It was his turn to twist away, using both his height and the tree for leverage, rounding back and driving his elbow into the other man’s ribs. Unprotected, for he liked to ride light. Once, twice, Tate heard the crack on the third, forcing them both against the tree once more.
He had spent his entire life daydreaming about the day he might escape the Bonfire Court for good. Imagined how he might kill the fae who’d stolen him from his family, had killed him a million times in his dreams with disembowelment, defenestration, a poisoned pint of gat. A fistfight had never figured into his imagination. Tate considered that perhaps the quality of his dreams was simply lacking.
Cadoc hissed, more in anger than in pain, pushing off the trunk and sending them both tumbling to the ground. He rounded with a terrifying speed, up on his feet again, bringing the heel of his boot down on Tate’s ribs over and over until he felt them snap, repaying the favor.
The forest rushed in all at once, leaves tearing and branches snapping, the earth going ice cold and unyielding beneath them. His hands scrabbled against the dirt for something he could use, but the rocks and roots had made themselves scarce for his seeking fingertips.Hewas the outsider here. He always had been.
“Look at this way, beloved.” Cadoc’s voice was harsh and dark, already trembling with the black void within, golden pupils shot wide, his jaw already popping. “Love is a terrible affliction. Learn from my mistakes. I’msavingyou from its ruin.”
Tate wheezed as he pulled himself back to his feet, swinging again before he’d even managed to suck in a painful breath, his fist connecting into the ribs he’d already broken.
They clashed, over and over, elbows and knees, nails tearing at skin, fists sinking into sides and jaws, brutal kicks, every blow aiming to inflict the most hurt, the most visceral fight of his life.The talon tip found its aim over and over, and he knew he’d made the right call disarming the cunt first.
It was telling that neither of them had opened their jaws. They weren’t fighting with teeth, not yet.Thiswas too personal. They had each ruined eachother’slives, Tate realized, driving an elbow up into his grandsire’s throat. Each wanted to make the other hurt first, and ending things with their jaws would have been too convenient.
That hooked talon-tip had already punctured a hole beneath his eye, already beginning to swell. There was blood running down his face, nearly blinding him, when a branch shifted, catching him under the arm, preventing him from twisting away from another side attack. Tate found himself pinned, his legs kicked out, sliding down the tree until Cadoc’s arm settled around his neck.
Nowcame the teeth. He had failed. All he’d managed to do was guarantee that Silva would die slowly, as the screaming black void from between those jaws bore down over him. Tate felt his airway close, arm tightening around his neck, tightening, tightening, the forest before him going spotty.Tick, tick, tick.
“You know, it’s almost a shame,” that dark voice rasped at his temple, breath coming hard. “This is the most interesting you’ve ever been, beloved. I’ll be sure to take good care of her for you. After all,watchingwas so instructive.”
His heel dug into the ground as he struggled, sinking deeper and deeper until it stopped, finding purchase against something hard. Everything in this forest belonged to the Queen. The trees, the animals, the moss and the rocks. Everything but the bones.
Tate pushed against it, finding leverage at last. Pushed up again, wheezing for air, breaking the chokehold as Cadoc’s jaws stretched. Pushed up, his permanently-fucked back cracking as he arched, pushing back against that bone in the earth as his own jaw popped, mouth spreading, the pull of that black voidonly assisting him. Pushing back until his own jawssnapped, closing around the throat above him. Tate turned like an adder, ripping out Cadoc’s throat in a spray of blood, shining like rubies, lost amongst those blood red leaves on the forest floor.
The trees screamed. That grotesque, heavy moon tipped, cracking. Somewhere, the hounds were baying, the horses pounding, an animal was racing away. His jaws didn’t close again until he felt his teeth clacking, scraping against spine, finding nothing but the torn esophagus, the body around him falling slack. The horns sounded. He could hear them running still, the hunt still moving forward, still to their left. But not moving this way.
Tate wheezed, hardly able to draw breath. He was bleeding. He was badly injured. He was likely going to die in this forest, because there was no way he could pull himself up and find a door now. He reached out blindly, searching, feeling through leathers and linens until his fingers closed around Silva’s golden coin.
He didn’t care if he died.
All that he had set out to accomplish, he had. That was all that mattered. She would fly away and live her life and forget about him, eventually. His watch, he realized, raising the hand that still clutched the coin, had stopped ticking. He was out of time.
The sob that ripped from him was agony. He didn’t know how long he spent there, bleeding out on the forest floor, chest heaving, his tears cutting through the film of blood. Cutting through the blood enough for him to see.
See the stars winking overhead. See the moon tipped sideways, still cracked. See the writing on the sole of the shoe that swung above his head. It was Ainsley’s phone number.
Tate blinked. Forced himself to breathe. It was Ainsley’s office number, written in marker on the sole of his boot, the only thing he’d had at the time he’d taken it down, years earlier, when he’dstill been running the club in the city. It washisboot. The boot he’d lost in the basement of the Plundered Pixie, the day the boggart had tried to pull him through the staircase.
Pulling himself to a sitting position was nearly impossible. Dragging himself up the tree, shrugging off the weight of the body behind him, felt like it took a small eternity. He reached up for a branch, screaming as he did so, certain he didn’t have a rib in his body left uncracked.You’re probably going to puncture a lung the second you pull yourself up. This is the end, boyo.
For the first time since they had left the clearing together, the forest was not fighting him. Perhaps it knew. Perhaps it understood that its master had been brought to heel. His tether severed at last.
A good thing, because Tate knew time was, as always, not on his side. They would come looking for him. Surely they had all heard that scream, they’d felt the way the ground shook and the moon cracked. Tate had no doubt that the Frostbitten Queen on her icy throne in neighboring Winter had heard it, and was certain the fields of Summer had felt the tremor in the land.
They would come looking, and he needed to be gone.You can die another day, boyo. Die in the fucking tree if you must, but don’t let them find you.Once more, his height was an asset. Tate scrambled up the trunk, using the branches for leverage, stepping from one to the next once he was high enough. His boot was tied to a rope, a rope that disappeared into the upper branches of the tree.
His whole body hurt. He’d begun to bleed freely again, and he could feel from the weight on his chest that he likelyhadpunctured a lung. It was the hardest climb of his life, but when he heard those horns rising, Tate knew he had no choice.
Up into the branches, still trembling with ruby red leaves, red like blood, red like the blood pooling below. Up, up, up, wheezing once he could no longer use the branches forfootholds, his upper body strength the only thing he had left to rely on as he continued up the rope. Up, up, up, until he was surrounded in something dark, like a chute.
Tate had no idea if he was climbing up to something more awful than the reality he’d just left, but it was the only option available. He was at least able to use the sides of the metal chute for leverage, crying out more times than he cared to admit, stopping at one point, back against cold iron, his feet holding him in place, wondering if he should just let himself fall.
He had to be close. When he moved through an icy cold layer of water, he was certain he would drown, but he came out the other side quickly.
Everything was different when he did.
The mortal world had a sticky film to it, and Tate could feel it forming around him once more, the grip of Faerie pulling away like taffy. There was light above. He was nearly there. Nearly . . . And then nothing. The chute he was climbing was closed off, his rope tied to the top of it, saving him from whatever fate might have waited below, but trapping him within.
