She nodded, her brows turned down.
He wanted to yell at her for endangering herself or maybe hold her tight, grateful that she had. He settled for grabbing her shoulders. “Yet you came inside?”
“You needed me, and I needed you.” She shrugged out of his grip. “Let’s go. We’re wasting time.”
A smile spread at the evidence of her bravery, a reaction he couldn’t have stopped even if he wanted to. She was a fitting mate. Rhys was wrong. Calan ran his fingers down her spine, grasped her hand and stepped outside.
The diluted sun scattered an array of light across the sinkhole. More signs of damage lined the walls leading to the surface. A multitude of cracks and heaved earth offered the sulfur-scented smoke a way out of the Underworld. Pure chaos twined with the noxious gas. The dark mist wove its way around their legs and drifted to the surface above.
Harley swatted at the vapor. The gray fingers tugged at her pants, stretched in hungry tendrils along her limbs and lifted her hair. With a weary sigh, she dropped her hands and trudged along with him.
The sight bothered him, but he didn’t comment on how the pure chaos wound around her in a tempting caress and steered clear of him. Wherever he stepped, the fog skidded away. He swung her into his arms, saving her from the teasing licks that sought a way into her body and soul.
She buried her face against his chest. “Thank you. It didn’t bother me outside the hole.”
“It comes from the same well of chaos Dar stole his power from. My prison”—he glanced over his shoulder—“sits between the realms. As the barrier weakens, elements of the Underworld slip free.”
Her eyes widened. She flicked her gaze from his face to the upper lip of the hole, then back. “It’s getting out.”
“Yes.” He sighed. “It is.”
She gripped his shirt. “I’m guessing that’s not a good thing.” Her shaky voice broke on the last word.
He climbed the natural staircase of earth and stone steps. “It’s not. With every earthquake or volcanic eruption, elements are released. It’s part of the natural cycle, disastrous and deadly, yet normal and as necessary as the sun rising each day.”
“But now the chaos has begun to rush out.”
He nodded. “Among other things.”
She stared at him expectantly. He gave a small shake of his head, not wanting to discuss all the horrors of his home but unwilling to dismiss her silent question. “Sins, disease, nothing good.”
She sucked in a rough breath.
He met her horrified gaze. “Do you see why it so imperative I find Dar?”
“And why the Huntsmen paid the price of the curse in the first place.” She brushed her lips over his cheek. “I do see. Thank you.”
Not once had anyone thanked the Huntsmen for their dedication or sacrifices. He closed his eyes and held the two words close. He would share them with his siblings once he could speak to them again.
“What happens after you stab Dar?”
Her question yanked him out of the euphoria and dropped him into their stark existence. “The deterioration of the barrier will halt, my siblings will be released, and the Hunt for Dar’s redcaps and any half-breed fairies remaining will resume.”
“But the evils he’s released will still threaten the world?”
He dreaded seeing how much the chaos and sins had affected the humans. When he’d first taken up the Hunt, they’d been simple farmers, hunters, wanderers. They’d evolved over the ages, mostly under the influence of the sins, especially greed and gluttony. But now? From the images he’d taken from Harley, the world had become a much different place, one where deviant behaviors thrived—exactly as Dar had wanted.
“Yes, the world will continue to suffer, but it’ll heal. The Huntsmen will make sure of it.”
He slid his hand to her bottom. His slight push helped Harley over the rim of the sinkhole and onto the grass above. She extended a hand to him. He didn’t need it, but took it anyway, warmed by her offer. One knee over the lip, he swung his other foot up and pushed to his feet.
A sonic boom shook the world.
The ground beneath him undulated. The heaving knocked him off balance. He tipped, and the earth crumbled under his foot.
“Calan!”
With small hands grasping his waistband, she stopped his tumble into the hole behind him. She tugged him forward, right on top of her. Her breath rushed out with his dead weight. He pushed to his knees and pressed her small frame to his chest with an arm around her waist. He scrambled away from the crumbling edge as another wave rocked the world.
He curled his body around hers and waited out the unnatural earthquake. The last of the trembling eased. He shoved away and rushed back to the pit to survey the damage.
The entryway remained open. The beam above the entrance sagged, but not much more than it had. The destruction, however, showed in the sloping banks leading to it. Heaved earth and boulders filled much of the space. The natural staircase no longer offered easy access. A dangerous path of sharp rocks led the way, and a steady stream of gray mist escaped from between the cracked ground.
Harley rested her trembling hands on his back. “What happened?”
He locked her body to his with an arm around her waist. “I don’t know.” But he suspected it had to do with either him walking out of his prison or taking the blade with him.
What had his departure done to his siblings?
She yanked on his shirt, redirecting his thoughts. He had to trust in Rhys, Tegan and the others to endure.
Calan backed up with his mate. A few hundred feet away, he stopped dead in his tracks. The mark of the Hunt on his chest tingled, and the knowledge Riesa fed him chilled him.
His beloved hound had failed him.
Chapter Sixteen
Ian is alive. Harley repeated the words Calan had given her. It didn’t ease her anxiety. Something had happened to him.
She pressed the SUV’s gas pedal to the floor. It didn’t accelerate quickly, but the engine hummed on the straight road doing seventy. She eased her foot off the gas for the worst of the winding drive down the mountain. “Are you sure he’s—”
Calan rested his hand on her thigh. “Yes. Ian is alive.”
She risked a peek at him. “He’s suffered, hasn’t he?”
No answer. That in itself was one. Not wanting to argue, she focused on driving. The scenic mountain road spilled out onto a busy two-lane highway. She merged with traffic and fell into the slower traffic that kept her from Ian.
“This is taking too long.” She cut Calan an irritated look.
“Would you rather risk the humans seeing my horse when it’s not necessary?”
No, she wouldn’t. “Can’t you cloak us or something?”
His weary sigh added to her anxiety. “The power of the Hunt is limited to darkness. Some abilities I can still call upon during the day. That is not one of them.”
“You told me you didn’t sense any redcaps or sluaghs close. I believed you. It was the only reason I spent the night with you.”
He jerked his hand back. She regretted her words but didn’t retract them. She hurt, dammit. Ian was everything to her, and she’d endangered him so she could fuck the man of her dreams. If Calan hadn’t been curled around her body all night, he might’ve caught Raul.
“I told you the truth. My hounds didn’t smell the taint of darkness anywhere. They’ve been hunting by my side from the moment I matured.”
“It is possible they’d forgotten—”
“No.”
She peered at him. The stony look matched the punctuated word. Fine. If Calan wouldn’t give her answers, she’d get them on her own. She hit the button on her phone to speed-dial Ian. It rang once.
“Hello?” Trevor’s voice, not Ian’s, filled the car. It didn’t surprise her. They were close. Of course Trevor
would go to Ian when he needed someone on his side.
“It’s me. What happened?”
“Hell, that’s what happened.”
“What are you talking about?”
Someone yelled for him. She couldn’t make out who from the muffled sound.
“Look, I don’t have time to talk. Just get out to Cynthia’s place. Now.” The line went dead.
“What did your dog say?” She’d asked Calan several times already. He hadn’t answered her, but she couldn’t help asking again.
He turned his head and stared out the window. “She smells death but can’t get close enough to see more. Human police arrived minutes after a young woman ran screaming from the house.” The grinding of his jaw sent a shiver down her spine. “But Riesa didn’t pick up any trace of chaos.”
At a stoplight, she faced him. “That’s impossible. If Raul or his sluaghs killed Cynthia’s family, your dog would’ve scented them.” She frowned and tacked on, “Right?”
He ran his fingers through his shaggy hair. “Right. The chaotic darkness leaves its mark on the earth. It fades, as smells do, but with my hound sitting there all night, she should’ve not only scented the owner but seen him. Even Dar couldn’t have hidden from her senses.” He turned in his seat. “It is possible a human committed the crime.”
She doubted it, not after Raul’s threat. The light turned green, and she drove. She’d find out soon enough. Raul would’ve left his signature all over the kill if it had been him. He’d want her to know what disobeying him meant.
The part of town Cynthia’s parents lived in had two sections. The middle-class homes with small yards and cars parked along the curbs dotted the outermost area. Interspaced among them were a few pizza joints, mini-marts and offices. The poorer family homes circled the cul-de-sac at the very end of town. It butted up against the section of woods separating the town from the abandoned sewing factory that had once supported many of the local residents.
While Harley had never been inside Cynthia’s home, she knew where Ian’s girlfriend lived along the curved road in the rundown section. Even if she hadn’t, the strobe lights and police tape would’ve pointed out the location.
She slowed the car to a crawl, then hit the brakes. The sight of body bags being loaded into the coroner’s van triggered a lifetime of memories. She’d seen too many murder scenes. It sickened her to know she had inadvertently caused the one before her. Ian could recite his statistics all he wanted. They meant nothing to the tragedy she knew had played out behind the walls of the older home.
People had died because Harley had led Raul here.
“Harley?”
She glanced at Calan. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”
He touched her with teasing mental fingers and yanked her anxiety away. She breathed a sigh of relief he captured with his mouth. The soft brush of his lips to hers infused her with strength. He pulled back and held her trapped in his gaze. “You’re not, but you’ll feel better once you hold your brother in your arms.”
She nodded, knowing he spoke the truth.
“Turn around, and drive back to the last intersection. I’m going to get out and meet up with my hounds. I want to sweep the area myself.” His brows pinched. “Make sure. Something isn’t right.”
She backed up and double-parked next to a pickup. “Make sure of what?”
He shrugged in answer. The way he worked his jaw, however, suggested he had a guess. “Go immediately to Ian and reach for me if you feel in any way threatened.”
He peered past her. She followed the direction of his stare and caught a flash of white and red between a tarp-covered boat and someone’s garage. His hounds crouched in the shadows. A surge of protectiveness rose. She hated seeing them lurk as if they were the evil ones.
“Can’t you alter their image?”
“No. Glamour is a fairy skill.”
If the bite to his words indicated his feelings, the fact annoyed him.
“Too bad I can’t use it.” Riesa reminded her of a Doberman on steroids. Harley would like to see the hound be able to walk around without frightening everyone with her blood-colored eyes and red ears.
Calan opened the door, then took her hand. He pressed his thumb to her left palm, the one with his circle. “You will. You’ll be powerful.” He raised his gaze to hers. “I’ve changed my mind. I won’t stop you again from completing our bond.”
“You won’t?” After his adamant insistence she wait and make sure she could love the Hunter as much as the man, confusion gripped her. She wasn’t sure what to make of his one-eighty.
“No.” He cupped her face and brought her mouth to his for a deep, possessive kiss he ended too quickly. “I won’t lose the one female who has managed what no other has been able to do.”
He didn’t tell her what that was or give her a chance to respond, not that she knew what she would say. After another brush of lips, he slipped out of the car. The slow amble he took toward the boat wouldn’t draw any unusual attention. He looked as if he belonged here. The clothes, the sunglasses he’d slid over his nonhuman eyes and the mannerisms he’d obviously picked out of her mind helped him blend in. Sure, he was taller and more muscular than most men. Still, nobody would peg him as a demigod and a rider of the Wild Hunt.
She threw the SUV into drive and headed back to the scene of the murder she’d inadvertently caused.
Don’t think about it now. Later, wallow in guilt later. She took a deep breath of wood-scented air, the last remnants of Calan’s presence, and parked behind a police cruiser.
Ian turned his back on Trevor and strode toward her, his hands fisted tightly and a murderous glare on his face. Her heart skipped a beat.
He opened the passenger door and climbed in. “She’s fucking gone.”
Bile rushed up. She swallowed it down. “Raul killed Cynthia?”
He dropped his head against the seat and pinched the bridge of his nose. “No. She’s gone.”
“As in, disappeared?”
He nodded.
The knowledge didn’t ease the rolling of her gut. Gone didn’t mean safe. Actually, it might mean an outcome a hell of a lot worse than death. She blew out a rough breath. “Tell me what happened.”
“With the exception of her younger sister, Allie, all of Cynthia’s girlfriends who slept over, along with the rest of her family, were killed.” He glanced at her, and the pain reflected in his eyes stabbed her in the heart. “Cynthia’s bed was empty, and the back door was hanging wide open.”
“Oh God.” She covered her mouth with a trembling hand. “Raul?”
“It didn’t look like one of his murders. No missing pinkies or tongues.”
She peered through the window at the house where Ian had spent his holidays over the last few years. The idea forming in her head sickened her.
“A sluagh kill?” Not that they matched any one cookie-cutter slaying, but they all ended with a major artery being cut so the creature could drink of its victim’s blood.
“Some struggled, but all had a single slash over their throats. No other visible wounds other than the bruising that I saw. The cops kicked me out before I could examine the rest of the house.”
She met her brother’s deadened eyes, the pain replaced by acceptance, and asked the only thing left. “You think it was Cynthia?”
He shrugged, but the resignation slackening his expression told the truth. “Her bloody handprint was on the table along with my ring.”
He reached down and tugged up the leg of his pants. The holder strapped to his calf held the dagger she’d made for him, the one that could kill redcaps and sluaghs. He yanked it free, then caressed the black blade in a slow swipe, cutting his forefinger on the sharp edge. The scent of blood filled the car. “If it was, I’m going to find Raul and cut out his goddamn heart.”
Chapter Seventeen
Cala
n stared at the evidence before him and cursed a string of swear words he’d picked out of Harley’s mind. A perfect circle formed out of large, dome-shaped mushrooms sat in the middle of the storage building’s dirt floor. Unlike most he’d seen, the mushrooms making up the ring were healthy and plump, not red-topped and diseased. They appeared to be several years old and defied all the rules.
“A fucking fairy ring.” Hidden out of sight from my hounds.
Leading up to the edge of it, the impressions of small feet showed the path the sluagh had taken to return to its home, the realm that still existed in the Underworld even if there weren’t any fairies left to occupy it.
He pivoted on his heel and surveyed the rest of the building. Along one wall, a large map hung with an assortment of colored pushpins decorating it. Next to it, hundreds of frozen images were neatly arranged. Some had crumpled corners and wrinkles; others had been printed on special paper and in different hues. They showed various landscapes and seasons. The clothing style changed, but one thing remained the same in them.
They were all of Harley—naked, fully clothed, sleeping under the golden rays of the sun, fucking other men. All of his mate.
Every last one.
The growl started deep in his chest. He focused on one picture—Harley on her knees, sucking some human’s dick with a look of pure rapture on her face, much like the one she’d worn last night when she’d been in a similar position with him. Calan let a nail grow into a sharp talon. He sliced the male’s image, then desecrated each of the others. It didn’t appease his rage. He wanted their blood for daring to touch what belonged to him.
Harley had been his from the moment he’d left his mark on her. She should’ve felt the connection to him, even if she didn’t understand it. She should’ve longed for him, needed him, fucking sought him out.
But she hadn’t.
She’d stayed away for nine unbelievably long years. In that time, she’d given her body to the males depicted on the wall before him. How had she been able to touch them, let alone find release at their hands?
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