Page 18 of Smoke & Ashes
The Queen of Winter turned her imperious gaze in my direction. “I do not makebargains, child.” She swept past me and pressed her back against the tree, the shadows transforming her once more. “But if I did”—he gave me a cruel smile—“I doubt you would have much to offer.”
“Come into the light,” I insisted.
“Come into the dark.”
Okay, that was what we called an impasse. “Look, I know how these things work. You’ll ask me for something seemingly innocent and then I get home and discover you’ve taken my daughter instead.”
“You don’t have a daughter.” I wasn’t going to ask how he knew that.
“Tell me if Sebastian Douglas was behind this.”
Tara took me by the elbow. “We should go, Kate. We have nothing to trade, and he isn’t going to tell you anything for free.”
“He was,” said the King of Shadows.
With only a slightly smug look on my face, I gave Tara a nod.
“He joined forces with an old servant of mine,” he continued. “To take vengeance against those who defied him.”
My smug look vanished. There was one place I’d tried really hard to stop my mind going and this was it. If Douglas was doing this to punish the wolves for standing up to him, then—“Fuck, this is all my fault.”
“He’s playing mind games with you.” Tara’s yanking at my elbow got more insistent. “He wants something.”
The King of Shadows stepped into the light, inches from me, and the Queen of Winter stared down as I stood trying my hardest not to tremble. “You bring ruin, little one,” she said. “What would you give me to make it stop?”
I like to think that she was using some kind of faery mind control on me, and it wasn’t only that I’ve always been a sucker for a woman in a sparkly dress, but I wasthis closeto saying “anything” when Tara’s golden-furred wolf-form barrelled past me and knocked the Queen of Winter back into the darkness. I felt something cold and calculating fall away from what I tentatively called my mind and backed the fuck up. It was good to know I could count on Tara to take the straightforward approach to telepathic bullshit but, still, she was in no state to take a faery lord one on one. If we were lucky, all we needed to do was buy ourselves enough time to make an escape. If we were unlucky we were fucked. For the second time I decided to risk starting a subsidiary war amongst the fair folk and called on the Deepwild, throwing myself onto the King of Shadows and digging my fingers as best I could into the amorphous, shifting mass of darkness he called a body.
He flowed past me, a pale hand closing around my throat and raising me up, my eyes coming level with his. “You offend your host, creature of the wild.”
I headbutted him and ran, Tara running beside me. I noticed that she’d left my fucking coat behind but I wasn’t going to hold that against her given that she’d probably just saved me from spending eternity as a bauble in the collection of the King of Shadows, the Queen of Winter. We kept going flat out until we felt the cold-water rush of passing between worlds, and maintained a frankly intense pace all the way back to Safernoc Hall.
It wasn’t until we were safely back in Tara’s room that she returned to her human shape and the two of us collapsed onto the bed exhausted and, from where I was standing at least, only about three steps this side of completely fucking terrified. Despite the very naked, exercise-flushed, heavily-breathing lycanthropic lingerie model beside me, I stared fixedly at the ceiling. Then I covered my face and thought hard about crying but didn’t quite manage it.
“I fucked everything up,” I told the insides of my hands. “Nim, Elise, most of Nim’s court, fucking Henry fucking Percy, even fucking Tuffy fucking Fford fucking whatever the fuck. The Queen was right. I ruin whatever I touch.”
I felt strong fingers closing around my wrist. Strong fingers and an edge of claw. Tara twisted my arms away from my face and pinned them to the bed above my head. I was about to tell her I wasn’t in the mood for kinky shit, but the look on her face said that she wasn’t either. “I will not have this, Kate Kane.” She leaned over me in a way that somehow managed to be assertive without being aggressive. “I didn’t bring my pack to fight the Prince of Wands because I wanted to save your attractive but frequently infuriating hide. I did it because it had to be done. And when you make it all about yourself and your guilt and your regrets, you shame me and you shame the memory of those who fought alongside me.”
Crying finally happened. “I know. And I know saying I’m sorry is doing the thing you’ve just told me to stop doing. I’m trying to be better.”
“We all are.” She lowered her head towards me, kissing the tears from the corners of my eyes and the sorries from my lips.
She let my hands free and I put my arms around her, drawing her close enough to feel her heart still pounding in her chest. “Why are you…? I don’t deserve this.”
“Kate”—she pulled back a moment and gave me a sharp look—“what did I just say?”
“Not about me?”
“Not about you. Think of it as lending me your coat again.”
I wasn’t sure how I was meant to take that. So I deflected. “I still want it back, you know.”
“I’ll buy you a new one. Tomorrow.” She kissed me again, with a tenderness I honestly hadn’t realised she was capable of, and then she curled up in my arms, and I held her until we both fell asleep.
9
Mornings & Messages
In an unreal city, I stood on an island in a river and gazed out over dark and sluggish water. A familiar, wounded man stood beside me, silver-haired and bleeding.
