Wild Hunt (15 page)

“The way of the coven?” I asked.

Nodding, she continued: “He taught you the spell to summon the demon, tried to teach you other things, too,” she said. “That was when I kicked him out.”

I stared at her, shock washing the words from my lips. I had so many questions and yet I couldn’t form any of them. He’d taught me the spell to summon the demon; he’d been the reason for his own demise. If it were true, then it was a perverse form of poetic justice.

“What was he?” I asked finally.

She shook her head and clasped her hands together on the table top hard enough to cause her fingers to whiten. “I really don’t know exactly. He never displayed any of the Shadow Sorcerer abilities, not really, but some of the spells he taught you….” She trailed off.

“They were shadow sorcery, weren’t they?”

“Yeah, they were. I don’t know if he could do them himself or if he needed you for it, but I knew I couldn’t let him be around you…. I don’t know if you remember the part from that night when he threatened to take you away from me,” she said quietly.

I cast my mind back over the memories I had from that night and finally shook my head. I didn’t remember it, but there were plenty of pieces of that night that were hazy in comparison to what I did to him. That part I remembered as though it had just happened.

“He was going to take you with him; that’s what he and I fought over, because I wouldn’t let him. You told him you didn’t want to go, that you were happy….”

“I didn’t want him to leave either,” I said.

“Of course not. You were a child, and no matter what, you loved your father….”

“He would have killed you,” I said; suddenly, the memory of my father’s voice, low and threatening, filled my head. “He told you he would kill you if you didn’t relent.”

She nodded and the tears that tracked down her cheeks caused my chest to ache.

“I thought you hated me, feared me for what I had done. I thought that was why you’d locked my powers away….”

“No, never … I didn’t hate you. Fear, yes, I had that, but only because I didn’t know the extent of your powers. We’ve all read what the Sorcerers were capable of, and all I could see was my little girl.”

“But you sent me away, forced me to leave anyway….”

“I didn’t, it was the coven. The second they knew what you had done, what you were, they wanted you turned over to the authorities. As far as they were concerned, you were a danger, so I promised to block your memories, hide your powers from you and send you away….”

“They forced you to send me away?”

She nodded. “They didn’t want me to do it; they were only interested in handing you over to the authorities, but I couldn’t let that happen. I wouldn’t let that happen.”

“When you disobeyed them, what did they do to you?” I’d read stories of the repercussions of disobeying your coven. None of them were good and most ended with the death of the witch in question. To turn your back on your sisters was considered a capital crime.

“They bound my powers,” she said quietly.

“But you still have visions?”

“Only dreams. They don’t have the power collective or otherwise to strip me of that. The gift of the sight is a rare and powerful one; only someone with a power equal to mine could have stripped me of that, too.”

Her words shocked me. I’d always known my mother to be a powerful witch, a powerful, practicing witch, and to think of her now with no magic at all … well, it just didn’t sit right. They’d stolen it from her because she’d tried to protect me.

“Why didn’t you fight them? You could have. I know you had the power….”

She shook her head and smiled sadly. “It would have risked too much, Amber, and as long as I knew you were safe, then that was all I really cared about. Whatever they did to me, none of it mattered.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, tears gathering in the corners of my eyes. The combination of escaping from someone like Fionn, exhaustion, and recovering pieces from my past was enough to emotionally send me over the edge.

“Don’t cry,” she said, drawing me in against her. “It’s all water under the bridge, now, anyway.”

“I caused you so much pain, blamed you for so much….”

“You had every right to; I kept secrets from you, and by all accounts, my actions have been more of a danger to you than anything else….”

“It doesn’t matter now,” I said, sitting up and scrubbing my hand across my cheeks.

“You should get some rest; there is always tomorrow to discuss everything else,” she said, pulling me onto my feet. “You know where your room is?” she asked, and I nodded.

She was right of course. I needed sleep, I needed to regroup and come up with a viable plan to face down Fionn once and for all before it was too late.

Her lips pressed to my forehead in a soft kiss before she pushed me gently toward the stairs. “Go, sleep,” she said.

I went, my feet more like deadweights as they carried me up the wide stairs to the landing above. Moving down the hall, I paused outside my old room and sucked in a deep breath. It was more than a little strange to be back.

Pushing open the door, I stepped inside. It smelled of fresh cotton and crushed camomile, scents I firmly associated with my mother’s house. The room was different and not as I remembered it, but then, what did I expect? Too many years had passed for it to stay the same.

Moving toward the bed, something sparkled and caught the corner of my eye, causing me to turn back toward it. The fairy sat on her toadstool, her tiny features upturned to the sky as she basked in a sunlight that only statues could feel.

It had been mine. I could still remember the day I’d bought it with the last of my pocket money. With a smile, I crossed the room and dropped down onto the clean bed, all my intentions of getting into the shower forgotten as soon as my head hit the pillow and darkness closed over me.

C
old air rushed
against my skin as I ran, the uneven ground beneath my feet making it harder to stay on my feet.

“You can run, Amber, but I will find you. And until I do, then this is on your head…” Fionn’s voice echoed through the trees. Sucking in a deep breath, I picked up my pace and moved faster.

The ground disappeared beneath me sharply and I stumbled over the edge of the ravine, my momentum carrying me forward and down. Tumbling down the sharp decline, my hands scrabbled at the soft dirt, but it was no use.

When I hit the bottom, pain radiated through me as my body made impact with the uneven surface.

I lay there, breathing hard and staring up into the night sky. The moon was barely a silver sliver that hung above me.

Wrinkling my nose, I stopped breathing through my nostrils and sucked a breath in through my mouth. Something really didn’t smell right and I lifted my hand out of the wet, sticky substance I was lying in.

My hand was dark and something thick and wet dripped down my wrist.

“Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic.” I repeated the words over and over out loud like a mantra. Panicking wasn’t going to help; it never did. In fact, it had this terrible quality of making situations worse.

Lifting myself up, I tried not to touch anything else nearby. Pushing onto my feet, I shook off as much of the thick globs of wet chunks as I could, holding my breath as a piece of it slid down the back of my neck and dripped onto my back.

I would not scream.

Looking out over the rest of the pit, I quickly changed my mind, the scream gathering in my core and finally ripping from my throat as I stared at the unseeing eyes of Fionn’s latest victims. I screamed again and his laughter filled my head.

* * *

J
erking awake
, I stared around at my unfamiliar surroundings and tried to choke back the scream that was attempting to crawl out through my throat.

“Amber!” Nic said, bursting in through the door, his body framed by the light from the hall.

Simply seeing him was enough to bring my tears and when he crossed the room and gathered me into his arms, I sobbed like a small child. Shame welled within me. What had happened to me? Why was I constantly so bloody emotional? It made me feel weak and that wasn’t something I ever wanted to feel.

“It was just a dream,” Nic said, stroking his hands down over my hair.

“I don’t think it was,” I said, dread crawling into the pit of my stomach. I knew it wouldn’t budge.

“You’re safe here with me,” he said. “Of course it was a dream.”

“I know I’m with you, but what I saw—I think it was real…. He’s killed again, Nic. I need to stop him.”

Nic’s hands stilled against me and he pulled back until he could see my face. “Why is it always so important for you to be the one to ride to the rescue? It’s nearly gotten you killed more times than I can count and I’ve only known you a few months.”

His words stung and I extricated myself from his grip. I didn’t do any of the things I did by choice. Well, not really, anyway. What did he expect me to do? Simply sit back and allow a monster like Fionn to continue to kill, all because there was a risk of him killing me?

“You know I do it because I have to. If I don’t, who will?”

“I don’t know, Amber, maybe any of the other Elite officers you work with?”

“It’s me he wants; he will keep killing until he can have me, have my power….”

Nic nodded and buried his face in his hands. “I know that, and I want him dead … I want him dead for taking you, for attacking you, for even daring to look at you and think he could claim you for himself….” Nic’s words bordered on possessive and I felt my spine stiffen a little.

I knew what it was to care for someone, but not to the point where I wouldn’t allow them to live their lives because I was afraid of the consequences. “Nic, what happened when I was gone?” I asked, my voice dropping low.

Fear wrapped itself around my insides as I watched him turn away from me. There was something he wasn’t telling me, a secret he wasn’t telling me, and I knew instinctively that whatever it was, the answer was not going to be a pleasant one.

“I can’t,” he said, refusing to meet my gaze.

“Tell me—you can tell me anything, remember?”

“Not this…. You won’t understand….”

The fear wrapped itself tighter around my heart, constricting my chest until it was almost impossible to breathe. “I’ll understand if you explain it to me….”

He turned on me then, anger draining the colour from his face, and I watched the colour bleed from his eyes. The white spread until he looked as though his eyes had rolled into the back of his head, but I knew the truth.

“Nic, what did you do?” I asked, reaching out toward him.

The demon mark on my shoulder flared to life and I flinched as it burned away the magic his power was threatening to call up within me. I’d gone through something similar with Jason and the demon mark had protected me then, too.

Nic lunged, pinning me to the bed beneath his weight as his white-eyed gaze searched. I knew what he was looking for, and as long as I had the demon mark, he wouldn’t find the magic that coiled in my centre.

He slammed his hand down onto the centre of my chest and I cried out, pain radiating through my core.

“Nic, please…” I said, staring up into his blank eyed stare.

Jason had mentioned something about needing to stay away from those he’d cared about when he’d first joined with the Saga Venatione.

My words seemed to have their desired effect and Nic threw himself away from me, cowering in the corner of the room as he rocked back and forth, his arms wrapped tightly around his body.

I pushed up on the bed once more and stared at him. Seeing him like this, it hurt in ways I’d never imagined possible. What had driven him to it? What had made him think this would ever be a good idea? He knew what his brother was…. It just didn’t make any sense.

“Why?” I asked, my voice cracking over the word.

“Why what?” he said gruffly, his grip so tight on his body that I could see his knuckles beginning to turn white.

“Why did you join with them? Why become a Saga Venatione? You knew how dangerous it was….”

Nic laughed, a pained, bitter sound that hurt my ears. “I didn’t have a choice. He took you, I watched him take you through the fucking mirror, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop him … I couldn’t bring you back….”

“You did this because Fionn took me?”

“I did this because it was the only way I could make myself strong enough to find you, to hunt down the bastard that had taken you and make him pay.”

I stared at him in shock and surprise. What was I supposed to say to that? He’d done this terrible thing to himself, become something he abhorred, and all because of me. It wasn’t right, and it sure as heck wasn’t fair. But at the same time, there wasn’t a damn thing he or I could do about any of it. We would simply have to deal with it and get on with the cards we were dealt.

“It doesn’t matter, Nic. I don’t care about any of that … I care for you,” I said.

He shook his head and continued his steady rocking pace. “We both know that’s not true. What I am, what I’ve become—it’s a danger to you….”

“It doesn’t have to be,” I said, hating the desperate note that crept into my voice as I watched him slowly unravel before my eyes.

“I wanted you safe. That was all I asked for, and once I know you are, then I’ll leave…” he said so quietly I wasn’t sure if he was addressing me or convincing himself.

“I don’t want you to leave. I want you with me,” I said, clenching my hands into the bedspread.

He looked up at me then and smiled sadly. “We don’t always get the things we want. And if my staying with you meant that I might one day hurt you or worse….” He trailed off.

“That’s not a choice you get to make for me, Nic.”

“I’m not making it for you, I’m making it for myself. If I was the reason you ended up hurt or worse … I couldn’t live with myself.”

He stopped his rocking and pushed up onto his feet once more and crossed to the door. “You should get some more sleep; morning will be here faster than you think, and if you’re planning on going back up against Fionn, then you’re going to need all the rest you can get.” He stepped out into the hall and pulled the door shut gently after him, leaving me to stare after him for the second time in one night.