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Raskyuil shrugged. “The lucumo found me wandering through his woods as a young male, my marks of adulthood fresh upon me, lost and clanless. He took pity on me, and in turn I gave him my allegiance and complete loyalty until the day I decided to leave the Eternal Court. Without a clan or home to return to, this seemed like a better option.”
Cathol nodded. “You will find that many trolls who wander this world have similar stories. Now enlighten me as to what this mating problem is and why we have to worry about it putting my outpost at risk.”
“I met a female,” Raskyuil grumbled.
“Congratulations,” Cathol replied flatly. “Is that all?”
Raskyuil gave him a sour look in reply. “You don’t understand. I saw her from a distance and refrained from approaching. She left the carnival later that night, and I have not seen her even in passing since. And she haunts me.”
“Haunts you?” A look of surprise flitted across the overseer’s face.
“My thoughts turn always to her during the waking hours and even when I’m asleep. My seed rises for her,” Raskyuil rasped. “No matter how often I release my seed, it has stopped slaking my need. I burn for her continuously. This shouldn’t be happening. A compatible female’s influence goes away once a male is no longer in range of her scent. And yet I’m tortured day and night.”
Cathol clicked a claw lightly on the side of his teacup as he regarded Raskyuil quietly. “I can’t say with any certainty, especially since I ran headlong into my mating at the first scent of my female. She is human, as I assume your female is. I want to suggest that perhaps our kind has a higher predisposition when it comes to finding a compatible mate among humans but when you describe sounds like something out of a legend. Ha’shena, the goddess-blessed mate. A mate who is tied to you by the goddess of love herself.”
Raskyuil groaned, recalling his lucumo’s torment from his mother. Not that. Anything but that. Once she had her hand in things, it seldom was an easy matter. Now that the words were spoken, he had some dim, distant memory of his mother telling tales of such a thing. She had whispered of it in awe, but she had not had the experiences with the goddess of love as he had. For one who was not familiar with the meddling bitch or witnessed firsthand the devastation her manipulation could cause, he was sure that it all seemed wonderfully romantic.
“I take it that this is not welcome news?” Cathol chuckled quietly and sipped his tea.
“Not even a little.”
“Ah. Well, perhaps I shouldn’t remind you that there is no resisting the Ha’shena. It is an irresistible pull. As far as your instincts are concerned, the moment Ha’shena came into play, that was it. You are mated. So my advice would be to go find your female.”
Raskyuil groaned and scrubbed a hand over his face. “We took the fairy roads here. It is not going to be easy to return.”
The overseer choked, sputtering on his tea to stare at him in horror. “You did? That is madness. No one goes on the roads anymore unless there’s no other choice. They’ve always been dangerous, even to fae.”
“I know this all too well,” Raskyuil replied grimly. “That doesn’t solve the problem of finding her unless I can convince the carnival to return.”
Cathol set down his cup abruptly and shook his head. “Keep the carnival far from your mate. Trust me in this. My mate only passed by it, and there was a darkness that followed her home and attempted to latch on. I had to destroy it, and now I’m vigilant to guard my female from further attacks and she’s careful to go nowhere near those cursed tents. There is something not right about it, and you know it as well as I do. It is not safe. If you have a whole and healthy mate, keep her far from it. Let your instinct guide you to her. It will hunt her out better than an elven grishound. Find her and breed her, and establish a new clan with her far from that poison.”
Raskyuil shook his head grimly. “It’s not so easy as that. I do not have a reliable mount. My motorcycle has been nearly impossible to fix. Every time I think I’ve fixed it, something else goes wrong. And it will take me far too long to reach her by foot.”
“Then I fear for you, my friend,” Cathol rasped. “And I gravely fear for her as well. One way or the other the call will be answered and if you are unable to go to her, it might not keep her from finding her way to you. If you are dreaming of her so much, she may even be drawing nearer as we speak, placing herself dangerously close to the threat. Do not lose her to the dark madness of the carnival.”
A tremor ran through Raskyuil at the male’s ominous words, a dark, heavy feeling sinking deep into his gut. He prayed that Cathol was wrong.
ChapterTwelve
MaryAnne’s body ached. It wasn’t just fatigued muscles from lying on the ground or cramped in her truck night after night, but it was a deeper ache, a need that curled within the pit of her belly and made her feel hollow and empty inside. It was the dreams that tormented her and her strange hallucinations.
There was also the driving need that never eased up and pushed her harder and harder throughout the day, that kept her traveling restlessly. As worried as she was for her children, this urgency was different and she probably would have been grateful for since she was certain that it was leading her to her destination—if it weren’t for the fact that it had such a strong physical effect on her.
She felt stretched thin as if she were just barely clinging to consciousness, her mind desperately seeking to follow the monster in any way it could even though that was the last thing MaryAnne wanted. Her sex was constantly wet as her sexual fantasies increased, which wasn’t a good sign in her book. She absolutely didn’t find monsters the least bit appealing. It would be crazy to.
Of course, driving the truck in her current state was also crazy, so she wasn’t earning any sanity points as of late.
MaryAnne swiped a hand across her eyes, rubbing them briskly. The strange tracks of light were becoming brighter, pulsing with a strange life, bidding her to follow. Her breaks were getting shorter, and what sleep she got when not interrupted by dreams was far too brief. Beyond the strange compulsion her concern for her kids beat within her like the wings of an angry crow. She’d been gone from the children’s home for too long. What if they already returned? Maybe she should turn back. She would also be able to escape this terrifying and unnatural pull if she turned back.
No. She shook her head. She couldn’t turn back now.
If they had her kids or knew something about what happened to them, she would never be able to forgive herself. If they had returned, then Molly, Tibby, Jason, and Max would be there to take care of them. She had to see this through. As for the dangerous pull that dragged her ceaselessly across an unfamiliar landscape and the monster who haunted her—whatever he was—she could face this and endure for the sake of her children. Wherever they were, they had to be so scared.
She blinked back her tears of exhaustion, the road blurring in the low light of her headlights. The sun was already sinking low beyond the horizon, leaving trails of pink and orange in the sky as the only real illumination. She frowned and squinted at a dark shadow taking shape just ahead. Was that a town?
Easing her foot on the brake, she downshifted, the truck grinding its usual protest as it jerked and slowed. The shadow looked like an old-fashioned fort of some sort. How strange. Most of the towns people settled in were the rundown remains of old neighborhoods that stood before the Ravening, walled off in an attempt at creating a barrier against the things that now inhabited the world, but this was something different.
The truck slowed to a crawl as she peered out the window at it. Pulling to a stop at the barricaded gate, she put the truck in park and climbed out of the cab, sliding her hands into the pockets of her worn jeans as she tipped her head back, peering at the incredible height of the masonry. To either side of it she could see the shadow of fields rippling in the cool breeze and hear the distant sounds of farm animals from some hidden place behind the settlement.
