Betrayed

by Nancy Corrigan

  The woman jerked her head in Calan’s direction. She pointed behind him. “Look out!”

  He cut a quick glance behind him. The redcaps he’d left barreled down on them. He couldn’t fight them and ensure the woman remained safe. With a thought, he called his horse forward to hold the redcaps back. His horse couldn’t attack them, not in the same way his hounds could, but it would do everything in its power to delay them. With that done, Calan rushed to her side and scooped her up, an arm under her legs and another across her back to avoid jostling her as he’d done the last time.

  “Put me down. I don’t want you to save me! Anyone but you!” She shoved against him.

  Her push caught him by surprise. He stumbled, then righted himself. “Well, I have, and I promise to get you to safety.”

  “No! No promises. Take it back!” She clawed at him, her nails ripping at his skin, and fought his hold. “Let me go before it’s too late!”

  He ignored her thrashing and her crazed ramblings. He didn’t have time to calm her, not while the redcap closest remained alive. The male pushed to his feet, then leapt at them. Calan leaned to the right, using his body to shield the woman. It was the best he could do to save her. Another tree branch let loose and walloped the redcap in the head. The male crumbled, his blade falling harmlessly to the ground.

  Too coincidental to be natural, Calan scanned the woods for the source. A flash of light caught his attention. He focused on it, and a fuzzy form took shape. The ethereal figure was one he’d never seen before, but he knew what the being was—an angel.

  He didn’t have time to question the angel’s presence or his help. Calan would use the heavenly assistance given to get the woman and her child to safety. Neither would die, not on his watch, at least. Nature would take both, one to old age and the other to a fate no child should be condemned to experience. He couldn’t stop either.

  But not today. Not at Dar or his redcaps’ hands. Not while I am here to protect them.

  He called his horse to him. It galloped forward and trampled on the redcap’s fallen body, crushing his skull.

  The woman screamed. Instead of trying to escape, she clung to him. He couldn’t blame her. His skeletal horse reeked of Hell and instilled fear in all those it looked upon. At the moment, its fathomless eyes were locked on to the female. The reaction didn’t surprise him. His horse didn’t allow others to ride it, not even his siblings. It would tolerate the woman on its back only as long as Calan stood near them.

  Although draining, he opened his mind to hers and drew her terror into himself. He couldn’t risk her falling off the steed because she panicked. She calmed, and he lifted her onto his horse’s back. The animal immediately bucked, trying to knock her off. He grabbed the horse’s mane with one hand and steadied the female with his other. A stern command settled the animal. Assured it would remain still for the moment, he turned to face the remaining redcaps.

  Only three remained. The fourth’s crushed body matched the one near Calan’s feet. He snatched the dagger from the ground. Energy whipped up his arm. He stumbled a second time.

  Real. It was real.

  Curses zinged through his head. Arawn and the Huntsmen had been betrayed. Calan didn’t have time to process the treasonous act or who might’ve deceived them. He had a fight to win and an innocent to save.

  Two innocents. He refused to label the babe as evil. Nobody was inherently bad. It was the choices each person made that damned them. Being the son of Arawn, Calan understood that truth better than anyone.

  He charged the nearest redcap, anger fueling him. The pathetic humans who sold their souls to Dar in exchange for immortality and power deserved to suffer alongside the fairies in the lowest pits of Hell. They would scream and die, over and over, for eternity. Even then it wouldn’t be long enough to make amends for the horrific acts committed by the Unseelie Court. Arawn had been right to curse them—to damn them.

  Never had the truth echoed so strongly within Calan. Rage consumed him for what Dar had done, to the world and to…to the baby that the female behind him carried. The injustice done to the child angered Calan more than anything ever had.

  He lashed out at the redcap. The blade connected with the male’s chest. He screeched, then disappeared on a puff of smoke, transported to the prison where the fairies were forced to suffer. Where they were forced to uphold the very barrier Dar had tried to destroy—the one separating Hell from the human world.

  The other two redcaps turned and ran. Calan chased them down, striking at one, then the other. The victory didn’t soothe Calan. Nothing would, not even Dar’s incarceration. The sensation of helplessness gripped him. As a demigod who would live for eternity and had powers even the gods did not possess, he felt powerless to stop the suffering of the world’s innocents.

  One in particular. His gaze zeroed in on the female’s belly, heavy with child.

  Why did the babe’s outcome trouble him so? He’d known other half-breeds had been created, and he knew what had become of them. He didn’t have an answer to his fixation, nor did he have time to figure it out.

  He strode back to where the woman sat sideways on his horse’s back. She gazed at Calan with a mixture of sadness and acceptance darkening her eyes. Unable to bear the look of resignation or contemplate what put it there, he focused on her stomach. An undulation across her swollen belly drew his attention. He rested his hand on the spot. The baby moved. Something pushed against his palm. A hand or a foot, he didn’t know. Didn’t care. The babe was alive.

  Innocent.

  He yanked his hand away and glared at the spot where the angel had stood. Only a featureless shadow remained.

  Calan curled his fists. “Do not disappear now. You helped me. Now tell me why.”

  Silence answered his demand.

  What was left of the angel faded, leaving only mist.

  “Coward! Come back here and finish saving them. You know I cannot.”

  “Can’t you?” The whispered question echoed in his head.

  “No. I must stop Dar. It is my duty.”

  “Do you not trust your siblings to stop him?”

  He forced his hands to unclench. “Of course, I trust them.”

  “Then you doubt their ability to overcome their challenge?”

  Warning bells went off in his head. He stiffened. “I trust them.”

  The angel’s shape gained dimension and drifted closer. “With the fate of the world?”

  “Yes.”

  A shadowy hand covered the same spot on the woman’s belly Calan had touched. “How do you know they will prevail?”

  Calan resisted the urge to push the angel’s hand away and met the blurry, lavender eyes focused on him. The angel was testing him. Why, he didn’t know. He relaxed his tight muscles and repeated a third time, “I trust them.”

  The angel took Calan’s hand, laid it over the women’s belly, then covered it with his. A white light surrounded them—woman, child, angel, and Hunter. Before Calan could process what it meant, the angel stepped back. The soft glow encasing them faded.

  “Let them accept their fate while you do the same.” The angel pointed to some distant point on the other side of a nearby lake. “Get the female and her child to safety.”

  There would be no safe place for them, not on earth anyway.

  “Sadly not.” The angel responded to his unspoken thought.

  More warning bells went off. Careful to keep his mind blank, so as not to accidentally promise something he couldn’t deliver, he faced the village where the battle continued to play out. He would do as the angel suggested and allow his siblings to capture Dar. The other Huntsmen were capable of it. He did trust them. They’d only planned their attack the way they had to take advantage of the element of surprise. Dar’s trap took it away.

  Calan connected with Rhys’s mind and shared his plan, then moved to get on his horse’s back. A jolt of pain radiated through him, stopping him from mounting the animal. He stumbled a third time, and an i
mage flashed across his mind—Rhys crouched over Tegan, a dagger in his back.

  Pure agony whipped through Calan. Each of his siblings met the same fate as Rhys, falling under the blade meant for the fairies and proving Calan’s earlier fear correct. The curse wove through the stricken Huntsmen, freeing the Unseelie Court, and leaving the barrier to the Underworld open.

  In his mind’s eye, he saw the monstrous fairies racing for the gateway. He opened his mouth to scream his denial. His siblings beat him. Their combined roars echoed through his head. He sensed their intent. He wanted to stop them. Save them. Take the burden of the curse onto himself. Separated from them, he could do none of those.

  He watched helplessly as they accepted the curse Dar’s redcaps had transferred to them…willingly. The Huntsmen had to pay the price it demanded, the one Arawn had woven into the punishment he’d delivered upon the fairies—fuel the magic that made up the barrier with their suffering. It had been a fitting punishment for the species that’d grown powerful on the agony of the innocent. At the moment, all Calan felt was sheer anguish and an overwhelming sense of remorse.

  His siblings’ tortured cries radiated through Calan as they fed the unquenchable living magic their pain. The barrier mended itself, and the Unseelie fairies screamed their frustration. They beat on the shimmering wall, scratching at its surface and throwing their deformed bodies against it.

  The gateway held. Thanks to the Huntsmen.

  All but me. The dagger fell from Calan’s limp hands. His legs gave out, and he landed next to it.

  “Angel?” The word came out garbled.

  No answer reached him.

  He forced his muscles to respond. He stood and glanced at his horse. The angel’s ethereal shape no longer stood next to its side. Calan lurched forward and grabbed on to the animal’s mane. Necessary, or else he’d tumble to the ground. Without the help of his siblings or the angel, he had only one option. He tore a gash in his palm with his teeth, then swiped his bloody hand over the female’s stomach. The scent of his blood would keep his horse calm enough the get the woman away from Dar. It was all he could do for her and her babe.

  “Go. Get them to safety.” A whack to his horse’s rear sent the beast and its precious cargo forward.

  He turned his back on their retreating forms and faced the direction of the village where his siblings had fallen. He needed to get to them. Save them. He didn’t know how, but he would.

  “I’ll free them. This I vow.”

  Laughter carried over the sounds of the night. Dar stepped from the woods, sweaty and looking more crazed than he had minutes before. “Do you now?”

  “Yes.” Calan locked his knees and scanned the ground for the dagger he’d dropped. He needed the blade to carry out his promise.

  “Thank you for picking your punishment. I had wondered what to do with you.” Dar wiggled his fingers. The dagger lifted from where it had fallen, then flew to Dar’s open hand. He curled his fingers around the hilt and jerked his head in Calan’s direction. A single redcap approached.

  The male punched Calan, a move Calan couldn’t avoid. It took all his energy to stand. The wretched torment of his siblings flooded Calan, weakening him. He did the only thing he could. He blocked them. Not soon enough to save himself. The redcap whacked him, again and again. With a final punch to his stomach, Calan toppled backward. The redcap rammed his knee into Calan’s chest, cracking his ribs.

  He groaned and rolled. His rubbery muscles wouldn’t allow him to fight. Escape became his goal, not one he wanted, but the last choice left to him.

  Dar took Calan’s last option away with a hard kick to Calan’s head. His neck snapped, and death claimed him, leaving him to suffer with the knowledge that he would never know what happened to the baby he’d tried to save.

  Calan jerked awake, his heart beating a mile a minute. The familiar surroundings of his cell greeted him, exactly as they had the first time he’d awakened within the solitary chamber.

  No, not the same. He’d been chained and alone then. Today he was free of his bonds and in the arms of his savior. Still asleep, Harley held him as tightly as he did her. His breath escaped on a long exhale. A dream. That was what had haunted him, yet it hadn’t been one, not completely. More real than anything he’d experienced in his long life, the memory had left him with a sense of culmination, a circle closing.

  He glanced at his mate’s angelic face. She looked nothing like the plain, raven-haired woman he’d attempted to save a millennium ago, nor was Harley the same babe the human had carried and tried to protect. The parallels couldn’t be denied, however. He knew enough about the workings of the gods to realize a correlation might exist between Harley and the long-ago child he’d wanted to protect.

  Simply a second chance, perhaps? No matter the reason he and Harley had met, he was glad. She’d given him more in their time together than he’d thought possible.

  She’d brought heaven down to him—a beast from Hell.

  “And I will save you, my beautiful mate. You will never suffer, not if I can prevent it. This I vow.”

  And he would keep his promise, both the one he made to Harley and the one made to his siblings a millennium ago.

  Nothing, not Dar or the curse, would stop him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Harley breathed a sigh and inched her bottom closer to the hard cock pressed into the seam of her backside. She wiggled against the silken-steel rod and enjoyed the moment for what it was—a first. Not once in all her many sexual encounters had she ever fallen asleep in a man’s arms.

  Oh no!

  She opened her eyes. Raul’s threat came back to her. Curses whipped through her head. She’d allowed sex with Calan to cloud her mind. Her phone sat charging in her SUV. She’d left it there knowing she wouldn’t get any signal in Calan’s living tomb.

  Ian. She had to call Ian. Make sure he was okay. Calan said he would be. His hounds were watching over him. The animals were also on the alert for Raul or any of the other redcaps and sluaghs roaming the country. She believed Calan. Trusted him. She did, but…

  I just need to hear Ian’s voice, know for sure.

  She moved to get up, but Calan shifted his hips and slid his cock into her core. A gasp escaped her, and a guttural groan of pure pleasure rumbled in his chest. She was wet enough for him. Her anxiety, however, tensed her muscles.

  “Ahh, flower, it’s just me.” He pressed a firm hand to her lower belly and rolled his hips, loosening her and sliding all the way in. He nibbled on her shoulder. “No other male will ever wake you this way. Only me.”

  A firmer nip accompanied the growled words. She squeaked. The possessive edge to his voice appealed to a part of her she’d never realized she had. She’d thoroughly enjoyed being on the receiving end of Calan’s focused loving.

  A low groan resonated along her back. It skipped through her, tightening her nipples and adding to the slow grind of the thick flesh invading her.

  “I won’t allow it. Do you understand, my Harley?”

  He cupped her breasts. The light strokes of his fingers filled her with a sense of his reverence. He made her feel desirable. The commanding way he touched her as if only he had the right to love her added to the emotion.

  “I do, but—”

  He linked his arms around her middle and rolled to his back, pulling her with him. She ended up lying on top of him, her back to his chest with his cock still inside her body. Her rebuff faded on a moan.

  He toyed with her breasts. His erection thickened as he shallowly thrust. She dropped her head against his chest. With his fingers rolling and tugging her nipples and his length rubbing her sensitive inner muscles, she could’ve been bound to the bed, stretched and open for his pleasure.

  She grasped his wrists. “Calan, we have to—”

  “I have to make love to you.” He pressed his lips to her hair. His warm breath heated her scalp, and a rush of tingles added to the sensation his slow, sensual strokes created. “Lose myself in
you.”

  A hard lift of his hips drove his length deeper. Her inner muscles quivered. Her own release hovered within her grasp. Unable to stop herself, she dug her heels into the mattress and raised her hips. They rocked together. His push countered her drive. The sounds of sex and the delicious tightening of her muscles over his cock sent her up faster than she’d ever experienced.

  He kissed her neck. “I want to greet the sunrise just like this for eternity. With you, flower. Only with you.”

  The reverence and longing in his voice swelled her heart. She held the knowledge close and moved quicker over him until the actual words clicked.

  “Sunrise?” She pulled herself off his cock, rolling to the side and ignoring the slight tug to her nipples, and stared down at him, hands splayed over his chest. Here she’d thought they’d only dozed off. “Sunrise? We slept all night?”

  His eyes widened, and Harley felt the brush of his mind in hers. He tried to latch on to her anxiety. She shoved from the bed before he could ease her. She didn’t deserve his comfort.

  Calan propped himself on a bent elbow. “Yes. I haven’t slept since before my imprisonment. You’ve given me a wonderful gift.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why are you upset?”

  She shook her head and turned away to collect her clothes. She couldn’t blame him. He hadn’t had sex or touched another person in a thousand years. He’d needed everything she’d given him, especially the security of her arms. She’d held him close while he’d slept spooned behind her, a leg draped over hers as if he was afraid she’d disappear. As soon as his breathing had slowed with sleep, his mind had opened to her.

  What she saw in an array of memories and emotions had convinced her that the man who’d saved her was the most noble, if not slightly frightening, one she’d ever encountered. She’d seen images of battle upon battle, horrifying displays of rage, but the flashes that chilled her the most were the ones of his siblings dying, over and over.