Chapter 10
Ash’s first instinct was to grab Callie and pull her close.
Though time ran differently between realms, he knew it had been six months in the human world that she’d been on her own—and it seemed to drag even longer while he was in Faerie while he was forcefully separated from her.
Now that he was with her again, it… it pained him to have her put any space between them now that she’d relented and let him back into her home.
And if there was one thing a powerful fae loathed, it was pain.
He wanted her. He wanted to hold her, to comfort her, to draw strength from her touch. The bathroom wasn’t warded. Weakened as he was, he could still break in there if he had to. But he wouldn’t. If Callie needed a few moments alone to process everything, Ash would give them to her.
He’d give her the world if she asked for it.
For the moment, he settled on taking care of the dead body instead.
Ash knew Callie. Knew that she was too soft, too young, too good to understand that death was sometimes unavoidable.
With his tie to the Fae Queen, the pet was already as good as dead from the moment he first fell for Melisandre’s charm.
Ash had seen it happen countless times over the years.
She would find a pet, trick them into faerie food so that they had to rely on her, then grow bored.
Some of her humans ended up in her garden, some were gifted to her nobles, and many starved to death when she stopped feeding them.
It was a well-known fae tactic. Give a human faerie food—specifically its charmed fruit—and they could eat nothing but that.
If it didn’t carry the touch of Faerie on it, the food turned to ash in their mouths.
They couldn’t swallow, and most stopped trying.
The most common way a slave to the fruit perished was starvation long after their fae master or mistress simply forgot about them.
The human was dead from the moment he trusted Melisandre’s glamour, believing that the lovely Fae Queen was benevolent and innocent rather than cunning and cruel. He had a reprieve while she kept him frozen a statue in her garden, but his fate was sealed once she sent him into the Iron.
Food would run out. He would fail and she would have him executed. Or, as unlikely as it might’ve seemed, Callie could have figured out the truth.
She hadn’t—but Ash had.
He was a dead man walking all along, but the second Ash saw the betrayal flash across his mate’s face to realize she’d been tricked, nothing could have stopped him from running his sword through the queen’s touched human.
He’d seen that look once before. When he rejected Callie for her own sake, doing the same thing that the human had done: following Melisandre’s orders. He vowed that, if he found his way back to Callie, he’d never stand by and watch her face fall like that again.
And he didn’t.
The human was dead. Melisandre would figure that out sooner than later, but they had some time.
Not much. It was dark out now, the time of shadows, so the queen—clinging to her facade that she was a Light Fae—wouldn’t react until at least morning in the Iron.
Still, they had to be far away from this place by then.
He couldn’t leave the body behind when they fled. Ash had no idea how long this mortal had been controlled by his queen. Years? Decades? Longer? He didn’t have Mitch’s face any longer, but there would still be questions if the human authorities discovered a corpse in Callie’s home.
When Ash was in full control of his powers, disposing of the touched human’s remains would be simple enough.
With a palm full of faerie fire, he could conjure a large pocket that connected him to the other side of the veil.
The most he could call to him was a pinch that opened a fist-sized gap.
Enough for him to draw his sword out of, but not to vanish a human.
His sun-colored gaze darted to the closed bathroom door. So long as Callie was safe behind there, he was willing to strike a deal.
Reaching into his pocket, Ash felt the familiar curve of the small pebble, squeezing it before tucking it deeper. His request wasn’t worth the life debt, not yet, but it was reassuring nonetheless that he still held control over Nine’s geas.
One day, he would probably need it. Until then, he would rely on what he had to work with, and if there was one thing he’d learned during his days at the Shadow Academy, it was just how hungry those shadows were.
Keeping his voice low, careful not to disturb his grieving mate, Ash called out, “Ninetroir. I command you to appear.”
If it was during the sunlight, Ash would only be able to summon the Dark Fae if he was standing near a patch of enchanted shadow so black, it was like a piece of night seeping out in the day.
Luckily, it was already night, and he knew in an instant that Nine was curious enough to answer his command.
There were only two of Callie’s warding packets left in the apartment; she’d removed most of them when Ash came to stay with her. It was a slight warning to a faerie creature rather than a barrier, and it didn’t deter Nine from slowly materializing right next to him.
He was frowning, black curls wafting in the breeze of his shadows as they carried him from Faerie to the Iron. Already so pale, Ash couldn’t tell if the wards affected the Dark Fae, though the way his nose wrinkled made him think it did.
And then in the harsh voice so undeniably Nine, he said, “It reeks of humans and death in here, Aislinn. Where in Oberon’s name have you brought me?”
Ash wasn’t surprised to hear Nine invoke the missing Summer King’s name. He knew that Nine had no love lost for Melisandre, though he would’ve thought Nine would call on Morrigan instead. He was a Dark Fae, after all, and she was the lost Winter Queen.
Hmm…
With a rough shake that had his long, tawny hair spilling over one shoulder, he pushed those thoughts aside. What did it matter who Nine gave his loyalty to? It obviously wasn’t Melisandre, and that was the only reason why Ash lowered himself enough to summon Nine with his true name.
“The human realm.”
“I had hoped I was mistaken, but I wasn’t. The iron is especially strong here.”
“It’s not just the iron,” Ash confessed. “My mate is resourceful. She has iron mixed with salt and herbs warding her home.”
“Your mate. The human female?”
Ash nodded.
Nine’s eyes were silver, the color and sheen of a polished mirror, and they brightened notably when he realized exactly where in the Iron he was. “Where is she? I want to meet the human who was worth a soldier of the Court betraying his queen.”
He supposed he deserved that jab. After all, that was exactly what Ash had done. He’d do it again, too, given the chance. Duty to his mate, to his ffrindau, was the only thing that trumped his duty to the Fae Queen. One day when Nine found his, he’d understand.
“Occupied,” he said, his clipped tone warning Nine to drop it. If he had his way, none of his kind would ever meet his mate again. “That’s not why I summoned you.”
With a slight nod, Nine conceded that point. “So why did you?”
The fae guarded their names fiercely. Countless souls knew that Ash’s true name was Aislinn, but unless he gave that name to them, they couldn’t use it against him.
After Ash saved Nine, Nine tried to trade his name for the pebble.
Tricky as ever, Ash took the name as a gift rather than a bargain, retaining his hold on Nine’s life debt.
Just because he could summon Nine, though, that didn’t mean that he would. This was the first time that he had, which proved that while the Dark Fae had been forced to visit the Iron, he still had all of the control in this situation.
“You scented death. You’re right.” With a wave of his hand, Ash drew Nine’s attention toward the fallen human, sprawled out and bleeding on Callie’s kitchen floor. “You’re right.”
Striding silently, his shadowy cloak traveling behind him, he moved past Ash. A slight twitch of his perfect features as he spied the human before he admitted, “I’ve seen him before.”
“He was one of Melisandre’s humans.”
Nine scoffed. “Humans.”
Ash chose to ignore that. Like most of his kind—like Ash, once upon a time—Nine’s disdain for humans was legendary.
He thought of them as little more than goblins, only far more breakable.
He couldn’t understand why one of the fae would want anything to do with the Iron.
Touching a human? Mating a human? He couldn’t hide how much he loathed them, but that was just fine.
Their shared hatred of Melisandre was enough for Ash to look past it.
“I had to kill him. She sent him after mine.” He waited for a moment that seemed like an eternity before he admitted, “And my child.”
His gaze slid over to Ash. “Ah. So the rumors are true.”
Ash didn’t answer. His silence was enough for Nine.
“Very well. Still, that doesn’t answer my question, Aislinn. Why have you called me?”
The Dark Fae knew. Even if he hadn’t sensed death as he was summoned to the Iron, once he spied the human sprawled out on Callie’s floor, Nine would’ve known why Ash used his true name the way he had.
Of course, he wouldn’t admit that. Just like he would never offer any help. It wasn’t how the fae did things, and even if Ash lost most of his tie to Faerie since he chose to stay in the Iron with his human mate, he was still fae.
“To propose a deal.”
Cocking his head slightly, Nine’s silver eyes gleamed. “I’m listening.”
“Take the human.”
“Why?”
Normally, Ash would never answer to another fae. To do so was acknowledging that they had a right to question you, and Nine was both a younger fae and Unseelie. In Faerie, Ash was also much higher in the ranks than Nine was. Ash owed him nothing.
Normally.
But things weren’t normal. They hadn’t been since Melisandre posted him along the veil in an act of petty revenge and Ash stumbled upon a white-haired beauty with the sight.
So, swallowing his pride, he explained to Nine just what was asking for.