Page 70 of A Touch of Poison
We drew level with the door’s hinges and a thin crack looking out onto the yard.
White hounds with burning red eyes circled the yard, like Fluffy and yet not. Her playful bound was nothing like the focused lope of these hellhounds.
Thirteen steeds, some stags, some horses, all skeletal with flesh hanging from their flanks and necks. They pawed the ground and snorted. Steam billowed from their flared nostrils and curled around their riders.
Even my fae sight couldn’t pierce the darkness that gathered around them.
Riding the largest stag, wearing a spiked helm, their leader said something in a voice that was ice scraping over steel. I didn’t know the language, but each word skittered down my spine like the blade of an enemy I’d forgotten.
Their nearest companion nodded and turned, surveying the yard. Deep inside a hood, a pair of pale, glowing eyes locked with mine. In my arms, Kat went rigid and made a soft sound against my palm.
The hounds lifted their heads, flaming ears pricking as they sniffed the air.
Barely breathing, I eased my shadows to the door and pulled it shut. At the click of the latch, my shoulders sank and Kat sagged.
“Fuck,” she muttered when I released her. “Did you see?”
“Oh, was there something out there?”
She spun, then huffed a disbelieving laugh at me.
I grinned back, able to joke now we were safely shut in. The Wild Hunt couldn’t enter a building with closed doors and windows.
She glanced towards the yard. “Have you ever known anyone to see them and live to tell the tale?”
“I saw them once. But otherwise… no. I suppose that makes us lucky. Looks like we’re in here for the night.”
Her eyes widened at me. “You’re doubly lucky.” She shuddered as if shaking off what she’d seen in the yard. “Well, it’s not my first time sleeping in a stable. Though deer smell different from sabrecats.”
She took care of the stags, who we’d abandoned into their stalls in our rush, while I climbed into the hayloft and used the blankets from our travels to make a bed in the straw.
When she climbed the ladder after me, I bowed with a flourish. “Madam, may I welcome you to the Marwood Inn?”
She chuckled and took in the blankets and the twinkling lights I’d gathered under the hayloft’s rafters. “And how long have you been in the innkeeping business, Mr Marwood?”
“Not very long. I’d welcome any feedback madam has on my humble establishment.”
“Hmm.” She patted the bed I’d made from bales of hay before sitting on it experimentally. “The beds are surprisingly comfortable. Sorry,bed.” She raised an eyebrow at me.
“My apologies, madam, spaceisat a premium.” The hayloft was packed with straw and hay, leaving only an intimate corner for us.
“And you don’t appear to have any kitchens.”
“Ah.” I raised my hand and produced a plate with the last of our camping supplies—one apple, a heel of bread, and a piece of cheese.
“I take it back. You’re spoiling me with this bounty, Mr Marwood.”
“We aim to please at the Marwood Inn.”
I sat beside her and we shared the slim pickings in companionable silence. It felt like it once had. Like we were away in Albion where I didn’t have to think about the safety of an entire realm, where I wasn’t the Night Queen’s Shadow, the Bastard of Tenebris, the Serpent.
I could be what she called me: Bastian.
Alone with our teasing jokes, it felt like what she’d said at that party was true.I’m yours. There was no husband to interrupt us as I’d been about to claim what she’d said was mine—what she’d given freely.
Or almost freely.
Her words from a few days ago cut me as I sliced the cheese with my dagger.Was it really a choice…?Now I was free of my father’s memories of Innesol, I couldn’t escape everything she’d said.
