"Maedere, is brave and good. You should have never been angry at her, faedere." Riella glared up at me.
I smiled down at my fierce daughter and tapped her nose. "You are so right, my cub. There is no fae more brave and good than she." I winked, "besides you that is."
Riella gave me one last narrowed look before nodding in a satisfied manner, turning back to the shadows to pet them.
I chuckled and then glanced back at the worried expression on my soulmate’s face. Smoothing out the wrinkles between her brows, I planted a kiss between them. "Worry not, little umbra. My anger and resentment was short-lived."
"What changed your mind?"
"Natrix Drakaina…" I purred watching her expression, she gave nothing away.
"A silly title given by the dragons. You know this story already."
Gazing deep into her emerald green eyes, I whispered, "Now who is keeping secrets, little umbra."
She scowled and I laughed softly.
"I told you, that I knew you…all of you," I sighed, explaining, "Late one evening, just days before my departure, I received word from a fae I had thought had been slain in battle. He wrote to me saying that he could no longer live with the guilt anymore and that I had to know that he was alive…that so many of my people were living in Faerie's soil under your protection."
She inhaled, "He shouldn't have been able to. It was part of the vows they had to take."
"It was in an ancient language…one I had not recognized before and took me more than a day to decipher. It was in dragon tongue."
Remnant frowned, “Still impossible. He would have died from breaking that vow before it even got to you."
I grinned at her, "Not if it was written by a dragon."
Her eyes widened and then she cursed looking away. "Damned fae and their word games."
"I thought it was a trap at first honestly. Then Bane came to me. Asking me to investigate the rumors of you being a traitor to the throne and that you had disappeared. Then I told him about the strange note I received."
The rising wind blew her hair across her face. "Bane vouched for me."
I arched a brow at her, "Of course he did. He loves you. It's why I haven't killed him yet. After that I was captured and we both know how the story goes from there."
She shivered at the growing cold. "I stayed away after Morta, I feared what I would do, but I often wondered…"
"They are well and to this day, vow they owe you a life debt." Watching her eyes widen at my admission, I arched a brow at her and smirked, "I searched for you for almost one hundred years…you didn't honestly think I left a single blade of grass or grain of sand unsearched in Faerie during that time did you? Of course I checked on the shifter fae of the Southern Mountains."
She shook her head, "The dragons would have killed you on sight."
"My love…there is but one thing that holds more value to a dragon than even their treasure."
Riella held her hand up and exclaimed, "Their mates! Shen Shen told me that the mating bond is the most valuable of all treasures and should be protected at all costs."
I grinned proudly down at my daughter. "Yes. My cub. Their mates."
Riella turned her wide swirling emerald and gold eyes up at me. "Do you think I'll have a soulmate one day faedere? One like you and mother?"
The pookah's red eyes popped open again and glared at me, its ears twitching stiffly.
"There is no fae in this universe that deserves you…no beast either." I glared over at the damned rabbit and noted my daughter’s lip forming into a tiny pout. "But I have no doubt you will be loved by many and perhaps one of them will be your soulmate," I choked out, the words distasteful on my tongue.
Remnant's eyes sparkled at me knowingly and I scowled.
Riella beamed. Her eyes already falling into a daydreaming space, and I prayed vehemently to the goddess that it would be a fucking millennia before such a truth became a reality.
Chapter 52
