Chapter Seven
Shadow
The second I left her in my true form; I slipped away from prying eyes. Once I was far enough away, I shed my skin and bones, desperate to return to the one place I loathed most.
I didn’t want to reveal myself right away, so I sank into the darkness lining the cells. Kara had dropped to the floor with a sigh, leaning back against the wall. She hadn’t asked for food yet. She must have been starving.
My form pulsed as I watched her.
I feel nothing, I reminded myself. Nothing in either form.
I wasn’t one to lie. But with her, I found myself doing it increasingly.
Physically, I was empty. Hollow. But inside, something rioted. Desperate. Seeking what it could never have. Emotions were a nightmare. Feeling meant vulnerability, and that meant being consumed. I knew firsthand how easily madness could latch on. How quickly rage could devour a mind.
My destiny had always dangled in front of me. Taunting. Cruel. Just out of reach. But now, the end was coming. The world would fall, and my fate would finally rise to meet me.
Lost in thought, I stopped quivering in the shadows. For a moment, I was still.
But the instant my focus returned to her, Kara sitting there—stubborn and too lovely—I came undone all over again. The sensations inside my shadowed form ran amok, no matter how tightly I tried to contain them.
It was more than maddening.
Having no control over my reactions to her made me want to destroy her—and everything she held dear.
But I didn’t have to. The wheels of fate were already turning for both of us.
One story was beginning while the other was ending.
The bane of my existence would soon vanish from every world, as if she never existed.
I wouldn’t need to fight myself anymore to stay away from her.
I wouldn’t have to resist the urge to see her.
She’d be gone.
As it should be.
I froze when I realized I’d crossed into a place I never allowed myself before.
I was her shadow in this form. Nothing more.
But lying had become a habit. It sank into my bones until it felt like truth.
I was more than the wisp in the corner. More than the nothing slipping through life. The worlds called me many things. Corruption, sin, temptations. Supposedly my words crawled into people’s ears and whispered them into action. As if none of their misdeeds existed without my coercion.
What a load of—
It didn’t matter. In the end, I welcomed evil. Filled Hell with their wicked souls. I needed imbalance to step into the human world and stay.
But time… Time was a trickster.
I couldn’t remember why I yearned for humanity’s downfall. I could barely recall my fall from grace.
Another lie.
So many.
They were starting to taste sweet on my tongue.
I should never have returned to the shadows. It was supposed to end once I had her.
Her tongue darted over her lips, her hand drifting to her stomach with a sigh. She wasn’t in pain yet. That surprised me. I had been starving for a long time. But food disgusted me. I couldn’t taste it anymore. Still, I hungered. I’d been longing for more and more since I fell.
Everything clicked into place.
All I had to do was cross over and claim the human world as my own.
But then—
The vision returned.
Kara stood there, red petals fluttering at her feet with every step she took backward.
She was always nude in the dream, yet her form remained blurred—like the universe refused to let me see her clearly.
She’d beckon me forward with that same damned look every time, and a current of need would slam through me.
It was an ungodly force of nature that broke me apart and remade me in her image.
But then the vision cut off. Every time. I never saw what came next.
Nothing. That was the truth of it.
If I had been sitting—I stayed seated.
If I’d been standing—I turned away.
I never followed her.
I always chose not to.
From the shadows, I glanced toward her now. Still seated. Her eyes closed. At rest.
A dark swell of emotion blanketed me, thick and unrelenting. Even the ripple of my form—the twitch of shadow and void—ceased. The vision had haunted me since the day I cursed her as a child.
And now—finally—Kara was in my grasp.
But reality struck like a blade to the gut. I had tormented myself over a future that would never exist. I was a monster. A force of Hell. Bound to my own darkness and rule. She would never welcome me between her thighs.
And while I was the Dark One, I would never take what wasn’t freely offered. There was a place in Hell—one I carved out myself—for those who did.
Even something as evil as me had their limits.
Kara didn’t know that. She feared me—feared what I might do. I sensed her revulsion. I saw it in how she looked at my tail—at me. But I had no problem in frightening her into thinking I’d ruin her.
I couldn’t give in to lust even if I wanted to. I hadn’t lied when I told her I felt nothing. At least, not physically. Sex, food, violence, even the sensation of touch—it had all dulled, century after century. Maybe it was boredom. Maybe Hell had devoured more of me than it gave.
Either way, when I cursed Grim’s children and saw Kara in that first vision… I knew it was over. Whatever remnants of sensation I had left—they iced over completely.
When I returned to Hell after cursing the Reaper siblings, everything changed. I couldn’t feel anything. Not the itch of skin, the press of a cushion beneath me, whether I ached from an injury. Even the chair I hurled across the room—splintering into a hundred pieces—felt like air in my hands.
Inside, I was a storm of fury. My blood still pumped with rage. My mind burned with it.
But outside?
Numb. No taste. No scent. Not even the memory of pleasure remained.
My body was failing in every way that counted. Even my fucking cock. What once had been a source of command and power had withered to something useless, unresponsive. A quiet mockery of what I once was.
Hell had finally figured out how to destroy me.
And yet Kara… Despite everything, she had managed to live. Not just survive but live. Pleasure. Connection. Desire. Even in the shadow of Grim’s legacy, she had carved out her own world.
She’d never told me those things. Not when I was her shadow. I wondered if she ever thought of Shadow when someone else touched her? When lips traced her skin…When hands explored places, I had only ever gazed upon…
Did a part of her remember the darkness watching?
She didn’t know who Shadow really was. Who I was. But I did. And I wanted her to feel it—every haunting, every thought. I wanted her to be just as consumed. Just as tormented.
Still, I was grateful—perhaps in some pathetic, twisted way—that I couldn’t fall prey to her lust. The prison of my body made sure of that.
It didn’t matter. Lust might as well have been my invention. I could wield it even if I no longer tasted its fruits.
So why, then—
Why did it bother me so much?
Kara groaned softly, stretching her legs in front of her.
My thoughts shattered.
The way her dark shirt bunched around her waist as she lifted her arms—casual and unaware—made something inside me snap taut. The shadows rippled wildly around me, pulsing with a heat I shouldn’t have been capable of feeling.
It was unbearable. Craving in this form was madness.
If I slipped into her now, became one with the darkness clinging to her skin—would she resist? No. I was her shadow. She tolerated me. She might grumble or sneer, but she wouldn’t fight. Because she didn’t know what I was. Not really.
I tore away from the cell, fleeing the pull of her like a coward.
The further I got, the clearer I became. The anger rushed in to smother the heat she stirred in me. How long had I walked this line? Between fate and obsession. Between control and collapse. How many times had I told myself it would never happen?
The vision.
The petals.
Her hand reaching for me.
It would never happen.
Never.
Damn her.
And damn me for caring.
If I ended her once she was mortal, my suffering would cease. No more visions. No more thoughts. No more ghosts gnawing at what remained of my mind. I would be done.
I turned back toward the cell, but my fury evaporated. Kara lay on her back, one arm draped across her chest, the other flung to the side. Alone. Vulnerable. Small in that cell, though I knew her strength. She didn’t look strong now.
I hadn’t tried to kill her since she was a child. And despite every vicious thought, I wouldn’t try again.
The tightening in my chest wasn’t pain but something near it. As if a long-dead part of me dared to stir. Her fate and mine were intertwined. The end would come. The world would fall. My destiny would be fulfilled.
She refused to say goodbye to her loved ones. I’d warned her. But Kara never listened. She never had.
Still, I’d learned something valuable from living as a shadow.
She feared more than pain. More than my tail.
There were deeper things to use. Things that would sink into her heart like claws.