Raising Beast Cubs to Find a Husband-Chapter 161: The Shadow and the Eclipse

The scream that came from the closet wasn’t a cry for help. It was a cry of pure, unadulterated loss.

Caspian stood before the closet door, his trident raised, his heart hammering against his ribs. Primrose was gone. Swallowed by the floor. And now, the corrupted Lord Malachi was standing in the center of the nursery, the black sludge of the Nightmares swirling around his ankles like obedient pets.

"Do you hear that, Sea King?" Malachi rasped, stepping over a pile of ruined stuffed animals. "That is the sound of a broken Heir. The sound of surrender."

Malachi raised his blackened hand. "Step aside. I will make it quick."

Caspian didn’t move. He was a King of the Ocean, and he would not yield to a glorified shadow-puppet.

"If you want them," Caspian said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper, "you will have to kill me. And I promise you, Malachi, I will make you drown in your own blood before I fall."

"So dramatic," Malachi sighed.

He flicked his wrist.

A massive tendril of Void-sludge shot out from the wall. Caspian slashed it with his trident, freezing the liquid instantly, but another one slammed into his chest.

CRACK.

Caspian was thrown backward. He crashed into the heavy oak dresser, sliding to the floor, gasping for air.

"Pathetic," Malachi sneered. He walked toward the closet door.

Inside, the screaming had stopped.

Malachi reached for the handle. "Come out, little kitten. Uncle Malachi has a present for you."

He threw the door open.

Malachi expected to see cowering children. He expected tears.

Instead, he saw eyes.

Vali and Jasper were pushed to the back, clutching Clover and Orion.

Standing in the front, tiny fists clenched at his sides, was Silas.

The five-year-old wasn’t crying anymore. He was shaking, but not from fear. He was vibrating with a rage so intense the air around him was crackling.

"Where is she?" Silas whispered.

Malachi smirked, leaning down. "Gone. The darkness ate her. Just like it ate your mother."

Something snapped inside Silas.

He remembered the Box. He remembered the three days in the dark. He remembered the cold.

But then he remembered the marshmallows. He remembered the warm Fox Fire. He remembered Primrose holding his hand and promising, I’m coming too. I won’t let you be alone.

She lied. She left him. She was in the dark alone.

"No," Silas said.

His voice changed. It wasn’t the voice of a child. It sounded like two stones grinding together deep in a cave.

Silas looked up. His violet eyes—usually dull and flat—suddenly ignited. They didn’t just glow; they burned with a vertical, feral pupil.

"You," Silas said, pointing a trembling finger at Malachi. "You are in my room."

Malachi laughed. "And what are you going to do, boy? Cry at me?"

Malachi commanded the shadows on the floor. "Seize him!"

The shadows surged forward. The oily wolves and snakes lunged at the child.

Silas didn’t flinch. He stomped his small foot.

"SIT!"

The command echoed with a force that shook the dust from the ceiling.

And the shadows listened.

The Nightmare Wolf froze mid-lunge. The sludge-snakes dropped to the floor. The darkness that Malachi had summoned wavered, confused.

Shadows are not loyal to magic. They are loyal to blood.

And Malachi was just a cousin. Silas was the Son of the Duke. He was the direct line of the Crepusci Night-Kings.

"What?" Malachi gasped, trying to force the shadows to move. "Attack him! I command you!"

The shadows ignored him. They turned, hundreds of hollow eyes looking at the small boy in pajamas.

Silas stepped out of the closet. He looked small, fragile, and absolutely terrifying.

Shadows began to peel off the walls. They didn’t attack Silas; they swirled around him, forming a protective cocoon. They whispered to him, recognizing their true master.

Heir... Heir...

"You sent her away," Silas said, tears finally spilling down his cheeks, sizzling as they hit the shadow-aura around him. "Bring. Her. Back."

He screamed the last word, and a shockwave of violet energy exploded from his small body.

BOOM.

Malachi was blasted backward, crashing through the nursery door and landing in the hallway at the feet of the trapped Warlords.

Primrose was falling.

It was cold. Colder than the snow in the North. Colder than the bottom of the ocean.

There was no sound here. No light. Just an endless, suffocating pressure.

I’m dead, Primrose thought. I’m dead, and I didn’t even get to finish my wedding cake.

She flailed, trying to summon her Fox Fire.

Light! she mentally screamed.

A small spark of white fire appeared in her hand.

SCREECH.

The moment the light appeared, the darkness moved. Massive, unseen things shifted in the void, attracted to the glow like anglerfish.

Primrose extinguished the light instantly. Her heart was pounding.

Light attracts them. If I shine, I die.

She was drifting in nothingness. She felt the despair creeping in. This was the place Silas had been trapped in. This was the place that broke people.

You don’t belong here, a voice whispered. It wasn’t the Boss. It was the Void itself. You are the Sun. The Sun dies here.

Primrose curled into a ball. She closed her eyes.

She thought about her tails.

None of them worked here.

She was powerless.

No, Primrose thought. I’m not powerless. I’m just... loud.

She remembered what Lucien had said in the carriage. The darkness respects power. But it is not warm.

She realized she had been fighting the dark her whole life. She used her fire to burn it away. She treated shadows like dirt to be cleaned.

But you can’t clean the universe. Shadows exist because light exists. They are partners.

Primrose stopped fighting the fall. She relaxed her body.

"Okay," Primrose whispered into the silence. "I’m not the Sun right now."

She reached out with her mind, not pushing the darkness away, but inviting it in.

"If you want to eat me," she challenged the Void, "then take a bite. But be warned... I’m spicy."

She visualized the darkness not as a monster, but as a blanket. A cloak. A hiding spot.

She visualized Silas. How he needed the dark to feel safe, but he needed her to make the dark kind.

I need to be the Eclipse, she realized. The light that survives behind the shadow.

The Void hesitated. It swirled around her. It didn’t bite. It nuzzled.

It recognized a predator.

A sharp pain shot through her lower back. It felt like ice water injected into her spine.

Primrose gasped, her eyes snapping open.

In the pitch blackness, she glowed. Not with white fire.

But with Violet Light.

A new tail unfurled. It wasn’t fluffy like the others. It was made of smoke and starlight, shifting and wavering like a mirage.

The Fifth Tail: The Shadow Tail.

"Okay," Primrose grinned, her teeth flashing in the dark. "Now I know the way home."

She grabbed the fabric of the Void with her new tail and pulled.

The Return

In the hallway, Malachi scrambled to his feet. He was bleeding from the nose.

"Insolent brat!" Malachi shrieked, staring at the nursery door where Silas stood surrounded by a vortex of shadows. "I will kill you myself!"

Malachi drew a jagged, cursed dagger. He ignored the Warlords trapped in the floor. He charged at the boy.

"SILAS!" Lucien roared, struggling against the stone binding his legs.

Malachi raised the dagger. Silas was exhausted from his outburst, his knees buckling. He couldn’t dodge.

Malachi brought the blade down.

SHINK.

The dagger stopped one inch from Silas’s face.

It didn’t hit a shield.

It hit a hand.

A slender, female hand wrapped in violet energy had reached out from Silas’s own shadow and caught the blade.

Malachi froze.

"What..."

The shadow behind Silas elongated. It twisted, grew taller, and then stepped out of the floor.

Primrose materialized from the darkness.

She looked different. Her dress was gone, replaced by a gown woven from pure shadow-matter. Her hair was floating as if she were underwater.

And behind her, Five Tails were fanning out. The newest one, the Violet Tail, was wrapped around Malachi’s wrist, crushing the bones.

Primrose leaned over Silas’s shoulder. She looked at the terrified child.

"I told you I was coming back," Primrose whispered to him.

Then she looked up at Malachi. Her eyes were glowing purple, matching Lucien’s.

"You dropped me," Primrose said, her voice echoing with a distorted, ghostly reverb. "That was very rude."

Malachi tried to pull his dagger back. "What are you?"

"I’m the monster in the closet," Primrose smiled.

She twisted her hand.

SNAP.

Malachi screamed as his wrist broke. He dropped the dagger.

"Lucien!" Primrose shouted. "Catch!"

She roundhouse kicked Malachi in the chest.

The corrupt Panther Lord flew backward, tumbling down the hallway. He slid across the floor and stopped right in front of where Lucien was trapped.

Primrose snapped her fingers.

The violet light from her new tail flashed.

The stone binding the Warlords turned into smoke and evaporated.

Lucien was free.

He didn’t waste a second. He stepped forward and placed his boot on Malachi’s chest. He summoned a blade of pure shadow in his hand.

"Hello, cousin," Lucien said, his voice dripping with venom. "We need to discuss your resignation."

The Nightmares, sensing that their master was defeated and facing two Alpha Shadow users (Lucien and the newly awakened Silas), dissolved into puddles of harmless goo.

Primrose fell to her knees. The shadow-gown vanished, leaving her in her ragged, soot-stained dress.

"Prim!"

Silas threw himself at her. He slammed into her chest, sobbing hysterically.

"You left!" Silas cried, hitting her shoulder with his tiny fist. "You left!"

"I know, I know," Primrose cried, hugging him so tight he squeaked. "I’m sorry. I had to go get a power-up. Look! It matches your eyes!"

She waved her new Violet Tail at him.

Silas sniffled, touching the smoky fur. "It’s... spooky."

"It’s cool!" Vali yelled, running out of the closet with Jasper and Clover. "You looked like a ghost ninja!"

Caspian limped out of the room, clutching his bruised ribs. He leaned against the doorframe, looking at Primrose with relief and awe.

"Five tails," Caspian breathed. "You are halfway to divinity, my love."

"I’m halfway to a nap," Primrose groaned. "I think I swallowed a piece of the void. It tastes like licorice."

In the hallway, Rajah and Rurik were busy tying Malachi up with chains that Rurik had ripped out of the wall.

Lucien walked into the nursery. He looked at the wreckage. He looked at Silas, who was clinging to Primrose.

He knelt down.

"Silas," Lucien said softly.

Silas looked at his uncle. His violet eyes were back to normal, the vertical pupils gone.

"I saw what you did," Lucien said, a look of profound pride on his face. "You commanded the shadows. You protected the pack."

Silas wiped his nose. "He was mean. I told him to sit."

Lucien laughed—a genuine, warm sound that shocked everyone.

"Yes," Lucien agreed. "You did. You are a true Crepusci, little one."

Jax poked his head out from behind the decorative chest in the hall, where he had been guarding Luna.

"So," Jax called out. "Is the murder-ghost situation over? Because the kitchen is definitely on fire."

Everyone sniffed the air.

Sure enough, the smell of smoke was drifting up from downstairs.

"I may have... thrown too many Molotov cocktails," Jax admitted sheepishly.

Primrose sighed, resting her head on top of Silas’s.

"Welcome to the family, Jax," she mumbled. "If something isn’t exploding, it’s not a Tuesday."

"Thursday," Lucien corrected automatically.

"Whatever," Primrose closed her eyes. "Wake me up when the fire is out."