“We’ll find a portal,” he whispered, needing to reassure her. “We’ll get out of here.”
She nodded.
But on the moonlit banks of the river ahead of them stood a black-haired male.
One who reeked of danger and dark power.
An unseelie.
Chapter 31
Hella found it half-endearing and half-irritating that MacKinnon automatically moved in front of her, shielding her from the fae they had stumbled across.
She stepped out from behind her wolf.
The black-haired male regarded them with curious silver eyes. He turned slowly to face them, his bare torso as pale as alabaster in the moonlight and his onyx trousers as dark as the sky. Water lapped at his naked feet, the only motion in a motionless world as she held her breath and was sure Kin was doing the same. Had the fae been about to bathe? His top and boots were a few feet behind him, on the mossy edge of the pebbled shore of the river. She spotted no weapon on him either. She wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. Surprising an unarmed dark fae sounded dangerous to her. He might feel threatened by their presence.
Then again, he might not even have a weapon or need one to deal with them.
The pointed tips of his ears twitched as he stared at Kin, assessing him. He had to stand only a couple of inches shorter than her wolf, but his build was half that of Kin’s.
Not that it made him weaker.
The power that rolled off this male was phenomenal.
Dark and malevolent.
She held her nerve and her ground, unsure what to make of him but sure she should feel he was a threat.
It was hard to feel that when he turned his side to them again and bent back towards the river, clearly not that interested in them—or threatened by their presence. He cupped his hands and scooped up water.
And would you look at that?
He was holding the moon in his hands.
The reflection of it was gone from the river, now only existed in the water he held.
This was more than any old dark fae.
This was an unseelie.
And a very ancient and powerful one at that.
He looked right at her and opened his black-tipped fingers, and the water poured like diamonds from between them, and the moon was back in the river. How did he do that? Was it a power all unseelie held or specific to him? She wanted to ask him, but she wasn’t sure he would appreciate her probing into his powers. It would probably make her appear more like a threat to him.
He spoke to her.
In a language she didn’t know.
Kin glanced at her.
She shook her head. “I don’t speak his tongue.”
The fae approached them, which had Kin tensing and trying to pull her behind him again, but she stood her ground, refusing to let him shield her. When he was within ten feet of them, the fae held his hands out and tilted his palms towards her, his fingers pointing down towards the crystalline pebbles.
The lines of markings that ran from the black top thirds of his fingers to the edge of his palm glowed like the moon.
Hella peered at them, trying to make them out from a safe distance. “They’re fae. You’re fae. Right? Are they your lineage? Like incubus markings?”