Dani Harper - Storm Bound

However many times she came to him—and he had long ago lost count—the pretty speech she gave was always the same: “As my consort, Aidan, you know you would want for nothing. Riches if you wish them, exotic foods you’ve never dreamed of, exquisite clothing, spirited horses. And best of all, I can give you immortality, Aidan. You would live forever, young and handsome, if you would simply take your place by my side.”

Perhaps another man would be tempted, but Aidan was unmoved. Celynnen cared not for him, only for the faint and fleeting emotions he might stimulate in her icy heart, the brief and novel sensations he might visit upon her body. Strange that even as he sought the blessed oblivion of no emotion at all, she craved anything that might make her feel—and of course the brief entertainment he might afford her. He had witnessed firsthand that the burden of living nearly forever was often boredom, and the Fair Ones welcomed any distraction. A plaything, a novelty, an insect in a jar—that was all a human would ever be to the Tylwyth Teg. And what the human thought about it mattered not at all to them.

Aidan stifled the deep, low growl that bubbled up from his throat. It would only please her to know she had gained some reaction from him. Instead, he turned his face to the wall. As always, she would leave soon, and he would go about his morbid task. Even now, Aidan could feel the tug of his calling, the scent of approaching death in the mortal world above. It was part and parcel of what Celynnen had made him. No grim could fail to fulfill his dark purpose.

Or escape his dark destiny.

Every monstrous dog wore a heavy chain-mail torc around his neck. The ornate collar was silver, but as a blacksmith skilled in metals, Aidan knew it was no ordinary silver. For one thing, it was pure, and for another, it was inexplicably stronger than the strongest steel he had ever seen. Even in the much-changed mortal world above, no metal was the equal of what he bore around his massive neck. It wasn’t the strength of the silver that held him to this place, however. It was faery magic that had forged the torc, magic that held it together, magic that commanded it—and therefore commanded him.

Recently, however, that hadn’t seemed sufficient to his jailers. Had he lingered too long in the mortal world, spent too much time watching wistfully as humans went about their lives? Whatever the reason, every link of his collar had been respelled to return to this place without fail, like a magnet that could not be resisted. When Aidan carried out his latest assignment in the mortal world, he quickly discovered that if he did not come back of his own accord by dawn, he would be dragged back through time and space to the stone kennels in the fae kingdom.

“Don’t be tiresome, Aidan. Not when I bring you such interesting news.”

He kept his face to the wall but slid his gaze sideways to observe her in his peripheral vision. She’d finally dropped that damnable angelic smile, but she’d replaced it with something worse—a practiced pout that matched her petulant tone. A slyness crept into Celynnen’s eyes, however, as she realized she’d gained his attention.

“Did you know that one of your fellow grims escaped?” she asked. Aidan bristled at the way she said “your fellow grim,” like they were old friends. Grims seldom even saw one another, never mind communicated. All that bound them was their mutual fate at the hands of the fae. And as for escaping—Aidan had almost accepted that it was impossible. Yet if one of the hounds was actually missing…

“It’s true. A mortal woman broke the enchantment and set him free. The entire court is simply buzzing about it.” She imparted the information with a kind of glee, and Aidan understood now why his collar had been magically reinforced. More than likely the collars of all the grims had been spelled so.

“They say Queen Gwenhidw herself intervened to save him and his lover from the Wild Hunt.” Celynnen paused for effect, arranging her flowing sleeves to perfection. “Of course, the human woman was some sort of distant fae relation to Her Majesty. No one would bother to save you, of course. You are of no importance to anyone. But I’ve been thinking that someday it might be very entertaining to see you run.”

For a fraction of an instant, Aidan could swear her eyes flashed demon green, the pupils elliptical like a cat’s—or a snake’s. Her skin appeared as mottled leaves. “Remember that the next time you refuse me,” she commanded from greenish lips, thin and smooth like leather. He blinked and saw only her angelic face once more as she smiled and disappeared.

Only her laughter lingered in the air, like a glissando of crystal bells.

The great black dog traveled Brecon’s High Street openly in the late-afternoon sun. Many humans passed him by, some on foot, most in cars. None of them saw him. Some walked through him, unknowing. He was invisible to all but those whom he was called to, or to the very rare few who had the ability to perceive fae creatures. With his otherworldly form made of finer stuff than the molecules that made up the human world, he had all the powers he needed to accomplish his task. He could will himself as solid as a rock wall, or he could pass through such a wall like a breeze through tall grass.

There wasn’t a village in all of Wales that Aidan had not been called to countless times over the centuries. He had been to Brecon often. Much had changed since his time. The village had been called Aberhonddu then, the place where the river Honddu met the greater river Usk. The place where he’d gone to market with his family as a child. And something else too…He always felt that there was something else about this place he should remember. Someone . But like a word that stubbornly remained on the tip of one’s tongue, he could not recall who the person was. He knew only that his heart ached even more each time he tried…

In the fae kingdom, the concept of time meant little. The entire human world was focused on time, however. Ten centuries had gone by here, and he had not felt their passing. He could see it, however, progressing in tiny increments, during each and every visit he made to the mortal realm. Still, a few things remained the same from his former life. Brecon was still a market town, and despite the advent of horseless vehicles, many streets and passageways were as narrow as ever. Cars and trucks labored to squeeze through, and more than one had to back all the way out to allow another to pass. The great old castle had once towered over the junction of the rivers, imposed on the site by Norman conquerors before he was born. The walls still stood, but the fortress didn’t look so big now that it was surrounded by a modern, white-painted inn. A hotel people called it, not an inn. Still, the castle stones were the same ones he had dared his friend, Grigor, to touch when they were small boys. They had both run away laughing as the foreign soldiers shouted at them. The castle had been hated by his people, a symbol of oppression—how strange to feel a kinship with it now! But it was one of the only things he shared a mote of history with, something that linked him to his own time and place.

Temporarily at least.

As soon as he returned to the kingdom of the Tylwyth Teg, he would once again remember little or nothing of this place, but in these brief moments, he drank in the sights and scents. Perhaps some part of his mind kept things like this, little vignettes stored away like cheeses and wines for some future occasion.

There would be no such future occasions for Maeve Lowri Jones.

He padded silently along Cerrigcochion Lane until he came to a modest home with a once-tidy garden. Despite the spring weather, the grounds were untended, although masses of tulips were blooming red and gold. The tall flowers had pushed their way through a thick blanket of last autumn’s leaves. Aidan approached the door, adrift with yellowed newspapers, and listened intently, his head cocked to one side in doglike fashion. His supernatural hearing easily detected labored breathing coming from a second-floor bedroom.