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“Aiden,” I gasp, relieved to see him, even if he is currently trying to shred my dance partner into sushi.
The two go rolling across the ground. Thank the gods that Aiden is still a man, for the wolf would rip the river sprite’s throat out in the first minute. Then again, the wild look in Aiden’s eyes tells me he’ll gut the fey with his bare hands.
They tip a table over. Food and drink go flying and I decide enough is enough.
“Aiden, stop.”
He doesn’t.
Frowning, I repeat the command and am once again ignored.
The music cuts off with a screech of strings as the fight takes on a life of its own. The fey who were dancing moments before scatter like leaves in a gale before the grappling men. Desperate, I reach down to grip Aiden’s shoulder, to pull him off and make him see reason before he kills the male, but he turns to me, teeth bared in warning.
My heart lodges in my throat. The green eyes of the wolf glare back. Whether he wrestled control from Aiden, or the man gave it over willingly, I’m not dealing with a rational being. Instead, there is one who thrives on punishing those who cross him.
And the river sprite had just been holding his mate, whispering in her ear. Jealousy, as I’ve learned firsthand, is a harsh and demanding mistress. And the wolf exists on instinct. After days of travel, torment, starvation and fear, Aiden’s defenses are down. Though the fey and I didn’t do anything more than talk, it doesn’t matter to the wolf. A literal green-eyed monster had been unleashed.
And as long as there is a fight, he won’t relent.
“Quit fighting him and bare your throat.” I call out
“Are you insane?” The river sprite is streaked with blue blood, his gray eyes large with terror.
“Just do it,” I bark. “Before he kills you.”
He is barely holding the wolf at bay. I can see the sweat on his forehead, the shaking of his limbs. Aiden’s green eyes blaze, his teeth gnash as he holds the other being down.
With a murmured prayer, the sprite lifts his chin and bares his throat in submission. A snarl creases Aiden’s lips, his hands going to the other male’s throat.
I lunge forward, wrapping myself around Aiden’s bare back, holding tightly to him and praying I’m right. That the wolf isn’t completely gone with bloodlust or hunger.
That deep down, he doesn’t crave the kill more than he yearns for the feel of his mate.
Around us, the revelers are motionless, their faces masks of horror and fear. Do they know what Aiden is, what sort of threat he poses if he has a full-scale meltdown?
I can’t think about that though. Instead I tighten my grip on his chest and hold him close and repeat the only words that come to mind. “I’m here. I’m alive. No one hurt me. They won’t hurt you, either. Aiden, can you hear me?”
“Yes,” he speaks, his tone guttural and not wholly human. But at least I know he is listening.
“He’s no threat to you,” I tell him. “Let him go and come with me.”
He inhales once, then blows out a long stream of air. He shoves away from the river sprite so quickly that I lose my grip on him and stumble back. Shoulders tense, he stalks up the hill, leaving the valley silent.
There is a collective sigh from the fey. As bloodthirsty and unforgiving as these beings are reputed to be, none of them relished the idea of a male being torn asunder during the party.
I glance down at the injured river sprite, waiting to offer him a hand but afraid to touch him. “How bad is it?”
“I’m fine.” His voice quavers slightly on the word, but he stands and offers me a steady smile.
I pivot, but instead of following Aiden’s trail, I veer toward the buffet table. Everything looks and smells delicious and my stomach growls at the scent of roasted squash, stewed apples and fresh baked bread. I load a trencher with food and then pick a secluded spot at the top of a nearby hill. Inconvenient enough that none of the fey will approach, near enough to call out for help in case I need it. I sit down with my back pressed up against a big spruce tree and take a bite.
Five minutes pass before he appears, holding, of all things, my backpack. I raise a brow in surprise that he’s bothered to go back for it. He sets it down beside me and then steps away.
“Hungry?” I offer him the tray of food.
“Always.” He doesn’t make a move to take anything though. “You handle the wolf better than I do.”
“I was lucky,” I tell him honestly. “You really didn’t want to hurt him.”
“Oh, but I did,” he breathes, surprising me. “I still do. For having his hands on you.”
“It’s not like that. You know I don’t feel that way about anyone.” I lick suddenly dry lips. “Why didn’t you obey my command?”
Instead of answering, he reaches into the backpack and extracts a familiar glass vial. The one that held the potion his grandmother and her lover had made to break the bond that forces him to obey me.
My eyes go wide. “You took it?”
He nods, but doesn’t speak.
“Why?” He’s been so adamant about not taking it, his honor demanding that he uphold the oath he’d made to me when I was still in diapers.
He crouches beside me, his eyes still on the ground. “Did you know the Vikings believe oath breakers get a special sentence in Hel? Their bones fed to Nidhogg, the dragon at the base of the world tree. To be forever consumed by the great beast. I thought about that every time you asked me to break my oath. Swore I never would. And then you forced me to watch you die.”
“But I didn’t die,” I whisper “Aiden, I’m right here.”
He stares down over the hill toward the green. The music and dancing has started up again, the valley bathed in flickering firelight. But Aiden appears to see none of it. “I was livid. So angry it scared me. I’d been so afraid for you, imagined all the different ways you were injured or even that I’d find you dying. And after the relief of finding you unhurt faded, all I felt was the rage. Have you ever thought you should feel one way but instead, you feel another?”
“I am right now,” I reply honestly.
He looks at me and waits.
“I’ve been bugging you for weeks to break that obedience bond. And now that you have, it feels like....”
“Like you lost something,” he finishes for me.
We have, I realize with a pang. The bond hadn’t just been about his promise to obey me. It had also been a tangible symbol of his trust in me. Trust that I wouldn’t push him too hard, that I wouldn’t use or abuse him the way so many others had done. That I wouldn’t ask for more than he was willing to give.
The way I had done in my last life. And the way I had done when I ordered him to stay safe.
“I’m sorry,” My eyes fill with tears. “I didn’t want to break us.”
He doesn’t deny that I did. “So am I.”
I sit, staring up at him while he looks down on the festivities. He’s right there, inches away from me and yet he might as well be on the dark side of the moon.
“Have I ever brought you anything but pain?”
He scowls. “You know you have.”
I think back to the easy mornings on the farm, the way he would slip into my room, wake me with a tender caress. Laughing and holding hands at school. It’s like another person’s life, a scene from a movie viewed long ago.
“Are those few moments of peace worth all this grief?”
“I don’t see any other way—” he begins.
“You can leave. Without the oath, all that compels you to stay is the wolf. And without the oath, there is no way to stop the wolf if he decides to maim anyone who gives me a second look.”
He turns to face me, his eyes glowing in the dim light. “You want me to go? I thought we’d gotten past this.”
“This is different. I don’t want you to go because I’m scared of how you make me feel. I want you to go because I don’t want to hurt you anymore. And that’s all I ever seem to do.”
His lips part.
“You’re a god, Aiden. I’m mortal. We have history but no future.”
He swallows, “After you go through the gauntlet—”
But I shake my head. “I’m not going to enter the gauntlet.”
“What?” He frowns at me. “When did you decide this?”
He is beautiful there in the moonlight. His skin glows in the soft light, his hair blending with the night. He glows with health and vitality. And here I am, his Kryptonite.
“I never wanted to be queen. Or to be immortal. And I certainly don’t want to be a bargaining chip for Wardon or any other power hungry being that rears up.”
“What about the Hunt? The Unseelie Court?” he asks. “You’re just going to abandon them?” I see the real question in his eyes, the fear that lurks there. He doesn’t have to ask it for me to hear the words. You’re going to leave me?
I gesture to the valley below. “Brigit is dead, Wardon is M.I.A. I have yet to meet Soladin but I believe he is a good and decent ruler. According to the river sprites, he took them under his wing and protected them. For the first time in history, Unseelie fey are living with and working beside members of the Seelie Court. I’m not a unifier, not like that. You’ve seen the conditions most of them live in. Naked, half-starved without means to try for a better life. I have no idea how to give them any of that.”
“You haven’t even tried,” he argues. “You don’t know what you’re capable of until you try.”
But I shake my head. “I know how to stalk and hunt, to punish evil and rip it out at the roots. It’s past time that I got back to that destiny.”
“You don’t want to rule. I get that. That doesn’t mean you should send me away.”
“I should, because we don’t have any sort of a future together, Aiden. You’re immortal and I only have a couple of decades left. And I’m...toxic to you.”
“You’re not—”
“I am. I make you feel badly about yourself, put you in danger, give you nothing.” I stop, overcome with emotions. “I don’t want to gamble decades of my life for a chance at immortality. Judging from most of the immortals I’ve met, the price is too high.”
“You’re just going to go back to the farm and pretend none of this exists?” He shakes his head. “I don’t buy it. What about the Hunt?”
“I’ll negotiate on their behalf. Brigit is gone and come tomorrow I will turn command of the Hunt over to Soladin, on the promise that he never sets them on your trail again.”
“You have it all figured out, don’t you? One problem, you haven’t even met Soladin and you’re just going to turn over control of the most powerful force in the world to him?”
“I can’t lead them without being queen. I don’t have what it takes to be a competent ruler and I refuse to be a bad one. Not again.”
“So that’s it? You’re just going to go home, drop out of school and spend the rest of your limited existence alone hunting rapists and murderers?”
“It’s what I was born to do.” I stare out over the distance, and can feel his eyes on me.
“Nic—,”
“I’m sorry.” I can’t hold his gaze, instead reaching for my backpack and hefting it up over one shoulder. “I don’t have a choice.”
“You say that, but it isn’t true.” He makes one more plea, his voice thick with desperation. “Please, don’t send me away.”
Tears shimmer in my eyes. Real tears because I know this is the end. He reaches for me.
I flinch.
I see it there on his face, the shock and disappointment. He thinks I fear him now. It’s what I intended, to see that light of hope flicker and die in his eyes. So why do I feel so wretched?
“Goodbye, Aiden.”
Blinded by tears, I stumble down the hill until I’m inside my compartment in the women’s house. Where is the relief I’m supposed to feel for doing the right thing? Aiden is officially free of me now, free to go out and live his immortal life in peace. No more sacrifices for a foolish mortal, no more trading his own wellbeing for mine. No more teasing or being used. Sure, he will have to wrestle with his wolf, but at least he’ll be alive, thanks to my lie.
The gauntlet will kill me. It’s a reality that is part of me, that is imprinted on my marrow. I don’t want immortality badly enough to survive Underhill’s test. And Aiden being Aiden, will do everything in his power to see me through the ordeal.
I won’t make him watch me die. Or let him die for me.
The only choice he left me with was to reject him, to convince him I want my old life more than I want him. That I’m afraid of him.
To make him believe that I don’t love him.
****
HOURS PASS BUT SLEEP eludes me. I toss on the narrow cot, the music from the fey revelry drifting in through the open door. Is there anything worse than hearing the sounds of a party when you’re miserable?
“Nicneven?”
“I go by Nic, actually.” I turn and see her there, an unfamiliar woman.
“Who are you?” I ask.
Her smile is soft and a little sad. “I’m your mother.”
