Her sigh followed him into his dreams, wrapping around him and giving him the strength he needed to finally put the past behind him. He opened his mind and let the haunting memories return, for the last time.
Calan leaned over the spectral form of his horse. His siblings spreading out behind him followed suit. With a prod to his stallion’s flank, he urged the beast faster. Its sides heaved, and breath fogged the cold night air, but it made no sound, stealth its gift along with speed. Its furious pace pushed him across the sky in a blur of motion few humans would see. Connected physically and mentally to their riders, the phantom animals shared in the wrath and urgency the Wild Hunt spurred among its riders. All seethed. All hungered for retaliation. All lived and breathed as one.
The baying of his hounds lessened with the passing of the countryside beneath them. They were closing in on their prey. Good. The opportunity to avert disaster slipped away with each beat of the earth’s heart. He fisted the mane under his palms and dragged in a breath of air laced with the stench of evil. A smile spread. Victory hovered within their grasp.
He glanced at Rhys, his second in command. Already fully transformed into his Huntsman body, Rhys caught his gaze with reddened eyes. His longer muzzle displayed a mouthful of deadly teeth, and curled talons gripped his flaming obsidian sword. No words passed between them. They understood the danger that awaited them if they failed—the deaths of innocents. Unacceptable in their minds.
Rhys gave a single nod and veered off to the right with half their legion of Teulu, their family of Hunters.
A peek at Tegan, his third in command and beloved sister, showed her in the midst of the change. Color leeched from her skin, leaving her as ghostly as the mare she rode. Claws formed. Her angelic face lengthened, and her petite frame gained mass.
She winked at him, a drop of blood oozing from the corner of her eye. With a tip of her chin, their remaining siblings swerved to the left, leaving Calan alone with his favored steed.
Silence fell over the night. Colors blurred, the world rushing by at speeds no mere human could fathom. Faster. He pushed his stallion to the limit of its abilities. The fabric of the world around him groaned, straining to maintain its woven pattern in the face of his wrath.
A flash of light in the distance indicated his destination. Flames engulfed the village. He inhaled and inwardly cursed at the information stamped onto the breeze.
Death.
They’d arrived too late. Anger rose and threatened to consume him. He shoved it back. The Huntsmen would avenge those who’d fallen and save those who remained. Duty demanded it.
He slowed his approach while Rhys and Tegan engaged the redcaps and sluaghs swarming the village. His siblings were more than capable of taking out the threats to the mortals. A hundred years of practice had perfected their fighting skills and turned their combat maneuvers into a choreographed script. All the fairies’ creatures would be struck down. There wasn’t any doubt as to who would walk away the winners—the Huntsmen.
The true victory, however, was Calan’s to claim. For the century they’d ridden, the Hunters had captured all the escaped fairies from the Unseelie Court, save one.
Dar.
Calan would take him out tonight, and finally, the Hunt would end.
Excitement gripped him at the prospect of living a real life, not one that revolved around the nightly Hunt. As a demigod, his half-human side craved the simplicity of home. He’d experienced it growing up with his mortal family. No matter how much he wanted to embrace it again, he couldn’t until Dar was transferred back to the Underworld.
Calan scanned the hillside surrounding the human settlement. Dar would be there, not in the midst of the fight. He considered himself above the acts of cruelty he directed his redcaps and sluaghs to unleash on the innocent, even though Dar needed the screams of his victims as much as his creations did. He favored rape over murder, however. Then he could revisit the innocents he’d wronged, taunting and violating them over and over, until they took their own lives.
If Dar followed the pattern he’d established, he’d be raping a woman nearby. Calan wanted to stop him before he slipped away, leaving his minions to distract the Huntsmen.
No, not again. I won’t let him escape. He’s the last fairy. He will be caught. Tonight.
The words calmed him. He brought his horse to a stop and listened. A woman’s cry reached him, faint but unmistakable. He dug his heels into his steed’s flank, and the animal ran in the direction of the sound.
The scene playing out in the small clearing chilled Calan. Too far away to intervene, he could only watch. A redcap shoved a raven-haired pregnant woman to her knees in front of Dar. Glamour hid his monstrous shape, giving Dar the illusion of the body he’d once had—tall, blond, and green-eyed.
Calan slowed his horse. The stealth the animal was capable of would be the only thing that would avert disaster. With the horse on alert for danger, he shifted his gaze from his enemy to the woman. She didn’t plead for her life or fight her abductors. Chin raised, she held Dar’s gaze. Defiance and anger burned in her blue eyes, despite the tears running down her cheeks.
“Do you think killing me and my babe will grant you access to the heavens, Dagda?”
Calan tensed. The use of Dar’s true name, the one he’d gone by when he’d been king of the Seelie Court, put a spin on the situation. Only the gods knew the name Dar had once been called. How had the human female learned of it? Certainly not from Dar. He considered his old self—his Seelie self—weak.
Dar crouched, bringing him eye to eye with the woman.
