Chapter 32
REDVYR
After the meal, Walgar and I had turned our chairs to face the celebration while his wife had gone to socialize with the other wives. Behrvyne had also joined us. The other clan lords had kept to the table, drinking and carrying on about their hunting exploits and trying to impress one another.
It was good to see our clans enjoying the feast, but my mind was elsewhere.
On Jessamine. It had taken everything in me not to follow her back to our tent, to make sure she was alright.
While those rude fuckers at the table had made me want to crack a few jaws, she had smiled like it was nothing.
Unbothered. Or so it seemed. I wanted to be certain, wanted to hold her close and assure her she was meant to be by my side no matter what others said.
I’d expected some unwelcome comments, but I hadn’t been prepared for how it would burn me up inside.
“Do you believe the golems are gone for good?” asked Behrvyne.
This was why I hadn’t left the feast so soon. I knew he and Walgar, the most insightful clan lords, would want more information. And they deserved it.
“No,” I answered honestly. “One of them got away.”
I wasn’t going to recount the horror of that fucking grimlock Selestos opening up a chasm of water in the earth with a word in Godjin and vanishing into the watery pit with Jessamine and the babe.
“And I believe,” I continued, “that his master, whoever he is, will make more of his grimlock minions.”
“Who is this master?” asked Walgar, violence in his voice.
“We don’t know. The grimlock who got away called him a god.”
“Fucking hells.” Behrvyne drank a gulp of ale. “If a god has sent these creatures to kill us then we will all die.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, beastling.”
He growled at me, for the insult. But he was talking like a child.
“If our enemy was a god, then we wouldn’t have been able to kill his minions. Gods have divine familiars and helpers. I can promise you these creatures were made of flesh and blood. Even if their blood was black.”
“Black,” muttered Walgar. “Then black magick is at play.”
“Aye,” I agreed. “I believe this master of golems lives deep in the Solgavia Mountains.” At Mount Gudrun, was what the naiad sisters had said. But I wouldn’t share all of my information, lest Behrvyne decided to take a war party and head up there himself.
“Shadow fae territory,” said Behryvne. “What are they doing about it?”
“They’re hunting them just as we are. I’ve been in contact with them.”
“And does their king know they’ve got a monster living in their midst, using black magick to kill our innocents?” growled Walgar.
“Prince Torvyn knows. I’ve spoken to him myself.”
Walgar grunted with satisfaction. “They’d better hunt faster.”
“What we need to worry about right now is protecting our own,” I told them both.
“I’ve sent word using our sprite, Hallizel, that the prince and his priests need to come to me as soon as possible.
Hallizel left a message with the wife of their chief priest, Vallon.
Bezaliel’s mate is her sister. I can promise you they will come as soon as they get the message. ”
“Good.” Behrvyne emptied his ale down his throat. “If you need warriors to go after more of them, let me know.”
We were quiet for a while, watching our people dance and make merry.
There was laughter and dancing, some of the couples venturing off to their tents.
Again, I longed to return to my tent and crawl into the furs with Jessamine.
But my duty to my clan came first tonight, so I remained.
There was more that I felt compelled to tell.
“Tell your people to be careful of other fae creatures as well.”
Walgar turned to look at me. “What do you mean?”
“Wolf brought Jessamine to me at my hunting camp near Vanglosa. She was freezing to death in the woods.”
“Why was she there?” asked Behrvyne, interjecting before I could explain the point of the story.
“She was running from her own kind. Moon fae males, sent by the man her father betrothed her to, were hunting her.”
Both Behrvyne and Walgar rumbled growls. While many thought beast fae were the most monstrous of the dark fae, we adhered to strict rules about protecting our females. No matter what crime she might have committed, we would never treat them ill or hunt them down like dogs.
“She had done nothing wrong,” I informed them.
“Except to go against her father’s wishes of marrying a bastard who wanted to use her for her magick.
” I turned to face them. “That’s all beside the point.
I tell you this only to explain how I came to travel alone with her through the woods back to Vanglosa.
I’d traveled this same path countless times over the years and stayed in a cave I was familiar with.
Jessamine stepped away to relieve herself and a dryad stag attacked her. ”
“What did she do to him?”
“Nothing. He was infected somehow. When we encountered the grimlocks, I smelled the same foulness on them as I did the dryad. This sorcerer who created the golems has the power to infect other fae creatures. So be forewarned.”
We were silent again for some time. Then Behrvyne said something unexpected.
“Word has it that your skald fae female used her magick and saved the children from the golems.”
Grinning, I took a sip of ale. “She did. Without her, they’d all be dead by now.”
“Hmm. She is different than what I expected of a light fae royal,” said Walgar.
“In what way?”
“She is…genuine, but also seems fierce in a way.”
“She is both,” I agreed proudly. “And more.”
“She also seems to be smitten with your ugly face,” said Behrvyne.
I grinned. “She is.”
“More than his face,” added Walgar suggestively.
Growling, I shot them both a warning glare which made them laugh.
“Walgar!” shouted one of the other clan lords from the table behind us. “Come tell us about that barga you killed last summer.”
“I suppose we should rejoin the others and be sociable.” Behrvyne stood with his goblet. “I’m out of ale anyway.”
The three of us sighed almost in unison as we rejoined the table, regaling stories we’d told more than once before. It was difficult to force myself to stay, but I was glad I did.
There were many smiling faces by the night’s end.
And when one of the chief’s mates asked about the wraith fae boy and the two shadow fae children at the feast, Behrvyne explained before I could that they had also been captured with Bes and Saralyn by the golems. He added that it was Jessamine who had saved them.
When many turned surprising looks at me before the conversation changed, I subtly raised my cup to Behrvyne.
When the fires finally began to burn down and nearly all had gone to bed, I said goodnight, Behrvyne and I walking away from those who still lingered. A thin line of gold on the eastern horizon lightened the early morning sky.
“It ended better than it started,” I told him as we weaved between tents and onto the path near the rockface. “Though I’d hoped to have Jessamine at my side for longer.”
“They’ll come around.”
“I’m surprised you so easily welcomed her,” I admitted.
“That’s the beauty of being a young chief. I don’t carry the old ideas around in my head like the rest of you.”
I chuckled. “Are you calling me old?”
“You’re lucky you already discovered Jessamine is your mate, old man, or I’d fight you for her.” He shot a teasing smile at me, but it made me growl all the same.
Then the sound of a wolf whimpering caught my attention. A second later, Wolf bounded toward us.
“What’s the matter, boy?”
He whined and yipped, stomping his forelegs in front of me before hurrying back the way he’d come. Behrvyne and I glanced at each other then ran after him, halting suddenly when we saw Mishka still as stone on the ground in a small niche of the rockface.
Falling to my knees beside her, I felt for a pulse and put my palm in front of her nose. “She’s alive.”
“What happened?” Behrvyne studied her, as did I, searching for injury.
“No fucking idea.”
Then he leaned across and behind me, snatching something off the ground. A silver dart with blue feathers. He smelled it, his expression hardening as I took it from him.
The scent was both unfamiliar and familiar. It was of a foreign fae who didn’t belong here. The dart was made of a metal the light fae used.
“Why would they come here and poison Mishka?” Behrvyne asked.
My gut clenched. I stood and ran to my tent, because I knew why they’d come here, why they’d silence any wolf nearby.
“Jessamine!” I called as I reached our tent, flinging the flap open. My entire soul left my body.
The fire pit was cold, our furs untouched and the bed empty. A furious roar left my throat before I moved, suddenly at my weaponry, stripping my vest and then buckling my belt with a sword and scabbard at my waist.
“What is it!” Bezaliel was suddenly in my tent, Behrvyne beside him. Then Leifkyn and Dayn appeared right behind them.
“They’ve taken Jessamine.” My voice was more beast than fae.
“Who?”
“Where?”
“That fucker in Mevia.”
I strapped another scabbard across my chest.
“Wait,” said Behrvyne. “You need a plan. You can’t simply stroll into Mevia and expect to get to past all of his guards to find her.”
“Watch me. That fucking bastard took my mate.” I turned, finally fully armed, my claws itching to gouge flesh. “Today, he dies.”