“There is one other condition that will allow me to kill in Avalon,” he said.
Of course there was. Both he and Grace had mentioned that he was hunting her, and my dad had said he was allowed to pursue his quarry into Avalon. I’d assumed the Erlking had come to Avalon in pursuit of the Fae I’d seen him kill the first day he’d come, but now I figured the Fae had been a bonus and Grace his main quarry.
Ethan forced himself up into a sitting position with a grunt of pain. Arawn dismissed me for the moment and went to kneel beside his former Huntsman. I don’t know for certain if it was on purpose, but he managed to position himself in such a way that his shadow hid Grace’s decapitated body from my vision.
“Lie down,” the Erlking ordered Ethan, and though I saw the spark of rebellion in Ethan’s eyes, he obeyed. I guessed he didn’t have any choice.
The Erlking put his hand over Ethan’s wound, then pressed down hard. Ethan screamed in pain, and I tried to scramble to my feet. What I could possibly do to help Ethan against the Erlking was anyone’s guess. But after that scream, Ethan’s body went completely limp.
For one terrible minute, I thought he was dead. Then the Erlking lifted the hand he’d laid on Ethan’s chest, holding something between his thumb and index finger. It was the bullet.
“It had to come out before he could heal properly,” he said.
I steadied myself with a hand against the wall. “You could have just taken him to a healer. A healer could have fixed him up without hurting him.”
He nodded. “Even so. And in the intervening time, he’d have been in constant pain. Better to have it over with quickly, don’t you think?”
I wanted to disagree with him, but that would make me a hypocrite. After all, I’d decided to let Keane heal my hand when I’d hurt it for just that reason.
Dropping the bullet, Arawn stood up, the shadows and his black cloak making him seem even larger than he really was. “I take it you fully understand the terms of our bargain now.”
“Yeah,” I said weakly. I could have lied, but Ethan had heard Grace’s big revelation, and it was pretty obvious now that anything Ethan knew, the Erlking knew.
I closed my eyes to stop the tears that wanted to spill out. I had known from the moment he’d made the offer that Arawn was angling for more than sex, that giving him my virginity would have some kind of unpleasant consequences. So why the hell did it hurt my feelings to discover those consequences would have included my death? He was the bad guy, a cold-blooded, cold-hearted killer. Yeah, he’d just saved my life, but he’d done it entirely for his own purposes. I couldn’t put out if I was dead. So it should have come as no surprise that he was planning to use and kill me, just like Grace had planned to.
“I would not have taken your life,” the Erlking said, and I jumped because he was much closer to me than I’d been expecting.
I opened my eyes and looked up at him. “Yeah, right.”
“Dana, I have no need of your life. It is only your Faeriewalker magic that I crave.”
“Well, you’re not getting either.” It seemed I was taking a lifelong vow of chastity. That reality would hit me harder a little later, I knew, but with everything I now knew, there was no way I could ever have sex. Doing it with the Erlking would literally be the death of me—and of who knows how many innocent people—and doing it with anyone else meant Ethan would be sucked up into the Hunt again.
He smiled at me. “You never know what the future will bring.”
“In this case, yes, you do.”
His look was all confidence and conceit. “You speak with the certainty of the very young. We’ll see if over time I can find the proper inducement to change your mind. I will vow to you right now that if you fulfill our bargain, I will not take your life. I would even agree to a geis to that effect.”
“Which we’d need to seal with a kiss or with blood, right?” He nodded. “No thanks.” No more blood, no more pain, no more kisses.
He shrugged. “Then I suppose you will just have to trust my word.” The look on his face hardened. “Trust my word on this, too. If you reveal my secret to anyone who doesn’t already know, I will make your brother suffer for it every day of his immortal life.”
I swallowed the lump of fear that formed in my throat. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that the Erlking would keep that promise. I didn’t even know Connor, but I couldn’t let him take the punishment for it if I opened my big mouth.
“I won’t tell,” I whispered.
His face softened into a smile again. “I know you won’t,” he said, his tone strangely gentle. “That is why I can make the threat in good conscience. You are very protective of those who matter to you, and it takes very little to make someone matter.”
I had no answer to that, so I just kept quiet.
chapter twenty-six
It took Ethan only about five minutes to regain consciousness. The Erlking’s healing spell was impressive, and Ethan showed no signs of being in pain. Well, not physical pain, at least. He seemed to be having trouble making eye contact with me. I wondered if he’d labeled me a slut now that he knew what I’d promised, but I wasn’t about to ask him. If he had, I didn’t want to know.
Five other members of the Wild Hunt showed up shortly after Ethan woke up. For the first time, none of them wore a mask or a helmet, so I could see their faces. They all had the typical beauty of the Fae, but there was a haunted look in all of their eyes that told me they were not happy to be the Erlking’s slaves.
One of them was carrying Grace’s other accomplice over his shoulder. Blood covered the accomplice’s face, and the gaping wound that cut across his entire throat told me he wouldn’t be doing any more time in jail. Despite knowing better, he must have been tricked by the Huntsmen into striking the first blow. The Erlking nodded in approval.
“Well done,” he said, giving his Huntsman a pat on the shoulder. “I will escort Dana home.” He made a sweeping gesture that encompassed both Fred and Grace. “Dispose of these and then return to the house.” He looked at Ethan. “You should go home. Dana will be safe with me.”
Ethan looked scared and angry at the same time. “Will she really?”
The Erlking laughed. “Safer than she was with you, my boy,” he said, once again gesturing at our dead enemies.
Ethan’s face flushed all the way to the roots of his hair, and he dropped his gaze. I guess I was too stunned in the aftermath of what had happened to feel any particular sense of self-preservation, because I kicked Arawn in the shin as if he weren’t the most dangerous person in all of Avalon.
“Don’t talk to Ethan like that!” I snapped. “It’s not his fault he got shot and couldn’t help me.”
Arawn grinned at me. “Did you just attack me, Faeriewalker?”
That whole self-preservation thing came rushing back, and my stomach dropped like I was in a fast-moving elevator. But Arawn was still grinning, and there was a teasing twinkle in his eyes. He wouldn’t be looking at me like that if I’d just given him an excuse to draw me into the Hunt and capture my powers for himself. I wondered if it was the harmlessness of my kick that saved me, or whether it was being female. After all, there were no female Huntsmen, at least not as far as I could tell.
Arawn surprised me by explaining.
“It’s in the intent,” he said. “You did not truly intend me harm—your kick was nothing more than a reprimand. Therefore it doesn’t count as an attack. It’s the same thing that allowed me to feign striking you to trick this one.” He nodded his head sideways at Ethan. “If I’d had intent to hurt you, I would not have been able to swing the sword.”
I nodded, wondering if I would ever be able to absorb all the intricacies of Fae magic. And wondering about that made me remember my own spell, the desperation attack I’d launched on Grace. My first thought had been that it had failed utterly. But now I wasn’t so sure.
My eyes drifted toward Grace’s body, though I had no wish to see. Luckily, her upper body—and her se
vered head—were lost somewhere in the shadows. My gorge rose anyway, and I quickly averted my gaze.
It was frightening how well Arawn could read me. He answered the question I wasn’t willing to put into words.
“I have never encountered magic like yours before,” he told me. “I am far older than your aunt Grace, and yet never have I even heard of such a power.”
“Umm, what power would that be, exactly?”
“At a guess, I’d say that you somehow made her mortal.”
“What?” I cried. Even Ethan and the Huntsmen looked startled by that.
“Her connection to magic was completely severed when you cast your spell,” the Erlking explained. “Her active spell died, and she seemed incapable of casting another, despite her considerable power. The wound Ethan dealt her was serious, but not fatal, not to one of the Sidhe. And evidence suggests she might have died even had I not struck her a fatal blow myself.”
If that’s really what I’d done, then I was even more of a threat to the Queens of Faerie than they knew. Like they needed one more reason to kill me! To have the power to make an immortal Fae mortal …
I tried not to let my thoughts show on my face, but the Erlking hadn’t lived as long as he had without learning a thing or two about reading people. Or maybe it was just that he was thinking the same thing himself. He looked down at me with an expression that was both grave and slightly sinister.
“There are a few things you should keep in mind, should you find yourself tempted to use that spell on me. You cast it this time in a moment of extreme stress. How sure are you that you’d be able to replicate it at will? It’s not exactly something you can practice, unless you’re much more ruthless than you let on. And, of course, just because it worked on your aunt Grace is no guarantee it would work on me. I am not Sidhe.”
“If you’re not Sidhe, what are you?” I asked, although that was hardly the most important question to ask at the moment.
One corner of his mouth curled upward. “I am the Erlking. I am one of a kind.” From someone else, that might have sounded arrogant, but Arawn presented it as a simple statement of fact, no hint of pride in his voice.
“I’m sure both your world and mine are thankful,” I said, and he laughed again. He seemed to find me pretty funny, considering we were in the process of discussing how I could be his Kryptonite, the one person in the universe who might actually be able to kill him.
Again, he seemed to read my thoughts. “I don’t fear you, Faeriewalker. You would not attempt to destroy me out of malice, and I will not put myself in such a situation as to give you good cause to unleash your powers on me. Besides, if you try, and you fail, then you will join my Hunt, for that would constitute an attack.”
I did actually believe he wasn’t worried, and unfortunately, I thought his reasoning was spot on. Could I have unleashed that spell on Grace if we hadn’t been in the heat of battle? Much as I hated her, could I have killed her in cold blood? I doubted it.
“Come now,” he said. “Let’s get you home.”
I was more than ready to get out of there, to get away from the blood and the bodies. I thought for sure Ethan was going to come with us—after all, the Erlking hadn’t technically ordered him to go home—but he murmured some excuse and slipped away, taking his torch with him, before I had a chance to protest.
Arawn retrieved a flashlight from Fred’s body, handing it to me before casting a light spell that made the flashlight unnecessary. Then he put a hand on my shoulder blade to guide me forward while his Huntsmen converged on the bodies. He turned the first corner he came to, and I suspected that was more to distance me from the carnage than because it was the direction we needed to go.
“If you can just get me to someplace I recognize, I can use your charm,” I told him. How I wished I’d done that in the first place.
“Not necessary,” he said. “I’ll take you all the way.”
I came to a stop. “No, you won’t. No one knows I’ve left my safe house, and it’s going to stay that way.”
Arawn turned to face me, one eyebrow lifted. “So you plan not to tell anyone about Grace’s demise and your part in it?”
I felt my eyes widening. “Oh, hell no! People are already lined up around the block wanting to kill me. The last thing I need is to give them yet another reason. Not to mention my dad would go completely ballistic if he knew I snuck out.” And considering what had almost happened to me because of it, he’d be perfectly justified.
“You underestimate your own strengths,” Arawn said, and I could have sworn I heard admiration in his voice. “You are not so easy to kill.”
“I’d have been dead meat if you hadn’t showed up tonight.”
“But I did. And I’ve already told you I won’t let anyone hurt you. Your power lies not only in what you can do yourself, but in what others can do for you. I am not a bad person to have on your side when both Queens of Faerie wish you dead.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not so good at counting on others.” I don’t know what moved me to be so frank with him. A smart person would be extra super careful about every word out of her mouth when talking to someone like the Erlking, but I was chatting with him like we were best buds.
He nodded his agreement. “You must always count on yourself first. But don’t discount your friends and allies.”
I met his blue, blue eyes. “Even allies who’ve played me for a fool and planned to kill me once they got what they wanted?”
He didn’t flinch from my gaze. “I never planned to kill you. Just because I’m capable of doing a thing doesn’t mean I’m going to do it. As for playing you…” He shrugged. “You made a deal with the one and only King of Faerie. You can’t possibly have expected to come out of that unscathed. In fact, I know you didn’t expect to. I played my part, and you played yours. And for all that you feel that I’ve deceived you, I did release Ethan from the Hunt.”
“But you didn’t release him from yourself.”
“Which is a good thing,” he countered, “else tonight would have ended very differently.”
I let my shoulders sag, tired of arguing. “The bottom line is you’re not going to let me sneak back home and keep everything under wraps, right?”
Arawn leaned his back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. His eyes looked far away, like he was thinking hard about something. He stood like that for a good minute, long enough for the silence to start getting on my nerves.
“You are not of the Wild Hunt,” he finally said. “It is not for me to declare whether you should or should not share your … adventures with your guardians. But as your ally, I can advise you, and it’s my advice that you not keep so many secrets from those who have the power to help you. Your father and your bodyguard are substantial assets, and you would do well not to keep secret things that could destroy their trust in you when the truth inevitably comes to light.”
Unfortunately, I feared it was a little too late for that. Finn had forgiven me for sneaking out with Keane, and he’d done me the huge favor of not telling my father. But if he were to find out I’d snuck out two more times after that, he’d be massively disappointed in me. Most likely he would never trust me again. Also, he would probably tell my dad about the first incident, and that would cause all kinds of problems. Dad would be mad at me, of course, but I bet he’d also be mad at Finn, for not telling him in the first place, and at Keane for being my accomplice. And let’s not even talk about what they would think if they found out about my magic!
I could totally see Arawn’s point that keeping such massive secrets from them could come back and bite me in the butt. But I’d crossed the point of no return long ago, and if I was to have even a modicum of freedom, I would have to keep those secrets hidden.
“I can’t let them know I snuck out,” I told Arawn. “Please just point me in the right direction and let me use the charm to sneak back in.”
He frowned at me, like he was displeased with my decision. Then he shrugged
. “Very well. If that’s what you wish.”
“It is,” I said.
At the very last moment, I could have sworn I caught a glint of satisfaction in Arawn’s eyes, and it occurred to me that he might have played me yet again. But I was too exhausted and wrung out to care, so I just let it slide.
chapter twenty-seven
We didn’t talk anymore as the Erlking guided me through the twisting labyrinth of the tunnels. He never showed a moment’s hesitation, though I was hard-pressed to tell the difference between one tunnel and another.
Eventually, the tunnel we were traveling along led to a lighted section, and soon we arrived on familiar ground, the entrance I habitually used to go into the city proper. From there, I could find my way back to the safe house with ease.
I dug the Erlking’s charm out of my pocket. I desperately wanted to get home to the safety and security of my bed, but to tell you the truth, I wasn’t looking forward to plunging into the darkness on my own.
“I don’t have to leave you here,” Arawn said, once again reading my thoughts. “I can accompany you farther without announcing myself to your bodyguard.”
I took a deep breath for courage. “I appreciate the thought, but I can take it from here. I’ll be home in just a few minutes.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Such a stickler for independence.”
Yeah, that was me all right. But I had a feeling that if I let myself chicken out of navigating the tunnels by myself now, I might have trouble letting go of my fears later.
“Thank you,” I said, though the words seemed awkward in relation to the Erlking. “You saved my life tonight. I won’t forget that.”
He waved my gratitude away. “You needn’t thank me for acting in my own best interests,” he said, and the reminder that he hadn’t saved me for my own sake helped me put the situation back into perspective.
I opened up the brooch, exposing the needle-sharp point. This was only the third time I’d used the charm, but I was already getting sick of jabbing myself. I did it anyway.