Cadoc had begun walking, he realized. Tate scrambled to follow. They were moving away from the hunt, toward the woods before the pavilion hall, and it was clear the forest was listening.
“Do you know, I almost did, once? Let you go.” Cadoc paused, turning back to Tate, who felt as if he were scrambling to keep up. “Back in the beginning. You were soannoying. You always have been. So maudlin. Crying, complaining, such a self-involved little prat. That’s never changed.”
“Then whydidn’tyou?!”
He ignored the insults. Gravel gave way under his feet, and Tate nearly slid down an embankment in an effort to keep up. He had longer legs,shouldhave been able to keep pace with his grandsire easily, always did. Now, though, it was as if the forest itself were helping Cadoc glide along, his feet barely touching theearthen pathway, too focused on fighting against Tate instead. He struggled to keep pace.
“Why didn’t you just let me go?!”
Cadoc had resumed walking, laughing as he did. “I’ve already told you, sweetling. You are a toy. One she hasn’t yet grown tired of playing with.”
Tate stopped again, nearly falling as a root sprouted up in front of his toe. He had the appalling clarity that this wasn’t abouthimat all, and likely never had been. He had been the punished and the punishment both.Favoreddid not meansafefrom retribution. A fact he knew well. He was nothing but the horse she’d bet on. It was a poor gamble, and not one he would have made.Now Iamfucking offended.
“This would be faster if you ran,” Cadoc called back curtly.
“It was all for nothing,” Tate choked out, furious that he was being forced to jog through this forest that was actively attempting to impede his progress as he simultaneously learned his entire life had been cut to ribbons because the rulers of Autumn played power games with each other outside of their bed. “Is that what you mean to say? Youruinedmy life. And this is all just a bleedin’ game for the two of you? You don’t have fucking therapists on this side? You ruined my family’s lives for nothing. You tookeverything from me—”
“Not everything, sweetling.” Cadoc was suddenly right there, swinging around, blade at Tate’s throat. “Notyet. You were worthless to me from the day I found you. Anorcon the throne of Autumn? Not possible. I would swallow all of Faerie first. And you have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to kill you since.” His eyebrows shot up, the moonlight making his honeyed eyes dance like flames as they widened, emphasizing his point. “Allof them. Every time. I can’t stand the sight of you. Every moment spent in your company is a punishment. So truly, beloved, who do you think has suffered more?”
“You didn’t have to listen to her!” he exploded, violently kicking the rock that had been steadily attempting to roll beneath his foot. “You didn’t have toobey, errand boy. You could have let me go. Why didn’t—”
“Because you belong to me.” Cadoc’s voice shook the earth, stilling it for a moment.
Tate could hear the horns, the pounding of hooves, the baying of the hounds. The hunt was getting close, but he was being gripped by the shirtfront, those teeth and the blackness behind them inches from his face.
“Because you aremine. You belong to me. Do you think babies just grow on trees?” He laughed darkly, cocking his head, giving Tate a sarcastic, sardonic smile, a look Tate knew he himself had given the assembled orcs at the Pixie more than a hundred million times. “Do you think every time one of you snivelling elves drops a coin in a fountain, wishing for a baby, we just pluck them from a rose and leave them in the garden? You were a payment due. A debt collected. Nothing more. Worthless orc or not. I didn’t take anything that wasn’t already mine. If you don’t want to owe a debt to something else, you should be careful what you wish for.Youbelong tome.”
“Why not my mother instead?” He hated the thought as soon as he gave it voice, but that it had always been there was undeniable.
Cadoc’s smile was lethal, his laughter like a pitch-black purr. “Because I wasn’t instructed to bring a replacement forher.”
Tate could hear someone screaming now, something wet moving through the underbrush, not far away. Was this the plan? To deliver him to the hunt as a late addition to the game? Silva’s coin would be lost to him and he would never see her again.
“Where are you taking me?”
Cadoc’s grin was terrible. “To the door. I’m letting you go.”
Something began to ring in his ears and sizzle in his veins as he was released, stumbling again. This wasn’t the patch of forest he knew. This wasn’t the outer edge of Autumn. This was where he had come in, the path still straight, marching along, doing what it could to trip him up, but not bending around trees and down hillsides. The doorway must be just ahead.You’re only going to get one shot at him, lad.Fate had a strange way of unfurling her plans.
“Give me back her coin. And you’ll never have tosuffer meagain.”
The stretch of teeth he was given in response was gruesome. Tate could feel the pull from within those jaws, could hear the screaming emptiness that awaited within.
“That’s not going to happen. That’s calledleverage, beloved. And it’s not yours to demand. Again . . . payment due.”
A red mist settled over his eyes.Thiswas Cadoc’s plan. Put off the inevitable another day, push his unwanted obligation back through a doorway until he was forced to collect him once more on the whims of his Queen, at some point in the endless future, forever tethered to this bastard, as long as he lived. The Queen and her consort would continue to circle each other forever, untrusting, each waiting for the other to strike. His life had been ruined over a petty relationship spat. Over nothing. And it ended tonight. He would not allow Silva to be reaped for Autumn’s harvest.
The baying of hounds split the air, and he could hear hooves thundering up the pathway somewhere to their left. Something shot through the underbrush. Tate coiled himself, the plan forming before him spontaneously, just as he’d been hoping for. His grandsire should have known better. Plans went sideways in Faerie, the very air itself loving chaos too much to allow anything togo to plan. Tate was counting on it.
Cadoc was unprepared when Tate headbutted him, slamming his thick Orcish skull into that fine sloped forehead with every bit of force he had, sending his grandsire sprawling, ebony antlers rolling away. He was an orc. That was all they saw. He was taller and broader and stronger. And it was well past time they remembered that.
Planningkept one rigid, while Faerie valued fluidity. But anagendawas something altogether different.Get her coin, kill the cunt, find a door.
The blade was the first thing he snatched, flinging it wildly into the underbrush, in the direction he’d heard the animal running. Perhaps one of the quarry might find it, might form their own fluid plan. Keeping the weapon to use would be folly. His grandsire wielded it like a deadly extension of his hand, and Tate had no doubt that if the blade made it back to him, which it inevitably would, he would slice Tate’s throat immediately.
He was able to sink one punch into the side of that long jaw before Cadoc was driving a knee up into his ribs, hard enough to make him wheeze. Cadoc rolled onto his feet faster than Tate would have liked, but it made no difference. He had spent his entire childhood in one fight after the next. He knew how to outlast.Thiswas something he’d learned young.
Tate was half expecting the graceful precision he’d witnessed from the fae before him all his life, watching hunt after hunt. Instead, Cadoc lunged, moving with brutal intent, slamming into Tate with enough force to drive them both backward into a tree. Bark scraped roughly against his skin, the branches shuddering overhead, dropping blood red leaves down on them like raindrops. That mailed fist connected with Tate’s jaw, stars bursting across his vision. He tasted blood immediately, sharp and coppery, an echo of the coin that was still pressed to the wrong body.
