The Magic Hunt (Midnight Hunters)

by Raand, L. L.

Sylvan stared at the slender, otherworldly beautiful female whose arrogance, even naked and surrounded by Weres, was only slightly tempered by her courtly manners. She read only truth in the blue eyes that returned her gaze—unchallenging but intimidated. “Holding a royal Fae prisoner is bold, even for Francesca. Is your queen aware you were imprisoned?”

  Misha rumbled, unable to control the quick burst of fury from her wolf.

  “Yes, Alpha,” Torren said easily. “I owed the Viceregal a debt for encroaching uninvited in her territory and executing a Vampire under her protection.”

  “Why?”

  Torren smiled. “I’m afraid I cannot say.”

  “You come to me and ask for sanctuary,” Sylvan growled, “and yet you will not tell me of your crimes. I have no reason to involve my Pack in Vampire and Fae business. What is to prevent me from returning you to Francesca and putting her in my debt?”

  “A safe and wise move,” Torren said. “But I believe Cecilia, Queen of Thorns, would owe you a favor if you aided me in escaping capture and, in all likelihood, execution as punishment for my escape.”

  “And what need have I of a favor from the Faerie Queen?”

  “For centuries, the Gates have been closed to all beyond the Realm, and the Fae have kept apart from the affairs of Vampires and Weres. Now the Exodus has opened wide the Gates. The Queen of Thorns values strong allies.”

  “Francesca and I already have a truce. If I harbor you, I will endanger that truce. In the morning, we will return you to her.” Sylvan turned and draped an arm around Drake’s neck. “Let’s go to bed.”

  Torren had only one thing left with which to bargain. When Cecilia had ordered her to track the Crown Princess into the human realm, she had offered Torren certain protections to ensure the mission’s success. Torren said quietly, “Have you ever heard of the Shadow Lords?”

  Slowly, Sylvan turned, her wolf pushing to the surface. She leapt down the stairs and grasped Torren’s throat. “I do not play Fae games. Speak plainly or I will execute you myself, here and now.”

  Sylvan’s power cloaked Torren in moonlight, vast and impenetrable. But Sylvan’s power was of the living, of the natural world, unlike the Vampires, whose power rose from the night and the dead. Torren opened herself to the moonlight, to the windsong, to the earth below her, and her magic flirted with Sylvan’s power until her mind and Sylvan’s slid past one another on the wind. She called up the image of a meeting under a bridge beside the Hudson where she’d watched from a boat with the other Fae royal guards.

  Sylvan loosened her hold but kept Torren in her grip as murky images slowly swam into focus. Francesca with Bernardo, the rogue Were whose Pack had tried to kill her, and a human male—silver haired and superior, despite his human frailty. Others she could not quite see clearly. All of them meeting in secret. She opened her eyes, met Torren’s, and released her. “You are more than a royal guard.”

  “I’m a tracker, of the House of Edric.”

  “Not just any tracker, then,” Sylvan murmured. “You are Cecilia’s Master of the Hunt.”

  Torren nodded.

  “All the more reason for me to distrust you.” Sylvan’s canines gleamed. “Misha, Callan, take her to the barracks. Treat her as a guest, but put a guard on her room. If she attempts to escape, bind her in iron and bring her to me to kill.”

  Chapter Nine

  Drake stood on the porch with Sylvan as the forest swallowed the red glow of the Rovers’ taillights. Clouds moved in overhead, blurring the sharp edges of the gibbous moon, cloaking its brilliance with a murky haze. The clearing in front of the den descended into darkness for long moments at a time until a splinter of silvery light escaped the blanketed sky and arrowed down from above, only to be extinguished between one heartbeat and the next.

  The dark was no deterrent to those who lived by night. Here and there bright eyes glinted in the underbrush—foxes and opossums and skunks, stealthily hunting for food. The soft rustle of owls’ wings as they swooped down to capture mice was a whisper in the trees. Somewhere in the forest, centuri kept watch. Even inside the Compound, the Alpha pair was not without protection. Sylvan would have dismissed the guards, but to do so would have only created anxiety among the Pack. Drake had gotten used to the constant presence of others, even in her most intimate moments with her mate. Only when they hunted, when they outran everyone and everything, were they ever alone. The memory of where they had been only hours before, alone in the heart of their land—of how they had been together, free and completely joined—pierced her with a sense of longing she rarely acknowledged. As quickly as the melancholy rose, she pushed it away. She had chosen Sylvan, and with Sylvan came this life and all its demands.

  “Are you sad?” Sylvan asked, her eyes as bright and sharp as those of the predators stalking the forest.

  “No,” Drake said quickly. And because Sylvan could read her moods, and her mind, with greater clarity every day, she added, “Never sad, and no regrets. But you’re not the only one who worries.” She brushed her fingers through Sylvan’s mane, grown fierce and wild like her in the last few weeks. “I worry for you.”

  Sylvan leaned her bare back against the rough-hewn porch post and drew Drake against her, face-to-face. She held her loosely around the waist, her hands sliding under Drake’s shirt for the contact all mated pairs needed, even more so in times of danger. “Do not worry for me. I have you, and now the young, and that gives me all the strength I need.”

  Drake knew better but didn’t argue. Sylvan couldn’t change who she was, nor would Drake want her to, but she still bore the scars where the bullets had entered her chest and belly, filling her with silver and nearly killing her. When Sylvan’s wolf emerged, small dark patches marred the silver of her pelt, marking the wounds—badges of courage and a constant reminder that Sylvan, for all her strength and power, was not indestructible. Drake lightly kissed the mate bite on Sylvan’s chest, and Sylvan rumbled, both a warning and an invitation. Just as quickly, Drake readied for her. Sylvan’s call was impossible to withstand, for any wolf near enough to feel it. And perhaps, thinking of what she’d witnessed when Sylvan subdued the Fae, not just wolves. The Fae had done something to…with…Sylvan that was as potent as a touch. And no one touched her mate. Snarling softly, Drake leaned back in Sylvan’s arms. “I almost challenged the Fae when she spread her magic over you. She is either very strong or very foolish to try that, especially in front of me.”

  “She is strong and far from foolish.” Sylvan pulled Drake’s T-shirt off and gripped Drake’s ass, yanking her closer until their thighs met. Silver pelt, her wolf’s call to join, slashed down the trench in the center of Sylvan’s abdomen and disappeared under the waistband of her low-slung pants. “But no challenge to you. Your wolf can rest easy.”

  “My wolf guards what is hers.” Drake slid her mouth down Sylvan’s throat, grazing her with the sharp points of her canines, and Sylvan’s rumble became a growl. Heat radiated from Sylvan’s bare torso and pheromones glistened on her breasts and belly. Satisfied, Drake relaxed against her. “What did you see out there, in the clearing with the Fae?”

  “Did you feel her magic?”

  “Not feel it, exactly. I almost thought I could see it.” Drake recalled the way the air glowed around Torren and Sylvan, as if the floating particles had come to life.

  “You might have seen some of it—you are strong enough. She can project her magic and with someone weaker, enchant them. Her illusions would feel real in the body and the mind.”

  Drake snarled again. “Did she try to touch you?”

  “Of course—she is not just Fae, she is the Master of the Hunt, one of the oldest and most powerful of the Fae royals. She tested me, as I would test her if I found myself a prisoner in her realm.” Sylvan smiled. “But she cannot enchant my wolf—my wolf belongs to you.”

  “What about the rest of our wolves? Are even the mated wolves safe from enchantment?”

  Sylvan sighed. “I don’t know if any o
f them are safe. The mate bond prevents other wolves from approaching and trying to tangle. If the bond didn’t exist—a kind of natural invisible barrier—our territorial instincts would force us to constantly challenge and fight. But Cecilia’s hunt master has spent centuries enchanting weaker prey—human and Praetern. Centuries ago when the Were-Vampire wars raged across Europe, the Wild Hunt enchanted many Weres into Faerie, where the Fae bred with them to strengthen their lines.”

  “Was that Torren’s doing, then, too?”

  “The Fae are extremely long-lived.” Sylvan shrugged.

  “And now she’s here, when another war is under way.”

  “The Fae are clever and wise. Torren might have been sent to gather intelligence, but she is capable of gathering much more than that.”

  “She needs to be watched,” Drake said.

  “She will be.”

  “What did she do to you?”

  “She showed me a gathering.” Sylvan described the murky images. “I couldn’t tell when, but the meeting seemed to be under cover of darkness, and Bernardo was there.” Sylvan’s features grew sharp and angular. “And Francesca and Nicholas Gregory.”

  Ice filled Drake’s chest. Not fear, but hard, lethal anger. They knew but could not prove Gregory was behind the recent attack. “Can you trust this vision?”

  Sylvan swept her hand up Drake’s back, spreading warmth wherever she touched. “I don’t trust anything about the Fae. Until the Exodus, we had not dealt with them for centuries. They couch their truths in fable and riddles. Ancient lore says they do not lie—cannot lie—but I’m not sure I believe that. We’ve all changed.”

  “And this Torren,” Drake said, “if she is who she says she is, what is she doing here?”

  “Another question she managed to avoid answering while appearing to answer.” Sylvan laughed shortly. “There are very few reasons why Cecilia would have allowed someone with Torren’s status and power to leave Faerie for any length of time, so I can only guess some kind of emergency brought her here.”

  Drake stared into the forest, wishing she could see all the way to the Compound. Having someone with Torren’s power inside their sanctuary had her wolf pacing anxiously. “If Torren is so important, why would Cecilia leave her in Francesca’s prison?”

  “You’re asking me to think like a Fae,” Sylvan said lightly. “An impossible task. However, I doubt Cecilia wanted Torren’s true identity revealed, especially to Francesca. Plus time does not mean to the Fae what it means to other Praeterns, even to the Vampires. A hundred years, five hundred years, is nothing. And they love games—so who knows what Cecilia may have wanted Torren to do.”

  “Maybe Torren was sent to spy on Francesca.”

  Sylvan thought of the image of the gathering—the Shadow Lords, Torren called them. Cecilia or Torren must have been there, and if there was some secret plot being planned, Cecilia would have spies everywhere. “That might not have been Torren’s original mission, but once she was captured…things could have changed.”

  Drake growled and the clouds fractured over the moon for an instant. Her canines gleamed as her wolf peered out. “So some of the most powerful Praeterns—and at least two members of the Coalition—are meeting in secret with a Were who wants you dead and the human we know conspires to destroy us.”

  “Cecilia, Francesca, Bernardo, and Nicholas Gregory,” Sylvan murmured. “All opposed to the Exodus.”

  Fury, hot as flame, melted the ice in Drake’s chest as her wolf raged. “How much longer can we wait to retaliate? How many more times will they try to kill you?”

  “We don’t know—”

  “Yes,” Drake said, refusing to be soothed when her mate was in danger, “we do. All of them are our enemies.”

  “Perhaps, probably,” Sylvan said. “But Torren showed me the vision, and she would not have done that without Cecilia’s permission. So maybe not all are our enemies.”

  “And Francesca? What of her?”

  “Francesca’s allegiances shift with the wind. She’s a Vampire, and her only loyalty is to herself and her only goal to preserve her power.”

  “Then she is no ally of ours.”

  “Since we put down the rogues, Bernardo has gone into hiding. But he is a Were, and I can find him. He will tell me what I want to know.” Sylvan clasped the back of Drake’s neck and squeezed gently. “We are not yet ready to wage war.”

  “I am.”

  Sylvan kissed her. “Where is my mate with her voice of reason?”

  Drake gripped Sylvan’s bare shoulders, letting her claws extend enough to pierce her skin. “They threaten my mate.”

  “Yes,” Sylvan murmured, “but they failed. And we will not.”

  *

  The gates swung open and the Rovers pulled back into the Compound. Sentries milled around the fire pits, eating and drinking coffee, their long shadows dancing over the red-brown earth like wraiths. Some turned, their wolves’ eyes glinting in interest and suspicion as the Rovers drew up to the front of the barracks. Callan jumped down and opened the rear doors. “Misha, Beryl, take the prisoner inside. Secure her and wait for the guards to arrive. Then you are dismissed.”

  Misha climbed out and hurried to Callan, who started for the command post at the main entrance. “Permission to take the first watch, Captain.”

  Callan paused, his expression wary. “You’ve been on perimeter watch for five days and just ran down an intruder. You’re due for relief.”

  “Yes, sir, but I’m fine, sir,” Misha said, unable to explain the anger that escalated every time one of the other Weres took charge of Torren or the constant pressure in her head, as if someone was whispering words she couldn’t make out clearly. All she knew was the clawing discomfort lessened when Torren was in sight. She took a breath. “I think the prisoner might talk to me, maybe tell me why she’s here.”

  Callan folded his arms and stared. “Why?”

  Misha shrugged. She didn’t really know why. “Maybe because I was the one who subdued her. I didn’t kill her, so she might trust me a little more than anyone else.”

  “And you think if you befriend her, she’ll reveal why she’s here?”

  “It’s worth a try.” Misha tried to sound casual, but her heart was pounding so loudly she knew Callan could hear it.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Callan said. “You take the first watch with Karl. I’ll send him over in a minute.”

  “Yes, sir.” Misha bounded to the barracks where Beryl had taken Torren. Gray leaned against the wall by the door, her rifle resting in one hand.

  “Want to get something to eat?” Gray asked.

  “I’m on watch,” Misha said. “You go ahead.”

  “What happened with the Alpha?” Gray asked.

  “Nothing,” Misha said, although she wasn’t really sure what had happened. The Alpha and Torren seemed ready to fight and then something…something had happened when the Alpha and Torren clashed, but her memory was foggy, like she’d seen it all in a dream. “I think the Alpha is waiting to see why Torren is here.”

  “She shouldn’t be,” Gray growled.

  “You don’t know anything about her,” Misha said.

  “Neither do you.”

  Yes, I do. But she couldn’t explain exactly what she knew, or why she cared what happened to the Fae, so she didn’t try. “I know how to follow orders. You should try it sometime.”

  “Yeah, right.” Gray laughed, a harsh sound filled with anger, and vaulted over the rail. A second later the night took her.

  Misha hurried down the long hall that ran the length of the barracks. Plain doors opened along each side. Soldiers returning from missions and adolescents in sentrie training used the rooms when off duty. Beryl, his rifle at arms, stood in front of a closed door at the far end of the building. Misha stopped short of pushing through the door into Torren’s makeshift cell, even though her wolf clamored for her to find Torren. She nodded to Beryl. “Everything clear?”

  “Not a word out of
the prisoner,” Beryl said. “She went in calm as you please.”

  “When Karl arrives, you’re relieved.” Misha knew she sounded sharp, but she didn’t care. Torren wasn’t a prisoner. They weren’t like Francesca, putting her in a cell.

  Beryl’s brow rose but he shrugged. “Sure.”

  Misha finally gave in to the pressure to check on Torren and entered the room. The space was spartan, with a single bed, a straight-backed chair, a small chest, and plain hooks on the wall for clothes and gear. A square window high in the right corner was just large enough for a wolf in pelt to enter and leave. Misha had spent many nights in this room or one just like it and never felt confined, but looking at it now, imagining how Torren must feel, she wondered if “cell” wasn’t the right word for it.

  Torren stood below the window, her back to the room. Someone had given her clothes, but she looked nothing like a Were even in the same plain shirt and jeans they all wore around the Compound. The way she stood, the way her hair waved along her collar, the way her perfectly proportioned profile was highlighted in the faint yellow glow from the wall sconce spoke of elegance born, not bred. Torren spoke without turning. “Is there any way you can open that?”

  “Yes, but if you go out through the window, the sentries on the far perimeter wall will see you and shoot you.”

  Torren glanced over her shoulder. “I won’t.”

  “Even if you look like a wolf again, you won’t smell like one.”

  “I thought I did.”

  Misha growled. “At a far distance, maybe.”

  “I’m not going through the window,” Torren said.

  Wordlessly, Misha pushed it open. She had no reason to trust her, but she couldn’t stand to think of her locked away from the night. Torren would hate that as much as a wolf. Misha didn’t know how she knew that, but she did. And she’d spoken the truth—if Torren tried to escape, the sharpshooters on the barricades would fire.

  “Don’t run.”

  “I won’t. Not tonight.” Torren tilted her head back and breathed deeply, and as if she had called the moon to her, her skin glowed.