“No.” He doesn’t say it the way I’d been hoping he would, with a small smile on his lips and amusement dancing in his gaze. As though I’m fretting over nothing. He speaks the lone word as though I’d betrayed his trust in another way, a darker way that I have yet to imagine.
Dread coils in my stomach but I need to hear it all. “Please tell me.”
He takes my hand, twines my fingers through his, as though he needs the connection, the reminder that I am right there beside him, not haunting his memories. “The last night that you...had to leave me, I went out for a run. I crossed dozens of leagues trying to calm the wolf. All my hackles were up. I knew it would come to a head soon. Even if I wasn’t to be replaced and forced to leave, the wolf was getting harder to control. The knowledge that you were with someone else drove him mad, made him crave a kill.
“I was exhausted and half-crazed when I came back to our chamber. Then I smelled the blood. Your blood. You were in the bath, you usually were, afterwards. Washing their scents away. But your face....” He shakes his head, exhales.
“Someone hit me?”
“Someone beat you bloody,” he corrects, his hand squeezing mine lightly. “Broke your nose, your eye was swollen shut. Your lovely skin mottled red and purple until you were practically disfigured. One of them had done it. The scent was nearly gone but I could have tracked him across the Veil, never mind to the outer hall. I ripped him to shreds before he could say one word. And I left my contraceptive charm on top of his tattered remains. Before the moon rose on the new month, you were with child.”
My hand goes to my stomach. It’s a ridiculous reflex, one I have no hope of fighting. “I was pregnant when I died?”
Aiden looks back down at the water. “Yes. And that’s why we fought.”
“Because you regretted your decision?” After all the reasons he’d stated that he didn’t want children, how could I blame him for his feelings?
“No, because you forced my hand.”
How? He said he’d come to me willingly. Was it because I’d been savaged, and he felt the need to protect me and wound up resenting me for it? That didn’t sound like the Aiden I’ve been getting to know. He took more than his fair share of responsibility for every action and reaction. “I don’t understand.”
He opens his mouth to elaborate when there is a ripping sound, like a great bolt of fabric being rent in two. Aiden is on his feet before I can blink, facing not back toward the land, but out over the swamp. “Get behind me,” he snarls.
I see black claws curl from his fingers and his eyes glow with emerald fire. Every hair on my arms stands on end.
“What is it?” I ask, even as the familiar shape of a sword appears. It’s blazing with an orange glow as it arcs down in a wide swath. Then the first rider appears. Freda, helmet decorated with falcon wings and riding a snow-white stallion and behind her, Nahini on her chestnut mare. Mounted fairies, charging hounds and undead foot soldiers make their way out of the tear and cross the water, all traveling on air between the glow from the will-o-the-wisps.
The Wild Hunt is back.
A Place for Misfits
Freda’s mount steps from the nothingness three inches above the surface of the swamp to solid ground without a pause. “Greetings my queen. Wolf.” She nods tersely at Aiden.
His claws are still out, and he bares his fangs at her. “You can’t have her.”
Freda tosses her long golden braid. “As I have told you many times before, the Unseelie Queen is not your property. You cannot dictate where she chooses to ride. Perhaps you need a reminder.” She holds Seelenverkäufer out, her smile a challenge.
“You will not hurt him,” I push past Aiden, the oddest sense of déjà vu sweeping through me. “Stop this, both of you. Aiden, you need to back down, now.”
It’s not a command but my tone is stern, so he knows I mean business.
He tenses, but slowly, gradually, the claws retract.
“My queen.” Nahini, always the more formal of the two, dismounts and goes down on one knee before me.
“Don’t please. I’m not a queen.” I reach down and offer her a hand up.
“At least not yet.” Freda smirks, her look a challenge.
“I thought you said three days.” I turn to her. “It hasn’t even been two.”
“Time moves differently beyond the Veil.” Aiden reminds me.
“Right.” I’ve been putting off thinking about what would happen when they returned. So many other things have required my attention.
“If it is acceptable to you, we will dismiss the host to set up camp.” Nahini gestures to encompass the remainder of the army. They have gone still as death itself, even the hounds.
I nod. “Go ahead.”
The living fey separate from the rest, trotting their mounts to the land, the hounds at their heels. One huge man has a large falcon perched on his shoulder, and the name Alric flits through my mind as he passes me.
“Go find a place to set up camp.” Freda says to one slight girl with a long red braid and pointed ears. She looks to be about twelve. “Wait for my signal.”
“Yes, mother.” The girl dips her head respectfully.
“Mother?” I blink.
“You know I could never say no to a nymph in my bed.” Freda grins.
“A nymph?” Nahini raises one perfectly arched brow.
Freda winks at me. “There might have been more than one. You play you pay, am I right, Nicneven?”
Beside me, I feel Aiden tense.
I look out at the rest of the company, the disembodied souls. “What about them?”
With a wave of her hand, Nahini flicks a glowing sort of light out over the undead. The mist rises off the swamp, consuming them from the ground up even as they seem to melt down into it. The ghostly entourage blends with it until I can no longer make out individual forms, just wisps of putty colored fog on the water.
“They will remain here until summoned.” Nahini leads her horse forward. “Where are we being quartered?”
“Um...?” My teeth sink into my bottom lip. I don’t look to Aiden. Somehow doing so in their presence feels wrong. He has been my guide through Underhill, but I’m supposed to be a leader to these warriors. At the same time, I have brought an army to Laufey and Fern’s doorstep, not once but twice, and right on the heels of Chloe and Addy’s brutal attack. Miss Manners would not approve. “Well, we can’t stay here.”
Aiden touches the sleeve of my dress lightly. “You have lands in the mortal realm.”
I glance up at him, surprised. “You mean the farm?”
His face is like stone, not a man who looks like he enjoys what he’s suggesting. “The protections will still be in place, it’s isolated and there is enough space for the Hunt to set up their summer camp without detection.”
I open my mouth, then close it once more. What choice do I have? “All right. The farm then.”
Freda whistles and the little elven redhead runs to her side. “Gather them again. We cross the Veil once more.”
The small girl’s blue eyes sparkle with excitement. “Yes, mother.”
Nahini is busy urging the mist to reform into the dead members of The Hunt. One large man—spirit of a man anyhow—seems to glower at her. It’s the kind of look you give to someone who got you out of bed the moment after your head hits the pillow.
Aiden pulls me aside as the Wild Hunt reassembles. “I’ll need a few days here.”
I blink up at him. “You’re not coming with us?”
He traces the backs of his fingers down my cheek. “Not yet. I do not wish to leave them alone here, until Laufey is fully recovered.”
Of course, he would want to stay. I should have thought of it myself, but I never considered the possibility of going back without him. Going anywhere without him. In a very short time Aiden has become a permanent fixture in my life. “Do what you gotta do.”
He searches my face. “Promise me something. You will not leave the farm until I return.”
&nb
sp; “What? I’ll need to go out. If for nothing else than to get groceries to feed an army.” Well, half an army anyway.
“Send someone in your stead. The Hunt and the enchantments the Fates placed over the residence will keep you safe. I found you when you left to hunt. Others could do the same, especially once Brigit learns that you are alive. When the Hunt no longer responds to her summons.”
I meet his bright green gaze. “One day soon, we’re going to have to talk about Brigit and how you seem to know so much about her.”
“We will,” he agrees, his expression giving away nothing. “Soon. I will miss you, Nic.”
My lips turn up in a small smile. “Don’t be too long. You’re my guide through all this.”
He nods, his eyes somber. “It’s been my privilege. And my pleasure.”
“My queen?” Freda is mounted once again and extends her hand down to me. I grasp it and she pulls me up. I swing my leg over until I am mounted firmly behind her.
Aiden steps back farther onto the dock, still near but clearly out of reach.
“Didn’t take him long to slither his way back into your bed,” Freda grumbles as she turns her pearl colored mare around in midair.
“We’re not sleeping together,” I inform her, though I’m not sure why. Divulging personal information isn’t something I do. Ever. Yet something about Freda’s straight to the heart of it manner emboldens me.
“If you want my advice, you’ll keep it that way.” Freda turns her mount to the east and slashes the air with Seelenverkäufer. The tear appears, glowing and pulsing like a raw wound.
“Why do you dislike him?” I turn to look back at Aiden. He stands there on the dock, watching me, his expression unreadable.
She sheaths the sword. “Because he’s fickle. Swearing allegiance to you, then Brigit, then you again. A true companion of the heart should be loyal, don’t you think?”
My head whips around to meet her gaze. “He swore allegiance to Brigit? An actual oath?”
“Before the entire court, just as he did for you.”
I turn to look back at where Aiden still stands and part my lips. If he had to obey her, the same way he did me...possibilities whirl in my mind.
But then Freda’s horse pushes its nose through the tear. There is a great roaring, like the heart of a storm followed by a sucking sensation as though my body is a cherry at the bottom of a milkshake and some giant is trying to pull me up through a straw. Freda spurs the mare into a gallop as we pass back through the Veil. When I look again, Aiden is nowhere in sight.
THERE IS NO FERRY THIS time, no shooting starlight from the souls that maintain the Veil. One moment we are surrounded by the humid air of the swamp and the next the cool fresh mountain breeze surrounds us. Freda’s horse gallops on invisible currents of air. In the distance, lighting flashes as dark clouds stack up. A storm is coming, the energy crackles through me, making all the hairs on my arm stand on end.
Riding with the Wild Hunt is both terrifying and exhilarating. Just like in my dreams, wind whips at my hair, tugging it every which way. The clamor of the army behind me abandoned whoops, barks and bays and the cry of the falcon I’d seen earlier. I barely stifle my own urge to throw back my head and shout out along with them. Energy pulses between the living members of the unearthly host. We are one, connected beneath the stars.
“You’ll have to direct me from here,” Freda turns her helmeted head, the wings nearly poking me in the eye. “I don’t know exactly where we’re going.”
I look down, hoping to spot anything familiar. Of course, I’ve never had an aerial view of my hometown before. The houses and stores are all tiny pinpricks of light, the people no larger than ants.
“Can’t they hear us?” I shout to her and gesture down at the tiny scuttling beings.
“If they do, they’ll dismiss it as noise from the approaching thunderheads. Does anything look familiar, my queen? The storm front will be upon us soon and I would prefer not to dodge lightning.”
“There.” I point at a winding road that bends out from the center of town. “Follow that to the east, through the trees.”
Freda does. It’s difficult to judge distance but I keep the road in my sights. The main road dumps out into a gravel drive and then I see the farm. First Addy’s clinic, the abandoned building that used to be for seasonal workers to bunk, and then finally the farmhouse. The only home I’ve ever known.
No lights shine from the windows, no smoke rises from the chimney. My throat constricts. They really are gone.
Freda’s mount touches down lightly, the steed shifting from running on air to solid earth without losing a step. Nahini draws up her own reins, the motion as natural to her as drawing breath. Behind us, the rest of the Wild Hunt lands with barely a rustle of grass.
“My queen?” Freda peers over her shoulder at me and with a start I realize she’s waiting for me to climb down. I do, with much less grace than she exhibits a moment later, but at least I don’t land on my ass in the dirt.
“Fascinating,” Nahini removes her helmet, her plethora of braids spilling free. “We’ve traveled past this place a dozen times when searching for the wolf, yet I never saw it. I can feel the magic protecting it. It throbs like a pulse in the air. No wonder he eluded us.”
A memory flashes in my mind. Nahini, though I hadn’t known her name at the time. She throws herself between me and the man I’d come to claim. They have made camp away from the rest of their village, intentionally. Plants and herbs lay strewn about and the man on the pallet sweats with fever. Firelight dances off Seelenverkäufer and reflects in her dark eyes as she glares at me. “You shall not have him.”
I could shove her aside easily but pause. “He is damaged, child. Sick.”
She bares her teeth. “He’s my brother.”
Her fierceness, her loyalty burns as bright as their camp fire. Not a trait I see often.
“He’s hurt others,” I say. “Innocents. He belongs with the Hunt.”
She shakes her head. “He’s all I have.”
“My queen, allow me to dispatch them both.” Freda, always eager to prove her devotion with bloodshed, steps forward.
I raise my hand in silent command and move closer to the pallet. The half-naked man thrashes, his eyes dart behind closed lids. I sheath my blade and I bend down to touch him, but the sister is there, gripping my gauntleted wrist. “No.”
“Release her,” I hear Freda’s blade scrape free of her scabbard.
I meet the sister’s fierce gaze. “Peace, child. I only intend to ascertain his condition. I will not harm him. None of us will harm either of you.” The yet goes unspoken.
She searches me from the crown of a braid pinned atop my head to the mud on my boots. I get the feeling that she can see inside me, is reading my intent. Her shoulders relax slightly, the adrenaline leaving her system.
“Stand down, Freda,” I tell my second. “There is no danger here.”
After the slightest hesitation, she does.
The dark girl swallows and then let’s go of my wrist.
I touch the forehead of the man, and it’s like touching fire. “The fever rages within him. He will die this night.”
“He won’t,” she shoves me aside and places a wet cloth on his forehead. Her eyes are wet though no tears escape. “I won’t let him go.”
I watch for a moment as her nimble fingers crumble dried herbs into a clay pot, and then set it over the fire. Her skill is obvious, she must have been trained as the tribal wise woman or healer. But her brother’s misdeeds, his perversion, have forced her from her people.
And her loyalty to him kept her by his side.
I crouch down next to her as she spoons water past his cracked lips. “Even your remarkable will and all the love in your heart won’t win this battle. But there is a way you can stay with him.”
“How?” Her face is bleak. She has been at this many days.
“Join us. Join the Wild Hunt as your brother must.”
She doesn’t recoil. “You aren’t human.”
“No, but my second is.” I gesture to Freda. “She is an immortal being now, like me. And like you will be, if you join us. Your brother will die. You will live, but my way, the two of you can be together. And you never have to worry that he will hurt an innocent again. You can help us stop others from hurting innocents.”
I see the shadows in her dark eyes, the worry there. She knows what her brother is, knows it and loves him anyway. A human flaw, the capacity to love, one I am glad not to possess.
“Will it hurt him?” she asks with a fearful look at the weapon strapped to my hip.
I can at will increase the potency of my kiss, kill him within a heartbeat. “It doesn’t have to. You will join us then?”
She swallows, nods once. “I will.”
“And I will be proud to have you as part of my ranks. We will be your family.” I bend down and press my lips lightly against her brother’s, sealing his fate with my most toxic kiss....
“My queen? Is aught amiss?” Nahini is frowning at me now.
I shake my head, then gaze past her, to the deathly ranks where her brother stands. He was wrong in life, like all the dead of the Hunt are, but Nahini’s love for him is pure and true and has survived for a century after his death. For those we hunt, we are a scourge, a tsunami that can’t be stopped. An afterlife sentence. But for me, for Freda and Nahini it’s about loyalty. Family. A place in the world where misfits belong and can protect those that need it most.
“Perhaps we should set up camp?” Nahini suggests.
I nod. “Sure, wherever you think is best.”
She surveys the open field where we stopped, about an acre from the house. “Down there by the stream will do.”
“Not too close, it tends to flood this time of year. And we need to make sure both the gates are closed.” The last thing I want is for locals to stumble across the Hunt.
“We’ll see to it.” Freda mounts again and gestures for her daughter to climb on with her. They vanish between one step and the next.
Nahini dismisses the dead and they disperse into the fog, whatever fibers that hold them together dissolving into nothingness.
The Goodnight Kiss Page 25
