Page 35 of Shadows of Air and Earth (Remnant Archives)

Morta

I knelt on the destroyed remains of the City of Light, staring numbly down at the mountainous rubble and the frayed leather bracelet in my hand.

The sharp, jagged marble cut deep into my knees the same way loss sliced open my heart, and I clenched my fist around the broken leather.

I was fucking bleeding out, but on the inside, the loss of Remnant Dark drowned me in an abyss of grief.

I barely heard the sharp commands and barking orders of the shifter fae around us.

The only thing I was aware of outside of this pain was that Xi was with me.

Fucking goddess to Sheol and back, I swallowed hard.

She could have been here, buried beneath the destruction where our beloved general likely lie.

Days. We had spent days digging through it all, with both power and our own hands that broke open and bled and then healed again on repeat. Desperate to find one fae beneath. One living soul. But there were none.

There was only her leather bracelet, shredded and scorched, a testament of what had happened here, and I clutched onto it with wretched desperation as if it would bring our general back to us.

Xi’s exposed grey eye caught my own, a flicker of hope burning within them and I looked away, narrowing my gaze at the massive shifter looming over us.

His body looked just as broken as we all felt.

Deep blue bruises and half healed wounds that still bled littered the once smooth bronze muscle, dark circles of fatigue strained around his fierce and bright golden eyes.

Seemingly, too exhausted to brush back, his hair fell across his face as he wavered.

Quickly supported by the fae who had captured us at his side, the healer accompanying him scanned his body—healing what he could.

But from what I could see, hidden deep within the golden one’s eyes, there was nothing that would heal those scars even if the wounds did close.

Nothing here that is.

But this golden one did say he believed she was alive before he stared off into the distance with both longing and pain, need and desperation, like a lost lover, vowing to find her. To bring Remnant Dark back home.

Home.

We had no home now. Everything we had worked for, the sacrifices we made, the times we held our tongue watching our beloved friend be abused and subjugated by the queen all for the goal to free Faerie from her rule, was gone.

And so was our sole purpose. There would be no fae left to even be free, no elemental court to lead, not after today.

We had lost. We had lost everything. She was our everything.

The crunching of heavy leather boots in front of me drew my attention back to the present and discreetly I tucked Remnant’s leather bracelet away.

Gaze traveling up massive muscular thighs encased in tanned leathers to a bared torso covered in tattooed ink, I swallowed.

Trailing that ink, I followed the exquisite detail all the way up to the top of his head.

A tapestry of art permanently etched into every defined groove of his savage body.

Muscle rippled when he crouched his heavy form in front of me, meeting my studious gaze with violent purple eyes that gripped my soul.

A brow pierced with a heavy barbell arched amusedly at my deepening scowl. “So you’re shadow forces huh?” His voice was low and gravelly, dark and beastly. A dangerous tone that had me shivering despite myself.

The petite one who found and captured us snickered. Her deep brown eyes flashed brightly with knowing and despite her stature, it was clear that she was not to be mistaken for anything but powerful. “Stop playing with your food, Tyr.”

Penina. The golden one had called her Penina.

Snarling, I broke the corded bonds around Xi and I’s wrists with a slice of air, and lunged, barreling into the grinning, unsuspecting shifter.

Fuck him.

Pinning him to the ground with air, a knee on his throat, and a dagger in hand, Xi guarded my back. Her earth trembled beneath us all and I smiled darkly. “Yes. We are the shadow forces, shifter. You got a problem with that?”

His returning growl cut short, his eyes widening, and nostrils flaring, I stilled at the sudden delicious scent enveloping me. A deep warmth, something clicking into place inside my chest. An intense need, a desire .

Violet eyes began to dissolve into dark heady hunger and I knew then that the great shifter’s reaction was similar to mine. His deep resonating purr sent a hot spike of exotic thrill into my bloodstream and my breathing increased.

Our eyes locked again…a reaction like this could only mean one thing.

Soulmates.

Stunned, I followed the way his tongue licked slowly and sensually across his lips, the glint of another silver piercing flashing in the sunlight before he growled darkly. “Riley.”

Gritting my teeth, I braced against the hot possessive tone of my name on his lips, ripping myself away before it could fully take me.

“Fuck!” I snarled, whirling from him and turning instantly to Xi.

Her own eyes were wide with shock, having felt everything through our own bond, a connection we never closed from each other, not since Lacail but still we kept it hidden.

She looked away, new agony joining her raw grief, cutting through me just as quickly as a newly sharpened blade.

No. No way in Faerie was I allowing that to happen.

Walking away from the shifter who was slowly rising from the ground and ignoring his shocked friends around us, I reached for Xi and pulled her into me, slamming my mouth down on hers.

Devouring her lips with what I knew would never, ever change, making sure she felt it in every aspect of my being through the bond.

I loved Xi Lanora Chin and no soulmate bond was going to tell me otherwise.

“You’re mine terrella,” I whispered across her now swollen lips, a sight that made me preen with pride.

“But Riley…” she began.

“No,” I hissed. “I am not about to lose you too—not you too. We already lost her. I can’t—fuck Xi, I won’t survive it.

” My body shook holding her and the soulmate connection I had felt for the giant, tattooed shifter was gone, bringing back our combined overwhelming grief.

Slipping my hand into hers, I brought it to my lips, kissing it softly.

Directing my air, I watched her eyes fill with tears as our general’s bracelet rose between us and I tied its frayed fragments around her wrist, next to its twin. “Remember. We are one.”

Her pooled tears fell from her uncovered eye, staining the olive skin of her gorgeous face, uncertainty flashing within even as she whispered, “And we always will be.”