My heart ached when I thought of Lugh. I couldn’t get his sharply-cut face, his dark eyes, and those jet black strands of hair out of myhead.
Lugh was my mate, and I still didn’t know if I could ever see himagain.
2
As soon asI pushed myself up out of the Lake of the Dragon’s Mouth—the portal to Faerie, located deep inside the Devon forests—a strange metallic scent burned my nostrils. Immediately, I was on my feet with my sword in hand, pulling myself up tall, like a bad-ass warrior—though I probably looked like a drowned rat. My hair clung to my face and rivulets of lake water dripped onto myboots.
“Hello, noble warrior,” a high-pitched voice rang out as a small green creature leapt through the air. “It is I,Uisnech!”
I lowered my sword, and a smile tugged the corner’s of my lips. Lugh’s second-closest advisor and his oldest friend stood before me. He was about as tall as my waist with feet twice the size of mine, long, curling ears and a snout that glowed green. I had not been fond of the creature when we’d first met. Hobgoblins were notorious fortrickery.
“Uisnech!” My smile widened even more. “I’m sorry I aimed my sword at you. I didn’t expect anyone to be here. What are you doing at the Lake of the Dragon’s Mouth?” My smile dimmed. “Is everything okay at CastleWraith?”
Is everything okay with Lugh?That was the question I truly wanted to ask, but I couldn’t bring myself to say his name aloud. Hell, I could barely think it without wanting to double over from the gut punch it gaveme.
His green eyes flickered. “Alas, it is not, my noble friend. That is why I have come all this way. To intercept you before you return to your RavenCourt.”
The Raven Court was the name that Clark had chosen for her new unified rule over the fae of the world. It had a nice ring to it, even if it was incredibly straightforward. Clark was half-shifter, and she could transform herself into a raven. She was also The Morrigan, one of the most powerful fae to have everlived.
And she was myQueen.
Axel’s head crested the waters in the lake behind me, and he hauled himself onto the grassy shore. Uisnech’s eyes narrowed as he glanced suspiciously from the sorcerer to me and then backagain.
“Why are you here with this man?” Uisnech asked accusingly. “You are the King’smate.”
Even though Clark was the Queen of Faerie, Lugh had fashioned himself his own Court called the Court of Wraiths, and he was King of it. For outcasts and runaways, former criminals and those who had no home. He welcomed anyone who had nowhere else to go. At first, Clark hadn’t been too sure about the whole thing. The entire point of her reign was to bring all the fae together. For everyone to getalong.
But Lugh and his fae just wanted peace, privacy, and the freedom to live how theywanted.
So, she’d agreed to give him a trial period. As long as he and his fae did nothing to threaten anyone else, then she would quietly let him continue with his secret Court. No one else was to know about it, however. If the other fae, who had once been members of other Courts, found out, they would likely stage a revolt. Obviously, no one wanted that, least of allLugh.
“Don’t worry, little goblin. I would never get involved with a fae,” Axel grunted. “Too muchdrama.”
“Right back at you, mate,” I said before turning to Uisnech. “What’s going on? Is…everyoneokay?”
Uisnech twisted his little green hands together, his expression full of unease, bushy eyebrows pinched. He glanced from the sorcerer to me, and then back to the sorcereragain.
“You can trust Axel,” I said. “He’s the one who helped save Lugh’s life that night we got attacked in Barrie’sClose.”
Instantly, Uisnech relaxed. “Ah. Well then. You once said that you would return to Castle Wraith if the King needed you. That is why I am here. He needs you, warriorfriend.”
I frowned. I might have said something of the sort, but I was pretty sure I’d worded it very differently. Otherwise, I needed to give Past Moira a big kick in the arse. Because while Uisnech was unlike any hobgoblin I’d ever heard of, he wasn’t a total anomaly. Hobgoblins took vows very seriously. If I’d once promised him something, I had no choice but to do it. He would bind me to mywords.
I sighed and closed my eyes. “Just tell me what’s going on,Uisnech.”
“There is a new plot,” he whispered feverishly, flicking his eyes to the sorcerer, clearly still uncertain about his part in this conversation. “One to steal the King’sspear.”
He gave me a meaningful look. A flicker of fear went through my gut. I wasn’t sure what I had expected him to say…partly, I hadn’t truly believed there was even a real threat this time. Uisnech had been trying to get me to return to Edinburgh ever since I’d left. I probably had about a hundred texts from him aboutit.
“You mean thespearspear?” I asked around a lump in mythroat.
He noddedvigorously.
My palms went slick with sweat. The five-pointed spear. It was a weapon of infinite brutality. I’d wielded it once, and it had shook me to my very core. It could take on anyone and anything, and it hummed with so much magic that it felt as though it could rip apart an entireworld.
If the wrong person got ahold of it, they could do a hell of a lot of damage to anyone they deemed an enemy. They could very well turn it on Lugh himself, or even the Morrigan, myQueen.
That was one problem with this whole spear plot, but it wasn’t theworst.
