Tears bubbled free at the thought of Caldris being so done with me he would willingly allow me to ride with another male. To be held within his arms. “Did he approve that?” I asked, turning a teary stare up at him.
Holt rolled his eyes, drawing me into his chest as his arms settled around my back awkwardly. He patted me in an attempt to soothe me, making a harsh laugh burst from my lips. “Not directly, but he knows damn well I can’t exactly put you in the carts. They’ll tear you apart,” he said, glancing over to where a few members of the Wild Hunt guided the Fae Marked into their carts.
Indignation struck me in the chest, knowing that was where I belonged, in all fairness. Riding with Caldris had been one thing because he was my mate, but now?
“I’m Marked and I do not see my mate here to accompany me on the journey,” I said, pulling back from Holt. I held out my wrists, waiting for my shackles. He glanced down at my free wrists with a disgruntled sigh, waving a hand so that a new pair appeared from thin air. He secured them to my wrists, eyeing me like he didn’t particularly agree with where the conversation was going. “It only seems fitting that I ride with the rest of them.”
He sighed, hanging his head backward as if I was insufferable. “You do realize they dislike you greatly, correct?” he asked, chin dropping as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I’ve gotten that impression, yes,” I agreed, stepping toward the carts. Holt accompanied me, groaning as we approached the only cart with a space for one more to join. I climbed into it without his assistance, taking the seat on the end and resting my shackled wrists in my lap.
With my cloak settled around my shoulders, I tried to snuggle into the warmth it provided. I’d grown so used to having Caldris’s heat at my back to warm me, I didn’t know how I would fare without it.
The other Marked were silent as Holt shook his head at the vagaries of human women. He lifted the gate to the back of the cart, giving me something to lean into so that I could feel a little more secure. Judging by the glares I received from the others, I would need it.
“May the Gods be with you,” Holt said, striding toward his skeletal horse. He mounted smoothly, raising two fingers to the sky in a silent command, and the Wild Hunt moved forward as one with his.
“The Gods left us the moment we were marked by evil,” one of the men said with a snarl, his lips twisting with malice as he glared at Holt.
“Might have wanted to say it after he was out of earshot,” a woman said, rolling her eyes to the sky as she leaned back. The cart rolled forward, jostling me to the side as the wheels navigated the uneven terrain.
“Why bother? The little spy will tell him everything, I’m sure,” he snapped back, the lot of them bickering like children. I stood very little chance of them ever growing to tolerate me when they didn’t even seem to like one another.
“I’m not a spy,” I said simply, propping my elbow on my knee and resting my head in my hand. I still felt too tired, body drained of the energy that had bolstered me through the journey thus far.
“Like your mate won’t use his cock to pry anything out of your stupid little head,” another one of the women said, her glare scathing as she settled it onto me.
I turned my head away, ignoring the ire she leveled at me and wishing there were something more interesting to stare at. “I don’t think you understand how the human body works,” I remarked, turning back to her with a saccharine smile. “It isn’t my mind he’s penetrating when he fucks me.”
A few of the others in the cart gasped, strangled laughter bursting free as they looked at me as if I’d left my mind on the ground behind us.
“You admit you’ve been intimate with him?” the woman asked, crossing her arms over her chest as if she could protect herself from the depravity that wafted off of me.
“I hardly think there would be any point to denying it. We all know you heard us when we were in Calfalls.” I shrugged, feigning confidence. The reproach in her gaze sank inside of me, illuminating all the dark hollows of doubt that I struggled to reconcile with the male who treated me well. “You might try it when you find your mate. Your overt lack of understanding of sex could be part of why your face is pinched up so tight it looks like someone sewed it that way.”
She scoffed, turning her attention away. She was older than me by far, and I’d have been shocked if she didn’t have a human husband of her own waiting for her to return. As much as I might wish we could all get along, I didn’t think there was a chance of that happening.
At least not yet.
I’d take the begrudging acceptance that I was not one to be pushed around and the tolerance that came with that. We could coexist without liking one another.
“Yes, we all heard you scream for him,” she said, snapping her attention back to me with a cruel smile. “Just because you’re willing to debase yourself in such a way, doesn’t mean the rest of us lack the self-respect to do so, Faerie whore.”
I tilted my head as I studied her, remembering a time when that insult had made me cringe. Now, there wasn’t a single reaction in me; not a cringe or a flare of anger at the accusation.
“I didn’t just fuck a Faerie,” I said, shrugging my shoulders as I leveled a glare at her. “I fucked a God. Remember that, the next time you think to trick yourself into believing that it was any kind of life, lying in bed with your legs spread for the flaccid flesh of the husband they chose for you.”
“The Fae are no Gods,” one of the women said—the one who’d criticized the male for speaking too late.
“Odd, he definitely feels like one when he raises the dead or calls up a storm great enough to tear Nothrek in two,” I argued, twisting my head to her.
I wasn’t sure why I defended my relationship with him, not when I’d been so determined to get out of it, but the bastard was in my head, swimming along with my thoughts even after he’d left me alone. I hated him. I wanted him. There was no middle ground in the passion between us, no neutral space for indifference.
“The power of the Gods does not have limitations,” she said back, raising her shackled wrists. “They are not weakened by iron or by something so insignificant as love.”
“Or maybe the Gods you believe in are just grandiose tales told by men who want to keep you subdued within the confines of the world they created. All I know is that I will never stand a chance at wielding the kind of power Caldris has. I’ll never have a fraction of his ability to bring the winter, or of his dominion over the dead. That makes him a God to me. If The Father and The Mother would like to argue otherwise, I’ll be waiting for that riveting discussion. As they do not waste time with paltry peasants like me, though—” I shrugged, grinning at her with a smile that felt torn straight from the depths of the underworld “—I’ll stick to the God who can be bothered.”
“Interestingly enough, he seems to have lost interest in you already though, hasn’t he?” the man asked, smirking arrogantly. “Or is there some other reason that you’ve been abandoned?”
“Trouble in paradise already?” a woman asked, their scathing laughter echoing through the air.