The Princess Protects Her Huntsman: A Nocturne Falls Universe Story

by Kira Nyte

  Until another burst of power shattered her makeshift shield and splinters exploded all around them.

  Arrick grabbed her ankle. “Stop it, Rhy. Don’t. Don’t do this. Run.”

  “Absolutely not. I’m through running.” Rhy freed her leg as Siofra stormed over to her. “Get up, Arrick.”

  Arrick howled as Siofra sent splintered bits of Rhy’s once sturdy shield to rip through his clothing and into his skin.

  “Stay down, wolf,” Siofra commanded, her voice brittle as her magic soared. Rhy battled the need to drop to Arrick’s side and take the pain away. If she caved, neither of them would get out of this alive.

  The wind tunnel intensified, reaching up through the canopy of deadened trees. Dirt added to the swirling wind at the base, thickening the mass of woodland scraps spinning in a dangerous column. Surprisingly, the center remained quiet, all except for faint scrapes and crunches and snaps.

  Rhy steadied her stance. One weapon in her pocket, one around her neck. Arrick’s time was running out, and so was hers.

  Siofra stopped a few feet away, electrical blue bolts skittering up her arms. “Where is the Heart?”

  “Answer my questions first. Why do you hate my family? And how is Arrick your kin?” The Heart pulsed against her chest, but the jewel didn’t glow beneath her shirt as she had expected.

  Siofra gestured with one hand and Arrick bellowed at Rhy’s feet. She stiffened, but refused to look at him. She knew the sight of his pain would weaken her resolve.

  “All this time, I thought I needed him to lure you. I did, only I didn’t realize he wouldn’t need to force you.” Another howl, a bellow, and a thrash against the ground. “He is the key, is he not? Will you do anything to save him?”

  “Rhyannon, no!”

  Rhy tuned him out. The pain in his voice threatened her resolve. Siofra’s penetrating gaze allowed for no faltering.

  Digging her fingers into her thighs, she shook her head. “No.”

  Something cracked. Arrick screamed.

  Rhy sucked in a deep breath. Her heart ached. Her belly churned. Either she would be sick or she would make that fatal mistake of looking at Arrick. Her spirit hurt too much knowing the torture Siofra caused him.

  “Let him go. He has no part to play in the Heart. That is solely me.”

  “Without him, I can’t sway your decision, now can I?” Siofra asked, her smile cruel and cold, like her eyes. “Let me show you something.”

  One moment, the space between them was empty. The next, Arrick writhed in the air, his body contorted, half wolf, half man, joints and limbs at unnatural angles.

  The sting of tears shocked Rhy, making her blink several times. She bit down on her lower lip to keep the sudden quiver of her chin at bay. A thin stream of moisture had seeped from the corner of Arrick’s eye.

  “Arrick,” she whispered.

  Arrick shook his head. The motion obviously caused him sheer agony. “Don’t you dare give in, Princess. Don’t.”

  “What will it be?” Siofra asked. “Will you hand the Heart over for your mate? Or will you watch him suffer before he ceases?”

  Rhy stared into the warm honey of Arrick’s eyes, faint wisps of red fluttering through his irises. He silently begged her not to sacrifice herself, her people for him, but her heart spoke volumes against that decision.

  “You can kill your own blood?” Rhy asked.

  “His great-grandfather ruined any love I might have held toward a descendant when he stole my child from me and left this world for the mortal realm. That child was supposed to secure my place by Cascille’s side. Your mother had no right to his hand, or that throne. That was supposed to be mine.”

  Rhy nodded once, keeping her surprise hidden. Now it was starting to make sense. “You seduced Arrick’s great-grandfather to produce a child because my father refused you? How would that child have played a role if he never—”

  “You foolish little girl.” Siofra’s fingers curled, and with the motion, Arrick’s body twisted a little more. Veins bulged in his neck and his face turned a deep shade of red beneath the malformation of bone. Rhy swallowed a lump in her throat. “Naïve as you are innocent. Oh, but he took that from you, did he not? Never mind. Look at him, Princess.”

  The endearment she had come to love from Arrick’s lips inspired an entirely different reaction coming from Siofra’s. There was magic behind her condescending nickname. Magic that filled her gut with heaviness.

  “How much longer do you think he can withstand this torture? You hold the key to his freedom. You are causing his agony. You, and only you, can make it stop or make it worsen until he can stand it no longer. Alas, I grow weary of this game.” She punched out her hand, the one not contorting Arrick, and spread her fingers imperiously. “The Heart. Now.”

  Rhy lifted her gaze from Arrick’s face as his beast-tainted eyes shot to her in desperate protest. Methodically, she reached to the back of her neck and released the clasp of the necklace. She caught the weight of the jewel in her palm and held it up for Siofra to see.

  “This is what you wish to possess?” Rhy asked.

  Siofra scowled. A wave of energy tugged at Rhy’s body, centering on her hand, but quickly fizzled. Siofra issued another pulse of energy with the same result. Rhy grinned.

  “Give it to me!”

  Rhy shook her head. “You believe me foolish. A child.” She looked at the jewel, her grin garnering the weight of her impending decision. “You will not let him live, and certainly not a free man, if I comply with your demands. You will not let me live, nor would you let my family or my people live. Freely. Those who survive will be enslaved to you.”

  Siofra growled, a high-pitched, crazed sound that echoed through the wind tunnel. She flung her arms to her sides. The dirt and debris tunnel exploded. Rhy stood her ground, though she feared the wrath of the sorceress.

  The small woman swept her arms in one direction. Trees creaked and swayed, branches snapping and trunks splitting. The ground began to quake.

  She swept her arms to the other side. Rhy shrieked when Arrick was flung into the destruction as the trees began to break and cave in around them. He slammed into a tree at an impossible height and bounced down the twisted trunk and coiled roots until he hit the ground, to lay there motionless.

  Rhy took one step toward him, then stopped.

  “Give me the Heart!” Siofra screamed.

  Rhy dug into her pocket and pulled out her last weapon.

  A steel-and-iron pin. No more than five inches in length and half an inch in width at its widest, the small object sang through her body with more magic than she had ever beheld.

  One last gift from the Whisperer before she returned to make things right with Arrick and put an end to Siofra’s madness once and for all.

  “Come no closer, Siofra. I will destroy the Heart without thinking twice,” Rhy said. Strength reinforced her voice, strength she latched onto and pulled into her crumbling resilience. Resilience that could be seen in the crumbling forest around them.

  Siofra stopped short, her eyes widening. After a moment, she snickered. “You wouldn’t be so reckless. You and your people depend on that to survive.” She flicked her arm toward Arrick, lying still on the ground. “To save him.”

  Rhy shook her head. “No. The first Queen would not want this for her people. She would have sacrificed herself rather than let the home she loved fall at the hands of such greed.” She pulled her arm back as Siofra swiped for the Heart. “You are not a direct descendent of the first Queen of Andallayne. You have no right to her gift.”

  Rhy’s crucial mistake came a split second later. Her heart drew her attention away from Siofra to glance, simply glance, at Arrick. Her wolf, whom she tried so hard to protect. Vulnerable. She would protect him—

  Siofra slammed into Rhy. They both fell to the ground. The air whooshed from Rhy’s lungs. Her vision blurred when her head smacked against the hard dirt loosened by the quakes.

  Her grip weakened. Th
e Heart bounced out of her palm. Siofra clawed up her legs. Rhy twisted beneath the smaller woman, fighting against the magic trying to bind her to the ground. She groaned against the power and managed to conjure enough strength to draw upon the Goddess’s energy and shove the woman away from her.

  Scrambling to her hands and knees, Rhy searched the ground, desperate to locate the Heart. Dirt poured into thin fissures created by the quakes. Leaves and rocks jumped as branches broke from trees and slammed into the ground.

  A faint pulse of blue and gold caught her attention. Rhy crawled over to the jewel.

  As she reached for the glowing Heart, a pronounced pop-pop-pop echoed in her ears. Closing her fingers around the jewel, she twisted toward the noise that jump-started her heart and her fear.

  And watched in horror as a tree came crashing down to where she lay.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Rhy curled in on herself and tried to pull enough strength from the ground to throw off the tree. The air pressed down on her body as the tree fell at breakneck speed.

  Branches yielded and snapped against the ground.

  The tree never hit her.

  Cautiously, the Heart and pin trapped in her grip, she opened her eyes.

  Well, apparently she was able to muster enough magic through her fear to surround herself with rocks.

  But it wasn’t the rocks that stunned her.

  “You fair well, child.”

  Beyond the rocks, a rippling wall of smoke. Between the rocks and smoke, the Whisperer.

  Her smile was brittle, but her dark eyes glowed with pride. “Come, now.”

  The old crone held out a deformed hand. Rhy gladly accepted her aid and climbed out from the rock fort and fallen tree. As soon as she was steady on her feet, she spotted Siofra spinning in tight circles, her head jerking one way, then the other, in search of something.

  The Whisperer chuckled. “She was never one to lose gracefully.”

  With a quick swipe of her hand, the Whisperer cast the smoky screen aside. Siofra snapped around, shoulders stiffening and eyes going from anger to shock.

  The sorceress shuffled back a step.

  Rhy felt her brow crease as she looked between the two women. The crone let on nothing, a grin stretching her thin lips.

  “Why don’t you go tend to your gentleman friend, child. I believe he needs some care,” the crone suggested loud enough for her voice to carry to Siofra. The sorceress reacted immediately, conjuring a blue bolt of power and launching it at Arrick.

  Rhy lunged toward Arrick’s vulnerable body. The ground shifted beneath her feet, pushing her closer to Arrick at impossible speed. She dove over him, covering his massive frame as best she could with her smaller body.

  Instinctively, Rhy threw her arm out, presenting the Heart to the bolt. Her arm snapped back at the power behind the magic that hit the jewel.

  Only, it reflected the magic.

  Gasping, Rhy watched in amazement as the bolt split into a web-like netting and encompassed Siofra within her own dark magic, knocking her off her feet.

  The ground and the forest ceased shaking.

  The Whisperer tilted her head and observed Siofra for a moment before she straightened her hunched back more than Rhy had ever seen. Those dark eyes turned on her, the grin melting into a wide smile.

  “Well, well, child. Look at you.”

  Rhy let out a sharp breath, one she hadn’t realized remained trapped inside her chest. Arms trembling, she sank against Arrick and searched for the beat of his heart. When the familiar strong thump tapped her palm, she sighed. Arrick was alive, but he was far from okay.

  Rhy shook her head. “Wh-what just happened?”

  “Remember I told you about that decision you would have to make?” The crone wobbled over to her, although her gait appeared far more steady than Rhy recalled. When the crone lowered to her knees beside Arrick, Rhy was certain the woman hid more than the power to hear the universe.

  “Yes.”

  “I forgot to mention something else.”

  Rhy sat back and stared at the crone. “Now you plan on divulging?” She motioned toward the thrashing Siofra contained in her own magical netting. “Do I need to worry about her?”

  The crone waved a hand. Too graceful. “Ah, no.” She giggled. Actually giggled like a song on the breeze. Not the raspy sound Rhy had heard so often. “That look befits her quite well. The flopping fish, so to speak.”

  “Whisperer, you hide something more than information you failed to share with me.”

  No need to skirt her pressing curiosity.

  The crone shrugged a shoulder and placed a hand over Arrick’s forehead. “You’ve been gifted a special spirit mate, Rhyannon. This man is pure of heart and soul. A promise of forever for you.”

  Arrick’s joints popped and his bones cracked. Rhy watched in a mixture of horror and awe as the crone healed his contorted figure, leaving him a full man with no signs of the wolf. The cuts and scrapes on his arms and face disappeared. The scar over his left brow remained, as did the snowy patch of hair, but peace came over his sleeping expression.

  The crone lifted her hand from Arrick and looked up at Rhy. “Mortal, wolf, and Andallayne fae. His fairy blood is weak, but it’s definitely there.”

  “Siofra wasn’t lying about Arrick being a descendant.”

  “No. She was infatuated with your father. Obsessed, one might say. She did everything to win him over, to no avail. So she performed one of the darkest spells one could perform. The masking of another’s conscious decisions for her own benefit. She seduced your father only to realize that her magic held no weight against true love. See, your father had already been introduced to your mother and he fell in love with her the moment he saw her. Spirit mates, your parents, as descendants of the first Queen are often gifted.

  “Siofra would not stand for that and decided to try to deceive your father by carrying another’s child. Her choice of suitors for the job, if you may, happened to be Arrick’s great grandfather. He was a leader, an alpha wolf who made occasional trips to Andallayne, and a promise for success until he stole away from this world for good and took his newborn son with him into the mortal realm. Remember the tether? She could not follow and had not devised a plan to retake her son.”

  Rhy lowered her gaze and stared at the handsome man asleep before her. She threaded her fingers through his soft hair and traced the arch of his brow with her thumb.

  “Will he be all right?”

  The crone nodded once. “Aye, he’ll have a bit of a headache—”

  “Pansa! Let me free!” Siofra shrieked.

  The Whisperer sighed. She brushed her hand over the dirt at her knee. A small dirt spout swirled over the ground until it reached Siofra. Rhy’s lips parted as the dirt lifted the sorceress off the ground and carried her to the crone’s side. With a sharp flick of her wrist, the Whisperer stood Siofra’s bound body upright, then sat her down with a force that caused the sorceress to humph and her eyes to bulge for a brief moment. The blue netting cinched and a patch of damp dirt smacked over her mouth.

  “Behave. I’ve had enough of watching you wreak havoc. I’m stripping you of your powers when I’m through here,” the crone scolded.

  Rhy shifted on her knees. “Um, I mean no disrespect, but—”

  The Whisperer danced her fingers in the air. A faint shimmer of silver and green rained down over the crone, obscuring her dark clothing and ragged face. When the magic cleared, Rhy slapped a hand over her mouth.

  “Siofra believed she had siphoned my powers long, long ago.” The Whisperer’s blue eyes sparkled with delight before they hardened as she turned to look at her sister. “We are twins, dear sister. One of the same, though I find shame in claiming any relation to you. When did you forget that, had you destroyed me, you would have destroyed yourself?”

  Siofra struggled against her restraints. The Whisperer turned back to Rhy, who couldn’t seem to feel her body. The crone, the old, rickety crone, wasn’t a
crone, but the lost sister to Siofra? Her long blond hair, delicate face, graceful demeanor and the serenity that poured from her left no room for doubt.

  “My own selfishness let this go on far too long. You see, when I strip her of her powers, I will be stripping mine as well. I believed that my gift with the universe outweighed the dangers she presented.” She lowered her attention to Arrick and traced the scar on his forehead. “No power, no gift, no magic is worth more than the free will of another. I was going to end this long ago until the universe whispered Arrick’s destiny to me.”

  The Whisperer’s smile returned when she looked up at Rhy. The beautiful woman reached over and gently lowered Rhy’s hand from her mouth.

  “You both are destined for greatness unlike any this land has seen in a very long time. Together, you will make Andallayne flourish and thrive. You will give your people the security they have lost during Siofra’s torment and the promise of safety and a wonderful future. Your friendships in the mortal realm will forge wondrous bonds between the Andallayne people and those of magic who live beyond our world.”

  “You’ve been hiding all these years?”

  The Whisperer shook her head. “No, child. Not hiding. If I were in hiding, I would not have interacted with you and your family. I was following the path I was meant to follow until this moment.” She eased the pin from Rhy’s clenched fist. “This would have scratched the jewel, but not destroy the Heart.” She fit the tip into a small hole at the top of the gold casing. “When it is time, open the casing. All you need is a single drop of the essence placed in the fountain at the center of your home. Keep the Heart in good care, Rhyannon.”

  The woman rose to her feet with the ease of agile youth. Rhy clambered off the ground.

  “Wait. Pansa. That’s your name?”

  The woman nodded. “Yes.”

  “Tell me what became of my parents.”

  The Whisperer held up her hand. A smoky orb formed in her palm to display an underground cavern much like the one she’d brought Rhy to. “They are well. Revive Andallayne and you will see your family again.”