"Whatever do you mean, shifter? I have never stopped."
Chapter 38
Agoddessforsakeniceplunge—that'swhat this water felt like as the bubbles foamed around us in the dark waters. Tickling along our bodies…downward?
I frowned. That was strange. And so was the immense pressure of the churning water…as if I had entered somehow into the deep ocean floor instead of just breaking its surface.
Warm smooth skin brushed against the pebbled chill of my own. Squinting, Emon's hand pointed down while still holding onto our daughter. Her spear still grasped tightly in her hands."Up is down, down is up. I have a feeling we are no longer in Greed territory, little umbra."
Looking downward, my brows raised at the sudden flashes of light shooting through even heavier churning waves—the dark waters were lighter below us and a pitch black cavernous darknessabove.
Blowing another bubble out from my shadow mask, I watched as it trailed downwards. My shifter soulmate was right, this realm was mirror layered.
Flipping over, Emon began to swim and I followed, watching with amusement as Riella flipped and twirled in the water, she was in her element—her first home having been the ocean.
My chest tightened. Did she miss it? Would she like the life Emon and I could provide her if we succeeded in saving Faerie? And where exactly would that be? The shifter fae court, the ruins of Faerie, the shadow fae court, perhaps back to my beloved cabin in the Wildwoods? Or would Riella do as she dreamed and raise Atlantis?
A tingling rush of foaming bubbles suddenly flew around us and with it the gaping mouth of the demon worm."Swim faster! The caoránach comes!"I screamed at Emon, grasping for the shadows made by the flashing light below us…or was it above us, damn the goddess to Sheol, I had no idea anymore.
"You better be fucking right behind me, little umbra,"Emon snarled in my mind. I didn't dare look up, keeping all my attention on the deadly and pissed off caoránach zig zagging in the churning waters with amazing speed, its ghostly white eyes boring into me, fins widening like a cobra head ready to strike.
"I am behind you,"I sent back.
"Goddess damn it, Remnant,"he snarled back at the same time as the worm serpent bellowed.
"You cannot escape me!"
Netting the shadows, I cast them outward, ensnaring the creature's snarling mouth and then constricting the darkness to slam it shut. A moaning wail shattered through the waters and I tightened the remaining shadows quickly around my wrist, saying a silent prayer before dodging out of the Caoránach’s careening path. Holding tight to the shadows I had entangled the beast in, I twirled violently around it before slamming hard into its thick scaled back. Gasping, the air was punched from my body with the extra weight of our bag smothering me.
Gritting my teeth and struggling to inhale, I tightened my legs around the mother demon worm’s thick body squinting through the rushing water. Hanging on desperately, it bucked and altered its course, propelling straight for my soulmate and daughter.
Loosening the tension in my body, adjusting to the extra weight at my back, my thighs tightened on my stolen ride, andI conformed to its movements. Focusing all my energy on the massive amount of shadows I was wielding, I allowed calm to settle over me. This was a matter of life or death for my family now and I could not fuck this up.
Encasing them in shadows, I portled them, a trick my brother and mother used often, while the caoránach charged through empty seas. Within seconds my family was delivered in the shadows behind me, directly onto the back of the deadly worm.
"Hold tight!"I screamed into Emon's mind, instantly feeling his strong arms wrapping around my torso, sandwiching our daughter between us, her spear tilted forward over my shoulder.
"I thought we had agreed that I'd be the only beast you'd be riding from now on,"Emon griped, but he could not fully hide the laughter smothered beneath his sullenness.
I smiled despite the strain."I would be foolish to make such an agreement, shifter but I can vow that yours is the only ride that can thoroughly satisfy me so transcendently."
Together the three of us spiraled into a vast vortex of water and Emon’s hold tightened, keeping Riella locked between us. The caoránach wailed through its shadow bonds with furious frustration. Its hisses sending raging bubbles around us while bright green venom leaked from her clamped mouth.
The dizzying spins continued and Riella screamed as we broke the surface of the raging waters, the serpent's propulsion sending us corkscrewing into a sudden blast of ice cold winds, and bright lightning. An angry ocean rose as we climbed above it, attempting to reclaim us back into its deep dark depths. Straining, my tenuous hold on the shadows broke and we became momentarily weightless.
Frantically, I reached for more shadows but was unable to grasp them as we began to fall, the gigantic worm wriggling in the stormy skies below us before a blur of shadow rushed by me. For the briefest of moments, my heart was overjoyed. My shadows had come, they freed themselves from Deirdre's clutches and came to save us.
Then Emon's roar, so loud it broke over the ferocious winds and thunderous cracking of lightning, shattered that small amount of hope I had, sending nothing but frozen fear straight down my spine.
"Riella!"he screamed, reaching for our daughter, but she was mere shadows now, blurring away from him with only a glinting cú sithefang flashing through the pelting rain.
Seeing its oncoming death, the creature rotated, stretching its finned head upwards towards my shadow shifter daughter. I recognized this type of desperation. The demon worm mother knew her end was coming and she would take whatever she could with her—to be buried together in the dark graves of the ocean.
But I wasalsoa mother and nothing would ever take my daughter from me.
No creature could ever take her from me.
No god could ever say I wouldn't sacrifice everything I had to keep her safe.
