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Asher growled low. “Not just the queen, she is just the start. He will burn this world from the inside out. Seeing you impaled sent him over the edge, seeing you bleeding out in his city only drove his resolve. With the power controlling him, he will be able to easily enter before the gateway is supposed to open.” He snarled, shoving me again.

“Now fuck off, Dark. I’m too busy to talk and you’re too busy saving my son. ”

I narrowed my eyes at the former king of shifters. “Bane was right. You are a bastard.”

Asher barked a laugh. “Then let us hope we live through this day to suffer another moment with that miserable prick. Then you can tell him that in person.” He winked and shifted without a moment's pause.

His blonde wolf replaced him and he howled one more time before turning back toward a now fully recovered bloodlusting leopard.

Inhaling, I spun, leaving behind the sounds of two ferocious beasts ripping each other apart, and bracing myself against the agonizing pain that set my body on fire.

Blood still flowed freely from me, leaving a dripping trail of red while I stumbled along the ash ridden street where the golden panther had blazed through.

I shook my head. Universes…the panther burned universes.

I had nothing that could stop that now. My shadows…the void of all light was the only thing that possibly could and they were gone.

I was more likely to bleed out before I even had a chance to reach Emon to stop him. But giving up was not an option and it never would be when it came to that damn shifter.

He was mine. I was his.

“General Dark!”

Panting, I halted in front of the giant shifter calling to me. “Drey.” I clutched my chest and eyed the baker who had been terrified of me just days ago. “Drey, I need you to move please. I must get to the king.”

Drey held his hands up with nervous placation. “I know it. I want to help you.”

I frowned deliriously. “I don’t have time for pastries, Drey, I’m sorry. No matter how fucking amazing that sounds right now. ”

Drey laughed, a great booming sound. “I can help in a different way, General Dark.” Bowing at his giant torso, he shifted, and I stared stupidly at the towering beast in front of me.

“You’re a griffin.” I gasped and then smiled. “Of course you are.”

Almost pure auburn aside from marbled feathers of gray in his wings, Drey’s griffin was a masterpiece. His great eagle head cocked to the side and regarded me with striking white eyes. Then he bowed his massive head and sighed his icy breath over my body.

The coldness of his power seeped in and I instantly felt my pain disappear. Finally able to stand fully, I removed my blood stained arm from my wounds, seeing completely healed skin.

A griffin’s breath had the ability to heal any creature…but only one time in its lifetime, and Drey—he chose me.

“Thank you Drey. I'm honored.” I choked.

His eagle head cocked to the side and he unfurled his marbled gray wings.

My brows rose. “Are you inviting me to fly with you? To reach Emon?”

Drey bowed his griffin head and then flapped his great wings with urgency.

I didn’t hesitate, scrambling on his broad lionlike body. Fierce wings pumped with royal elegance against the smoke surrounding us and I gripped his fur harder to stay astride as together we climbed up into Finlandia's lavender blue sky as I searched frantically for my soulmate.

“There!” I cried out against the rushing wind and pointed to the charred trail Ethereal had made. The panther was now out of the city and heading straight for the Red Cap Mountains, straight for wherever the location of the gateway was.

The griffin screeched back his acknowledgement and banked hard, his lion tale snapping to the side, to direct us straight towards the king of shifters. I gritted my teeth and clung low, edging with his turn.

My mind scrambled for something, anything to stop the raging panther. If he succeeded, there would be no Faerie, no us, no Riella.

Closing my eyes, I focused on the shifter I loved, searching for the shared bond between us. “Emon.” I pulled on our bond. “You are the light to my darkness. Come back to me, shifter.”

I had no way of knowing if he heard me but I sent my love through the bond anyway; images of him that I saw through my eyes, his snarky smile when I did something amusing, the roguish way he ran his hands through his hair, the way he watched his friends as if everyday was their last together, the soft touches that could soothe and light me on fire at the same time.

Tears streamed down my face while the wind instantly cooled them upon my fevered cheeks. “Come back to me Emon. You said we would do this together. Never alone.”

Still silence remained.

“Goddess fucking damn it, shifter. I will kick your dick in again for this.” A sob tore from my throat and the rushing air swallowed up my anguish like a hungry swarm.

Then I felt it. That slightest pull. The smallest whisper.

“Little umbra. I can’t stop. I can’t stop him.”

My eyes snapped and then narrowed on the Red Cap Mountains growing larger in the distance. They loomed over these lands, casting shadows over the valleys with its own personalized darkness as the sun set behind its towering peaks.

“Fight for me Emon. Fight it and hold on.”

I knew what I had to do.

I gave Drey a gentle pat to gain his attention. “I will need to stand. Please keep steady.”

Drey’s understanding griffin call pierced the dimming skies.

Breathing calmly, I slowly rose up to my feet, standing atop the great auburn griffin. Emon’s words from that night in his study echoed inside my mind.

“Did you really surf the skies upon the wings of the Roc?”

I hadn’t, but today…today I surfed the skies on griffin wings.

Lips thinning, I looked beyond the raging bloodlusting panther to the enormous looming shadows from the mountains. My hands rose and I felt beads of sweat drip down my back. I would need every bit of my concentration for this.

“The sun…” I whispered, seeing the sun sink further still, I beckoned the shadows to me.

Eerily they rippled over the lands. “The sun needs darkness.” Then with all the power I had inside of me, I lifted them from their rest. Leagues of shadows answered my call and molded forward into a dark tidal wave that I sent careening towards the panther.

He roared with light and bursted through it with just the slightest bit of dimming to his blinding power.

Gritting my teeth, I tried again. The shadows became thicker, taller, so tall that it rivaled Shen’s wall and even the Red Caps themselves. “For it cannot exist without it.”

Emon was my sun, but Ethereal…Ethereal was a supernova star ready to burst, and I was both the darkness and the void that could absorb it all.

Baring my teeth, I bent the wall of shadows forcefully into the panther again.

The darkness rippled across his body turning him black and for a brief moment, extinguished his light, slowing him to a stop.

Heaving more shadows inwards I sent them crashing repeatedly into Ethereal before his light could break through entirely.

It was a terrifying tsunami of shadows versus a breaker of worlds.

More. I needed more.

Vigorously, I pulled the shadows from long outward distances, the smallest blade of grasses, and even from within the mountains, feeding it into the crashing wave that suffocated the panther's light into a huge planetary-like orb within the valley.

Crouching low, with the wind roaring around me, I patted Drey’s great eagle head affectionately. “Thank you Drey, but this is where you and I part ways, my friend. Turn back to spare yourself this darkness.”

Then I jumped. Straight down into the shadows where I would either burn from Ethereal’s light or live under Emon’s sun.

The griffin cried out, unable to stop me as I plunged through the orb of darkness, weaving them closed.

I smiled when I heard Emon’s voice, now stronger in my mind.

“And what about the darkness? What does it need?” Emon’s voice whispered back, stronger and clearer in my head.

I spread out my arms to slow my descent, using the shadows to brace my fall. “The darkness…the darkness does not need the light, it is infinite. But finds it cannot live without the light just the same. To be infinite is to be alone. It does not want to be alone anymore.”

Then I felt him. Strong arms latched onto me, cradling me in his loving embrace. I stifled a cry, burying my head into his chest, inhaling his chocolate spice scent, trembling with relief.

Emon kissed the top of my head and breathed harshly into my hair. “You did it. You stopped him. The moment you weakened his light I was able to take back control. ”

I hummed, focusing on the steady thrum of his heart and the purring in his chest when he spoke.

“You jumped off a goddess damn griffin and fell through the sky, little umbra.” He sounded breathless.

I smiled into him. “Yes.”

He chuckled. “So we are back to one word answers again are we?”

I sniffed. “Yes.”

“Finally, now I have a story I can write from my own point of view in the The Unaccounted Life of the Last Shadow Fae .”

The excited awe in his tone had me drawing back to look at him with raised brows. “Are you serious, shifter? That’s what you care about right now?”

He grinned. “I got more than one word this time didn’t I?” Then his lips crashed into mine, muffling my snarky response, and kissing me desperately, his hands traveling over every inch of my body as if to check if I was still real.

“I thought, when the Sanguine…then the blood.” He choked, inhaling shakily against my lips. “I lost control, I gave into the power, Ethereal’s power, he blamed himself for your injuries, and then he couldn’t stop…I thought I would never see you again.” He whispered fearfully.

I shook my head. “In what universe did you think I would ever let that happen, shifter?”

Emon chuckled softly before taking another deep breath. “I don’t know how I will survive you, my little umbra.”

I snickered and grinned. “You’ve been through worse.”

He barked out a laugh, brushing my hair back from my face and twirling it around his fingers. “We do this together.”

I reached up and drew his hand to my lips, kissing it. “Always.”

“Never alone.” His steady gaze was so unwavering as he waited for my response.

I peered deep into his adoring golden gaze—eyes of gold that I loathed, then feared, then loved. “Never.” I promised.

Never would I be lost in the shadows again—for Emon was my guiding light, bringing me back home.