Page 6

A low growl rumbled deep in my chest as I attempted to pry open my eyes, the weight of the chains gone like it was only a bad dream. “Fuck.”

Faerie may have healed my body but it still felt like I fell from a cliff, hitting several boulders on my way down.

“Your foul language really is unseemingly.”

“Sweet goddess, you’re still there? And here I really hoped that the torture would at least kill you off, cat.” I said in a low snarl to the beast who resided inside of me.

He snarled back with warning. “Two days, fairy boy.”

I shrugged. “We’ve been through worse.”

The cat snorted again and rolled his eyes inside my head. “You better shift soon or I will force you to. I am tired of being stuck in this repugnant body of yours. Who knows what those irons did to my coat.”

“It’s too risky for us to shift now. Your vanity will have to wait.” I was pretty damn recognizable in my shifted form—I’d rather not draw that sort of attention.

“Is talking to yourself a side effect of being tortured or do you do it out of habit?”

I inhaled sharply. That voice. Fuck that sound was the most beautiful thing I ever heard and suddenly I was overwhelmed by a scent—lilies after a fresh night rain, Strong, pure, beautiful.

Her.

I inhaled again, tattooing it deep within my memory for fear of ever losing it again. Groaning, I forced my aching body to sit upright and narrowed my feral gaze on her.

She sat on a tall wooden stool, cross legged on her high perch, her hands relaxed on her knees, with her black shadows floating lazily around her.

One would be a fool to mistake her for anything but deadly this way.

“Why in the Sheol do I feel like my head has been smashed in?” Definitely not the first words I’d thought I’d say to my soulmate after one hundred years of searching for her.

Perfect pink lips peeled back revealing gleaming white teeth. “How am I supposed to know why you feel what you do, shifter?”

I grinned back. The fae didn’t lie but we were proficient at our phrasing. This was no different and I approved.

“How long have I been asleep?” I glanced at the window, noticing the sunlight streaming into her small dwelling, highlighting the natural blue in her black hair.

“Five hours.” Bright emerald green eyes that I could drown in…wanted to drown in, bored into my own, and my mouth went dry. Beautiful, she was beautiful.

“Keep your wits, fairy boy.” My cat practically hissed at me.

“Fuck off.” I shot back silently and pushed him in the deep recesses of my mind.

A talent my father had taught me as a cub after the beast had taken over my body for two whole weeks during the first time I shifted.

It had taken my mothers begging tears for the asshole to change me back to the son she knew and not a confused rampaging beast with his own conscious thought.

After that, the was no end to the training my father delivered to strengthen my mental shields.

The shadow fae quirked a dark brow at me like she was considering putting me down like a rabid animal .

I scrubbed at my grown out beard with a frown, hoping to rub some function back to my brain and away from my growing arousal. “To answer your question, I was talking to my beast just now.” Honesty was probably the best route at the moment…probably.

My cat snorted from the depths of my mind.

She frowned at me and tapped her delicate fingers that could kill a fae in an instant, on her knees. “I wasn’t aware that shifter’s beasts had their own consciousness.”

That’s because they fucking didn’t. I was special– specially cursed. Instead, I retorted. “How many shifters do you really know?”

She blinked and her face returned to the neutral mask she wore so well. I recognized it now. It was the same look on her face when she killed those shifters in the woods. I could smell the violence on her and saw the subtle poise of her posture changing…more erect.

I groaned. Fuck don’t say erect.

She watched me with more distrust. “Alright, let’s skip the small talk, shall we.” She rose unfurling her legs to stand with a deadly grace. “You will tell me who you are before I decide to make you dead permanently this time.” The shadows swirled, hovering above us like a dark cloud.

I slowly licked my lips and my hands twitched to trace every perfect curve of her dangerous petite frame.

She was short stature for a fae, my seven foot frame would tower over her, but that did not deter the burning desire she sparked inside of me.

Since discovering her, I had over a century to dream up and fantasize many depraved moments between us but also I dreamed of the quiet ones.

The stories she would tell me of her adventures I had only heard from others, the sound of her laughter that was reported to be the sweetest of dark melodies, her eyes full of love staring back at me that was foretold to hold the deepest loyalty and trust that any could ever wish for.

I craved it all.

Clearing my throat, I raked my hand through my hair once more, forcing myself to think with something other than my dick. “They call me Emon.”

The silent rise of her dark brows was her only response and I smiled sweetly back at her.

I knew what she wanted, she wanted my full name, a sign of trust amongst the fae, but it wasn’t about that.

Once she knew my name the ward of protection I held would shatter and she would remember just who exactly I was.

She wasn’t ready for that yet and perhaps neither was I.

“As for killing me, you most certainly can try.” I stretched my arms up to the ceiling and cracked my neck back and forth. “Although, I think you’d have a hard time doing so.” I purred with approval, feeling her eyes rake over my body.

Her careful facade cracked when her eyes rolled. “You are the second being who has said that to me tonight.” She reached behind her and I tensed. “This fact makes me want to kill you even more.” She laughed at my stillness. “You’re even preparing yourself for it. I wonder why that is?”

I leaned in and growled low. “There’s more than one thing reacting to you right now, little umbra, and I can assure you it isn’t fear.”

Her emerald eyes dipped downward and then snapped back up to mine. I couldn’t stop my rumbling chuckle at her discomfort.

Scowling, she snapped at the swirling shadows above us, and from them dropped a leather satchel. My leather satchel. She twirled it teasingly in front of me. “I believe you lost something in the woods, shifter.”

“Where did you get that?” I hissed, my heart beating faster at the sight of it. I didn’t care about the bag so much as the hidden relic inside. I spent days being tortured to ensure it stayed safe. If Jurin had somehow discovered it…

She pitched my bag straight at my head with a grin, attempting to catch me off guard. “From the weretree.”

I snatched it with one hand easily, never taking my gaze off hers, noticing a flicker of admiration in her beautiful green eyes. I smiled, I was a shifter…she’d have to find a different way than speed to get a jump on me.

Slowly, I placed my bag beside me and patted it discreetly, feeling for the contents inside. “Thank you for giving it back to me.” My body relaxed deeper into the bed and my heart steadied when I felt the knowing curve of the relic. “The weretree didn’t give you any trouble did he?”

She raised a sharp brow, insulted. “You know who I am.”

“I do. Which means I have to ask.” I smiled. “Did you go through my things? ”

The cabin grew quiet while I held her steady gaze. Moments passed before a grin grew on my face. She had expected me to search my bag, revealing its contents without blemishing her sense of honor by her doing it herself. In that case, she was in for disappointment.

“Do you have a shower here?”

Her stare broke and lines furrowed on her forehead. “A what?”

“A shower?” I growled. “I fucking smell like a rotting carcass and I am covered in my own blood. I don’t relish that.”

Her arms crossed firmly over her chest. “I’m not in the business of taking in strays and providing for their mangey needs.”

I shrugged. “Now you are. You brought me here.”

Anger flashed in her emerald eyes. “What makes you think that you’re some sort of guest, shifter? That these amenities are even available to you.”

Chuckling, I stood. My hands grazed the ceiling of her small cabin while I stretched out my soreness before I slung my bag over my bare blood crusted chest. Her eyes dragged up my body and before tilting her head to scowl up at me.

With curling lips, her shadows snapped threateningly in front of me.

Reaching steadily outward, I tickled them on their underside, treating them like any protective animal guarding their master. I was no threat to her. I never would be. Sensing this the shadows melted to a black puddle at our feet.

Remnant inhaled subtly, staring down at her shadows, and I could smell her shock.

“You’re the last shadow fae, on the run, charged with destruction of the City of Light and the slaughtering of the thousands of fae that resided there, along with their beloved queen.

” I couldn’t refrain from sneering at that last part.

She continued to stare down at her shadows but I could see her jaw clench hard and her fists tightening crossed over her chest. “You had the upper hand bringing me here and yet I’m not in irons even though you suspect my power rivals yours.

Goddess, you could have even left me out in the woods for your little warring gnomes.

” I nodded to the window. The stale stench of gnomes was prominent outside this cabin.

She was smart to have them here…no fae in their right mind fucked with the gnomes.

“I’d say that I am the closest to a guest anyone is ever going to get with you. ”

She looked up then, her eyes narrowing .

I sighed and reached my hand out again to the shadows puddled at my feet. They rose up and curled around my arm, their cool darkness brushing against my hot skin with affection. “I am not a threat to you, little umbra.” I whispered gently.

“So you think you know me, shifter.” She released her arms and stepped back, the shadows following her and spreading.

The cabin was suddenly pitched in black and the sunlight from the window completely disappeared.

“Your power is no threat to mine. You are not in irons because I don’t need irons, and you were not left in the woods because your company is not good enough even for my gnomes.

You’re only alive because I haven’t decided to kill you yet. ”

Her eyes glowed in the darkness and all I could think about was what secrets they held, what I could unlock within them. Images of her spread out under me, her gasps of pleasure, the caress of her smooth pale skin against my own. “Beautiful.” My whispered words echoed through the darkened void.

She blinked, the deadly shadows creeping back towards her, revealing the sunlit cabin once more. “Who in the goddess are you really?”

I grinned and puffed out my chest. “I told you already. My name is Emon, shifter of The West Isles, and I have been searching for you, Remnant Ezra Solaire Dark, for the past one hundred years.” I nodded to the shadows all around us.

“It’s time to step out of the shadows and live again.

” When she took an angry step towards me, I held out my hand and watched the dried blood flake off with a grimace.

“Now if you don’t mind, I’ll take that fucking shower now. ”