She snarled at me and I was slapped forcefully with more of her elemental winds. My nails clawed into the metal table to hold myself steady. “I don’t need your sympathy! I don’t need anything from you. Not anymore! The fae will have what we lost and I will be celebrated once again!” She shrieked.
My shadows darkened much like my heart.“What do you mean not anymore?”
“It means that you have finally served some true purpose. After all these years, I will at last get what I want out of you.” She crooned and smoothed her hands over the curves of her fitted white dress. “I should thank you really.”
“Thank me for what?” I said through clenched teeth while my heart thundered wildly in my chest.
A purely sadistic smile spread across her face and she slowly circled me. I turned with her, following the way she stalked me with analytical precision. The shift of her weight, the limited movement the dress caused her, her hands where she weaved deadly elemental power from. “Did you know that the shadow fae are fertile?” She laughed at the shocked look on my face. “Yes. These humans…for all their insipid savage ways do at least have some intelligence within them. They have discovered that your females are fertile with one tiny caveat.”
She paused when the shadows crept along the floor, under her slippered feet, and towards me. Darkening as they gathered.
Her smile widened and she responded to the darkness with miniature tornados that stirred the sleek silver hair around her as they took form. Their size made them look innocent enough…until they were shoved down the throat of her enemies or used to rip the very flesh off their face, piece by piece—all of which I had seen her do.
“Your females can only be bred with only one lucky male…one male that I have you to thank for discovering.”
Memories of someone else roaring flashed before me and then was gone. I shook away the sense of foreboding that seemed to cling like the blood soaked shirt I still wore under my armor. “Who?”
Deirdre clicked her tongue. “For all that you do see…sometimes you really are blind, Remi darling.” She tutted and then swirled her finger through one of her tornados. Tiny embers of fire sparked within them showcasing her mastery of the elements. “It does not matter who anymore. The human scientists tell me that harvesting your eggs was successful and will now allow a new generation of fae to be born. Except that simply wasn’t enough for me. Why stop with one shadow fae when I can have them all?”
She smirked when the blood drained from my face. Inside my heart stuttered to a halt.
“What have you done?” I whispered.
“Saving our people, Remi darling. Consider your vow to the throne of Faerie now fulfilled my love. The blood of your shadow fae a small price to pay for the many who will graciously live on.”
“You were wrong, my love.” I spat. The endearment now bitter on my tongue. I let go of the metal table and rose to my full height. “I am not broken but you soon will be.” My shadows had been cut off from me for three long torturous months, but now they exploded back into existence, and shot straight towards the Queen of Faerie…the betrayer of my heart.
***
Deirdrereacted quickly, shielding herself with a gust of air and sending the shadows into a splatter of glittering black dust. For a brief moment, we watched the deadly display rain down on us before our eyes locked over the remaining dust, a small trickle of fear flashing in my lover's eyes.
“Whatever is the matter, De, my love.” I mocked. “You look worried.” This time it was me who stalked her slowly, the shadows trailing lazily behind me.
“Worried?” She started laughing and more mini tornados grew around her, their speed intensifying. “It is you who should be worried, you are now worthless to everyone. Not even your body is of use to me anymore.”
I sneered. “You don’t have the power to defeat me or the shadow fae.”
She chuckled. “You have no idea what kind of power I can wield.”
She flung her tornados at me in succession, one after another. Defensively my shadows whipped out against her torrent of power absorbing the air greedily and countering. A wall of searing fire rose, burning the attacking shadows in a sizzling blaze, and sending back cannonballs of molten hot earth. Twirling, I manipulated the dormant shadows of the room to swallow up the molten earth, leaving behind nothing but a smoke filled hiss.
Seeing her attack so easily dismantled, she glowered at the shadows rising around me.
“Disgusting shadows. I am thankful that the humans can manipulate any future offspring to repress your shadow fae genes. They call it genetic engineering. Isn’t that fascinating?” Laughing at my horrified expression she threw another small tornado in my direction and I batted it away with a snap of shadow.
Toying. She was toying with me.
Snarling, the room filled with darkness, swallowing her remaining tornados in its wake. Glowing turquoise eyes narrowed in the dark before a vicious stream of fire lit up the room and roared straight towards me. Dodging it, the shadows snapped around it with a whining hiss, returning the light to the room once more, while they puddled at my feet.
She grinned. “Your shadows still fear my light…how sad for you, Remi darling.” Wielding both air and fire she thrusted more of her power outward, circling it around the room and forcing it to funnel closer and closer to me.
The shadowsshrunk, clawing up my legs, and then layering me in their darkness. Completely blocking the light of my armor.
“We. Fear. Nothing.”
Light whispers, barely audible over Deirdre’s converging powers, seemed to speak directly in my ear.
“Did you just speak to me?” I whispered back to the shadows with awe, not once had I ever heard a sound from them before.
