I smiled sadly back at her. I wasn’t even shocked that our bond had strengthened enough for her to communicate with me. There was no fae more powerful than my soulmate.
“That makes two of us, fairy boy.”My panther growled, coming out of his self hibernation.
“This doesn't fucking look good, cat.”
“As you always love to say, Daemon Ash Strider…we’ve been through worse.”
Before I could make a complete fool of myself by saying something truly sentimental to the being that drove me half mad my entire life, a deep ominous cackle came from the suspended twisted form of the master healer, the undertone of the voice I knew well enough.
Deirdre had come and she was playing her sick games again.
“Well, well, well. How very quaint, father and son kings together again, and my former lover—all trembling before me as it should have always been.”
I narrowed my eyes on the way Jar’s red gaze searched the room, landing on everything and nothing at the same time.
“Where oh where could my golden one be…I’ve so missed you growling for me, shifter king.”
I held my hand up to prevent the others from speaking and shot through the soulmate bond.“Say nothing, little umbra. No matter what. I suspect she can only hear us, not see us.”
I stepped forward loudly and red eyes latched on the sound of my steps, just as I had anticipated.“Alas, there was nothing I missed about you, Deirdre, or shall I call you the Blood Witch now?”
Jarquinn-Deirdre cackled again and I braced against the diseased feel of the Sanguine power pulsing through the room. “I prefer Blood Goddess now.” The sickening sound of the healer’s body breaking filled the hushed space followed by the anguished roaring of the leopard on the other side of the door. “The power of blood, the Sanguine, allows me to control anything and everything. You were clever to trap me here shifter, but it only allowed me to grow more powerful. Look how I make your powerful ancient dance for me!”
“Your pathetic paltry tricks don't make you a goddess, Deirdre. It just confirms you’re still a psychotic bitch.”
“Careful, my golden king.” The former Queen of Faerie warned from Jarquinn’s lips. “I can still make your healer suffer so much more than just this pain…perhaps using him to slice open his own son’s throat beyond that door will be needed. His incessant mewling is grating on my nerves.”
The roars beyond the doors suddenly changed to squealing shrieks as Deirdre flexed her powers beyond the doorway for demonstration. I had no fucking idea how she was doing it, but it ended now.
“Stop this at once!” I stepped forward again, my entire body shaking with rage. “Why have you come here? What do you want?”
“What I want!” The twisted creature hissed, the Sanguine power pulsed within the room. “What I want is what was stolen from me! What I want is what should have been mine! And I will take it back!”
“Emon!”
I spun with a growl when Remnant cried out, reaching out to her shadows with concentration, attempting to wield them back to her as they were being dragged across the floor, no longer protecting our child. They sputtered and churned at the wooden floor, attempting to crawl back towards us, even gripping onto my booted feet. I reached for them but my hands just fell through their smokey darkness before they snapped up around Jarquinn’s body.
Take…the shadows whispered one last time.
“I don’t have control of them.” Remnant cried softly.
“That’s because I control them, Remi darling. They are mine now and soon this city will be too! I will use them to destroy it, just like you did to mine.” Screeched Jarquinn-Deirdre.
“No.” Remnant whispered wide eyed as her shadows slowly bled from black to a deep burgundy red.
“Blood will run on the darkened moons.”Ethereal hissed and my own blood went cold.
If Deirdre gained the power of the shadows…then there would be nothing left of Finlandia, just like the City of Light.
Nothing could match that kind of power…nothing but mine but it was too violent, too unstable.
“Release it!”Roared the panther, but it was already too late.
The shadows had succumbed to the Sanguine.
Before we could react, the burgundy tendrils slammed into both my father and I, sending us across the room like annoying insects instead of the full bodied shifters we were. Grunting, I hit the wall hard, white plaster raining down around me. My father yanked me upright from the wreckage before more of the wall came tumbling down.
I blinked, peering through the dusty sunlight to see my soulmate at the window and I could hear the faint sound of Penina’s voice calling to her. Lifting Riella into her arms, Remnant gave our daughter a soft kiss on her forehead, dropping a necklace with an indigo scale over her neck before tossing her into the street below. Slowly, with devastation in her eyes, my soulmate turned back into the room, the ringing sound of her sword being drawn sending a pit of dread deep into my stomach.
