Heir of the Dog Black Dog (13 page)

“He was
murdered
,” Liosliath corrected. “Therefore, a new king must be chosen by Right of Hunt.”

My breath caught in the vise clamping around my chest. They meant the Coronation Hunt, the hunt my father had instituted as a means of determining which house was fit to rule without rampant bloodshed.

I rubbed my forehead, taking all of it in. “There hasn’t been an assassination since...”

“Not since the Black Dog assembled the High Court and instituted the Right of Hunt,” Daibhidh supplied. “It was his blood that sealed the contract and brought peace to Faerie. The Coronation Hunt was his idea, and is his responsibility to maintain. The Huntsman is prepared, his hounds eager, and yet Macsen is not here.”

“The Sullivan tracks our king’s murderer,” Liosliath scolded.

Daibhidh sneered. “He does one duty to the detriment of another.”

The Huntsman exhaled on a snort.

“They can argue for days,” he told me in a quiet voice. “The Seelie want your father to find the king’s killer. The Unseelie want him to lead the hunt so that a new ruler is crowned before the old one is cold in his grave.”

“My mother was taken,” I told him just as softly. “She’s the only reason I’m here.”

He scratched his beard thoughtfully. “I’ve heard nothing of a human in the Halls.”

Dread soured the broth in my gut. Mom had to be here.
She had to be
.

Tired of listening to the consuls bicker, I wanted straight answers. I just needed to get their attention first.

I tested the bubble with my toe. It held.
I can fix that
. Murmuring my Word, I removed my glove, and soft light pooled at my feet. Pushing energy through my hand, I shoved my palm straight up against the dome. Magic hit the reinforced shield, and it exploded outward with a deafening
pop
of air.

Silence fell around me. Into it, I challenged, “I came here to negotiate for the return of my mother.”

“Your mother is missing?” Liosliath’s brow furrowed as his reflection glanced at Daibhidh. “Is this House Unseelie’s doing?”

Unruffled by the accusation, Daibhidh waved his hand. “For all we know her parents are missing
together
.”

“You don’t have her?” Doubt dripped from my every word. “Then we have nothing further to discuss.”

“Are you saying,” Daibhidh crooned, “that you would exchange your life for your mother’s?”

“Are you admitting you took her?” I growled under my breath.

“No.” His lips twitched. “I have, however, heard things.”

I gritted my teeth and played along. “What kind of things?”

“Whispers.” His image rippled. “It will cost you to hear them.”

Raven gripped my arm. I shrugged him off me. It was his fault I was here in the first place.

“Name your price,” I said with more boldness than I felt.

“Gather your father’s mantle. Act in his stead. Run in the hunt.” Daibhidh’s reflection stilled. “Accept his title, become the Black Dog of the Faerie High Court in his absence. Then you can know all that I do. Do you accept?”

Run in the hunt
. The blood rushed from my face and left me chilled to the bone. The hunt was a death sentence.

“There must be something else I can offer.” Panic raised my voice an octave.

“Are you haggling over your mother’s worth?” Daibhidh clicked his tongue.

“No,” I snapped, mind whirling. Haggling was exactly what I was about to try.

There must be another way. What else did I have? What else could I do?
What else
?

“Faerie is a dangerous place for a woman to find herself alone. Especially one with such close ties to Macsen Sullivan.” Daibhidh pursed his lips. “Not all fae admire his legacy as we do, you understand, and as Sullivan himself is untouchable... A mortal, well, they are so defenseless, aren’t they?”

“She isn’t defenseless.” Magic leapt into my palm and burned bright. “She has me.”

“Ah.” He tapped a finger against his bottom lip. “That might be true, but what good are you to her here when she is, well, you don’t know where she is, do you?”

I clenched my fist and extinguished my power before I used it and got myself killed ahead of schedule.

“The choice is yours,” Daibhidh said. “She might survive Faerie alone. No mortal ever has, but there must always be a first.”

Choice? No. This was blackmail, a promise that if I didn’t play nice then neither would they, and there was good reason why such tactics were popular among the criminally inclined.

They worked.

“Time grows short. Arrangements must be made soon, whether you are a consideration or not.” Liosliath raised his eyebrows. “Have you made your decision?”

A knowing smirk wreathed Daibhidh’s face.

My heart beat hard once.

Kill or be killed.

“Yes.” I tasted fear when I swallowed. “I’ll do it.”

Beside me, the Huntsman issued a low growl that rumbled with anticipation.

Tuning him out, I demanded of Daibhidh, “Tell me all you know.”

“Your mother is kept safe by an Unseelie loyal to the crown.” Daibhidh linked his fingers over his middle. “Once your duty has been done, she will be returned exactly where and how she was found by those who took her.” His ageless gaze captured mine. “Before these witnesses, I swear this to you.”

I breathed a sigh that left me limp with relief.

Mom was safe. She was going to be okay.

“Thierry.” Raven filled my name with anguish.

“Faerie owes you a debt of gratitude.” Liosliath visibly relaxed. “As a tradition your father himself established, your participation in the Coronation Hunt ensures it is a legacy in the making.”

Tradition.

Legacy.

The magnitude of what I had agreed to crashed over me and left me trembling.

The king was dead. The Huntsman stood at my elbow. And I had just volunteered to play tribute.

Crap, crap, crap
.

“This is what the consuls wanted all along,” I said under my breath. “This is why you brought me here.”

Raven refused to look at me.

But I knew. This was why they sent him to fetch me.

Coronations were held once every one hundred years. According to lore, the purpose of the Wild Hunt was to ride through the mortal realm on All Hallows’ Eve, collecting the souls of fae who died on Earth and returning them to Faerie, to the Ever-After, the fae equivalent of Heaven.

On one such hunt, the Huntsman and his pack of sleek, black hounds crossed a battlefield. Their guts were distended with spirit flesh and their hunger temporarily sated when their noses led them to one last feast. Two souls, one Seelie and one Unseelie, stood with their hands clasped as if unaware the hunt was upon them.

The pack leader ran ahead of the others. Confused when the spirits stood their ground, he approached them, sniffed them and allowed each to stroke his silky, midnight fur.

The Seelie held the hound’s gaze while the Unseelie spoke. “Only in death have we known peace. If we had raised our voices instead of our swords, much of our grief might have been circumvented. Loyal beast, reaper, it is our final wish that Faerie never endure the misery of another Thousand Years War.”

“Mark this day, Black Dog,” the Seelie intoned. “Tonight you are the hunter, but one hundred years hence, you shall become the hunted. One prince from each of our houses will hunt you across Faerie wearing the skins of hounds, goaded by your own Huntsman while you wear the skin of a sidhe noble. Your blood will anoint the new ruler and usher in one hundred more years of prosperity for the fae.”

Instead of consuming the spirits as the Huntsman had decreed, Black Dog bowed his head to their will. That simple act of defiance shattered the bonds between himself and the Huntsman, and Black Dog gained awareness. As a gift to aid him in the trials ahead, the Unseelie entered his left eye and the Seelie his right, so that Black Dog might always view both sides of any argument with impartiality.

Black Dog also gained the form of a man so that he might stand toe-to-toe with kings. He named himself Macsen Sullivan and established the Faerie High Court, choosing one Seelie and one Unseelie consul to join him, and instituted the Right of the Hunt.

Once a century, he was run to ground and torn to pieces. The blood of one man was spilled to determine a king. His sacrifice avoided the slaughter of thousands had the houses gone to war for the crown. For the seven days after he was laid to rest in Faerie’s soul, the realm mourned him. Lore said those tears seeped into the soil and restored him, and he rose at midnight on the seventh day made whole again.

My father was a legend, and by doing this, I too would go down in history. I just wouldn’t get back up again. I was half mortal. The best I could hope for was being long-lived. The immortality thing Mac had going didn’t extend to me.

This gave
temp job
a whole new meaning.

Raven stepped forward. “I claim the right of
coimirceoir
.”

Both consuls gaped at him.

The Huntsman growled, “On what grounds can you claim guardianship of this girl?”

“She is not a girl, but a woman.” Raven set his shoulders back. “She is also my wife.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Wife
? Clearly I wasn’t the only one who had sniffed the toadstools.

“She looks surprised to hear you call her that,” the Huntsman observed.

The consuls exchanged wary glances.

Liosliath narrowed his eyes. “What proof do you offer of the validity of this union?”

“Thierry has warmed her hands at my hearth, eaten at my table.” A pinkish flush crept up Raven’s throat. “She has disrobed in my chambers and even now she wears the colors and cuts of my house.”

His freaking wife.
That was the point of the meal and the clothes and the kindness. Why? What use was I to him or anyone else beyond this point? I had accepted their offer. I was dog chow. Why tighten the noose around my neck?

“We aren’t married.” Barely suppressed rage trembled through the words.

“She is a Christian. She adopted her mother’s faith,” Raven explained away my outburst while cutting a shiver-inducing glare my way. “She desires a formal ceremony conducted by her priest before publically acknowledging our union.”

“Given her limited knowledge of this realm,” the Huntsman murmured, “Rook’s familiarity with Faerie would make for a more interesting hunt. I vote yea.”

Beware the Rook
. The warning clanged in my mind.

“Rook?” I whirled toward Raven. “No. You’re Raven, the Morrigan’s son.”

Daibhidh almost laughed himself off the wall. “Raven is in his rooms upstairs, as any sensible noble would be during these unsettled times. I can introduce you if you like, but you’ll meet soon enough.”

“He didn’t mean the chess piece,” I whispered to myself. “A rook...is a bird.”

“Rooks are corvids, dear girl, as are all those of the Morrigan’s line.” Daibhidh wiped a tear from his cheek. “Rook, you are a credit to your family. I was right to trust you with luring Macsen’s pup here, but marrying her? You have outdone yourself.”

“I am not his wife.” The tips of my ears burned. “I didn’t consent to any union.”

And yet, as I mentally retraced my footsteps through Faerie, I saw each moment leading up to when I stepped neatly into his snare.

I was an idiot.

And Raven—no,
Rook
—was soon to be a widower.

“Be that as it may,” Liosliath stated. “I grant Rook’s request for guardianship.”

“Now that we have that settled.” Daibhidh clapped his hands. “Let the hunt begin.”

Liosliath inclined his head toward me. “May the best hound win.”

A whiff of wet dog told me the Huntsman had shifted closer. “It will be quick, child. I vow that. Go now. Run.” He toyed with a leather thong around his neck. Attached was a horn carved from a curving antler. His eyes shone bright in the darkness. He wet his lips then forced his hand to his side. “The hounds are coming.”

Shock rooted my feet to the floor. “The hunt starts
now
?”

So much for the Huntsman’s vow of protection.

Rook took my hand and yanked me stumbling out of the circle. “Run.”

“Are you insane?” I struggled against him. “You’re going to get me killed.”

“As far as they’re concerned, you’re already dead.” He jerked me so hard my shoulder popped. “This is your only chance.”

“Go with him. Hurry, girl.” The Huntsman lifted his horn to his lips. “The hunt has begun.”

The first blast of his horn made the tile rumble beneath my feet. Toppling off balance, Rook tugged me into motion as the magic in the sound called to me.

Join in the hunt. Blood and bone. Hot and fresh.

My
blood.
My
bones.

In answer to the summons, bloodcurdling howls filled the room. The scrabble of nails and the excited barks of a scent picked up turned blood to ice in my veins.

“I have a plan.” Rook urged, “Hurry and I might save you yet.”

As the barking grew louder in time with the pounding of my heart, God help me, I followed him. For all I knew he was guiding me straight to his brother for an easy kill.

Raven was here, somewhere, waiting. The Wild Hunt’s magic would swirl around him and transform him into one of the Huntsman’s hounds. Higher reasoning would fade. Only hunger for my blood would drive him.

“You lied to me,” I panted. “You’re fae. How did you do it?”

“I’m a half-blood.” He glanced back. “Like you.”

Perfect. I was on the run with the Morrigan’s bastard son.

“We can’t outrun the hounds.” Not real ones. Certainly not the Huntsman’s spectral beasts.

How long did I have before the Seelie hound joined Raven—the Unseelie hound—in the hunt?

“I arranged for transport,” Rook called. “It’s not ideal, but we need a head start.”

Afraid to ask for details, I kept my mouth closed. Rook had lied to me from the get-go. Why did I expect honest aid with no strings attached now? Desperation? Anger? Panic? Fear? Yes to all of the above.