Page 138 of Beyond the Faerie Gate

I shrug, already knowing what he’s about to say. “We don’t need privacy for you to warn me about upsetting her delicate feelings,” I retort, feeling her stiffen against me. “I’ll be working. There won’t be much time for me to pander to her incessant questions.”

She’ll learn well enough just by observing. Relying on us to explain everything to her will only hinder her in the long run.

“Drystan, don’t you think…”

“No,” I snap, tightening the straps one last time. “I’ll keep her safe, Jaromir, but it’s not like I’m going to be sitting on my arse. The past Nicnevins didn’t have a tour guide for this, and they all managed not to fuck it up.”

The wolf shifter growls softly, and I wait for the reprimand I know is coming, if not from him, then from Florian, who’s lurking nearby like a worried mother hen.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine.” Rose’s tone is bright and cheery, for all that her voice is still quiet. “Drystan’s right. None of the other Nicnevins were lucky enough to have a huntsman in their Guard. And he’ll be busy… hunting?” The last word comes out as a question.

Why else would the Hunt be called that if there wasn’t hunting involved?

I can feel the pull starting, the sensation is unmistakable, like having pins and needles across your entire body. “Say your goodbyes, Nicnevin. You don’t have long.”

“I’ll be fine,” she reiterates, patting Blizzard’s nose one last time before leaning over towards Jaro. I turn my head just in time to watch her rise up to her tiptoes, loop her arms around his neck to pull him down to her level, and shock the living daylights out of him by pressing her lips to his in a swift, chaste kiss.

Despite how innocent the gesture is, her wings start to shimmer with dust, letting everyone know exactly how affected she is by his touch.

“My turn!” Lorcan cries, blinking between the two and forcing them apart so he can claim Rose’s lips in a decidedly less innocent kiss.

I should look away. Even with her thick clothes smothering her aura, arousal is making her energy flare all over the place. Staring at her for this long is making a migraine stir behind the bridge of my nose.

I can’t.

When Lore pulls away, her cheeks are ruby red and the ground beneath them is glittering. Rose won’t meet anyone’s eyes as she offers Bree and Florian tiny waves before coming to stand beside me.

Just in time.

The sucking, drowning sensation—like being dragged below the surface of a crushing body of water—engulfs me, and I close my eyes, waiting for it to pass. The familiar feeling of the skull mask slipping over my face, the metallic scent of ice, and the sudden chill that chases across my skin is like a balm to my soul.

This is home.

Rose staggers into me the second we reappear in the Sanctuary, disoriented by the travel.

I catch her shoulders and right her, hesitating for a second to make sure she won’t fall again before releasing her. The Sanctuary is the same as ever. An immense stone cavern, carved out of the mountaintop. The air is so cold that it stings your lungs, and her breath mists in front of her face as she adjusts to the change.

Across the cavern, the horses are already lined up and waiting in a column, standing three abreast. They face the open wall and the steep drop beyond as they wait with an eerie stillness that’s almost predatory, but I’m so used to it that I barely pay any notice.

I’ve been Lord for centuries, and yet I still have no idea who cares for them or where they go for the other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year. Let alone who saddles and paints over their glossy black fur with a skeletal pattern.

For all I know, they could be sent from the Otherworld.

Blizzard trots obediently over to the very front of the column, nickering under his breath in a greeting that the other horses return.

All around us, the other fae of the host are popping into existence. Like me, they’re dressed in black, and those who hate the cold are wrapped in layers of fur as well. Rose, in her pale clothes with her bright aura, stands out like a dove among crows, and all of them blink at her for several seconds before forcing their gazes away.

The gesture is partly done out of respect, but mostly I suspect to preserve their own eyesight. A large part of the host can see auras. A few, like Ogrim, are lucky enough that they have to really focus to do so. Others, like me, not so much.

Goddess, perhaps I should’ve been more insistent about teaching her to mask her aura before we came. I’d planned to start after her riding lesson, but Lore stole her away before I could broach the subject.

There are two dozen members of the host. I know all of them by name if nothing else, even though many are too cautious to interact with one another. They prefer their anonymity, and I can respect that. Those are the fae who walk straight over to their horses and hoist themselves into the saddle, giving the others a nod of acknowledgement, but nothing more. Even with the masks hiding our identities, they don’t want to risk forming connections with each other.

Nobody wants a repeat of what happened six hundred years ago.

Rose is staring at it all with wide eyes, studying the different skull-faced fae around us like she’s in a zoo.

Some of them notice and give her small bows. Ogrim—the asshole—even winks at her from behind his wolf-skull.

---