Chapter Eighteen

We gathered in the common room, affecting a strange casualness that screamed we were up to no good.

Dean moved from one foot to the other as if preparing for a boxing match, only taking a break to shake his head in disbelief.

Kaleb had chosen to sit on the floor in front of the coffee table with his legs crossed and his chin resting against the squat table, his eyes closed as if asleep.

Wyatt reclined on the sofa, his arm slung over the back like some kind of Roman hedonist preparing to be served wine and grapes.

And Mitchell? The man who'd robbed the Huntsman after I'd punched the ancient Fae in the kisser?

He was preening like a peacock, patting his pocket every other second as if he couldn't believe his luck.

The common room was quiet but not empty, and we all sat on the couches in the corner, waiting for someone to speak.

The sun had set. The evening came to an end.

I kept waiting for the Huntsman to burst into the room, demanding my head. Every inch of my body prickled with fear with every second that passed.

No one said a word until the final group of wolves drifted from the room to find some dinner.

The floodgates opened.

"Well, let's see it then!" Wyatt sat forward, his eyes alight with curiosity.

"Don't be an idiot." Dean snapped. "The Huntsman can and will kill us when he finds out."

"He won't find out." Mitchell rolled his eyes, but he bit his scarred lip. "I took several things. Arranged some others. Unless he checks on the Beast-King's curse on the regular, how would he know?"

Dean gave him a long look. "Show me."

Mitchell placed the lone glass figurine in the center of the coffee table.

Dean studied the glass wolf with a frown. His lips turned down. "That's it?"

"Mallacht Sídhe require a record of their curses, bargains, and boons. It doesn't have to be paper." I explained, glancing at Mitchell.

"Touch it." The scarred wolf urged.

Dean reached out, scooping up the fragile figurine. He jolted, his eyes widening. "I can hear it."

"You can hear it?" My gaze snapped from Dean to Mitchell.

Wyatt leaned forward, his disinterest evaporating. He reached out and plucked the figurine from the Alpha's hands, shaking his head to clear it as his emotions played over his face. "Damn." Wyatt breathed. "That's it. That's the damn curse." Wyatt held the figurine out to Kaleb, but the silver wolf shooed him away and closed his eyes again—appearing to be meditating.

"I don't need to hear it." Kaleb sighed. "I already know what it says. It cannot be broken. Not by anyone living."

Dean sat forward, his predatory gaze fixed on Kaleb. "You've known all this time?"

Kaleb waved his hand dismissively as if he could dispel Dean's ire like a bad smell. "I was there, remember?"

Dean's fists clenched as if he were imagining wringing Kaleb's neck, but he remained silent.

Though Kaleb lived with the Locket pack, it seemed he operated outside the hierarchy. I'd never understood why Dean kept him around, but it appeared that Kaleb essentially did what Kaleb wanted to do.

"Can I hear it?" I asked, holding out my hand.

Wyatt stood up and thrust the figurine into my hands so hard that my breath expelled from my lungs. The figurine glowed with silver magic, the opposite of the warm gold of the Wolfkin. The words began like a low gurgle of a creak, growing in volume until they roared between my ears.

He called on Mother Spider,

Daughter of the Weaver,

She would not give him time of day,

But Lugh, he would not leave her.

He had a plan to fix the world,

To reinstate the walls,

The Tuatha Dé Danann was slowly rotting,

The gods would surely fall

He married Spider's daughter,

The child of his seed,

To stitch the worlds together,

in his time of need,

But Lugh forget a simple fact,

A Spider is not a pet,

A Weaver cannot weave thin air,

Another Gate was set .

The Spider took Lugh's touch to spin her unique web,

But even with that special gift,

Lugh was still in debt .

The words weren't English, but I understood them nonetheless.

"Lugh?" I echoed. Lugh, the God? My grandmother had prayed to the old gods. Never Lugh, but Brigit and Arionrhod. But everyone knew of Lugh the Craftsman.

"Lugh?" Mitchell's head snapped toward me. "Who said anything about Lugh?"

"That was a poem about Lugh." I pressed the figurine into Mitchell's hands. "And Mother Spider. I should get a pen."

"I didn't hear anything like that." Wyatt piped in; his eyes narrowed as he studied me. I didn't know why Wyatt needed to argue with me whenever I spoke.

"Are you sure you heard Lugh?" Dean's gaze was unerring.

I shifted from one foot to the other. "You're all scaring me," I said truthfully.

Kaleb stood up, unfolding from his meditative position. He stretched, flicking his silver hair over his shoulder. "It explains a lot, you know." Kaleb yawned. "Lugh is one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. He's a god and a powerful one at that."

"What did you hear?" Mitchell asked as he passed back the figurine.

I eyed it like a viper, repeating the poem as if it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Dean sat back. "Lugh's debt." He said, echoing the words of the curse. "éabha stole from him, but he is still in debt? What did he do to her?"

"Is everyone just going to skip over the incest?" Wyatt's eyes rounded. "Child of his seed. Lugh knocked up Mother Spider and married her own daughter?"

"Ew." My nose wrinkled. My poor grandmother. "She was pregnant when she left him. The Huntsman." My voice was dull. "With the Beast-King's child."

Wyatt eyed me suspiciously. "How do you know that?"

Though Dean, Mitchell, and Kaleb all knew my heritage, it seemed that they hadn't filled Wyatt in.

Kaleb spoke up, interrupting the silence. "The god of sun and light. Weavers and creation." He announced. "He is known for his Hounds. I should have put it together."

"Why would Lugh be here?" I kept my voice low, conscious of our location. "Why isn't he in the Tuatha Dé Danann?"

"Something was taken." Mitchell gestured to the figurine. "éabha took something."

"If Lugh is the god of creation and Weavers, why would he need a Weaver?" Dean interjected. "Did éabha take his power?"

My lips pressed together. "I don't know," I admitted, and I hated the truth in those words.

Kaleb piped in. "éabha was given to the Huntsman by the Black Widows. The Black Widows once ruled the Forest, they called their court The Court of Teeth ."

Dean shook his head. "I haven't been alive long enough to know anything about that. The Wild Fae and the Sídhe are so far removed I can't imagine us ruling anything in the Aos Sí. To the Sídhe, we are beasts, servants, and wild things without grace and beauty."

"What happens when the Huntsman wakes up and realizes the curse is missing?" Panic lit a fire in my chest. "Can we run? Can we find the Gate in the forest and leave?"

"The moment we return to the Human Realities, we will lose our memories of Samhain," Dean said gravely. "Such is the magic of the Wild Hunt."

"So, we have two days to figure out how to break the curse before we return to the Human Realities?" My arms flailed with exasperation. "If the Huntsman even lets me leave!"

"I'd be more worried about how much he remembers when he wakes up." Mitchell brushed his shaggy black hair away from his face. "You knocked the bastard clean out."

Dean's back shot ramrod straight. "Maybe you should both start from the beginning..." He lifted a single brow, eying Mitchell and me like errant children.

The sun had set, and there was no call to action. No chiming bell announcing another hunt.

A fissure of unease spread through the kennels as the wolves all speculated about the Huntsman's absence.

Our meeting in the common room had led nowhere. Save for the knowledge that my grandmother might have stolen something from Lugh himself—of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

I put down my fork, unable to eat another bite.

I punched a god .

The Locket pack surrounded me, taking up the other table seats as they ate silently.

I couldn't do it.

I couldn't eat like a guillotine wasn't about to drop on my neck. I stood up, pushing away from the table, ignoring the questioning glances from the Locket pack as I left my dinner and strode from the canteen.

No matter how much I breathed, there wasn't enough air.

Wolves sensed weakness; I couldn't break yet but I needed air .

My knees were weak when I made it up the steps of the kennels, falling onto the lawn on all fours. My mouth tasted of metal, and my vision narrowed to a pinpoint.

The Huntsman was a god .

Something unattainable and beyond strength.

And I'd made him angry.

I looked up to the castle, my vision blurry with tears, as I watched the clockwork pieces twist in the sky.

I want to go home .

But there was no home. Not anymore.

The Huntsman had found my store.

The humans in town had put a target on my back.

My ex-husband was dead, found in my office.

At least I knew why the Huntsman needed a Weaver.

My grandmother had taken something of his.

In the office, he had been convinced that my grandmother had woven reality, torturing him in some way.

Sometimes, I'd wondered the same thing every time I found the strange wooden coin in my pocket; when I knew I hadn't put it there.

Maybe he wasn't wrong. Maybe my grandmother had set up her little tortures like dominos, ready to fall. Maybe my presence was one of those tortures.

Maybe it wasn't about me at all.

I sat back and looked up at the sky.

Six days had passed in the Aos Sí, six hours in the Human Realities.

Melly was dead.

Joel was dead.

Once Samhain was over and the Locket pack went home, it would be a miracle if I returned home with them.

I didn't hear Kaleb approach as he padded up the steps and settled beside me on the grass, looking at the sky. His orange eyes were surprisingly clear.

I hadn't spoken to Kaleb since we'd slept together in his room. Not really. I didn't know where we stood.

Everything in the Aos Sí didn't feel quite real.

"I met your grandmother once." Kaleb didn't look at me as he spoke. "She was of the forest. A wildling, to be sure. They told stories of her cloak, soaking in blood and woven with spider silk. éabha, of the forest."

I turned to face Kaleb to show I was listening, though I didn't speak.

"The Beast-King paid tribute to the Huntsman. Every Samhain." Kaleb sighed. "Back then, Lugh's job was to ferry souls across the veil. Back to the Tuatha Dé Danann, where the gods would welcome them."

"The Huntsman doesn't do that now?" I guessed.

Kaleb shook his head. "He sends us on dangerous errands, whittling down our numbers. But in all, we search for éabha. His Weaver." He took a deep breath. "éabha was said to be descended from the Black Widows—Sídhe that could weave webs that showed the future. It was said that the Black Widows gave éabha to the Huntsman for his protection."

"I've heard of Black Widow Sídhe," I remarked lightly.

"I don't think they exist anymore." Kaleb closed his eyes, his face tilted to the sky.

"How did they meet? The Beast-King and éabha?" I asked.

"Samhain's final night is marked by a ball. Or it used to be." Kaleb shrugged. "We came to the castle, dressed in our finery, to pay tribute to the Huntsman. The faelord at the edge of the forest. I didn't realize they had even seen each other, until she arrived under the cover of night many months later. Her belly round with child. Liam, the Beast-King, he created the diversion. But he asked me to help éabha escape."

"He trusted you with her life," I said weakly.

Kaleb smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "There was no portal. No Gate. Not yet. The only way to travel between the Human Realities and the Aos Sí is by the Hawthorn tree, and you must possess a special amulet made of the bark of two trees from each world. We didn't have either."

"She made the Gate." I nodded, confirming what I had already guessed.

"Yes." Kaleb nodded. "She peeled apart the world like an orange and jumped through. When I returned to the pack, the Huntsman laid waste to our home. My Alpha was dead."

I reached out and placed my hand on his. Kaleb clasped my fingers, needing the scant comfort I offered.

"What happened next?"

Kaleb took a deep, shaky breath. "I made a deal." He told me. "I was the highest-ranking wolf in my pack, save for the Alpha. But Liam was dead. I marched up to the castle, and I stood in front of the Huntsman, and I begged for my life. I begged for the lives of every wolf in the Forest."

I said nothing.

"I'm the reason that the wolves are beholden to that damned Huntsman." Kaleb's jaw hardened. "And now, I find out that he's a god? Not just any god, but Lugh?"

"It's not your fault," I told him.

"Pah!" He barked a bitter laugh.

"You were with éabha when she escaped," I frowned. "Do you know what she took?"

Kaleb thought for a moment before shaking his head. He let go of my hand. "She had nothing. She left her cloak, her shoes."

"Do you think the Huntsman would tell us what she took?" I glanced at the castle.

Kaleb didn't answer me.

"Do you think he's going to let me leave?" I whispered.

"Samhain ends tomorrow. Whatever happens, will happen." Kaleb said simply, shrugging.

"Doesn't it bother you?" I pressed, shifting to face him and curling my legs underneath me. "You won't remember what happened. Almost a week, gone. Whatever you hunted, forgotten. Whatever has happened between us is gone. Whatever you've done for the Huntsman. Nothing."

"It is the way of things." Kaleb's orange eyes regarded me with pity, and I was reminded of how old he was.

"You'll forget me." My voice was clogged. "I don't know what's happening between us. Between me, Dean, Mitchell, and even Wyatt. I don't know if there is something here or if I'm just scared and clinging to the only people who have shown me a lick of affection. But when you go home, you'll forget me. I'll be the person who blackmailed you into protecting me and then disappeared after Samhain. What if you all go back home, and I'm trapped here? With him?"

"You will walk away from this." Kaleb's jaw hardened, and he looked like he was trying to persuade himself as much as he was trying to comfort me. "The Huntsman needs you. He will want to keep you happy, to an extent."

"Not after today." I pushed my fingers through my hair. "I don't know what came over me."

"It's the wolf." Kaleb looked back up to the sky, the moon reflected in his orange eyes. "Wild Fae have a connection with our animal form. We hunt, we sleep, we fuck. Often, the lines are blurred, but it isn't uncommon to take aspects of the wolf into account. A she-wolf would be justified in defending herself."

I laughed bitterly. "I took it for years. From Joel. I took the pushes, the slaps, the insults, and for what?"

Kaleb gave me a wry smile. "We often justify the behavior of those we love."

"I just wanted everything to be okay," I murmured. "I put my head in the sand and hoped all the shit would go away if I refused to look at it."

"A solid strategy."

"Was that sarcasm?" I slanted a look his way.

"Yes." Kaleb agreed. "You're a terrible influence."

I extended my wrist, brushing my thumb over the bite there. I'd thought it had meant something. But maybe it was just physical? Perhaps it was better that way.

"One more day." I joked.

Kaleb smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Dean wants to go to the market tomorrow. He thinks the fabric seller might have some information about the Black Widows. If they sold éabha to the Huntsman, they might know more."

"That's a solid plan." I agreed. "Maybe I can pick up some more fabric and embroidery floss before we return to the Human Realities. I'd love to bring some home."

Kaleb hesitated, opening his mouth and closing it again. "Yeah." He exhaled a sigh before repeating the word.

I'd forgotten that Wolfkin could lie.