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T he shadows dissolved and I stumbled back from Emon, staring wide eyed. “Did they just portal us?”

"Yes." He said warily.

I slowly turned and gasped at the large expansive cave we were in.

Crystals of all colors dripped from the ceiling like icicles.

Their glittering points ominously hovered above us.

A gentle waterfall with an aquamarine hot spring glowed in the center of the cave, its steam curled up from the beckoning waves making walls glitter like a starry night sky.

Another slow turn and I looked down, to see the smoothly polished gemstones light up with each step I made. Fascinated, I tapped my foot and smiled when the floor shimmered with color from the vibration.

I looked back at Emon who quietly watched me.

“How?” I said with a mixture of wonderment and irritation.

The floor lit up his carefully guarded expression. “I thought you knew. When you never asked how I got back to The West Isles so quickly from The Under. I thought you knew.”

I hugged my arms against my body feeling shame from never questioning it before. “I never knew…” I looked up at him frowning, “over two thousand years and I never knew that they had the ability to portal travel.” I whispered.

Emon stepped forward and I let him fold me into his body.

He kissed the top of my head and I smashed my face into his heated chest. “It seems both our powers have been keeping secrets from us.” He mumbled into my hair.

“My panther never bothered to tell me he lost his name nor his memories. All those years living with him inside of my head and he never told me either.”

I sniffed into his chest, breathing in the security his dominating presence gave me. “Where are we?”

Emon tilted my head up and I was lost in his golden light. He smiled. “It’s called the Lover’s Cave, a powerful place in the Red Caps. Shifters used to spend their honeymoons here after binding themselves to each other.”

A blush spread over his cheeks and over the crooked bridge of his nose.

I giggled the uncommon nervousness pouring off of him, brushing back the hair falling between his eyes. “Not a very creative name, shifter.” I watched my hand trail down his face, over the stubble of his beard, and then traced his lips.

Emon chuckled and nipped playfully at my fingertips, his nervousness diminishing as quickly as it came. “And yet very informative. It tells you everything you need to know.”

Dropping my hand, I pressed myself closer to his radiating heat. “Is that what we are now, lovers?”

His face turned serious and his demeanor nothing but vulnerable when he whispered. “It is what I wish for and more…” He swallowed. “If you’ll have me.”

This side of him was one that I wanted to claim myself the keeper of. The one and only keeper of, for this was his heart, a gift that he was freely giving to me.

“It is what I wish for too.” I said softly and I felt it then. My carefully cultivated barriers crumbled down, revealing a new me.

I trembled with the infinite possibilities of what this would mean…for us .

Unable to hold back any longer, Emon’s lips crashed into my own and he stole my breath much like he had stolen my heart—confidently vicious.

When Emon kissed, he consumed and I wanted to give.

Greedily, I pressed my body harder into him, my hands trailing along the hardened muscle I had ached to touch since the day I first found him, and once I did, I could not stop my hands from trailing up his muscular thighs, cupping the arousal grinding into my navel, so deliciously hard and ready.

“Goddess, fuck!” He panted, ripping his mouth away from mine and steadying my hips, creating space between us.

I growled at his resistance, hot desire burning me from the inside out.

His eyes dilated at the sound and he moaned. “Wait, just wait, little umbra. There is something I need to show you…before we—ah fuck—”

I licked a long line up his chest, my mouth moving to swirl my tongue over his beaded nipple. I moaned against his skin, he tasted just like he smelled, like chocolate—hot, spicy, chocolate and I wanted more over it.

“Remnant.” He pleaded, his large hands tightening around my hips, still keeping the distance between us.

Slowly I peeked up at him through my dark lashes. “What is it you would like to show me shifter?” My hand teased the low waistline of his leathers, trailing over the ridges of his abs and following that low v right to where I knew I wanted to be.

“Fucking goddess.” Emon hissed, scooping me up into his arms and grinning wildly at me when I squealed with delight. He kissed me soundly then, striding confidently across the room. “I want to live forever just to have the chance to hear you laugh everyday.”

I grinned up at the awe on his face. “A seemingly easy task, we are immortal.”

Emon snorted. “Little umbra, nothing about you is easy but you are worth it no matter how long or how hard I have to work for it. Let us see if I can repeat that lovely sound.”

He was successful as his arms released me and I fell into the softest bedding I had ever had the pleasure to lay upon.

My hands stroked the fluffy clouds around me and I tilted my head to see that I was sprawled out on a massive bed made of the same material and it floated in the air around the room. “Where did this come from? It wasn’t here before.”

Emon watched me with feral hunger. “Like your cabin in the woods, the cave anticipates your needs and provides them.”

Wiggling further into the soft white clouds, I hummed.

“Goddess you are so fucking beautiful.” He croaked.

I bit at my bottom lip letting his words seep down into my soul. I had heard him utter it before but always rejected it. Tonight, I would allow myself to experience all of what it meant to have Daemon Ash Strider as a lover.

“I think you should get on with what you wanted to show me, shifter.” I pouted. “I particularly hope it's of the naked sort and involves much more than kissing. Although I want more of that too.”

He barked a laugh and ran his hand through his disheveled hair stalking the edge of the bed back and forth. “It is taking every bit of control I have left, not to tear your clothing off you and rut you like the beast I am—.”

Desire clenched low in my belly. “That. Yes. That. I want that.”

“But—” He growled, his hands planted on the bed and he stared hard into my eyes. “You wanted my secrets, my truths…this is our time to share them…all of them.” His gold eyes beseeched me. “It will require a mind connection between us.”

I sat up abruptly, my hair falling around my shoulders as I tilted my head. “A mind connection? You want to show me your memories?”

Emon nodded and licked his lips slowly. “It is the easiest way to give you what you have asked of me and I told you once before, I cannot deny you anything.”

I tucked my knees to my chest. “This is important to you?”

Silently he nodded. “You were right. There will be no future for us if we do not confront the darkness of our past. There are things you should know, things from my past that I have not shared with anyone else, things that may change the choice you are making tonight and all the choices you make after.”

His eyes watched me with a mixture of fear, longing and resolve and I knew then in his memories were the answers to all my whys.

“Okay.” I breathed, lowering my legs and folding my hands in my lap .

Emon exhaled slowly, rustling his hair that had fallen between his brows.

I breathed shallowly when he knelt on the bed, slowly crawling towards me. With one hand he pushed me back and I smiled, the sharp rainbow crystals whirling by me as I fell into the clouds. Blinking, Emon’s handsome face hovered over me and he was sweetly kissing my swollen lips.

“Thank you, little umbra.”

I snuggled myself closer into him, feeling his bulging erection heavy against my hip, and holding back a moan.

“This is not what I had in mind when you wanted to play show and tell.” I teased, protecting the softer side of Emon that gazed down at me with tentative fear on his face.

His eyes shuttered closed and he breathed.

“I know." His eyes snapped open with a growl, his hand digging into my hair and shoving me harder into the clouds.

“You know how a mind connection works. The sooner you say those words, the sooner I get to worship you in every way you deserve. With my mouth…” He trailed his mouth over my sensitive collar bone, “with my tongue…” He licked lower over the tops of my breast. “And with my cock.” He snarled, thrusting his arousal into me, his thigh parting my legs in the process and grinding into my sex.

The words to bind our minds tore from my lips in a worshipful moan. “ Ligare! ”

Emon rose up above me and his hair fell across his molten gold eyes. Pure devotion and love burned brightly in them. “Te amo mon lidi umbra . I love you, my little shadow .” His forehead dropped to mine. “Ligare .”