Page 17 of Pretty Little Shadow
He had a duffel bag on his shoulder, and he dropped it beside the old, shitty piece of furniture he'd just claimed.
"I don't think you could've found a sketchier place to live. Way to stick it to Darke and his buckets of money." Darius lifted his fist, looking over his shoulder at me.
"You and I arenotmates," I said, my voice trembling just a little."There's no world in which we're that compatible."
"The mark disagrees. Your shadows do, too."
I focused on his skin, and saw a light dusting of my shadows there. When I focused on them, I could feel them.
Those weremyshadows.
On Darius fucking Scorch.
"No," I said again. "No, no, no."
"Yup. What are our plans for the day? I'm at your beck and call for the rest of our immortal lives."
I couldn't do this.
I gathered my shadows and used them to take myself to the only place other than my crappy apartment that I'd ever really felt safe.
Grayson's place.
Well, his closet. Because I never knew what him and Merrily would be up to.
"Grayson!" I yelled. "I'm in your closet!"
I heard footsteps. "Rae?"
"I, uh, forgot my clothes! Don't come in!"
The footsteps stopped outside the closet. "What the fuck happened? I thought you were with Darius."
My jaw dropped. "Youknew?"
"He showed up in our hotel room in the middle of the night and told us. What happened?"
"Hold on. I'm borrowing Merrily's clothes."
I put on a pair of her wildly soft lounge pants and one of her turtlenecks.She was curvier than me, but all her stuff was stretchy, and it wasn't hard to roll up the waistband of her pants a few times.
I stepped out of the closet, already glaring at him. "You knew Darius was my mate before I did?"
"That depends on when you found out."
"Two minutes ago!" I flung my hand in the direction of my apartment. "Maybe even less. He just showed up at my door with a bag of his shit and told me our mate mark looks good. I didn't even know I had a mate mark! I just wanted to experience sex, and we technically didn't even?—"
"Breathe, Rae." Grayson moved his hand, trying to emphasize his point or something.
"How the fuck am I supposed to breathe when I just found out I'm fated mates with Darius fucking Scorch?!" I yelled the words. I was shouting. Definitely. Maybe screeching a little too.
"Good question. Here." Grayson grabbed my shoulders and propelled me toward the kitchen. "I'll make food.”
"I've told you a hundred times that food doesn't fix everything!"
"It usually helps, though."
I glared at him, but when he pushed me into a chair, I sat. "Where's your mate?"
