For the Hunt

by Debbie Cassidy

  “We leave at dawn then.”

  He inclined his head. “I will inform Haratio, the leader of the flock.”

  Inform…wait. “The griffins communicate with you?”

  The Raven looked surprised. “Griffins are highly intelligent creatures. They serve the queen of their own volition. She saved the life of Haratio’s father years ago, and the flock has served her ever since.” He headed for the door. “Come with me. I’ll show you to the east wing. The turrets can be accessed easily from there, and you can rest there until dawn.”

  The east wing was gray stone and airier than the rest of the citadel, and the quarters the Raven showed us to were vast, with two lounges and several bedchambers. Logan walked around closing the shutters to shut out the chill wind, and Sage lit a fire in the humungous hearth.

  Ash pulled out a pack of cards, our go-to game when we had time to kill. He began to shuffle, and the others took seats around the low table, but Caister hovered in the doorway.

  Elias’s gaze flicked over to him. “You ever played poker?”

  Caister shook his head. “But I’ve watched you play.”

  Elias’s brows shot up. “So you were the eyes on the back of my head, huh? Right, let’s see what you picked up.”

  Caister shot me a quick glance, and for the first time since I’d met him, he looked thrown. A pang of something I couldn’t decipher stabbed me in the chest, and I gave him an encouraging smile.

  He shrugged, all casual-like, and joined them.

  Ash looked to me and raised the cards in an are-you-playing gesture.

  I shook my head. “I’m going to lie down for a bit.”

  I retreated into the corridor and stepped into the first bedchamber on the right. The room was dark but the shutters were open, and the moon spilled across the floor, casting everything in silver hues.

  I didn’t need to sleep, and I rarely got tired in the conventional sense, but a different kind of exhaustion plagued me now, more mental than physical. I’d learned that just stopping and taking a breather helped. The bedchamber also contained a washroom, with hot water and a tub. I filled it, stripped, and sank into it.

  I’d planned to soak, but without Ash there to massage me in places I didn’t even know could make me moan, the bath wasn’t as much fun. The Hunt kept popping into my head, their absence niggling at me.

  I padded back into the room, wrapped only in the huge towel. The bed looked comfortable and felt even better. I stretched out and watched the stars through the window as they winked at me. For the first time since I’d been reborn, I wished for sleep; natural, tugging, sucking sleep that would shut everything out for a few moments. Instead, my mind kept ticking and whirring.

  How many hours until dawn?

  “Five,” Jace said from the doorway.

  He stood, hands tucked in his pockets, eyes shrouded in shadow.

  “How did you know what I was thinking?”

  “Lucky guess.” He entered the room and closed the door behind him before kicking off his shoes. “Is it comfortable?” He indicated the bed.

  The moon had washed the gold from his hair, leaving it almost silver, and his bluer-than-blue eyes winked like bright pennies in the gloom. He raised a hand to run it through his hair and his shirt pulled tight across his chest and bicep. He was shorter than the others, more athletic than bulky, quieter, more reflective, but he never faded into the background for me. My body was always aware of him and what we hadn’t yet consummated. There was a silent tension between us, an almost dangerous air in the moments we shared that made me quiver with the need to know what would happen if he let himself go. Our relationship had been a friendship that broke and then mended itself, a dance of two steps forward and one back.

  I patted the bed. “Very comfortable. Check it out.”

  He climbed up beside me and lay down, his shoulder brushing mine, his body heat caressing mine. “What happened with Caister?”

  I tensed. He must have smelled Caister on me when we’d hugged earlier. Which meant the others must have too. Wait, was that why Elias had invited Caister into the poker game? Was that acceptance, and did I want it to be?

  “I forget how enhanced your senses are.” I filled him in on the farmhouse and the gancanagh. “I can’t blame it all on the sneaky creature, though. Caister explained that the thrall only works if there’s an existing attraction.”

  “I could have told you that,” Jace said. “The animosity between you was always hiding something more.”

  “Honestly, I thought he was just a dick.”

  “Oh, he’s a dick too.” There was a smile in his voice. “But so is Logan, and Elias can be an ass. I can be stubborn and pig-headed, and Sage can be too laidback, and Ash…wait, I think Ash may actually be pretty perfect.”

  It was my turn to smile. “And me?”

  “Well, you put up with all of us, so you must be a fucking angel.”

  “Nope, just a goddess.”

  He rolled onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow and looking down on me. His eyes were darker now, more pupil than iris, and my body tightened in response. His gaze held a question, and I answered by placing my palm flat on his chest and fisting his shirt.

  It may not have been the best time, but that no longer mattered. I needed him to remind me what his mouth tasted like. I needed to finally claim him and have him claim me.

  He rubbed my bottom lip with his thumb and I flicked my tongue out to taste him. His gaze heated.

  He pressed his forehead to mine and drew in a breath. “I’ve wanted to do this for the longest time.”

  And then he kissed me softly, teasing my lips apart, tasting me with the tip of his tongue. I turned onto my side, rising to press my body against him, to deepen the kiss. My hand slid to the nape of his neck and my fingers tangled in his silken hair. I opened for him, drawing his tongue into my mouth, stroking it with mine.

  He moaned, allowing me to take the lead for a moment, and then my back hit the mattress and my hand was pinned to the bed. He tore his mouth from mine and raked me with a look that was pure fire.

  “Fuck, Eva, I want you so bad. This could get rough.”

  Exhilaration tore through me as the tight control he’d been employing suddenly made sense. I pushed my hips up to meet his. “You can’t hurt me, Jace. Let go.”

  His blue eyes bled to black as he allowed the desire to take over, and then the towel was ripped off my body and cool air kissed my skin. His hands were all over me, rough and demanding and exploring. He sucked on my neck, fangs grazing but not piercing, while his fingers slid into my wetness, working me up into a panting frenzy. His teeth scraped and nipped, the contact part pain, part pleasure as he discovered every erogenous zone: the spot under my ear, the juncture of my neck, my fingers, my hands, my wrists. He licked and sucked and grazed and then he parted my thighs and buried his tongue inside me, and there was nothing to do but ride the pleasure. I grabbed the back of his head and moved against his mouth, urging him to take me to that place, and as the orgasm tore me in two, he flipped me onto my front and raised my hips. The rustle of fabric followed as he pulled his pants down and freed his cock. Oh, God. I needed him, and I didn’t have to wait long before he buried himself inside me. I was still throbbing, still riding the pulse of the orgasm, and once he began moving the waves started to rise and roll with renewed vigor. My body was drawing on him, squeezing him and urging him on as he pumped. His guttural grunts were music to my ears.

  This was Jace, this was the controlled, intelligent brain of the group, and he was a fucking beast, and that, more than anything he’d done to my body, had me screaming my pleasure into the pillow.

  Afterward my body shut down and drifted off into the darkness of sleep while Jace held me. But when I woke, Jace wasn’t the one holding me. Ash kissed the top of my head as I stirred, then brushed his lips over mine.

  Jace was on the other side of me, propped up against the headboard, his attention on the window and the gray sky beyon
d. Caister stood at the window, one hand braced on the frame. Logan was at the foot of the bed, with my legs in his lap. Sage sat in the chair by the dresser, his warm gaze caressing my face, and Elias was in the doorway, shoulder propped against the frame. We watched the sun come up together.

  It was dawn.

  It was time to save the Hunt.

  Chapter Eight

  The Raven led us up a winding flight of stairs, higher and higher until the wind was buffeting us through the turret tower’s glassless windows.

  “The griffins will take you to the outskirts of Berrywell,” he said when we reached the top, which was a jutting platform. A griffin awaited us there as the others circled above. “They can each take one rider.”

  The guys joined us on the platform, the wind ripping at our clothes, the world far below.

  “I wish you good luck,” the Raven said, though his eyes were sad. He didn’t expect us to come back.

  My smile was a razor edge. “Luck will have nothing to do with this. Trust me. We’ve taken on some shit in our time, and we’re still standing. This thing, whatever it is, won’t beat us. The Hunt is mine. It is me, and I don’t go down that easily.”

  The Raven inclined his head. “In that case, I bid you a successful quest, hmmm?”

  He left us on the platform and ducked back into the tower.

  Caister locked gazes with me. “Dammit, I hate heights.” And then he was striding toward the griffin.

  He leaned in to speak to it before taking a deep breath and climbing on. Who would have thought that big, bad Caister had any fears?

  The beast took off and then another one landed. Huge and powerful, it pawed at the ground, eager to take flight. This one echoed my agitation. This one was mine.

  I approached him. “Hello, I’m Eva.”

  “I know who you are.” The voice was a deep rumble. He turned his head, his wicked-sharp beak almost grazing my shoulder, his huge golden eye staring at me. “The Hunt has done the realm a great service, both before its inception and after.”

  Wait…what did that mean? Did he know the truth about the good Caister and the Hunt had done before the queen had bound them, and, if so, why was he serving a lying queen? Or was he not serving voluntarily, like the Raven had said?

  “The name’s Haratio.” His eye smiled. “Climb on and hold tight. If you fall, I cannot promise to catch you.”

  I climbed on, not needing to look back, knowing my guys would be right behind me.

  Inside me, the power that tenuously connected me to the rest of the Hunt trembled in anticipation.

  I’m coming.

  I won’t let you down.

  Up above the world, with the sun bathing everything in gold, the worries, the fears, the quest all fell away. There was only the wind in my hair, the silken feathers of Haratio’s mane between my fingers, and his powerful body beneath me. His wings beat rhythmically between periods where he simply soared. Logan and Ash flanked me on their griffins, leaning forward, pressed to their mounts’ backs. I guess heights weren’t for everyone.

  We’d been flying for just under an hour when I leaned in to call out to Haratio, “If you get tired, we can stop.”

  He laughed. “Griffins don’t tire while the sun shines.”

  “Why is that?”

  “The sun’s rays provide us with an abundance of energy.”

  His feathers winked gold, and when he shook his mane, shards of sunlight bounced around between the feathers. An energy source? He swerved and dipped a little, and it took all my concentration not to fall off.

  The flight was over half an hour later. When we landed on the outskirts of Berrywell, the griffins took off almost immediately.

  “Shitting hell,” Logan said as he took in the writhing fog.

  “I can’t believe this,” Elias said.

  “It looks alive,” Jace added.

  But something was different. The sign that marked the town line, which had been several meters out of the fog’s reach, was now a mere meter away from it.

  The fog was growing, which could mean only one thing—the chaos inside the town was doing its job and feeding the dark power. Last time we hadn’t gotten past the power’s phantom guards, but this time…

  I turned to Caister. “You need to stay here.”

  He frowned. “No.”

  “That’s not a request. It’s an order. You can be corrupted. You’re fey.”

  “And so are you.”

  He was right, but I was the head of the Hunt, and my gut told me that in order to free them from this dark power’s grip, I needed to do it in person.

  “I have to be the one to do this.”

  He shook his head. “You expect me to stay here and do nothing?”

  “No. I expect you to tether me. If the dark power does get a hold of me, I expect you to fight for us. Fight for the Hunt, and hold on to the power that binds you to us. Don’t let the dark power have the whole of the Hunt.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, but Jace interrupted. “She’s right, Caister. If this power has you all, then there’s no hope. One of you has to stay behind, and it can’t be Eva. If the Hunt is going to break free of this thrall, they need to see that Eva came for them.”

  Caister made a sound of exasperation, his huge body tensing with the urge to argue, but in the end he nodded slowly. “I’ll stay and tether you.”

  “Thank you.”

  This couldn’t be easy for him. Letting me take the lead, bowing down to my authority… or maybe it was. Maybe this was what he’d wanted all along, and wait, was that a glint in his eyes? Triumph, pride, call it what you will— something had changed between us, not just the sex but an understanding that had come before we’d fallen into the gancanagh’s clutches.

  I couldn’t lose that. I couldn’t fail.

  Sage rolled his shoulders and his eyes lit up like beacons. “Well, what the fuck are we waiting for?”

  With the guys in tow, I strode into the thick, churning fog. The darkness parted as if welcoming us and then closed around us in a deadly hug. There was barely any time to draw breath or get the lay of the land before the phantoms attacked. Crimson eyes and emerald eyes, beasts as high as my shoulder who lunged and snapped and growled. They wanted me, they needed me. But the Fangs morphed into wolf form and surrounded me, snarling and snapping back. A phantom attacked Ash, but its teeth passed harmlessly through his form.

  Confusion tickled my mind through my connection to the Hunt.

  What is this? What are you?

  A moment later the voice echoed through the fog. “A new world. A new taste. Where are you from?”

  Oh, fuck. “Give me back my Hunt and leave this town.”

  Laughter filled the air. “Would you ask someone to stop breathing? For a bird to stop flying? I hunger and therefore I feed.”

  “Well, go hunger someplace else.”

  Something brushed the back of my neck, and a voice whispered, “Too late…”

  Dia?

  No, it couldn’t be. It was a trick to make me lose hope.

  “Pointless to fight. Stop. Stop fighting and join us. Be the Hunt with us. Be free.”

  The words burrowed into my head like needles. I’d come here to be with the Hunt. I was the Hunt, and we should be together. If I turned my back on them now, then I’d fail. I’d lose the trust I’d worked so hard to build, the momentum I’d gained… Caister would hate me again, and they’d look to him for leadership. I should be with them. I belonged with them.

  “Eva!” Sage snapped. “You do not belong with them while that thing has them. You need to get them back. Remember that.”

  I’d been babbling out loud? Oh, God. What the fuck?

  Laughter filled my head.

  The darkness was in my head.

  I lashed out with my tulwar, cutting and maiming the phantoms that felt nothing, but we were making progress, we were moving forward. Sage cast a beacon of light with his fire, enough to cut through the gloom the fog had cast, enough for
us to see a large building up ahead, and light… There was light.

  The laughter cut off and the phantoms melted away.

  The fog was silent and ominous around us as the guys took human form again.

  “It’s a tavern,” Elias said. “I sense people.”

  Logan banged on the door with a fist. “Hey, open up.”

  The door opened a crack and a familiar face peered out.

  “Alaron?” I pushed past Logan.

  Alaron blinked down at me. “Eva?” He looked over my shoulder at the guys. “What are you doing here?”

  He looked calm and relaxed, and behind him there was revelry, music, and the delicious aroma of roasting meat.

  “I came to save you?”

  He frowned. “I wasn’t aware I needed saving.” He backed up, allowing me to step over the threshold.

  “The queen sent us because there’s…” The music washed over me, and the aroma of pie and meat and freshly baked bread filled my head, and the room was gloriously bright as the sun shone through the windows. “I’m starving.”

  Behind me the guys were taking in the scene, huge grins on their faces. “About time we took a day off and chilled,” Sage said. “I’ve been telling you that you need to take some time off for a while now.” He hugged me to his side. “This was a great idea.”

  Something slithered in the back of my mind, a thread of unease, but another waft of baking bread hit my nostrils and the unease disappeared.

  “Let’s grab some ale,” Logan said.

  The ale was refreshing, the food delicious, the company entertaining. Alaron told tales of the winter kingdom, and stories of his childhood. I recalled the complex back home and shared some fond memories of my life as a child before the complex had fallen and we’d been forced to live on the run.

  But I was here now, for the Hunt…The Hunt, who I’d taken a night off from to do regular fun stuff that didn’t involve reaping the power dead fae released.

  I should have done this a long time ago. Why hadn’t I? The tavern was sunny and bright, the people friendly, but…new faces? Did I know these people? Wait…this wasn’t the village tavern.