Page 6 of To Run with the Wild Hunt

My lip raised into a snarl. "No."

Shock painted itself across his face, his chin lifting and dark eyes widening. "'No'?" he asked, disbelief raw in the word.

I licked Lexi's leg again, washing away the saliva-wet blood. "No," I said again, the word easier the second time. "I won't let you hurt my soulmate."

His skin went ashen. "Your—"

"Soulmate," I snarled, holding my head low, waiting for the attack—for surely he would want to punish me. The hounds of the Hunt were irrevocably changed, their natures shifting towards the animalistic, and though in the Ruined Palace we were allowed to indulge in our memories, we rarely did. This was more than that, though. A soulmate changed you irrevocably, too, and he no longer had my obedience. He no longer had me.

The Master fumbled behind himself and dropped into a chair, an act so surprising that I lifted my head, ruff flattening as I tilted my head to the side.

"Master?" I asked, when he didn't say anything.

"Nuada," he said, sounding as if he'd seen the death of the world. "I'm not your master. I… can't be." The Master grimaced, uttering a low "fuck." He dropped his face into his hands in a pose of frustration, fingertips digging into his auburn hair. "She's my soulmate, too."

He all but growled the words, sounding like they physically pained him to say.

I just stood there, staring at him stupidly, almost unable to comprehend the words. Soulmates were rare enough in the untamed regions of Faery that someone having two or more was almost unheard-of. There simply weren't enough people interacting in close proximity. For someone to find two soulmates in the same day – in the same moment – seemed impossible.

My confusion, so tied as it was to my sapience, melted my body towards a man's, leaving me on my hands and knees above Lexi, fur on my limbs and my tail tickling her neck but my chest and face far more like a man's than a dog's. "I don't understand," I said, sounding lost and afraid. "I don't— I don't—"

"You're a good boy, Keilain," the Master said, lifting his face and offering me a small smile. "It's alright."

The warmth of his voice flooded my veins with pleasure, making me shiver, my tail starting to wag.

He breathed out a laugh, shaking his head and leaning back against the wall. "It was Sarcaryn," he said, sounding resigned. "Retaliation for the boon I claimed, or for these, I suppose," he added, knocking his knuckles against the antlers he'd taken from one of Sarcaryn's mortal sons, long before I'd run at his side. "A soulmate for the solitary Hunter. One he must share," the Master said, snarling the word. Then he laughed again, closing his eyes. "I suppose I could kill you and keep her for my own," he added, saying the words with casual ease, "but I cannot bring myself to steal you from her the way Boenn was stolen from me."

"I don't know that story," I said, crawling to the side of Lexi with an awkward gait, turning once before lying down next to her, my head on her hip. "Or I don't… remember."

"You're a good boy," the Master said again, his voice soothing. He sighed, his ears tilting back, a motion I'd never noticed on him before. He'd simply been the Master, a voice and a will to be obeyed. Now he was… a man. The soulmate of my soulmate.

What did that make him to me?

"Boenn was my wife, eons and a world away," he said in a quiet voice, the words and pain dulled by time. "A mortal woman. I brought her to Faery to give her immortality, for I couldn't bear to watch her age and die. I had far fewer names, then. I was merely a river-god, tied to my headwaters. A brook horse. Now all I have left is the tail." The Master fell silent for a long while, the minutes sliding past in slow heartbeats.

He finally opened his eyes again, tracing the shape of Lexi's body with his gaze. "She met her soulmate. A fae King. A brute of a man." He laughed, a bitter sound, and shook his head. "And yet he feared what I might do to him if I found her with his babe in her belly. As if I could ever have harmed the one I loved by hurting the one she loved." He looked away, his throat working. "He told her to salt my headwaters to bind my power, and then to wash in them, claiming the river's strength as hers and making me merely a man."

All the fur down my spine stood up, my hound's form reasserting itself as the horror of that statement sparked my defensive instincts. Water defends itself. Any creature living in the wilds knew to treat even the water of a well with respect.

The Master snorted, one corner of his mouth turning up in a smirk. "Good dog."

It worked, even though he wasn't my master any longer. The words soothed, telling me the world was still right, and that I had a place in it. Slowly, I settled my head back on Lexi's lap, licking my lips in conciliation.

"She died, of course," he said, as if we were having a conversation. "No mortal can become a river without being rent asunder. Yet my power was still torn from me, and for many years and many names I wandered. It wasn't even I who killed the fae King that stole my love from me, for I spent many lifetimes all but powerless." The Master fell silent for another long span of time, watching the heartbeat in our soulmate's throat. "She was my first love," he said, his voice very quiet. "I have never since trusted another with my heart."

"How long?" I asked, my hand curling protectively over a smudge of blood on Lexi's leg.

"I raised a Court and watched it fall," he said instead of answering with any measure of years. "I invaded the mortal world and lived upon it, and returned with a silver hand. I fell in battle and could not die. I haunted and hunted and slew." The Master rose to his feet, turning his dark gaze to me, swishing his horse's tail side-to-side. "Guard her well, Keilain. You were a prince of the Court of Teeth once, before its stones were shattered and its walls fell. I think your heart still knows battle."

—the cry of horns—

—sharp teeth in the too-wide maw of a beautiful woman—

—a warg between my legs and the feral joy of battle heating my blood as we race towards the roiling flesh of a monster—

My eyes darted across him, disliking the memories his words awoke in me. He didn't look towards me, his spine stiff and shoulders tight.

"Guard her from what?" I asked, not lifting my head.

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