Page 9 of To Run with the Wild Hunt

He reached up, hesitating for a moment before tucking my loose hair behind my ear. He had pads on the underside of his fingers like a dog, the roughness against the shell of my ear making my skin tingle.

My hair was also strawberry blonde instead of brown. Motherfucker, when had that happened? Had I been sleeping for decades? That happened in Celtic myths more than I preferred.

"It's faery magic," he said, running the backs of his claws along my neck like I was a precious treasure. "We can find balance together. Step into eternity together." Key hesitated again, maybe seeing the unhappiness on my face. "Don't hate me," he said, almost pleading with me. "I love you. I'm a hound. Your hound." He leaned forward, desperation marking his expression as I drew away. "I can't help it, Lexi. I belong to you, all the parts of me – teeth, heart, lungs, cock – I can run for you and hunt for you and mate you—"

"I don't fuck dogs," I blurted out, the words almost tumbling out of my mouth in a knee-jerk reaction to the image of having one of the great black hellhounds that had run me down mounting me like I was an animal.

Key flinched back, recoiling from the sharpness in my voice. "Don't send me away," he said, a low whine in the back of his throat. "I don't mean to be the way I am. I can try to remember—"

Shame flooded me, my cheeks growing hot. I didn't know him, but I did know dogs, and he was obviously enough like the wolfhound whose shape he shared that he shared the depths of loyalty. He believed he was my soulmate, and whatever else that meant, it obviously meant that loyalty was fixed on me.

"Hey, hey, you're a good boy," I said, cupping his face. "I'm not mad at you."

"I am?" he asked, his brows slanting and stress easing. "…You're not?"

"Not mad," I said again, shaking my head. "It's not like you're trying to eat me alive, y'know? Best dog I've met thus far."

He winced, a very human reaction for a man who was anything but. "This one is mine," he said, pushing down the fabric of the robe to bare my shoulder and upper arm. Keilain ran his fingers along the dark blue lines of the bite mark, looking sheepish. "I didn't know until I tasted your blood. But then I stopped."

Welp. I didn't love that. But Key also very obviously posed me no danger anymore, and I decided to forgive him for trying to kill me. He was a hunting hound, and he'd been set on prey by his master. Of course he'd tried to kill me for the antlered man who commanded him.

"…How'd you get me here?" I asked, leaving the soulmate thing lie for other, more pressing questions. "For that matter, where is here?"

"The Master brought you," he said, putting his hand over mine and leaning his face into the palm of my hand. "This is his place. It's called the Ruined Palace, because it used to have a Court but the Court died. The Master's power keeps the palace alive." Key sighed, the sound very like a longsuffering dog's gusty exhale. "We live in the deep wilds of Faery. Time… wanders, here. I… I don't think we could take you back. Not easily, at least."

It was my turn to wince. I had enough familiarity with Celtic mythology to know how that ended, and I didn't have a lot of interest in aging centuries the moment my foot touched mortal soil again. At least I was used to rolling with the punches; I'd grown up street smart and done a lot of thinking on my feet to get to where I was.

I guessed it didn't matter much if I was trapped in Faery. The world wouldn't even miss me. No pets, deadbeat dad, mom six years dead, and an aunt I barely spoke to anymore. The only people who would notice I was missing would be my fence and my fellow denizens of the forums I frequented. I'd already done my best to vanish; now history would swallow me whole.

God, that was kind of pathetic, wasn't it? I'd erased my own legacy, enjoying anonymity, and now nobody would remember my name.

"That's okay," I said slowly, my thoughts whirring. There were plenty of stories about mortals in Faery, and not all of them ended badly. With a hellhound by my side, I probably had a leg up on the average schmuck who ended up here. "I'm guessing you're going to take care of me?"

He nodded, his expression softening. "I'll try."

"Okay. That's good." I took a deep breath and sighed it out, closing my eyes as I tried to figure out next steps.

The Master seemed to be the linchpin; if this was his palace, and Keilain had been his hound, he must have been on board with the whole soulmate thing for the two of us to be lounging on a comfortable bed together. And what hunter didn't value his hounds? He'd brought me home for Key, after all, and must have been the one who healed me. That was a lot more than just clothes and a loaner bed.

"Okay," I said again. "So." I looked back into Key's garnet eyes, offering him a smile. "You said your master brought me here?"

"Not my master," he corrected. "The Master. The Hunter. His name is Nuada. But," Keilain added, with a rueful half-smile, "you already knew that."

I had to pause to contemplate that. He wasn't wrong—as soon as he said the name "Nuada", a face I'd never seen and yet remembered with perfect familiarity rose into my mind.

Dark eyes, deep-set and a shade of mahogany-brown I'd never seen on a human man. A strong jawline and white teeth, the canines a touch too sharp for a tame human. Long auburn hair framing a hard face, his skin the same light brown shade as bamboo, with enough depth of natural darkness to not simply be heavily tanned.

I remembered him like he was a part of me, and I remembered him as I'd seen him in the darkness, silhouetted against the stars. I could forget none of it.

A man built for killing, his antlers scraping the sky.

I shivered, wrapping my arms around my chest. "He's…" I had to swallow, wetting my dry mouth so I could speak. "My soulmate?"

Nuada Silverhand. No… that's not quite right. I frowned, trying to listen to that strange sense of memory. Nuada was the name he went by… but his name, his real name… Nykhir. It came with a sense of water and cold danger; a dark horse with a dripping mane and a beautiful man with the voice of a siren.

Nuada had a horse's tail. I could almost see it, feel the coarseness of the hair, hear the swish as he flicked it.

What… was he?

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