For the Hunt Read online

  “I’m Jace.” He held out his hand to Dia. “And this is Ash.”

  Dia shook hands with each of them. “The dumb one?”

  She smiled up at Ash, and it was obvious she hadn’t meant it as an insult. From the look on Ash’s face, he realized this and didn’t take offense, but Logan had other ideas.

  “Don’t call him that,” he snapped.

  Dia blinked in surprise and her gaze flicked my way. “I meant no offense.”

  “Logan…” My tone held a warning.

  He ignored me. “Well, it is offensive.”

  “It’s also the truth,” Caister snapped back. “He can’t speak with his mouth, so he’s dumb. It’s what we call people who can’t speak. What do you call them? Orally challenged?”

  “He can speak,” Logan sneered. “He uses his hands. He has a handicap, but he isn’t fucking dumb.” Logan was practically bristling.

  Ash signed furiously, telling Logan to back off, telling him it was okay, but the Fang ignored him, so he planted himself between Caister and Logan, his huge body acting as a deterrent.

  Caister’s ire and the Hunt’s irritation were sharp barbs digging into my mind.

  “Enough!” I stood, and my chair fell back onto the flagstones with a clatter. “This is Faerie, and I doubt they’ve heard of being politically correct. You know that, Logan. You’re just being a dick because…” I stared at him as realization dawned. “Because you don’t want this to work.”

  He stared back at me for a long beat. A beat in which I waited for him to contradict me, to tell me I was mistaken.

  Instead he lifted his chin in challenge. “I didn’t come here to make friends with the Hunt. I came here for you.”

  My temper snapped. “The Hunt is a fucking part of me.” My voice reverberated around the room even though I didn’t raise it. Blood rushed in my ears for a moment, and then a strange calm settled over me, along with a clarity that was ice-cold and razor-sharp. “If you can’t get along with the Hunt, then you can’t be with me.”

  His shoulders tensed. “What are you saying?”

  “Eva?” Sage shook his head. “You don’t mean that.”

  I met his ember eyes with cool calm. “Yes, Sage, I do. I’m not the woman you fell in love with. I’m more than that. I am the Hunt, and the Hunt is part of me. If you can’t accept that, then we can’t work.”

  “You’d choose them over us?” Logan’s lip curled.

  “Are you even listening to her?” Elias growled.

  “She’s right, you’re being a dick,” Sage added.

  “I like him.” Caister materialized beside me. “The Vladul has sense, and so do the silent one and the djinn.”

  Logan had just opened his mouth to respond when a gust of air blew the drapes inward. An obsidian form fluttered through the window before morphing into the shape of a lean, dark-haired man. He adjusted his cuffs and took in the scene with inky eyes.

  “I don’t often doubt my queen’s judgment, because to do so would be treason and I prefer my pretty head on my shoulders, but did you know I could hear your bickering a quarter of a mile away, hmmmm?”

  “Who the fuck are you?” Logan asked.

  I’d been about to ask the same question… probably not as vehemently, but still.

  The man inclined his head. “The Raven, messenger to Morrigan, your high queen.”

  Morrigan? “The Hunt serves no one but the horn.”

  “Yes, yes, and the queen knows this. Which is why I come to you with a petition, not an order.”

  “No,” Caister snapped.

  I turned my head to study his profile—flared nostrils, burning eyes.

  “You’re not in charge,” Logan reminded him.

  “I can speak for myself, Logan.” I looked to the Raven. “What’s the petition?”

  “One of the outer citadel villages has gone dark and the queen would like the Hunt to investigate.”

  Beside me, Caister geared up to retort, but I cut him off with a raised hand. “What do you mean ‘gone dark?’”

  “They sent a plea to the citadel keep over two weeks ago. A plea for help, hmmmm.”

  “What kind of plea?”

  The Raven pulled a letter from his outer pocket and unfolded it. “Chaos has come to Berrywell. Death is upon us. We beg your assistance against his blight.” He refolded the letter and popped it back in his pocket.

  “There has been no death in Berrywell,” Dia said. “We would know.”

  The Raven’s brows shot up. “I’m not so sure you would. We believe there are forces at work here that we do not comprehend.”

  “A force more powerful than the Hunt?” Caister snapped. “Not likely.”

  The Raven’s smile was razor-thin. “The queen sent a small group of soldiers to Berrywell, and when they didn’t return, she sent me to fly over the village. It has been sucked into a dark, ominous fog. Since then, no investigative party that the crown sent has returned. The last party to venture forth was King Alaron and his men. You can guess how that went, hmmm?”

  Well, that would explain why he hadn’t gotten back to me.

  “Your queen’s issues are not our problem,” Caister said. “Go tell her—”

  “That we accept her petition.” I glared at Caister. “King Alaron is a friend of mine. If he’s in trouble, then I won’t sit idly by.”

  Caister bristled but didn’t argue.

  Dia’s gaze was on him, and she looked concerned. There was a story here, but now wasn’t the time to try and tease it out.

  “What’s the location?”

  “I can show you,” the Raven said smoothly.

  My smile was perfunctory. “I’m afraid we travel alone, and we move fast.”

  He shrugged and pulled a map from the inside of his tailored coat pocket, then handed it to me. “X marks the spot, hmmm.” He turned and strode toward the window. “I’ll report back to the queen that you’ve accepted her petition. Her Majesty will be pleased.”

  Then, with a rustle of fabric and a flap of wings, he was gone.

  “You can’t do this,” Logan said.

  “I agree,” Caister said. “We can’t do this.”

  I unfurled the map on the table. “We’re doing it.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” Logan added.

  “The queen is a vindictive bitch,” Caister said at the same time.

  The village was smack bang between the citadel and the Autumn Lands. “But Alaron isn’t. He saved my life. He’s a good man. I don’t know what your issues with the queen are, and frankly I don’t give a shit. We don’t do this for her, we do it for the innocent people trapped in that village. We do it for a king who risked his life to try and save them.” I looked up at the Hunt. “That fog could be cutting off the signal of death, and if the villagers are unharmed, we have a chance to do something other than turn up after chaos has hit.”

  “I would be honored to ride with you,” Dia said.

  The others didn’t speak, their faces showing mixed feelings. It didn’t matter either way. I was in charge, and we were going.

  I summoned the energy that bound us together, my hand on the horn. “We are the Hunt. We don’t abandon the dead, and tonight, maybe we can liberate the living.”

  If we were going to do this, I would need my tulwar.

  Chapter Three

  We materialized on a narrow road bordered by green. A sign rising up to the right marked Berrywell, and up ahead the world was a seething mass of gray and black swirling fog.

  “That isn’t natural,” Dia said.

  No, it wasn’t. Fog didn’t move like that, it didn’t move against the wind. The mass was alive, hungry, a beacon that was calling to us. I’d taken two steps forward before Caister checked me with a hand on my elbow.

  “I feel it too,” he said softly. “Are you sure you want to do this? We don’t owe the queen anything.” This time, he wasn’t mocking me.

  I needed to know. “Why do you hate her so much?”

  �
��Because she deserves it. She does not deserve our help.”

  There was a time and place for curiosity, and now wasn’t it. “We might be the only hope the people trapped in there have. We’re going in.”

  “If any people are still alive,” Dia said.

  We’d know soon enough. I tried to shift into the fog, but nothing happened.

  “Yes, definitely not natural,” Caister echoed his previous statement.

  “Then it looks like we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.” I strode straight toward the fog. The clip of hooves and the snap of whips followed me, and then we were stepping into it. Viscous fingers rubbed against my skin as it enveloped us, and the urge to scream, to bat at the tendrils, was almost too much, but I pressed my lips together and pushed through the thick, soupy texture.

  We emerged into a thinner fog, visibility about sixty percent, but at least there was visibility. The thicker fog was a barrier designed to keep the world out. To block whatever was happening in here.

  “I sense death,” Caister said.

  Yes, it was warm and recent and calling to me. My hand went to the horn as hooves pawed the ground behind me, eager to do what they were created to do.

  “No.” I clenched my hand into a fist. “We don’t do anything until we know what we’re dealing with.”

  I closed my eyes and focused on the land around me, on the death, and then tracked the life. “This way.”

  I set off, my internal tracker beeping as we wound down the foggy streets past shadowy buildings that seemed to be moving closer.

  “There’s power here,” Dia whispered. “Dead and alive.”

  Movement to the left and right. Dark shadows in the mist. I froze and held up a fist. The Hunt complied. Caister stepped close to my right and Dia to my left. There was something around us, something circling us. A dark presence, a pressure in my mind. Claws trying to get in, to see my thoughts.

  I clutched my head. “The fuck.”

  Beside me, Caister cursed. “It’s trying to get in our heads.”

  I stood tall and took a step away from the others. “Show yourself, you coward. You want to know something about me, then ask me to my face.”

  The world around us was suddenly a mass of movement, and then red eyes bloomed in the darkness, glowing with menace.

  My tulwar was out of its holster and in my hand in a blink. The world was tinged green as whips cracked and then a sibilant whisper drifted on the air.

  “Finally. I’ve been waiting for you. The ticking heart of Faerie. The souls that never die. The souls that siphon power. You will be my hands.”

  “Who are you?” Dia called out.

  “Nothing. I am nothing, and yet…I am everything.”

  The red eyes were attached to huge, hulking bodies. Hounds with fangs dripping black gunk. They advanced on us.

  I rolled my neck, my unease overshadowed by exhilaration for the fight to come. “Time to dance.”

  My sword flashed silver in the gloom. The beasts leapt and avoided attack, snarling and then pouncing again and again. Green whips cut the fog, snapping at the hounds’ flanks, but they passed through the beasts as if they were merely phantoms.

  What was this? Who did the voice belong to, and what were these beasts? I cut through a hound, severing it in two only to have it reform a moment later and turn its attack on another Hunt member. A horse whinnied in pain. I spun, trying to pinpoint who was hit, and a shadow lunged in the periphery of my vision.

  “Eva!” Dia shoved me out of the way and then screamed.

  The monster was latched onto her arm, fangs burrowed deep as he shook his head from side to side as if worrying a bone. I sliced at his neck; his body fell away, but his head remained attached to Dia.

  She turned to look at me, and her face. Oh, fuck, her face. Black veins crawled over her skin, heading to her eyes, which were wild and frightened.

  “Run.” Her voice was a whisper that carried across the night.

  I reached for her just as her face morphed into a snarl and her eyes glowed red. The beast’s head melted into her skin and she lunged at me, razor teeth snapping and dripping with black venom.

  Arms pulled me back out of harm’s way, and Caister’s voice trembled in my ear as he echoed Dia’s last word. “Run.”

  He shoved me toward the town exit, mere meters behind us. Self-preservation urged me to listen, but I could feel them, I could feel the lights winking out inside me as the power that connected us ebbed and died. No. No, I couldn’t leave them. I spun on my heel and ran back to see Caister standing alone, whip lashing as he warded off the hounds and what had once been the Hunt. They were closing in on him, but he fought tirelessly.

  My remaining power trembled inside me. The green that bound us was seeping away. Only Caister was connected to me now, but soon even that link would be gone.

  I ran back into the fray and grabbed his shirt. “Caister!” With a force of will, I expelled the dregs of power outward, knocking the assailants back. “Run!”

  This time, he came with me.

  We collapsed outside the fog, chests heaving, bodies trembling. I gripped his hand and squeezed, feeling the spark of connection flare to life between us, but it wasn’t enough. It was weak and thready, and the others…The others were gone.

  “We have to go back for them.” Caister lunged for the fog.

  I pulled him back. “No. We need to get help. We need to figure out what we’re dealing with and then go in there prepared. No one has made it out but us. We now have information we can use to figure out what the fuck we’re dealing with.”

  Caister looked like he wanted to argue, but he snapped his mouth closed. “We won’t be able to shift. The power…We’re cut off, and it’s a four-day journey back to the mansion.”

  “But only two days to the citadel.”

  My body felt weaker without the Hunt’s power coursing through it, but I was still a god, and gods should be able to make a two-day journey in half the time, right? We needed to report to the queen. We needed to find someone who could tell us what we were dealing with. Once we reached the queen, maybe the Raven could deliver a message to the guys letting them know we were safe.

  We had information now, and with that came power. “Let’s get moving.”

  The moon was bright as we began our trek away from the fog and up the dirt road that would eventually deliver us to the citadel.

  Chapter Four

  We walked for hours, silent, thoughtful, watchful, but my body didn’t tire, and my feet didn’t ache. The Hunt’s power was gone, but I was still a god, and gods were durable. Caister, on the other hand, was flagging.

  “We should stop and rest.” I veered off the path to a dark crop of trees.

  “You’re tired?” He added a little mockery to his tone.

  It would be easy to call him on it, to snap and tell him I was stopping for him because he was slowing me down, but what was the point in causing friction? We had the same goal, and we needed to work together to achieve it.

  “A little.” I lowered myself to the ground using the tree trunk as a backrest.

  Caister hovered a moment and then did the same.

  “At least we don’t need to eat or drink,” he said.

  But with the connection to the Hunt severed, how long would it be before that became untrue? Did gods eat because they needed to? I’d taken so much for granted since my transformation. My invulnerability. The Hunt’s presence. And now that they were gone, there was a gaping hole in my soul.

  I rubbed at my chest. “Why do you hate the queen?”

  “Because she’s two-faced,” he said immediately, and then ducked his head as if to gather his thoughts. “Because she’s sadistic, and has no heart.”

  Everything I’d heard about Morrigan was to the contrary. Her people loved her. Aragon loved her… maybe more than he should. There had to be more to Caister’s statement. His tone suggested a personal grievance.

  “What happened between you two?”
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  He looked sharply at me, his eyes gleaming in the moonlight, brows snapping down in annoyance. “What makes you think anything happened between us. I could have been speaking generally.”

  “You could have, but you weren’t.”

  The frown melted and he leaned his head against the tree. “I used to be the Raven.”

  “You could turn into a bird?”

  “No. I was her advisor, her messenger. I was the one she turned to. I loved her, and she made me believe she loved me, but I learned soon enough that the only person Morrigan loves is herself. Herself and this world she dreamed into creation. Oh, she loves this world and will do anything to protect it, but…only because this world is connected to her. If this world falls, so does she.”

  “You mean like a symbiotic relationship?”

  He gave me a blank look. “I have no idea what that means.”

  “It means she’s connected to the world and it to her.”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. We’re merely parasites she allows to reside on her creation. She investigates problems not because she cares about the people but because she cares about the world, about what this fog will do to her.”

  “And what did she do to you?”

  He was so silent and stern I thought he wouldn’t answer, but after a moment he began to speak.

  “She abandoned me when I needed her the most. Unlike her I cared about the people, the lesser fey who were struggling in the outer villages trying to make ends meet, whose crops were failing, who were starving. I cared because I was lesser fey, and so I decided to try and help. To use my position to make a difference. I found like-minded fey and we discovered a way to siphon the power released by the dead and use it to help the living. We made the ground more fertile so the crops would grow on the outerlands and the lesser fey could eat. We garnered the lesser fey’s love, and Morrigan didn’t like that.”

  His mouth twisted in bitterness. “We were accused of manipulating the power for nefarious gains and arrested. She ordered us bound, then made us into the Hunt.”

  That wasn’t the story Alaron had told me. By the king’s account, Caister and his posse had been using the power for bad deeds. I wasn’t sure what they’d done, but he’d made it sound awful. Alaron was a good man, a decent man, and I couldn’t believe he would lie to me, but right now, Caister wasn’t either. For the first time since we’d met, his face was open and vulnerable and his tone was sincere. The king had obviously been duped.