The Dark Huntsman: A Fantasy Romance of The Black Court (Tales of The Black Court Book 1)

by Jessica Aspen

  Turning her back, she rose and did the same. Her words came out hard as steel and just as sharp. “If you don’t take me with you, I will find a way to break this contract, to leave you. I will find the bitch queen myself and demand answers!”

  Logan’s lungs contracted and a bitter taste filled his mouth. So this was how it felt to care.

  Chapter Eleven

  Trina had to get away from the look on Logan’s face that said the rocking of the world was more than sex. Because it was obvious his face lied. To him, what they’d experienced together hadn’t been any more than a good fuck.

  There was nowhere to go but the cottage. She started walking.

  “Trina, wait.”

  She’d made another stupid mistake by giving in to her body and his desires. Now he’d put her in her place. She was to stay here, clean, and be a good servant. She would never be able to save Brianna, Cassie, or her aunt. Because of her stupidity, they would all die.

  “Why?” She kept walking, her face averted. “What do I have to gain by standing here talking to you? You’ve made it clear you’re not taking me with you to the meet. There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “Please.”

  She turned. His head was bowed, his eyes peeking out from under his cascading untangled hair, and he was nude. Splendidly and confidently nude, the sun glinting off the silver ornaments in his silky hair and playing on the perfection of his muscular pecs.

  His absolute state of gorgeousness reminded her of the gap between them and it was more than depressing.

  Even in this humble stance, holding his bundle of clothes with one hand outstretched, he couldn’t help being every inch the arrogant elven lord, one of the rock stars of the fae. He was a fabulously sexy man, superior in body, magical skills, and everything that counted. But he was ultimately still fae. And by definition, lacking humanity.

  Despite that, his penitent expression tugged at her.

  “You have two minutes, and then I’m going inside.”

  He moved closer. “I’m sorry.” He seemed sincere, his words awkward and stumbling. “I’ve never been in this position. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’m asking. Please hear me out.”

  “I’m listening.” She crossed her arms, toe tapping. Waiting. “You’re using up your two minutes.”

  “All right. I can do it this way.” A rippling sigh rolled through him. Then he spoke, the words pouring out in a pressure ridden torrent. “I’m not sure why it’s happened, but I’ve grown…attached…to you.”

  Her stomach flipped.

  “You’re telling me that you, the person who has trapped me here against my will, forced me into this bargain, threatened not only my death, but the death of the few people I hold dear… You? Are attached to me.” Her arms dropped to her sides and she turned to go into the cottage. “You elves are crazier than I thought.”

  “I don’t expect you to understand. I don’t understand it.”

  The stress in his voice sounded sincere and she found she couldn’t leave. She turned around, her hands gripping her shredded dress.

  He implored her with his free hand. “You are shrewish, short-tempered, and human. You will be an old woman before I can even blink, but the thought of you risking yourself by going to the meet is…well…it’s painful.” He ran his hand through his hair, exposing his pointed ears.

  She frowned. “Painful?”

  “I don’t know how else to put it.” He took another step. “And the worst part about it is this anger of yours, this insistence that I let you go or you’ll find a way to leave. This is painful also.” He took the last step, closing the gap between them. “I’m not used to this. I don’t know what to do. I have a need to keep you safe, keep you here. But if I do so, you’ll hate me. And I find the thought of that hurts, too.” He held out his hand, but stopped short of touching her arm. “Please reconsider.”

  “Reconsider my leaving, or reconsider going?”

  “Both…either.” He shook his head, bewilderment flitting over his features. “I don’t know.”

  He was asking. Not demanding. Deep lines bracketed his cheeks, his lips pressed together. If he were human, she’d think he was in pain.

  She flexed her fingers. “If you think you care for me, you have to see I need this. I need to do something, or I will burn up from the frustration.”

  The muscles in his neck and chest flexed. “I understand,” he said, frowning. “It doesn’t make me happy, but I understand your need to go. You can go.”

  She released the tight breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding.

  “But, you must do exactly as I say.” His smile was dark, bereft of any amusement.

  She shivered.

  “Come, we have little time. My uncle arrives at sunset.”

  “How long does this last? It feels weird.” Trina eyed her bulkier jaw line and her newly dark-shadowed eyes. She didn’t recognize her older, tougher, and sexier glamoured reflection in the antique mirror. Didn’t think even her aunt and cousins would know her now.

  “You know,” she tilted her head to the side and tried to see the back of her lightened hair. “You could sell this in Hollywood for millions of dollars. A wave of your hand and hours of makeup and special effects would be complete. As long as the magic didn’t run out before they stopped shooting the scene.”

  Logan returned from his fourth trip to the window. His movements were fast and twitchy, and she could tell Rinnal’s late arrival wasn’t helping his nerves. He crossed the room, placed his face over her shoulder, and examined their altered reflections with a critical eye.

  “T’will last ‘til midnight Alice, then the pumpkin will appear and so will the rags.”

  “Cinderella, not Alice.” But there was no bite in her tone. Things had changed between them and she wasn’t sure how to handle Logan treating her as a person and not a possession. The thought that one of his kind could actually feel any sort of emotion for someone like a human was disturbing.

  He winked at her reflection.

  She smiled uneasily back, and shifted her weight on the tall stool. This was almost too much like friendship. He made it so easy to forget and become comfortable with him, but she knew it would be another costly mistake.

  Outside, the light faded, the trees casting long shadows across the clearing. Logan lit the lanterns. Trina tilted her chin from side to side, angled this way and that to see if she could spot any resemblance to the Trina she usually saw in the mirror. And it wasn’t just her face that had changed.

  She eyed the breasts spilling over the low-cut top of the tight-laced, black leather bustier. “Do you think the dress is really necessary?” she asked. The dress was black and flirty and once again, very short. She tugged the bustier up and Logan’s gaze dropped to her cleavage, his pupils growing large and dark.

  He leaned in and murmured against the skin of her neck. “You’d best stop pointing it out to me, lass, or I won’t be inclined to let you go after all.”

  She ignored the responsive softening in her pelvis and lifted her eyebrows at him.

  He laughed and pulled away. “Nay, it’s necessary. You’ve never been to a gypsy meet, but I have. They’re wild and rambunctious parties and there will be many dressed more loosely than this.”

  “I do like the boots.” She pointed a toe of the thigh-high, black boots. In them she felt taller, sexier, and maybe a little dangerous.

  “It’s the best I can do. Glamour has never been my strong point.” Logan said.

  “If I don’t even know it’s me, how do you think anyone at the meet will?” She gingerly touched her nose, testing the feel. The new longer, pointed shape felt odd under her fingers, wrong.

  “You still have those distinctive, green MacElvy eyes. You’re still petite and, unless you are a superb actress, you will walk the same, talk the same.” He eyed her critically, one finger tapping his jaw. “My mother was gifted in this area. My uncles have told me she could even change the shape and size of people with her g
lamours.”

  Trina shuddered, turning from the girl in the mirror to inspect Logan’s own subtle changes. Still a black-haired, blue-eyed fae, but a different, angular, sharper version. She’d braided his long hair in the front into tiny little corn rows seeded with feathers and beads, his recognizable ornaments hidden away. He now looked like the other elves she’d seen, slender blades intent on destruction.

  Who was he?

  She faked a smile to hide her confusion and fear. “I think you’ve done an amazing job.”

  “My mother could have made the glamour last longer, but I’m afraid you’re stuck with me,” he said, the laughing, familiar Logan looking out through the sharp Logan’s face.

  “Your mother?”

  “She’s not with us anymore.”

  She watched in the mirror as he moved back to the window. “My parents died when I was ten,” Trina said, softly. “They were one of the queen’s first casualties.”

  “Well then, we have something in common. My mother began to fade when I was an infant. She was nothing but a shade by the time I was three. But I can’t blame the queen. It was her cousin that was at fault.” He turned back from the dark shadows filling the glass and stared into the mirror from across the room, his somber eyes finding hers in the reflection. “My mother faded from my father’s lack of caring. One might even say he murdered her by neglect.”

  A cold trickle worked its way from her neck down her spine. She froze, her stranger’s gaze locked on his in the mirror. “Do I have this right? You’re related to the queen?”

  “Hah! Yes and no.” He paced the small cottage floor. She watched, her eyes tracking his rapid movements in the flecked, silvered surface.

  “You see,” he said, “Before your family was chosen for annihilation, my entire race was almost wiped out. My uncles are of the Fir Bolg, another fae race. We were the kings and queens of the fae, for thousands of years, the rulers of Underhill. Then the Tuatha De Danann came.” A cool breeze blew through the closed-up cabin. The lantern light flickered and dimmed.

  Trina rubbed the raised hair on her arms.

  “We warred for longer than even I can imagine. My uncles grew up fighting, grew tired and bitter. Men, women, even children, fought to expel the Tuatha, but my grandmother feared for my mother, her only girl out of eight, and kept her safe at home.” One of the lanterns blew out.

  Trina shivered in the semi-darkness. “What happened to her?”

  “It’s an old story, one of seduction, loss, and betrayal. She didn’t know he was Tuathan until it was too late. He’d dallied long enough to get her pregnant.” Logan’s face in the shadow of the last lantern was grim. “Then he told her the truth; she would never be good enough for him, a royal prince of the Tuatha De Danann.”

  Logan stopped his pacing and stood looking out at the night, his dark head and shoulders bowed. Finally he spoke in a near whisper she strained to hear. “Once he was gone, she began to fade,” he said. “It’s a slow death. The movement from being here…to not being here. I have memories of her sliding into vague transparency until you could hardly see her. Until all that was left was a silent ghost moving around the castle. And then she was gone.”

  Logan stayed by the window, almost hidden in the shadows. Trina remembered her own pain and losses. The breeze in the cottage stilled.

  A sudden crack echoed into the night. Trina jumped, then laughed. They both smiled at the fallen broom, still shuddering on the floor next to the closet.

  “Enough looking through a dark glass for one night.” Logan left the window and picked up a small velvet pouch. “Let’s make you smell like a different creature altogether.” He grinned, his real grin peeking out, despite the distorted glamoured face and the shadows still haunting his eyes.

  He reached into the pouch, pulled out a handful of sparkly dust, and tossed it over her head. The fae dust shimmered, and danced, and settled on her skin, prickling and icy cold.

  “There, the last enchantment.”

  “This is awful!” Trina wrinkled her nose at the reek of lilies. “Couldn’t you have chosen something else? What does it matter how I smell?”

  “It’s not perfume, silly girl,” he laughed. “It changes your underlying smell, the one that says who you are. We’re changing the scent others can use to track you.” His playfulness fled.

  He placed his face on her shoulder, pressing his warm cheek to her chilled skin, his tip-tilted, elven eyes dark and concerned in his odd, altered face. She looked into the mirror at the strangers they’d become and took some comfort that their eyes hadn’t changed. That their personalities could shine through the glamour, even if it increased the danger.

  “This is risky for you, Trina. If the queen finds out you’re not dead, she will be even angrier than she is now. And she is very angry. She’s losing control.” He held her tight, constricting her shoulders in a painful grip. “I don’t want you to go.”

  She squirmed away. She was having trouble keeping up with his lightning quick changes tonight. If she was in danger, so was he. He risked everything for her, for her family. He could still kill her and deliver her to the queen and none would be the wiser, but instead, he was stretching out on a limb for her. She wished, for his sake, her new sympathy for him was enough to stop her, but her responsibility to her family was stronger.

  “I’m going. I don’t know why you’re doing this, but I know why I am. My family is depending on me. And if I ever want to have a shot at any kind of a life, I’m depending on me, too. This might be our last chance. You seem sincere, but you’ve changed alliances before,” she said. “I’ve no reason to think you might not change again.”

  She dropped off the stool and walked over to retrieve her new cape. Earth-shattering sex aside, this was her chance to save her family. To have a normal life, to watch children run without fear of his kind. Maybe even to be less afraid herself.

  “I’m going. Let’s go over the plan.”

  His face had shut down into something truly foreign. The face of a fully Tuathan fae now. Slender and fine boned. The enemy.

  She wrapped the dark cape around her shoulders in an attempt to warm the cold invading her bones.

  Logan’s uncle was of average human height, stocky with large muscles and a rolling weight-lifter’s gait. She could see where Logan got his gorgeous blue eyes, but unlike Logan, Rinnal’s face was covered by a full black beard.

  “So, yer the lass Logan’s been hiding from us.” He flashed a brilliant white smile and she couldn’t help smiling back. Logan had charm, but Rinnal beat him by all measures.

  “We need to get going,” Logan said, his voice clipped. He gave his uncle a dark look as he pulled the cottage door closed behind them. “Stay,” he ordered. The hounds obediently scattered around the clearing.

  “Aren’t they coming with us?”

  “Nay, lass. We’re taking the tunnels so as not to make a scene when a portal opens up next to the meet. The hounds’ll just get in the way.” They approached the opening in the hedge and Trina looked out at the lurking forest floor.

  “We could ride there.” She sensed the forest awakening at her presence, a creeping hunger held just beyond the thorns of the hedge. She hated Solanum, but she’d take the creature’s danger compared to the forest. “I’m not sure my boots have thick enough soles.” She eyed her impractical heels.

  “Solanum is elsewhere tonight.” Logan said. “I still have a prince to locate, as well as your prophecy to track down.”

  “Never fear lass, I’ve brought ye something.” Rinnal pulled a long, delicate silver chain out of his pocket, a rough-cut chunk of deep blue sapphire suspended heavily on it. “Here girl.” He stepped close to her and fastened it around her neck where it lay warm and heavy between her breasts. He brushed a whiskery kiss on her lips.

  “Hey!” Logan started forward.

  Rinnal winked at Trina. “Just taking my payment for the gift.”

  “What’s this?” Trina asked, twirling the large sto
ne from its chain, its depths sparkling with reflected early starlight.

  “Just a wee gift from me to you. Logan told us of the forest’s interest in you as a conduit. This should help.” Rinnal motioned her forward. “Go on, give it a try.”

  She stepped cautiously out of the clearing and onto the forest floor. A thrumming vibrated her feet, and the stone began to glow deep blue. It warmed, spreading heat that seeped into her skin. “Much better,” she said, a huge worry lifting from her as she smiled in relief. “Thank you.”

  “Of course dearie,” he said, taking her hand in his broad, rough one and leading her down the path. “We don’t get very many pretty maids out our way. We need to make sure you’re protected from all the nasties.”

  Logan harrumphed behind her and Trina caught a sly, self-satisfied smile on Rinnal’s face.

  “The forest is more than woods, ye see lass?” Rinnal said as they snuck through the lengthening shadows. “It has a mystery all on its own. Start down the wrong path and ye could end up Underhill, or worse.” He moved in front of her, his step sure and confident, to all appearances, a man in his prime. The way his words slipped in and out of the deep brogue, and the way he treated her, she suspected he was far older.

  “A portal? But we had no trouble getting to the cottage.” Each of Trina’s stealthy steps crunched loudly into the forest’s night quiet.

  “Ye need to stick to the right paths, lass. Some are anchored here, near the cottage. Some twine ‘round through different places.” He held a branch out of her way. “Strange places.”

  He talked the entire trip, helping her across a stream, holding vines and branches out of the way. Logan, a glaring and silent presence, brought up the rear until they reached their destination, a moonlit tumbled pile of rocks at the foot of a sparsely treed hill. At their approach, ravens spun overhead into the night, breaking the forest’s grim silence with their righteous cawing. All but one flew off. It settled onto an overhanging branch careful not to look them head on and observed them out of one rolling eye.