Freda’s cheeks flame. “I haven’t ruled him out.”
“But he’s your number one fanboy. Err...fan fey? Surely he wouldn’t betray you or the Hunt.”
Nahini chuckles. “I tried telling her that. If we can ascertain his innocence, we can have him use the birds and beasts of the Hunt to help us keep watch.”
I study Freda a moment. “Why not enlist his help?”
Freda stops and stares at the ground. She doesn’t say anything, but I see a muscle
jump in her jaw. “You’re worried it’s him.”
“One of his half siblings is of Brigit’s line. His father was one of her consorts. They are fighting for the Fire Throne.” She swallows hard. “If it is him, I’ll have to put him to death.”
My mouth goes dry. “Freda...”
“I know it’s unwise to delay,” she studies the ground beneath her boots. “I should do it and get it over with, one way or the other. But I can’t bring myself to contemplate killing him. Even if we have no future.”
I exchange a glance with Nahini, whose lovely features are soft with sympathy. Alric’s father expects him to become a consort to the queen of the Shadow Throne after his tenure with the Wild Hunt. If his half sibling won the Fire Throne and Alric did move into a position of power, his family would essentially rule the entire Unseelie Court. Of course, this won’t happen. I’ve told my first that I’m not interested in Alric, and have no intention of choosing a consort or upholding Unseelie traditions. But I don’t sit on the Shadow Throne yet, won’t until I pass the gauntlet, so my reassurances don’t go far.
“Freda, if it is him, I’ll do it myself. I’m the leader of the Hunt, not you. The burden falls on me.”
She swallows, then nods. “Forgive my cowardice.”
“You are many things, Freda. But you are not a coward. Let’s handle Melrock and Gil and then the three of us will clear Alric. Together.”
“Together.” Nahini says and extends a hand for me to take.
Freda exhales and puts her own hand over the top of Nahini’s. “Together. As we always should have been.”
Spies Among Us
“Your wolf has returned.” Freda doesn’t lower her sword from the attack position as she addresses me. “He’s devouring you with his eyes.”
I don’t turn toward the crowd gathered to watch our sparring session. Instead, I step to the side, sword raised to block her inevitable strike. “That just makes us even then, since Alric has been eye-humping you for the last two hours.”
It’s true. After the confrontation with Melrock and Gil—who’d been both reluctant and insulted at their punishment to work in a soup kitchen over the weekend— we’d gone to see Alric.
I don’t mince words. “Did you take Seelenverkäufer from Freda’s tent?”
“No,” he responds, eyes guileless and mystified.
“And have you ever arranged for someone else to take the sword of souls?” Freda pushes.
“Of course, not.” Alric’s gaze shifts from Freda to the sword handle poking up over her shoulder. “It’s right there.”
Freda’s shoulders sag. Not a full-on slump, but a miniscule easing of tension visible only to those who know her well. I wonder how many sleepless nights she’s spent worrying that Alric was the traitor, imagining that she would be forced to kill him.
“My queen?” The gold flecks in his brown eyes seem to shift as his gaze roves from me to Nahini before resting on Freda. “First? Is ought amiss?”
Addy was in the storage room doing supply inventory but otherwise the clinic is deserted.
I look to Nahini, then to Freda. “There’s no wiggle room in his answers, right?”
Freda shakes her head, her blonde hair coming out of her braid in curling wisps. “No. He has no courtly slyness.”
“More to appreciate.” Nahini stops just short of saying I told you so. “We can trust him with the whole story.”
So, we do.
Alric agrees to use his connection to the birds and beasts to watch Freda’s quarters. A falcon or hound could observe comings and goings much more casually than posted guards and animals, and as he pointed out, won’t accept a bribe.
Then we’d gone on to training.
Freda’s grin flashes a moment before her sword. It isn’t, Seelenverkäufer, which she hasn’t practiced with in weeks, at least not since our training “got real”. Translation: when she needed to fight back to win.
I see the move before it happens, the way she taught me, and fall into a blocking stance. She lands three blows against my sword in rapid succession then ducks beneath my return swing. I anticipate the move, and swipe out with a roundhouse kick, knocking her to the ground. She’s down for only an instant, then arches her back in a graceful maneuver and springs up to land back on her feet, sword poised for the next attack.
We clash again and again, neither of us gaining much ground. I’m gratified to see sweat forming on her brow. She must work for what had been an easy victory a few weeks ago. She feigns a swing from the left, when I know she has every intention of kicking out to the right to trip me up. I’m on to her tricks though, and back up enough, take two steps and leap over her blade, flipping in midair to land behind her. She whirls, only to have the point of my sword at her throat.
A spattering of applause from the onlookers. I don’t look their way. Don’t back down, don’t budge an inch, waiting. Her sword drops to the dust. A laugh escapes Freda as she puts her hands up, followed by a murmured, “I yield.”
I duck as the second attack comes from behind me. Nahini rolls over the top of my back in a graceful summersault. Her two long knives are out and crossed before her by the time her feet touch the ground. Freda retrieves her sword and I am faced with level two, trying to disarm and beat them both.
So far, an impossible task.
Nahini is fast, where Freda is strong and the two have worked in tandem for the better part of two centuries. They separate, Freda moving left, to my weaker side while Nahini circles right. There’s no way to keep an eye on two opponents at once, so I follow Nahini with my body and gaze. Freda is stronger, but also larger and slower than both Nahini and myself. It makes her somewhat easier to track. Nahini, I’m convinced, can turn to smoke if she so chooses.
There are no war cries as they lunge. The attack is silent and if they’d wanted it to be, deadly. I defend against Nahini’s quick jabs and throw my body weight to the side to avoid the powerful blow from my First. I have only one weapon, no way to put the second opponent down. At least not yet.
Nahini slashes out with a knife. I jump back, doing a mule kick into Freda who lunges forward. The blow makes contact, though it isn’t the direct hit I’d intended. She staggers back but still holds her sword. I duck low to avoid Nahini’s slicing cuts, the daggers glinting in the late afternoon sun.
We continue for several moments, me landing blow after blow on Freda while dodging Nahini’s attacks. She moves like the tide coming in on the beach, one hit surging against me like waves against the shore. Eroding my flagging energy, wearing me down.
Nahini’s speed is unearthly. Like Freda and myself, she was born a mortal. But unlike my fatal kiss, her gift is that of swiftness. She moves like a dancer, no motion wasted, every one graceful and deadly. I can’t beat her.
So, I let Freda do it for me.
I allow Freda inside the protective circle I’d created with my sword and kicks, pretending to drop my guard. She takes the bait and charges at the same time Nahini slashes out. I dive out of the way, hitting the ground hard on my left side. The movement completely inelegant and totally effective.
The two warriors crash into each other, Freda barreling down like a freight train, Nahini too off balance to move out of the way in time. Her daggers are poised wrong, and I see the panic in her eyes, the worry that she’s about to unintentionally stab Freda.
She drops them.
They go sprawling to the ground. Freda’s sword is still in her hand, but Nahini is defense
less and trapped beneath her.
My side aches like a bitch, but I scramble up in record time and step on Freda’s wrist, so she can’t raise her sword against me. Then tap each of them with two fingers. If this had been a real fight to the death, those taps would have been my Goodnight Kiss.
Elation fills me. I won. I beat the two best fighters in the Wild Hunt at the same time.
“I think that’s enough for today.” Freda grunts. “Mind getting off my wrist?”
“Sorry,” I step back and then drop my own sword, and offer them each a hand up.
This time the hoots and hollers from the crowd are much more enthusiastic. I turn to face them, unable to keep the grin of elation off my face and meet Aiden’s leaf green eyes.
Well done, my queen. He beams at me with pride even as his mental voice caresses me from the inside out.
Time seems to slow and stretch between us, our connection pulling taut, crackling with energy. I sway a little, all my soreness replaced by something else. A growing hunger. Primal urges. I want to run into his arms, can see it in my mind’s eye. Throwing myself at him, letting him pick me up and spin me around to celebrate the moment of victory.
Together. Forever.
The cawing of two crows from the stand of birch trees shatters the spell like a dropped glass ornament on a concrete floor. Freda claps me on the shoulder. “You won. Once. Tomorrow we’ll try it again and next time I won’t be so easy to fool.”
I shake my head, trying to dispel the last shards of that bizarre vision. “Then I’ll have to come up with something else.”
“Always so confident.” Freda removes her hair from her braid, the golden fall catching the late afternoon’s rays. Behind her I see Alric clench his fists as he watches her.
“Now that you know he’s on our side,” I begin but she raises a hand.
“I know where you’re going with this and...I can’t.” She shakes her head. “I’m just relieved he’s with us.”
“Who’s with you?” Aiden approaches from behind and is standing so close I can feel his body heat.
“Alric,” I murmur as his cedarwood and sage scent fills my senses.
Aiden tilts his head to the side. “Why would you think otherwise? He’s always been loyal to the Hunt.”
“A few weeks ago, I never considered that we had any who weren’t loyal to the Hunt.” Freda’s features are taut with strain. “We need to deal with the reality that is, not what we wish it to be.”
Aiden watches her walk away and then turns to me, his gaze going to where my left arm is crooked and pressed tightly into my sore side. “You’re injured.”
“I’ll be fine.” Having cracked my ribs before, I know it isn’t serious. Probably just some bruising. “Nothing a hot shower can’t fix. Where have you been?”
I start walking toward the house, knowing he’ll follow. After a brief pause, he does, catching up to my slow pace easily. “I was checking out our new friend. The one who was so fascinated with you earlier.”
“And?”
“He got off the bus on the opposite side of town, about ten miles from here. He was the only one at the stop, though there was another boy waiting for him. I got off at the next stop but by the time I tracked back to where he’d exited, I lost them.”
“What do you mean, lost them?” We’re nearing the old barn and I head toward it, my stride purposeful as though I have business there.
“No scent. No tracks, nothing to follow.” Aiden scans the area. Seeing no one nearby, he scoops me into his arms and carries me inside the barn.
“Hey.” The protest is automatic, almost by rote.
“No one’s looking. Hold on to me.” His green eyes glint with mischief.
I grip him around the neck, pressing my sweaty body against his. It isn’t a carnal move, merely one of self-preservation because I know what he’s going to do. Sure enough, my body comes apart, drifting upwards in a shower of sparks.
I’ve traveled with Aiden this way before, molecule by molecule. We become weightless, able to drift on the wind. The breeze that’s coming from the west, the direction of the sinking sun carries us off. We are caught up in an air current. It pushes us to the east, over the Blue Ridge Mountains.
In this form my senses are dulled. I can’t smell the scents being carried on the air or feel the wind on my skin. I have no skin, no nose, no anything, yet I am somehow still Nic Rutherford. And Aiden is there too, his floating embers mingling with mine until there’s no way to tell the two of us apart.
After an interminable amount of time, we drift back down to earth, forming where we touch first. It was like that before and I don’t know if that’s because it’s easier to tell us apart that way, or it’s his sneaky way of getting me to cling to him a few moments longer.
With Aiden, it’s hard to tell.
“How do you do that?” I breathe as our upper bodies continue to reform.
His hands are on my waist and he makes no move to release me. “I’m really not sure. It’s transmutation of some kind, changing solid living matter inanimate and then back. Mostly it’s about removing water from the body, making it light enough to float.”
When I frown up at him, he goes on. “People are made up of a great deal of water. Water’s heavy, deadweight that’s tied to the earth. Take out the water and transport is much easier. I just pull moisture from the air to replace the water when we reach our destination.”
I’m watching his mouth, only half listening to his explanation. Being so close to him, breathing in his scent, the sage, cedarwood and wild heat of him, it’s almost impossible to ignore the current that sizzles between us.
“Nic,” I see it in his eyes, the animal hunger. “I want you.”
It’s true. So close, I can feel the firm length of him pressing into my hip.
And gods help me, I want him too.
Without conscious thought, my hand snakes up the back of his neck, fingers furrowing through his thick dark hair. I stand on my toes, tugging him down while reaching up to meet him.
He breathes my name again and then his lips are on mine, molding and shaping them in an intimate crush. He tastes of cinnamon gum, and an addictive kind of heat and each small sip only makes me crave more.
My hands become restless, eager to explore the terrain of his broad shoulders, the tight muscles of his arms, the leanness of his torso. His own hands caress along the length of my spine, only adding fuel to the blaze within me. I bunch the cotton of his t-shirt in my hands, pulling it almost frantically from the waistband of his jeans.
He tears his mouth away from mine, sucking in oxygen. “This isn’t why I brought you here.”
“I don’t care. You’ve been teasing me for weeks.” I rest my forehead against his chest.
A laugh rumbles out of him. “Have I then?”
“You know you have.” My tone is irritable, frustrated.
He tilts my chin up so he’s staring into my eyes. “I didn’t mean to, love. Truly.”
I fix him with a level stare. “Then what is it you want, if not to drive me crazy?”
“To protect you. To keep you safe.”
“Is that all?” I whisper.
The perfect arches of his dark eyebrows draw together. “You sound disappointed. Maybe you need to tell me what it is that you want, Nic.”
I suck in a breath and confess the truth that’s been eating at me for weeks. “I want to know that you’re here because of me, not because of her.”
We both know who I’m talking about.
His grip on my waist tightens. “Nicneven is dead.”
“I know that. I also know that you believed I was destined to be exactly like her. Isn’t that why you swore your oath to me again? I don’t want you hanging around because of a promise you made to someone else or out of misplaced sense of guilt.”
He blinks as though I’ve shocked him. Maybe I have. The more I get to know Aiden, the more my attraction grows. Where once there was only scorched earth in my heart now
there is fertile soil. But the feelings taking root within are not a pretty garden full of flowers and butterflies. No, true to form, what’s been growing in my heart is a snarl of poisoned vines, like those in Underhill’s dead forest, waiting to attack. Jealousy, possessiveness. Ownership.
I want him to belong to me and me alone. And that scares me more than anything else. It’s one thing to snuff out the flame of life, another entirely to dictate when and where that flame can be lit and who it can warm.
Suddenly, Aiden’s head whips to the side. “Did you hear that?”
I seize the distraction with both hands. “Hear what?”
He mutters an oath in a language I don’t comprehend, then lowers my feet until they touch the ground once more. Retrieving his discarded shirt, he pulls it on, then pulls me down behind a scrubby rhododendron.
“What...?” I ask, my blood still racing around in my veins, my head still foggy from lust.
Aiden points and lowers his mouth until his breath tickles the fine hairs around my ear as he speaks. “That is why I brought you here.”
From our hidden spot, I can see only more field, nothing more remarkable than browning grass and dead leaves fluttering off a river birch. I’m about to tell him so when the light shifts, a craggy mountain face growing from the earth.
“Is it an In Between?” I ask, referring to the places where one can cross the Veil into Underhill, the realm of the fey.
He nods and covers my kiss swollen lips with one hand while thinking at me, Don’t speak out loud.
The green hill grows until it’s about thirty feet high. The ground shakes beneath us. I fall to my hands and knees and only Aiden’s vice-like grip keeps me from sprawling on the ground.
It’s a fairy hill, from one of the courts, Aiden thinks. Only the royals hold enough power to cross this way.
My gaze slides back to the hill. The shaking stops, but the movement goes on, moss clinging to the rock slithers, vines outline something that looks like a doorway. An entrance to our world from Underhill. Who’s coming through? Which court is it?
I don’t know. We’re close enough to the change in power that it could be either summer or winter, Seelie or Unseelie. This explains why that brown-eyed boy vanished so suddenly earlier.
The Immortal Queen Page 4
