Huntress Moon (Bones and Bounties Book 2)

by Bilinda Sheehan

  “Do you really think I would come here if it wasn’t true? You know how I feel about the humans…spending time in their realm makes my skin crawl.” Her declaration was far too open and honest to be any kind of deception. The fae couldn’t directly lie. Bend the truth, sure, but not like this.

  “If that is truly all you want, then let me go,” I said.

  Idalina shook her head and shot me a grim smile. “We both know what you’ll do, and I need you to hear me out.”

  She wasn’t wrong. “Let’s just get this over with so I can turn you down and get back to my own life.”

  “Lunn is in trouble.”

  Four little words that had the power to halt me in my tracks. The smug smile on my lips died.

  “What kind of trouble?” I couldn’t hide my suspicion. Idalina wasn’t someone to be trusted, but if Lunn truly was in trouble then why did she think an exile like me would be of any benefit to her?

  “He’s missing. I know he was working with you.”

  “My jailer, you mean,” I said, but my voice lacked conviction.

  Idalina crossed the room in the time it took me to draw a breath. The obsidian blade in her hands hadn’t been there a moment ago, but I was acutely aware of its presence as she pressed its wickedly sharp edge to my throat.

  “You were shown mercy when you deserved none. What he saw in you, I will never understand, but…” She drew in a long, shuddering breath and took a small step backwards.

  “You and Lunn?” I studied her face carefully. I didn’t need her to confirm that she loved him; her reaction and the raw despair I’d just witnessed had been enough.

  “We’re colleagues…”

  “And?” I prompted.

  “And I need your help in finding him,” she said, evading my probing questions with the smooth conversational dexterity that only the fae possessed.

  “Where was he last seen?” I asked. There was no point in trying to get her to admit the truth.

  “Last I heard, he came to see you.” The relief written on her face was mirrored in the lessening of her grip over my mind.

  The last time I’d seen Lunn, he had helped me escape from the clutches of Auriella, Mother of the Wild Hunt—or all-out lunatic, depending on your perspective. She had murdered MacNa in cold blood, and for all intents and purposes had gotten away with it scot-free. Some things in life really weren’t fair.

  “He was with the Mother of the Hunt,” I said, and Idalina nodded.

  “Yeah, she’s the captain of the enforcers.” I felt her power slip a little, allowing me to breathe somewhat easier.

  “So that’s your answer then,” I said. “Now can you please let me down and get the hell out?”

  Idalina glared at me. “If it was truly that easy, do you think I would be here? No one has seen him, Darcey. He came to see you, and it’s like he just up and disappeared.”

  “Have you spoken to Auriella?”

  Idalina scoffed and gave me an incredulous look. “Really? You think I didn’t go to her first? Of course I’ve spoken to her. She wants to know where he is just as much as I do.” Colour suffused her cheeks.

  “You said you were just colleagues?”

  “And you’re too nosey for your own good. Look, he was your Faerie Court contact, so can’t you just summon him?”

  I contemplated denying her request, but her voice and eyes held enough desperation that I felt somewhat sorry for her. I knew what it was like to need someone. I knew what it was like to long for someone. How could I turn her away when I was intimately acquainted with this type of suffering?

  “Fine. But when I do this for you, you’ll piss off back to where you came from?”

  She nodded, her eagerness almost worthy of pity, but I crushed the emotion back down where it belonged. Where had her pity been for me when she’d turned me over to the Faerie Court? She certainly hadn’t worried what they might do to me, and all because of her petty jealousy.

  “You won’t see me again,” she said.

  “Then let me down,” I demanded. Her power vanished as quickly as it had arrived, and I dropped to the floor like a ton of bricks. The iron in my blood made me slower than I should have been, and I narrowly avoided landing on my ass.

  I felt her eyes on me as she watched me expectantly. Moving around the desk, I headed for the safe and popped the warding on the locks before spinning the dial and letting the door swing open. The wooden box within the safe was small and still held the faint scent of cherry blossoms. Its smooth surface was covered in carvings that ebbed and flowed beneath my touch, constantly changing and evolving.

  “Oscailte agus nochtann,” I said, the Irish words tripping off my tongue. The words held power, but only my voice would activate the spell that kept the box locked. The lid popped open, and I lifted it back to reveal the three vials of Lunn’s blood that he had given to me.

  It would take only a couple of drops to summon him. I lifted one vial free, closing the lid on the others and secreting the box back in the safe and out of Idalina’s reach. I could feel her eyes on me as I tugged open the vial’s lid and let two small drops of blood plop onto my finger.

  “Have you done this before?” she asked.

  “Nope. Have you ever been summoned before?” I turned to face her.

  The blood balanced precariously on the tip of my finger, wobbling to and fro, threatening to spill over and slide away into nothingness.

  “No,” she said quietly, watching me with hungry eyes.

  Moving quickly, I raised my hand and smeared the blood across my forehead, down the bridge of my nose, and finally across my lips.

  “Ag do chuid fola a thoghairm mé dhuit, trí do thuairisceán fola dom,” I said, feeling the power swelling within the room with each word. I closed my eyes and imagined Lunn standing before me.

  Nothing happened. The clock on the wall merrily continued clicking down the seconds. I could feel Idalina’s impatience coating everything in its path, and I fought the urge to begin tapping my foot as we waited.

  “What exactly is supposed to happen?” she asked.

  “No idea, but I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to be nothing.” I raised the vial to my nose. The scent of pine needles and icy snow remained much the same as it had been on the day Lunn had given it to me, so I knew it hadn’t spoiled.

  “Unless there’s something else he has to do,” I said, but it didn’t seem convincing even to me.

  The wards in the basement screamed, and the vial in my hands shattered as something howled nearby.

  “That’s definitely not Lunn,” I said.

  Idalina shook her head. “It’s Auriella, and if she catches me here she’ll kill me.” She began running for the stairs.

  “Why would she do that?” But I was talking to the air as Idalina disappeared.

  The screaming wards cut off abruptly, and the silence that followed made my ears feel as though they’d been stuffed with cotton wool.

  “You summoned me?” Auriella’s voice came from somewhere above me. I glanced up, half expecting to see her on the ceiling. But then it dawned on me that her voice was coming from the upstairs office.

  Someone else mumbled, the words indistinguishable, but I recognised the voice as Idalina’s. I could leave her to whatever fate Auriella would serve up to her. But the memory of what Auriella had done to MacNa still haunted me; there was no way I would let her do that to anyone else, not if I could stop it.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, I reached the doorway to the office as Idalina’s body crashed into the back wall. The force of her impact caused some of the bricks to crack as plaster rained down on top of her.

  “She didn’t summon you. Neither of us summoned you.” I met Auriella’s violet gaze head-on.

  Her eyes widened in surprise. She folded her arms across her chest, staring me down.

  “You,” she said, and the disdain in that one word was enough to curdle my stomach.

  “I tried to summon Lunn. He is, after all, my co
nnection to the Court.” I fought to keep my voice even and devoid of all emotion. With the iron slowly spreading through my system and poisoning me, it wouldn’t take much for Auriella to snuff out my life if she wanted to.

  “How?” she asked.

  “I have a better question. Why are you here and Lunn isn’t?”

  Auriella smiled unpleasantly. At least her face hadn’t begun to change like it had when she had planned to kill me in the alley. Lunn had saved me then, even knowing it was a trap. I’d known he would be punished by the Court, but the more I thought about it, the further my stomach sank into my boots. If Lunn wasn’t here, then where was he?

  “I said, how did you summon Lunn?” she asked again, and with each word I watched her glamour slowly begin to strip away.

  Her wings unfurled behind her, their tips brushing against the ceiling as they beat slowly back and forth. The thin, almost clear membranes were separated by hundreds of tiny branching violet lines that marked the flow of her blood. She took a step forward and they fluttered, the light bouncing off the colours and causing them to sparkle and shimmer like a crystal.

  She grew taller, the human glamour she wore to give herself dark, unremarkable hair fading to reveal the rich, russet red that sparkled as though filled with strands of ruby. I watched it grow longer, curling down around her body in a braid that rivalled my own. Her violet eyes sparked with anger, and when she smiled I could see rows of razor-sharp killing teeth.

  Mother of the Hunt was one of only a few fae in existence who possessed more than one shape. Mannan had been another—the tentacled shadow beast from my nightmares had been only too real at one time, but the cage had stripped him of the ability to become the creature…Of course, if my nightmare had been real, then something was happening to change that.

  No one had ever lived long enough to say what Mother of the Hunt’s beast form looked like, and the same was almost true of Mannan…except that I had survived his last attack.

  “Tell her, Darcey,” Idalina said, the fear in her voice palpable.

  “He gave me a vial of his blood.” I tore my gaze away from the fae standing before me. Staring into her eyes was a mistake.

  “Just one?” Auriella asked.

  “I…” I opened my mouth to answer and hesitated. I couldn’t lie to her, but I was pretty positive I didn’t want to tell her the truth.

  “The vial shattered,” I said finally. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth either.

  I watched Auriella’s expression relax. “Why were you trying to summon him?”

  “He’s my connection to the Court,” I repeated. “I wanted him to know that the Elite have the half-breed.”

  Silence followed my words, and I risked a glance up at Auriella. “I thought it was something they should know,” I added.

  She nodded and smiled condescendingly at me. “They know. They are considering their next move.”

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  Auriella’s face remained utterly neutral. “The Court is considering a suitable punishment for Lunn.”

  “He didn’t disobey them,” I said. “He was protecting me! If anyone should get punished, it should be me.”

  “All good things,” she said, before turning her attention to Idalina. “You, get out of my sight.”

  No sooner had the words left her mouth than Idalina was gone.

  “Tread lightly, harbinger,” Auriella said to me. “I’ve got my eye on you. Don’t think that because you escaped my justice once that you will do so again.”

  As I opened my mouth to answer her, she disappeared, there one moment and gone the next. It always amazed me when Lunn did that, but Auriella made it seem just creepy. Her words lingered on the air as though she hadn’t left at all, and I had to fight the urge to search the place from top to bottom.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I let my shoulders drop as the tension that had been holding me rigid slowly flowed out of me. Faerie politics were not my thing, and yet for some reason I always managed to find myself tangled up in them.

  Chapter Ten

  I lay in bed and stared up at the lights dancing across the ceiling. Samira had refused to speak to me on the way back to the apartment, and the unnamed kitten seemed to favour her side in the matter over mine. Trying to explain that exposing her to my power too often was bad for her just wasn’t sinking in.

  I’d been more than a little distracted myself, my mind running over the situation with Auriella and Lunn. It didn’t feel right that he had to pay for helping me. Just thinking about all the different angles gave me a headache, so I tried to push Lunn from my mind.

  Sweat beaded on my skin, causing me to stick to the bed sheets, but I refused to admit that I regretted turning down Byron’s offer. If he had succeeded—and that was a pretty big if—then I would find myself beholden to an alpha wolf, and that wasn’t a position I wanted to be in.

  But that wasn’t the only reason I couldn’t get him out of my head. I was plagued with thoughts of his skin against mine, his lips, the taste of him on my tongue. Frustrated, I rolled over and thumped my lumpy pillow in an attempt to wrestle it into submission. But even that seemed reluctant to bend to my will. Groaning, I picked up the pillow and tossed it across the room, rolling my eyes as it thumped into the dresser and knocked down the few small knick-knacks I had placed there.

  Climbing from the bed, I padded across the floor as a breeze fluttered in through the open window, bringing with it the scent of blossoms. I closed my eyes and let the scent wash over me, but the creak of a floorboard jolted me to attention. She was crouched in the corner of the room, her green hair short and spiky. Holding my breath, I waited for my eyes to adjust fully to the darkness and then realised I could see through her to the wall behind her. Something appeared where she traced her finger on the floor, and when she lifted her face I found myself staring into a pair of wide violet eyes that were uncannily familiar.

  “Clary,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.

  She tilted her head to the side, but her gaze held no recognition as she studied me. Something howled outside on the street, something unnatural and not of this world. The hairs on my arms stood on end, and the child, if that’s what she was, gave a start as terror filled her violet gaze. And then she was gone, between one breath and the next, and the space she had occupied was empty.

  Sorrow lanced through my chest. I slumped back against the wall, my knees buckling beneath me as I slid to the floor and tears slowly tracked down my cheeks. The tears burned against my skin, but I didn’t care. There was no doubt in my mind that Clary had been here. I hadn’t known her as a child, but I would recognise her eyes anywhere—she was my friend, the one I had failed, and she had died at the hands of the hybrid.

  But why was she here? Clary was dead, and when the fae died there was nothing—no heaven, no hell, just a whole lot of oblivion. And yet she had been here…Or was I just hallucinating? It wasn’t impossible; iron poisoning could induce fevers. The burning tears dripped down my face faster, each one making my body feel lighter, cleaner. It shouldn’t have been possible. I caught the next tear that dripped from the end of my chin and studied its dark surface.

  Tears weren’t supposed to be dark, and yet this one was opaque. Pushing up onto my feet, I stared at my reflection in the mirror, at the red tracks the tears left in my skin. Turning, I pulled up my T-shirt and searched for the cut from the pixie’s blade.

  The iron had been slowly spreading into my system—earlier, I’d seen its lines radiating out from my wound. Yet now, the lines were slowly shrinking, receding back into the wound with each tear that tracked down my face.

  I’d never heard of anyone being able to cry the iron out of their system. Was it somehow connected to the Noree wanting my tears? It seemed unlikely, but at this point anything was possible. Sinking back against the wall, I slid down until I hit the floor.

  Exhaustion washed through me, and I wrapped my arms around my knees, resting my head back against the wall. My
last thought, before I drifted off into a sleep devoid of all dreams, was to wonder what Clary had been doing on the floor before she disappeared.

  Something tickled against my face, jerking me awake. It took me a moment to realise I was still on the floor. The sunlight streaming in through the window blinded me. I’d slumped over at some point during the night, and something was now rustling gently beneath my head as I tried to move. My body refused to budge, and panic swelled in my chest as I fought to lift my arms.

  Glancing down at my body, I saw why I wasn’t fit to move. I was cocooned in what appeared to be young ivy. The delicate leaves and thin shoots covered me and pinned me to the floor. At first it looked like nothing I had ever seen in the mortal realm, but then I quickly realised that the last time I’d seen something similar had been in Ireland at the gateway to Faerie.

  Shuffling onto my back, I sucked in a deep breath and prepared to pull free of the webbing. As though sensing what I was about to do, the webbing retreated slowly, releasing my limbs one at a time.

  Finally free, I sat up and stared at the room, or at least what remained of it. The bed was completely buried in ivy-like vines, and a huge oak had grown through the floor in the corner where I’d seen Clary the child. When I looked up, I saw that the ceiling was gone, replaced by the oak’s branches arching over my head like a canopy.

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  I couldn’t see the sky through the latticework of branches, but I caught a hint of blossoms on the air, the same kind I had smelled right before Clary had appeared.

  The sound of someone moving around in the apartment drew my attention, and I climbed slowly to my feet. Despite spending the night on the floor, I didn’t ache the way I’d expected, and when I glanced in the mirror the tracks of iron tears were gone and my skin was unmarked.

  Whirling around, I dragged up my T-shirt and stared at the smooth, pale flesh covering my back. Gone was the angry wound. The dark lines that had radiated out from it had also disappeared; nothing remained to indicate I had been involved in a fight.