Now I could see why Autumn fae often turned to lives as assassins. They were good at it.
When Rourke returned to my side, he clasped my hand to join me in the shadows. “Come on. We need to get in and out before someone notices the gate.” He searched my eyes, seeing my unease and hesitation. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I just…” The snap of the fae’s neck still echoed in my ears. “I guess I’m still not used to so much death.”
“I’m sorry you had to see that, Norah, but he would have killed us. Or worse.”
“I know that,” I said with a nod. “I just wish the world didn’t have to be like this.”
He squeezed my hand. “Me too.”
And with that, Rourke and I whispered into the village of the Wilde Fae like a pair of ghosts. We stopped first at the guard tower and finished cranking the gate so that it was fully open when we needed to go. The fae would all be asleep. They shouldn’t notice anything amiss in the few moments it would take us to procure some horses.
Indeed, the village felt like a ghost town. With the sun climbing high in the sky, it was an alien experience to walk along the dirt-packed road with no one but us and a few scurrying rats in search of scraps. The door of the tavern swung in the breeze, creaking on old and rusted hinges. We slowed as we passed by, though we spotted no one inside. And all of the other shops and taverns were the same.
“Wait.” Rourke stopped short and cocked his head to the side as if he were listening. “Do you hear that?”
I frowned and tried to listen, but the enhanced senses that fae possessed were still developing in me. So, all I heard was the rustle of the wind. “What is it?”
His grip tightened, and his expression went sharp. “Whining. Some kind of animal. No, not whining. It’s neighing. I think they have our horses.”
My heart jolted in my chest as Rourke led me back the way we came. He stopped outside the butcher shop, his chest heaving with belabored breaths. “They’re inside there, which means they’ve captured them for slaughter. Do you know what they do to the animals they eat, Norah?” When Rourke turned to me, his eyes were dark and hollow, seeped through with a painful kind of anger that made me gasp.
I knew right then I didn’t want to know what these Wilde Fae did to their meat. I knew his words would haunt me. I knew they would give me images I’d never be able to shake. But I could no longer run from things that scared me, or back down when confronted with the horrors of the world.
“Tell me,” I said.
“They do not kill them,” Rourke said, his voice pained. “They keep them alive, through magic, and eat them slowly. Over weeks, months. The animals are in agony, sometimes screaming from the pain they endure. But the Wilde Fae like their meat fresh off the bone and dripping with living blood. It is a horror what they do.”
Something cold hit my cheek, and I reached up to find I’d started crying. A deep sadness had sunk into my bones, but it wasn’t from the spell I weaved with the shadows. Not this time. It was for all the creatures who had been tormented by these cruel, vicious fae, and for all of those who still would be.
“We have to get them out of there,” I whispered. “We have to take them with us.”
Rourke gave a nod. “Follow me.”
We eased up the steps of the butcher shop, and the wooden boards creaked underneath us. I tried to keep my breathing steady. The fae were asleep. They wouldn’t hear our movements. By the time they realized that outsiders had been in their midst, we’d be long gone.
The door clicked when Rourke pressed it open, and the scent that drifted out to us made me gag. It was a stale stench, one mixed with iron, death, and rotting flesh. There was blood everywhere. It painted the floors and the walls and the long skinny tables set with plates, forks, and knives. My chest heaved as I stared at the sight. The fae ate in here. There were tankards scattered about. They drank here, too. While they tormented animals.
My body trembled, and it took every single cell of power in my soul to keep my feet exactly where they stood. I wanted out of here. My mind begged me to flee.
A neigh drifted out to us from behind a doorway to our right. My eyes met Rourke’s, and we both swallowed hard. I knew his thoughts as if they were my own. We didn’t know what we would find on the other side of that door. We didn’t know what kind of state they might be in.
Rourke let go of my hand. “We need to let go of the shadows. The poor creatures won’t be able to see us otherwise.”
With a nod, I dropped the shadows. Instantly, I felt an ache in my gut, as if a distant, long-forgotten part of me was now missing.That’s strange, I thought to myself. Perhaps it was a side effect from using the power so much and for so long. I’d been shadowed almost constantly since Rourke was kidnapped. Maybe that was too much, even with the stone to protect me from the darkness.
Whatever the reason, it wasn’t important now. We needed to focus on these horses, and then get the hell out of here.
Rourke and I inched toward the door and slowly eased it open. Inside, the room held the same sickening paint of blood that the rest of the butcher shop did. Our two horses were chained up to the wall. Both of them were covered in red. Tears sprang into my eyes as I felt their fear and their despair flood into my mind. How much were they hurt? It was impossible to tell, not with all that blood.
Closing my eyes, I reached for my magic, testing and feeling and gently prodding through the horses’ fear. I couldn’t access their memories to find out what had happened, but I could sense how they were feeling now. Despite all their fear, I could find no pain. Just panic. With a soft, soothing voice, I murmured out loud, slowly caressing their panic away.
When I opened my eyes, Rourke was staring at me. He looked as though he’d seen a ghost.
“Rourke, what’s wrong?” I whispered, glancing over my shoulder and half-expecting to find a Wilde Fae staring back at me.
“If I didn’t know better, I would swear you’re related to Marin. What you did just then…” He shook his head. “You remind me so much of her.”
