24. Amber

I don’t letthe blast of light go too far—I don’t want it to accidentally hit the vampires who are continuing to fight around us—but I get it far enough to hold back the shadow souls long enough to grab the daggers in my boots.

With a battle cry, Damien launches himself toward a shadow soul that’s getting too close, the wind at his heels and his sword a blur of silver.

He takes down not just that shadow soul, but another one near it, faster than I can blink.

I prepare myself for at least one of them to launch at me, but they don’t.

Weird.

Maybe they’re scared of my sun magic?

That’s the only thing that makes sense.

Looks like I’ll be going on the offensive instead of the defensive.

Without a second thought, I throw myself at one nearby, dagger poised to sink into its chest.

It darts away, escaping the blow. But it doesn’t charge at me as expected.

Instead, I watch as Cassandra gets it from behind, a knowing smirk on her face as the shadow soul disintegrates between us.

“Nice try,” she says to me. “But it looks like we still have a lot of work to do when we get back.”

I have no time to reply before she’s back in the fray, fighting off two shadow souls at once with her magic and her sword.

A quick glance around shows that the others are doing a good job holding their own. The shadow souls are good fighters, but they’re victims to their base instincts—the need to feed on souls, no matter what.

The vampires are swift, cunning, and calculating, many of them with decades or centuries of training under their belts. We might be outnumbered, but we have precision and experience on our side.

“Amber, behind you!” Damien’s warning cuts through my thoughts as he takes on multiple shadow souls at once.

I spin, releasing my magic toward the approaching figure.

The solar flare sputters out of my hand, falling short before reaching its target, who launches through it unaffected. But he stops mere inches from me, close enough that I can feel the cold absence of light emanating from his body. He doesn’t reach for me, and he doesn’t try to kill me, either.

The rest of the battle seems to pause, a bubble of silence in the chaos.

Then, he speaks, his voice so low that I have to focus extra hard to hear it.

“Your light calls to the Shadow Lord like a beacon in the darkness,” he says, his words a haunting melody that sends ice rushing through my veins. “He offers you a throne of shadows, a kingdom of night.”

Before I can ask what he means, his mouth twists in pain, he lets out an anguished cry, and he dissolves into a puddle of goo at my feet.

Damien’s right there in front of me, his dagger in the space where the shadow soul’s chest was a few seconds earlier.

“Come on,” he says. “We have to get out of here.”

He grabs my hand before I can reply, pulling me through the maze of trees, ducking and weaving through the dark. The wind is at our heels—his magic—helping us move faster than I ever dreamed possible.

But there’s movement at our tails, following us, chasing us. I don’t look behind—any second could be an extra one they have to get closer. Instead, I stay focused on Damien’s hand in mine as we run the rest of the way through the park toward the gates.

Escaping was the plan if the fight got too intense, since we can’t risk continuing to draw more and more shadow souls toward us. But I trust in my heart that the others can take care of the shadow souls that remain—especially after seeing them vanquish the ones back there at an insanely fast rate.

They have to. They’ve put themselves on the line for me, and I won’t accept any of them dying because of me.

Finally, we’re out of the park, back near the street, and Damien forces our way into an open taxi before it has a chance to fully stop.

“Drive!” he barks at the driver as he slams the door shut, his usual composure replaced by urgency to get us out of here.

The driver freezes, his hands gripping the wheel in shock.

I glance worriedly at where we came, ready for the shadow souls that were on our tail to launch themselves at the taxi, pry the doors open, and force their way inside.

They don’t.

Instead, they halt, as if hitting an invisible barrier. And from the way they’re looking around in confusion, you’d think we stepped into a void instead of a taxi.

Two humans walk around them, rolling their eyes in annoyance at them for standing in the middle of the sidewalk. Of course, to them, the shadow souls look perfectly normal. Probably like lost tourists, given their obvious confusion.

“Where to?” the driver asks, getting a hold over himself.

“The Fairmont,” Damien says, rattling off the exact way to get there.

He starts driving, and I turn around to check on the shadow souls, relieved they’re not following.

“They stopped.” I turn back to Damien, confused. “Why would they stop?”

“No idea,” he says, and from the surprise crossing his features, I believe him. “We’ve never run from them before. Warriors don’t run. And they have no issue with trains, so it never crossed our minds that they might be averse to cars…”

He’s quiet for the rest of the way back.

I say nothing. Instead, I keep replaying what that shadow soul said when he attacked.

Your light calls to the Shadow Lord like a beacon in the darkness. He offers you a throne of shadows, a kingdom of night.

It’s not long before we arrive at the Fairmont. Damien’s still lost in thought as we get out of the cab and walk inside, only snapping back into focus when he presses the button to the elevator.

“That shadow soul got pretty close to you,” he says, and my heart jumps into my throat.

He knows.

He heard.

“Did he touch you?” he asks. “Did he…”

“Feed from me?” I ask, and he nods. “No. He almost did, but then you were there, and then…”

I don’t have to complete the sentence. We both know what happened after that.

Relief washes over me at the fact that he didn’t hear what the shadow soul said to me.

At the same time, part of me wonders if I should say something. After all, I promised to be transparent with him. But something about that message, combined with my dreams about the Shadow Lord, makes me hold back.

I don’t want Damien to know about the Shadow Lord’s appearances in my dreams.

It’s too personal. Too intimate.

Especially because I’m starting to wonder if they’re truly just dreams.

And the last thing I want is for the man I think I’m falling in love with to know I’m having sensual dreams about our enemy.