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Leslie leaned her head against the Dark King’s shoulder. “How about we start at the beginning?”
Irial tilted her chin up so that he could stare at her. “In a moment.”
Without looking at Keenan, Irial made a shooing gesture with one hand.
And Keenan walked out to give them their privacy. He’d only left the Summer Court a day ago, but embracing his Winter Court nature meant that the complicated relationships of the Dark Court were unsettling now. After centuries of spending much of his free time pursuing girl after girl, the idea of eternity with only one faery was his sole desire.
Before he could begin that eternity, Keenan needed to help his former advisor—and the dead faery who’d once helped bind Summer—figure out how to nullify Bananach, and convince Far Dorcha to depart.
Keenan sighed.
No problem.
Chapter 33
A block from the Dark Court’s warehouse, Chela held up one gloved hand. Three faery messengers and one Hound directly behind her paused. She told the messengers, “Obey him.”
The messengers nodded.
“Once they’re gone,” she told the Hound, “you will fight, but until the messengers go, you wait.”
The thought of missing any of the battle obviously wasn’t appealing to the Hound. His scowl deepened, but he nodded. “I’ll make up for lost minutes, Gabr—Chela.”
“I know you will, Eachann. Gabriel will be pleased when he comes back,” Chela said, and then she urged her steed, Alba, forward. No one would declare her mate dead if she could hold even a sliver of hope.
Some Hounds are daft, Alba muttered in her mind.
Instead of answering, Chela urged aloud, “Faster.”
In only a matter of seconds, Alba battered down the warehouse door with his front paws. Unlike her mate’s steed, Chela’s shifted shapes the way some people changed clothes. Alba wasn’t frivolous, merely awkward with emotions. He chose to express his feelings with his shape. The fact that their Gabriel was missing meant that Alba was leonine, feral and ready to hunt.
Me too, Alba. She stroked one hand over her steed’s close-cropped fur, and then she extended her voice to the rest of the Hunt and added, No mercy if Gabriel is . . . gone.
None of the Hounds replied, but they all knew that their Gabriel was either dead or severely injured. As his second, Chela wouldn’t be able to communicate nonverbally with the pack if he were safe. She held hope, though. She and Gabriel might have had a few difficulties—including those over his tendency to sire half-mortal children during their times apart over the years—but they were as faithful as Hounds ever were.
He is not dead yet, she told Alba once again. If the words were lies, I couldn’t speak them.
Her steed was too kind to remind her that opinion didn’t follow the truth rule, but they both knew it. If Gabriel was gone, she’d do what she must. Gone or not, he’d been injured enough that she was acting in his stead.
She will suffer, Alba growled. We will not stand down.
The faery courts had let things go too long. The Hunt had no such patience. Gabriel had pursued Bananach. That told them where their Gabriel stood on the issue of striking War.
We will finish the fight our Gabriel began, Chela told them all as they followed her into the Dark Court’s warehouse.
They were silent as they saw confirmation of one of the fears that had brought them here: Bananach sat on the regent’s throne. The raven-faery snapped her beak at them as the Hunt continued to thunder into the vast room. She stayed spine-straight, ankles crossed and hands dangling carelessly over the arms of the black throne. Her wings curled forward on either side, so she appeared to be surrounded by a giant shield.
All around her, Ly Ergs and unfamiliar faeries waited. A few Dark Court faeries were i
n the crowd, but they did their best to duck behind others as the Hunt poured in. Sparks glimmered in the shadows as the steeds’ claws, hooves, and talons struck the cement floor.
Stay mounted, Chela ordered.
Where is the Dark King? one of her Hounds asked.
Seth is caged, another reported. Left and above the throne. Birdcage.
Is Seth injured? Chela asked.
