“Excuse me?” Ian blocked her path. “I haven’t seen you in months. And what? You’re dismissing me?”
“Raul left another present for me. I skipped town and haven’t slept much since. I’m exhausted.” Which was true. It just wasn’t her sole reason for wanting privacy.
She sidestepped her brother.
“Wait a minute.” He grabbed her arm. “What happened?”
“The same thing a visit from Raul always brings. Death. This time he killed my neighbor, but…” Harley worried her lower lip. “But something was different about the whole thing. He didn’t make a play for me. He made sure I knew he killed her, then walked away.”
For serial killers, a change in their pattern often indicated an unraveling mind. Raul, though, wasn’t crazy or sick. He needed to kill. Without his victim’s fear-laced blood to soak his gauze cap, he died.
“Shit. That’s not good.” Ian released her and crossed his arms over his chest. “Until we figure out why he’s acting different, I’m postponing the wedding, and you’re going to the bunker for a while. I’m not taking—”
“No.” She raised a trembling hand. The thought of being locked underground in an iron prison chilled her. The metal acted as a buffer and made it harder for the redcaps and sluaghs to find her, but the last time Ian had insisted she go there, she’d had a breakdown. Harley feared closed-in places. She’d spent too much of her childhood locked inside her house. Inside the basement. Going outside had been a rare treat. “I can’t, Ian. I can’t. Please don’t bring it up again.”
He reached for her and let his hand drop. “If you take those tranquilizers—”
“No!” How could he even suggest it? He’d seen how drugs affected her. They made her delusional. Enraged.
Violent.
Rough pants heaved her chest, and the burn centered deep within ignited. Wicked laughter followed. Real or imagined, she wasn’t sure. She only knew she couldn’t let the emotion grip her.
Harley pulled up the image of blue eyes to chase away the rage. A few more heartbeats later, the scent of a campfire filled her nostrils. The fire burning her veins cooled. Her breathing slowed. The all-consuming wrath eased, and the taunting laughter cut off.
Calan might’ve left her alone to face temptation, but the memory of him had become her crutch. Maybe he had helped her the only way he could. She didn’t know and couldn’t figure it out with the echo of evil in her head.
She pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes and sat on the couch. “Medicine doesn’t work quite right for me.” She glanced at Ian. “I’m not human, don’t forget.”
He shifted on his feet uncomfortably, then dropped onto the seat next to her. “Okay, but I’m worried. Their patterns have been slowly changing.” He squeezed her hand. “It’s almost as if they’ve changed their goals from killing you to watching you. It makes me wonder why.”
She worried about the same thing, and the implications scared her. The temptation to embrace her rage had grown over the past few months; so had her awareness of the fairies’ creatures, Raul especially. At times, she wanted to get closer to him and feed on him, taking his taint into herself. It would make her powerful…unstoppable. Evil.
“It doesn’t matter. We both know I’m living on borrowed time.” Harley slumped against the cushions. “Hell, I don’t know why I’m still fighting. I can’t escape what I am. All I do is kill the people around me.”
Ian tugged her limp body up and captured her gaze. “No, Harley. Don’t fucking go there. You didn’t ask for any of this, nor did you ever cause a single death. You understand?”
He shook her, and she bit her tongue. Tangy, bitter blood filled her mouth. No iron aftertaste. Her blood almost tasted rancid, and the strong flavor was getting stronger every year. She swallowed the reminder of her nonhuman status. “But I—”
“No. Raul and those other hideous bastards would still be killing people whether you lived or not. You can’t blame yourself for their actions.”
Harley dropped onto the sofa. “True, but they usually pick people who live close to me.”
He turned his back on her and paced. “That’s not true either. You just focus on those. Less than ten percent of their victims have been your neighbors.” Ian stopped his prowling and faced her with glinting hazel eyes. “Do you want me to recite the damn statistics again?”
Ian had dedicated his life to studying the redcaps’ and sluaghs’ activities. Obsessed over them might be a better term, actually. Harley shook her head. She couldn’t bear to hear the worry in his voice over the rate at which their crimes had grown.
She wanted to stop them too but didn’t know how. Actually, that wasn’t quite true. If she believed what Calan had told her, she could prevent more deaths by freeing him and allowing the Wild Hunt to ride again.
“What do you know of the Wild Hunt myth?” It’d been playing over and over in her head. She kept trying to find a good spin on it, but the little she’d read about it left her wary.
Ian walked toward the picture their mom had hung ages ago. “I always wondered why Mom displayed this piece so I researched it.” He leaned against the mantel and faced Harley. “There are numerous versions of the Wild Hunt myth. Most have one thing in common. They’re a bunch of spectral horsemen riding across the night sky with their hounds. They’re unstoppable, and those unlucky enough to step into their path are killed or carried back with them to Hell.”
She sighed. That was what she feared.
“But,” Ian went on, “some said they were true hunters who roamed the earth in search of escaped beings from the Underworld. One version even suggested they hunted fairies.”
Hope rose. Harley joined Ian at the fireplace and stared at the picture. “Do you believe they’re real?”
“Maybe.” Ian shrugged. “I never thought redcaps or sluaghs
