He pulled aside the strap of my gown and cursed. “Liam, look at this.”
Liam stood and moved around me. His fury hit my back in the next second, the tension from it making me edge forward again.
“She’s been marked by the hunt,” Thomas said.
My stomach dropped. “The hunt? You mean the Wild Hunt?”
The two shared a look over my head. The silence was filled with the heavy weight of unsaid things.
“Liam?” I couldn’t help the tremulous quality of my voice.
“Yes, the Wild Hunt.”
The hunt the vampires were so worried about? The one that had the Fae of the city in a tizzy?
“How can I be marked?” I asked, groping for calm and logic.
“That is a good question,” Thomas said.
Liam stepped around me, his face hard and his eyes glittering. “I have a way of finding out.”
“Stop,” Thomas’s voice rang out, filling the room with power. My breath stuttered in my chest, the compulsion in his words unmistakable.
That didn’t affect Liam as he continued to the door.
Thomas hissed, the sound edging toward a catlike growl. “You will not threaten our position.”
Liam turned on him, his fangs dropping down as he snarled. “They have gone too far this time.”
“We have no way to prove it’s them,” Thomas snapped.
“It’s them alright. We both know it. Someone in the hunt would have needed to mark her, and you know as well as I do that Niamh has most of the lords caught in her thrall,” Liam said, his voice hard.
“It’s not a full mark. Her role isn’t set yet. They can claim this is the effect of the hunt’s magic. They’ll say the hunt chooses its prey,” Thomas argued.
“The lords mark potential prey. They open their victims up to the magic, making them more susceptible for being chosen by the magic,” Liam argued.
“That’s supposition. You said yourself no one truly understands how the hunt works. You cannot go and accuse them based upon guesswork and feelings,” Thomas said.
Frustration and anger were written in every line of Liam’s body. I sat quietly, feeling like a bone two predators were fighting over. It didn’t help to know fear had invaded, sending my stomach rioting.
Liam paced in front of me, his power crackling through the air. Whatever reins he kept on himself had snapped. This was the real Liam—raw, dangerous, savage.
“Then we get her out of here. We hide her,” he said.
I nodded. I was all for this plan. I’d already spent one night being hunted through the woods. Sometimes I still woke, gasping for air, feeling like I was back there being chased and terrified I wouldn’t see the dawn. I had no desire to add another version to that nightmare.
“You, of all people, know how impossible that is,” Thomas said.
Liam’s flinch was barely there, unnoticeable to those who didn’t know him well.
“The hunt will just follow. You’ve seen this.” Thomas’s face was sympathetic.
Liam ran a hand over his face. This was the most discombobulated I’d ever seen him. It brought home how much danger I was currently in.
“Can we get them to take their hunt elsewhere? Or tell them not to hold it?” I asked.
“It’s doubtful that will work,” Thomas said. “They’ve made clear their intentions to start a barrow here. The treaty we have in place with them does not allow for our interference.”
