Page 48 of Teeth To Rip & Tear

“I suppose she was talking about me.” The Huntsman cocked his head to the side. “Tell me, Weaver. Are you weak enough to need protecting?”

“I will not bargain with you, Huntsman.” I held up my hands as if I could warn him away.

“Weavers are rare.” The Huntsman continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “The blood always runs true. From the veins of the gods, the gift cannot be duplicated.”

The wind blew, bringing the scent of blood with it. The black strands at the nape of my neck turned white as the magic leeched all color from my hair, and it fell out at the root. Scattered with the wind.

The Huntman’s eyes crinkled at the corner, and even where he stood, I saw his square pupils—like a goat or a cuttlefish. His mouth was too broad, and his skin a sickly pallor,but even with his strange otherness, it wasn’t his looks that turned my stomach. It was the expression in his eyes.

Superiority. Ownership.

Not accustomed to hearing the word ‘no.’

Just like Joel.

I reached into my pocket, feeling the wooden coin despite knowing itshouldbe in my car. Not in my pocket.

Grandmother Eva making her plan known.

I wanted to cry.

The Dullahan’s horse grew restless, shifting on its hooves.

The dead strands of my hair drifted on the wind like leaves falling from a tree. The Huntsman held up a gloved hand, catching a single silver thread. He lifted it to his nose before his mouth curled into a smile that split his face in two.

“There is wolf in your blood.” He told me as if I didn’t know. “The hunt sings in your heart. I don’t need to ask for your permission, dear Weaver. Because all wolves alreadybelong to me.”

Chapter Ten

When I was a child and first began seeing the threads of magic that traveled in the air like glittering dust motes, I rushed to tell my grandmother.

Grandmother Eva was not excited by much. She would tell grand stories of creatures made of stone or horses with enchanted shoes that allowed them to run forever. Of stags that could make you follow them until your legs wore down to nubs.

While I learned basic arithmetic and English behind a laptop screen, most of my learning was from dusty journals my grandmother had written before her memories faded.

Grandmother Eva had always spoken of the Aos Sí, the home of the Fae, as a beautiful but dangerous place. Where the air smelled sweet, and flowers always bloomed.

She’d often expressed a desire to go home. To return to her family on the edge of the Forest of Beasts. She spoke of my grandfather rarely, as a brief memory. The Beast-King was long dead. The coin he had given her never left her hand. It was her most treasured possession.

My grandmother could weave reality. She could weave time and space. However, there was a code amongst Weavers.

Never weave with something you cannot afford to lose.

When grandmother got too drunk on Fìon Fola—blood wine—she spoke of her own demons, and she told me that when she was gone, the coin would protect me.

She had a plan.

I just had no idea what it was.

I woke up on the back of a horse, my hands tied to the saddle and my body swaying with every step as the Dullahan’s mount carried us across a pristine lawn spanning acres. The grass was too perfect, with alternating green lines.

The air smelled like honeysuckle, but the trees loomed on the edge of the lawn like waiting claws.

The Huntsman walked before us, his bloodied sword in the sheath on his belt and a silver wolf at his side. The Dullahan’s horse stopped, and I slumped forward, my head threatening to split open with pain. Blood touched my lips, and fire blazed through my nose.

I looked up at the sun beating down. Not that much time had passed, surely? It had been midnight when I’d stepped out of the motel, but in the Aos Sí, it seemed like midday.

The Huntsman caught my confusion, waving a hand toward the sky. “Samhain lasts several days in the Aos Sí, though a single night in the Human Realities.” His strange eyes flashed maliciously. “Though the walls between worlds are thinnest now, you will be confined to my castle until you see fit to serve me. Not just as a hound.”

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