“Need I remind you that whoever Mab’s daughter is has been reincarnated twelve to thirteen times since her initial life and could look like anyone? It is purely coincidental that the girls have similar attributes in this life, because the vessels they inhabit right now are not of Mab’s making at all. Only their soul belongs to her,” Imelda corrected, heaving a sigh. Her frustration seemed to grow, confirming that she genuinely believed her earlier words to be true.
Octavian wasn’t the brightest.
He flushed with anger. “I knew that,” he said, turning his back on us and striding toward the horses in his embarrassment. “Pack up. We leave within the hour.”
34
ESTRELLA
“You’re with me,” Holt told Imelda, grasping her firmly around the forearm as he guided her away from the crowd. The Hunters finished packing up the tents and loaded the Fae Marked onto the carts so that they wouldn’t need to walk. Not that they’d have been allowed to in Octavian’s presence at any rate, even Imelda and Fallon and I would clearly have an escort for the time being.
He lifted her up by the waist, depositing her on top of his skeletal steed while she glared daggers at the ground. “I am perfectly capable of mounting a horse by myself, Horseman,” she said, her lips twisting with a snarl.
“I’d like to see you reach the stirrups, Witch,” Holt said, placing a foot in one pointedly and lifting himself up onto the back of the saddle. He settled himself against her ass, pressing closer than was probably necessary as she froze solid. “I did warn you that you would feel it,” he added with a chuckle, reaching around her to grasp the reins in one hand.
“Brute,” Imelda said, her voice shifting back to that tone of disinterest that she feigned, but I watched the flush creep up her neck all the same.
“You take Fallon today,” Caldris said to Aramis. The other rider heaved a sigh of relief, looking like he might just stab himself if he had to ride with me. I smiled at him sweetly, tilting my head to wave goodbye to him as Caldris strode off to Azra without a word for me. Following behind him, I let him place me in the saddle and settled into the feeling of him at my spine. He pressed closer than necessary for just a moment, satisfaction trickling down the bond as we reunited physically—even for only a few precious breaths.
He straightened quickly, but regardless of his intent, the proximity of the saddle forced my ass to nestle into his lap. I took comfort in it where it made Imelda squirm with discomfort. She might find the same if she could see past her own denial of what was brewing between her and the leader of the Wild Hunt.
Fallon settled in with Aramis, her eyes wide as she met mine for a brief moment. He was awkwardly trying to create distance between them, as if she’d bite him for touching her. I couldn’t be sure if it was because I’d made him distrust anyone who associated with me or if it had more to do with the fact that Fallon just might be the daughter of the Queen of Air and Darkness. I sincerely hoped it was the former, but suspected that Mab’s wrath was more intimidating than mine.
I’d have to work on that.
Caldris squeezed his legs, motioning Azra into a steady walk forward as the Wild Hunt was set into motion. Things were quiet, far less jovial than they’d been even the day before. The tension of who I might be had been sitting heavily between my mate and I since the discovery of the moon burned into my hand, but this was new.
This was a horrifying silence that existed out of necessity. All too aware that Caldris was probably being watched at every turn, I couldn’t help the instinct to lean into him and his embrace. I fought it, knowing that making us appear as if we were close would not work to my advantage.
“Why do these two and the witch not ride in the carts?” Octavian asked, steering his horse right up alongside Azra. He was close enough that my feet nearly brushed against his horse’s flank, his attention feeling heavy on the side of my face where my cloak failed to hide my profile.
“The Fae Marked are not fond of them,” Caldris answered simply, not bothering to turn and deem Octavian worthy of his attention as he rode forward.
"Since when do we care about the opinion of the rabble, brother?” Octavian asked, his laugh grating against my ears. I shifted my shoulders, trying to shrug my hood forward to cover more of my face, and my expression in the face of something so smugly classist.
I had always been the rabble, and until the day I died, part of me would cling to that memory.
“I don’t, but what I do care about is seeing to the welfare of Mab’s daughter. The Marked have tried to harm one of them already. I will not be responsible for the suffering of the Princess of the Shadow Court after all she has already been forced to endure just being on this side of the Veil for centuries,” Caldris said, shifting his reins into both hands. The motion put me further into his embrace, offering me a small measure of comfort against the reminder of just how far those humans were willing to go to rid the world of me.
How far even my brother had been willing to go.
She cannot have you.
The words were an unbidden memory, bursting free inside of me and drawing a shocked gasp from my lips. He’d given me the answer, all but the name of who he needed to keep me from, in his last confession before he’d tried to plunge the knife into my heart.
Caldris’s arms tightened around me as he felt my moment of panic and the anguish that consumed me for all to see. I’d thought I would need to give a truth to pay for the one I wanted to hide, but I suspected that Imelda’s magic wasn’t quite so cut and dried.
I’d recognized the truth I already owned, and the debt was paid. The magic swirled around on my skin contentedly, settling against the mark more fully and guarding my secret with the clinging of a desperate lover. “The Princess of the Shadow Court,” Octavian murmured, his gaze looking into the distance as I watched from the corner of my eye. “She’s been missing for so long. Sometimes I find it difficult to remember that she will be Mab’s sole heir.”
“She will,” Caldris agreed, and there wasn’t a single mention of the fact that he was already an heir because of his father. It didn’t seem likely that Mab would give her throne to anyone at all, from what I’d learned of her in my short time of knowing she even existed, but she most definitely wouldn’t give it to the son of the husband she’d killed.
“It would be wise for us to remember the opportunity this could present for us. Mab will undoubtedly need to choose a husband to rule beside her daughter. We both know how little stake she puts in mates, aside from the purpose of breeding,” Octavian mused thoughtfully. “She wouldn’t allow something as insipid as fate to determine such a thing. Have either of the girls showed signs of their markings? What court do they favor?”
“Did you see markings on either of them?” Caldris asked, avoiding answering the question. We both knew I had been marked, because I had a mate waiting. I tried to listen, searching for answers to my own burning questions. The Fae must have been marked from birth if no one thought it odd that Caldris had a Viniculum on his neck, otherwise they’d have known he had a mate somewhere.
“No,” Octavian said, reaching over the gap between our horses. He tugged my hood down to reveal my face and my neck that was bare of a Viniculum. “Surely if they were Fae they would have them?”