Chapter 12
Cillian
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ I ask her, even though I know, I just don’t understand how she does. She wasn’t conscious when we talked about it earlier.
‘You told me I might find sanctuary but the voices. They said it’s in the Underworld and I don’t know how to go through a thin place.’ Tears slide down her cheeks as I stride towards her, taking her in my arms.
She’s right, there are thin places in these woods, and with help, she could pass through to the Underworld.
Even if I took her through now, there’s no guarantee she’d reach the sanctuary, and if I hunt her in the Underworld there are so many more dangers to be faced.
The Wild Hunt might have to wait until dawn to chase her, but there are other creatures in these woods who are not bound by any such magic.
There’s no guarantee she would even find the sanctuary.
I can give her the words that will allow her entrance but will they allow a human to enter?
It’s not something I have ever heard of.
We simply deal with the humans who cross us, decisively, and move on.
None that I’ve hunted have made it to dawn.
A swift death at my hands may still be her best hope for tonight.
Although, it’s clear there’s something strange going on here.
Something that I can’t see. Which means that if there’s magic, it’s been carefully crafted.
For her to be seeing and hearing things that I can’t – that takes power that no one at The Unseelie Court at present holds.
But where else can it come from? The Seelie Court has lain abandoned for over a century.
There is, however, a simple alternative.
‘You were drugged,’ I assure her, although I’m not convinced that’s all that’s going on here. ‘You’re confused.’
She shakes her head. ‘No, I heard them, voices in the mist. You’re supposed to hunt me down.
Although no one seems to know what will happen if I get away from you.
If I do, will I end up in the Underworld?
Or is it just for criminals like you?’ She stops, frowning, and then her lips part in some kind of realisation.
‘Oh, that Underworld. Yeah, I … I guess it’s just the drugs. ’
I hate that she looks so confused, so defeated.
And her words should sting, but they’re true.
In the Underworld of the Kinfolk, however, I’m not a criminal – quite the opposite, in fact – although the longer I have to enforce Vincenzo’s bad decisions, the more I feel my position is being tainted and abused.
‘What else did the voices say?’
She stares up at me, a crease between her eyebrows. ‘They said you couldn’t rule if you— If you’re with me. It doesn’t matter, none of it made any sense.’
That is dangerously specific, too specific to be drug-addled imaginings. She can’t possibly know anything about my place at The Unseelie Court. Rose would never have told her. And yet, it is that very thing that is keeping us apart, that which has forced my engagement to Vittoria.
I pin her in place with my body. She tries to escape my embrace, a blush spreading across her cheeks as she feels my erection pressing against her thigh, but I’m not letting her go until I understand what’s happening.
The way she’s trembling calls to the Huntsman inside me, the Kinfolk side of my nature that I have always kept controlled and hidden when I’ve seen her in the human world. None of this helped by Vittoria pre-empting my kill earlier and our interrupted time in the club.
The voices weren’t wrong. I did bring her here to hunt, and the way she’s pulling away from me only makes those instincts come to the fore.
I want her to run. But I’m still not sure that when I catch her, I’m going to be able to kill her.
I have wanted her for so long and keeping away from her has only made me want her more.
We have what’s left of the night, after all.
What would be the harm in taking my time.
Filling her remaining time with pleasure, rather than an adrenalin-fuelled chase?
No, there’s a line to be drawn there. There is no way I could do that and then kill her, but neither can I leave her to the tender mercies of the Wild Hunt.
Not to mention that it takes away her chance of reaching sanctuary.
I slide a hand up her arm and capture her throat.
Her pulse hammers under my fingers and her breath catches as I tighten my grip.
This is when she should be screaming for help, telling me no, kicking me in the balls and running.
But she doesn’t. And even if she did, she’d be playing right into my darkest fantasies.
Her eyes stay fixed on mine, widening with fear, but also with desire. I run my other hand down her body, round the curve of her arse so she can’t help but feel how much I want her.
‘Will you let me live if I let you…’ Her body trembles as she puts one arm around my neck and pulls my face down to hers, kissing me with a lot more finesse than she did that very first night we met.
Her lips are chilled, but when I force them to part for me, her mouth is warm and wet and willing.
I kiss her in the exact way I always want to, slow and deep, my tongue tasting her, the desperation in my senses clouding my judgement. I want her. I need to have her.
She whimpers as I move the hand on her arse down over her hip and catch the hem of her dress, pulling it up so that I can slip my fingers inside her underwear.
I tear my mouth away from hers, kissing her urgently down the side of her neck, across her throat, my teeth sinking into the curve of her shoulder.
She tilts her head back, gasping, and I run my lips up her throat, nipping along the line of her jaw.
Her hand slides around my waist, pauses for a moment, then she pushes it between our bodies, spreading her fingers over my cock, which hardens even further under her touch.
I want to drag her to the ground, strip the ruined, bloody dress off her body and thrust inside her.
And then do that over and over again until she’s shattered around me and I’ve filled her with my cum, claiming her in the most primitive way a man can claim a woman.
But then I’ll still need to kill her.
She pulls her lips away from mine, her breathing shallow and uneven.
Her lips are parted, but she closes them slowly, her tongue running along them as she does.
I watch as her eyes flicker open, filled with lust, and she stares at me, and I realise it’s not fair for me to think of her as pure.
I’ve simply never given her the chance to learn, explore her own sexuality with someone her own age, someone who might have loved her and given her all the normal things I can’t.
‘Please, Cillian, please don’t kill me. I’ll not breathe a word to anyone. Ever. I’ll just disappear from your lives. You’ll never see me again. Please, you can trust me.’ She falls to her knees, clasping her hands in front of her.
‘That’s not possible, Niamh.’ I look down at her thinking of what I would much rather be doing with her there.
‘I promise you can trust me. Cillian!’
But I shake my head. The guilt would get the better of her, eventually. ‘You’re too good a person. Too honest. You’d go to the police. Want closure. Be overcome with guilt.’
‘No, the things they were going to do to me… They deserved … he deserved to die, so that he wouldn’t do it to anyone else.’ She wrings her hands for a moment, then the breath huffs out of her and she sinks back onto her heels, staring at me. ‘Cillian?’
I force myself to take a step back and then another.
There’s fear in those midnight-blue eyes, but also something else.
Curiosity. I shake my head. What the fuck am I thinking?
Is she only doing this, only allowing this because she’s offering herself up to me in exchange for her life?
And while I don’t want to kill her, the alternatives, don’t bear thinking about.
At least I won’t let her suffer. Although in bringing her here and prolonging this, I’ve already made her suffer more than I should have.
Initially, I was stalling for time, hoping I would find another way.
When I drove out here with her in the boot of my car, it felt like something was drawing me to these woods, and I hoped against hope that a solution would present itself.
But a hunt has been called and a hunt, with everything that entails, will happen.
‘What will you say to Rose?’
I shake my head slowly. ‘Rose won’t remember a thing, she’ll think you’ve just disappeared.’
She swallows and I can almost see her mind whirring, trying to find something else to bargain with.
‘She won’t believe that. She knows me well enough to know I wouldn’t just leave.’
‘Rose will understand that you’ve left to protect her and our family.’ I don’t add that this is something Rose already knows all too well.
Her face falls, uncertainty causing her to frown.
‘Cillian,’ she whispers. ‘I … I’ll do anything.’
Now that, I almost believe, although when she flicks the torn strap of her dress over her shoulder, then pulls the other one slowly down her bare arm, I realise I’ve misinterpreted her words.
She pauses, and swallows before taking hold of the top of the barely-there dress and starts to pull it down over her breasts.
I already know she’s not wearing a bra from when I cleaned her up, but the skin beneath her dress is smeared with the blood where it has soaked through.
I should tell her to stop, let her go. But I don’t want to.