Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
ALLERIA
I’m still sitting on the table when the entrance flap settles back into place behind Cairn, holding my tunic closed with one fist. I can feel the cold air against my skin … skin that’s still flushed, still sensitive, and still wet from his mouth.
My hands won’t stop shaking. No matter how much I try, I can’t get the fasteners to catch properly, and every time I look down, I see the marks he left on my breasts and have to start over.
My body won’t calm down. The ache between my thighs hasn’t faded. I press my legs together, and that just makes it worse, sending a jolt of sensation through me that makes my breath catch.
I finally get the fastenings closed, and slide off the table. My legs hold, barely.
Therin’s face keeps swimming up in my memory. The way he looked at me, sprawled across the table with my tunic hanging open and Cairn’s hand down my pants. The amusement in his voice.
Well, this is new.
And I keep seeing Cairn’s face in that moment. The way his head snapped up, his fingers still moving between my thighs. His pupils were blown wide, his breathing ragged. When he told Therin to get out, his voice came out as a snarl, strained in a way I’ve never heard before.
He didn’t step back immediately either. He stayed where he was, between my thighs, his hand still pressed against me, and for a moment I thought he was going to ignore Therin entirely, and finish what he’d started.
But he didn’t. He pulled away, told me to stay here, and walked out without looking back.
That was hours ago. The light through the shelter walls has faded from gold to silver to black, and he hasn’t returned. No one has been into the shelter, except for Serath, who slipped in at some point with a bowl of broth and bread, and left without a word.
I should eat. I know I should. But the thought of swallowing anything makes my stomach churn, so the broth sits there cooling while I stare at nothing.
I can still feel him. My body won’t let me forget the ghost of his mouth on my throat and breasts. The pressure of his fingers sliding between my thighs … and the sound that came out of me when he touched me there.
I was so close. I was so close my back arched off the table, my body wound so tight I could barely breathe—
The Hell-Thorn of the Wild Hunt spread me across his table and put his hands on me, and I didn’t fight. I didn’t even try. I arched into his touch and begged for more.
And he knew I would.
The knowledge makes me want to claw my own skin off.
I was so close, and if Therin hadn’t walked in, I would have let him finish.
This is how I hid. This is how I survived. I became the thing they couldn’t resist.
He was showing me that I’m no different from the women who owned him. That despite everything—the collar around my neck, the days of kneeling at his feet, knowing what he is and what he’s done—he can still make me want him.
It was a demonstration of his power. His control.
Except … he didn’t look controlled when Therin interrupted. He looked like a man who’d lost himself in something he hadn’t expected to find.
Thousands of human noblewomen. And not one of them thought to ask what I was called.
But what would they have done if they’d known who he was? Would they have put him to death? Or would they react the same way I did under his touch?
Because even knowing he’s killed thousands, that he led the charge at Therison Vale, that he's older than my kingdom … That he’s the Lord of the Wild Hunt … I still writhed on his fingers.
I curl onto my side and pull the blanket over my head, but sleep doesn’t come.
Every time I close my eyes, I’m back on the table, his weight on me, his mouth trailing down my throat, and his hand sliding beneath my pants.
I feel myself getting wet again at the memory, and the shame of it burns through me.
The night crawls past. I drift in that weird space between waking and dreaming, never quite settling into either, and slowly the night outside the shelter lightens to early morning.
Dawn. Or close to it, anyway.
My body aches from lying still for so long. My eyes are gritty, and my mouth is dry. The broth Serath brought is still sitting on the table, a skin formed across the top of it. I should have eaten it.
But it’s just one decision in a long line of many I shouldn’t have made.
The entrance flap moves, spilling dim light across the floor. I sit up too fast, and my vision swims. When it clears, Nella is standing just inside, with a bundle of fabric clutched to her chest.
“Alleria. My lady!”
I cross to her and pull her into my arms. She drops the bundle and holds on, her body trembling against mine. Or maybe it’s mine that’s shaking.
“Are you all right?” I pull back to look at her face. “Has anyone hurt you?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I’m mostly left alone. Someone brings me food, but they don’t talk to me.”
I squeeze her hands. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you’re caught up in this.”
She looks down at the bundle she dropped. “I was told to bring these to you.”
I stoop and lift it. It’s a folded bundle of clothing—undergarments, tunic, pants, socks … and boots. Real boots, with proper soles. I don’t remember the last time I had shoes.
“Who sent you here?”
“One of them.” She shrugs one shoulder. “A woman. She’s waiting outside. I don’t know her name.”
I set the bundle on the table and start to undress. Nella moves to help me. It’s familiar, this ritual. She’s dressed me a thousand times. But her hands are trembling and mine aren’t steady either.
The new clothes are heavier than what I’ve been wearing.
The tunic is slightly too big, but the fabric is soft and thick.
The pants fit well. And the boots … when I slide my feet into them, something loosens in my chest. Such a small thing, having shoes.
But I immediately feel so much less vulnerable.
“My lady.” Nella’s voice is barely a whisper. “What is going to happen to us?”
“I don’t know.” I reach for her hand again. “I don’t know anything.”
The entrance flap moves, and we both turn to find Vel standing in the opening.
Her lip curls when she sees us—the handmaiden and the princess, clutching each other. There’s contempt in her eyes, and satisfaction.
“How touching.” She jerks her chin toward the outside. “Now say goodbye. You,” she points at Nella, “back to your shelter.” She smiles at me, and there’s nothing pleasant about it. “The Eldráfn wants you.” She steps back outside, leaving us alone.
Nella’s grip tightens on my fingers. “Alleria—”
“It’ll be all right.” The words come automatically. I’ve said them to myself so many times now, they’ve lost all meaning. “Stay here. Stay alive. Don’t do anything to draw attention to yourself.”
I pull her into one last embrace, and she holds on tight, while I stroke her hair until she finally pulls away.
Then I walk toward the entrance, my fingers lifting to touch the collar nervously.
But it doesn’t heat up, and nothing stops me from walking through the gap, which means Cairn must have dropped the ward keeping me inside.
Vel is waiting a few paces away, and as soon as she sees me, she turns and leads me through the camp without speaking, her pace brisk and her back straight, until we reach the edge of the hollow.
Therin looks up as we approach, his eyes moving over me. His mouth curves into a half-smile which makes heat flood my face.
He knows. He saw. Every time he looks at me, he’s going to remember what he walked in on—my tunic hanging open, my back arched off the table, Cairn’s hand between my legs.
I look away.
And then I feel him.
It’s not something I can explain beyond there’s a weight to the air, a presence that presses against my awareness. I turn before I hear his footsteps, and there he is.
He walks out of the trees with the easy grace of a predator. He’s dressed in dark leather, fitted close to his body, and his golden eyes sweep over the clearing before landing on me.
For a moment, neither of us moves.
Images flash through my mind. His mouth on my breast. His fingers between my thighs. The look on his face when Therin interrupted—that raw, unguarded hunger.
I break first, my eyes dropping to the ground.
I always break first.
He walks past without speaking. Therin falls in beside him, and Vel moves to his other side. Three Fae, standing in a loose triangle.
Then Cairn lifts his hand and the air before him shimmers.
I take a step back as something takes shape in the space in front of him. Legs first, long and slender, ending in hooves that gleam in the early morning light. Then the body—the arch of a neck, the proud lift of a head.
But it isn’t a horse.
The shape is close enough to fool the eye for half a second, but everything else is wrong. It’s too tall, too still. Its coat ripples between solid and transparent. Its fur is pale. And its eyes …
The eyes appear ancient, silver-white and fathomless, and are fixed on me with an intelligence that no horse has. This creature sees me. It knows me. And it has already decided what I’m worth.
I want to run. Every instinct I possess is screaming at me to turn and flee into the trees, and get as far from this thing as possible. But my legs won’t move. I can only stand there while it watches me out of those terrible, patient eyes.
Another mount takes form in front of Therin. This one is darker, the black of a moonless night. And Vel’s is different again, the deep red of old blood.
Three mounts. Three riders.
A hysterical laugh bubbles up my throat, and I clamp my lips together, swallowing it down.
There are three members of the Wild Hunt right in front of me.
Cairn swings into his saddle in one fluid motion. His mount doesn’t react, its silver eyes still fixed on me.
“Come.”
The word cuts through my paralysis. Cairn is looking at me, with one hand extended.