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I took a mental picture of the moment. Memorized the faces of my friends with my soulmate at my side, knowing this would likely be the last time we would find ourselves all together like this ever again.

Slowly, I spoke. “Faerie's lands are suffering just like ours and the blood wraiths are becoming bolder. They are attacking outside the deadlands. Their attack on our city will be inevitable, the wards must hold for the safety of our people.”

Tyr snarled. “Let them come. I am ready for them.”

I shook my head. “This is not a fight we are prepared for my friend. We must make sure that Finlandia is never exposed. It must remain hidden for the sake of the lives living here.”

“I will have the elementals strengthen the wards then and push our armies outside the city for their training.” Tyr responded evenly.

“Why now?” Quinn said. “Since the first death of the lands, the blood wraiths had always stayed within them. What has changed?”

“Time.” I confessed. “It has been almost a hundred years since the gateway to the Sanguine had last opened. It will again, in less than a fortnight.”

Remnants head snapped to me.

Eshe frowned. “The Sanguine lands? You are insinuating that the death of our lands and the blood wraiths are of Sanguine power? How long have you known this?”

I challenged the fear swirling in my friend's eyes. “I suspected but did not know for sure. It is my responsibility, as your king, to keep you safe. With that comes the weight of when and if I need to share information. Today is that day.”

Remnant’s breathing increased. She was piecing it together…where Deirdre had been hiding all these years.

“But it was destroyed.” Eshe looked around the room to see any confirmation from the others.

I sighed. “I wish it were so. The blood fae were destroyed by the goddess…not the lands. Not the power.”

Eshe shook her head. “But who can use it? Only the blood fae could wield the Sanguine and as you said the goddess wiped them out. The water fae attempted it once with the blood crystals and it practically destroyed them.”

I turned to Remnant.

Her gaze searched mine worriedly then her chin tilted high and her shoulders squared. “I’m with you.”

Holding the courageous strength in those emerald eyes, I delivered the next blow. “There is one who can. Deirdre. The Queen of Faerie.”

The room exploded. Curses and conjectures filled the room.

Remnant’s eyes never left mine and amid the chaos, she reached her hand across to me. It was then that I noticed that they were trembling.

Her palm flattened against mine before she whispered just audibly for me. “Breathe Emon.”

I took a deep breath.

Penina’s feet dropped from the table and her hands slammed onto its surface startling everyone into silence. My assassin friend did not often explode with anger and when she did it was best to listen .

“Impossible. She's dead. They are dead.” She growled viciously towards me.

Remnant turned calmly towards her. “It is not impossible. Emon is right. Deirdre is the only one who would dare wield the Sanguine and I have seen it, felt it. It is her.”

My eyes widened realizing now that was what had held Remnant from coming to me in The Under.

“Idiot.” The beast prowled inside my head. “ You never asked your soulmate what exactly happened there.”

Shocked. I stared at my soulmate's delicate profile and the way the sun outlined her beauty but it was her strength that ensnared me…the energy it took to hold the scars underneath at bay while calmly confronted her demons.

Gently Remnant added. “I didn’t want to believe it either, Penina.” She sighed. “Believe me when I say, I want her dead more than any of you do.”

“Do you?” Eshe interjected with a fearful snarl. “She was your mate, your lover! How do we even know that you're not working with her, that you didn’t lead that bitch straight to us!”

Shadows bursted out from Remnant and I jumped to face them, crouched low on the table, blocking Eshe from their threatening darkness and halting their attack on my foolish friend with a commanding gesture.

Gasps rose around us. I knew what they saw. A shifter controlling the power of the most lethal shadow fae to ever have lived but this wasn’t control. It was respect. Respect to not kill their mistress’ soulmate but even that was a delicate balance.

Keeping my arm outstretched, I snarled over my shoulder to Eshe.

“Sit back down slowly and refrain from speaking again unless it is helpful.” Gentling my voice I gave her a concerned look. “Your fear is driving your actions.”

Eshe’s eyes were frozen on the fierce shadows that blocked out every bit of sun in the room.

“Eshe.” I growled lower. After another long moment, she turned her wide eyes on me. “Sit down Eshe, please.”

Turning back, I could not see my soulmate through the cloud of terror but I could scent her anger and her pain.

“Go to your mistress.” I purred gently to the furious shadows, stalking them slowly across the table until they snapped out of existence, and I could see Remnant's beautiful face once more .

Her chest heaved with a gasping breath as I slid off the table and turned her chair to look at me while everyone stayed stoically silent.

“You are thinking you don’t belong here.

” I murmured, studying the wild emerald light in her eyes.

“That you are a danger to us all.” I looked out across the table.

“The truth is, everyone in this room today has felt that at one time or another. Yet we have all bonded together because of that danger, in spite of that alone feeling we have. Together, we honor the scars we cannot heal.” Then I shot them all a hard commanding glare.

“I have never asked any of you to follow me nor have I ever expected you to agree with my decisions but what I do expect is the same amount of respect and understanding you have given each other towards General Dark. It takes great strength and vulnerability for her to share with you what she has today. Something you all would do well to remember.” I nodded to Penina.

"Control your anger." Glancing at Eshe, I said softly.

"Conquer your fear." Turning back to Remnant, I said sincerely.

“Accept you are not better off alone and we need you here. I need you here.”

Her jaw clenched. “Perhaps, for now.”

Penina blew out a harsh breath. “I’d still like to hear why you think that bitch is alive?”

I arched a brow at my soulmate. “Would you like to explain, General?”

Remnant sighed, turning towards all of them.

“I won’t presume to know all of your king’s reasons but from what I can piece together is that she used the Sanguine to escape me during Morta and fled to the lands of the blood fae where the gateway was sealed once she entered.

She has been biding her time in those lands, gaining more power until the gateway opens again. ”

Her brow arched at me and I responded with a grunt. “Yes. That is what I believe.”

Remnant nodded back and hummed. “Deirdre has the power of spirit at her disposal. A power that allows her to manipulate others through the dream world, and she has mastered the ability to project herself into the bodies of others. I believe this has allowed her to infiltrate the water fae courts even from the other side of the gateway. She has been using their leader in The Under to further feed the Sanguine power with blood crystals…it has been draining life from the ocean and all water fae living there. It feeds off them and becomes stronger each day. ”

Penina clicked her tongue. “But the blood crystals were lost with the City of Atlantis. The crystals could not be harnessed and were destroyed.”

“I’m going to stop you all right there.” Everyone turned to look at my general with surprise while his finger pointed straight at me. “You were in The Under?” His teeth flashed with the feral grin he directed at me.

I groaned and wiped my hand down my face. "Now isn’t the time for this, Tyr. But yes. Our lovely shadow fae led us into a den of water snakes and a kraken.”

“That’s what took you so long?” Remnant’s brows raised when she looked back at me.

I smirked. “Impressed?”

She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Not at all, shifter. I was too busy dealing with a water dragon.”

I gaped at her before I threw my head back and howled with laughter. “Of course you were! I should have known! Never mind that no fae has seen a water dragon since before the goddess left our lands.”

“A kraken. Was it him? Was it Cronin?” Penina’s eyes flashed with deadly intent, black bleeding into her brown. We had fought to imprison him together, she had wanted to kill him then but I resisted.

“Yes. But he’s been taken care of, permanently.” My voice was hard and she stiffened at the tone, and I waited for the soft brown to return back to her normally kind eyes.

Tyr rapped his knuckles obnoxiously on the table to pull everyone's attention from our assassin friend, keeping her secret safe. “We are losing focus. Tell me you didn’t pussy out?”

I wanted to rip his head off except I knew Tyr.

Knew him better than any of the others here.

The first time we had met was when we were just young cubs.

Unknown to my parents, I had been recklessly exploring the Red Caps during the blood wars and found him paralyzed by the emotional turmoil the mountains contained from the death surrounding us.

It took me a week to pull him out of it and then another week to recover from the punishment my father had delivered upon me when he found us emerging safe onto the mountain's summit. It was the first time I had ever seen pure fear in my father’s eyes.

I never uttered a single word that Tyr had been the reason I was gone for so long.

And when each lash hit my hide, Tyr's eyes never left mine and in them I saw my pain…

the slight flinch in his body, the way his breath held tight with each punishing blow, the tears pooling in his amethyst eyes. All a reflection of me.