Into the Fire (The Unseelie Court Book 4) by Gwen Rivers (latest ebook reader .TXT) 📕

you to help her again. And let your wolves help themselves. The pack is strong. They can fight for a better life. You know there is more now, Liam. Can you really justify keeping them in fur and sleeping in a cave?”

Liam growls low, but it breaks into a smile. “Fine. I will consider it. Good enough?”

At Aiden’s nod, he stretches. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I want to get a little sleep.”

Liam shifts in that slow, painful way of his and pads inside the cave.

Aiden stands and stares out into the trees. He closes his eyes and breathes in, searching for her scent. He finds it nearby, though it is old, almost stale. He shifts to sparks, the wolf’s instincts demanding he find its source.

The trees grow close together, their bark almost black. He flits over the land until he spies a small clearing. His body reassembles on the ground and Aiden takes in his surroundings.

It’s a house, a stone cottage though it is crumbling to the ground. The scent of Nic is stronger. Along with a whiff of fear.

This place, where the fate Lachesis had abandoned her at six-years-old. If not for Liam and his pack, she would have starved to death long before the hiker had attacked her.

He stares at it for countless moments. Imagining what caused that terror.

“I should never have left her,” he growls at the same time as his wolf. His hands clench into fists. His eyes growing stronger in the low light of the moon.

“You didn’t have a choice.” Another voice says from beside him.

He turns to see Harmony step out from between the trees.

“I thought I’d find you here.” She looks to the cottage and pulls a face. “Ick, not exactly a summer vacation spot. Is it?”

“No.” He lets out a shaky breath. “I know this place. Have heard about it from Nic.”

Without conscious thought his feet carry him to the crumbling structure.

He can hear Harmony following closely behind him, but she doesn’t speak. His mate’s scent grows stronger, along with the echo of fear. She’d been left here. Her memories wiped by one of those cursed fates. He steps past the door which is hanging on its hinges. Vines snake up through the stones, the mortar crumbling, the roof all but a distant memory. It had been over a decade, but somehow, he knows the structure hadn’t looked any better during Nic’s sojourn here.

“She was attacked.” He stoops down and picks up a small, rag doll that has buttons for eyes. “That bitch left her alone here and she was attacked by a full-grown man.”

Harmony’s hand brushes his arm. “She survived.”

He turns to face her. “Did she? There are times I wonder.”

She shakes her head. “Isn’t there enough suffering in this world without you going out to look for trouble?”

“I left her with them, the Fates.” He shakes his head.

“It was a smart choice.”

“You don’t understand. I could have stayed with her, used magic to keep her hidden from Brigit. But I was so angry about what she’d done.” It’s the first time he admitted it out loud. That he had chosen to leave his unprotected mate when she’d been most vulnerable.

Because he hadn’t been able to stand the sight of her.

“What did she do?” Harmony asks.

“The seer doesn’t know all?”

She waits patiently and he feels like a prick for lashing out at her. Time has barely scabbed the wound. “Nicneven deceived me. Forced my hand and tricked me to get her way. I left her alone and she and our babe died. And then when Laufey brought her back, merged her soul with that human child, I had a choice. To stay with her and protect her myself or find someone else to do it. I chose to leave her. If I’d known she’d be different….”

Harmony moves to stand in front of him. “Aiden, you may have been born of the gods but your heart is human. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you didn’t love Nic until she became human, mate or no.”

He pulls in a deep breath and stares down at the doll in his hands.

“She forgives you, for all of it. She loves you.”

He frowns. “It’s odd, to hear you defending her.”

Harmony shrugs. “I figure you’re going to be with her whatever I say. I want you to be happy, brother.”

His eyes fill with tears. “Thank you.”

She squeezes his shoulder. “I wish I could have known you sooner.”

“As do I, little sister. As do I.”

She smiles but then her face goes blank, eerily so.

“Are you all right?”

She doesn’t answer. He drops the doll and reaches for her, intending to shift them both to sparks and take her back to Liam’s den when she blinks.

“Was that a vision?”

She nods. “Yes. I know where Nic is. We have to hurry before it’s too late.”

Evil Insight

“Well well, what do we have here?” Pharaildis smiles at the bedraggled pair of females Rodrick’s fey guards deposit at her feet.

“Exactly what is your problem?” The giantess Laufey shoves the Unseelie who’d been manhandling her to the side with enough force that his body leaves a dent in the hewn stone of the dungeon wall.

Pharaildis raises an eyebrow? “Were my guards too rough?”

Ignoring her, Laufey kneels over the body of her lover. “Fern, darling? Can you hear me?”

Fern doesn’t respond.

Pharaildis crouches beside the giantess. “Tell me where he is and I’ll heal her.”

Laufey glares up at her, hatred burning in her leaf green eyes. “I will never tell you and you won’t lay one of your perverse fingers on her.”

Underhill sighs and then rises to her feet. Why must they always be so difficult? She moves around the pair bleeding on the floor as if they are nothing but mongrel dogs. “I have no quarrel with you, giant. Nor with her. I only want what is mine.”

“My grandson isn’t yours.” With great tenderness, Laufey brushes some stray hair off of Fern’s cheek. “And neither is Nic.”

Pharaildis pauses at that. She hadn’t