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“Why do you think the killer is still out there?”
I shrugged. “Why do you think he’s not?”
“For the love of—Kasi, if you’re wasting my time—” he glared at me, his voice a guttural growl, sending both dread and heat washing over me in equal measure.
“If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to solve this case,” I said to him. “If it was a shadow-beast, I’ll prove it. If it was some other monster—a Varulvka, perhaps—”
He let out a low, rumbling growl that echoed through the empty cafeteria.
“I’ll prove that as well.”
“A Varulvka would never—”
“Really? Because your kind are hunters. They’re natural-born killers. Shadow-beasts on the other hand—do you even know what their calling was before they were condemned?”
Jahrdran looked confused. “Why would I care?”
“Because they were firefighters, paramedics, hospital workers. They used the shadows to leap into disaster areas to stage rescue attempts. Do you know how dangerous it is to leap from one shadow to another that you cannot see? Do you know how dangerous it is to take a leap into the unknown and pray that where you land, there will be enough shadow to hold your form together, especially if you’re in an entirely different time zone and can’t be certain if there will be enough light to cast a shadow at all?
“The shadow-beasts trained their entire lives toriskthose lives shadow-walking to save others. They werenotmonsters and they werenotkillers.”
“How the hell do you know this?”
I smiled at him. “Because I’m a phenomenal researcher.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s absolutely no mention of Shadow-Monsters anywhere in our Academy library. I know because I’ve searched.”
“If that’s true, how would you know about what your people did to mine? You yourself said it happened hundreds of years before you were born.”
“Because what happened to the shadow monsters is part of the historical records of the Varulvka. The oath our leaders took on behalf of the Varulvka—” He hesitated.
“What oath?” I asked.
He sighed. “The oath to hunt down every shadow monster in existence. That oath destroyed an entire generation of elite hunters. They did their duty and when they were done, they self-destructed.Allof them. Most self-terminated, others simply curled up and died, still others drank themselves to death. Do you know how hard it is for a supernatural to drink themselves to death?”
I shook my head.
“It takes true dedication. I suppose it’s just a longer way to self-terminate.”
“So what you’re saying is that even then, the Varulvka knew it was wrong to carry out their oath, but they did it anyway.”
“Do you understand how a supernatural oath works? It has no end date, which means it works oneveryVarulvka hunter in every timeline. So long as we believed the shadow monsters were all gone from the realm, the oath was quiet. But now that I know there’s a shadow monster alive, the oath is working on me right now, raking against my skin, boiling in my organs, an absolutecompulsionto snuff you out of existence. The only thing saving you is ourfated mate bond. Its need to protect you is stronger than the compulsion to kill you.” He glared at me. “For now anyway.”
“So it’s uncomfortable to resist the oath. Who the fuck cares?” I hissed. “I’m sure it was a hell of a lotmoreuncomfortable for the ones who died. Your people should have resisted,especiallysince the Killer himself is probably the one who recommended the Order of Execution in the first place.”
Jahrdran looked horrified. “There’s no way. There were no shadow monsters advising any of the paranormals who made that decision.”
“No. But there was the mate of one, the mate of a shadow-beast who had died four years before.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“What makes you think the Varulvka were the only ones who kept their records intact? There was at least one other species who had as much to lose as the Varulvka.”
“Are you seriously trying to imply you’ve gained access to shadow-monster records?”
“Shadow-beast, if you don’t mind. And thisisthe Academy of Secrets, full of hidden rooms and passages, is it not?
“That’s just a rumor.”
