Page 13 of To Run with the Wild Hunt

"He is the Dullahan," Keilain said, his voice rumbling. "The Master has many names, but that's one of them." If hounds could have smirked, I suspected he would have. He licked Lexi's bare foot, the contact making me grit my teeth as raw envy flooded my veins. "It's not only as the Hunter that he's ridden the mortal world."

Weirdly Hot

Alexis Sharpe

Nuada wasn't what I'd anticipated, and yet he was entirely as I expected. The powerful, bare-chested man lounging in his throne with his legs splayed and the fur of his barbarian's skirt falling between his thighs was far more decadent than I would have imagined for the vicious Hunter mounted on his black horse, yet every line of his strong body was familiar to me. From the moment I first saw him, I could have drawn him from memory, down to the precise curl of his auburn hair and the slant of his mouth as he met my eyes across the room.

He was… really attractive. It was something of a problem. Never in a million years would I have put "skeletal silver arm" or "rack of antlers" at the top of the list of things I might find attractive in a man, but paired with his brute strength and elven features, it was pretty hard to think otherwise. Nuada sat a little left of humanity – teeth too sharp, face too beautiful, movement too smooth – and looking at him, I understood the allure of the fae.

I could tell he was being cagey about the tattoo on his neck. You have to read people well to steal things out from under their noses, whether that's shoplifting or daylight museum thefts, and Nuada didn't only dislike talking about being beheaded. He looked downright anxious, muscles tight and tension around his dark eyes.

Then Keilain answered for him, and I understood.

I didn't want Nuada for an enemy, and given that he'd given me both his hound and free reign of his palace, I was pretty sure he didn't want to be hated, either. Our introduction had been him setting his hounds on me and running me down across the hills of Ireland, which wasn't the kindest of meet-and-greets, and I appreciated the space he'd given me. Apparently, though, that wasn't even the darkest of his attributes.

Frowning slightly, I shoved Keilain's face with my toes. "I'm not interested in getting to know my soulmate through your opinions," I told him in a stern voice, getting a whine in return. "Don't tell me things about Nuada unless I ask you to."

"Yes, mistress," he said, sounding abashed as he put his head down on his paws, out of the range of my feet.

"Good boy," I replied, an unfamiliar curl of heat in my belly as he wagged his tail for me. I'd never done anything remotely femdom before, but it was pretty hard to avoid the consideration of how hot it would be for the beautiful, devoted man at my feet to be at my beck and call.

He'll do whatever you tell him to, I thought, a little guiltily. I would have to make sure that I didn't ask for things that would harm him. Like any loyal dog, he would do it even if it killed him.

Nuada looked stunned when I lifted my eyes to him again, a line between his brows and his lips parted. I planted my elbow on my thigh and dropped my chin onto my hand, affecting an ease I didn't really feel. "That goes for you, too," I informed him, my chest tight with nervousness. I wasn't sure I could give him commands the way I could to Key. "Keilain gets to be in charge of how he presents himself. I'm not interested in the two of you sniping at each other. This whole thing is hard enough already."

Nuada's throat worked, but he didn't look away. "That's a kindness I didn't anticipate," he said, his basso voice rough. "I'm not… an easy man to approach. I appreciate that you won't allow your hound to make it more difficult."

I hopped down off my perch before I could think better of it, stepping over Key and walking over to Nuada's throne, placing my feet with care for the rubble and growing things on the floor. Nuada was a scary bastard, but I refused to spend my days skittering away from him. He was my soulmate. I had his power at my fingertips, and I'd never been one for showing my belly.

The Hunter watched me approach with what looked like trepidation, his chin lifted and fingertips digging against the stone arms of his throne. He didn't say anything, though, sitting there like a statue as I walked over, and then as I hopped up onto the right arm of the throne, legs dangling over the edge.

I leaned over, lifting his chin up with two fingers to examine the tattoo of gripping beasts that wrapped around his throat while he stared at me like a deer in the headlights. "Does it come off?"

He swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing. "Yes."

The guttural sound of his voice made my skin tingle, my eyes drawn for a moment to the movement of his mouth as he shaped the word. I leaned back, taking my fingers away. "Will you show me?"

"If you desire it," Nuada said, his breathing shallow and face tense. When I didn't naysay, he touched the fingers of his left hand to his throat, holding my gaze with the relentless focus of a hawk.

The tattoo dissolved, leaving a pale line encircling his neck.

Still staring into my eyes, Nuada gripped one of his antlers, and lifted his head off of his body.

Oh, that was weird.

Some depictions of the Dullahan were really gruesome, with clotted blood staining his chest and visible gore in the wound. I felt pretty lucky that the reality was a lot less bloody; pale blue flame flickered from the two halves of his severed neck, the edge of his spine visible as a paler circle in the eldritch blue. The soulmate bond was doing some work, too, I thought. It was only unsettling as a concept, and not in actual practice. Nuada's head came off. That was just how it was.

"Can I touch it?" I asked, somewhat fascinated.

Nuada shuddered, breathing harder. "If you desire it," he said again, most of the way to a growl, his voice coming from his head and not his body.

I didn't hesitate, reaching out for Nuada's throat with the same false confidence I used to eat weird new food or to walk past "Employees Only" signs. The blue flame was cool against my fingertips, but his body was warm. It didn't feel much different from touching skin, with some give except on the bare bone, which felt rough.

When I took my fingers away, they were clean.

"Are you satisfied?" Nuada asked, panting as he stared at me with an expression of overwrought pleasure.

I bit my lip without thinking, flushing when Nuada's eyes fell to my mouth. "Um. Yeah," I said, my throat suddenly dry. My eyes dropped down along his body, catching on his tense abs and thighs and the tenting of his battle-skirt from his half-hard cock. I swallowed, dragging my eyes back up to his as he set his head back on his neck. "Felt— Felt good, huh?"

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