Chapter 40 HEART OF THE WILD HUNT
Chapter forty
HEART OF THE WILD HUNT
Ornella
The Sylvan lay in motionless heaps. I was tempted to go over and uncover them just to see what the hell they were hiding under those veils, but I refrained. Something told me that I would regret seeing the true faces of the stars.
So I turned my back on them and walked quickly past Amira to where Sage was sitting with Nuala.
The witch was still unconscious and laid with her head in the crook of his arm.
Rian had beaten me to them and gently picked up his mate to carry her to the portal.
He stopped there and stood waiting for the rest of us with a clear intention to be the last rider to go through to safety.
The sight of him still in his mask and holding Nuala reminded me of how he had carried Aodhan’s body back to the altar. And I felt an immense relief that this time he had been able to prevent his lover from succumbing to their injuries with the use of my magic.
My rage seemed to finally deplete once I had reached Sage again and let him pull me down so he could hug me. All I wanted was to crawl into his lap, but I knew that we needed to get home before I unravelled too completely.
“Can you walk?” Ciaran asked from behind me.
Sage attempted to move his legs under him but quickly winced and shook his head.
I reached for him to offer the last of my magic, but I was too depleted to do much more than ease some of his discomfort.
At least, not without hurting myself even more in the process, and I knew Sage would not want me to do that.
“I am so sorry. I should have reserved some strength to heal you,” I whispered in bitter regret.
“I’ll be alright,” he insisted, his deep voice a soothing caress on my fraying nerves.
Ciaran bent down to hook his arm around my mate and then hitched his shoulder under Sage’s arm.
I scrambled to the other side to help, and we lifted Sage up together.
He was so weak he could barely stay on his feet, which made me seriously reconsider punishing the elves more.
But I managed to breathe through the impulse and kept my focus on getting back through the portal.
I was only vaguely aware of Darragh ushering Amira along behind us, and then Rian brought up the rear with Nuala still unconscious in his arms. I felt him using his magic to kill the second portal tree so the elves could not use it in future.
Then he used my magic to power down our portal in Autumn once we were through it.
There was a brief silence in the mess hall while we all seemed to realize we had done it. We were home.
“Sage!” cried Asha. The Sua seemed to appear from thin air in front of us and threw her arms around her son.
Sage flinched as she slumped against him, forcing Ciaran and I to keep them both upright.
But Sage did not have the heart to tell his aggrieved mother that he was in pain.
And although I would have done it for him, I could sense that he would not have preferred that.
“I am alright,” he tried to reassure her, but his hoarse voice only made her cry harder.
There were tears streaming down my face as I looked away from them and up at Carrick who came to stand in front of me.
He raised both hands slowly as if to ensure that I would not object as he removed my helmet for me.
His eyes filled with sorrow as he took in my tears before he reached up to smear them off my cheeks.
“Thank you,” he whispered and then leaned forward to press a tender kiss against my forehead the way he often did to Shay. My eyes squeezed shut when a sharp ache of relief lanced through me. One that did not just stem from Sage’s return, but from the reunification of his family.
The reunification of my family.
Carrick straightened once Asha had released their son. She stepped back, covering her face as she regained her composure, and let Carrick have his turn greeting Sage.
“Be gentle with him. Please. He is in pain,” I could not help whispering. I did not wish to hurt anyone’s feelings or deny them their right to a heartfelt reunion, but my first duty was to protect my mate. Always.
Thankfully, Carrick took absolutely no offense to the request and paused the hearty hug that he’d been about to give his son. And the fact that Sage did not protest let me know that he appreciated my intervention, even though he would have never denied his family.
Instead of a hug, Carrick carefully removed my helm from Sage’s head the way he had done for me and tossed them both onto the grass.
Then he reached up to ruffle his son’s hair in that playful way that I had seen Sage scowl at him for in the past. This time, my mate was not even remotely annoyed as he smiled at his father.
I became aware of a voice chanting, “Dapa! Dapa!” and turned to see Rory. She was nearly squirming out of her father’s arms as Verin carried her over to her uncle.
“One-Eye,” Sage acknowledged her softly.
“Just give him a gentle kiss, Roar. Like you have to do for your brother,” Verin instructed his daughter, his voice choked with emotion as he looked at Sage.
Verin waited until Rory had calmed down and given him a solemn nod of understanding before he let the child lean toward Sage. Fresh tears stung my eyes watching as she pressed sweet kisses to each of Sage’s cheeks.
“You are prickly,” she said with her usual bright tone, making all the teary-eyed adults around her chortle.
Shay came next, her face blotchy and wet as she eyed her brother in uncertainty of how to greet him without hurting him more. She settled for simply leaning her head against his chest with her baby sleeping in the carrier between them, and Sage bent his head down to hers.
“Would you like to rest for a moment on the grass?” Ciaran suggested once Sage’s family had greeted him.
Sage glanced around the yurt to take in the tree for the first time, and then my breath caught when he looked at me knowingly. I’d almost forgotten the sheer impact of how he could simply look at me with such utter adoration and reverence in those stunning eyes.
You are breathtaking, he whispered into my mind with a fervour that brought tears to my eyes.
Rian had given orders to keep everyone else out of the mess hall to give us a little privacy when we returned with Sage.
I was thankful for that now when no one aside from the riders and Sage’s family was there to see him struggling so hard just to walk.
We would have preferred to bring him straight back to the privacy of his own tent, but the portal tree was the only way for me to breach the realm of the Sylvan.
No one aside from the present people even knew that we had gone to get him.
Most of the army still believed he was on a special and secret assignment.
And the rest of the aes sídhe would only be notified of his return once he was healed enough to see them.
“Gods,” Shay breathed, shaking her head at Sage and his obvious discomfort as we helped him sink down to sit. “What did they do to you? Why haven’t you healed him?” she added with an accusatory glance at me.
“She has!” Sage spoke up more sharply than intended, defensive of me as usual, before his face and tone quickly softened again. “I am alright now.”
“You are not alright!” she insisted as she shot another glare toward where Amira was probably sitting.
“I am just… tired,” he admitted, and I could hear the truth of his words in the tone of his voice.
“He needs to rest,” Carrick inferred easily.
He gripped the back of Asha’s neck to gently pull her away from us.
“Sage is safe. Now let us give him some time and space to rest and heal with his anam. I will just bring him a tea infused with Ichor of Airmid to help with the pain and then leave you be,” he added to me.
Thank the gods for Carrick.
Asha and Shay were both reluctant, blowing out long breaths before they agreed.
Asha knelt down to kiss her son’s cheek once more, then squeezed my hand before she let Carrick lead her to the entrance.
Shay could barely tear her damp eyes away from her brother, but she managed to spare me a nod of appreciation.
Then they were all gone, and it was just the Wild Hunt, Nuala, and Amira left.
Sage seemed to shrink as every pretense of resilience he had adapted for his family was abandoned.
“Summer,” he rasped.
He reached for me in spite of his pain, and I could tell that the comfort he needed from me was more important than physical discomfort.
But I was still careful to support all my weight as I knelt over his legs so he could wrap his arms around me.
His armour disappeared from my body to finally return to its resting place now that he was back to send it.
My cotton and linen clothing underneath was softer and allowed Sage to feel more of me in his arms as he laid his head down on my chest. I decided to leave my armour on him, even though I was desperate to feel more of him too, because I knew it was helping to support his aching body.
I also tried to refrain from touching him too much in case it caused him more pain.
But my fingers seemed to comb through his dark hair on impulse, and my lips dropped to the top of his head.
It seemed strange that the shattering would come after he was back in my arms, but perhaps it made sense.
I had fought the urge to break down completely by focusing on compartmentalizing my emotions.
It had been necessary so I could keep functioning enough to bring him home.
But now it was done, and there was nothing holding back the tidal wave of anguish for what I had almost lost.
And for once, I didn’t care if anyone was close enough to hear me fail to smother my sobs in his neck.
“I love you,” I whispered, clenching my arms around him just a bit tighter. “I am so sorry I took so long!”
Sage shook his head, his hands grasping fistfuls of my shirt against my back.