Looking down at her, I could see that her eyes were half lidded. I doubted she would make it through the first sentence of Emon’s story. “Yes?”
She sighed, "You need to fix my spear. The shadows disappeared when you were captured. Faedere says it was because of the irons."
I nodded, "Yes, of course I will make you a new one. I am sorry, little one."
She grinned happily before another thought captured her attention. "Madere?"
I ran the back of my hand over her smooth cheek, smiling patiently down at her, attempting to set aside the worries and allow the dreams to stay bright in her eyes, just like Emon suggested. Clever shifter, always in tune with others needs even even the ones I didn’t think I required. "Yes, little chickadee?"
"What does my aura look like?"
I blinked.
Realizing I had never checked her aura since the first day we met when the Sanguine masked her true nature. Peering into the swirling gold and emerald of her eyes, I switched my sight and was awed.
Tears welled as I basked in the glory of a brilliant halo of rainbows, sparkling like the exploding stars in the Eithne. A mark of veneration and glory, a mark of atruequeen.
Riella was what I always knew her to be. What Penina had already foresaw. A miracle of hope…the balanced future that Faerie needed to survive.
The demon had been right, there was no doubting it now, no wishing it to be different.
"Riella…my sweet little chickadee, your aura is the most beautiful array of rainbow halos I have ever seen." I felt my tears trickle down my face, "A perfect aura to match our perfect little faeling."
Emon quietly pulled us all in even closer, his hold tightening, his silent strength unwavering.
"Once upon a time," he began, his deep timber voice filled the cave, but I could hear the shakiness beneath. He was just as terrified but he held us up against this new storm all the same, always spreading his golden warmth even when everything felt dead and cold. "There was a young faeling who dreamed of becoming a wolf…"
Chapter 37
ThelasttimeIwatched my soulmate and daughter sleep, I was awestruck by their very presence, but now—now it felt like I was desperately clinging onto each breath, each heartbeat, feeling the seconds stripping away our future.
My time was running out, that much I knew, but the rest was needed. Hell was not for the tame, and we did not know what The Well would bring.
I stared at the letters stacked and bound neatly by a leather cord before me, the firelight highlighting the fine script lovingly marked on each thick sheet by my cramped ink stained hands.
I had run out of paper.
There were over a hundred letters and it still wasn't enough…not even fucking close.
No letter, no poem, no fucking story could ever come close to what I felt for the shadow fae laying beside the warmth of a fire with our daughter wrapped protectively in her arms. My soulmatewas a warrior, a protector of beasts, a fiercely loyal friend, a cunning strategist, a sensual lover, and now a doting mother ready to sacrifice herself to the world. I fucking loved every broken piece of her, honored to stand by her side, and yet I wrote letters...like a goddess damn coward.
Disgusted, I swiped up the stack, and growling at the perfectly folded pieces of paper, I placed them with great care back into the pack—knowing they would be safe until the time came.
Time.
Fuck whoever invented time. They were torturous bastards who must have savored its painfully slow passage and yet—relished accelerating its sadistic torment into having one beg for just a few more seconds of its cruel passing.
I did not enjoy falling prey to its ruthless schemes and I could feel the slightest changes in my body begin. The soulless sleep would not be much longer now.
Snarling silently, I rose and started to quietly pace, picking my way along the rocky interior of the cave. I was a fucking mess of emotions with the physical charged intensity of a beast…I needed to feel the same strain on my body that I now felt weighing heavily on every fabric of my soul.
Keeping enough distance to not wake my daughter and mate but close enough to still see them in the fire glow, I dropped into the shadows of the cave, and began to move. Silently, I shifted in and out of forms, physically exerting my body to erase the deep ache that was festering inside of me and then—releasing it. Finally able to breathe deeper, clearer, and calmer.
I could smell my soulmate's natural floral perfume steadying my heart, the cinnamon spices still left on my daughter's soft breath was the best air in my lungs, and the warmth from the scent of ash easing the knots in my body.
But there was also something else.
I sniffed again, noticing an odd underlying smell within the moment of tranquility.
