I raised a brow, "Rodents?"
Emon smirked, "Yes rodents, what could possibly make you think otherwise, little umbra?"
I shook my head and Riella laughed.
"To catch these rodents," Emon shot us both a sharp look, "the baker had it warded so anything or anyone trespassing would be frozen still under its spell. Even that would have been fine, except the baker also placed a slippery trap, one that caused me to fall face first into the floor the moment the wards were activated. I was found that morning, my face smashed still on the floor in my own blood, with a crushed nose, and a half eaten pastry in my hand."
I sputtered before bursting out in laughter at the same time as Riella gasped with alarm. "Did it hurt, father? Were you okay?"
Emon leaned forward and kissed her head softly. "Yes, of course I was okay. Remember I am the strongest shifter in the universe. It was my ego that hurt more than my nose ever did that morning." He stroked her hair again with a fond smile on his face. "The baker was horrified that he had caused harm to the golden prince though and he did not hesitate to find help, which included my parents. When the wards were finally lifted, some of the spell lingered because it had mixed with my own blood, leaving my nose to heal out of alignment." Emon wrinkled his perfectly imperfect nose, but to me, the defect, had only made his roguish charm even more alluring.
I laughed softly. "Daemon Ash Strider, King of Shifters, Thief of Pastries."
Riella rose up suddenly and kissed Emon's nose one more time and he blinked down at her with surprise, "What was that for, my cub?"
She smiled shyly at her father, lowering herself back down into the covers and snuggling against his chest. "Making sure my kiss will be frozen on your nose forever."
I swallowed hard against the burning emotion rising in my throat and for the sweet innocence that was our daughter. Such a goddess blessed miracle that I was just honored to be in the presence of, let alone be allowed to grow a bond with her and to be a part of her family…to be her mother.
Emon gruffly cleared his throat, "Thank you, my cub. It will always be with me now."
Riella yawned, her eyes closing, lashes fluttering over her bronze cheeks, "I never had a bedtime story before," she admitted. Blindly reaching back, she pulled me closer to her, sandwiching herbody between the two of us. "They are just how I imagined them to be. I think I will want one every night."
My eyes blurred as they met Emon's. Tears of both sorrow and joy threatened to spill over my cheeks. "Then you shall have them every night for as long as you wish, my chickadee," I choked out.
She yawned again, her voice barely a whisper as she fell asleep. "Then I wish to have them every night for forever."
Emon kissed her softly, "Wish granted, my cub."
Chapter 11
Istaredoutoverthehorizon at churning seas where flying fish jumped in and out of the aquamarine waters, while a pod of nymph's shot out of the depths to catch them with their needled teeth.
Frowning, I tracked the sun falling to the west, its rays glittering across the waves…but that couldn't be right. In my homeland the sun set upon The Red Caps, not an ocean…and it rose across these very waters in the east, which meant, this wasn't the West Isles, it was Faerie.
Spinning, I cataloged the white marbled city I only had the misery of seeing one other time in my life before I stood upon its ruins with a mixture of satisfaction and heartbreak almost one hundred years ago.
"The City of Light had such beautiful views." A voice sighed with nostalgia behind me—a voice that sent a dark sense of dread down my spine and made the hairs on the back of myneck rise.
Snarling, I turned on the voice, wanting to rip it from its owner more than anything else in this world. "Deirdre. I was wondering when you would show your cunt face."
She grinned in her silver splendor, her turquoise eyes, much like the waters I had just admired, glittering with pleasure. "Perhaps it was your wondering that allowed me entry. Even now you have not stopped thinking about me, shifter king."
"You are right about that Deirdre." My fangs lengthened. "I have not stopped thinking about all the ways I will kill you one day, if I could I would do it now."
Her cold laugh affected me more than I cared to admit, nausea rolling in my stomach. The sound so similar to the days I spent under her evil torture.
"You will have to keep dreaming about me then shifter king, since neither of us can hurt one another in the spirit realm…physically that is."
My brows rose. "You intend to impart some sort of fucked up psychological warfare on me now, is that it…haven't you tired of your monotonous games?"
She pursed her blood red lips, the same color bleeding into her eyes as burgundy shadows whirled around her. I narrowed my gaze on the umbras that had once been my friends, feeling their desperate cries for help beneath the corruption of power that dominated their greatness.
"I hear you have lost your beast. You should be really careful around those who have lost their souls…you never know who might be listening. Quite the family drama you have had recently." She circled around me, her tiered silver gown flowing with her sensuous stride that made my dick shrink inside myself. "I can help you get him back, you know." Her eyes gleamed. “Give me the child and you can be whole again."
My claws extended as I tracked her movement with a vicious grin. "You had your chance at being a mother. Your son died in the wars, perhaps you should have taken better care of him instead of scheming for a crown."
Her eyes bled red, "so the healer shared the secret story after all did he? What was it like to watch his head roll from his body I wonder?"
