Page 36 of What Sleeps Within the Cove

I turned, leaving Estrella’s bedroom behind me without a second thought. I kept my pace controlled but quick as I navigated the halls of Tar Mesa. Carefully avoiding making eye contact with any of Mab’s followers, none of them interfered as I moved through the shadows and stepped into the shadow realm.

My magic took me where I needed to go, the inky darkness surrounding me as soon as I’d put enough distance between Estrella’s room and the wards placed there and myself. It was like coming home, like a cool winter’s night by the hearth enveloping me in its warmth. The shadows drifted over my skin, tickling against the edges of my armor affectionately.

I emerged within the human dungeons, staring at Holt as he and the Wild Hunt ushered the newest batch of mates into a cell. His eyes widened as I stepped out of the shadow realm, placing one foot in front of the other and coming to a stop in front of him. “Caldris,” he said, his voice dropping low.

He looked over my shoulder, studying the space behind me for my mate or the witch he so desperately wished to see. He wouldn’t admit it out loud, not when she clearly detested him for what had transpired between them centuries before.

“I need your help,” I said, glancing over his shoulder to find Aramis standing behind Holt. Behind them, the other members of the Wild Hunt grimaced as they closed the doors to the cells that now occupied dozens of human mates. I couldn’t stop to think of what fate might wait for them here when Mab realized I was missing. Not when Estrella’s life, and all our lives, depended on me finding her in Tartarus.

“Anything,” Holt said, stepping forward. He raised his hand, allowing me to place mine in his and gripping it tight in the male version of affection.

“What do you need?” Aramis asked, stepping forward with the rest of the Wild Hunt at his back.

“Estrella is in Tartarus,” I explained, watching as Holt flinched. We both knew the horrors that waited for her there, the torment she would need to endure in her efforts to find Medusa.

“Caldris,” he said, shaking his head as he pulled his hand back from mine. I gripped him tighter, pulling him close enough that the breastplate of my armor touched his tattooed skin.

“She was injured, Holt,” I said, staring him in the face and daring him to deny me this. Centuries of friendship did not equate to turning his back on me when I needed him the most. “I don’t need to explain to you what happens to me if she dies.”

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Holt grumbled, but he nodded his head anyway. “There’s a doorway.”

“I know,” I said, already certain of the placement where I would need to meet the ferryman. “But I cannot enter into it with my physical form.”

Holt scoffed. “You want me to call you to join the Hunt for the night,” he said, a disbelieving laugh bubbling up in his throat. While some of the souls Holt called to join the Wild Hunt came from those who were already dead or dying, others were people who simply slept too soundly, feeling compelled to the call and joined instead of resting peacefully.

“It’s the only way,” I said, not bothering to deny my plan.

“It’s dangerous. You’ll be little more than a shade, and that will make you susceptible to the claims of Tartarus. If you stay too long, you’ll never escape,” Holt said, the warning on his tongue sounding like something I should heed. Hopefully I would have enough time to aid Estrella in her quest and see her home safely, because I didn’t think I would be able to leave her.

“We’ll need somewhere to hide my body. Otherwise Mab’s minions will run me through while I sleep to be rid of me once and for all,” I said, looking around the dungeon. It was too risky to leave the dungeon again, the chances of Mab realizing I was up to something slim, but possible.

If she interrogated me, I’d have to tell her the truth. I couldn’t lie.

“Through here,” Tara said, breaking off from the rest of the Wild Hunt who watched and rushing to the side of the dungeon. She rounded the corner, going out of sight of the humans as Holt and I followed behind her. She held a finger to her lips, warning us to be silent as she groped along the stone. She touched the stones on the wall, feeling across them as she searched for something that only she could feel. Finally pressing her fingers more firmly into one of the rocks, she stepped back as the panel slid to the side as if by magic.

The small room within was littered with bones. The dead who had once been placed in solitary in this place long since forgotten.

“What is this place?” I asked as I stepped into the little room.

“It was your father’s favored cell for his prisoners that he didn’t want Mab to know about,” she said, gesturing to the skeletons thatlittered the room. “He tended to them personally. No one but us knows of this room’s existence.”

I ran my hand over the stones within, to the dangling instruments of torture on the walls. “How do you know of it then?” I asked, watching as she wrung her hands in front of her.

“There was a time when he used this room to have secret rendezvous with your mother,” she said, watching as my eyes lit with understanding. My parents had shared more than the one forbidden night that led to my birth.

My mother had been in Tar Mesa to see him.

But they’d never allowed me to join, because my curse to serve Mab had made it impossible for me to guard their secret.

Everything in me went cold, and my hand dropped off the stone as hurt flashed through me. It radiated with heat, a burning, writhing thing with a mind of its own.

“I brought her here through the river entrance. There was no reason for Mab to believe I had any ties to either of them,” she said, finishing the thought as I sank to the floor and found a spot that was cleared of bones.

I lay back on the stone, staring up at the ceiling and refusing to think of what had transpired in this cell.

Our fate would not be the same as that of my parents.

“She was never the same after she lost him,” Tara said, continuing on. “I served her in the Winter Court before my death, and she was always so full of life. So vibrant, but now even she dances on the edge of madness. If you were to take your rightful place on the throne, I believe she would pass into the Void willingly to join him.”

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