Linton
My Kaitlyn looks even more stunning than I remember her. Sadly, she is no longer in the dress which matches the colours on my wings, but what she is sheathed in makes me want to put my spicket in her instantly. However, the unruly appendage will need to wait.
I have a Faerie Lord to dispose of, and even now he covets my female.
“Tam Lin wants to do something to me in order to get this supposed power from the Night Lands,” Kaitlyn whispers at me. “I think I might have been able to get his Redcaps to leave, but I’m not sure.”
“There are no Redcaps,” I reply, thinking of the pathetic collection I disposed of a short way down the valley. The ones too busy fighting among themselves about “treasure” to notice my presence. “Not anymore, unless he has others.”
“They’ve gone?” she says quietly, peeking over her shoulder at Tam Lin who is presently doing something next to a pile of stones topped with a Kaitlyn sized slab of slate.
“In a manner of speaking. I also brought the Barghest and the Brag. The Wyrm was busy,” I say with a snarl.
“You brought Warden and Reavely?”
“They followed me,” I grumble. “I told them you were mine and there was no reason for them to come to the Night Lands, but they insisted.”
The sound of her voice is music to my ears.
All I want to do is hold her and never let her go. I need her in my arms, but I have the foul Faerie who thinks he can kill me and take my mate to deal with first.
Tam Lin has made the gravest of errors. He thought he could take whatever he wanted. He thought he was better than the monsters of the Yeavering.
He thought he could be king.
He is going to discover how very wrong he is. He will be another Faerie to lose his wings.
Because a Faerie without wings is a dead Faerie, one way or the other.
I growl under my breath. “Be ready, my mate. I will be with you in a second, once I have dealt with the creature who thought he could take you.”
“Linton, wait.” She turns her back on me and splays out a hand. “What is he doing?”
I growl again but look to Tam Lin. A blue light is glowing from the altar.
“He is opening a portal,” I reply. “He shouldn’t be able to do that, even with his magic.”
“It has long been said Tam Lin has strange magic,” Warden says in my ear.
He dances to one side as I swing a blade at him.
“Is this your mate?” Reavely is looking over at Kaitlyn.
“Do not look at my mate,” I growl.
“I cannot believe you got a mate.” Reavely comes up to my other side, also dodging my dagger. “I mean, I was also surprised the Wyrm got a mate, but this goes beyond surprise. You…with a mate.” He shakes his shaggy head.
I ignore him, concentrating on Tam Lin. “What is he going to do with a portal?”
My question is answered as something shrieks out of the light.
“Fuck!” Warden curses. “He’s opening a portal to the Underrealm. That’s why he needs a soul.”
Another thing spirals out of the portal with a bloodcurdling scream.
“But why Kaitlyn?” I snarl. “Why my mate?”
“Because her soul is the purest I’ve ever seen,” Reavely snarls back. His habits as the Reaper’s second have not left him, even as the newly crowned king of the Yeavering. “It would have to be, in order to accept you.”
A third rises into the dark sky.
“Selkies,” Warden growls under his breath. “Tam Lin expects something to die tonight.”
“The only thing which will die is Tam Lin,” I growl. “He doesn’t get to use my mate’s soul for anything. It belongs to her alone.”
“Linton!” Warden hisses as I beat into the sky. “Don’t enter the…”
His words are pulled into nothingness, the final part of the sentence disappearing as I cross the threshold. I feel the pull, strangely familiar, but at the same time I feel a burning sensation on my skin. I shake it off and land next to my Kaitlyn.
Or where she should have been. Instead there is her empty dress and no Kaitlyn.
“The Bluecap joins us!” Tam Lin snarls.
He has Kaitlyn, his arm around her neck as she struggles against him. All his glamour is going and instead he reveals his true form. The form all Faerie have beneath their magic. Twisted, rotting, and foul.
“Give me my mate,” I rasp. “I won’t ask again, and you won’t like the consequences if you do not comply.”
Tam Lin lifts his head from where he’s staring down at the glowing altar, and his eyes are filled with fire.
“You’re too late, Bluecap,” he snarls, reaching out a hand.
“Linton!” Kaitlyn shrieks as she’s pulled by an invisible force into the air and across into his clutches.
I have daggers in both hands as I swoop after her.
Only to slam against something so solid it may as well be a castle wall. It flings me back, not quite outside the circle but close to the biggest stone.
Long Meg.
This circle has stood for eternity, since the Yeavering was just a speck in the darkness. Long Meg and her daughters watched the Night Lands become what they are now. And they’ll watch as Tam Lin tries to pay his tithe to Hell in order to take what he believes is the greatest of powers.
She’s not for the Faerie, Wuldres Thegn. We have given her to you.
The voice reverberates around my head. It is beautiful and compelling, and at the same time, it makes my head want to explode.
Take her and banish him.
Now the voice brings me back. It shows me all I need to be shown. It tells me all I need to know.
No one challenges with the Bluecap. No one hurts my mate. And the Night Lands have no power over me anymore.