As Darkness Falls by Riley Storm

Chapter Two

“Dani?”

That was Vir. He was a god. Yeah, immortal, super powerful, all that stuff. He was also about eight feet tall in his natural form, with a wolf’s head on a human body and a golden spear that would spit me through with casual ease if I let him use it.

He was the Champion of Amunlea, Empress of the Gods. A formidable title for sure, even if the goddess herself no longer existed. But it wasn’t going to stop me from kicking his ass.

“How dare you?” I rumbled, sitting up straight, my bruised, battered, and naked body straining even to do that much. The energy coursing through my veins wasn’t doing much to repair the wounds, but then again, I didn’t care right now.

“Danielle Wetter,” Vir intoned as he looked down at me, unimpressed.

When your mother uses your full name as a child, you know you messed up. But let me tell you. When a god does it, it’s an entirely different level of “oh fuck.” Even then, with power the likes of which I’d never experienced surging through me and around me, I was scared.

But scared wasn’t the same as giving up.

“Release me,” I said, not cowering or caving before this god. “Now, Vir.”

The violet energy spun around me, filling the domed chamber. I didn’t care about the outside world. I knew others were out there. In the corner, my asshole ex was lying on the ground, knocked out cold by Vir in that last struggle over my Soulbond as it shriveled and died. It was a tangible thing that I’d witnessed as the golden line was torn in two and turned black as Vir freed me from my ex.

Only to let it latch onto him.

“What are you doing, Dani?” Vir asked, his wolf’s head looking at me with glowing yellow eyes.

“I said release me!” I howled, throwing purple energy at him. This god was going to do as I told him!

The energy flowed toward Vir, a billowing wave of violent power.

He raised a hand, palm toward me, and with a casual wave of his hand, shunted it to the side. It flowed back out into the temple, swirling around us, filling the entire room, knocking bits and pieces of the stone ceiling down.

“Do not do that again,” Vir growled, his voice loud enough to make me whimper and hold my hands over my ears as his words thundered down at me. “Ever.”

I’d never truly witnessed angry Vir before. I’d only known him a few days, in fact, but the blue fire in his eyes and the way his simple existence seemed to press down on me made it very clear that, even with the added power I’d somehow been granted, I wasn’t in the same league as him.

“Yeah, okay,” I said, sudden exhaustion overwhelming me. I lay back on the stone floor, naked, wounded, covered in rapidly drying blood. Most of it was my own. It had been a long day, and I was abruptly tired from it all.

“What’s wrong with me, Vir?” I asked dazedly, blinking hard to fight back my tears.

“Wrong?” Vir asked, crouching next to me as he resumed his human form.

Long black hair hung down either side of his face in gloriously perfect waves, centered around a pair of regally strong blue eyes. His stubble-covered jaw was set in consternation as he looked down at me.

What did he see? When I looked at him, I saw divine perfection. He had the classic good looks that every man craved, but he wore them with such modesty as if he didn’t know he was the most perfect creature I’d ever laid eyes upon. That wasn’t the Soulbond speaking, either. I’d had those thoughts before. As had the rest of my body.

In contrast to his beauty, I was nothing. Sure, I was naked, but I was covered in wounds and blood. My hair was a mess, and I didn’t look like much more than a tall, willowy lump of human flesh. Coincidentally enough, that’s exactly how I felt.

How disappointing it must be for him to be bound to me.

“Nothing is wrong with you,” Vir said, having to speak loudly to be heard over the swirling, cackling power that filled the chamber.

“That’s easy for you to say,” I told him. “You know who you are. What you are. You’re Vir, the Champion of Amunlea, one of the ancient shifter gods. You’ve known that for thousands of years.”

“And you are Danielle Wetter,” Vir replied.

“Am I, though?” I asked quietly. “I was adopted, Vir, so my real last name isn’t even Wetter, for starters. I don’t know who my bio-parents were. I didn’t even find out until recently that I was adopted. My life has been a lie. Now, I’m here, in a temple, wielding power like this?”

I gestured at the temple and the glowing runes that I laid upon, their inscriptions circling out from me and up the walls, pulsing with the same violet energy I’d tried to wield against Vir.

“I’m a freak,” I said quietly. “That’s what I am. I just wanted a normal life, you know. To go through that first shift, my Soulshift. I wanted to run with the pack and find my mate. I wanted to be happy and normal. We’d start a family, move out on our own, enjoy life. Maybe we’d live outside of Seguin for a bit.”

I thought about my hometown, finding myself a bit nostalgic. It was ironic, considering that for so long, I’d wanted out of Seguin, and now I found myself longing to have a normal, typical life there instead of the mess I was in.

“You are not a freak,” Vir growled. “You are beautiful. That’s what you are. A beautiful creation.”

“Not helping,” I muttered. “Especially since I know you’re only saying that because you’re Soulbound to me now.”

Vir was silent, staring at me. I couldn’t read his eyes, the blue circles filled with a fire I was unable to identify.

“Has this ever happened before?” I asked in a whisper.

Again, Vir did not reply. But he did react. Just not to me. His head lifted, and he looked past me toward the entrance of the chamber.

I rolled to the far side just as a tall, naked, bald man strode into the chamber, holding some sort of dagger.

My lips pulled back in a sneer. I knew this man. Knew him all too well, in fact.

“Lars,” I hissed as the Alpha of my pack, and the father of my ex-boyfriend, stopped short of the purple runes on the floor.