Jenna Black - Shadowspell

The Erlking’s sword whistled through the air, moving blindingly fast. It sliced clean through Grace’s neck without even slowing down.

I caught only the briefest glimpse of what happened, because the Erlking quickly stepped between me and her, his cloak completely blocking my view. But that brief glimpse was more than enough to haunt my nightmares for years to come. It might have been a quick death, but it sure as hell wasn’t a pretty one. Even Ethan’s face turned green at the sight.

Blood still dripping from his blade, the Erlking turned to face me. “Are you all right?” he asked, and the question was so absurd it startled a nearly hysterical laugh out of me.

“Oh, sure, just peachy,” I said between giggles. “I was just almost raped, and I watched you stab one guy and behead my aunt, oh, and I got knocked around a bit, but other than that, I’m having a blast.” I was still laughing, but there were tears on my face, and I was having trouble getting a full breath into my lungs. Okay, so maybe that sound coming out of me was more like sobs than laughter.

It was hard to read the Erlking’s face in the flickering, erratic light of the downed torch. His eyes were hidden in shadow, but I felt the pressure of their gaze on me even as he pulled a rag from somewhere under his cloak and started wiping the blood from the blade.

“I am sorry I could not get here sooner to spare you some of what you’ve been through,” he said, sounding like he meant it.

The calmness of his voice and his manner took a bit of the edge off my hysteria, though now that it was over, I started to shake all over.

“How did you get here at all?” I asked.

It was too dark to tell for sure, but I think he smiled. “As Ethan has told you by now, he is still bound to me even if he is no longer bound to my Hunt. When he was hurt, I sensed it. Then I used our bond to find him.”

“And communicate with him,” I said, because I remembered the Erlking shouting “Now,” which had obviously been a signal to Ethan—one Ethan was expecting.

Arawn nodded. “And communicate.”

“But how could you kill Grace? She’s a citizen of Avalon, and you’re not allowed to kill anyone in Avalon unless they attack you.”

“There is one other condition that will allow me to kill in Avalon,” he said.

Of course there was. Both he and Grace had mentioned that he was hunting her, and my dad had said he was allowed to pursue his quarry into Avalon. I’d assumed the Erlking had come to Avalon in pursuit of the Fae I’d seen him kill the first day he’d come, but now I figured the Fae had been a bonus and Grace his main quarry.

Ethan forced himself up into a sitting position with a grunt of pain. Arawn dismissed me for the moment and went to kneel beside his former Huntsman. I don’t know for certain if it was on purpose, but he managed to position himself in such a way that his shadow hid Grace’s decapitated body from my vision.

“Lie down,” the Erlking ordered Ethan, and though I saw the spark of rebellion in Ethan’s eyes, he obeyed. I guessed he didn’t have any choice.

The Erlking put his hand over Ethan’s wound, then pressed down hard. Ethan screamed in pain, and I tried to scramble to my feet. What I could possibly do to help Ethan against the Erlking was anyone’s guess. But after that scream, Ethan’s body went completely limp.

For one terrible minute, I thought he was dead. Then the Erlking lifted the hand he’d laid on Ethan’s chest, holding something between his thumb and index finger. It was the bullet.

“It had to come out before he could heal properly,” he said.

I steadied myself with a hand against the wall. “You could have just taken him to a healer. A healer could have fixed him up without hurting him.”

He nodded. “Even so. And in the intervening time, he’d have been in constant pain. Better to have it over with quickly, don’t you think?”

I wanted to disagree with him, but that would make me a hypocrite. After all, I’d decided to let Keane heal my hand when I’d hurt it for just that reason.

Dropping the bullet, Arawn stood up, the shadows and his black cloak making him seem even larger than he really was. “I take it you fully understand the terms of our bargain now.”

“Yeah,” I said weakly. I could have lied, but Ethan had heard Grace’s big revelation, and it was pretty obvious now that anything Ethan knew, the Erlking knew.

I closed my eyes to stop the tears that wanted to spill out. I had known from the moment he’d made the offer that Arawn was angling for more than sex, that giving him my virginity would have some kind of unpleasant consequences. So why the hell did it hurt my feelings to discover those consequences would have included my death? He was the bad guy, a cold-blooded, cold-hearted killer. Yeah, he’d just saved my life, but he’d done it entirely for his own purposes. I couldn’t put out if I was dead. So it should have come as no surprise that he was planning to use and kill me, just like Grace had planned to.

“I would not have taken your life,” the Erlking said, and I jumped because he was much closer to me than I’d been expecting.

I opened my eyes and looked up at him. “Yeah, right.”

“Dana, I have no need of your life. It is only your Faeriewalker magic that I crave.”

“Well, you’re not getting either.” It seemed I was taking a lifelong vow of chastity. That reality would hit me harder a little later, I knew, but with everything I now knew, there was no way I could ever have sex. Doing it with the Erlking would literally be the death of me—and of who knows how many innocent people—and doing it with anyone else meant Ethan would be sucked up into the Hunt again.

He smiled at me. “You never know what the future will bring.”

“In this case, yes, you do.”

His look was all confidence and conceit. “You speak with the certainty of the very young. We’ll see if over time I can find the proper inducement to change your mind. I will vow to you right now that if you fulfill our bargain, I will not take your life. I would even agree to a geis to that effect.”

“Which we’d need to seal with a kiss or with blood, right?” He nodded. “No thanks.” No more blood, no more pain, no more kisses.

He shrugged. “Then I suppose you will just have to trust my word.” The look on his face hardened. “Trust my word on this, too. If you reveal my secret to anyone who doesn’t already know, I will make your brother suffer for it every day of his immortal life.”

I swallowed the lump of fear that formed in my throat. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that the Erlking would keep that promise. I didn’t even know Connor, but I couldn’t let him take the punishment for it if I opened my big mouth.

“I won’t tell,” I whispered.

His face softened into a smile again. “I know you won’t,” he said, his tone strangely gentle. “That is why I can make the threat in good conscience. You are very protective of those who matter to you, and it takes very little to make someone matter.”

I had no answer to that, so I just kept quiet.

It took Ethan only about five minutes to regain consciousness. The Erlking’s healing spell was impressive, and Ethan showed no signs of being in pain. Well, not physical pain, at least. He seemed to be having trouble making eye contact with me. I wondered if he’d labeled me a slut now that he knew what I’d promised, but I wasn’t about to ask him. If he had, I didn’t want to know.

Five other members of the Wild Hunt showed up shortly after Ethan woke up. For the first time, none of them wore a mask or a helmet, so I could see their faces. They all had the typical beauty of the Fae, but there was a haunted look in all of their eyes that told me they were not happy to be the Erlking’s slaves.