Page 21 of To Run with the Wild Hunt

Alexis Sharpe

As days stretched into weeks, my irritation with my two soulmates grew. It wasn't that I disliked either of them. Nuada fascinated me, and Key was a balm for my soul, an endless well of affection that satisfied all the parts of me that longed to be loved. But it felt like neither of them were willing to give chase, which was a strange state of affairs for creatures who seemed so eminently suited to such a thing.

I never encountered Nuada without looking for him, specifically. It was like he'd vacated the premises so I never had to risk walking into a room and finding his beautiful, dangerous self sprawled across a couch like a waiting leopard. Even when I got irked enough to hunt him down, he always gave me the lead, and never followed up on any of the openings I gave him.

I didn't know what that meant, and it bothered me every time I thought about him. He'd brought me here, displayed himself for me, let me touch him intimately… and then vanished. Had I done something wrong? Didn't he want me?

I didn't know what Key wanted, either, in the same way that I didn't know what Nuada wanted. Every time I asked, the answer was some variation on "you" or "your happiness", and that didn't give me enough information to begin to figure him out. It felt like there was a wall there, his secret longings hidden away so that he wouldn't bother me with them. But I wanted those secrets—wanted him sprawled out naked, body and soul, every piece of him bared for me in the sort of submission hounds know so well.

I wished I knew how to divine what was behind those lovely eyes of his. Almost hour by hour, his adoring gaze was a little less ruddy, the red eyes of the wolfhound who'd savaged me drifting towards royal purple, but I didn't know if that meant the magic of the Wild Hunt was wearing off of him, or if he was just becoming a little more mine with each hour we spent together. What did he want from me? A mistress to hold his leash and rub his ears? A friend? A lover?

A mate?

He wouldn't tell me, and I was too afraid of pushing to try to drag that knowledge out of him. I wanted him to give himself to me, not to have to be driven into confession.

Sometime around two or three weeks into my tenure at the Ruined Palace – I hadn't bothered tracking the days – Keilain vanished in the late afternoon. That wasn't unusual; he often went out on rambles, or chased down rabbits for my supper. But he didn't come back, which was a lot stranger, and eventually I had to retire to our bedroom alone.

Given that I'd never found another similar bedroom despite my pointed exploration, I suspected it was actually Nuada's bedroom, but he hadn't made a move to reclaim it. God only knew where he was sleeping. Maybe he didn't have to.

I started getting worried as the hour grew later, missing my hound, and finally remembered that I could just check in with the palace. I found him right away, in a distant room with Nuada. They were touching, and I was pretty sure both of them were naked.

Blushing up a storm, I yanked my attention away from them. Neither man had put a single move on me, despite me flirting with them as best I knew how. I'd never had trouble with that before; I was a curvy girl with a pretty face and reckless charm. I wasn't a show-stopper – I could blend in if I wanted to – but picking up men had never been an issue for me.

Maybe they're gay, I thought, a bit despairing, as I tried not to picture too intensely what two naked, inhuman men might be getting up to together. If soulmates could be anything, then sex wasn't necessarily on the table. My fun little MMF fantasies featuring a certain Hunter and hound might instead resolve into MM and and their gal pal.

God, wouldn't that be just the pits?

I put myself to bed, missing Key's warm body next to mine, and resolutely ignored the murmurs outside my door when the two of them came back together.

Only Key came in, though, and he came in on two feet.

That was baffling enough that I sat up, taking the lid off the glowy lamp next to the bed. Key smiled at me as the light hit him, looking anxious, his shoulders hunched and one arm wrapped across his chest, his tail between his legs.

His tail was a four-foot-long weapon instead of the canine one I was used to, a naked spine made of polished silver. He had a pair of sharp-tipped silver horns, too, something like an antelope's, and the light gleamed off of inch-long silver blades sticking out of his fingertips.

One of Nuada's robes covered most of his body, but there wasn't anything dog about him, save for that tail position. It was like my hound had become someone else entirely.

"What the fuck?" I said, too stunned to watch my words.

"Don't be upset," he said, pleading in his words. "I— I can still be your hound. But I…" He swallowed, looking down. There wasn't any red at all in those stunning violet eyes. "I wasn't… happy."

That made my expression soften, unfamiliar worry making my chest tight. That was the first time Keilain had ever said anything negative to me.

"I'm not upset," I said, scooting back to lean against the headboard. I patted the bed next to me, where he always slept. "C'mere. You wanna talk about it?"

He nodded, looking like he might cry, and crossed the room on his so-human feet. My soulmate got onto the bed with care for his deadly claws, then paused, looking up at me through his dark lashes. "Can I… put my head on your lap?"

"Of course, sweetheart," I said, concern for him tugging at my heart.

Key nodded again, looking almost scared as he curled up next to me, settling his head on my lap with care. I appreciated it; the tips of his horns gleamed in a way that suggested they could skewer me without any effort at all.

Gently, I started rubbing my fingertips against his scalp. Even his hair was different—silken instead of the wiry tangle of a wolfhound. "What's wrong?"

"I love you," he said, sounding miserable, his eyes squeezed closed. "I love you the same as I have from the moment I tasted your blood, and in all the same ways." He shivered, curling up into a tighter ball. "I still want to run with you, and hunt for you, and… and mate you." Key looked up at me, his mouth trembling. "You don't fuck dogs, Lexi."

Horror speared through me, those first minutes of waking up in Faery rising in my memory with searing precision. I'd never imagined that Key would base his whole world on my first jumbled reactions to Faery and to him.

But of course he had. What else did he have to go on?

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