Page 17 of Shadows Ascend (Remnant Archives #2)

I stared out over the horizon at churning seas where flying fish jumped in and out of the aquamarine waters, while a pod of nymph's shot out of the depths to catch them with their needled teeth.

Frowning, I tracked the sun falling to the west, its rays glittering across the waves…but that couldn't be right. In my homeland the sun set upon The Red Caps, not an ocean…and it rose across these very waters in the east, which meant, this wasn't the West Isles, it was Faerie.

Spinning, I cataloged the white marbled city I only had the misery of seeing one other time in my life before I stood upon its ruins with a mixture of satisfaction and heartbreak almost one hundred years ago.

"The City of Light had such beautiful views." A voice sighed with nostalgia behind me—a voice that sent a dark sense of dread down my spine and made the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

Snarling, I turned on the voice, wanting to rip it from its owner more than anything else in this world. "Deirdre. I was wondering when you would show your cunt face."

She grinned in her silver splendor, her turquoise eyes, much like the waters I had just admired, glittering with pleasure. "Perhaps it was your wondering that allowed me entry. Even now you have not stopped thinking about me, shifter king."

"You are right about that Deirdre." My fangs lengthened. "I have not stopped thinking about all the ways I will kill you one day, if I could I would do it now."

Her cold laugh affected me more than I cared to admit, nausea rolling in my stomach. The sound so similar to the days I spent under her evil torture.

"You will have to keep dreaming about me then shifter king, since neither of us can hurt one another in the spirit realm…physically that is."

My brows rose. "You intend to impart some sort of fucked up psychological warfare on me now, is that it…haven't you tired of your monotonous games?"

She pursed her blood red lips, the same color bleeding into her eyes as burgundy shadows whirled around her. I narrowed my gaze on the umbras that had once been my friends, feeling their desperate cries for help beneath the corruption of power that dominated their greatness.

"I hear you have lost your beast. You should be really careful around those who have lost their souls…

you never know who might be listening. Quite the family drama you have had recently.

" She circled around me, her tiered silver gown flowing with her sensuous stride that made my dick shrink inside myself.

"I can help you get him back, you know." Her eyes gleamed.

“Give me the child and you can be whole again. "

My claws extended as I tracked her movement with a vicious grin. "You had your chance at being a mother. Your son died in the wars, perhaps you should have taken better care of him instead of scheming for a crown."

Her eyes bled red, "so the healer shared the secret story after all did he? What was it like to watch his head roll from his body I wonder?"

I sent her a silent snarl. "That was part of your plan, wasn't it?"

She grinned. "Clever shifter, smart and handsome…you must get it from your mother’s side." Gliding past me she stared out over th e seas, the sun dipping into the water. "It really was a beautiful view."

I stared at her back, imagining my claws wrenching her cowardly spine straight out from her body.

Her red eyes gleamed sinisterly over her shoulder, as she looked back at me. "It was the last view your mother had, you know. She was standing right where you are now…before I killed her."

I lunged, unable to hold back. Deirdre's laughter echoed around me and the picturesque ocean scene spun as I fell to my knees upon a shallow grave of diseased ridden earth with my mothers dead unseeing eyes looking up past me.

She was barely recognizable between the burns and the rotten decay where she had been cruelly tossed away without any remorse or respect even in death.

And yet, I could not pull myself away from the horror of it all. Frozen, I stared down at her lifeless body, bile rising upwards and burning the back of my throat.

"I thought you might like to visit your mother's grave, since you never did get to say goodbye. She did make quite a charming decoration hanging on my city gates, finally giving purpose to her pathetic life, a warning of what would happen to any and all who opposed me."

I couldn't look away, Deirdre's words like a distant echo in my hallowed mind.

Then the image of her blurred, her body disappearing only to be replaced by the shredded remains of my soulmate.

"No," I choked.

Remnant's flawless pale skin was marred by hideous slashes and puncture wounds, dark red blood splattered across her skin, and her throat had been completely slit open, blood still pouring out of the mortal wound.

"My my, someone lost their temper," Deirdre tutted behind me.

"I dare say she had it coming. All that time you spent caring for her, protecting her, loving her even…

and still she betrays you? I do not blame you for snapping but I do know what it is like to have a soulmate who betrays you, sometimes love simply cannot change nature. "

Roaring, I stood to face her. "You are insinuating I would do this to my mate!" My body trembled while I prayed feverishly for the universe to change its laws and to allow me just this one time to rid it of this evil filth.

"There is no insinuation…you will do this." Her eyes gleamed. "You will not be able to stop yourself…especially since Remnant Dark is the reason your mother is dead."

I threw my head back and laughed. If this fucking cunt expected her words to do more damage and break me so easily than she was sorely underestimating me…which meant when the time came she would be an easier prey than I ever expected and I—-I was a patient predator.

Waving at her while still laughing, I turned my back on the pathetic creature.

Not understanding at all why the fuck the ancients put a crown on her head in the first place.

"You can play your fucking games by yourself, pathetic goddess of nothing.

" Walking away from the image of my slain soulmate and the furious glare of the manipulating fae behind me, I stated, "now how the fuck do I get out of this place? You bore me."