Cold Days

past one of the Sidhe from the Botanic Gardens, behind him. The Sidhe had a blank, confused look on his face as he tried to fight his way out of the concentration of supporting Maeve in her suddenly interrupted spell. No time to think. Claws of bloody ice flashed at him, and I opened his throat to the windpipe. He went down with a choked scream, and I stepped on his chest to fling myself at the two behind him, one a twisted figure inside a droopy grey cloak and hood, the other a lean, gangling thing with the head of a boar, covered in tattoos and bone beads.

I stomped a foot down onto the cloak, slammed my clawed hand into the body behind it, and ripped out something ropy and hot and slippery. The boar-headed thing tore at my body with its tusks, and I felt bright, distant pain on my ribs. I drove a foot up between its legs in a kick that lifted it six inches off the ground, and took off an ear and half its face with my claws.

I sensed Fix at my back and heard him grunt, “Down!”

I dropped to my knees and bounced back up again. In the time I was down, his sword flicked out over my head, drove into the chest of the boar thing, and whistled out again, taking heart’s blood with it.

Then there was a roar, a sound that came from something truly enormous, and someone slammed a tree trunk into my lower back. It took me off my feet and sent silver pain through my body. I landed in a roll and came up to mostly steady feet, one hand supporting some of my weight, the other up in a defensive posture.

It was the rawhead.

Rawheads are parasites, creatures that assemble bodies for themselves out of the bone and blood of freshly dead beings. They were more common when every farm and village did some slaughtering each day, back before grocery stores and fast food. As I noted before, this one was enormous, bigger than a couple of large steers, twelve feet tall and weighing at least a ton. The cloak had been torn from it, and now it looked like a bizarre sculpture of bones of various creatures, drenched in fresh blood. It had the skull of something big, maybe a hippo or a rhino, and luminous lights danced in the empty eye sockets. It drew in a huge, wheezing breath and roared again.

Fix was picking himself up off the ground, bounding up as if he hadn’t been hurt at all—but the Redcap and four other Sidhe were stalking toward him with weapons drawn. Fix faced them squarely, blade in hand, a small smile on his plain face.

“My, my, my,” Maeve said. She stepped around the leg of the rawhead into sight, giving me a frankly appraising stare. “Who would have thought you would dirty up so well, wizard? I mean, the claws, the blood, the eyes.” She shivered. “It gets to me. I’ve always had a thing for bad boys.”

I smiled around the nail. “Funny. Because I’ve got something for you, too.”

“Yeah?” she asked, and licked her lips. “You finally gonna nail me, big guy? You’ve been so coy.”

“I’m done teasing,” I said.

Maeve slipped both hands behind her back, arching her body, thrusting her chest toward me. It wasn’t a particularly impressive chest, but it was well formed, and pale, and lovely, and hidden beneath entirely too much bikini for my taste. A snarl bubbled up out of my throat.

“That’s right,” Maeve said, her wide eyes unblinking. “I know what you’re feeling. The need to fight. To kill. To take. To fuck.” She took a pair of slow steps toward me, making her hips shift back and forth. “This is right. It’s exactly what you should be feeling.”

I flexed the fingers of my free hand and prepared to strike. She just had to come a little closer.

“Can you imagine this all the time, wizard?” Maeve purred. Steel began to ring out, back where Fix was. But I ignored it. Two more steps. “Can you imagine feeling this strong all the time? Can you imagine being so hungry?” She took another step, and another deep breath. “And feeding that hunger. Sating it. Quenching it in flesh and screams.”

She slid her left hand out from behind her back and ran her palm slowly over her stomach and side. “This flesh. I would not give it to you. I would fight, dare you to do your worst. You could unleash your every aching need. And that would just be the beginning.”

I was breathing hard now, though I hadn’t been a moment before. My eyes had locked onto the interplay of muscle and skin over her vulnerable belly. The claws would tear through her guts so easily there. Or I could use my teeth. Or just my tongue.

“Sex and violence,” Maeve purred. She had taken a couple more steps toward me, but I wasn’t sure when. Or why it mattered. “Hunger and need. Take me, here, on this ground. Don’t give me pleasure, wizard. Just take. Let it out, the beast inside you. I wish you to. I dare you to.” Her fingers popped the snap on the little shorts. “Stop denying yourself. Stop thinking. This feels right.”

Hell, yeah, it did. Maeve might have been one of the Sidhe, and fast, and have all kinds of magic powers, but she wasn’t stronger than me. Once I took her to the ground, I could do as I pleased with her. I felt my mouth water. Some might have come out of one corner.

Maeve stepped closer yet and breathed, “You came for my throat, didn’t you?” She let her head tilt bonelessly to one side, and slid her hand up her lithe body to push her hair back and away from her neck. Her hips were making small, slow shifts of her weight, a constant distraction. Her throat was lean and lovely. “Here it is. Come to me, my Knight. It’s all right. Let it out, and I will make everything worth it.”

Her throat. I had wanted it for something, I thought. But now I just wanted. That would be how to do it. Set my teeth on her throat while I took her. If she struggled—or didn’t struggle enough—I would be able to start ripping my way toward the blood.

“This is how it is supposed to be,” Maeve purred. “Knight and Lady, together. Fucking like animals. Taking what we please.” Her mouth turned up into a smile. “I thought you’d never let it in. Let it in deep, where I could touch.” Her lovely face took on a feigned, youthful innocence. “But I can touch it now, can’t I?”

I growled. I’d forgotten how to do whatever that other thing was. All I could think about was the need. Claim her as a mate. Take whatever I pleased from her. Make her mine.

Except . . .

Wait.

A fluttering surge of pure terror went through me, and it was energy enough to let me rip the Winter from my thoughts, to push it back. It didn’t want to go. It fought me every inch of the way, howling, filled with raw lust for flesh and for blood.

My ribs suddenly ached. My head spun a little. I suddenly needed that hand on the ground to keep my balance.

Maeve saw it the second I regained control. Her eyelids lowered almost closed, and she breathed, “Ah. So close. But perhaps there is still time. Is that your staff, wizard, or are you just happy to see me?”

I bared my teeth and said, “Maeve . . .”

“This is perfect,” she said. “In one night I’m going to unleash the Sleepers, slay a starborn, put an end to this troublesome mortal city, and begin a war between Summer and Winter. By the time the real assault on the Gates begins, Winter and Summer will be hunting one another in the night, and be so busy gouging out one another’s eyes that they’ll never see what is coming—all thanks to me. And you, of course. I couldn’t have done this at all without you.”

She leaned a little closer as she spoke that last, and I ripped at her throat with my ice claws.

I was exhausted, and it was slow, entirely lacking in the focused power and precision I’d felt under the influence of Winter. She bobbed her head back a fraction of an inch, and the swipe missed and sent me down into the dirt.

Maeve let out a little peal of laughter and clapped her hands. Then she flicked a couple of fingers negligently toward me and said to the rawhead, “Tear him to pieces.”

The rawhead took two lumbering steps forward and reached down toward me with bony, bloody claws.

But before it could grab me, there was a rush of footsteps, and a four-legged form consisting entirely of what looked like mud slammed into its rearmost leg.

The mud creature hit the rawhead hard. The power of its impact cracked bones and blew the leg out from beneath the rawhead. The fae giant bellowed a ground-shaking roar. A ton of bloody bones fell, and the mud creature, white teeth flashing, kept after it.

Snarling.

And a nimbus of blue light gathered around its muddy jaws.

I looked up to see more mud creatures rushing up the hill, though the others were bipedal, of various sizes and shapes. The first one to reach me drew a steel sword from a muddy scabbard and went after the rawhead as well, falcata being used with the brutal power strikes normally employed with a freaking ax. Silver eyes flashed in