I felt my rage infecting my pack, finally understanding what it meant to be alpha for myself. But I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t hold it in. If I had tried, I knew it would be the end of the child inside me, and my captors weren’t worth it. We would go to war, if needed, and we’d finish killing them all if that’s what it took to make my people safe, and finally stop Tryst from hurting anyone ever again.

  The great hall was empty when I strode through the door. Across the marble floor and out on the wide patio I’d landed on when we arrived, Geallta and Tryst struggled, as she tried to escape his grasp and he tried to force her onto a night flyer.

  Niall burst past me in a blur of silver and white, leaping out onto the patio as the doors at the end of the hall flew open. More mutations poured through and race toward us, separating us from Niall and Gee, and trapping us inside the palace.

  I swung with all my might, catching the largest of the creatures by the muzzle and tearing its flesh from its jaws. Caorach flew apart completely at the blow, and the magic faded, leaving a gray, dull shard lying on the floor.

  The creature rose over me and claws swept down at my face. I raised my arms to deflect it, but the blow never landed. When I looked up, Kthel had the creature by the throat. She tossed it to one side and held out a hand to me.

  “Go to your wolf. I will make you a path.”

  I accepted the help to my feet. “You don’t have to do this. You owe us nothing.”

  “I felt you free my sister. I heard her sigh as her strength was returned to us. Caorach, you named her, and when she is reborn among us, Caorach she will remain.”

  A fresh wave of tears threatened to burst from my aching heart. I’d sworn to hate our bond forever, but the soul in the sword had been loyal to me every minute. That was the way of the huntresses.

  “I should have known.”

  “You are not Unseelie. You are not even fully Fae, Princess. Until she was brought back to this land, no one could’ve known. She was hidden from us all.”

  Tryst did this. I clasped the hilt in my hand, unwilling to part with the last of the weapon that had made me strong enough to protect my people from each other for all these months. I’m going to kill him myself.

  I nodded my understanding and turned my attention back to the struggle outside. Tryst was shooting some kind of raw magic at Niall as he ducked and feinted, looking for an opening to tear out the Fae’s throat.

  “Tryst!” I screamed his name as I raced toward them, bodies flying all around me as Kthel guarded me. A twisted muzzle appeared inches away from my face and a skidded to a stop and dropped to the floor, only to see its head fall away from its body as the wood elf stared in horror at the green blood on the arm he’d shape-shifted into an oak branch. “Thank you, Elf.”

  “Oakly. My name is Oakly.”

  “Thank you, sir Oakly. You are welcome in my house and in my father’s kingdom, should you ever need refuge.” He spun to face another of the mutated shifters and my path to Tryst was left open.

  Twenty-Eight

  He dropped his arms to his sides, staring at the hilt in my hand. “What have you done?” Tryst’s eyes filled with tears and he dropped to his knees as Niall loomed over him, body vibrating with his menacing growl.

  “I set a huntress free, Tryst. What have you done?”

  His face twisted in hate. “I loved her. We were together longer than your family has held the High Throne.”

  “You trapped her and used her to make a name for yourself. She’s the reason you were given wild magic of your own, made a full Fae.” I scoffed. “I haven’t had that privilege handed to me, and I’m heir to the throne. Maybe I should trap a Fae in my locket and use her power to destroy an army, right?” I looked around. “Not that it’s much of an army now. Seems you’ve lost some of your soldiers.”

  Behind me, several of the Ufasach Bas stood with Grayson, their bodies and weapons covered in the blood and viscera of the last of the mutations. “They were shifters, Tryst. Why would you…” My voice fell off.

  “No. I didn’t create them, I inherited them. I didn’t know what to do with them, so I left them in their cages.”

  “You kill them, Tryst, that’s what you do. You don’t continue to let them suffer.” Niall took another step towards him and I motioned him back again. “No, Niall. This death is mine, and mine alone. I can’t ask that of you.”

  Tryst started to laugh, but it died on his lips and fear filled his eyes. “You couldn’t.”

  I nodded. “No, I couldn’t. Not for a long time. But I can now.” Tears streamed down my cheeks. “You ungrateful son of a bitch. I loved you, continued to be your friend no matter how many times you earned my enmity.” I raised the bladeless hilt as though a sword still stretched beyond the silver and jewels clutched in my fist. “I hate you, Trystan, king of the Unseelie Fae, Lord of the Dark Lands. I will see you die today.”

  I pushed the tattered remnants of energy I’d been collecting as I spoke, right through the hilt, drawing it into a blade of pure magic. I lunged at him, catching him in the shoulder, but I was exhausted and slow and he spun away, the edge of the ‘blade’ only slicing his arm before he was out of reach.

  He feinted to his left and stupidly, I followed, but instead of him I caught air, and he landed next to Niall. A green, shimmering blade appeared in his hand and before I could shout a warning, he plunged it into Niall’s flank.

  “Kill me or save him, Morgan? What will it be?” He backed away and tossed the poison blade over the edge of the balcony. “Where is your loyalty?”

  I shoved him back farther and examined the small wound. “Mother fucker. Gods you deserve a slow, rotting death.”

  “Oh, that he does,” a grating voice behind me chuckled. A huntress I’d never seen before stood in the doorway, her massive tentacles blocking Gray from getting to us. “You stole that poison from us. You are weak, and we will enjoy breaking you.”

  “Stole it from us? How much poison did you take from your hunters, and how the fuck do I counteract it?”

  The huntress stopped smiling, a vast improvement from the terrifying grin showing all the rows of her teeth. “We can keep him alive, but only on Unseelie land. Your wolf must stay with us.”

  “Fuck that.” I tried to gather energy but couldn’t even get a spark. “Niall, you’ve got to fight this, Sweetie. I won’t leave you alone here.”

  Geallta knelt across from me, her pale hands almost invisible against his fur. “He won’t be alone, Morgan.” She stood and faced Tryst. “You harmed him so he’d have to stay… so I would have to stay, didn’t you?”

  Her brother held out his hands. “You could be happy here, Gee. Help me rule, and together we can keep both death and the hunters at bay.”

  “You grant me a crown, so I can protect what’s mine?” she stood tall, shoulders back. “You do that now, before I make any promises?”

  Tryst laughed shakily. “I make you queen in your own right, Gee. You have your crown and can protect your wolf.”

  The air around us paused, weighed down by the importance of prophecy. "Geallta," I whispered, realizing what she'd done. "The prophecy wasn't the Light King, it was just a king, wasn't it?" My eyes met Tryst's. "You've caused the death of a king, my friend. Pity you were so hell-bent on that prophecy being fulfilled."

  His brown furrowed in confusion, then shock, then horror, before Geallta reached him. By the time she had gathered her magic and shot him with pure, raw, white heat, all I saw in his eyes was sadness, then nothing.

  She pushed him over the rail as he stood hunched, gasping for air, his robes ruined by the burn across his chest. No one moved as he fell. No one screamed for him or begged us to save him.

  Tryst had brought death upon the throne, just as he wanted.

  “You knew, all this time?” I kept my hands on Niall’s wound, but it was already healing around the poison, the flesh at the edges looking like the wounds on the mutations.

  “I realized when we were standing here, that this was the place the king died. I never knew it would be my brother, or that I was his murderer.”

  The huntress cleared her throat and knelt before Gee. "It is not murder if it is the culmination of prophecy and an end to the war."

  I scoffed. “That’s a bit of a manipulation of the truth. Are you sure you’re a huntress? They’re usually so literal.”

  Her eyes met mine, and I could’ve been staring at my own reflection in a mask. “I’ve had some very…un-huntress influences over my lifetime.”

  My chest seized up around my heart, squeezing it hard enough I thought it would burst like a grape. “Your name, lady huntress?”

  “Niall!” Gray burst past the tentacles blocking his path and went to his best friend’s side. “How do we fix this, Mo?”

  “You don’t.” Geallta touched his arm. “The only way we can keep him alive is here, with us. He is my mate, and I am queen. Niall will be king of the Unseelie, and any who question this will meet the same fate as my brother.”

  My eyes shot between the huntress and her new queen, but both women seemed to agree. Niall would be king, but he could never leave.

  I stammered, cleared my throat, and tried again. “I suppose we’ll have to open a portal to the Dark Lands permanently, Gray. I wouldn’t try to keep you from your bromance with this pretty boy.” Niall wheezed and stared at me with one icy blue canine eye. “What? We’ll never leave you. But we’ve got to go back, tell the others, do right by them.”

  He shifted, slower and more painfully than I’d ever seen even after being wounded in past fights. “I’m okay. I’m…surprised, but okay. I’m sorry you lost your sword.”

  I showed him the hilt. “I hated that thing, then accepted her, then…she was one of us, and I never realized she was trapped. I would never have let that go on.”

  The huntress stepped out onto the balcony, joined by others. “If you had destroyed the blade out in the earthen realm, she would’ve been lost forever, weakening the Ufasach Bas.”

  “Well, I’m glad it happened here. I just would’ve done it sooner.” I looked up at her. “I still haven’t got your name, huntress.”

  She grinned, shark teeth shining in the soft glow of the lanterns dangerous and yet, somehow she was beautiful to me. “You may call me ‘friend’ for that is what I am to any who serve the Ufasach Bas. Perhaps one day you will join us.”

  I didn’t know how to respond, so I nodded, bowing my head slightly to the deadly women surrounding us. “It would be an honor to be counted among your number, to be sure.”

  She reached out and touched my wrist with one finger, touching the glowing mark of the Goddess. “So it is, so it shall be. You are chosen by the all-mother. When your time on earth and in Arcadia are done, you may very well lead us all.”

  My head spun as the weight of prophecy touched me once again. I glanced at Gray, who was poised to fight, his feline eyes wide with concern. “We’ve got to get back to our people, Gray. The huntress didn’t light up my tattoo, she just noticed it.”

  I stood and bowed to Gee and then to the Ufasach Bas. “We will return, somehow. Your queen will serve you well. She is…” Emotion closed my throat for a moment before I could continue. “She is the best of the Fae and understands the darkness like no other.”

  Two huntresses gently picked up Niall and we followed them back into the hall, where they laid him on the throne dais and tended to his wounds. Gray, Rachelle, and Bonnie said their goodbyes, touching their faces to his before joining Geallta as she motioned them toward a mirror on the wall.

  The big wolf whimpered, his blue eyes closing as I knelt over him. His side rose and fell gently as I stroked his shoulder, one eye on the fetid wound, the other on his sweet canine face.

  His eyes opened and stared into mine, as if he was speaking to me. I cursed the magic that kept me from understanding him, but he licked my hand with a quick flick of his tongue and pressed his nose into my palm with a sigh.

  “Bye, Niall, you sexy thing, you,” I whispered, smiling when he chuffed out doggy laughter even though it made him wince in pain. “You will always be one of the biggest parts of my heart. I love you, my brother. I will return to make sure the power hasn’t gone to your head.” I kissed him between his soft ears and joined the others at the mirror.

  “We might have lost, had he not wasted so much magic on all the glamors,” Gray noted, and I nodded, pressing my body against his side.

  “You’d better change back before going through love, or all the way to wolf. This form is the one the humans are afraid of. They don’t need to know it actually exists.”

  Geallta and I powered up the mirror, me providing the runes, her the magic I was still regenerating. Rachelle and Bonnie went through first, followed by a now fully human Gray.

  “I love you, Gee. Take care of these people, please. I don’t want to ever have to fight you too.”

  She smiled and threw her arms around me in her childlike way. “I love you too, Morgan. I have no idea what I’m doing, so I will call you lots, okay?”

  Sniffling, I nodded and glanced back at Niall one last time, nearly crying all over again as he got to his feet and shook himself all over. I stepped through the mirror and into my living room.

  Gray sent the remaining guard to take care of their still healing wounds and freshen up, and I reset the mirror for a call, directly to the throne room of the High King of Fairy.

  Twenty-Nine

  My calling bell jangled and went unanswered, so I put it on a loop, hoping I’d done my original amplification spell correctly. If so, that cacophonous sound was going off in every room of the palace. The infuriation I might have caused even made me smile for a moment.

  “He’s not answering, Gray. The bastard sent me into the Dark Lands and now he’s ghosting me.”

  “I am neither a bastard, nor a ghost, thank you, Daughter.” My father’s face appeared in the mirror, drawn and aging. “What is so imperative that you dragged me from the hunt to end this ceaseless discordance?”

  “Tryst is dead, Father. Geallta has taken the throne and the crown…which he gave her not I, and I… I’m worried that my baby isn’t safe from my magic.”

  He blinked. It was almost comical to see my mighty, impervious Fae father taken completely aback. Adrenaline let down and grief at Niall’s sentence to be trapped in the Dark Lands without a pack, and sadness over the loss of that snarky, irritating voice in my head that had become such a part of me all washed over me, overwhelming me.

  I started to laugh, until it became an ugly, hiccoughing sound that shook my body. “My baby’s godfather and godmother are the rulers of the Unseelie Court, by the way.” I scrubbed at my face with my hands and held up my wrist. “My human family is in danger. I don’t have anything left to give. Can you spare some assistance?”

  There was a long silence, then he nodded, his face grave. “You must come to my palace immediately, Morgan. The baby isn’t safe outside of my protection, not from the outside world, or from your own magic. Come home. Now.”

  The mirror shimmered and the door opened. “Thank you, but I must see to the people that I lead before I abandon them. Please leave our connection open so I can come through as soon as I’m done?”

  He smiled at me with more affection than I’d ever seen from him. “I am proud to have a daughter so beholden to her duty and her people. Bring your alpha with you, he will have a place here.” He gestured and his image disappeared from the mirror, but the glow remained.

  If only he had a place for all of us, like I keep asking for, none of this would be happening. I sighed in frustration and my sadness grew at the lack of a reply in my head. “Shit. I never thought I’d feel lonely, getting my mental privacy back.”

  Gray kissed my forehead. “I laid out your comfortable clothes. I assume we’ll need to go kick some ass and save your aunt?”

  I shrugged. “Someone in my family’s in danger, for sure. I can only assume Portia was good to her word and got herself in trouble with the zealots.” I grabbed my phone off the side table where I’d left it for the trip to Talamh na Hoíche and dialed her number. “She’s not answering. I’ll send a text, but I think it’s time for the cavalry.”

  “And does the cavalry have the necessary energy to come riding in to save the day?” he quipped.

  I shot him a dirty look. “Not in the slightest. The cavalry’s going to need serious backup, Alpha. Will you come with me?” I meant it as a joke, but Gray’s face was somber.

  “I will always stay with you, Morgan. I know you’re teasing, but you need to understand that the pack is your home, wherever you are.”

  He held out his arms and I leaned against him, slipping my hands under the robe he still wore to place my palms on the heat of his back. “I know I’m home, because I already feel rejuvenated. My magic is returning far faster than it usually would in the middle of a city like this.

  “We’ll take you to the park so you can fully regen, and go for a run, okay?”

  I shrugged. “It won’t be the same without Niall. How are you so calm?”

  “He’s alive. I’ll miss him, but we can always talk through your magical contraptions, right? If Tryst had killed him, I’d have found his broken body in the canyons and torn it apart just to make sure he couldn’t come back.”

  I pulled his face down to mine and kissed him softly. “You are the best of all men, ever, I hope you know that. Promise me that my choices haven’t ruined your life?”

  “You just made a shifter King of the Unseelie Fae, Morgan. As your alpha, I’d have to promote you if you weren’t already the queen. You’ve done what you set out to do, haven’t you?”

  I paused, shocked that I hadn’t thought of it. “Holy shit, Gray. The shifters have to be accepted now. Like, my father has no choice in the matter. The laws regarding the Light and the Dark are clear. I am a Light shifter, Gray is Dark.”

 

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