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I mmediately I was swimming in darkness . My consciousness melding with Emon’s and separating me from my own body. He had full control of the memories he would share. I was but a spectator within them.

A stunned speechless spectator left with his words whispering in my head, a beautiful confession torn from his soul.

Te amo mon lidi umbra. I love you, my little shadow.

My heart raced and my stomach performed terrible acrobatics—the rush both unpleasant and exciting at the same time…I could scarcely breathe at the possibilities of it.

But looking within his memory, my feelings quickly turned to one of horror.

"No." I whispered, taking in the bright lights and white sterile walls of a room I had hoped to never see again.

Except this time it wasn't me battered and chained with irons, it was Emon. He lay in a pool of blood on a cold metal table, his chest rapidly rising and falling while roars of agony drowned out any other sound, his gold eyes fixated on the heavy locked iron door.

“It can't be.” I whispered, hearing the muffled screams resonating beyond that door that drove the chained shifter king to madness.

I knew those screams well. They were mine.

“Oh Emon.” I choked back a sob as recognition hit me like a battering ram. These exact roars, his roars, were the same sound that echoed in my nightmares, telling me something I could not understand, could not remember.

It had been him. It had always been him.

We both eyed the door when another long scream full of pain and anguish echoed from the hall and then the pleading began. It was my voice, crying out. “Kill me! Just kill me!”

Emon’s head started to bang against the table roaring his despair, then shifting into a desperate sob.

Tears falling from his broken golden eyes and mingling with the blood on the table.

“Goddess. No more!” Emon roared out, thrashing again, his skin burning anew in the irons.

“Please, no more! I’ll give it to you! I’ll give it to you.

Just stop! Please, please stop—” His chest heaved.

“Please make it stop, please, please, please—.”

Tears filled my eyes. This was his nightmare. The one that left him sweating and vomiting, unable to sleep. The same nightmare I had witnessed in the Balsam Plains when I realized we bore the same painful scar on our souls.

But I couldn’t help him this time. I couldn’t reassure him that I was okay, that in the future he heals me, in the future he loves me, and that we are together.

“Tut tut, King Daemon…now was that so hard.” A soft musical voice said from the doorway.

I glared at the fae standing there. Deirdre. My former lover, former friend, and former queen stood there with a satisfied grin on her face.

All I felt for her was utter disgust.

Smugly, she strutted into the room, her heels clicking against the tile in a powerful stride that had her hips swaying in a fitted deep blue dress.

Her long shimmering legs peeked from two large slits that went all the way up to her hips, and flowing around her were waves of silky silver hair, sparkling in the harsh light.

Her eyes, two bright pools of turquoise, hungrily assessed the begging shifter. “You really did make this so much harder on yourself, you know,” she hummed, her red lips grinning down at Emon with satisfaction.

Everything about her was beautiful and sinful and I hated her for it. Hated that her allure was enough to make any male or female worship her. She reveled in the ability to pull their strings—the ultimate puppet-master.

“Stay the fuck away from him.” I hissed and stepped in front of her with my spectral form, wanting to cut her from our lives as much as I wanted to cut her from my own heart, but her grinning eyes stared right through me.

Emon hissed, and I turned to see his tear stained face full of loathing. “How can you do this…you fucking loved her once!” He snarled, his teeth flashing. “At least honor that memory and cease this cruelty.”

Turquoise eyes glittered down at him. Her face contorted into a twisted smile. “And if I do, you will give me what I want.” She trailed a finger over his rippling stomach. “Everything I want.” She cooed.

Emon’s chains rattled. “Give me your word that no one will touch her, go near her or harm her anymore, including you, and I will give it to you. I will give you the location of the Sanguine.”

“No Emon…no.” I whispered sadly in his memory. “I wasn’t worth this. I am not worth this.”

Desire sparkled in Deirdre’s eyes and she trailed her perfectly manicured hand back up his chest, digging into the cuts and burns, marring his body and reopening them until they bled.

Bringing her bloody fingertips to her mouth she sucked on them with a deep moan and then licked her lips with satisfaction. “Will you take her place instead?” She circled his body. “Although I have gotten what I need from her I find I have quite enjoyed the process. A fae has her needs after all.”

Emon's eyes flashed with revulsion and he shook with visible rage. “Your access to the Sanguine gateway is time sensitive. The more time you waste here, means the less time you have to access the gateway.”

“Of course it is.” Deirdre laughed, harnessing her power over wind she floated over Emon to sit astride his powerful hips. Her dress riding up around her waist revealing her naked sex beneath.

Emon’s chest rose and fell heavily, watching her like a caged predator that was ready to snap .

“This is a much better position for you to whisper your dirty little secrets to me. Don't you think, your majesty.” She ran her hands over her breasts and then down her body.

Emon growled. “I’ll have your binding oath before I give you anything.”

Deirdre smirked and then dragged a sharp nail over his open wounds watching the blood run down his body and onto the table where her knees were now stained with it.

She cocked her head. “You do say the sexiest little things to me King Daemon…and that growl. I love it when you growl. Do it again, growl for me, your majesty. Growl and I will give you the binding oath you so desperately want from my lips.”

Bile rose in my stomach when Emon’s eyes glanced at the doorway where begging cries continued, hard resolve etched into his handsome features.

“Don’t do it Emon.” Tears stained my face and I squeezed my eyes shut—unable to witness what I knew he would do…what he was willing to do for me.

When the long low growl vibrated throughout the room and was followed by the delighted heartless laughter of the Queen of Faerie, I shook with fury. Nothing would ever stop me from killing Deirdre ever again. Her life was mine.