A Gabriel who would chew up anyone who touched his daughter.
“You know he won’t give permission,” she admitted.
Her father was in charge. His rules meant that only one who could stand against him in a fight was allowed to date her.
Or anything else.
“Hey?”
She looked at the Hound.
“If you weren’t his daughter, I’d risk it, but crossing Gabe isn’t something I’m going to do.”
Ani sighed, not in disappointment, but at the futility of ever getting a different answer. “I know.”
“Convince him that you’re not going to get broken by a little fun, and I’ll be in front of the line. Promise.” The Hound leaned forward to drop a quick kiss on her lips.
It was no more than a second of affection, but he was ripped away and hurled across the aisle toward the opposite stall. The thud of his body hitting the wooden slats covered most of the curses he was yelling.
“Don’t touch my pup.” Gabriel stood in the middle of the aisle. He was grinning, but his posture was one of menace. Of course, he was the Hound that controlled the Wild Hunt, so menace was as natural as breathing for him.
The Hound on the floor felt the back of his head as he leaned on one partition of the wooden stall. “Damn, Gabriel. I didn’t touch her.”
“Your lips were on hers. That’s touching,” Gabriel growled.
Ani stepped in front of her father and poked him in the chest. “Don’t act like it’s wrong for them to respond to me.”
He glared at her but didn’t lift a hand. “I am the Gabriel. I run this pack, and if any of them”—he looked past her to the Hound on the floor—“want to challenge me over you, all they need to do is say the word.”
The Hound on the floor spoke up. “I turned her down.”
“Not because she lacks anything,” Gabriel growled.
“No, no.” The Hound held up his hands. “She’s perfect, Gabe… but you said she was off-limits.”
Gabriel held a hand out to the Hound on the floor without looking at him.
The Hound glanced at her. “Sorry… I, umm, touched you.”
Ani rolled her eyes. “You’re a peach.”
“Sorry, Gabriel. It won’t happen again.” The Hound straddled his bike and left with a roar that was more growl than a real Harley’s engine could mimic.
For a heartbeat, it was perfectly quiet in the stable. The steeds stayed silent and motionless.
“My perfect pup.” Gabriel stepped up and ruffled her hair. “He doesn’t deserve you. None of them do.”
She shoved him away. “So, you’d rather I’m skin starved?”
Gabriel snorted. “You’re not starved.”
“I would be if I followed all of your rules,” she muttered.
“And I wouldn’t have so many rules if I thought you’d follow them all.” He threw a punch, which she dodged. It was nice, but not backed by the full force of his strength or weight. He always held back. That was insulting. If she were truly a part of the Hunt, he’d fight with her the way he fought with all the rest. He’d train her. He’d accept me in the pack.
“You suck at fatherhood, Gabe.” She turned away and started down the aisle.
He couldn’t taste her feelings, not like most of the Dark Court. Hounds weren’t nourished on the same things, so her emotions were hidden to them. The peculiarity of the Hunt’s inability to taste emotions while everyone around them could made them very blunt in their own expressions. It worked out well: Dark Court faeries were nourished by swallowing dark emotions; Hounds required physical touch for sustenance. So the Hunt caused the fear and terror that fed the court, and the court provided the touch the Hounds required. Ani was abnormal in that she needed both.
Which sucks.
“Ani?”
She didn’t stop walking. There was no way she was going to let him see the tears building in her eyes. Just another proof of my weakness. She gestured over her shoulder. “I get it, Daddy. I’m not welcome.”
“Ani.”
Tears leaked onto her cheeks as she stopped in the doorway, but she didn’t turn back.
“Promise to follow the rules while we’re out, and you could probably borrow Che’s steed again tonight.” His voice held the hope he wouldn’t say aloud. “If she agrees.”
Ani turned then and smiled at him. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He didn’t move, didn’t comment on the tears on her cheeks, but his voice softened and he added, “And I’m not an awful father.”
“Maybe.”
“I just don’t want to think about you wanting… things… or getting hurt.” Gabriel folded the cloth that the Hound had dropped, looking at it rather than at her. “Irial says you’re okay though. I ask. I do try.”
“I know.” She shook her hair back and struggled to be reasonable. That was the worst part sometimes; she did know that Gabriel tried. She knew he trusted Irial’s judgment, trusted Chela, trusted his pack. He’d never raised a daughter—these past few months that he’d had her around were the sum total of his father-daughter parenting experience. But, she’d never had pack hungers before either. It was a new experience all around.
Later, after she’d secured Chela’s consent, gone over the regular stay-close-to-Gabriel rules, and promised to stick with the pack, Ani was back in the stable with her father.
“If Che’s steed has anything to say, it’ll tell me, and I’ll tell you.” Gabriel’s reminder that she couldn’t hear Chela’s steed—that I’ll never hear one—was delivered with an ominous rumble in his voice. He was already feeling the heightened connection to the Hounds who were filling the aisles.
Somewhere in the distance, a howl rose like the scream of wind. Ani knew that only the Hunt heard it, but both mortal and faery felt it in the shivers that raced over suddenly chilled skin. To some, it was as if sirens came toward them, as if ambulances and police sped to them carrying words of sudden deaths or horrific accidents.
The Wild Hunt rides.
As Ani looked over the assembling Hounds, the green of their eyes and the clouds of their breath were clear. Wolves filled the room where the steeds were not. They would run between the hooves of the steeds, a roil of fur and teeth. Steed and wolf all waited for their Gabriel’s word to begin, to run, to chase those foolish enough to attract their attention. Terror built and filled the air with a prestorm charge. Those not belonging to the Hunt would have to struggle to breathe. Mortals on the nearby streets would cringe, scurry into their dens, or turn into other alleys. If they stayed, they’d not see the true face of the Hunt, but explain it away—earthquake? trains? storms? street fights?—with the willful ignorance mortals clung to so fiercely. They didn’t often stay; they ran. It was the order of things: prey runs, and predators pursue.
Her father, her Gabriel, strode through the room assessing them.
Ani felt the stroke of icy fingers on her skin as they prepared to ride. She bit down on her lip to keep from urging her father to sound the call. Her knuckles whitened as she clenched the edge of the wooden wall beside her. She looked at their horrible beauty and shivered.
If they were mine… I’d belong.
Then Gabriel was beside her.
“You are my pup, Ani.” Gabriel cupped her cheek in his massive hand. “To be worthy of you, any Hound would have to be willing to face me. He’d need to be strong enough to lead them.”
“I want to lead them,” she whispered. “I want to be their Gabrielle.”
“You’re too mortal to hold control of them.” Gabriel’s eyes were monstrous. His skin was the touch of terror, of death, of nightmares that were Un-Named. “And too much mine to not be with the Hunt. I’m sorry.”
She held his gaze. Something feral inside of her understood that this was why she couldn’t live with Rabbit: her brother wasn’t as fierce as her father was. Tish wasn’t. Ani desperately wanted to be. Like the rest of the Hounds mounting their steeds, Ani knew that Gabriel could kill her if she disobe
yed. It was a restraint she needed: it kept her closer to following rules.
“I can’t take the Hunt from you”—she flashed her teeth at her father—“yet. Maybe I’ll surprise you.”
“Makes me proud that you want to,” he said.
For a moment, the pride in her father’s eyes was the sum of her world. She belonged. For tonight, she was included in the pack. He made it so.
If only I always was.
But there were no unclaimed steeds, and her mortal blood meant she’d never be strong enough to become Gabriel’s successor, never be truly Pack.
A taste of belonging…
It wasn’t enough, not truly, but it was something.
Then a howl unlike anything else in this world or the next came to his lips, and the rest of the pack echoed it. She echoed it.
Gabriel tossed her atop Chela’s steed and growled, “We ride.”
CHAPTER 2
Devlin stepped into the High Queen’s private gardens. The ground under his sandals hummed when his foot touched it. Sometimes, he considered telling Sorcha that he noticed the barely perceptible alarms she’d set. With rare exceptions, he’d devoted eternity to Sorcha, but she was a creature of logic and order. She knew—and Bananach did—that he made the choice to serve Faerie every day, every hour, every moment. The only thing that kept him from choosing to align himself with Sorcha’s antithesis was his own willpower.
And affection.
For all of her adherence to logic, the Unchanging Queen cared for him. Of that, he was certain.
“My Queen?” He walked toward her, waiting a heartbeat between steps to see if she’d let vines tangle his path or if she’d remake a passageway for him.
She glanced his way, and the undergrowth vanished in a narrow corridor. Briars reached from plants that were typically without thorns, tracing dozens of thin scratches on his arms and feet. It wasn’t necessarily a conscious strike at him: the world around them bent to her will, but Sorcha had long since stopped noticing. It was like noticing that her heart beat. It simply did, and if her will injured others, so be it.
It’s not personal.
“I can’t see him,” Sorcha whispered. “He’s out there in the world. What if he’s hurt? What if he’s in danger?”
“You’d know,” Devlin assured, as he had every day since Seth left. “You’d know if he was hurt.”
“How? How would I know? I’m blind.” The Queen of Order looked far from reasonable. Her skirt had tears in the hem. Her hair, usually as vibrant as liquid fire, was pale and snarled at the ends. Since Seth, the newly made faery, had gone back to the mortal world, Sorcha was increasingly not herself.
“I need to know that Seth is safe.” She folded her arms over her chest. Her voice steadied. “I see her, the Summer Queen, and he is not with her. That’s why he went back. Her. She should treat him better.”
Misty figures formed in front of Sorcha. Somewhere in the mortal world, faeries were unaware that she was watching them. In the haze of the garden, Devlin stood near his queen and watched the faeries who were the focus of Sorcha’s attention. Unless the faeries’ or mortals’ threads twined too closely with her own thread, Sorcha could see into their lives.
The Summer Queen, Aislinn, stood in front of a fountain, talking to one of the water fey, Aobheall. In the background, the land flourished even though fall had come. In the patch of earth the Summer regents had claimed, Winter wouldn’t ever reign again. Shrubs bloomed out of season, and faeries danced over green earth. Aislinn laughed and sat down on the edge of the fountain. One hand idly traced patterns on the surface of the water, and in its wake, water lilies blossomed.
Aobheall lazed in the fountain like a half-bared Grecian statue come to life. The water streamed around her in a small waterfall. “I think that dress is the one you wore just a few moons ago. We could shop, or”—Aobheall leaned forward—“get a dress made for you.”
“I don’t know.” The Summer Queen glanced behind her to where several members of her Summer Court were weaving flowers into garlands. “Does it really matter what I wear?”
Aobheall frowned. “It should matter, Aislinn.”
“I know… and… choose happiness, right?” A too- bright smile lit the Summer Queen’s face. The Summer Queen had reigned for barely more than a mortal year, but during that time she’d had to deal with intercourt conflicts, being stabbed, losing a friend to the Dark Court, and trying to make sense of centuries of rivalry, allegiances, and old angers. An illogical urge to send her good advisors flared to life in Devlin, but he quashed it: the Summer Queen was not his priority.
Sorcha jabbed a finger toward the misty tableau, sending ripples through the image. “How can she be happy if he’s not?”
“She chooses to pursue happiness for the good of her court,” he pointed out. “It’s not the same as true happiness. You can’t fault her for trying to keep her court strong.”
Sorcha obviously disagreed: thorns continued to grow, weaving together like threads on a loom until they formed a daunting barrier between Sorcha and Devlin.
“Tell me, Brother.” She sounded fragile, not at all like the confident queen she’d been since the moment Devlin had first drawn breath.
“Summer is happy by nature,” he reminded, but even as he said it, he watched the Summer Queen. Her eyes were shadowed as if she wasn’t sleeping, and her mannerisms were out of synch with the frolicking around her. Aislinn was doing what Sorcha should be doing: making the best of whatever sorrows plagued her. Of course, the difference was that the High Queen shouldn’t be lost in sorrows at all. Emotional flux was not a High Court trait: it was out of order.
“I want him home,” Sorcha whispered. “Their world is unsafe. Bananach grows stronger. The courts are in discord. If there is true war there, the mortal world will suffer. Do you remember the times she has been strong, Brother? The mortals die so easily. He will not stay out of her path…. He is too recently mortal. He needs to be here where he is safe.”
“Soon.” Devlin didn’t try to reach through the thorns that now twisted around his queen like a cloak. He wanted to comfort her, to tell her that he was there, but such displays of untoward emotion had always offended her. He’d made a life of hiding the emotions that proved that he was not truly High Court, not truly hers, not worthy to advise the Queen of Reason. The rest of the court might not realize that he was filled with illogical emotions, but she knew. She’d always known—and found it abhorrent.
Sorcha watched the translucent figures silently. In the hazy images, the Summer Queen startled and looked up. She smiled, looking hopeful. Whatever or whomever she saw was invisible to them, and in a blink, Aislinn vanished as well.
“He’s there,” Sorcha murmured, “with her.”
“Perhaps.” Devlin suspected that it was Seth, but there were others whose presence was invisible to Sorcha—some of whom Devlin had hidden from her.
“Do you think he is well?” Sorcha caught and held Devlin’s gaze. “What if he needs to talk or… art supplies… or… to come home? Maybe he wants to come home. Maybe he is unhappy. How am I to know?”
“I will visit him again.” Devlin would rather bring Seth back to Faerie, but Sorcha had given Seth a choice, and he had chosen to return to the mortal world where his beloved Summer Queen lived. Devlin had objected. Killing Seth or keeping him in Faerie would be better for Sorcha—and therefore for all of them.
“Perhaps you should stay there.” The High Queen’s voice didn’t sound noticeably different as she said this, but Devlin felt increasingly uneasy. In all of eternity, Sorcha had never sent him away for more than a quick trip.
“Stay there?” Devlin had traveled back and forth to the mortal world too often of late, and, as a day in Faerie was almost a full week in the mortal world, the disconnect of such travel was beginning to wear on him. His own emotions, more easily contained when he stayed in Faerie with his queen, were becoming increasingly present. His sleep was restless, leaving him tired—and prone
to emotions.
“You would have me stay in the mortal world?” He spoke the words slowly.
“Yes. In case he needs you. I’m… I need you more there than here.” She stared at him, as if daring him to question her.
He wanted to: there was more to this than Seth’s protection, but Devlin didn’t know what his queen was hiding. “He’s with Irial and Niall, my queen. Cloistered safely in the Dark Court but for when he’s with the Summer Queen. Surely—”
“Do you refuse my orders? Have you finally decided to disobey me?”
He knelt. “Have I ever refused your orders?”
“You have acted without direct orders; but refused? I don’t know, Devlin.” She sighed softly, a whisper of air that made the garden seem to hold its breath. “You could, though. I know that.”
“I am not refusing your order,” he said. It was not a real answer. Truth would lead them into a discussion he had avoided for fourteen mortal years: it would mean admitting that he had disobeyed her direct order to kill one half-mortal child.
An offense for which I could be executed, abandoned, cast out of Faerie… and rightly so. A feeling that he recognized as guilt twisted inside him. I am High Court. I am Sorcha’s to command. I will not fail my queen ever again, he repeated his daily reminders silently to himself. Aloud, he added, “I am not refusing, but I am your advisor, my Queen, and I do not recommend leaving you alone when you seem…”
“Seem what?”
Devlin’s position was one of obeisance, but he caught and held her gaze with a boldness none other in Faerie would dare. “When you seem to be developing emotions.”
She ignored the reality he’d spoken and said only, “Tell him I wish he would come home. You will stay there… for as long as he needs you.”
“I am yours to command, my Queen.”
“Are you?” Sorcha leaned into the veil of thorns that had grown around her, and just as the jagged edges would pierce her, they vanished. Then, thorns sprouted from the earth at his knees, around her feet. The vines climbed her body, and crept over her arm to her fingers. She raised her hand and pressed it to his cheek, so that the sharp edges pierced them both. “Are you truly mine, Brother?”