I look around just in case there are actually people here that I just haven’t noticed before. The mist swirls and moves, coalescing in places, almost as if there are figures obscured by it. I close my eyes and open them slowly. Maybe I’m going crazy? This is a dream and I’ve imagined the whole night, right?
‘He wants to make you his queen.’ Another voice speaks as I try to twist away from it. ‘But he can’t. He wants to be king.’
‘You’re not one of us. He couldn’t be the Huntsman anymore.’
‘No! She killed Kin. He’s already giving her more of a chance than she deserves.’ The last voice carries far more authority than any of the others, but the words sound like they’re signalling my death.
‘There are thin places in the forest.’ This voice, at least, sounds friendlier. ‘Perhaps the Huntsman is right. Could she survive the hunt, find sanctuary? She would need to reach the Underworld first.’
‘She doesn’t know how to move through a thin place.’
I clamp my hands over my ears and squeeze my eyes closed.
‘What is it?’ Cillian asks. ‘What are you doing?’
‘There are voices in the mist,’ I whisper.
‘What mist?’ he frowns. ‘Niamh?’
‘Are you the Huntsman?’
His eyes narrow, but he nods.
‘How do I reach the Underworld?’
Chapter12
Cillian
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ I ask her, even though I know, I just don’t understand how she does. She wasn’t conscious when we talked about it earlier.
‘You told me I might find sanctuary but the voices. They said it’s in the Underworld and I don’t know how to go through a thin place.’ Tears slide down her cheeks as I stride towards her, taking her in my arms.
She’s right, there are thin places in these woods, and with help, she could pass through to the Underworld. Even if I took her through now, there’s no guarantee she’d reach the sanctuary, and if I hunt her in the Underworld there are so many more dangers to be faced. The Wild Hunt might have to wait until dawn to chase her, but there are other creatures in these woods who are not bound by any such magic. There’s no guarantee she would even find the sanctuary. I can give her the words that will allow her entrance but will they allow a human to enter? It’s not something I have ever heard of. We simply deal with the humans who cross us, decisively, and move on. None that I’ve hunted have made it to dawn.
A swift death at my hands may still be her best hope for tonight. Although, it’s clear there’s something strange going on here. Something that I can’t see. Which means that if there’s magic, it’s been carefully crafted. For her to be seeing and hearing things that I can’t– that takes power that no one at The Unseelie Court at present holds. But where else can it come from? The Seelie Court has lain abandoned for over a century.
There is, however, a simple alternative.
‘You were drugged,’ I assure her, although I’m not convinced that’s all that’s going on here. ‘You’re confused.’
She shakes her head. ‘No, I heard them, voices in the mist. You’re supposed to hunt me down. Although no one seems to know what will happen if I get away from you. If I do, will I end up in the Underworld? Or is it just for criminals like you?’ She stops, frowning, and then her lips part in some kind of realisation. ‘Oh, that Underworld. Yeah, I… I guess it’s just the drugs.’
I hate that she looks so confused, so defeated. And her words should sting, but they’re true. In the Underworld of the Kinfolk, however, I’m not a criminal– quite the opposite, in fact– although the longer I have to enforce Vincenzo’s bad decisions, the more I feel my position is being tainted and abused.
‘What else did the voices say?’
She stares up at me, a crease between her eyebrows. ‘They said you couldn’t rule if you— If you’re with me. It doesn’t matter, none of it made any sense.’
That is dangerously specific, too specific to be drug-addled imaginings. She can’t possibly know anything about my place at The Unseelie Court. Rose would never have told her. And yet, it is that very thing that is keeping us apart, that which has forced my engagement to Vittoria.
I pin her in place with my body. She tries to escape my embrace, a blush spreading across her cheeks as she feels my erection pressing against her thigh, but I’m not letting her go until I understand what’s happening.
The way she’s trembling calls to the Huntsman inside me, the Kinfolk side of my nature that I have always kept controlled and hidden when I’ve seen her in the human world. None of this helped by Vittoria pre-empting my kill earlier and our interrupted time in the club.
The voices weren’t wrong. I did bring her here to hunt, and the way she’s pulling away from me only makes those instincts come to the fore. I want her to run. But I’m still not sure that when I catch her, I’m going to be able to kill her. I have wanted her for so long and keeping away from her has only made me want her more. We have what’s left of the night, after all. What would be the harm in taking my time. Filling her remaining time with pleasure, rather than an adrenalin-fuelled chase? No, there’s a line to be drawn there. There is no way I could do that and then kill her, but neither can I leave her to the tender mercies of the Wild Hunt. Not to mention that it takes away her chance of reaching sanctuary.
I slide a hand up her arm and capture her throat. Her pulse hammers under my fingers and her breath catches as I tighten my grip. This is when she should be screaming for help, telling me no, kicking me in the balls and running. But she doesn’t. And even if she did, she’d be playing right into my darkest fantasies.
