From the Shadows (A Shadow Chronicles Novel) by Christina Moore Read Free Book Online

as many times as it took for him to understand.
    Of course, I was confused as well. Alana O’Mara had said that my mate was a man from my past. Someone I had once called my friend. So who was this guy to me?
    “May I ask you a question? Please,” I said. “I need to know… Who are you? What is your name?”
    He chuckled as he looked at me and said, “That’s technically two questions, and I could ask you the same ones. But since you asked first, my name is Race. Race Covington.”
    I did not think it possible that I could have withstood one more shock, but I was wrong.

Three
     
     
    “Oh my God, no way!” I exclaimed, stepping forward yet again. I felt a huge grin spread across my face as I stared at him in disbelief. So that was why he looked so familiar!
    “Uh, yes way —at least, that was my name last time I took a look at my driver’s license, my birth certificate, my Social Security card, and all the bills that come in the mail,” Race countered. “Well, actually, my legal name is—”
    “Horace William Covington the Third,” I supplied for him with a giggle.
    “H ow the hell do you know that? Have we met before?”
    The psychic weredragon had been right, about everything. The man standing before me was definitely someone from my past, as he’d been Mark’s best friend for several years. Though technically he had never called me his friend, I’d considered him one of mine. I’d looked up to him in much the same manner as I had my brother, except in Race’s case, I’d also had the hugest crush on him. Not that I ever told him, of course.
    I remembered all of a sudden that Race and his mother had moved shortly after his 14th birthday. I remembered spending an afternoon in my room crying because he hadn’t even come over to say goodbye to me. Well, he’d have actually come over to say goodbye to Mark, but he’d always been nice to me, the pesky kid sister, and I know he would have said something to me as well.
    And fourteen —the year of the double-seven—was the age when werekind (and chimaera, according to the legends) shifted for the first time. Increments of seven were significant to the two-natured, as there was a long-held belief that the number seven had a mystical power behind it.
    “I know that’s your full name because I heard you say it once,” I explained, “and right after you said that, you added that you went by Race because Horace was an old man’s name.”
    “Seriously, how do you know that? We’ve obviously met before, and I a dmit you look kind of familiar—now that I’m looking at you like this—but I can’t seem to place you,” Race returned.
    I felt like I was buzzing, I was so deliriously happy and excited. Who’d have thought that my destined mate was a guy I’d developed a crush on when I was a kid, one I hadn’t seen since I was nine? That he would be quite possibly the only living chimaera in existence, same as my brother was the only dhunphyr —or immortal human—in existence?
    “You probably don’t recognize me because you haven’t seen my face in sixteen years,” I replied. “I’m Juliette Singleton—you used to be best friends with my brother, Mark.”
    “No way!” Race exclaimed, echoing my own words of a moment ago. He then surprised me by closing the distance between us and throwing his arms around me. I returned his embrace by wrapping my arms around his waist.
    “My God, I can’t believe it’s really you!” he said with a laugh, standing back to look at me but not letting me go. “How the hell could I forget those angel eyes of yours?”
    I grinned. “Is that why you called me Angel Eyes when I was in my animal form?”
    “As a matter of fact, yes. I know huskies commonly have blue eyes, but the first good look I got of yours when you were the dog, it made me think of you—the you I knew all those years ago. Back then I thought you and your mom had the prettiest eyes I’d ever seen.”
    I grinned even wider to hear him say