36. Rider

CHAPTER 36

Rider

I left Quill and Talon to find my cousin and his mate and stomped to the kitchen to grab my dinner then stomped up to my room. I really needed to let my wolf out and go hunting but I couldn’t afford missing my meeting with Ash in the Garden. I had to know what the fuck happened on the trail. And fuck— It was the last day of the rotation.

The four of us were to meet Lark and her mates and celebrate the new novices.

We’d started the ritual a couple of decades ago after I’d become the Lord Commander and Talon, Quill, and Ash had become captains. The demands of our new jobs had kept us too busy for our usual family gatherings and the pressures of the job had made it more difficult for me to control my primal nature.

Lark had gotten frustrated and worried and insisted on a number of gatherings that happened every year, in part to see me and the other guys — who’d she’d become friends with when we’d all been grunts in the Black Guard — and in part to use her magic to communicate with animals to help calm my beast.

Which was something I really needed right now.

As much as my wolf wanted to skip whatever Lark had planned for this evening and go hunting, my human half knew spending time with Lark would actually be better. She always helped me regain control and she usually inadvertently ended up helping Talon and Quill, too.

Time inched by as I picked at my dinner, unable to find my appetite. Then I paced my small sitting room waiting for when I had to manifest to the Garden.

I could go early, but then I’d just be pacing in the Garden and the urge to shift and hunt would be stronger — since shifting while in my spirit form didn’t hurt nearly as much as it did when I was in my body.

That and the lure of the forest bordering the Garden would call to me. It was filled with small game just for beast-fae like me since hunting sometimes helped satisfy some of our beast’s ferocity before having sex with our mate. And even if the small game wasn’t as exciting to my wolf as shadows, it was still hunting.

Finally, the water clock I’d started at the eighth bell indicated it was time and I threw myself onto my bed, closed my eyes, and manifested in the Garden by the benches where we’d agreed to meet.

And of course, I fucking appeared facing the pool where Sage always manifested. My attention instantly swept over the area, searching for her like it had every night since I’d seen her, and my heart stuttered with the disappointment that she wasn’t there.

Which, on top of everything that was going on, was just fucking great.

Even with the shit from the novices and the increased number of shadows and the Guard’s decreased ranks, I still — fucking still! — looked for her. And that made me feel as if I was dishonoring Isemay’s memory.

In a few days, I’d mark yet another year without her, another year where I had to live with the choices that had killed her, and even though fae couldn’t bond with humans the way we bonded with other fae, I still felt as if her death had ripped a hole in my heart and soul.

She was my mate. There’d been no one else and there’d never be anyone else.

So why the hell couldn’t I stop looking for and thinking of Sage?

And really! I should be thinking about Sawyer and my fucking novices, not some woman .

“Waiting for a certain redhead?” Wells asked from behind me.

My wolf tensed, and I wrenched my attention from the pool to the fae standing at the mouth of a path that disappeared around a large tree and headed into the forested area. He must have just come around the corner and seen me because he sure as hell hadn’t been there before… of course I hadn’t really been looking for anyone. I’d been instantly drawn to where Sage should have been?—

Fuck, no. Could have been. She shouldn’t have been anywhere.

“Fascinating, isn’t she?” Wells took a step closer, and my wolf snarled, stopping him in his tracks. “So, the rumors about you are true.”

“What rumors?” And why the hell would there be any rumors about me? No one had paid attention to me in the Garden since I’d yelled at Ember in no uncertain terms that I was never going to be her mate.

Except people had been paying attention to me lately. I’d been getting strange looks for days. Ember had even walked by, staring daggers at me as if I’d offended her when it had been years since I’d rejected her.

“You know,” Wells purred. “The ones about you deciding it was time to be mated. The ones about you courting a certain redhaired new arrival.”

“Sage?”

“Ah, so that’s her name.” Wells’s lips curled into a wicked smile.

Everyone thought I was courting Sage? That was ridiculous.

“I’ve talked to her once.” All right, it wasn’t technically once, but the first time… or was that the second time didn’t count. One of the times hadn’t counted… not really… because I didn’t want a mate.

“I’ve heard it’s more than just once.” Wells shrugged. “I heard from a little redhaired birdie that you’ve made your intentions clear and it’s official.”

She told him that? How could she? I helped her get her bearings in the Garden and — all right fine! — I talked to her twice, but I sure as hell didn’t tell her I was courting her.

Goddess be damned! I had more than enough to deal with than a woman trying to snag me by spreading lies.

“We’re not courting,” I snarled.

Ember had tried something similar and I’d been forced to make her rejection public.

What the fuck was wrong with these new arrivals that they thought I would make a good mate? I’d make a horrible mate. Even if I wasn’t a barely contained animal who commanded the Black Guard I was still in love with Isemay.

“You’re not?” Wells pressed.

“Of course not. I’ve never courted a woman and I never will,” I insisted as the swirling smoke of Talon, Quill, and Ash blossomed to life beside me. “Now fuck off. I’ve got business.”

“Of course, Lord Commander,” Wells drawled, his tone mocking.

With another lazy shrug, he turned and strode back down the path, and I tried to rein in my wolf’s rage that Sage would spread lies about me courting her.

The smoke of my friends’ manifesting spirit forms swirled together, entwining for a moment, each of them vying for the spot they’d all been aiming for before separating and solidifying into the men — because the Garden wouldn’t let spirits manifest in the same place at the same time.

“What happened?” Talon demanded, turning on Ash the moment he’d fully formed. His shadow writhed around his body, the control he’d had during training completely gone, and a wave of seductive heat and need from his allure slammed into me.

I suddenly needed to be at Sage’s pool to greet her, to be with her. But she’d lied and I didn’t want a mate. I had more important things to worry about, damn it.

Ash groaned and dropped onto the bench beside him, his gaze jerking to Sage’s pool. “Get a hold of yourself.”

“He’s mine,” Talon— no, his shadow snarled, shocking the hell out of me. Before running across Sawyer the other day, I’d never seen or heard his shadow control him like that. “Mine! And he was terrified. You were supposed to protect him.”

“I did.” Ash squeezed his eyes shut but couldn’t seem to turn his head.

Was he mesmerized by Sage like I was? Maybe it had something to do with her magic. That would explain why I kept thinking of her when Isemay was my one and only mate.

Except that made me think of mating and instead of imagining Isemay’s warm smile, I saw Sage’s stunned, green eyes staring at me.

“I did protect him,” Ash gasped. “The boy pulled a dagger and I got him out of the situation before they killed him.”

“But you let it get far enough that he drew his blade.” Talon’s shadow jerked him forward and he raised his fist to punch Ash, but Quill grabbed his arm and wrenched him back.

“This won’t help him, Talon,” he said, his voice low and soothing. “Pull it back so Ash can talk.”

Talon’s shadow huffed, but the surge of need that was on its way to making my cock rock hard and flooding me with images of red hair and green eyes eased, and the shadow sank back under his skin.

“Talk,” Talon’s shadow hissed.

“In short, they think the boy is letting you fuck him for special favors, and Durand, in particular, wanted to take his share,” Ash said.

Talon’s shadow erupted from his body again and jerked him to his feet, his hands clenched and his eyes filled with rage, as my wolf snarled and heaved against my control as well. Now it didn’t just want to rip something apart, it wanted to rip Durand apart. No one treated a fae-touched like that in the Guard. No one!

“He didn’t do it. I broke it up before it happened,” Ash said in a hurry, then he barked a half laugh. “That boy has a spark that just won’t die. I knew he’d be upset, but I didn’t expect him to come off the trail and threaten to murder us. And did you see that punch on Ambrose? Holy fuck it was beautiful.”

“I had to punish him for that,” I growled, hating myself even more now that I knew what the novices had done.

“But it was a thing of beauty. Completely unexpected, decisive, hard. Sawyer’s been duck and scramble with quick, weak attacks because he knows if anyone gets their hands on him, he’s done,” Ash said, finally managing to yank his attention away from Sage’s pool and lock gazes with me. “But that punch?—”

“Was reckless,” I said, cutting him off. “If it had been any other situation, Ambrose would have attacked back.”

“But it wasn’t about attacking and you know that,” Ash pressed. “It was about sending a message and with your little speech afterward, not to mention the conversations that I overheard once training was over, it looks like the men received that message loud and clear.”

“You think they’ll leave Sawyer alone?” Talon asked.

“To the point of isolating him,” Ash replied, his expression grim. “But I think the attacks on the trail are over.”

I could only hope Ash was right. I didn’t want to have to punish Sawyer again, and I didn’t want him to feel that murder was his only option for staying safe.