Dark brows furrowed over her moonlit eyes. “You don’t know me, shifter, not really.”
“Don’t I?” I spoke softly. From the moment our soulmate bond clicked into place I had made it my life’s purpose to know everything there was about her. I investigated every whispered story, searched through every dusty tome, traveled through the lands she had left her mark on, spoke with the beasts she loved, and worst of all, sought the advice of the swordmaster that trained her. Iknew her—I understood her, probably better than she understood herself.
She shook her head. “Those shifters in the woods wanted something from you. What was it?”
Raking my hand through my hair, I carefully crafted my answer. “They wanted the location to a lost gateway.”
Her hand stilled from petting the shadows. “That information would be useless to them. Only those who hold the crown may open a gateway and they have all been closed forever.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why wouldyouknow the location of a lost gateway?”
I shrugged. “Unfortunate circumstances of my existence I suppose.”
Her gaze dropped down to my satchel sitting on the ground next to me. “Your bag. That is why you stored it with the weretree.” She sniffed with approval. “Clever, but again risky. He could have just as easily bit you instead.”
I smiled wide, not bothering to correct her. What I carried in my bag was far more precious than any gateway location. “I’m a shifter…being cursed in a wolf form isn’t far from the curse I already carry with my own beast. Besides, they don’t like the taste of us.”
“Fairies are especially revolting. I do not blame the weretree.”My cat purred back.
“I wonder if weretrees would enjoy cat chow instead?”I mused back to him.
I leaned forward. “The real question you should be asking yourself is how those bastards could have even known about the gateway…there’s only one other fae I know from these lands that knew of its location. The one fae you claim is dead.”
My senses piqued while I specifically avoided Deirdre’s name, a trigger for her panic back in the woods. Watching for her eyes to dilate, listening for her breathing to increase, smelling the sour sharpness of pain—all signs of panic that I was familiar with since it plagued me many nights as well.
Instead, I scented the piercing iciness of her anger. “I’ll play.” She hissed. “If I were to believe that she is truly alive, then everything you spoke of…those creatures, the diseased land, this lost gateway is all part of her grand scheme. To what purpose?”
I inhaled sharply. For a moment, her scent changed. The normal floral scent intensified as she spoke of the long dead Queen ofFaerie and I knew then… no matter how much Remnant despised her, I would still be competing with the ghost of a tainted love to win over her heart.
“Those creatures are called blood wraiths…a product from the Sanguine. That information we know for a fact, it was verified by one of our ancients in The West Isles who fought them in the Blood Wars.” I tore into the dried beef the shadows had dumped on my bed roll. “I believe her aim is still the same as it has always been. Look around you, what do you see?”
“I don’t need to look to see, shifter.” She snapped. “It is the absence of life. The absence of the goddesses light.”
I nodded. “Exactly.” I ripped into another bite of beef with my fang and watched the blush of her anger drain to white.
“You believe she is attempting to create life again…using the Sanguine.” She whispered.
The growl released from me was guttural. “Yes.”
Her jaw clenched. “All based on a hunch that she is alive of course. There is nothing definitive that you have told me that proves that.”
Humming, I dug my claws into the dead earth, scooping up the lifeless ash and letting it fall between us. I needed to tread carefully here. If I said too much she would piece together who I truly was and I needed her safe in The West Isles before then. “Those shifters you disposed of, do you know who their leader is, who they take orders from?”
She watched the crumbled ash float to the ground before answering. “No, but I am sure you are about to tell me.”
“Falcon.” I spat, tasting the foulness just uttering that name created.
Remnant’s spine straightened and the moon-casted shadows darkened around us. “Impossible. Must be an imposter. A copycat.” She hissed with brutal vehemence.
“I know enough about you that you don’t prescribe to coincidences nor do you leave loose ends. Are you willing to risk the possibility that the bastard is still alive?”
She looked away, her blue black hair falling in a curtain over her shoulder and shielding her just like the shadows. “No. I would not.” Her voice whispered across the deadlands, the air carrying it across the loose ash. “It took two days for the dust to finally settle when my city was destroyed. Two days I stood vigilant. Waiting. Just waiting for signs of life.” She swept her hair back and glared atme. “It never came and yet…I am to somehow trust the words of a shifter I do not know? Trust you when you say that the two fae that deserved to die that day, should have died, did not?”
I inhaled deep. She needed a truth and I would give her one. “The lost gateway…it is to the Sanguine. I know where it is and I can open it. Prove me wrong…” I swallowed hard. “Prove that they are dead and then you can walk away from me…from this, from Faerie forever.”
Chapter 10
Mysoulmatearchedabrow at me suspiciously. “Your words make you sound desperate and I want to know why.” She held up her hand. “It’s not that this world is dying. It’s something else.”
I leaned back on my arms and sighed. “I wish it was desperation, little umbra. This isn’t desperation. This is confidence. You’re just going to have to learn to trust me.”
