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“You won’t be able to. But that doesn’t mean no one will. Look.”
He eases me back to my feet, turning me so that I can see that Riley is sprinting toward us, Nine directly on her heels.
“We heard the scream. What happened?”
“He took Jim!”
Nine glances over my head. “Who did?” he asks Rys.
“I can’t say. I didn’t see his face, but no doubt it’s a Cursed One. He shadow-traveled right behind us, pulling Elle’s human into the shadows with him before I could stop him.” Rys squeezes my shoulder. His touch grounds me further, and when I rip my wild stare away from Riley to look up at him, he brushes his lips against my temple. “I would have. Believe me, my darling. For you, I would’ve gone in his place.”
I shudder, trying to get control of myself. Not gonna lie. The sweet kiss helps almost as much as his gentled tone.
Swallowing roughly, my hand shoots out to clutch his upper thigh. Right now, I just need to touch him, almost as much as I need to breathe.
“I believe you,” I whisper. I can barely get the words out. It feels almost traitorous, giving in to my desire for Rys while Jim is gone. And I don’t know if it’s because of the touch or because—finally—I can admit that I still want Rys more than anything else, but I feel fucking awful leaning into Rys instead of running after Jim, no matter how fruitless that would be.
Because he’s right. I can’t find him on my own. As a Seelie, Rys might not survive jumping into an Unseelie portal. But that doesn’t mean no one can.
Nine is Unseelie. But Riley?
She’s the freaking Shadow. If anyone could trace the shadow that whisked Jim and his abductor away, it has to be Riley.
“What about you?” I ask her. “Can you follow after him?”
Riley sets her jaw. “I can sure as hell try.”
“I’ll go with you,” Nine says. His mirror-like eyes glitter viciously. “Where did the Dark Fae take him from?”
I wiggle out of Rys’s grip; now that I’m not fighting against him, he lets me go, even if I can sense how reluctant he is to do so. I dash over to the spot where Jim was standing right before the wind started to pick up.
“Here. He was right here.”
“Riley?”
“I’m on it.”
Riley lifts her arms up. I can’t really tell what she’s doing, the leather gloves nearly invisible in the dark, purple night, but I can sense the way she twists her wrists, tugging the shadows toward her.
Her power as the Shadow is… it’s different. Instead of a hurricane, strong yet uncontrollable, the black shadows that Riley controls are tame. They greet her like a long, lost friend, curving around her feet before wrapping up her legs. Because Nine is standing right beside her, they cling to him, too. Can they tell he’s Unseelie? Maybe.
When the shadows have thickened and grown, reaching the middle of her belly, she shoves at the space in front of her. The shadows follow her gesture, forming an impossibly black patch right where Jim was standing before he was snatched.
“Ready?”
“Always.”
Riley jumps into the shadows. Nine grabs her hand before she’s completely gone, linking her to him as he vanishes next. A moment later, the shadows disperse.
And that’s when I see it. Something dark, something skinny… even though there’s barely any light, the inky black color still stands out against the old layer of snow on the ground. I don’t think I ever would have paid it any attention—it looks lik
e a flat stick, or a weird leaf—except I still have the ear-splitting caw echoing in my ear.
Anything’s better than the memory of Jim’s broken scream...
My stomach lurches as I push myself toward it. I…. I know what that is. If it wasn’t for the debt I owed Grimly, and what I went to that clearing to do, would I have even had the nightmare I’m living through now? I don’t know, but I sure as hell earned the feather I gathered for Grimly.
And look. Here’s another one.
