He held my stare as I came, his ragged groan filling our tent when he followed. When his weight collapsed onto me, I had no desire to separate us, or to wash the evidence of our lovemaking from my skin. Caldris rolled to his back, keeping our bodies joined as he pulled me with him and settled me across his chest.
He was still inside me while I fell asleep, my ear resting above the strong heart that beat for me. I would hate myself in the morning, but for that moment, I let him lull me to sleep.
20
ESTRELLA
There wasn’t room in the carts, but even if there had been, I highly doubted the Fae Marked would have treated the humans who willingly chose to travel with the Wild Hunt with respect. They would have been met with the same hatred I’d faced the day that I chose to ride with them.
Adelphia and her group walked at our side as she chattered happily with one of the men I recognized from the fire that night. I tried to focus on the book in my grasp, studying the mate bond while I sat astride Azra with Caldris. It might have seemed foolish with the very ancient mate riding the horse at my back, and I didn’t doubt he would be willing to answer any question I asked.
The problem was that I didn’t know what questions to ask. I didn’t know enough to form an educated opinion one way or the other, and I certainly didn’t know what to do with any of the information I did have.
“We’ll reach Tradesholme soon,” Caldris said, the name of the city where I’d thought I’d lost him sending a shock through my system. I hadn’t thought of the possibility of traveling through the same city as before and wondered if that was wise.
“Is it really smart to travel through the city? After the force we met the last time?” I asked, wondering about the carts and all the spaces we would need to pass through. We would never fit the horses or the carts through the tunnels we’d used the last time, when we escaped.
“We’ll send a scout ahead to determine if there are too many Mist Guard for it to be safe. This is where your human friends will come in handy,” he said, nodding his head toward Adelphia. She nodded back, as if only the mention of scouting for the Wild Hunt was all she needed to know it would be her duty.
“You don’t have to agree to this,” I said to her.
“It is my honor, Princess Estrella,” she said, smiling slightly.
“That is not my name,” I groaned, dropping my head back against Caldris’s chest.
“I think you will find that, regardless of where you end up in Alfheimr, regardless of the Court you choose to call home, and whether or not you accept your bond with me as your mate, there is not a place in the five Courts where you will be anything less than royalty,” he said, his chuckle vibrating through my body. His emotion sank into me, finding me through the bond and making my own lips tip into a smile that matched his, even though we spoke of things that would lead to my great discomfort.
That happiness froze inside me the moment a caw sounded through the air, Caldris’s fear spiking like something tangible. He snapped his gaze to Holt, jumping down from Azra’s back in a fluid move as he yanked the hood of my cloak up over my head without a word. Holding out a hand to accept the bow and arrow another one of the riders tossed to him, he caught one in each hand and knocked the arrow in place, pulling back the string.
“What’s going on?” I asked, grasping my hood so that I could pull it down.
“Leave it,” he ordered without taking his eyes off the sky. I froze in place, the lack of attention he paid me and his fixation on the path a random bird might fly making everything in me go taut. He watched the sky, circling around the clearing as other riders of the Wild Hunt did the same with the bows they held. “We cut it down. No matter what,” he said, and the others nodded as they moved in symmetry. I watched the sky, narrowing my eyes to fight off the sunshine that seemed to bounce off of all the white surrounding me.
A single streak of black cut across the sky, a lone blight flying quickly as it journeyed back toward the boundary between realms. Several arrows shot forward, none able to reach the creature as it flew through the sky.
Caldris took a deep breath, exhaling slowly as he released his arrow. The winter wind followed its path through the sky, pushing it forward and allowing it to reach higher and farther than the others had gone.
A splash of red burst from the crow as the arrow struck him, a tangled mess of black feathers crashing toward the ground as it fell. It landed on the plain up ahead, and I swore the Wild Hunt held still.
Watching and waiting.
“If she was looking through its eyes, she will not be pleased with what you’ve done,” Holt said, swallowing as his white stare met Caldris’s.
My mate looked up at me, his gaze locking with mine for a moment before he looked back to the other male. “I know,” he said simply, striding toward the bird on the ground. I stayed back, knowing I needed to keep my distance from the cursed spy for the Fae.
“You cannot keep her from learning of your mate’s existence forever,” Holt added, walking up beside Caldris as the two of them stared down at the blight on the ground. Caldris reached forward, snatching the arrow and tearing it free from the monstrous bird’s flesh. “Too many people know of her.”
“We just need to buy time,” Caldris said, turning to look back at me. My breath caught, knowing exactly what he meant. Time for me to accept him. Time to complete our bond, making him strong enough to fight back. Time to set off the events that I imagined would lead to a new war amongst the Fae.
I swallowed, contemplating how I felt about the idea that we were just buying time. That my acceptance of the bond was unavoidable, and with the knowledge that his freedom hung in the balance—and after my inability to kill him the night before—could it ever really be any but? Could I handle being responsible for him being indebted to a woman he so clearly hated? That enjoyed torture and would find pleasure in the way I screamed?
I didn’t think I could.
I dismounted Azra, stepping closer to where my mate stood over the blight. When the black feathers of the bird came into view, I noticed the slight golden shimmer to them as they glinted in the sunlight. Its eyes gleamed with amber, the light in them fading as life left it. I stayed out of its line of sight, but felt compelled to step forward and get closer. Whereas I’d felt compelled to put distance between myself and the blight on the night I’d seen one spying on me in the woods before the Veil fell, this drew me closer.
“It’s alright,” Caldris said, holding out a hand for me as I took it. I stepped into his side, staring down at the creature with an odd feeling rushing through me. “You’ve seen one before.” He observed me, the confused tension on my face as I dropped into a crouch.
I couldn’t resist the urge to reach out with trembling fingers, to stroke the dead bird on its feathers. The softness of them touched my skin, something in the glittering darkness calling to me. So close to matching the colors of my fingertips, which I couldn’t seem to bring back to their normal bronze. The gold in them flashed, as if recognizing the blight as its amber eyes glowed once more.
It decayed before my eyes, its body disintegrating slowly as the feathers disappeared to reveal skin…then bones… then nothing. Only the snow beneath its body. It vanished from view entirely, and it wasn’t until the snow shifted that I realized it hadn’t disappeared.