Chapter 18 #2
I glanced aside in surprise when Ciaran met them with rope in his hands. He used it to tie Arren to the chair that Rian had vacated as soon as Rian had shoved my shaking cousin down onto it.
“You cannot do—” Arren attempted to protest again, but Rian gripped a fistful of his long red hair and yanked his head back at a painful angle.
“You will not speak again unless it is to answer my questions. Venom and spite will do you no good with me. Better to give me what I want,” Rian warned him.
“Everyone in the Rowan Wood knows where she is! And they will come for her soon,” Arren growled.
“What progress has my father made on the harness?”
I had blurted the question before I could help myself and moved over to stand next to Rian over Arren.
The other dryad turned his head with a grimace as he pulled against Rian’s grip in his hair and spat toward me, but luckily he missed.
“Kinslayer! I do not answer to filthy little—”
Ciaran drew a blade behind Arren and grabbed one of my cousin’s furred ears, pressing the carving knife against the base of the appendage to interrupt the dryad.
“If you value your vanity then you will answer her,” growled the other rider.
Arren sputtered, looking furious as his eyes rolled like he was looking for a way out of his circumstances.
“Hurry now. My patience is waning,” Rian chirped.
“It is complete,” Arren admitted finally, causing dread to sink like a stone into my stomach. “Of course, he must test it on the one for whom it was made, but I have every confidence in his success.”
“And who else can use it?” I asked him.
Arren hissed. He was evidently even more displeased by my questioning then he was by the violence of the two male riders, but I didn’t care.
“Only him,” Arren grunted when Ciaran pressed his blade tighter against his ear. “He has… pacified Laisren with promises to bind you to him when you are returned. Of course, Laisren is not fool enough to believe that now that An Díothú Mór has been enacted.”
“Where is the harness?” I snarled in a disgusted fury. Wherever it was, I needed to get it and destroy it!
“Do you really think Brogan is free with such details?” Arren scoffed at me.
“Is there really nothing else of interest you do know, little stag?” Ciaran asked with a vicious edge in his tone. “Perhaps some detail you know we would find useful that we have not thought to ask about?”
“No,” snarled the dryad indignantly.
“Good,” said Ciaran before he cut through Arren’s ear with one rough slice. I was startled when my face and Rian’s were suddenly splattered with Arren’s green blood that smelled of jasmine and vanilla. “Then we can address the crimes you committed against Aodhan and Ornella,” Ciaran declared.
The dryad had jerked, but the cut was so clean that the pain was delayed. It was not until Ciaran dropped the ear into his lap that Arren started to scream.
By the time we were done with both of my cousins, it was becoming difficult to heal them so that the fun was not cut too short. I had borne witness to lots of torture and been subjected to it even more often, but I was rather morbidly impressed with the creativity of the aes sídhe males.
It was not unexpected to me when Ciaran unveiled a vicious savagery, but I was a little surprised that Darragh was mostly content just to watch.
And despite the threats that he had uttered after I killed Aodhan, I was genuinely shocked by the sadistic side that Rian unveiled.
I initially assumed that he’d just been really good at controlling and concealing it from me.
But as our time with my cousins wore on, it became clear to me that his grievances with them were actually very personal.
“If you want to act like a female… then I shall treat you like one.”
The odd words that Rian had snarled into Finn’s ear right before he cut off his cock had made everything crystal clear for me.
Shivers of horror rolled through me. They turned into a trembling rage when Arren screamed in his brother’s defense that they had only been doing as they were commanded.
My father had ordered Aodhan to be punished for his “deviant” curiosities.
And then I was filled with the most bitter of regrets that my brother was not there to see his abusers finally brought to justice.
And Rian certainly made them atone.
Every hint of playfulness he had demonstrated before we began had disappeared behind a wall of wrath that was so palpable I could taste his anguish and fury in the air.
The two males were unrecognizable by the time his thirst for vengeance on behalf of his lover was sated, and he finally stopped me from healing them.
We stood in silence, all of us breathing heavily from the exertion of hours of vigorous torture, and waited until both of their wheezing breaths finally stilled.
Rian released a shaky exhale, and the bloody knife fell into the dirt from his hand.
Ciaran walked around me to try and place a consoling hand on his shoulder, but Rian shook his head and moved back.
He lifted a shaking hand between them to show Ciaran the swaths of shadows that were weeping from his pores and swirling up his arms.
I knew his magic was prone to escaping his control if he became too emotional, and it was terribly dangerous whenever it did. But he did not seem ready to detonate, and Ciaran seemed more concerned about the welfare of his brother rather than our safety with him, so I relaxed.
After Rian composed himself, Ciaran went to the door to call in the guards. “Have a scout take their bodies to the edge of the Rowan Wood in Sumarra,” he directed.
It was a bloody and messy job to collect all the pieces of the dryads that had been carved away, but the guards were happy to assist. They wrapped what remained of my cousins in a tarp and bore it out of the yurt.
I had almost forgotten Nuala was present until she rose from where she’d been sitting at the table bearing witness to the entire sordid affair.
I stared, curious how she would feel about what she had seen, but she looked shockingly unperturbed.
She was so wholly focused on Rian that she walked right through the huge puddle of gore around the two empty chairs to get to him.
She did not seem to care that her satin slippers and the hem of her dress had been hideously stained by blood and shit and piss.
“Do not touch him!” Ciaran attempted to warn her.
But Nuala ignored him, and Rian did not object to her touch the way he had to Ciaran’s. I still expected her to scream in pain as her mortal hands entwined with his and came into contact with those shadows. The same ones that had just been stripping dryad flesh from bone.
But Nuala was utterly unaffected. Not even as those vicious tendrils curled up her forearms to her shoulders and brushed her cheeks and chin as if… drawn to her.
She pressed against the Autumn Prince, unbothered by the fact that his tunic was soaked in gore and stained the front of her dress. Moreover, her proximity to him seemed to calm Rian, and his shadows eventually receded.
“H-how…” Ciaran stuttered, looking dumbfounded for the first time since I met him.
“I do not know,” Rian admitted, his voice weary as he stared down at where their fingers interlaced.
“Commander,” called a voice from outside the yurt.
“Enter,” Rian called back, grudgingly removing his attention from the Seer in front of him.
A tiefling male with a beautiful shade of taupe skin and sapphire eyes entered.
His horns were painted gold like many of the tieflings in the camp, and his dark curls were artfully mussed.
He wore a breastplate bearing the circular emblem with wings and a sword, which I knew now was a sigil for Rian’s army.
And behind him came a stunning elfin-like fey with rich ochre skin and dark green eyes that were lined in charcoal.
Her dense coils of red hair formed a halo around her head and exposed her arched ears that were longer and more pointed than those of the aes sídhe.
She had enormous gold hoops hanging from the lobes and many studded and cuffed piercings.
She was dressed in a cream mesh wrap that barely covered her breasts as it crossed over her chest and wound around her neck, leaving her toned midriff exposed.
Below the belt that was holding her dress together, the material fell open on her hips and slender thighs.
She had many elaborate tattoos and gold body jewelry around both of her long legs.
I was immediately jealous. I wanted a dress like that! Although I supposed it was impractical for war.
“Thank you, Iraj,” Rian said to the tiefling who bowed and stepped aside so the female could address Rian next. “Geera,” Rian acknowledged her as she eyed his bloody tunic and the gore-soaked ground.
“I missed the fun,” she observed with a smirk.
“I am afraid you did,” Rian responded, his mask easily sliding back into place to cover the brief glimpse of pain and grieving he had displayed. “Geera is our emissary to Mionlach,” he added for me and Nuala’s benefits.
“I am pleased to find you alive, Rian. There were… whispers in Mionlach,” Geera admitted seriously.
Rian’s smile slipped a little. It was not the frightening expression he had worn whilst carving up the two dryads, but there was something equally deadly about it.
“Who whispers?”
“Yuren and Osif mostly. They insisted I come to you. They want an audience immediately,” she stressed.
“Well, they should know better than—” Rian began, but he cut himself off and glanced down at Nuala.
Rian had moved her just behind his right shoulder to shield her from the newcomers, and the witch had been quietly observing the gorgeous female. But she must have squeezed the hand Rian had tucked behind his back for her to hold onto, and now she had all of his attention.
I gasped when her head tilted back, her face slackening so it was eerily expressionless. Her mismatched eyes both went an unsettling milky white and a reddish-brown rune appeared on her forehead.
Rian immediately turned, putting his back to Geera to block her from Nuala. But she had already seen, and her face paled as she shifted back a step.
“Nuala?” Rian murmured as his bloodstained hands slid tenderly around her jaw to cup her face.
“A trick,” Nuala breathed, her white eyes unblinking as she seemed to stare right through him.
“I do not trick him!” Geera gasped and shifted back again with a nervous glance at Ciaran who was eying her with a hand resting on his sword.
“Not her… Riordan has many allies now in Mionlach. He sent them word of your battle… He wants to know if you survived. He means for them to confirm it for him with their own eyes,” Nuala warned in an airy whisper.
“Oh, sweet Elements,” breathed Iraj, blue eyes wide as they bounced from Rian to Ciaran. “S-she is a witch!”
“Not a word to anyone,” Ciaran growled at him sternly enough that Iraj immediately nodded with a gulp.
Geera was watching Rian’s back with an expression of immense trepidation.
“She is an interesting pet, Rian. Considering you have named her kind among our enemies,” noted the emissary, her tone asking the question her words would not.
“Nuala is not a pet,” Rian growled over his shoulder before returning his full attention to the witch. His thumb gave her pale cheek a gentle caress, which seemed to wake her from her trance.
Nuala blinked as her face began to regain animation, and her eyes returned to their natural colours. Her gaze refocused on Rian who raised his brows at her as if to ask if she was alright, and she smiled at him reassuringly.
I saw Ciaran shifting out of the corner of my eye and knew he was probably wondering the same things I was. Like how it was that a little witch already seemed to have so much sway over the Autumn Prince.
Nuala pulled Rian’s hands down from her cheeks and stepped around him to face Geera. There was nothing but surety and confidence in the young witch as she prepared to address the beautiful fey.
“Do not inform them that you saw Rian. If they ask, you spoke with Ciaran,” Nuala instructed the female.
The emissary looked affronted by the order and looked at Rian for his reaction, but he merely nodded.
“Do exactly as she says. Tell them the Wild Hunt will accept their invitation and join them for tomorrow night,” Rian directed her.
Geera nodded and bowed as she began to back toward the door again. But then her green eyes shifted to Nuala one last time with a look that seemed unkind before she raised her head to address Rian again with a smirk.
“Shall I arrange your usual entertainment?” she asked with an implication in her voice that made Ciaran grin.
“Do everything the way you usually would for one of our visits to avoid any suspicion,” Rian confirmed.
Geera gave a self-satisfied smile before bowing again and leaving the yurt with Iraj on her heels.
“Well,” Ciaran crooned once we were all alone again. “I’ll be looking forward to that tomorrow.”
“We are not going for the orgy. We are going to sniff out the traitors,” Rian insisted with feigned seriousness.
“I will be staying here either way,” Darragh muttered with a slow and dramatic roll of his shimmering eyes.
“You heard Rian! There will be no real fun to be had, which means that this is your chance to attend the party without breaking your vows,” Ciaran tried to reason.
“All the same,” Darragh maintained gruffly.
“Wait, I am sorry,” I interrupted with my hand raised. “Did you just say we are going to an orgy tomorrow?”
I looked at Rian, but his attention had drifted to Nuala who was still staring at the tent door. When she noticed his attention, she gave him an unenthusiastic smile.
“You should begin preparing your army tonight, Rian,” she advised him before she turned away.