She leaves without another word. The redcap’s grip on my arms only tightens, and the puca grins before he sheds his glamour. He becomes shadow, lengthening to grotesque proportions until he towers over both of us.
“He will kill you,” I say, focusing on the puca more than the redcap. Redcaps are generally straightforward. “When the Huntsman finds Eirian, he will kill all of you.”
“There are more than three of us to kill,” the puca says, voice coming from every corner of the room. I tense my shoulders. Even a high fae can only hold her magic for so long without taking steps to tie it to the place or the person, and the more distance she puts between us, the weaker her grip on me becomes.
That magic stretches and stretches and all at once, it snaps. Shadows shift, a gaping maw opening in a grin. The redcap behind me tenses.
Sunlight already filters through a single gap in the curtains. I know, should I stand in it, should I fall into it, that will be the end of me, whether I have the Huntsman’s blessing or not.
I cannot feel Grant at all. Rage and sorrow tug at my heart, fill my lungs. I have felt grief before, but never quite like this.
I will kill them. I will send the Huntsman the name. That done, I will walk into the sun myself.
The redcap grunts. His own magic is thick and clumsy, whereas the puca’s fills the room. Mine surges in me.
I growl, tear from his grasp, and leap into the shadows.
iv
out there, something I can’t see and despite it all, despite the heat and the cold and thepain, so much pain, my heart leaps up into my throat from fear.
I open my mouth. No words escape. They can’t. I taste blood again.
That’s bad, isn’t it? I’ve got enough sense left to know that’s bad, really bad. Maybe whoever is out there will help me?
What did I see? I roll my head against the headrest, blinking stinging sweat and blood out of my eyes. Maybe some tears. Fuck, everything hurts.
I saw something. I know I saw something. I didn’t just drive off the road, though, fuck, that’s what they’re gonna say, isn’t it? Sad, distraught, drove off into the dark and totalled his fucking car and a sob shudders out of me, but that makes everything hurt even more than it did before.
I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be alone, and here, and I thought earlier tonight I was the most hurt I’d ever be, butthat’s a fucking joke now, isn’t it? I shouldn’t have left. I wasn’t going to stay with him, but I shouldn’t have left, or I should have gone to Rachel’s or Jordan’s or—
Pain seizes my heart and I don’t know if it’s physical or emotional, but I don’t care.
I try to push at the metal that surrounds me. My fingers are clumsy. They feel twice the size I’m sure they are. My head throbs with every beat of my heart. My fingertips slide over the buckle of the seatbelt. It’s wet there. Warm. I lift one trembling arm.
The tips of my fingers look dark in the moonlight. Blood? I whimper and drop my head back onto the headrest again.
Doesn’t matter if I get the seatbelt undone. My legs are stuck. I feel that. I can barely keep my head up, and my hand drops to my side.
Something rustles outside again. I whimper and screw my eyes shut.Help me, please, help me.But what are the odds of someone coming across me here? Probably a fox. God, I’m going to die out here alone except for some animals who might even eat me when—
A face appears in the broken window next to me and whatever sound I want to make sticks in my throat at the sight of the man I see.
He’s handsome. Hair dark and tangled, cheekbones high, skin
Chapter Thirteen
Grant
Anenginerumblesnearby.Cold metal presses into my cheek and my head throbs like I’ve been hit.
I don’t open my eyes. I’m not dead yet, and I’m not in a rush to be that way.
My power, magic, whatever it is—It betrayed me. And now it’s hiding somewhere, though I coax enough of it out to realise there are a few people in the back of this van with me.
Has to be a van, right? I’m in a creepy kidnappers’ van.
Focus. A human is driving up front and there are two vampires and a fae in the back with me. My magic whips back inside me, burrowing deep. I fight the urge to clench my teeth.
