A wet tongue sliding across my cheek woke me up shortly before sunrise.
"Ack! Enough, Gunnar!" I sputtered.
The wolf wagged his tail before leaping away and doing the same thing to Viggo, who took it even worse than I had.
The two of them tumbled across the clearing, with Viggo letting out pissed-off snarls and Gunnar mock growling in return. Most of the time, Gunnar played the role of stoic wolf companion, but sometimes he would embrace his inner pup and have some fun. Typically at Viggo's expense.
I glanced up at the tree I'd originally noticed Niall in and wasn't surprised to see him stretched out across one of the thicker branches, leaning his back against the trunk.
"Did you seriously sleep up there?" The branch he was on was wide, but still… if he rolled over, his ass would have fallen a good twenty feet.
"I like trees." He yawned and stretched before flipping off the branch and landing gracefully on his feet. "Besides, the wolf was determined to watch me all night, and it was a bit unnerving to sleep with him glaring at me from a few feet away."
"Fair enough," I replied, not at all apologizing for Gunnar's behavior.
Niall and I might have come to an understanding last night, but that didn't mean I trusted him enough to sleep near him unguarded. Viggo, Gunnar, and I would be trading watch duty for however long Niall traveled with us.
"So what have you decided?” Niall asked as he dug through his traveling pack and pulled out a sack of berries.
He took a handful and then passed it over to me. I peered into the bag and looked at the bright blue berries. Taking a handful myself, I tossed the bag back to him. I had some dried meat packed away, but I wasn't going to turn down fresh fruit.
I popped one of the berries into my mouth and enjoyed the tart flavor exploding across my tongue. He must have found these in this realm; maybe we could gather some more today while we were flying around.
Niall let me savor the berries instead of pushing me for an answer. His blue eyes lit up at my clear enjoyment at the food he’d offered.
“You’ll accompany me as I continue to glean information on the seraphim,” I said. “We’ll follow this group for a little bit longer before returning to the human realm.”
“So you’ll speak to Nemain on my behalf?” Niall asked, his eyes lighting up with hope.
“I’ll encourage her to not kill you on sight and listen to what you have to say,” I clarified. “The rest of it is her decision.” I was fairly certain that Nemain wouldn’t kill him since she had spared his life before. Badb, however, was another matter.
“How much longer do you plan on staying here?”
I pursed my lips as I stared in the direction where the seraphim were camped.
“I’d like to know where this group is heading and if possible maybe spy on Lir if he’s still around. Either way, the seraphim have clearly gone unchecked for too long, and it’s time for the fae queens to do something about it.”
Niall stiffened slightly before attempting to cover it up with a nonchalant shrug. “Very well.”
I eyed him, debating whether I should share this information or not. Finally, I decided that even if Niall did prove to be an enemy, which I didn’t think was the case, this wasn’t a secret.
He’d find out on his own soon enough.
“You should know that things have changed for Nemain since you last saw her. Between her and the fae queens. Specifically between her and the Unseelie Queen.”
“Oh?” he asked lightly before setting the bag full of delicious berries down and pulling his leather vest off the branch it was draped over and tugging it on. His fingers nimbly laced up the sides until it was snuggly fitted against his upper body.
Like me, he’d slept with his boots and the rest of his clothes on. The vest was the only thing he’d tossed during the night.
“She not only belongs to the Unseelie Court now, but she’s also their Knight.” It still sounded insane to hear it out loud.
Nemain had always hated the fae and their bullshit politics. Now, she was at the center of it all.
I felt bad for my friend. She’d done it because it was the only way to protect Finn, and I would have done the same in her situation. But willingly or not, Nemain’s life was radically changed now.
“Shit,” he swore, lifting his head towards the sky and squeezing his eyes shut. “I was really hoping to stay as far away from those bitches as possible.”
“The queens?” I studied the profile of his face, seeing the faint lines of anger at the corner of his mouth and eyes. “Is it because you’re a traitor?”
His head snapped towards me, those brilliant sky-blue eyes now alight with fury.
My fingers itched to grab my hammer, but I held still. This was the most emotion I’d seen from Niall since we’d met. The laid-back fae male was gone, and only the warrior stood before me now.
“I followed my king,” he snarled with barely contained rage. “Because for all his faults, he never looked down on the sciatháin. The rest of the sidhe, including his sisters, treated us like we were less simply because we didn’t have the right type of magic. It’s why the sciatháin joined king’s army in droves. It was the only place in the fae realms where we were respected or valued. You never heard of the sciatháin until you met me. Any guesses as to why?”
Tension coiled its way through my body as I took in the pain and wrath etched into Niall’s features.
I didn’t have to guess what had happened to his people.
While I preferred to stay out of the fae realms, I had spent plenty of time there over my lifetime. If there was a skilled and powerful group of warriors, I would have known about them.
The fae queens were ruthless. They had to be to pull off the coup against their brother and hold onto power all this time. The sciatháin who remained in the fae realms after they trapped Balor and his army would have been a threat to them.
Threats were annihilated.
“I see you’ve come to the same conclusion I have,” Niall said darkly. “I heard no whispers of the sciatháin while I was in the fae realms, and unless you’re an incredibly talented liar, you’ve never heard of them before you met me. The queens killed my people, and Balor has twisted what remains of us.”
“I’m sorry.” The two words came out as a hoarse whisper. My people might still exist, but they were lost to me. I knew what it was like to be alone in the world.
“It is what it is.” The underlying anger was gone from his voice, but his face still held touches of it.
“Such is life.” I gave him a humorless smile, and Niall cocked his head. “It’s a phrase Nemain always says. Well, she says it in French, c’est la vie.”
Niall grimaced and touched the space behind his right ear. “These translation marks are strange,” he muttered. “I never needed one before because I spoke all the fae languages, but we received them right away when we got to the human realm. Still not used to feeling the magic spark occasionally.”
I smiled. “It’ll become second nature eventually to understand the nature of the magic. Assuming you stick around, you’ll probably want to learn the daemon language and a few others. As good as the magic is behind the marks, some things still get lost in translation.”
“Daemon…” That playful smile spread across his lips, and the tension I’d been feeling slid away at seeing it again. “Yet another species I have yet to encounter. It’s been a long time since I’ve had so many new things to see… It’s an odd feeling.”
He held out the bag of berries, and I eagerly took a handful from it.
“Well, Nemain spends quite a bit of time with the daemons, so you’ll get your chance to meet one soon enough.” I paused to shove some berries into my mouth and closed my eyes in enjoyment.
They were like a mix of blueberries and raspberries but a little more sour. The climate here was similar enough to the realm I was currently living in, so maybe I could grab a cutting of whatever plant they grew on and try planting it in my garden.
Juice ran down the corner of my mouth and down my chin. I raised my hand to wipe it off, but Niall beat me to it.
My eyes flew open as he swiped a finger across my face and handed over the bag with the rest of the berries. I snatched it from him and opened my mouth to berate him about touching me when he licked the juices off his finger.
My eyes tracked the movement, and I was acutely aware of certain parts of my body coming to full attention.
"So we're going to follow the war party or whatever it is?" he asked after he was done cleaning off his fingers. If he noticed my rapt attention on his movements, he didn't let it show.
"Yes," I said, careful to keep my tone even.
I was attracted to Niall.
It wasn't a big deal, nor was it all that surprising. He was good-looking with a strong build and was skilled in a fight.
So, exactly my type.
But I wasn't one to just give into my sexual desires. There was a time and place for that, and this was neither.
So I locked down that part of myself and promised it I'd give it some attention when we were out of here. Maybe find a daemon or something to have a tumble with. Someone who I could enjoy for a night and then move on.
My life was already complex; I didn't need to add a complicated love life too.
"Alright," Niall picked up his travel pack. “I'm ready whenever you are."
I cocked my head at him. "How exactly have you been following me?"
That thought should have occurred to me sooner, but with everything going on, I hadn't pondered how exactly Niall had been keeping up with me and the seraphim considering we spent all day flying. I hadn't see any horses or transportation creatures in this realm, either.
Nemain mentioned that Lir had several large winged creatures with him. Maybe Niall had procured one of those? That would explain the dark creature I thought I saw flying away that one night.
Niall grabbed the now empty bag from me and dropped it into the leather pack before slipping the straps over his shoulders so that the pack rested against his check instead of his back.
He grinned at me as large black wings burst out of his back. "I think I'll be able to keep up just fine."
I took a step forward before I caught myself and stopped. If my wings were the golden rays of the sun, Niall's were the inky darkness of night.
They looked soft, and I wanted to run my fingers across them, but it was rude to touch another valkyrie's wings without permission. I didn't know how the sciatháin felt about it, but even then, it seemed like a line I shouldn't cross with Niall considering I was already attracted to him.
"Glamour?" I asked curiously.
He hadn't shifted; the wings had simply not been there one moment, and then there the next.
I could make my wings invisible, but they were still physically there. If Niall could do something similar, I would have felt them while we were fighting.
"Yes," he said, stretching his wings out wide. They were bigger than mine, I noted begrudgingly. "The sciatháin don't have much in the way of magic, as I said before. But we received a little bit of a boost when Balor mixed devourer magic with ours. We're still not particularly good at glamouring, but most of us have at least figured out how to hide our wings."
I walked around him to get a better look. They were actually pretty similar to seraphim wings with their fluffy feathers, but Niall's were black and a bit smoother.
"Weak spot in a fight?" I guessed.
"Yes," he admitted. "Not all of us have spears we can shoot out of our wings."
"Don't be jealous," I said with a grin before going to pack up my own supplies.
It would be at least a few weeks before I could pull that move again; the feathers needed to grow back, but I wasn't going to tell him that.
Instead, I asked, “What else can you do?”
A cryptic smile spread across his lips. “Tell me about the hammer, and I’ll tell you.”
Not a chance. I didn’t say those words out loud, but the look I gave him clearly conveyed them because he let out a low laugh in response.
“Try to keep up.” I shot into the sky, Viggo and Gunnar right behind me. Within seconds, Niall flew above me and hung back a little like a dark shadow.