Page 8

“ T ook you long enough.” I half scowled, half thirsted at the beads of water still kissing the shifter’s bronze skin while he sat smugly in my favorite chair. Couldn’t he have put a shirt on at least?

The shifter gazed up at me through his lashes, not uttering a single word in his defense.

My lips pressed into a thin line. This shifter knew what he was doing and could likely scent the spike of desire my treacherous body was feeling. “Too comfortable to talk?” I snapped.

I blinked against the radiant smile he beamed at me. “Very. Thank you.” He scratched at his bare chest with a sheepish look and I tracked the movement, my eyes roaming over the hard ridges of his sculpted muscle. “I broke your mirror...”

My eyes glared back at his handsome face. “You broke my mirror—”

He grunted again. “More like I destroyed it purposefully.”

My cheeks burned red with simmering anger. “You destroyed my mirror.”

The shifter leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees while he gazed at me with the same intensity. “I didn’t like what I saw.”

“You're not supposed to! It's a goddess damn soul mirror!” I snapped. “I suppose you just make it a habit to destroy things you don’t like!”

His brow cocked sardonically. “You don’t?”

I laughed coldly and reached out to the shadows that snaked around my arm, following my tattoos with flawless precision. “Objects? No. Fae? Yes.”

He chuckled and leaned back, his smile showing fang. “We all have our hobbies.”

“I suppose we do. How about you tell me why your hobby was looking for me since all your needs have now been met.”

He released another deep knowing chuckle and I suppressed the shiver that sensuous sound created. “Trust me, little umbra, not all my needs have been met.”

I snuffed the shadows out with my hand. “Stop calling me that.” Umbra was old fae for shadow and this was the third time he had used it. It reminded me too much of my previous life…a dead life. “You’re flirting your way out of my questioning.”

He inhaled deeply and his golden eyes sparkled. “You like my flirting.”

“I like a lot of things…I also dislike a lot of things. Your evasiveness of my questions being one of them.” I snarled through my teeth, unable to resist leaning in towards him.

Whether it was from anger or desire I did not know.

In fact, I could not remember any other fae affecting me so wholly, not even my former love. “Start talking, shifter.”

His fingers tapped on the arm of the chair before he spoke with a calculating air. “Alright then. How well do you know the Sanguine?”

I reared back and my heated anger turned to ice.

“Enough to know that it is not to be talked about. Ever!” I narrowed my eyes on him.

“The people of the Sanguine…the blood fae, were destroyed by the wrath of the goddess when I was very young. Their terrible power, the Sanguine itself, was destroyed with them.”

He leaned in with a growl. “Except such power could never be truly destroyed.

Blood is an essence of life just like the water, the elements, the darkness, the light.

As long as there's life, the Sanguine will continue to live on. The true question is, were all those who could truly wield it destroyed?”

My sentient shadows popped in and hissed silently at the shifter. “If you think I can wield the Sanguine you have the wrong fae, shifter. There’s the door.” I turned and walked towards the one thing I wanted him to walk out of.

“I know you don’t but someone you once cared deeply for had the possibility to.” He growled low. “Deirdre. The former Queen of Faerie.”

My steps faltered and my hand trembled on the door latch.

I snapped it back to my chest. “The Queen of Faerie is dead. Or did you forget I was the one who killed her over one hundred years ago?” My voice held steady even while acidic grief burned my throat and my heart thundered inside of my chest. The sound of it caused me to stumble to the side and I steadied myself on the window sill as a growing panic seized my body.

The flutter of violet wisps outside caught my eye and I turned my focus on them.

Willing my breathing to follow their rhythmic fluttering, I watched as the gnomes scampered about the clearing with their new weretree weapons, jumping and stabbing at the glowing butterflies that left trails of glitter in their wake.

One was pissing on my flowers and more than a few were choking on glitter dust, tearing the wings off the very butterflies they had been chasing with their needled teeth.

A soft trilling sound shifted my gaze to a flock of chickadees singing happily in the berry bushes nearby. I fixated on that sound. A sound from my childhood. It was a memory, a whisper, my little chickadee, and I clung to it. Allowing it to unwind the tightness in my chest.

I stiffened when I heard the shifter take a cautious step towards me. Somewhere in my panic he had risen from his comfortable seat. “I am sorry. Is there anything I can do? Some way I can help you?”

I continued to focus on the melodies of the chickadees outside. “Yes. Tell me what I need to say in order for you to leave me and this place in peace?”

He sighed. “Are you truly at peace here?”

I snorted. “Peace doesn’t exist, shifter. But I try to seek it anyway. Ask your questions. ”

A low rumble of agitation sounded behind me but I paid it no heed. Silence hung between us before he spoke slowly and cautiously.

“You were the closest to her. The general to the queen as well as…her partner.” I didn’t miss the catch in his voice at his last words. The shifter race hated the former Queen of Faerie for what she did to their people. I didn’t blame him for his distaste at our intimate relationship.

A dry laugh escaped me. “ Close … yeah…I suppose you could call it that.”

“Did she ever speak to you about the Sanguine? About harnessing its power?” He pressed.

“No. She never spoke of such things.” I hissed, but she had used it, at least I suspected as much.

“Besides, even if Deirdre did have intentions of harboring the Sanguine, she is dead !” Uncontrolled shadows exploded all around me and I heard the shifter curse with surprise.

“It’s time for you to leave now.” I rubbed at my temples.

He growled threateningly and I heard his heavy step forward.

“I cannot leave here without you. I need you to prove to me that she is dead. That she is no longer a threat to our world because…” his voice faltered and then he inhaled deeply, “ because I believe that not only did you fail your people that day, but you failed them twice by not killing her.”

“ What! ” I spun back around so fast my hair whipped across my face and my shadows sprung forth to wrap around his neck. “What did you just say to me?”

His golden gaze held mine even while the shadows constricted tighter around his throat. He reached up and instead of pulling them off him, he ran his hand over his braided hair. “Faerie is dying , Remnant. The Sanguine is here and I know Deirdre is at the center of it all.”

I snorted and snapped the shadows away from him. “All worlds die at some point. I fail to see how the other two are connected to such an event.” I hissed back even though that soft whisper of doubt infiltrated my resolve.

The shifter rubbed at his neck and pressed his lips thinly together. “Not in this way.”

I narrowed my eyes on him. “I haven't seen signs of such death.”

Emon sighed. “You haven’t left these woods in a long time.

There are places outside of here that have completely succumbed to the Sanguine.

It is now lifeless earth and the diseased decay spreads with each passing day.

It destroys all, it kills all.” He snarled hard, his eyes unfocused, lost in a memory.

“There are creatures that haunt the deadlands. Lifeless beings that kill anything they come across. I have lost a few of my friends by their soulless kind.” His golden gaze refocused on me with such an intensity that I had to force myself not to rear back.

“ Everything points to the Sanguine resurfacing.” He continued in earnest. “Faerie needs you, Remnant. You have the power to stop this.”

I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “Why? Why the need to save Faerie at all? The fae are already heading for extinction, this just speeds up our timeline.” I snorted.

“Surely it's not for your disgusting people back in The West Isles with your parricidal king.” I arched a brow at him when he flinched.

“In fact the only problem I see is that your kind are in my woods, unwelcomed.”

Hurt flashed in his eyes and then was gone, a predator glared back at me.

“You know nothing of my kind little umbra…and you know nothing of the world you choose to exist in but not live in.” His lip raised in a small snarl.

“You are duty bound still to protect these lands.

I know your vows. That kind of sworn fealty doesn't wear off, especially if the ruler you made it to is still alive.”

Rage burned within me. “Fuck you, shifter, I am protecting it…from the worst thing that could ever happen to it…me!” I hissed, sidestepping to the door and wrenching it open. “Now, I do believe your kind belongs outdoors—”

His nose twitched and then he was launching himself towards me. The heavy wooden door slammed shut and I gasped as I was forcibly pressed against its cool wooden planks and the heat of his hard muscular body.

“Do not move.” A vicious warning growl ripped deep from his throat. Slowly angling his body sideways with his lips peeled back over lengthening canines he peered out the window.

I heeded his warning, only because I knew the look of an animal that was threatened.

Of course, it had nothing to do with the delicious heat pouring off of him that felt comforting and safe.

I inhaled deep and waited for the panic to grip my monstrous soul.

Seconds passed and so did my growing desire… not panic.

Angry at my treacherous body for responding the exact way it should, I drew my shadow sword from the void and laid it across his throat.

“Step away from me.” The chill in my voice thankfully did not reflect the desirous fire running hot inside.

My shadows along with the dormant ones gathered, darkening the room, highlighting my anger, and the immensity of my own power.

The shifter Emon paid no attention to my blade, instead his gold eyes peeled away from the window and slowly perused my face.

“Fuck.” He whispered, swallowing hard. “You’re so beautiful.

” Raising up his hand, he cupped my cheek, his thumb stroking against my skin softly.

“As much as I enjoy this, little umbra. We do have company and I don’t believe you’re an exhibitionist.” He murmured low, sliding that cursed thumb down over the bottom of my lip before he dropped it, stepping away from my blade. “Take a look, carefully.”

Irritated, I pressed my lips in a thin line and glared hard at him before dropping my sword and sliding with whispered steps to look out the window.

“No.” I whispered with disbelief. The sunlight was no more and the clearing was now replaced with an unnatural gray mist. It rolled over blackened decayed grass that was once green and choked the berry bushes to a pile of ash. Stiff and void of life, my chickadees lay on top of them—soundless.

Desperately, I searched the clearing for my gnomes, only to find them just as unrecognizable. Distinguished only by their sharp pointed teeth sticking up from their shriveled forms like tiny pincushions. Scattered among them were butterfly wings, fluttering stiffly in the sinister mist.

A tingling sense of alarm made me look beyond the rot towards the tree line that was slowly losing its vibrant silver shimmer. And in the middle of it all, black hooded figures floated eerily amongst it, dripping with dark red blood staining the decaying ground.

Spinning back to the shifter, I raised my sword threateningly. “You did this!”

Indignation flashed in Emon’s feral gold eyes. “Goddess help me, I know the former War General of Faerie isn’t this stupid. You know the stories. It's the Sanguine.” He hissed.

Past the point of reasoning, I thrusted my blade towards him and matched his same hissing snarl. “You will tell me what they are right now and how to kill them…and when I’ve finished that task then maybe I will consider sparing your life. ”

The shifter shook his head and moved so fast, I barely had time to drop my blade, nearly puncturing him through the chest as he yanked me farther from the window.

Bowing low he snarled in my ear. “Not a chance, little umbra. What those fuckers are…are a fight for another day. I am not letting you go out there to get yourself killed. Besides, I want my fucking proof that Deirdre is really dead, as you so adamantly swear by.”

The shadows deepened and my hand shook from not striking him down. It would be too easy to slide this blade straight through his toned bronze body. “ This is my home, those were my flower pissing gnomes. I don’t owe you anything and I am not leaving!”

Again, with very little fear for his own life, he gripped my shoulders, and spun me towards the far side of the room.

Further away from the abominations hovering unsuspectedly of the events happening here.

Ducking away from him, I twisted my blade and sliced his arm with a controlled precise warning.

“Touch me again and I will kill you.” I hissed.

Breathing heavily he stared hard at me, not even glancing down at the blood that ran in small rivulets over his forearm and splattered on the wood floor.

“I don’t fucking believe you’ll kill me because unlike those abominations out there, I don’t send a chill of fear running down your spine.

What I do send down your spine is much more pleasurable. Isn’t that right, little umbra?”

I narrowed my eyes and my hand tightened on the hilt of my sword.

He scrubbed his hand over his hair. “We don’t have time for this.

” His eyes clashed with mine, the ferocity and fire there made me take a small step back.

“I swear to you Remnant Dark and the fucking goddess herself, we will get your revenge for your pee pollinating gnomes.” Snarling through his sharp canines, he tipped his strong chin towards me.

“Now, pack a bag or your void of darkness shadow shit. We are leaving.”

I snarled back at him.

His lips turned up with amusement. “That’s more like it. Now where is your escape tunnel? I know you have one. I can smell the stale air creeping from its depths.”