Page 58 of Shadows Ascend
My hand sliced through the air, my eyes slashing towards the healer angrily. "I'd be very careful with the next words you speak, Jar."
My soulmate's touch lowered my threatening claws, her lip curled back with irritation and her glare just as strongly directed at the pookah. "I don't like this either, shifter, but if this pookah can provide Riella with even more protection, then I am willing to have the creaturetag along."
The pookah’s eyes shifted slowly to my soulmate before he morphed into a small black gnome, bowing low.
I bared my fangs and hissed, watching its gnome body startle and then mock me, snapping into the damned rabbit again, teeth bared.
Riella hugged my leg and then looked up at me pleadingly, her eyes back to the even swirl of green and gold. "Please, faedere?"
My eyes widened and Remnant’s filled with tears. Faedere meant father in ancient fae, its use one of love and trust. "Where did you learn that word?"
Her lip stuck out and she hesitated, glancing at Jar who nodded to her encouragingly, "The grove, they call Master Jar faedere and I wanted—I…"
“Your clever little cub asked me if it meant father and if she could call you this too.” Jar said softly.
I dropped to my knees in front of her, trying to choke back the burn of emotions leaving me speechless. Since the moment I knew Riella to be mine I had been overcome by my failure to protect her, the fear that I could never amount to be the father that she deserved and yet—here she was, with big unsure eyes, taking me in as her own, claiming me as her family…herfaedere.
Remnant’s hand squeezed my shoulder and I placed mine overtop of it, reaching out to my daughter with my other and sweeping back her hair. Hair so much like her mother’s. “Ofcourse you may call me this, my little cub. As long as you choose to, never because you feel as if you must,” I choked.
Her face instantly switched from weariness to full joy. Throwing herself into me, her small arms barely wrapped around my wide frame as she rubbed her face into my chest. Happily, I held her tightly, inhaling her sunlit meadow scent that reminded me too damn much of home and of how quickly things could change.
Looking up, I scowled over my cub’s shoulder at the pookah, “I will allow you to join us but I will not tolerate secrets…” I started saying, but then Riella cheered, jumping out of my arms, and reaching out to the spirit guide with needy fingers. Its lithe bunny frame hopping up to her shoulder.
“Thank you, thank you!”
Rising, I held up my hand and her cheers disappeared but her wide smile did not. Suddenly, I knew I had another weakness—her smile undoing me just like her mother’s in a much different way. Goddess help me the day my daughter learnedthat. “On one condition. I want to know what that damned thing is whispering to you andwewill determine if it is safe or not." Looking up at Remnant, she nodded, before I shot our daughter a stern look. "Understood?"
Petting the red eyed glaring rodent, Riella looked up at me smiling even harder, hugging my leg tightly to her. "I understand, faedere. Thank you!" She nuzzled her sweet innocent face into my hip once more and I chuckled, patting her head affectionately. My hand stilling when the pookah's paws also embraced my leg.
I glared down at it and held back my growl at the utter possession in its eyes. A claim on my daughter I wanted to snuff out of its tiny body"Game on you bastard."
I thought I'd have at least a few thousand years before I had to worry about sharing my daughter with another being…no matter what the goddess fuck it was—it seemed I was wrong.
Jar chuckled softly, and I looked up to see his soft blue eyes observing me, full of pride, and twinkling with a mixture of amusement and sadness.
It was time to leave—and I couldn’t help but think he had mastered this whole thing, sending me off whole and healed again, along with a well placed gnome attack that still fucking throbbed, a new beat of my heart claimed by my daughter, and the gift of a feral spirit guide as our final goodbye. All that was missing…
Jar winked, tilting his head downward and I followed, snorting.
There they were…the exact thing that was missing from this perfect moment.
Unicorn slippers.
Chapter 24
Ourgoodbyeswereshort.
Emon held on to the master healer longer than the rest of us, knowing that it was likely the last time we would ever see him again. Both had tears in their eyes when they pulled away and when Emon turned to leave he never looked back—but I did.
When Jar's crystal blue eyes met mine for the last time, I felt the horrible images of his death wash away, leaving me with the beautiful sight of him standing in his loving grove of yellow dying kisses floating around him, his smile as bright as the sun peeking through the trees, and then he was gone.
The moment we stepped back through the light we were on the main silver path where the cù-sìth still rested peacefully, snoring loudly under the star-filled twilight, completely unaware that wehad been gone.
But there was one obvious new addition to our little party and it was in the form of a demon eyed black bunny sitting smugly upon my daughter's shoulders. While Emon's distaste for the spirit guide was obvious, mine was much more subtle.
I called to a small shadow upon an embankment of a dune and watched as it rose up to trail over my knuckles, swirling around my arm before morphing into a spear that my daughter recognized immediately.
"Is that for me?!" She jumped with excitement, forcing the pookah to struggle and hold its purchase on her shoulder.
