Sirensong (15 page)

The Erlking gestured at one of the Huntsmen, who nudged his horse forward and slid his mask up so I could see his face. It was like looking up into my dad’s eyes, though it took only a moment to take in the rest of his features and realize that he was not my dad. He was stockier, his face less narrow and his nose less pointed, but the resemblance was obvious.

“He is here,” the Erlking said unnecessarily, “but you will ride with me.”

Why had I known he’d say that? I knew the battle was already lost, but I tried to stand my ground anyway.

“I’d like to get to know my brother,” I said.

The Erlking laughed. “He is not a very entertaining conversationalist.”

I flinched. Usually, the Erlking at least pretended to have some human feelings, so I hadn’t expected cruelty from him. I glanced over at Connor, but if he was offended by the Erlking’s joke, there was no sign of it. He was watching me, a hint of a smile on his face.

Connor waved a hand between me and the Erlking. Telling me to go with the Erlking, I supposed. He could just have been following the Erlking’s silent orders, but something told me he wasn’t. I still didn’t want to get on the giant black horse, nor did I want to get so close to the Erlking. The last thing I wanted was him touching me.

Unbidden, an image came to my mind of when we’d sealed the deal for Ethan’s freedom—with a kiss. Because of the wild surge of magic that had accompanied the spells that bound us both to our word, that kiss had been embarrassingly passionate. I knew that it had only felt that way because of the influence of magic, that I hadn’t been in my right mind, and that even Arawn had been affected. But sometimes, I couldn’t help thinking about it. Logically, I knew that touching him wouldn’t set off any fireworks, that the kiss had been a one-time deal, but still …

The Erlking’s horse snorted and stomped its hoof, apparently as impatient with me as Phaedra had been.

“Come along,” the Erlking said. “Your father is nearly beside himself. If you don’t make an appearance soon, he’s likely to say something Prince Henry might make him regret.”

As far as I could tell, Arawn had never lied to me. Deceived me, yes, but never outright lied. I couldn’t imagine my staid and usually unemotional father being “beside himself” over my absence, but if Arawn said it was so, then it probably was.

With a sigh of resignation, I took the Erlking’s offered hand and allowed him to pull me up onto the saddle in front of him. I’d expected him to put me behind him, but he and his horse dwarfed me so much that he could easily reach around me to hold the reins. This meant I was smushed up against him uncomfortably close, and I was painfully aware of the warmth of his body behind me. I was also painfully aware that he, uh, enjoyed having me there. My cheeks burned, and I prayed that he wasn’t going to comment.

It was worse when the horse started moving. Arawn’s body rubbed against mine, and his arms seemed like they were practically trapping me against his chest. And then there was that other thing, rubbing against me with every jolt of the horse’s stride. My hands gripped the edges of the saddle, not because I needed to hold on but to keep me from doing something drastically stupid like poking my elbow into his gut to make him back off.

“Relax,” the Erlking said, his voice soft as he spoke right into my ear, bringing his face uncomfortably close to mine. “You are in no danger from me. I promise.”

I managed to swallow the hysterical laugh that wanted to bubble out of me. He might not be liable to hurt me, but that wasn’t the same as not being in danger. And there was our bargain, hanging there menacingly. If I ever wanted to have sex in my life, I would have to do it with Arawn first. I doubted I’d ever have been able to do that even if I didn’t know he could steal my powers and ride out into the mortal world on an unchecked killing spree.

It took only a minute or two for us to reach the area where I’d unleashed my magic against the Bogles, and for the first time, I saw the results of what I’d done. Arawn reined his horse to a stop, staring at the collection of armor, helmets, and shoes that lay strewn across the road. Of the Bogles themselves, there was no sign.

“What happened here?” Arawn asked.

Usually, I was very secretive about my magic, but Arawn had already seen me in action once, and I was too wrung out to make something up.

“They got too close,” I said as his horse picked its way gingerly through the stinky leather. “I hit them with some kind of spell, and it threw them backward. I couldn’t see what happened after that.” I didn’t know exactly what I’d done to them, but they were definitely dead. To my shock, I felt a shudder run through Arawn’s body behind me.

“You did the same thing to them you did to your aunt Grace,” he said softly, and if I didn’t know better, I would have sworn his voice held a combination of awe and fear. But that was ridiculous. No way was the Erlking afraid of
me
! “You made them mortal.”

I shook my head in denial. “But it
wasn’t
the same spell. Whatever this was, it threw the Bogles backward. It didn’t do that to Aunt Grace.”

Arawn was quiet for a moment before he spoke again. “Magic is an almost sentient force. It understood the intent of your command. It had to get them outside of your Faeriewalker aura so that making them mortal would kill them.”

I didn’t tell Arawn I’d been thinking about turning the Bogles to stone, not making them mortal. Somehow, I didn’t think that would have been any kinder or gentler a spell to have cast. There was no denying I’d intended to kill the Bogles.

“It was self-defense,” I said, telling myself that it was silly to feel guilty about killing things that had been trying to kill me.

I felt Arawn nod, but he didn’t say anything more. And, ridiculous as it seemed, I now felt certain he was … well, maybe not
afraid
of me, exactly. But unsettled by me, for sure. We had already established that I was unlikely ever to use my magic against him. Now we knew I could reproduce the spell I’d used against Aunt Grace, but I still didn’t know if I could do it when I wasn’t under attack. I
was
sure I couldn’t use it to cold-bloodedly kill someone.

“It bothers you, knowing I can do this,” I said, though I probably should have just kept my mouth shut and hoped Arawn let it go. So far, he’d saved my life twice—not because he was so all-fired fond of me, but because if I was dead, I couldn’t give him my virginity. But what if he decided I was too dangerous? After all, I might be the only person in either of our worlds who was capable of killing him. I had a feeling that if he sided with those who wanted me dead, my life expectancy would be less than sixty seconds.

Behind me, I felt Arawn’s shoulders lift in a shrug. “I won’t pretend it isn’t disturbing. But I know you would only use it against your enemies, and as a last resort. And I am not your enemy.”

I supposed it depended on how you defined
enemy
, but Arawn had declared himself my ally, and I believed he meant it. At least, he’d meant it
before
he’d seen what my magic could do. There was something … off in his tone of voice. And he had put a little bit of space between us on the saddle. Not so much that I didn’t keep bumping into him, but enough so that he wasn’t rubbing up against me anymore. I appreciated the personal space, but I really hoped it didn’t mean Arawn was starting to reconsider my value to him. I had more than enough enemies already.

It seemed to take forever to catch up with the caravan. Phaedra had covered a lot of ground in her headlong rush.

The wind was blowing into our faces, and I smelled the carnage before it came into view. Bogles stink to high heaven, and there was an overlay of blood and fear that made it almost overpowering. Or maybe I was just imagining it.

When we finally rode around a bend to the site of the attack, my stomach heaved, and I had to close my eyes and hold my breath in hopes that I wasn’t going to barf all over myself.

There were bodies everywhere, though in my first brief glimpse, I saw only Bogles and a handful of horses. No humans. Er, Fae. Of course, maybe the prince’s people had already carried the dead away from the battlefield.

I opened my eyes again, bracing myself for what I was going to see.

Still lots of bodies, and lots of blood. Some of the prince’s men—servants, not Knights—were piling the dead Bogles together. The pile was already alarmingly high, and there were plenty more bodies littered all around the outskirts of the road. Not all of them were whole, and I did my best not to look at them.

A couple of the wagons had been knocked over, and there were at least three dead horses, but considering the staggering number of Bogles that lay slaughtered on the ground, the battle had gone fairly well. It told me a little something about the power of the Fae I traveled with that they could fight off an attack of this magnitude with so few obvious casualties.

People were hard at work fixing wagons, bandaging wounds, and cleaning weapons. Too busy to see us approach at first. But then someone spotted us, and a cry of alarm went up among the assembled Fae. Behind me, I felt the Erlking sit up straighter, like he was trying to make himself even bigger and more intimidating than he already was.

The prince’s Knights moved quickly to stand between the Wild Hunt and their liege, although it wasn’t like the Erlking could attack anyone from the Seelie Court, not with the geis he’d allowed the Queens to put on him. But that didn’t stop him and his Hunt from being a source of terror. Several of the Fae looked like they were about to pass out from fear, although the Knights just looked grim.

I heard my father’s voice call my name. I strained my eyes trying to see around the Knights. I caught sight of movement, then saw my father, pushing his way through the gawking Fae, Finn and Ethan following close behind him. Keane and Kimber were coming from the other side of the gathering, moving more slowly because they weren’t as aggressive about shoving people out of the way.

The Erlking reined his horse to a halt while still about fifty feet away from the Knights. My dad finally made it to the front, but the Knights blocked his way. I saw the spark of fury in my dad’s eyes, and realized that Ethan hadn’t been exaggerating when he said my dad was “beside himself.” He looked like he was about to explode. I wasn’t close enough to tell, but from the way the Knights whirled toward him, I guessed my dad was pulling magic, maybe about to do something stupid.

“Dad! Don’t!” I yelled. I tried to slide off the horse, but Arawn put an arm around my waist and held me.

“Not yet,” he said. “Someone might get twitchy if you make any sudden moves.”

“Let go of me,” I growled, but he just held me tighter.

I prayed Dad wouldn’t cast anything on the Knights who were blocking his way. I suspected that would be the kind of breach of etiquette that could get him in a whole lot of trouble, especially when the prince had it in for him anyway.

Finn reached out and laid a hand on my dad’s arm, leaning forward and saying something I couldn’t hear. Dad winced, then closed his eyes, visibly taking a deep breath to steady himself. When he opened them again, he looked outwardly calm, his bland Court mask back in place. But the Knights still regarded him warily.

“
Now
you can get down,” Arawn said. “But move slowly. They’re on edge, still in battle mode. It wouldn’t take much to trigger them.”

I didn’t much want his advice, but I listened to it anyway. I kept a close eye on the Knights as Arawn helped me slide to the ground. I was glad for his steadying hand, because it was a long way down. The Knights looked every bit as on edge as he’d said, so I walked slowly and held my hands away from my sides, trying to look as harmless as possible. Not that that was hard. As my aunt Grace and the Bogles could have told you, I’m not actually harmless, but I definitely
look
it.

My dad said something to the Knight closest to him. The Knight frowned, then stepped aside with apparent reluctance. My dad slipped past him, although Finn and Ethan stayed behind. Dad walked slowly toward me. After everything I’d seen and been through in the last half hour or so, I wanted to run to him and fling my arms around him—a gesture of affection I’m sure he’d have had no idea what to do with.

We met about halfway between the two groups. I wished the Erlking would take his Hunt and leave, because as long as he loomed there, the tension was going to stay dialed up to maximum.

“Are you all right?” my dad asked, his voice controlled and tight.

“I’m fine,” I assured him, though I wasn’t sure it was quite true. I’d seen more death since I’d come to Avalon than I’d ever imagined, but I’d never seen anything like today. Breaking down and having a fit of hysteria seemed like a reasonable thing to do, although at that moment, I was pretty numb. “What about you?” There was blood on his shirt, and I gasped when I saw the five parallel tears in his sleeve. Blood soaked his shirt around the tears, although there was no sign of a wound.

“I’m fine, too,” he said, then followed my eyes to the tear on his shirt. “It was just a scratch, and Finn healed it for me.” He reached for me, startling me by pulling me into a hug. “I thought I’d lost you,” he said into my hair, his voice choked with emotion.

I hugged him back, my throat tightening up so much I couldn’t talk. Sometimes, I felt like my dad saw me as nothing more than a tool to help further his political ambitions. Then there were times like these, when he let me see what lay beneath his polished exterior, and I realized he really did love me. And I loved him right back.

Dad broke the hug before I had a chance to say something sappy and started guiding me back to the caravan. The Knights were still blocking the road, and I saw that Kimber and Keane had joined Ethan and Finn, waiting for me just beyond the barricade. Maybe it was my imagination, but I could have sworn I felt the Erlking’s eyes on me the entire time.