The Dark Huntsman: A Fantasy Romance of The Black Court (Tales of The Black Court Book 1) (36 page)

“The spell starts in her throat.” Aoife gestured at Trina. “I believe I can remove the cause, but in order to reverse the damage, she will need an influx of energy, a tremendous amount.”

Logan stared at Trina’s cold, still form in the coffin. The evil, green tendrils had settled back into her aura and her veins stood out stark blue in her translucent skin. He’d give everything to have her back, but this was too much. She’d be back, but he would never get to see her again. A hot weight pressed behind his eyes. To live without her would be excruciating.

“It will change her,” Aoife said. “That much fae energy poured into her will not only save her life, but will extend it, and it may have other repercussions. I just don’t know.”

He nodded and stepped closer. “I will pay the forfeit.” Trina would live longer and he would die.

“Wait!” Aoife held out a hand. “Before you say yes, you need to know the price it will exact from you.”

Logan barely glanced at her. He was storing up the way Trina looked. When he died, he wanted her face locked in his memory.

He barely heard what Aoife said. “You will live a shorter lifespan. Perhaps half of what you could expect. And it is more than possible it will kill you altogether.”

Hope uncurled inside his chest. Logan looked Aoife in the eye. “You mean there’s a chance I’ll live?”

“Yes, a slim one. There’s more of a chance you’ll die.”

A surge of relief swept through him, loosening the lump in his throat and releasing the curl of hope. “There’s a chance I’ll see her live.”

“Logan,” Rinnal stepped forward, forehead furrowed and hands balled at his sides. “Are ye sure now? Are ye sure the lass is worth half your life?”

Life without Trina was unthinkable.

He nodded. “She’s worth the whole damn thing.”

“Wait lad!” Angus gripped his arm, holding him back. “Think about it. No woman is worth this price, let alone a human lass.”

“She’s worth it all. I would give all my years to have her back. To have her back and the chance I might live also?” He looked deep into his uncle’s blue eyes. “It is a far greater boon than I would expect.” He shook off Angus’s clutching hand and stepped up to the side of the casket where Aoife waited. “I’m ready.”

“So be it.” Aoife placed her slender hands on his shoulders. “Look at me and let me in.” He gazed into her deep purple eyes and opened his Gift. His aura poured out, flowing into her at a rate that surprised and panicked him. He grew dizzy and weak and his desire to live rose up, overpowering his will to sacrifice his life.

He struggled, the flow of his life force hesitating, then the tide turned and eddied, surging back in his direction as he struggled to keep his soul from pouring into Aoife.

“This is it, Logan,” Aoife said. “This is the real moment of decision. Are you going to give her your life? Or are you changing your mind and killing her?”

He gasped, drowning in the power of her eyes. The flow hesitated.

“Do you love her?”

His love for Trina rose up inside him, pictures of his witch he didn’t even know he had memorized. The way she laughed and the way she smiled. The way she got angry, her green eyes throwing sparks. The way she looked at him just before she threw her head back in ecstasy.

The tide shifted. His life force flooded back, pouring into Aoife at an increased rate. His love poured out, and it was greater than he'd ever imagined it could be. He grew light-headed, weaving on his feet, but Aoife's strong fingers dug into his shoulders and he willingly put his entire soul into her keeping.

He trembled, the room growing hazy and dim, and far off in the distance, he saw a bright light framing a doorway. The door cracked open, an even brighter light drawing him in with a sense of longed-for peace.

Aoife closed her eyes and cut off the flow from his soul. The door slammed shut. Logan collapsed.

Stephan and Angus caught him, supporting him as he fell to the ground.

Aoife held her hands out, palms down, over the glass of the coffin. She pulsed with the powerful glow of his life force, engulfed in a nimbus of white light. Logan’s eyes slitted with exhaustion, he could barely see the white light of his life flowing out of Aoife, through the glass, and into Trina.

Piece by piece, the green tendrils of the spell lost their lurid color, turned into brown withered vines, disintegrated, then disappeared.

Logan’s inner sight wavered as he leaned against his uncle in complete exhaustion. The last of his soul-light poured out of Aoife and into Trina, and Aoife crumpled into Rinnal’s waiting arms.

“Did it work?” Logan pushed himself up, and with Stephan and Angus’s help, staggered to the casket.

Trina lay beneath the glass. No movement. No breath. No sign of life. He tried and failed to focus his sight and see if any of the green of the spell was still there. But he couldn't gather enough energy from his depleted body to see if Trina’s soul had accepted his offering.

He seized Aoife's arm, his eyes burning. “She's not moving!”

He’d lost her.

He let go of Aoife and threw himself on the coffin, pressing his face to the hard glass and staring down where Trina lay unmoving. The biggest sacrifice of his life, wasted.

“It's not finished.” Aoife's voice rasped out, unbearably loud in the stillness of his loss. “You must finish it.”

“What else do I have to do?” He worked to pull himself up on heavy, weak limbs and face her. “You've taken so much, I can hardly move.” He was almost too tired to be angry. He didn't have much left, but what he had would be spent in Trina’s service.

The ancient fae stooped with exhaustion. She leaned heavily on his uncle, no longer looking young, her skin now creased and wrinkled with her thousands of years of life. “Open the lid.”

Logan wrestled with the weighty wooden lid of the coffin. “What should I do? Tell me!” Stephan and Angus rushed to help him lift the lid off and slide it to the side.

A scratchy laugh came from Aoife. “Kiss her, silly boy.” She leaned heavily on Rinnal. “What else would you do?”

Logan brushed a long stray hair off Trina's icy cheek. He leaned into the coffin, bracing his arms on the thick wooden walls, and tentatively brushed his mouth against her cold, unresponsive, ruby lips.

She didn’t move.

Desperation pushed him to kiss her again. Deeper. Pressing against her cold mouth and grinding his lips against hers, willing a response. “Come on,” he murmured against her lips. “Please.”

A tiny bit of warmth touched his mouth. He pulled back.

The frightening red of her mouth rushed from her lips into her cheeks, suffusing them with a delicate, pink glow. Pink flushed her neck, down through her arms, all the way to the beds of her fingernails. Her mouth opened. Her chest shuddered. She struggled to breathe and a small, rough cough wheezed out of rattling lungs. Air moved past her parted lips and blew on his cheek.

Trina’s black eyelashes fluttered like snared birds, and Logan held his breath.

Her limbs flailed. She thrashed, hitting the sides of the coffin. Her frantic hands scratched the sides of the wood as she endeavored to sit up. Logan reached in, using the last of his strength, and pulled her into his arms. The force of another hard, racking cough shook her body and, out of her mouth, flew a chunk of apple. Trina inhaled a huge gasping breath…

…and opened her eyes.

Air flooded Trina’s lungs. Her fingers and toes tingled with the rush of blood. She gazed around the dark torch-lit cavern at the crowd of men. “What in the name of Danu is going on?” she asked, her voice ragged in her sore throat.

Logan crushed her to him. “You're alive.” His face cracked and stretched into a huge smile. “She’s alive!”

She stared at his face in the dim light. Tiny lines that hadn’t been there before were now etched at the corners of his eyes and his skin was a pasty shade of grey.

“How do you feel, lass?”

“I’d feel better if you weren’t crushing me.”

He loosened his hold, but didn’t let go, keeping her held tight in his arms. “Better?”

“How did I get here? And what’s wrong with you?” She brushed his too-dry forehead with her hand. “You look sick.”

“He'll feel fine in a week or so.” A tall, pale woman with definite Tuathan ears peaking out of her long white hair leaned on Logan’s Uncle Rinnal. “That much energy takes time to replenish.”

“What happened?”

“He saved your life." The woman’s dark purple eyes glittered at Trina and she shrank back into Logan’s arms.

“Who are you?”

“This is Aoife, and she saved you. She saved us both,” he said, his voice husky with fatigue. “You nearly died.”

Everyone stared at Trina.

“Aoife, this is Aoife?” She looked around at the concerned faces. “What the hell happened? How did I get here? How did she get here? And what’s with the coffin?”

“I want to get you home.” Logan rose and pulled her to her feet.

“Nay, lad,” said Angus. “I don’t think we’ve anywhere safer than this at the moment. Ye’ll have to take refuge here like we did during the worst of the wars.”

“Sleep here?” Trina said, looking around the dark, damp, cavern. Her brain whirled as she tried to figure out what was happening. Her skin tingled. Sounds seemed very sharp and she felt juiced, like she could run forever.

Logan, on the other hand, looked like he was about to fall over.

“We’ll have to stay in the tunnels for a little while,” Logan said, running his thumb along the side of her wrist. “Just until we find a place to go, my love.” His intense, tender expression sent frissons of excitement prickling under her skin.

“I might have a suggestion.” Aoife said. The fae left Rinnal’s side and came to perch on the edge of the broken coffin. “There’s a resort in the Adirondacks that King Oberon owns. It’s private, and the queen wouldn’t dare to challenge the Golden King. You’ll have a place to recover and to plan your next move.”

“Oberon will never allow me into his demesne,” Logan said.

“He will.” Aoife stood, lifting her chin, her voice growing stronger. “I will arrange it.”

Logan shook his head. “I’m too damn tired to ask now, but be assured, it will come up…why you seem so sure the Sun King of the Gold Court will hop to your wishes and protect a miscreant like me.” He let go of Trina and crossed to where Aoife stood gathering up a sodden, starry blue cloak. “I owe you my life, and Trina’s.”

“Nay,” she said shaking her head. “You owed me this forfeit. We are even, Huntsman.”

“Thank you.” He bowed.

“But after I arrange sanctuary with Oberon, then you will owe me again.” She swept her enigmatic gaze over Trina. “You’ll both owe me.”

Trina bristled. “But what about the prophecy? What about my family?”

Aoife swept her cloak around her shoulders and crossed to the room’s entrance. “The huntsman knows.” She left.

“Now explain.” Trina demanded. “Explain why I feel like lemon-lime soda has replaced all my blood, we’re back in the tunnels, and you look like crap.”

“We’ll be outside, lad,” Rinnal said, ushering Angus and Stephan out of the cavern and leaving Trina and Logan alone in the flickering torchlight.

Logan picked up her hand, idly tracing the lines in her palm. His blue eyes were dark and serious. “We need to talk, lass.”

Trina’s stomach flipped. “This doesn’t sound good.”

“When we did the spell, when Aoife saved your life, we had to do something I never thought could be done.” His hand squeezed hers. “She helped me transfer some of my life force to you.”

“What does that mean? I’m part fae now?”

“You’ve always been part fae, that’s your gypsy heritage. And that may be why we were able to do it at all. I don’t know.” He sat on the coffin and pulled her to him, cradling her between his spread thighs, wrapping his hands around her hips, and cupping her backside. “What it means is that you will live a very long life for a human, much longer than the already extended gypsy life that was yours.” His hands dug into her muscles, massaging her hips. Her pelvis softened. “There may be other repercussions.”

“Is that all?” she asked. Her breathing quickened as he stroked up and down her hips and back, curls of excitement racing through her core. “I almost die and now I get to live a long life? What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing.” Logan pulled her down to her knees and she settled between his thighs. The energy racing through her blood tingled as she leaned into him, fitting her pelvis to his erection.

“It’s a good thing. A very good thing,” he murmured, continuing to stroke down the small of her back, the length of her hips, and the curve of her ass. “But there’s something else. I need to let you go.”

A hard, cold lump settled in Trina’s ribcage.

He didn’t want her.

“What?” She struggled against his grip. “I can’t believe you just said that.” After all of her attempts to leave, now he was going to let her go. Just…like…that. Now that she knew she was in love with him and that they had a chance to be true partners, she didn’t want to leave.

“When Aoife has convinced the king to offer sanctuary, you and your family will be safe,” he said. “You can make a permanent home under the Golden King’s protection. “But I have left my quest too long. I’m bound now to discover what has become of my prince. I can’t take you with me, and I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”