Page 30 of Ulune's Daughter

My mate has mentioned this girl: Rachel. From my research, I know they met at Bevington. For all that my mate now tries to be a respectable academic, she has not always been. She was a trouble-maker while at Bevington and associated with a group of students known for magickal mayhem. The woman she’s visiting, Teddy Nowak, is said to have killed a Fate in defense of her mates. Fate with a capital F. Mates as in multiple males. The woman in front of me, Rachel, found her own mate while at school. She was a student and he was the chief of Bevington’s magickal police force. Although she might draw a distinction, this seems to me a clear crossing of the line my mate espoused to my twin. During their freshman year, Rachel’s mate murdered a Dean and was sentenced to life in Karkarus, the Aedis Astrum’s prison, where I understand he’s still rotting, vainly appealing his conviction.

I don’t know how Rachel ended up as a Darkswerd. That must be an interesting story.

“He’s Cait,” Eoghan spits, as though that explains all, and justifies his rudeness.

“Give over,” Rachel responds. “Struan is Cait and he’s wonderful. I’m so sick of all this high fae, low fae bullshit. Here’s your sword. Go inside and ask Darwin, really, really nicely, if he’ll grow back your hair.”

She slaps the sword hilt against Eoghan’s chest with a clank and pushes him toward the stone wall. With a huff and a grunt, Eoghan clasps his sword and disappears through the wall.

Rachel shakes her head before turning to me. She takes a strong stance, legs spread. If she had belt loops in her white armor, she’d be hooking her thumbs in them.

“I’m sorry about Eoghan. Him and his hair.” She rolls her eyes. “I mean, good job, you couldn’t have done anything that would piss him off more, if that’s what you were going for.”

“I was. I want no war with Thistlemist.”

“Okay, good. I can’t let you in. Not without an invitation from Callan. I’m guessing you know that already.”

“I do.”

“So, uh.” She flicks her bright blue eyes up and down me, not lingering on my genitals, but not avoiding them, either. It’s a casual kind of respect that I like very much. I’ll enjoy visiting with my mate’s friends, once we are properly mated, if Rachel is any indication. “Any reason you’re hanging out here?”

Because my presence here, at the walls of a fae court, will undoubtedly attract the Mirk. Once they show themselves, I’ll run into the forest and draw them away from my mate. Until then, there’s no point in doing anything but waiting.

“I’m harming no one,” I point out.

“True,” she says, not changing her stance. “Anyone you want me to take a message to?”

I could send a message to my mate but to what effect? She doesn’t know who I am or why I’ve followed her here. Any cryptic message from the naked man at the court gates would only make her worry. I’m about to shake my head when a thought occurs to me.

“You mentioned Struan. Is he here?”

Struan’s a distant cousin in the sense that all Cait are distant cousins, part of the sprawling family spawned by B’sst, the first of our kind.

Rachel nods. “Want me to get him?”

“If you would just tell him that a cousin in fur awaits the Mirk at the gates,” I say, and then give her a full bow. Although my family eschews all of the courts, even the ones where we might be welcome, I have been trained in court manners.

“I’ll tell him,” she confirms.

“I’ll walk along the river,” I say, so she doesn’t think I’m lingering by the wall in an attempt to break through.

She nods and walks back through the wall.

I stroll along the banks of the Nith, the river that runs by the doors of the court. Most of the fae courts are located near rivers, where the Veil between the worlds is thin. That makes them vulnerable to things on both sides of the Veil, so it is no surprise when shadows begin to slip and slither through the woods, keeping pace with me as I walk.

“Law!”

I turn at the shout to see a shaggy-haired, broad-shouldered man running down the bank. Like me, he’s naked. Orange stripes ghost over his skin and his pupils have gone over to slits.

“Struan.” I hold out both hands and he clasps my forearms before leaning in to rub cheeks with me in the greeting of our kind.

“What brings you here?”

“My mate is visiting. I guarded her to the gate but was turned away by an annoying creature with extremely long hair.”

Struan laughs. “Red or silver?”

“Red.”

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