning pages.“The book remembers its promises.”
The figure stepped closer, its outline rippling like ink across wet parchment.Its words didn’t echo, they sank, seeping into Myanin’s bones until her pulse matched the rhythm of turning pages.“What the hell does that mean?”She asked, already dreading the answer.
Shade froze.“The Nushtonia was forged on blood-oaths,” he said quietly, the arrogance stripped from his voice.“It remembers every vow, every lie, every broken promise ever spoken near its pages.And I have a feeling perhaps it has access to our inner beings.”
Myanin’s throat tightened.Of course it did.Because why wouldn’t a cursed manuscript double as a cosmic guilt ledger?The thought scraped across her nerves, dredging up a dozen oaths she’d made and broken, some in anger, some in love.
“Perfect,” she muttered.“We’re inside a book with some serious grudges that probably span thousands of years.Not to mention, it can find out all our own screw ups and use those against us.This should be fun.”
The echo smiled, at least, it bent the air in something that felt like a smile.“The book remembers,”it whispered again, and the gray world rippled as though it had just turned another page.
CHAPTER1
“Oftentimes people in our lives, even people we love, don’t seem as relevant, vibrant, or necessary until they are taken away.Only then are our eyes opened to the massive space they actually took up in our lives, and only then do we realize no other shape will fill it.”~ Gerick
The Draheim realm breathed.Gerick felt it the moment Perizada flashed them in, an awareness that sank into bone and blood alike.The air was cool and clean, heavy with the scent of pine, stone, and rain-soaked earth.Towering evergreens stretched skyward along the slopes of the mountains, their roots gripping ancient rock as though the land itself refused to loosen its hold on them.Mist curled low along the ground, drifting lazily through the forest like a living thing.This realm was alive.And it noticed any changes to it.
Gerick stood still, boots planted on a bed of moss and stone, his hands relaxed at his sides.He did not reach for magic.He did not push his presence outward.Draheim respected restraint.And there was no reason to piss off a being that could literally eat him.
He noticed Lucian scanning the tree line with a predator’s focus, while Lilly lingered slightly to the side, her magic humming softly beneath her skin.Her yellow eyes seemed to be taking in the beauty of the realm, while at the same time her shoulders were pulled back and her chin lifted, alert and paying attention.Perizada stood at Gerick’s shoulder, composed and steady, her expression carefully neutral.
Gerick found himself wishing that he and Myanin’s bond worked the way the wolves' bonds did.To be able tofeeleach other in such a way.To know with absolute certainty that Myanin lived.
If she hadn’t, he still felt like he would have felt something.Like the severing would have been immediate, violent.Mates always knew when their other half died.Even still, there was a hollow ache that refused to fade.
She was trapped, and Shade was with her.He felt the rage he’d managed to tamp down begin to rise again.He trusted his mate, he wasn’t worried about some past love connection between the two.She belonged to him now.But it was obvious in the interaction between Shade and Myanin that she didn’t want anything to do with him.Gerick didn't know her history with the djinn male, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good.And Shade forced his way back into her life.And now, she was stuck with him until Gerick could figure out a way to get her back.He was drawn out of his thoughts as the forest quieted.Birdsong faded.The breeze shifted, curling through the trees in a slow, deliberate sweep.Even the light mist seemed to draw back, as if the realm itself was holding its breath.
