The Long Shadow Review Novels & Stories

The sanctuary was filled with a low, evil laugh. "Fools," said a sneering voice. "Did you truly believe you could escape my grasp?" The Shadow itself sprang into being, a whirling mass of blackness with coal-like eyes. It hung over the group with a threatening air. Elarion's face was contorted with sadness as his veil fell. They said, "I tried to warn you," in a shaky voice. "The Shadow’s influence is greater than I anticipated." The Shadow just laughed while the comrades pulled out their weapons. "Your selflessness has only made me stronger. I will now assert my ownership of this refuge.

And in the guard's hand was something that made my heart stop. A syringe. The text below the photo was simple: Your decision just became time-sensitive. Choose destruction, and Declan walks out of prison alive. Choose salvation, and he does not walk out at all. You have twelve hours. The clock is ticking.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, the golden afterglow stretched their shadows long, until they merged into one, indistinguishable from each other. This scene was more eternal than any painting Elara could ever create. Its name: "Freedom and Love." (The End)

While we're walking inside, I told Daniel, "Shadow is one of the scariest loan sharks of Colorado so don't get into trouble with him. For him, everyone's the same." "Is this a warning?" "Definitely." Shadow walked to me and greeted me saying, "Lucy! I didn't think you'd be coming for real. What's the problem?" Since he was surrounded by his guys I asked him, "Can we talk somewhere private?" He nodded and took us to a room where he held some guys in chains. I pointed at them and asked, "What about them?" Shadow ordered his guys to get rid of them. Once we're alone, I pointed at Daniel and said to Shadow, "He's one of the grandsons of Mr Anderson."

My heart was hammering in my chest, not out of fear, but from the urgency of the situation. “The reports we’ve gathered from the border villages are disturbing,” I began, my voice steady despite the weight of the words. “There’s been a massacre. Bodies scattered, mutilated in ways we can’t explain. But it wasn’t wolves. These… creatures—Shadow-born, as Luca calls them—are unlike anything we’ve seen. They can shift through shadows and seem impervious to injury. And worse, they hunger for destruction, not just blood.” The room buzzed with quiet murmurs, the elders exchanging wary glances. Some looked skeptical, others alarmed. I could see the fear in their eyes, buried beneath the veneer of po

Ms. Shadow lifted her head to look at the moon. Suddenly, she smiled with her twinkling eyes. "Monkey, tell Lord Strategist that the moon is beautiful tonight. Ask him to look at it. I want to spend the last time watching the moon with him." Andrew's men were slowly surrounding the auction venue. As they closed in on the auction venue, Ms. Shadow and her men had nowhere to hide. Ms. Shadow looked at the group, each of whom had an explosion-proof shield in their hands. She closed her eyes in despair.

Hostile. Cole's shadow. Not just active. Manifesting. Materializing. Attacking. "He's here," I gasped. "Cole. Not physically. But his shadow. His influence. His power. It's here. On campus. Now." "Where?" Liam demanded. "Everywhere. Nowhere. It's diffuse. Spread throughout the grounds. Like a net. A trap. A preparation for something massive." "For his return," Sienna realized. "Exactly. The shadow is preparing. Building. Creating the perfect conditions for Cole to manifest. To return. To attack."

"I'm asking you to trust my choice. The same choice I offered every fragment of stolen, splintered power I encountered tonight. You don't have to keep being the architect of fear. You don't have to keep proving your original theft was justified by making certain no one ever proves you wrong. You could simply... stop. Choose something other than three more centuries of this exact, exhausting pattern." "I do not know how to simply stop," the shadow said, and something in its ancient, resonant voice cracked, just slightly, revealing beneath three centuries of calculated cruelty something that sounded, disturbingly, like the same buried loneliness I'd heard from the black smoke in that ruined ch

I asked, looking at three who stood across from us. “We thought the Shadow of death was a man, never thought it could be a woman.” Luciano said. Why, because they just assumed only men could be doing something like this and no woman could be capable of inflicting so much fear on the world. Having them look over their shoulders scared for their lifes, owndering who it was becasue the Shadow of death could be walking next to them or be around them very where and don't even know who it was.

“Sensible. If he slips up, and with this little war he currently has going, he could slip up, you guys don’t want to go down with him.” “Yeah, we know. We always mask up when we go, too,” Shadow added. “And Tempie wigs it, so we’d be hard to identify. You want to play?” He gestured to the game. They had, Raven decided, reached the end of Shadow’s knowledge on the subject of Gregory Holmsworth. “Nah,” Raven wanted to watch Shadow. “You play, I’ll watch.” “Okay.” Shadow was animated as he played the game, and for five minutes, Raven could look at him blatantly feeding that hunger, without having to meet the other man’s eyes and justify it, until Shadow cursed as he missed someone and was shot.