Page 44 of What Hunts Inside the Shadows

“I have lived for countless centuries and experimented with all manner of hairstyles,min asteren,” he’d answered, the honesty in the confession soothing the rising jealousy inside of me. I wanted to ask if there had ever been anyone who’d mattered to him on an emotional level before me, or if I was the first he’d ever showed such care to. “What has my star feeling jealous now?” he asked, leaning forward to murmur the words into my neck. Beneath us, Azra’s gait was slow but steady, navigating the white plains back toward Mistfell and the boundary that would take us to Faerie.

“Have you ever loved someone before me?” I asked, wishing I could take the words back the moment they were free and hanging in the air between us.

“No,” he said, touching his lips to my mark before he pulled back slightly. “Even before you were born, I knew I was just passing the time while I waited for you. That probably sounds horrible, but the Fae know the score. They know that for most of us the mate bond is the goal to achieve. That is when love comes for us.”

“Does anyone ever reject the bond?” I asked, turning to look at him over his shoulder.

“Sometimes,” he said, his voice sad. “Not everyone can love the person The Fates choose for them, unfortunately.” We rode in silence for a little longer, Caldris understanding that I needed the time to consider the information he’d given me over the course of the morning. I wasn’t human, and the Fae believed that love was the most important thing; it was important and worth protecting, no matter what form it chose to appear in.

While humans forced their women into loveless marriages with men who would never appreciate them, the Fae protected love at all costs.

I sighed, my body twinging with discomfort when Caldris went solid at my spine. The procession halted, pausing in the road as he pulled Azra to a stop. Above the path up ahead, something swayed, hanging from the canopy of the trees.

The strength of the winter winds was enough to force the object to move despite its size, the tree limb creaking with the strain. Rope wrapped around the branch, digging into the bark and dangling down to wrap around the neck of a woman. As her body spun in a circle, I caught sight of the tipped ears that marked her as Fae. Her chest was torn open, ribs bent outward, broken and dangling from her torso with torn, red flesh clinging to them.

Her heart was missing from her breast, no doubt burned in the small pit in the ground beneath her where the snow had melted and the grass was burned from the soil.

Caldris leaned into me, swinging his leg over Azra’s rump. He didn’t glance back at me as he walked toward where the Fae female hung from the tree, but something in the rigid posture of his body felt dangerous. There was nothing coming down the bond, no overwhelming sense of fury or even the slightest tinge of anger. “Caldris?” I asked, flinching when he swung his sword to the side. He cut the rope where they’d entwined it with the tree to wrap around the trunk and pull it taut.

The woman’s body fell to the ground in a heap—lifeless in a way that even a human couldn’t have reincarnated from. Even if she became animated by the God of the Dead, she wouldn’t be alive. She’d be a walking corpse.

Caldris turned to us, his eyes gleaming with black when he met my wide stare. There was no trace of blue in that night-filled gaze, no trace of anything but malice as his rage crashed into me so suddenly that I flinched back.

“Fuck,” Holt cursed, dismounting his skeletal horse. He turned to me, taking my reins in his grip and handing them to Aramis. He reached up and waved his hand over my wrists, releasing the shackles there. “Get her the fuck out of here.”

Aramis nodded, angling his horse to line up parallel with Azra. He kicked his horse into a canter, making Azra pick up the gait to follow as I shifted my weight forward and struggled to keep my seat. He raced back the way we’d come, Azra following at his side with me atop him, leaving the others behind. Azra whinnied his protest, tossing his head as if he didn’t want to leave Caldris.

“What are you doing?” I demanded, fighting him for control of Azra’s reins.

“We need to get you as far away from Caldris as possible right now,” Aramis said, meeting my stare for a brief moment. The path was almost treeless as we made our way back in the direction of Black Water.

We should have just stayed in the hut for an eternity, like I’d wanted, hiding out there and living full lives in secret. The only thing that had kept me from asking to do just that was knowing we would bring more danger to the people who lived there. The next time the Mist Guard found them harboring the Fae Marked and Fae alike, they would burn the village to the ground along with everyone in it.

Aramis stopped suddenly, pulling Azra to a halt as he looked around the clearing. There was nothing to be seen, not a sign of danger as I spun to look at him with ragged breath. “What’s wrong with him?” I asked, wheezing and trying to adjust my position in the moment of stillness.

“He spent fucking centuries without his mate; that’s what’s wrong with him. It would be enough to make a Fae go feral under good circumstances, but when you factor in what he’s lived through, the possibility for the loss of control grows,” Aramis answered, continuing to look around the clearing. He guided the horses into a trot, his journey much more cautious as his body was consumed with tension.

The rage blazing down the bond was like nothing I’d ever known, rivaled only by my wrath the night before. It was all-consuming, terrifying in its intensity. It threatened to burn the world to the ground and claim the ashes as his war prize. “He’s never been like this before. I don’t understand what brought it on.”

“Mab killed his father and strung him up. Left his body to hang there, rotting in her throne room forweekswhen Caldris was only a century old,” Aramis answered, turning to look at me. He swallowed, his gaze straying over my shoulder. I spun, finding a lone figure standing in the snow a few feet away.

My mate tilted his head to the side, his posture inhuman as he stalked forward toward us with slow steps. “Get off the horse,” Aramis said, tossing the reins back over Azra’s neck.

“But you said—”

“Get off the fucking horse before he kills it to get to you,” Aramis ordered, jumping down from his own steed. He slapped it on the rear, sending it back toward the group we’d left. I had to hope they were still alive—at least those of them who were alive in the first place.

Blood dripped from Caldris’s hands, his nails curved into pointed, black talons. His sword was gone from his hand, not a weapon in sight as he approached Aramis.

I dismounted Azra, sending him to follow Aramis’s horse with a nervous swallow. Aramis put distance between us, stepping away slightly as Caldris headed straight toward us.

“You coward,” I hissed back at Aramis, my lips twisting with a snarl as I stared into the gleaming eyes of death. Even feral, even lost to the rage and madness consuming him, I had to believe Caldris wouldn’t hurt me.

Right?

“He will gut me and feed me my entrails while I watch,” Aramis said, quirking an eyebrow up at me as he glanced down my body. “He just wants to fuck you, and given the noises I heard coming from your hut last night, you aren’t entirely against the idea.”

I turned away from him, facing the male prowling toward me. His hands were still at his sides, those black nails gleaming in stark comparison to the snow that fell behind him. “Caldris,” I said softly, ignoring the way the sound still seemed to crack through the silence.

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