“You really think I can… have this?” I asked finally.
“Yes, Rian. Ireallydo,” he reassured me, and I hoped for both my sake and Nuala’s that he was right.
Chapter forty-two
A SOUL IN TATTERS
Nuala
Rian had told me not to touch theceangalstone without him after Queen Aoibheal had attacked me. But it was not like it was connected to her without any fire to awaken it, and I wanted to see if I could get another reading. It was something to take my mind off the reaction that Rian had when I finally broached the topic of the home where we would raise our children. And I could not handle another moment of silence from the bedchamber, knowing that he and Carrick must be talking about me behind a ward.
So I decided to retrieve the stone from the trunk where Rian had attempted to hide it, and I had been sitting at the fire with it for a while. Only it was not the Autumn Queen who finally made an appearance in my visions.
Instead, I saw sapphire eyes that seemed to burn.
Bring me their ashes,the dark god commanded me. And then he was gone.
I jolted and glanced toward the curtain to Rian’s room. My heart was pounding as my fingers rose to curl around the vial hanging around my throat. This was not a wrath that I wanted to visit upon my mate or his family if I did not do as commanded. It was better to go and get it done. And it was better if Rian did not try to stop me. I hated to give him more reasonsto distrust me, but I could not deny the will of the dark one
And I was afraid it was too late to regain his trust.
I felt the compulsion to go outside, and I knew not to question it. I simply rose and went into the antechamber to collect my cloak and drew up my hood. I half expected Rian to burst from the room and stop me before I stepped through the door outside. I expected someone would see me and report my actions to him, and he would intercept me before I got to the edge of the army encampment.
But the soldiers barely even glanced at me. Rian had been taking me everywhere with him even while we were barely speaking. He had wanted to ensure that everyone in the camp knew that I belonged to him, and it worked. Not one fey dared to stop or question me as I went.
I saw a hooded man standing under a tree at the edge of the river, which bordered the south side of the camp. The unrelenting compulsion drove me straight up to him, although I knew before he turned toward me that he was not the dark god who plagued my dreams. He did appear to be fey, although I was too far away from Rian to use his fey instincts to know for sure.
He opened a portal without a word, a swirl of frost and silver that was unlike the portals the Hunt created. I did not need Rian’s magic to know it was not Autumn magic, and I hesitated with a glance back the way I had come. Then I straightened and steeled my heart before stepping into the portal.
I had made a deal. My promise had to be fulfilled even if my end did not turn out the way I had hoped.
The smell on the other side made me immediately gag, so I knew I had to be back in Uile Breithà. The mountains around my coven had held only the hint of this pollution, but this was potent enough to make me want to be sick. They must have brought me near a human city.
It was several moments before I braced myself enough to look up again, and I realized my fey companion hadn’t even come through the portal with me. Not that I blamed him since I wassure this stench and the oily feeling on my skin would be even worse for his kind. I knew other witches often lived near to these noxious cities, but I was not sure how they managed it. I could not wait for Rian to come and burn this whole rotten place into ashes.
I glanced around and saw that I was standing outside of a decrepit building that hummed with rowdy laughter and music. There was a cracked and faded wooden sign above the door with a motorcycle silhouette, and dozens of the vehicles were parked in the gravel lot. I recognized them from the magazines my father favoured, which he always forbade me from touching. One of the many perks he had enjoyed as the High Priest and a man was his ability to access reading material from outside the coven. Whilst I had not even been permitted to learn to read.
I drew in a breath laced with the poison of this world and moved toward the door as someone stumbled outside. The awful scent of stale beer, leather, and sweaty bodies assaulted my senses even before I slipped inside while the man who had left began puking in the bushes.
It was dim inside the building, but I could clearly see the men with tattoos and leather vests sitting around the worn wooden tables. Scantily clad women, who were just as tattooed as the men, wove between tables with pitchers of ale and then were pulled into men’s laps.
Every boisterous conversation stopped the second their eyes landed on me in my handmade lavender dress with my bare feet on the sticky floorboards.
“Well, well,well, what do we have here, lads?”
“You look lost, pretty thing.”
“Enough,” said a stern voice, and as suddenly as they had all taken notice of me, it was like I became invisible. They turned away and carried on with their conversations without so much as a second glance at me.
I turned toward the bar where the voice had come from and saw a dark-haired man sitting with his back to me.
“I do not have all night,” he added without looking at me over his shoulder.
I moved toward him slowly, my heart hammering as the men around me continued to act as if I did not exist. The longer I moved through them, the more I began to suspect that they genuinely did not see me. Which meant he had used some kind of psychic power to not only stunt their ability to perceive me but also their memory of my presence too. Which was a rather terrifying thought…
I reached the man at the bar whose worn leather jacket was not adorned by the patches that covered the vests of the bikers. I slipped onto the stool next to him and stared up at his beautiful profile as he sipped at his amber drink. When he finally turned his head, I shivered under his icy gaze that seemed so terrifyingly inhuman.
“You brought what we agreed upon?” he asked.
