Page 52 of Beta Hybrid

‘What’s happening?’ I breathe.

‘We’re about to ride with the Wild Hunt,’ Andrea says.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Zenna

The Wild Hunt is a myth, a bedtime story about faeries riding mares of starlight, blazing through the sky in an immortal hunt. It wasn’t real. My hand clasps Andrea’s tightly, watching hope make her eyes sparkle. Her blue eyes, so like my own.

The group, holding hands, rises swiftly into the sky. Reagan lets out something between a howl and a yelp as Vale holds him tighter.

A look of serene peace falls over Aldrich’s face.

The others look how I feel. Unnerved. Confused.

My mouth falls open as I look down, watching the space where we had been standing grow further and further away. I grip Cai’s hand. Holy shit, we’re flying.

He grips my hand too. Not natural. Not natural. What’s happening.

Oh, my baby alpha doesn’t like heights. I should have known from his reaction to being in the tree house. It’s okay, I tell him. We’re being guided, it’s fine. I push down my own disorientation as my chest clenches for him, watching my mate try to hold back his panic.

Wolves are meant to keep all four paws on the ground, he sends down the bond, edged with indignation.

I squeeze his hand. ‘My father’—I turn to my mother—‘he’s part of the hunt? It—that’s real? Why aren’t you?’

Andrea’s face is tilted up to the sky, a look of pure joy lighting her features. ‘I was. Now we will all be reunited. He will be so happy to see you.’

I try not to look down as we soar above the treetops, but the urge is too strong to resist. I bite down when my gaze wobbles, and the world tilts.

‘Don’t look down,’ Andrea says, too late.

A pulse of panic jolts down the bond from Cai.

You’re okay, I tell him.

He closes his eyes. Part of me wants to tell him to open them. To not be afraid. Instead, I tilt my head up to watch the stars greet us. A much more comforting sight than Earth slipping out from under us. Even though its daylight, stars shimmer, blinking happily at us.

A sound cracks through the sky and I flinch, but my mother whispers reassurances in my ear.

‘It’s the Hunt,’ she says. ‘And their mares. Look.’

As the sky darkens and we join the stars, that magical realm just beyond Earth which apparently exists, I get glimpses of moving figures, glistening in hues of silver. Some appear to be riding horses, one raises a starlight whip, cracking it down on his stead.

The closer we rise toward the stars and the Hunt, the louder they become. Thousands of hooves beating down on invisible ground, more whips cracking on starlit hides, mane’s glittering like silver waterfalls. And the riders. They look like silver paintings of warriors. Each wears armour, a sword, and a shield, many of them raising their heads to shout a battle-cry as they thunder past. There must be thousands.

Tens of thousands.

Among the stream of warriors is a man astride a stead slightly taller than the others. Instead of a sword and a shield, he carries two long swords, and wears no armour across his bare chest. Scars wink in the light, catching his wounds worn with pride. He parts the Hunt like a rock in a stream.

When he sees us, for a fraction of a second, he pauses. Then the hardness on the warrior’s face slips away, replaced by something much softer. Joy. Longing. Relief.

Love.

The warrior slides off his stead and walks right through the crowd toward my mother, as though they were nothing but smoke. His gaze latches onto Andrea, but my mother does not move.

The rest of the Hunt barely acknowledge us. If anything, some look to Aldrich and incline their heads, but the rest forge on, as though about to hurry into battle, swords raised, brows beaten.

We have stopped flying, rising into the sky, but no one dares break the connection of our circle. Beneath our feet is an opaque layer of silvery-white clouds. I try to keep Cai calm through the bond, but he is no less panicked.

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