The Dark Huntsman: A Fantasy Romance of The Black Court (Tales of The Black Court Book 1) (33 page)

At first, Trina thought the knocking sound was the rain hitting the tin roof, but something about the regular pounding struck her as odd. She put the biscuits in the oven, set the timer, and tried to see out into the dark, stormy farmyard, but the person knocking had their head covered in a black slicker. It wasn’t Logan or Stephan. There was no way she was opening the door to a stranger. Not after her experience at the cottage.

The person kept knocking.

Trina blew out a frustrated breath and looked for a weapon, any weapon, as she ran through her repertoire of spells. Stephan was right. She could defend herself. But spells took time and she didn’t have any prepared. No candles, no way to set a trap. She picked up a heavy cast-iron skillet she had been surprised to find in a half-fae’s kitchen.

“Go away,” she called through the door, holding the skillet up. “I’m not interested.” But the person kept knocking.

Maybe Logan had sent someone with a message, or maybe it was one of Stephan’s neighbors needing help in the storm.

Her heart sped up.

She looked out the window. Heavy storm clouds had blocked all the sun. Even though it was nearly noon, it was as dark as night outside. Trina flipped on the porch light and peered through the pouring rain. The person was a black shadow under a dark raincoat. All she could make out was a blurry hand knocking as if they would never stop.

Trina squeezed her hands over her ears, but now the knocking came through clearly under the sounds of the storm. She gritted her teeth.

She wouldn’t open the door. But…maybe she could open the window, just an eensy bit, and talk to the person. Get them to stop the irritating knocking and go away. She pushed up the heavy wooden sill a few inches and called out through the gap. “Hello?”

The figure stopped knocking and gestured, seeming to push the air in Trina’s direction.

Trina’s heart pounded and the pressure changed in her ears. Something wasn’t right. She reached for the window frame and caught a whiff of the fresh scent of apples creeping through the gap in the window. Trina bent her arms to push the heavy wooden frame down and inhaled deeply of the tart, delicious smell. Her eyes closed in anticipatory bliss of the fresh crisp taste of a juicy ripe apple.

Her mouth watered.

Instead of pushing the sill down, her arms pushed the window wide and the smell of apples poured in with the icy cold rain.

Trina blinked water out of her lashes and tried to see through the torrent. The figure came over to the window and held up a basket of brilliant red apples, shining in the dark of the storm.

“Look at these lovely apples, my dear,” said the woman in a horrifyingly, familiar rich contralto.

Trina’s mind fogged over. The skillet dropped from her hand and clanged onto the floor. Trina leaned against the screen, trying to get more of the irresistible scent of fresh apple. Somewhere inside her head, she heard herself screaming, and she struggled to get control of her own body. She would not let this happen again. Not again.

The woman under the black raincoat held out her basket. “Apples would be good in a pie, my dear.”

Just like at the cottage, Trina knew that this was wrong, so wrong. But her hand stretched out, her fingers catching on the screen as she reached and stretched for the beacon of a bright, shiny apple.

She centered, to marshal her defenses for a spell that would get her out of the sticky slowness her thoughts had become and gain her control of her own body. But the fog in her head and the lure of the apples grew too strong. She pushed the screen out. It dropped into a puddle on the deck and she leaned out over the window sill for a better whiff.

Apples. Red, ripe apples.

Trina’s hand latched onto the handle of the woman’s outstretched basket. Somewhere, someone screamed, but she didn’t care anymore. She reached for the first gleaming apple.

The skin was slick, hard, and a perfect, ruby red. Her teeth ached to bite into the crisp red skin, break it open, and sink down into the cool, white flesh.

Saliva pooled in her mouth.

Trina watched her hand bring the apple up, knowing without a doubt that if she took a bite, she would be dead. Her hand shook as she tried to hold the apple away from its inexorable path to her mouth. A small part of her held on to the thought of life, family, and Logan. She dug deep, struggling to access her Gift.

There, glimmering deep within, her magic strained to rise to her call. Something that had always been easy became a massive struggle. Her Gift called up power from the earth and it coiled up from the dirt under the house, through the boards, and penetrated the soles of her feet, despite the distance and the apple’s draw.

Her muscles contracted with the simultaneous effort of bringing the ripe fruit closer and keeping it as far away as possible.

The apple hovered before her lips.

Anticipation pooled in her mouth.

“Yes, my dear, yes.” The voice from under the black raincoat shook. “You want to bite the apple. Swallow it. Taste its delicious poison.”

Trina pushed her Gift, struggling to force her fingers to drop the fruit, but her magic was drowned out by a surge of apple scent and a fierce compulsion to bite into the shiny red surface. She brought it to her mouth. Her jaw flexed, her teeth opened and she bit down, breaking the skin and sinking into the crisp white flesh.

It was as crunchy and delicious as she’d thought it would be. Sweet juice dripped down her lips and onto her chin. Thunder boomed, startling her, and she gasped, sucking the large chunk of apple into her throat. She began to choke.

Precious seconds passed. Her air dwindled. She had nothing left.

She fell back into the house and hit the floor, the apple rolling from her hand across the floor. The black-coated figure appeared in the open window. Trina stretched out her hand in appeal and the woman dumped her basket of bright red apples into the house, maniacal laughter echoing through the pings of rain on the tin roof.

Trina’s eyes closed and her hand relaxed. But her magic was there, still flickering inside her. It wasn’t strong. She couldn’t say a spell, couldn’t focus it with candles or an athame. But she still had her will.

She lay unable to move, the icy rain pouring in the wide-open window, soaking her clothes. Her ears buzzed as she became smaller and smaller inside her own body. Using the last scrap of her will, Trina seized the tiny cord of magic that she could reach, the cord tied deep in her soul, and wrapped it around the metaphysical spark of her life force to form a shield.

The last sound she heard as she passed out was the fading sound of laughter and the pounding rain on the tin roof.

Logan opened the door to the kitchen and nearly choked on the smell of burning biscuits. He stepped inside, kicking something across the floor that rolled and bounced stopping only when it hit a body. The strength drained from his legs, and they buckled.

Trina lay on the floor in a puddle of water, surrounded by lurid, red apples.

He sagged on the doorframe, letting the wind and rain blow into the room. Thunder cracked and he moved, shouting for Stephan, kicking the shiny, ruby globes away from her prone body. He dropped to his knees and felt for her pulse.

He couldn’t find it.

Where the hell was Stephan?

“Stephan!”

Behind him, he heard boots on the floor and the click of the door closing. He was up, sword in hand and at his opponent’s throat before the sound had died away. Stephan stood, hands up, holding very still as Singer’s sharp point drew a tiny drop of blood from the dip of his throat.

“Whoa man,” he said.

Logan sheathed his sword. “What the hell happened?” He pushed rain soaked hair out of his face and bent back to Trina’s still figure, collapsing on the floor next to her and pulling her on to his lap. Her head lolled to the side. “I left her with you.” His voice cracked.

Thunder boomed and a hard wind shook the house.

“I’m sorry.” Stephan’s face contorted. “Christ, I never would have left her if I’d thought anything would happen to her.” He came further into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes and shaking his head as if he could make the picture of Trina puddled on the floor disappear. “No one even knew you were here.”

“Someone did.” Logan read Trina’s aura. The area around her throat had a noxious green, cloudy color, but that didn’t tell him much. He shook her frantically, searching through her hair and in her clothes, looking up at Stephan in panic when he couldn’t find anything besides the gleaming apple with the single bite lying next to her hand. “I don’t know what to do, damn it, do something!”

“I don’t know how to heal. You know that,” Stephan’s voice was bitter. His hands fell to his sides. “I’m no good at this. I’ll contact your uncles.”

Logan picked up the bitten apple and threw it. It hit hard, splattering the kitchen wall with broken shards of white and red. He wiped his hand hard against his thigh, as if he could scrub the evil away. Trina was fading before his eyes and he knew, even if his uncles could help, they wouldn’t arrive in time.

The kitchen door slammed open, hitting the wall. Wind, rain, and Solanum, in the shape of a black hound, blew in, a shrieking old woman hanging from a torn, black raincoat gripped tightly between his sharp teeth.

“She’s dead! And there’s nothing you can do,” the woman cackled.

“What did you do to her?” Logan rose from his place next to Trina’s body.

The woman’s beady, black eyes glared at him and she spit on the floor, narrowly missing Trina’s lifeless hand. Solanum shook his head hard and the woman’s teeth clacked together.

“She reeks of magic,” Stephan said. “Strong, dark magic.”

Logan opened his Gift and searched for her aura. At first, he couldn’t even see it. Then he extended his reach, insinuating his magic into the dark recesses of her soul. He pushed hard and it slid out from under a glamour spreading out to cover her in a dark and greasy cloud. The old woman grinned at him and he understood, this was the same woman who had brought Trina near death with the combs.

His vision blurred red and he seized her, ripping her from Solanum’s teeth and shaking her until her head snapped back and forth on her neck.

“Logan, stop!” Stephan grabbed his arms. “You’ll kill her. We need to find out what’s wrong with Trina.”

He wanted to kill her, wanted to destroy her before she did any more damage to Trina, to her life, to his heart.

“Cease!” Solanum’s voice reverberated into his skull and cut through his rage. He stopped the shaking, but retained his brutal grip on her age-spotted arm. She hung there cackling, spittle dripping from the corner of her mouth.

“There’s something off about her.” He couldn’t see past the greasy, black aura. “What is it? I’m too tired to read her, damn it!”

“Let me.” Stephan focused his Sight on her. “She’s been glamoured by someone powerful. This, I can do.” He spread his arms out, opening his palms, and approached the woman who thrashed and kicked, struggling to free herself from Logan’s grip.

Light burned from Stephan’s palms, enveloping the old woman in a bright glow. Her black aura fought back, the greasy ooze trying to swallow Stephan’s light. Stephan’s shoulders hunched. He fought, his hands pushing and shaping his light, encouraging it to grow. The black aura drew back and attacked again. Stephan pushed hard. There was a flash of blue and a steamy hiss as his light overwhelmed the black and it shrank and disappeared.

Stephan stumbled back and leaned against the counter. “Fuck me,” he said, rolling his shoulders and neck. “That was more than a normal glamour, much more. That was dark fae magic.”

Logan blinked. He held an entirely different woman by the arm. This one was decades younger with smooth skin and a fierce expression in her dark eyes. Her aura now flared a brilliant, rich gold.

“Who are you? Who sent you? What did you do to her?” he asked.

She spat on the floor and he slammed her against the wall. “What did you do to her?” he growled. “Tell me!”

“Let me have her. I’ll get the truth from her.” Solanum extended his jaw, his lips pulled back from his fangs in a wolfish grin.

Logan pushed the woman at Solanum.

“Keep it away!” The woman shrank back, scrabbling to get behind Logan and away from the puca. “I’ll tell you who I am. I’m Mariella Boyd, the leader of the Seven Tribes.”

Logan stared at the woman who had betrayed them. “What have you done to her?”

“Killed her. Finally.” She smiled, her face glowing with triumph. “And you can't save her this time. This time, I made sure the poison would be inside, where you can't get to it. Right now, it’s twining through her veins and into her heart.”

Logan fought to control the urge to wipe the smile off her face and kill her. Trina needed him. Killing this woman now would accomplish nothing but Trina’s death.

“What did she ever do to you?” he demanded.

“Nothing.” The woman spat on the floor again. Logan shook her hard, her teeth rattling. Stephan pulled her away and Logan let go.

Mariella stood tall, crossing her arms over her chest. “She’s nothing, just another MacElvy in my way.”

“But the MacElvys are your people. Why are you not standing behind them?”