Page 63

I paced inside the cat’s mind. Livid, shocked, helpless.

Thousands of years I lived with the cat bastard.

When I first shifted as a cub I was terrified of him and wanted to know more about the voice in my head, in my teen years I challenged him demanding that he tell me who he was, and now in my adult years I just learned to live with him, never asking again since silence was all that met me when I did.

Yet my soulmate met him for five fucking minutes and had him purring in her hands and with a name to call him by.

I paused my pacing to rage. “Why in the fuck wouldn’t you tell me that you lost your name? After all those years I asked about it, about you. Why?”

“I could not nor was it necessary.” He sounded resigned, despite the delight I could feel burning through him.

“Not necessary?” I practically snarled at him within his consciousness. “Giving a name is bestowing trust. Trust you obviously never deemed me worthy of. We are fucking stuck together… forever…or did you think that someday you’d get rid of me.”

There was a long pause. “You are more than worthy, Daemon Ash Strider and I would never harm you.”

“Thats not a fucking apology, Ethereal. ” I snarled out his name.

He sighed. "There is not much I can tell you, fairy boy. My name was…lost, it has been lost a long time. I am left with very few memories and I did not want you to feel responsible for hunting those down too. When you first came to maturity, there was already so much responsibility on your shoulders. The son of a king, with a legendary beast, and power that rivaled the gods. Then your mother died, you lost your father…it did not seem important anymore.”

I snorted. “Careful cat, you almost sound like you care about my life. And Remnant, where does she play in all this? What is she to you? Because if you think for one fucking second I’ll let you use her like you have used me—”

The panther snarled at me. “Enough! Like the fae, I cannot lie. I would never hurt you. Which means I could never possibly harm her. Be at ease, Emon. As I said, I remember very little about my own life but what I do remember was that only your soulmate could ever recover what I had lost.”

“How convenient for you.” I snarled. “So it is her that you will burden with finding your lost memories is it? Well too fucking bad, I won’t allow it.”

The panther huffed. “You do not listen, still young, still hot headed and ignorant to the words you do not wish to hear. I shall repeat it one more time for your fairy brain. None of it is important to me anymore.”

I snapped my teeth at him and paced again.

“I know you are angry with me, fairy boy. But I am beginning to think our connection is more of a blessing than a curse, as you so wonderfully put it. Call it my redemption if you cannot trust that I care for you, a second chance to do what is right.”

Both our attentions snapped back to the present at the sound of Remnant’s voice.

“The deadlands.” I heard her gasp.

Normally, the panther’s sight was awash with color, each varied tone corresponded with a specific scent that immediately gave him a predatorial edge. But within the deadlands—when he turned his vision to this lifeless void, there was nothing. Just gray bleakness and the putrid stench of decay.

The extent of the Balsam Plains and The Under had nothing on the deadlands of The West Isles. The death stretched for miles without any end. Most of it bordered the long ridgeline of the Red Cap Mountains and deep into the southern valleys.

Despite my deal to Remnant to see the asshole swordmaster Bane Steelhead, I was here for someone else entirely. A being that most of Faerie thought was dead.

A lone roar and a snarl disturbed my inward thoughts and I grinned at the sound. Riley and Xi sat astride Tyr and Penina’s large cat forms, racing alongside us.

Remnant shouted a laughing greeting to them while the panther slowed his pace across the dusty lifeless lands to allow the smaller cats to keep up.

“We are here.” I stared out through the panther’s eyes at the outpost with hard resolve. “ My best wishes to you, fairy boy.” The panther said gently and then slowed into a stalking prowl. “Know that I do care, Emon. Deeply. I will do everything it takes to keep you and your family alive.”

Then the bastard shifted. Remnant’s body slid into my waiting arms and I gripped her to my chest, breathing into a dark cloud of her blue-black hair and with it my new favorite scent of lilies.

She gasped. “Emon.” Her head tilted up at me and I swept away the hair from her face. “Your panther is amazing.”

My hands slid upwards, tangling into her windswept locks, taking in the exhilarated color on her pale cheeks, the brightness in her eyes, the small vulnerable smile on her soft lips.

I kissed her gently. “The cat does not need more fuel for his ego.” Inhaling, I grumbled. “You do not think he is more amazing than me do you?”

She laughed then, pushing me away from her with a deep blush spreading across her cheeks. “You are almost as incorrigible as Penina and Xi.”

On cue, our friends shifted and stepped in line beside us as we looked up at the outpost manor.

Remnant placed her hands on her black leather clad hips. “So—this is where the great swordmaster Bane lives.”

“Yea, piece of shit if you ask me, beauty.” Tyr remarked behind us .

A hard slap of skin echoed off the ridgeline of the Red Caps.

“Owe, what the fuck, Chin? I am still your General here. I could make you pay for that.”

I heard Xi snort. “Then don’t be an insensitive dickwad.”

“Dickwad you say?” Tyr growled low. “You won’t be saying that later Chin.”

“Quivering with fear, General.” Xi said dryly.

I shook my head. I should have thought harder on what it would mean to have Tyr, Xi, and Riley all in one place.

But Tyr was right. This place was in need of some vast improvements.

The outpost had once been a gateway manor into the mountain ranges and was flanked by two soaring towers.

Standing atop one of those towers, one could overlook Finlandia and even see a bit of the coastline of its white sandy shores.

It was in much worse shape than the last time I was here. A dreadful task that I never wanted to relive again, nor come back to again.

The others were quiet behind us. We were all on a precipice. The moment we stepped forward everything would change. Looking at my soulmate's silhouette backed against the bright red of the mountain ranges, I realized I had been foolish for holding back for so long. She had a right to know.

“Remnant…” She turned, her brow arched. My mouth opened and closed. Where the fuck did I begin?

“Speak from the heart.” Ethereal said gently.

“Daemon?”

Remnant spun back around at the sound of the gruff voice coming from the manor’s entrance. I dragged my eyes to the source, my gaze sliding over the tall imposing fae that took up most of the doorframe, his eyes the exact replica of my own, wide with alarm.

I straightened and nodded cordially. “Father.”

“Goddess, it is you!” He gasped and took a hesitating step forward. “My son.”