Hunted: A fae fantasy romance (Fae Magic Book 1) Page 27

He didn’t wait for the puca’s answer or look back to see if Aoife followed. Instead, he opened the front door, hanging onto the handle as the wind tried to rip it away.

  Aoife and a human Solanum crowded in behind him, and they wrestled the door closed.

  After the violence of the storm outside, the air in the dark house had a strange silence. The tiny hairs on the back of his neck prickled to attention.

  No one was there.

  “Where is she?” Aoife strode across the living room, peering into the kitchen and frowning.

  “I don’t know. They were here when I left.”

  “How long ago was that?” Her expression was harsh in the shadowy living room.

  “I don’t know!” He tried to think as he moved through the odd stillness of the house, listening for people and only hearing the sounds of tearing as the raging winds of the storm sought to destroy the building from the outside. He ran from room to room, frantic to find something, anything that would tell him what he needed to know.

  What time had he been here last? Had he somehow spent more time Underhill than he realized? Was he too late?

  His stomach dropped.

  “It’s been only a few hours here.” Solanum shook rain off his skin like a dog. “It’s likely the witch is dead and they’ve gone to bury her.”

  “No.” He stared at Solanum, fighting to keep from punching the oddly sympathetic look on the usually unemotional puca’s face. “If she died, I would know.”

  Solanum shook his head. “I’m sorry it’s gone that far.” He bowed and stepped out of the way as Logan went to search the house.

  In the kitchen, shiny red apples lay haphazardly on the wood floor and the air smelled of fresh cider mixed with the taint of burnt biscuits. Logan swallowed, he didn’t think he’d ever be eating an apple again. Dishes and cups were piled in the sink, congealed food still on them. Then he saw the note on the table. He snatched it up.

  “They’ve taken her to the tunnels.” His hands trembled as he tried to decipher his uncle’s ancient handwriting. “Rinnal says they put her in stasis, but with the storm and the threat of the queen, she would be safer in the caverns.”

  He ran back outside into the rain to where the white mare huddled in the lee of the building. This time, as impatient as he was, he waited for Aoife. He didn’t dare lose her now, she might be his last chance at salvation.

  “So, they’ve put her in a stasis spell.” She drew her hood up over her long white hair and climbed on the mare. “Those uncles of yours are more clever than I thought. They’ve given us some extra time.”

  “We don’t have extra time.” The wind blew his words back so he had to shout. “The stasis spell isn’t a cure. All it will do is hold her between here and death’s door.” He climbed on the puca and urged Solanum up the trail into the teeth of the storm.

  “Slow down!” Aoife and the mare galloped after them. “Don’t lose me. I don’t know where you’re taking me and if you lose me, you lose her.”

  Logan reined in Solanum, his pulse pounding in his veins. Every second they took might be Trina’s last.

  “Why aren’t you opening a portal?” Aoife asked as they climbed the trail between high canyon walls that had guarded the tunnel entrance from humans for millennium.

  “The area we’re going to is protected from portals.” He pointed to petroglyphs painted on the high walls, ancient symbols from a dead culture warning of destruction. It wasn’t only the current shamans of New Mexico who didn’t like fae magic. “It’s not far.”

  The road through the canyon had turned treacherous, the fine desert silt turned to sucking mud. Every step, every slip, every moment extended the journey into excruciating, internal torture for Logan as precious seconds of Trina’s life trickled away.

  Finally, they reached the entrance to the caverns.

  “We’re here.” He opened the rock face and led them inside.

  Aoife put her hood back and wiped water off her face. The beautiful woman no longer looked pristine as she stripped off her heavy cloak, the velvet stars weighted down with mud.

  She waved her hand and a small, glowing sphere appeared, lighting the area. “Which way do we go?” She held her light up, rivulets of rain from her dress dripping onto the cave floor.

  Five tunnels branched off the entrance. Five mistakes waiting to be made. Any one of the directions could lead to Trina, any one might not. Time was running out.

  “Give me a moment.” He closed his eyes and opened his senses. His Gift was for tracking, hunting. Once he had the feel of the game, he would pursue it until he caught it. All he had to do was hunt, and Trina was now his quarry.

  He pictured Trina.

  Long strands of black hair that smelled of green sage and lavender, tangled in his fists. Soft lips giving under his as he devoured her mouth, kissing her with his tongue, skating along it with his teeth. The texture of her skin sliding under his hands as he ran his palms along her spine, down her back to cradle her hips and part her thighs for his pleasure. The unique flavor and scent of her as she spread wide to his need, his mouth watering at the memory of how she smelled and tasted.

  How she felt warm in his arms. How she warmed his soul.

  He opened up. And knew exactly where she was. Knew which path to take. And knew she was still alive.

  “This way.” He strode down a tunnel, intent on his quarry. He didn’t look back to see if Aoife followed. She’d come this far, she would be behind him. He had one goal. Trina.

  Leaving the mare, they hiked deep into the ancient tunnels.

  “Tell me, Huntsman, what I am facing.”

  He told her about Trina’s coma, and the apples. And he told her about the combs.

  “Someone definitely knows your witch is alive and how to find her. You have a problem young man, and I’m betting it is the Black Queen.”

  “No doubt.” Solanum’s lip curled and he rolled his eyes. “We weren’t sure after the queen put Logan in the dungeon, but when she killed half of the prince’s followers and secreted him away, I had my suspicions she was a vindictive bitch.”

  “Don’t be smart with me.” Aoife admonished the puca. She shook her head at him. “Sneaking and poisoning isn’t like her. Her forte is blunt force.”

  They walked deeper into the earth, their footsteps echoing into the dark. Aoife broke the silence. “There is more to this story than you’re telling me.”

  Logan’s focus was ahead. He could feel Trina, very close now. How much should he tell this woman? He’d already trusted her with too much. She had power over his forfeit, the knowledge of the Fir Bolg’s secret tunnels, and now, he handed her Trina’s life.

  He knew from past experience that you should never trust the Tuatha De Danann and that trusting Aoife would very likely be his downfall, but he had little choice and no options.

  They came around a bend and entered a tunnel lit from beyond with a blue glow. His heart accelerated. Pressure rose in his ears. He couldn’t hear, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. He knew Trina was still alive, but how close was she to death?

  He stopped walking. Head bowed, entire body shaking as a fear of loss so great he’d forgotten its very existence, pushed its way out of the depths of his soul.

  “What’s wrong, boy?” Aoife asked, too close behind him.

  “What if I lose her?”

  He stood frozen in the tunnel and shook with a fear he hadn’t felt since he was a little boy, his mother gone, struggling to live by rules he didn’t understand in the unfeeling court of his father’s people.

  Aoife smiled, a grim, vicious smile that held the memories of a thousand battlefields and a thousand dead and dying. “You’re borrowing trouble. I haven’t lived this long without acquiring some skills.” She pushed past him, her now drying white hair flowing around her, glowing in the blue light. “I have pulled more than one person back from the arms of death. I am familiar with his ways and he does not always win, even when it looks like all is lost.”

 
She disappeared around the bend into the cavern ahead.

  Solanum clapped a hand on his shoulders. “Come on, time to see if you’ve made the right choices.” The ancient wisdom in his soulless eyes at odds with his very young, very beautiful features.

  Logan didn’t move. “What if she dies?”

  “If she dies, then you can fade away after her, and I’ll be free of your cursed family forever.” Solanum turned him to face the tunnel. “But at least face your losses like a man. Come say goodbye to your love.”

  He didn’t know if Trina would live or die. He didn’t know if he could face a future without her, but his hunting Gift still pulsed inside, urging him to conclude the hunt and find the quarry, even if it was heartbreak.

  He looked into Solanum’s depthless eyes and allowed the push of his desire for the close of the hunt to move his terrified body into the torch-lit chamber where Trina lay dying.

  Darkness licked the edges of the natural amphitheatre. In the center, Stephan, Angus, and Rinnal stood vigil. Swords, battle axes, and hammers at the ready, these were no longer easy-going farmers—here stood the Fir Bolg’s fiercest warriors.

  Logan slow-walked down the sloping floor to the center of the room and approached the casket emanating the blue-glow of a stasis spell.

  “There ye are, lad. We wondered when ye’d be back.” Rinnal came forward to greet them. He bowed to Aoife in her nearly see-through nightgown as if she were a queen dressed in elegant robes and crown.

  “My lady.”

  She gave a brief, regal nod.

  Logan suppressed his irritation at her acceptance of the adulation of her enemy and instead, stared at the casket. It was a beautiful construct of a dark cherry wood with intricate carvings of lilies and leaves. They’d cut a rectangular hole in the top and mounted a piece of glass in a rough-cut frame. Beneath the window of glass, and surrounded by the blue glow of the stasis spell, lay Trina.

  She appeared as if she’d been carved from porcelain, her skin pale and perfect, her hands laced on top of her waist. If it weren’t for the poisonous red gloss of her lips, and the green miasma with its roots anchored into her heart and lungs, infesting her internal organs with its pernicious evil, Logan would have thought her a marble effigy mistakenly put inside the coffin.

  Fear rose in his throat, choking off his questions.

  “Move out of the way, boy.” Aoife nudged him aside.

  She held her hands out, palms down. Time slowed as light poured from her hands, washing over the coffin, the spell, and Trina.

  Aoife’s body swayed and strained. The evil spell’s tentacles shivered in response. Slowly, the green strands of the spell eased out of Trina. Logan swallowed as his heart rose out of his stomach and lodged just below the lump in his throat.

  It was working.

  The roots of the spell retracted, but as Aoife sent more magic and tugged at the final strands. And they came, but Trina’s weakened aura pulled with the last of the poison, tugging at the tiny cord anchored into her soul.

  Logan’s pulse pounded in his ears and his legs went weak.

  He would lose her this way.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Logan lurched forward. “She’s killing her!” He had to stop Aoife from sucking Trina’s soul out of her body along with the poison spell. The smell of cherry tobacco filled his nose and strong arms wrapped him tight from behind, dragging him away from the coffin.

  Angus held him back, pinning his arms in place. “Don’t worry, lad. She knows what she’s doing.”

  “Let me go!” He strained to get to Trina, shifting from side to side as he attempted to shake his uncle off. He arched his back, but even as he did, he saw that Aoife had stopped trying to pull the spell out of Trina.

  “The boy’s right. Let him go.” She stepped back from the casket. “Logan, I asked you if you were willing to pay a forfeit.”

  Angus released him and he tore his gaze from Trina’s still form to stare at the Tuathan.

  “Aye.”

  “Are you still? Even though I asked for it in exchange for the prophecy, I would not take it now if you weren’t willing.” Her cold ancient gaze bore into him as her eyes searched his for signs of indecision. “This will not work if you are not committed to it.”

  “I’m willing.” His anguish was a palpable thing filling his entire body.

  If he’d had any clue he would be here now, he would have killed the witch where he’d found her, naked in the center of her destroyed labyrinth. Anything, never to have bargained with Trina. He’d been so clever, keeping the witch to play with, but he’d bargained away his heart instead. And now he would forfeit his life.

  He faced Aoife, staring hard into her eyes. “Before I do this, I need to know. If you truly didn’t know this would happen, why did you require a price from me in advance that would pay for this?”

  “There is always a price for knowledge.” Her lips compressed, an expression of hard pity flashed across her face. “I knew, at some point, you would have to pay, and I was willing to take advantage of that to be sure how committed you were to your cause. And now I can see you are.”

  He was. He’d been committed to Trina from the moment he’d swept her off her feet and carried her away instead of killing her. He just hadn’t known it.

  “The spell starts in her throat.” Aoife gestured at Trina. “I believe I can remove the cause, but in order to reverse the damage, she will need an influx of energy, a tremendous amount.”

  Logan stared at Trina’s cold, still body lying in the coffin. The evil, green tendrils had settled back into her aura and her veins stood out stark blue in her translucent skin. He’d give everything to have her back, but this was too much, too high a price. She’d be back, but he would never get to see her again.

  A hot weight pressed behind his eyes. To live without her would be excruciating.

  “It will change her,” Aoife said. “That much fae energy poured into her will not only save her life, but will extend it. And it may have other repercussions. I just don’t know.” For the first time she sounded unsure. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

  Trina would live longer and he would die.

  He supposed it was what the gods’ thought was fair. He nodded and stepped closer. “I will pay the forfeit.”

  “Wait!” Aoife held out her hand. “Before you say yes, you need to know the price it will exact from you.”

  Logan barely glanced at her. He was storing up the way Trina looked. When he died, he wanted her face locked in his memory.

  He barely heard what Aoife said. “You will live a shorter lifespan. Perhaps half of what you could expect. And it is more than possible it will kill you altogether.”

  Hope uncurled inside his chest. Logan looked Aoife in the eye. “You mean there’s a chance I’ll live?”

  “Yes, a slim one. There’s more of a chance you’ll die.”

  A surge of relief swept through him, loosening the lump in his throat and releasing the curl of hope. “There’s a chance I’ll see her live.”

  “Logan,” Rinnal stepped forward, forehead furrowed and hands balled at his sides. “Are ye sure now? Are ye sure the lass is worth half your life?”

  Life without Trina was unthinkable.

  He nodded. “She’s worth the whole damn thing.”

  “Wait lad!” Angus gripped his arm, holding him back. “Think about it. No woman is worth this price, let alone a human lass.”

  “She’s worth it all. I would give all my years to have her back. To have her back and the chance I might live also?” He looked deep into his uncle’s bright blue eyes. “It is a far greater boon than I would expect.” He shook off Angus’s clutching hand and stepped up to the side of the casket. “I’m ready.”

  “So be it.” Aoife placed her hands on his shoulders. For a woman with so much power, they were light as a feather. “Look at me and let me in.”

  He gazed into the crystal depths of her eyes and opened his Gift. His aura
poured out, flowing into her at a rate that surprised and panicked him. He grew dizzy and weak and his desire to live rose up, overpowering his will to sacrifice his life.

  He struggled, and fought back, the flow of his life force hesitating, then the tide turned and eddied, surging back in his direction as he struggled to keep his soul from pouring into Aoife.

  “This is it, Logan.” Her voice thrummed with power. “This is the real moment of decision. Are you going to give her your life? Or are you changing your mind and killing her?”

  He gasped, drowning in the wells of her eyes. The flow hesitated.

  “Do you love her?”

  His love for Trina rose up inside him, pictures of his witch he didn’t even know he had memorized. The way she laughed and the way she smiled. The way she got angry, her green eyes throwing sparks. The way she looked at him just before she threw her head back in ecstasy.

  The tide shifted. His life force flooded back, pouring into Aoife at an increased rate. His love poured out, and it was greater than he’d ever imagined it could be. He grew light-headed, weaving on his feet, but Aoife’s strong fingers dug into his shoulders and he willingly put his entire soul into her keeping.

  He trembled, the room growing hazy and dim. Far off in the distance, he saw a bright light framing a doorway. The door cracked open, an even brighter light drawing him in with a sense of longed-for peace.

  Aoife closed her eyes and cut off the flow from his soul. The door slammed shut and Logan collapsed.

  Stephan and Angus caught him, supporting him as he fell to the ground.

  Aoife held her hands out, palms down, over the glass of the coffin. She pulsed with the powerful glow of his life force, engulfed in a nimbus of white light. Through eyes sliitted with exhaustion, Logan could barely see the white light of his life flowing out of Aoife, through the glass, and into Trina.

  Piece by piece, the green tendrils of the spell lost their lurid color, turning into brown withered vines. Slowly they disintegrated, then disappeared into dust.

  Logan’s inner sight wavered as he leaned against his uncle in complete exhaustion. The last of his soul-light poured out of Aoife and into Trina, and Aoife crumpled into Rinnal’s waiting arms.