Page 20 of What Hunts Inside the Shadows

“Are you determined to be stabbed again? I’m sure Estrella would be so eager to oblige that I wouldn’t even need to bother myself,” Caldris said as I twisted forward. I tried not to chuckle, shoving deep inside that part of me that found humor in his dry wit. “Or was there a point to you pissing me off?”

“She needs to be shackled, Caldris,” Aramis said. He reached into the pack slung over the horse’s rump, pulling out a pair of shackles. Everything inside of me withered at the mere sight of them, recalling the way it had felt like my soul had been sucked out of me through the connection.

“My magic is too potent. They damn near took her down,” Caldris said, shaking his head.

“These aren’t iron, just regular bronze,” Aramis said, holding out the shackles. Caldris sighed, reaching out to accept them from the other male. I felt him nod at my back as Aramis kicked his horse into a trot to follow where Holt walked ahead of him.

“Tell me again how I am anything but your prisoner,” I said, wincing as the cool metal touched my wrists. True to Aramis’s word, there was no burning sensation or heat that radiated from within the bronze. Caldris leaned forward as he draped the reins across Azra’s neck, nuzzling into the curtain of my hair. His mouth trailed over the delicate skin of my neck, drawing goosebumps to the surface. “The only time I want you chains is when it’s to my bed, with you writhing and willing,” he murmured, pressing the weight of the first shackle over my left wrist. He snapped it shut, my arm sagging slightly beneath the weight.

He trailed his fingertips over the back of my hand, pressing it down and into Azra’s mane just in front of my lap. His fingers laced through mine then into the horse’s hair and making me feel pinned and surrounded.

He didn’t give a single care for the Wild Hunt and Fae Marked who followed us, our audience not bothering him in the slightest as he made my imprisonment into something intimate. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ll make you come for me?” he murmured, slipping his free hand down my arm to touch the wrist that was still free. His touch brought all my desire for him to light, forcing something that belonged in the shadows to emerge for all to see. He raised my free hand, placing it beside the other as he wrapped the other shackle around and snapped it closed. Twisting the lock on each wrist, he made sure to settle my hands with their heavy weights in my lap as he pulled me to sit back against him.

I hadn’t realized how far I’d leaned forward, trying to evade his too-familiar warmth at my spine.

The shackles clanked together as I shifted to look out over the open land in front of us. Mountains loomed in the distance to the Southeast, but spread out before us was a vast and empty plain, beyond the trees draped over the pathway from the once busy and prosperous city.

Azra’s hooves clomped against something solid beneath the thin sheen of snow covering the ground. The steps of Holt’s and Aramis’s horses up ahead revealed what looked like the remains of cobblestones, jagged and uneven from centuries of neglect.

Despite the curiosity that threatened to consume me, I refrained from asking what this place had been in its prime. I wanted nothing more than to hold the answers to the past, to pick the brain of my ancient mate so I could know everything that had come before me.

The things that he must have seen—experienced—were beyond my imagination.

Azra halted suddenly, freezing in place as the rest of the Wild Hunt walked past us. “What is it?” Caldris asked, leaning forward to pat the horse on the neck. His body went taut at my spine, every muscle tightening as he responded to the horse’s sudden nervousness.

Fenrir growled at my side, the sound a low rumble. He nudged my foot with his nose, meeting my eyes with his red stare that seemed to say a thousand words. “Something is wrong,” I mumbled, glancing toward where the Wild Hunt continued on with the Fae Marked loaded into carts. They glared back at us, their eyes full of condemnation as I tried to listen beyond the sound of the wheels over the cobblestones and the squeaking of the bolts with every bump. Caldris canted his head to the side, doing the same thing as he watched ahead of us.

Holt spun suddenly to pin us with a look that communicated everything between the steps of his skeletal horse. “Fuck,” Caldris grunted, leaning into me slightly. He swung his leg over Azra’s rear, dismounting to stand beside him as he patted the top of Fenrir’s head. “Cwn Annwn, hunt,” he said, and the three white wolves disappeared into the woods at our sides. We waited in silence as time seemed to slow, the howling of the wolves echoing through the forest as Holt turned back in the direction he’d been traveling.

The first arrow came from the right, thudding into the side of Holt’s steed. The horse turned its head to look down at the arrow protruding from its ribs, shaking its head and stomping a hoof in fury. Aramis took the lead, pushing his mount onward as Holt dropped back to join with the rest of the Wild Hunt to surround the carts.

Aramis shouted as his horse whinnied, and I watched as a person emerged from the branches in the top of one of the pine trees. “Look out!” I yelled, drawing the eye of the lurking figure. His blade shone in the sun, casting a glare as he sawed through a rope disguised along one of the branches.

On the other side of the path, the reflection of the sun gleaming off a dagger mirrored the same image. “Get them out of there!” Caldris ordered the rider of the Wild Hunt just ahead of us. The male nodded, moving his mount forward to catch up with the one pulling the cart.

He was just in the center of the copse of trees when pine needles rained from above, a cloth barrier parting until red dust gleamed in the sunshine as it fell on top of them. I would never in my life forget the screams as the powder burned into their flesh, or forget the way they huddled beneath their cloaks to protect their bodies.

I watched in horror as the cloth fell down bit by bit, men sawing through the ropes until it came close to us. In a ripple, the sky above seemed to open as they peeled back the fabric they’d painted to mimic the trees.

Caldris’s stunned gaze found mine for a moment and then he moved in a blur. Snatching me off the horse, he pulled me down so abruptly that Azra reared and knocked me back. Fury swept over me alongside my fear, driving my senses higher as I prepared for the impact. Staring up at the sky, falling backward with my hands shackled in front of me, I watched the iron dust rain from overhead.

Blackness fluttered at the edges of my vision as I landed on top of Caldris, his body breaking the fall from the horse. He rolled me beneath him and yanked the cloak off his shoulders, covering my body with the fabric and himself as I fought to catch my breath, his pained grunts resounding between us.

My ears rang as the darkness of the cloak surrounded me, keeping me pinned to the ground as I waited for any sign that the iron dust had dissipated. I felt it surrounding me, draining the power from myViniculumand leaving me without that strange buzzing in my blood that usually came alongside threat of danger. The power that wanted to defend me was gone, stolen from me as the breath in my lungs.

“Fenrir!” Caldris called, finally shoving his body off of mine. He swept the cloak off of my shoulders, helping me to sit up. Glancing around myself, I took in the iron dust covering everything and glanced down to where Caldris’s hands were burned. His flesh had turned an angry, mottled red, blisters appearing on his skin where the dust had seared through his flesh.

“Caelum,” I whispered, staring at him in shock.

I longed to touch the injuries, to feel for myself the sacrifice he’d paid in burning flesh. I needed him to be the monster, the villain who would take and take from me, but there was no denying his willingness to give pieces of himself for my protection.

Leaving the cloak he’d sacrificed on the ground between us, he stood from where he’d knelt in front of me, his eyes roaming over my face and body to search for injury. “Are you hurt?” he asked, taking the key to my shackles from his trouser pocket. He unlocked them, carefully avoiding touching my skin with his ruined, charred hands.

“You know I’m not,” I said, swallowing down the tightness in my throat and the surge of emotion within me. I couldn’t feel these things—not when we were still enemies.

He nodded, expelling a sigh of relief before he turned back to the looming battle just outside of our bubble. “Guard her,cwn annwn,” he said as the wolves approached. The term must have been a name he used for the group of them, and curiosity burned through me.

Now was not the time for questions.

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