Page 17 of What Hunts Inside the Shadows

7

ESTRELLA

One of the other members of the Hunt rolled Aramis to his back, but otherwise they left their comrade lying in the dirt. Caldris’s words about wanting to ensure all the dead received the proper funeral rites hung over me, a confirmation of everything the leader had said.

He wasn’t dead, and my blood debt seemed impossible to ever really pay.

“Holt, this is my mate, Estrella,” Caldris said, pushing off his place next to the horse and moving toward me. He tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear, the amusement on his face making me clench my jaw in frustration. “Estrella, Holt is the closest thing I have to a friend.”

Not a friend, but the closest thing. If that didn’t tell me the kind of man my cursed mate was, then I wasn’t sure what would. “Then why did he fight you on the cliff?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.

Caldris grinned, turning back toward hisfriend. “He didn’t know who I was at first. Even the Wild Hunt can’t see through the glamour of a God, and by the time he put it together, we had to keep up the pretense for your sake. Until you flung your stubborn ass off the fucking cliff anyway.”

“Such a shame I didn’t die doing it,” I snapped. I leaned away from him as much as I dared, risking tipping over to put distance between us without actually showing how much his closeness bothered me.

“Only you would wish for death rather than allow yourself to be loved, my star,” Caldris said, his lips tipping with a hint of mockery that didn’t reach his eyes, making light of something that shouldn’t have been funny at all.

Holt chuckled, giving Caldris a look that communicated something silently between the two of them. I didn’t doubt they knew each other well, but Holt’s glance also didn’t need translating.

Good luck with this one.

“Is that all of them?” Holt asked, nodding over his shoulder to where the Fae Marked waited within Caldris’s circle of the dead.

“For now. There are more in the tunnels I told you about,” Caldris said, the shock of his confession tearing a ragged gasp from me. I turned a wide-eyed stare his way, wondering how he’d been able to communicate with the Wild Hunt when he rarely left my side.

The memory of finding him missing that night in the woods struck me, the brutal twist to his features when I’d stumbled upon him in the trees.

“You didn’t,” I whispered, voice thready with horror. Holt gave Caldris space, moving away from us as the other riders dismounted their horses. “Please tell me you didn’t.”

“They belong with their mates, my star. They’ll be safer once they’re united with the Fae who will do anything to protect them,” he said, lifting his chin as he stared down his nose at me.

“They trusted you,” I hissed, shaking my head in disbelief as my throat burned. “They gave us shelter when we needed it.”

He scoffed, his lips twisting with cruel malice and derision. “No. They trustedyou. They gaveyoushelter. I was just another body to use as a soldier, and if you had allowed it, Melian would have run me through herself. I will always appreciate that they gave us a place where you could rest safely for a while, but I do not owe them loyalty they would not show me.”

“I should have let her kill you the moment she warned me,” I snarled, twisting away. I gave him my back, unable to look him in the eye. To betray the Resistance when he could have simply left them in peace was an act I wouldn’t forgive. “There are entire families living there. Children who need their parents. What if one of the Marked is a mother? A father? What happens then?” I asked, feeling the moment he stepped up behind me. His presence was soothing, even when he’d been the one to cause me distress in the first place.

I hated to draw comfort from the very monster who needed to be slain.

“We will not separate families if we can help it. The Marked need to come to Alfheimr, but children and spouses will be allowed to come with them. We’ve taken a great number of the Fae Marked across the boundary since the fall of the Veil,” Holt called out. He lifted a pair of shackles from his horse. “But we’ve not yet run into that situation, as all those we’ve encountered thus far have been on the run and already had to leave their children behind, if they had any. Many of the women found that their own husbands wished to kill them, and many Marked men found their wives took the children and ran.”

“That won’t be the case with the Resistance. Many of them have lived in the tunnels their entire lives. They won’t be on the run or have been turned away by their spouses,” I explained, trying not to think of children being left behind—of families torn apart. No matter what Holt said about the way they would handle those instances, I had dozens of reasons not to trust him.

“We’ll deal with it when we get there, min asteren,” Caldris said, gripping my forearm lightly and using it to turn me back to face him. I kept my gaze pinned on the thick leather covering his chest, finding the intricate curve where the metal of his armor crossed over his heart fascinating in my effort not to meet his eye. He gently snagged my chin, pulling my gaze up to his with smooth but efficient force. “You shouldn’t worry about them. I promise, they will not bother to care about what happens to you.”

“I can’t exactly blame them for that. I wouldn’t care what happens to me either,” I said, twisting my chin out of his grasp. I looked over his shoulder, watching his frame slump when my mouth parted in shock. Each of the Wild Hunt carried shackles in their hands, moving toward the Marked. Caldris’s army of the dead stepped away, creating an opening for the riders to slip into the protective circle.

The humans struggled, pressing at the barrier the Hunt formed in an attempt to fight their way to freedom. A woman slapped both her hands down on Holt’s chest to shove him back, but he held steady. He was gentle as he captured her wrist and pulled it to him, settling the weight of the cuffs on her arm. She sagged beneath them, the reaction far greater than I would have expected from simple chains. Her knees buckled, threatening to force her to the ground.

“What have you done?” I asked, staring at Caldris in horror. They weren’t just shackling them in chains. They were putting them inirons.

Caldris hung his head forward, his expression filled with his distaste for what was happening—for what he was allowing. “They cannot be permitted to hurt themselves,” he said. I stared at the Fae Marks, at theViniculumthat was supposed to protect us but had never once moved against him or the Wild Hunt. It didn’t protect us against the very creatures who put it there.

“They can’t use their magic against you. They can’t fight you. What are you preventing them from doing?” I asked, pushing on his chest until he took a step to the side. I moved beside him, my view of what was happening around me now unhindered. I didn’t dare go any closer to the Fae Marked. The memory of the mud and the knife they’d thrown at me was far too fresh in my mind. I didn’t want to hate them, but I’d be a fool to trust them.

“They may not be able to use theViniculumagainst us, but they can use it against each other if they think one of them is a threat,” he said. The words hung between us, the unspoken meaning clear as he heaved a sigh.

“You mean they can use it against me?” I asked, straightening my shoulders.

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