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“ A llow me to assist you.” I pleaded for the third time tonight watching my soulmate dig through the dead earth. Her bare hands had long ago split, bleeding with each clawing pass she made for the shallow graves of the cù-sìth mother and pup.

Every once in a while a tear would fall from those beautiful emerald eyes and soften the earth to ease the way.

“I do not wish for your help, shifter.”

Growling, I dropped to my knees and unleashed my claws. Scraping into the diseased ash alongside her with more efficiency than her blunt fingertips.

“I do not care what you wish for, little umbra. This is how I wish to pay my respects as well.”

Her bowed head full of black and blue hair snapped up and the three moons lit up the beauty of her features.

Her lips pulled back in a sneer and her cheeks were rosy with grief and anger.

The delicate swirls of ink on her tattooed arms flexed threateningly and her dirty fists curled in the shallow grave.

I held her stare. She was beautiful even in her threatening pose and I could not help but be awed by the way she mourned Faerie's beastly creatures almost more than her own species.

Emotion burned in the back of my throat. Guilt, shame, and pain seared my insides for not being able to soothe this pain. The way a mate should. But if I unmasked our soulmate bond now, I risked her safety and I needed her far away from here before I could ever allow myself the hope of chancing it.

Seeing my resolve, she huffed out an irritated sigh and her eyes dropped to the ground. She blinked then, seeing what I had seen thirty minutes ago but knew she needed longer to grieve. The grave was ready. “I think this will be enough.”

“In shifter customs, when a mother and faeling pass together, the child is placed on top, closest to the sun. It is seen as the mother’s final way of making sure their offspring will always walk in the light even in Sheol.” I said softly, leaning back on my heels.

Remnant looked over at the bones with a vacant expression. “Yes, I believe that will be appropriate.”

Withdrawing my claws, I reached for her healing hand.“Please allow me to do this for you, little umbra.”

Her brow puckered, staring at our conjoined hands. “I will do this alone.” She pulled away from me and I ignored the sharp sting the action caused.

I grunted and rose, dusting off my leathers, unable to meet her penetrating stare for fear she’d see the lingering pain there. “I’ll set camp and then come back to help you cover them.”

Setting camp took me little more than a few moments.

Her shadows supplying bed rolls and dried meats from their void for the both of us.

When Remnant was ready, we silently covered the bones and as I had suggested, the pup was placed tenderly on top of the mother, the last remains to disappear in the ash covered ground.

“Do your shifter customs have a prayer for these circumstances as well.” Her voice wavered in the dark night as we stood on either side of the shallow grave.

“Hold out your hand.” I said gruffly.

She did not hesitate this time and I placed my palm to meet hers, our fingertips brushing against each other’s wrists. Our gazes locked .

“To the life given and the life taken too soon, the goddess take you with her golden light to live freely within our hearts where the devoted and young never die.”

She pursed her lips and nodded her satisfaction. When I went to drop my hand, her fingers clutched my wrist tightly. I raised my brows in surprise.

Ignoring my inquiry, she added to the prayer. “To the life given and the life taken too soon, the darkness will avenge you so that you may soar through Sheol’s doors free at last.”

Faerie's winds blew, acknowledging her prayer before she released my hand and walked away without another passing glance at the hallowed ground still wet with her tears.

I followed her, like I always would, to our small camp. The need to whisk her away from this place and let this world come to its tragic end was stronger than ever.

“Well that would be an imbecilic act fairy, where would you live then?” My beast commented dryly.

“There are other worlds.” I said silently back.

“We are born to our world for a reason, fairy boy.”

“Speaking from experience, cat? What goddess damned world did you fall from that has me stuck with you for eternity?”

I snorted as the soft padding of the cat’s retreat was my only answer.

Sitting down in front of her and smoothing out the wrinkles in my bed roll, I felt my soulmate's eyes dissect every inch of me. I was facing the War General of Faerie now and not the fae back in the woods, alive and soaring on feathered shadow wings.

“How long?” Her tone was emotionless, wrapped in layers of steel and ice.

Her strength only ensnared me more. She was a fae misunderstood but I saw through her…I saw her for what she really was…blindingly faithful, pure, and strong.

Faerie never deserved her…and it had destroyed her.

“Since Morta.” I responded.

“Morta–” She laughed dryly, tilting her head to the side. “Why doesn’t it bother you, I wonder? Why do you not hate me for what I have done.”

I shrugged. “I’m a shifter of The West Isles. The City of Light was the home of my enemy and from what I heard, it was already corrupt beyond saving. Your own people sacrificed you to their mad queen on a silver platter. ”

Remnant snickered coldly. “Fear of death will make even the most loyal waver.”

I growled low. “Not all of us. Not you.”

She gave me a small sinister smile. “No…but I have never feared death, shifter.”

“What do you fear then, little umbra?”

“My fears have already come to pass. Now I have given you enough of my own answers. It is time you start giving me yours.”

I gritted my teeth against the sharpness of her cold tone.

Every instinct in me wanted to see her fire…

her life. “The land is diseased and it is not just confined here. Half of Faerie has succumbed to its infestation and it continues to spread.” I growled.

“Most of The West Isles have been lost.” Thank the goddess for our ancient healer.

His powerful wards spared our most precious and treasured city, Finlandia.

“Is that why shifters are in the east?” She hummed and stroked the shadows that drifted lazily into her lap like a purring kitten.

Oh to be them right now.

I shook my head. “Shifters don’t relish the thought of setting foot in these lands. Your mountains are puny and the wrong color.” I winked before leaning forwards growling low. “Those shifters you killed were traitors to their own kind. I was hunting them for the crown.”

“You’re not a very good hunter then.”

The cat inside me roared with laughter.

I ignored him and purred. “Perhaps I was hunting more than one thing.”

She quirked a brow at me, understanding flashing in her eyes. “Am I supposed to believe that you used yourself as bait to draw me out? Almost getting killed in the process?”

“I would risk death every fucking day if it meant I would still be in your presence for one more minute of it.” I was not ashamed to admit it, it was the truth and the fae did not lie.

Dark brows furrowed over her moonlit eyes. “You don’t know me, shifter, not really.”

“Don’t I?” I spoke softly. From the moment our soulmate bond clicked into place I had made it my life’s purpose to know everything there was about her.

I investigated every whispered story, searched through every dusty tome, traveled through the lands she had left her mark on, spoke with the beasts she loved, and worst of all, sought the advice of the swordmaster that trained her.

I knew her—I understood her, probably better than she understood herself.

She shook her head. “Those shifters in the woods wanted something from you. What was it?”

Raking my hand through my hair, I carefully crafted my answer. “They wanted the location to a lost gateway.”

Her hand stilled from petting the shadows. “That information would be useless to them. Only those who hold the crown may open a gateway and they have all been closed forever.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why would you know the location of a lost gateway?”

I shrugged. “Unfortunate circumstances of my existence I suppose.”

Her gaze dropped down to my satchel sitting on the ground next to me. “Your bag. That is why you stored it with the weretree.” She sniffed with approval. “Clever, but again risky. He could have just as easily bit you instead.”

I smiled wide, not bothering to correct her. What I carried in my bag was far more precious than any gateway location. “I’m a shifter…being cursed in a wolf form isn’t far from the curse I already carry with my own beast. Besides, they don’t like the taste of us.”

“Fairies are especially revolting. I do not blame the weretree.” My cat purred back.

“I wonder if weretrees would enjoy cat chow instead?” I mused back to him.

I leaned forward. “The real question you should be asking yourself is how those bastards could have even known about the gateway…there’s only one other fae I know from these lands that knew of its location. The one fae you claim is dead.”

My senses piqued while I specifically avoided Deirdre’s name, a trigger for her panic back in the woods. Watching for her eyes to dilate, listening for her breathing to increase, smelling the sour sharpness of pain—all signs of panic that I was familiar with since it plagued me many nights as well.

Instead, I scented the piercing iciness of her anger. “I’ll play.” She hissed. “If I were to believe that she is truly alive, then everything you spoke of…those creatures, the diseased land, this lost gateway is all part of her grand scheme. To what purpose?”

I inhaled sharply. For a moment, her scent changed. The normal floral scent intensified as she spoke of the long dead Queen of Faerie and I knew then… no matter how much Remnant despised her, I would still be competing with the ghost of a tainted love to win over her heart.

“Those creatures are called blood wraiths…a product from the Sanguine. That information we know for a fact, it was verified by one of our ancients in The West Isles who fought them in the Blood Wars.” I tore into the dried beef the shadows had dumped on my bed roll.

“I believe her aim is still the same as it has always been. Look around you, what do you see?”

“I don’t need to look to see, shifter.” She snapped. “It is the absence of life. The absence of the goddesses light.”

I nodded. “Exactly.” I ripped into another bite of beef with my fang and watched the blush of her anger drain to white.

“You believe she is attempting to create life again…using the Sanguine.” She whispered.

The growl released from me was guttural. “Yes.”

Her jaw clenched. “All based on a hunch that she is alive of course. There is nothing definitive that you have told me that proves that.”

Humming, I dug my claws into the dead earth, scooping up the lifeless ash and letting it fall between us.

I needed to tread carefully here. If I said too much she would piece together who I truly was and I needed her safe in The West Isles before then.

“Those shifters you disposed of, do you know who their leader is, who they take orders from?”

She watched the crumbled ash float to the ground before answering. “No, but I am sure you are about to tell me.”

“Falcon.” I spat, tasting the foulness just uttering that name created.

Remnant’s spine straightened and the moon-casted shadows darkened around us. “Impossible. Must be an imposter. A copycat.” She hissed with brutal vehemence.

“I know enough about you that you don’t prescribe to coincidences nor do you leave loose ends. Are you willing to risk the possibility that the bastard is still alive?”

She looked away, her blue black hair falling in a curtain over her shoulder and shielding her just like the shadows.

“No. I would not.” Her voice whispered across the deadlands, the air carrying it across the loose ash.

“It took two days for the dust to finally settle when my city was destroyed. Two days I stood vigilant. Waiting. Just waiting for signs of life.” She swept her hair back and glared at me.

“It never came and yet…I am to somehow trust the words of a shifter I do not know? Trust you when you say that the two fae that deserved to die that day, should have died, did not?”

I inhaled deep. She needed a truth and I would give her one. “The lost gateway…it is to the Sanguine. I know where it is and I can open it. Prove me wrong…” I swallowed hard. “Prove that they are dead and then you can walk away from me…from this, from Faerie forever.”