Chapter 14
H ope and despair propel me on in equal measure. I can see my backpack. The circle is not far. Dried foliage crunches in my wake. Heavy thumps beat like a drum on the ground.
A few more steps. Almost—
Something barrels into me from behind. I scream, flying forward, notebook flinging from my arms to smash into the ground just in front of me.
I pinch my eyes shut, bracing for impact, only to be yanked backward by something thick around my middle.
The force of it squeezes the breath from my lungs.
Whiplash has my head slamming backward into a hard form.
Stars and blurring colors dot my vision as I try to make sense of what happened.
I gasp for breath and end up coughing instead. The toe of my boots slips off the ground as I struggle, my body tugged backward by someone far too rough to be Elias. That thought alone sends my panic soaring.
“Let”—another gasp for air—“go!”
The Unseelie—that has to be who has me—just trudges along, carrying me with one arm like I’m a doll.
I wiggle and squirm as best I can, every voice inside me yelling to get away.
When the fae only tightens their grip, I claw at the arm holding me with my nails.
They may not be long, wicked things, but I pretend they are, scratching and gouging with all my might.
I feel skin break and wetness on my fingers.
A roar emanates from the fae carrying me, and it drops me unceremoniously to the ground. The impact hurts less this time, awkward angle and all, and I use the precious second I have to bolt, saying a little prayer of thanks when my boots don’t slip and help me launch away from my attacker.
Blood rushes through my ears, almost drowning out the swell of sound encroaching on us. The blue of my sleeping bag urges me on like a beacon, if I can just—
The Unseelie grabs the end of my braid and yanks me backward. I scream, clawing back at the hand holding me. Tears fill my eyes at the stinging rip of hair from my scalp. I’m jerked back, my tailbone slamming into the ground.
Even worse than the pain radiating through my body is the sight beyond the blur of tears, figures filling into the space around me.
I’m trapped. I can’t break free. Even if I get away from the Unseelie holding my dark braid like a leash, there are too many more who will grab me the moment I rise. The fight leaves me in a rush, tears streaming down my face.
Words reach my ears in a language I don’t know and can’t begin to understand. Then one figure separates from the others, coming to stand directly in front of me.
“Human bait,” they snarl.
I blink and rub at my eyes, trying to clear my vision. My teeth bite into my bottom lip to hold back a cry as I take in those who surround me.
These are the Unseelie I expected. One with dappled skin has deer haunches ending in hooves instead of feet.
Another looks positively reptilian, from slitted eyes to a long tongue that tastes the air.
Some are more human in appearance with the odd antlers, curling long claws, or swishing tails.
If you saw just a glimpse of them, you might mistake them for Seelie.
But taken on the whole, it’s impossible.
The male before me, if his gruff voice is an indication, has his bulging arms crossed over a thickly muscled barrel of a chest sporting leather and metallic armor.
His stocky legs lead to human-like boots.
Despite his towering height, he’s one who could pass for human or Seelie if not for his face.
Two sharp fangs jut up from his jaw, their yellow coloring not all that much lighter than his skin tone.
And atop his head, curving back from a mess of brown hair, are two dark, spiraling horns like those of a ram.
“You think your tears will deceive us?” he demands, tone full of accusation. “That we would be so foolish as to take you to our king like we did the last one?”
“I don’t—” I’m shaking my head, at least as much as I can with the Unseelie behind me still holding my braid taut. But then I realize what he said. “What do you mean?”
There wasn’t another before me, was there? Someone would have said, Madeline or surely Selena. They would have told me.
The Unseelie snorts, arms falling free as they stalk forward.
I lean back, trying to scramble away, only to have the Unseelie behind me shove me forward again. My palms slam into the ground, sending up a fresh wave of aches and forming new tears at the corners of my eyes.
The sizable male stops just in front of me, boots filling my vision, grabs my chin, and jerks my head up to stare at him. The pungent scent of sweat is overpowering.
“Pretty bait this time. Tempting. Very tempting.” He chuckles, and several of those around us join in. The sound sends a chill down my spine.
“I’m not bait,” I snarl.
That only has him chuckling more, the fingers gripping my chin tightening until I nearly cry out.
“Blame your Seelie friends for outing you.” He twists my head until I’m staring up at the sky, at the large bird still circling overhead. As if that means anything.
Summoning all my inner fire, I reply, “I have no Seelie friends.”
He ignores me, turning his head to bark a single command. A moment later, an arrow zips through the sky, striking the bird and sending it plunging toward the ground. I watch it fall until the Unseelie around me obscure it from view.
“No reaction,” he says, sounding amused. “They taught you well this time.” Finally, he releases my chin. Or rather, he shoves my face away, almost like I’m garbage.
My head spins. This is not how things were supposed to go. Not the reaction the Unseelie are supposed to have to a human.
“Search her things,” he orders.
That has my panic rising to a whole new level. “Leave my stuff alone!”
Discarding the ingredients will set me back.
And if they destroy the recipe, I’m in even worse shape.
I doubt any of them will help me find the rest, not like Elias.
Desperately, I search for him, pray for him to find me.
Not that he could do anything against so many.
He probably would decide I’m not worth the trouble.
Whatever magical power my humanity gives him can’t be that helpful.
The large Unseelie drops to a crouch in front of me, sitting on his heels, weight balanced on his toes despite his bulk. The thick muscles of his arms bunch as he crosses them. “Now you give yourself away.”
“No, you don’t understand. My brother is sick. I’ve been trying to find things to help him.” Tears threaten again as I squirm in the grip of the Unseelie still holding me by the hair. Each move causes it to tug and sting, but that’s hardly the least of my worries or aches. “Please, just let me go!”
“Human lies,” he snarls before rising.
He spits on the ground, but the look in his eyes isn’t just disgust. The lust there has my stomach rolling. Elias respected my boundaries once I set them. I have no illusion that this male cares about them at all.
“Find some rope and bind her,” he orders one of the others.
The Unseelie holding me drags me to my feet by my hair.
Another scream leaves my lips, pain and panic winning out over everything else.
I can’t let them take me. I can’t. Being bartered peacefully to their king would be one thing, but it doesn’t seem like that’s what they have in mind.
And even if it was, I’m not sure they wouldn’t break me before then.
A pained sound rises over the chatter, causing the smirking brute before me to pause.
“Orek, there are wards!” comes a panicked call.
I pinch my eyes shut. If only I could have gotten back to them. When I open them again, Orek—because that must be who this is, who is leading them—is staring at me rather than the Unseelie who spoke.
“Wards?” he barks back. “What court?” Then, advancing on me once more, “Where are those Seelie—”
“Ours” comes the reply, the voice quavering and rising in pitch.
Orek goes still. The Unseelie around us turn toward one another, whispering, mostly in the language I do not know. The bushy brows above Orek’s eyes nearly meet. His lips wrinkle in thought. “Who would—”
All at once, the Unseelie go silent and turn toward one point off to my right. A few nearly fall over themselves and each other in their urgency to move away.
My heart leaps as I catch sight of who stands in the gap the Unseelie have vacated. In that moment, I don’t care how he is there or why, only that Elias has come. I needed him, I silently begged for him, and there he is.
“Elias!” I barely choke back a sob.
His attention snaps to me, and his eyes go wide. “Aimee!”
Save for his searching gaze, he hardly moves, but the longer he looks me over, the more his features harden, lips pulling back in a snarl to reveal pointed fangs that poke down past his top lip.
“Let her go.” The deathly calm of his voice sends a chill down my spine. “Now.” A violet aura flares around him, and more of the Unseelie hustle backward, a few actually falling this time.
“Who are you?” Orek barks.
A tingling sensation raises the fine hairs along my airs.
Suddenly, streaks of darkness flash through the sky, cracking like thunder and rumbling the ground at our feet.
But where lightning is bright and blinding, this force sucks the light from the sky, winking us into darkness for the briefest moment before the world returns.
The Unseelie cry out, several dropping to the ground in a panic and attempting to shield themselves.
I look toward Elias, praying he’s okay. But something is strange.
Wrong. His form begins to ripple like a reflection in a pond after someone tossed in a stone.
The air around him even seems to blur, and then just as suddenly, the form of the man I knew melts away, leaving a wholly different figure standing in his wake.
A sharp gasp steals the air from my lungs.
The dark attire remains, but it has changed.
Leather is now covered with black plate from his boots to his legs and torso.
Even his hands, which were uncovered, that I’d touched, now bear dark gauntlets.
The black cloak remains, moving gently in the subtle breeze.
All of that alone is enough of a shock, but it’s not what causes my heart to stop and then plummet into my stomach.
His face is different—stronger jaw, straight nose, tanned skin, and most shockingly, gone is the soft-looking brown hair that used to drift to his shoulders.
Instead, his hair is so pale it might be white and falls at least halfway down his back.
And atop his head sit two pointed ears quite unlike the Seelie fae.
No, these resemble a cat’s ears, dusting of white fur and all.
It’s then I know who he is, why he can shift, why the Unseelie who still remained standing have started to drop to their knees, and why the one behind me released my hair with a choked whimper.
Before me stands none other than Kallan, the Unseelie King.