Page 63 of Ulune's Daughter

The day’s heat fades as I follow the driver through a narrow cave mouth. We definitely weren’t brought this way when Maher and his cronies kidnapped us. There’s a distinctive clay smell here and when my arm brushes the wall, it comes away wet. I don’t remember any clay odor where we were held, although I could hear water dripping.

Wet Earth muffles vibrations. Even so, the jitter in my molars gets stronger as the tunnel widens out into a chamber with a sandy floor that crunches underfoot. Zeki leads me straight through the chamber toward the dark mouth of a tunnel. He’s taken out his phone and turned on the device’s light, which bounces off the pale stone walls and casts strange, skittering shadows. I’ve always been able to see in the dark; my faesight renders everything in shades of blue and gray, so details can be hard to make out, but I can see fine. If anything, his phone light is messing with my night vision by casting such strong shadows.

When I hear the thwap of flesh hitting stone and Maher cursing, I assume not everyone can see as well as I can. Rhodes is silent, though, striding along just a step behind me. Until he complains, I’ll leave it, but it’s good to know the jackalweres, or at least Maher, can’t see in the dark.

After another tunnel, another chamber, and a very low tunnel that has both Rhodes and Maher cursing as they bang their heads, the driver leads us into a place that feels familiar. I didn’t see where we were held—Maher kept us blindfolded the whole time—but the dripping water and mossy smell are familiar. As is the resonance, strong and clear now. It ruffles my hair, drags chill fingers over my skin. It finds a home in my breast and then spirals out again, gnawing at the rocky walls, breathing poison into the pool of water that fills half of the chamber.

I know this place and what haunts it. It’s the gaoithe sidhe, the gibbering wind, the banshee’s silent scream. I didn’t unleash it consciously, but all the hours I lay on the sandy floor, hearing Maher and his boys talk, listening to Cami muttering as she tried to keep the rising panic from drowning her mind, waiting for rough hands to grab me, pull off my clothes and begin the assault, with barely any hope that Arch and Viv would find us first, it must have built inside me. With the last breath I exhaled as Arch grabbed me and dragged me through the gate Viv had created, I must have cast it.

Cami didn’t curse this place. I did.

I walk slowly over to the pool. “Do people from the village come here to bathe? Or wash their clothes?”

Zeki joins me at the edge of the pool. Without any blue sky to reflect, it’s crystalline down to the greenish rock at the bottom.

“No, this is the Motherwell. The spring that creates the pool provides water to the village. No one would pollute it by bathing or washing in it.”

I nod to myself and turn to look at Maher, who is rubbing a bloody goose egg on his forehead. A thin stream of red trails into the seeking breeze.

“I think we should dip the chalice into the Motherwell,” I tell him. “And you should bind that. Sooner rather than later. The gaoithe sidhe is a hungry wind.”

Scowling furiously at me, Maher unwinds his scarf and presses it to his wound. “So you can poison us all, finish us off?”

I step back from the water’s edge, open my backpack, thrust my arm inside as though I’m reaching into the bottom of the pack. Instead, I reach into the pocket dimension where I’ve stored the cup and draw it back out. I offer it to Maher. “I came to help. The root of your problem is here. It’s in the air in here. In the water. In the rocks. I can feel it. It will poison the water you drink, the soil in which you grow your food, the oxygen you breathe from the plants growing in the tainted ground. Anyone who tries to live here will die. Your city is dying. But if you want to ignore me and drink a bunch of blood out of the cup, go right ahead.”

Maher scowls, but his dark eyes slide to Zeki. “Bring the elders.”

The driver nods and slips out of the chamber.

“Sit,” Maher says, gesturing to a ring of stones placed at the other end of the chamber from the pool. The stones aren’t carved or cushioned, but they’re roughly stool shaped and are probably better than sitting on the floor. “I can’t let you do anything until the elders agree.”

I walk over to the circle of stones, catching Rhodes’ hand on the way and drawing him along beside me. I find a stone that’s wide enough for the two of us and sit. When he sits, I tuck against his side and place the cup on the stone between our thighs.

“Did the elders agree to you kidnapping us?” I ask.

Maher’s scowl deepens, which I didn’t think was possible. “Why do you keep bringing that up? It’s the past. Let it die.”

I scoff at him. It’s not something Cami or María José or I will forget anytime soon. But sniping at him isn’t getting me anywhere, either.

“What is the gaoithe sidhe?” Maher asks. “That’s not a term I’ve heard before.”

Damn. I probably shouldn’t have used it, then.

Chapter22

Skulking

LAW

My mate is set on driving me as mad as she is. What would possess her to come here? To this place, poisoned down to its bones and thrashing in its death throes? Among these stinking, carrion-eating dog-men? I know from listening to their conversations that the jackal she speaks to, the reek of his tainted blood swirling in the breath of the Mother scouring the cavern, is one of those who held her against her will.

He will not survive this night, that I swear.

And to venture into this den of jackals with only the thin protection of Luca’s human at her side? I could have given her an army of Cait who would die to protect her and she bringsRhodes? The watery weakling who catches the rodents that invade our den in plastic traps and releases them instead of eating them properly? What is he going to do to protect her against the jackals’ fangs and claws, overpower them with the stink of chlorine?

I will be having a long talk with my mate after this night. Somehow. Even if I have to spell it out in turds across her kitchen floor.

I shift through the shadows until I’m behind where she sits on a rock. My mate. Who should sit on a throne with a thousand cushions to cradle her precious flesh. Or at least in the funny circular chair in her living room where she likes to read and cuddle with Whitey. Sitting on rock in a reeking cave. Every moment she remains offends me more.

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