by Rhys Ford
I knew fear. Hell, I’d drank fear deep inside of me before I ever took my first sip of water. But being brought down under an ainmhi dubh’s paws and waiting to hear the crunch of Ryder’s bones in its ravaging jaws woke up a terror in me I didn’t think existed.
Something inside of me cried at the thought of his death. I thought of my twisted guts when Dempsey told me he was dying and the heart-wrenching pain in my chest when I stood over Jonas in the hospital, but there was an entire river of anguish and uncertainty I’d yet to swim in. The fleeting idea of Ryder dying was a toe dip into that frigid watery fear, and it wasn’t a plunge I was going to look forward to.
I’d grown used to the damned sidhe and his stupid, entitled ideals that would get him killed or worse in the real world. And I damned him for it all.
The whistle meant nothing. The pain meant nothing. There was nothing left in me but an all-consuming fear biting away little pieces of my soul. I grabbed my shotgun and surged to my feet, firing at the massive, slavering animal intent on tearing Ryder apart.
The first blast tore a hole in his flank, spinning the ainmhi dubh around, and I slid my finger to shoot again when a bloom of fire and smoke tore out of Ryder’s hands and the black dog’s head rang with the shot. The ainmhi dubh turned, skittering on his scrambling paws, talons tearing on the rocks to leave faint smoldering blood trails in its wake.
I stood, panting and choking on my terror. The damned sidhe lord stood, one of my Glocks clasped a bit too tightly in his hand, and it shook slightly, but Ryder kept it aimed at the large male. The dog panted heavily, circling around us, and Cari turned to shoot as the smaller dogs leaped out from the jagged rocks above Malone.
Robbie saw them first and froze, trembling with fear and shock as the smaller ainmhi dubh came straight for him. It didn’t flinch when Cari’s shotgun blast hit the male, cracking its skull open, and there was nothing Ryder could do to save Malone in time. Cari stood between us, and if I fired, my shot would slice right through her. I dove to the left, hoping to get a wide shot off, when the prickling sound coming from the shadows bit down into me and something… unnatural… slithered out.
“Stop!” I screamed at the dogs, and that something feathered out of me, an ill-tasting and sickening tendril of need I couldn’t keep inside of me. It tasted of Tanic and of old blood, clotted and swollen black with malevolence. The tendril snapped out, pulling from my sternum, and flung itself outward, slapping at the ainmhi dubh.
For a long, agonizing second, the dark lay around me, edging in closer, a fabric of black tugged in by something clenched in my core. My shoulders burned, and my ears were wet with blood. The damp along the inside of my shirt was enough to tell me my scars wept, and I held my breath as the ainmhi dubh landed at Malone’s feet then turned to look at me, their crimson eyes fired with rage and hate.
And looking at me to feed them more.
Eighteen
I FELT the dogs’ essence in me. Their sickeningly foul bleakness filled me, stretching out my skin and mind until I feared I would pop from the pressure of their presence. They slithered around in my thoughts, sucking up bits and pieces of sour things I’d thought I’d hidden away. The ainmhi dubh found my resentment of Jason in Dalia’s life, fitting into a spot I’d half wished for. Dalia was a lie I’d told myself, an echo of humanity I’d never really live out but wanted so much I could taste it. They fed on the hatred I had for the bones shaping my face and body, for the blood running through my veins—elfin blood—too muddied to be sidhe or unsidhe and leaving me without a hope for a child with my face.
They dug in deep, searching for any bit of ire and loathing I had in me. My frustration with Dempsey, my lifelong need for his approval was enough for them to lick and bite at until something shinier caught their attention. A flare of their eyes burned crimson sparks through me, and the injured male stumbled upon a secret I’d shoveled animosity over since the first time I’d breathed in his scent.
Ryder.
Gods-be-damned and cursed Ryder.
The ainmhi dubh’s hunger was all consuming, and they stripped away the distance I put between myself and Ryder, leaving me raw and open to how he affected me. Then they turned and dug into my fears, finding my brother… my father… and I knew in my guts if they drank from that well, there would be no stopping them from tearing us all apart.
I closed my mind against their prowling, and they fell away, leaving me wrung dry and angry at being… in control.
They stained my insides, and even as I took a step back, forcing myself to lower the shotgun at the smaller ainmhi dubh, the black dogs were a part of me. The male screamed, his mouth open and slavering with long threads of burning acid, and the two pups ducked their heads, rolling onto their shoulders and showing their throats. The shotgun grew heavy in my hands, but the dogs’ hunger tugged at me. I blinked and they melted into the shadows, either coming back around for another attack or—
“Robbie, stay very still,” I ordered him. The dogs were restless, confused, and Malone’s hard breathing could set them off to attack.
“Male’s behind you, Kai,” Cari said flatly, her shotgun trained on a spot to my right. “And I can see the other small one by the rocks.”
“Ryder?” I called out. I couldn’t see him. I’d turned my back to track the younger dogs, counting on the male to see me as a greater threat than the sidhe, but I couldn’t be sure if he was okay. “You doing fine back there?”
“I’m good. Your gun is a great deterrent, but I don’t think it will be much of a threat in a minute or two. The ainmhi dubh are getting stronger… healing.” He sounded worried. “I think something is feeding them. The Hunt Master must be close by. If we can find him—”
“Yeah, not so much the unsidhe and more… someone else,” I ground out. “He’s nearby, though. Their Master. I can… taste him.”
The male was pushing at the doors in my mind, looking for a way in. My back was drenched with sweat and probably blood, because I could smell the faint sweet metal fluid in the air, spiced with a bit of cinnamon and confusion. They held themselves in place, fighting to be loose of a tenuous bond they had with… the unsidhe mage they’d been given to. The ainmhi dubh were tearing at their bindings, straining at the thinning thread connecting them to someone they didn’t know the scent of.
I was familiar. My blood was in their veins, or at least enough of it for them to know me, and when I swallowed, I tasted Tanic cuid Anbhas in my throat and belly. They were my father’s creatures, and they scratched at the edges of my control, begging to get inside and feed on whatever darkness they could find in me.
I’d had ainmhi dubh in me before—in more ways than one—but this time was different. This time I was sentient and the magic-fueled monsters were looking for me to guide them, feed them… to Master them.
By Pele and Morrígan, I desired to own them, control the ainmhi dubh and bend them against the unsidhe using them to attack us. And once he was a slick of blood and gore on the ground at my feet, I would turn them against Ryder, for lodging a kernel of hope inside of me and making me want to be a part of what he was creating at the Southern Rise Court, even though I knew in my soul I would never ever truly belong.
Because I was more of a monster than the ainmhi dubh begging to serve me.
“Lord Valin?” The query was in unsidhe, and the words tethered themselves to my memories. “What are you doing here?”
I couldn’t see who’d spoken. He was lost behind the rocks, but there was more than enough illumination for him to see me. Especially as the sun sank farther west, painting Oighear Bhais and its crumbling city with a steely white light.
The black dogs jerked their heads, tugged at the sound of their Master’s voice, but their eyes were pinned to me. A few plates of rock tumbled to the crevice floor as the male took tentative steps over the uneven ground, coming up to my right. Cari twisted, keeping her shotgun trained on the larger dog, and I flicked my fingers toward me, urging her to take a step forward
and put some distance between her and the male. Malone’s terrified eyes were watering, and he wove on his feet, a sure sign he’d locked his knees.
“Ryder? Cari? Going to need you guys to dive soon. And Robbie? You’ve got to breathe,” I murmured. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
“Don’t want to bring this up, but it didn’t go so well the last time,” Malone tossed back. He clenched his hands, pulling his arms in tight. “Can we maybe just kill them this time?”
“Ainle, the unsidhe.” Ryder yanked at my attention. Fumbling to reload his Glock with a new magazine, he nodded at the curved path. “He’s coming around.”
“Why are you with… humans?” he murmured, moving about behind the rocks. “And speaking Singlish? I know why I am working with such filth, but you? Why would you align yourself with these…?
I didn’t know the word he used. It sounded like pork, but that made no sense to me. Whatever it was… whatever it meant, it was ugly and filthy, dragged through a thickened, muddy disgust. My brain grabbed at the language he spoke, sifting through racial memories and years of dark, stifling conversation, but I’d never spoken it myself.
There was too much fear I’d trigger something inside of me and I’d somehow find myself chained to a table again while my father’s Wild Hunt ate at my legs and chest for their weekly meal.
Confused, the dogs paced, their acidic slobber pocking the stone while they tracked the sound of someone moving behind the curved ridge farther down the path. Their eyes flickered with bursts of red light. Their Master emerged, slim and narrow-shouldered with black-streaked cobalt hair and narrow golden eyes. A part of me felt like I should have recognized him. We were bound together in a way very few would understand, much less experience, and it pissed me off not knowing who was on the other end of the tether.
He knew who I was, though. I saw it in his face and his stance when he stepped out from the overhang. His shoulders went back, and his chin, a pointed wedge of bone, tilted up in challenge. He tugged at the dogs’ arcane leashes, mentally pulling at the magic binding them to him, and I felt its jerk in my belly and at the front of my mind.
But the ainmhi dubh didn’t respond.
Caught between us, the black dogs snarled, twisting their bodies about and shaking their heads. I couldn’t find a way to sever their ties to me. Even as I kept my mind clamped shut against their incessant pounding, I didn’t know how to loosen their grip on me.
I was also scared down to my marrow about what they’d do if I succeeded.
Then it became necessary I succeed, because if I didn’t, the unsidhe would undo us all.
“You are not Lord Valin.” The unsidhe’s words were a mangled toss of hiss and shadows, fuzzed and darkened echoes of Ryder’s own bright, spangled sidhe. The elfin tongues were similar enough to be understood, common words shared across borders, and dislikes and subtle nuances were often the difference between peace and war. This time there was no mistaking the recoil in the Hunt Master’s tones, but something else lay underneath the dark, a trembling sliver of fear he couldn’t hide under his bravado. “You are High Lord Tanic’s Chimera. The creature he is looking for.”
“I’m Lord Tanic’s nothing,” I ground out in Singlish over Ryder’s growls. Leveling my shotgun at his head, I jerked my head toward the way we came. “Take your dogs, get the hell out of here, and we’ll have no trouble.”
“I have a better idea, golem,” the Hunt Master responded in unsidhe, smiling wide enough to make my cheeks hurt to look at him. “How about if I let my dogs kill your sidhe master and return you to where you belong?”
“Yeah, I was kind of expecting you to say something along those lines.” I grinned back, returning his arrogance with a dash of my own. “Oddly enough, I’m okay with that.”
The shotgun was loaded with iron pellets, since I knew there was going to be a pack. Luckily, anything that hurt me would kick any elfin’s ass, but unlike me, he hadn’t spent decades with bent iron dowels rusting away under his skin and poisoning his blood.
“Kill me and the pack will slaughter your owners.” His screechy laugh echoed around the chamber. The unsidhe raised his hands, and I could feel him gathering his power, filling the chamber with a heavy, ominous air. “And then they will kill you.”
“See, shortsighted. I wasn’t planning on killing you,” I said with a shrug. “Because if it’s one thing an ainmhi dubh hates more than its prey, it’s the asshole holding its leash.”
I was about to pull the trigger and blow his shoulder off when a shot rang out from the darkness behind him. The bullet did its business, bursting the unsidhe’s skull into meat-flecked bone fragments.
Then the black dogs ripped loose, taking a part of me with them.
“Kai! Get down!” Ryder yelled unnecessarily.
I didn’t need to be told to dive, and there was no time to nurse the anguish in my guts, but I emptied my shotgun into the ainmhi dubh tearing their master apart. Swallowing the gore cresting up into my throat, I cradled my gun against me, then dove at Malone, shoving us both into the hard black rock. Cari’s shotgun blast echoed mine, but I wasn’t sure if she’d aimed at one of the ainmhi dubh or at the unsidhe screaming in terror at the far end of the crevice. I had to trust Ryder to take cover, but I couldn’t see anything other than the fallen ebony rock shards and the crimson flashes in my mind as my father’s monsters tore away from my soul.
My shoulders wept with the pain, and I tasted my own blood at the back of my throat, welling up from every broken bone, every split in my skin, and every bit of metal Tanic’d hooked into my meat. We rolled, coming to an abrupt, teeth-shaking stop when I slammed us into a boulder. Wedging Malone behind me, I rose up onto my knee and dragged the shotgun up and around, grabbing at the barrel to steady it. A quick eject shot out the empty shells, and I reloaded in a blink. Slamming the stock into place, it took me less than a skipping heartbeat. Then I had the male in my sights, but the smaller ainmhi dubh were hidden behind their Master.
Or at least what remained of their Master.
I don’t know how many rounds I emptied into the male, at least four before I realized my ammo belt was lodged under Malone’s hip and I couldn’t reach any more shells. Tugging at the belt, I got Malone to move, but the dogs were shifting, their muzzles wet with blood, and the wispy smoke coming from the unsidhe’s acid-scalded body began to thicken, shielding their flanks. The hot stink of gunpowder, blood, and iron clogged the air, the sunbeams coming through over the thick stone walls glittering with dust and shot residue. I got to my feet, stepping toward the frenzied pack tearing chunks from the unsidhe under their paws, and spotted Cari shielding Ryder as she pumped another round into one of the smaller black dogs.
The male roared a challenge at me, his mouth black with bubbling blood and acid. Long strands of torn tendon hung from his muzzle, a piece of gristle hanging from a lower fang. He crouched, gathering his low-sloping haunches beneath him, then lunged, his massive jaws cracked unnaturally wide open and right at Cari as she sent two expended shells flying from her shotgun’s barrel.
She wasn’t going to make it. She was too slow or the dog was too fast. Either way time counted it, the ainmhi dubh would be on her and Ryder before she could get another shot off. Ryder’s Glock was refusing to load, the magazine hitting something, or he was angling it wrong.
And I was too far to do anything other than scream at the ainmhi dubh to stop.
I don’t know where the words came from, but they were dark and bubbling, a tarry gush of unsidhe I couldn’t keep inside of me. It stole my breath away, sucking the air from my lungs, and I coughed, choking on the wrongness in my throat, but the dog jerked his body sideways and planted his feet, his sharp talons flaking the rocks beneath his broad paws.
And they all paused.
The smaller ainmhi dubh padded toward the male, snuffling up along his flanks, then lowered their heads, teeth bared at Ryder and Cari. The panic in me grew, and my breath hitched, hiccupp
ing the words staggering off my tongue. The male lurched, his claws kneading at the loose gravel, but he held steady when the stream finally trailed off, and we were left standing in a very deadly silence.
“Oh Dios.” Cari crossed herself, then flicked her fingers at the male dog, warding him off. “What are they waiting for?”
Ryder knew. Ryder in his filthy sidhe way knew I’d grabbed at the dogs’ cut mental leashes and was holding on for dear life. He took in a short breath and caught my gaze, giving me a small smile when I tilted my head. I saw him, but for the life of me, I had no idea how I was going to let go without killing all of us in the process.
“Kai, focus on me. You’re doing fine. Think of what you told Malone and just breathe. I can help you get out of this… to let them go.”
Ryder’s Singlish cut through the unsidhe roiling in my head. I looked over at him, realizing my knees were aching from being slammed into the hard ground, and my wet skin itched where it was sticking to my shirt.
“You’re lost in this, yes? You don’t have to say anything. You just need to concentrate.”
Nodding was too much effort. So was swallowing, but my throat was dry, cracked from the torrent of sick I’d just thrown out. The air was too hot and everything was too close. I blinked, and my face tightened from the ripple of my muscles moving my eyelids.
“Hold them with you,” Ryder coaxed. “Please.”
“Trying, Your Lordship,” I whispered. “Just… please….”
I shut myself down, my focus pinned to the roiling crimson eyes fixed on my face. My blood still burned in me, moving with a rush of stink and acid. I’d become a crucible, cupping a foul smelt of pot metal forged by a man I’d hate until I exhaled my last breath.
Holding the dogs scared me, and I was choking on my growing fear, but I held firm, staring the dogs down, because I’d be damned if I’d give in to Tanic’s creatures. I’d come so damned far from the battered, mewling meat puppet he’d made me into, and I wasn’t going to let his monsters drag me back down into that existence.
