4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Cianán

E ternity is going to be boring.

Nothing holds my interest anymore. Not the court ladies with their delicate dances and veiled smiles, nor the endless entertainment the King puts on to amuse his fae subjects. The hunt, once my only escape, now offers little satisfaction, as the nearby villages have learned to hide before nightfall.

There is no prey left. And the world I once found so intriguing no longer captivates me.

With a sigh, I lean against my bedroom window, running my fingers along the branch of a tree that automatically reaches toward me. The forest below, deep and shadowed, breathes life into the quiet. The scent of earth and leaves, familiar and grounding, momentarily calms the restlessness inside me. Nature has always called to me, and I to it, as if we were destined to be one.

"Brooding again?" Lorcan's voice pulls me from my thoughts.

I turn to him and, without thinking, drop to a knee in a practiced gesture of respect. His guards, stationed just beyond the door, know well not to enter without my explicit invitation. To do so would mean invoking my wrath, and no one does so intentionally. Well, besides maybe my dear friend.

"My King," I say, a hint of mockery threading through the formal words. He knows I don't mean it with the reverence it suggests.

Lorcan rolls his pale ice blue eyes as I look up at him, exasperation etched in his features while I grin in amusement.

"Get up," he says, his voice carrying both authority and familiarity. "You know I don't hold you to the same ceremony as the common fae and sidhe court nobles."

As I rise to my feet, his gaze sharpens, scanning my face with an intensity that sets my skin ablaze. His waist-length white hair sways with his movement, almost crackling with unseen energy. There's always a charge in the air when he's near, like the calm before a storm that I desperately want to step into.

"Your mood is as black as night," he observes, the corner of his mouth twitching with faint amusement. "You know you don't need to keep doing this."

I almost scoff, but catch myself before it escapes. "I am a Huntsman. It's my duty."

Lorcan steps beside me, his tall frame casting a long shadow in the dim light of my quarters. Outside, the clear sky betrays no signs of a storm, but as he looks out the window, lightning arcs across it.

"You became a Huntsman for me, Cianán," he says softly. "But I gave up that hunt long ago. If she doesn't want to be found, she won't be."

His words sink into the silence between us, and I dip my head in acknowledgment. My hand comes up absentmindedly to touch the pendant at my throat, the symbol of my position. He's right, of course. I've spent years tracking his bonded, and she has left no trace since she fled the Faerie lands.

The curse of our kind is that we don't know who our bonds are, the people we are fated to combine our life force with for eternity. We just feel drawn to them. It's only once we have sex that our bond marks appear and we feel that connection, like a soft low hum that builds over time. We feel the high emotions of our bonded but otherwise the bond can be easily ignored. Finding your bonded is rare, but has led to the Fae being very open sexually.

The day after they bonded, she left.

"I wanted to find her, she was my best friend too after all. And even without finding her, The Hunt can be entertaining some years," I say, my voice measured. "There's always someone who's an oath breaker, someone The Hunt deems worthy. No one is ever truly honest anymore."

Lorcan arches an elegant eyebrow, his gaze piercing as though he can see the cracks in my words. Even he knows how rare it is for The Hunt to find a true target these days. His pale eyes reflect skepticism, but something sharper, hungrier, flickers behind them as he steps closer, so close that our arms brush. The electric energy that surrounds him intensifies, and it takes everything in me not to lean into it, to let it swallow me whole.

"You just need a worthy prey. If The Hunt no longer provides, perhaps it's time to look elsewhere. The women at court bleed just as prettily."

A chill runs down my spine, and this time I don't bother hiding my reaction. Lorcan's words are deliberate, meant to provoke. He knows what lies beneath the surface—the restlessness, the hunger that grows with every passing year. The itch for something more than The Hunt has to offer. Something darker.

"I don't need distractions," I mutter, though the heat of him so close is making it difficult to concentrate. I turn my gaze back to the forest, but the scent of the earth no longer grounds me as it did moments ago. Instead, it feels distant, like everything else lately.

Lorcan shifts until the line of his body brushes against my side, his imposing presence difficult to ignore. "You need something to hold your attention," he continues, his breath a velvet warmth against my ear. "And if The Hunt no longer excites you, perhaps it's time to seek new forms of entertainment."

The room seems smaller with Lorcan standing so close, his energy crackling in the air between us, teasing the edges of restraint I'd carefully built over the years. His words, dark and provocative, slide into the cracks of my self-control, igniting an old desire I hadn't let myself acknowledge in too long.

He was always like this—pushing, probing, daring me to slip, to let go of my rigid discipline. The air thickens, the tension palpable. The last time we were this close, the world faded away, leaving only the two of us and the heat of our shared breath. But that was before.

I catch the meaning behind his words, the subtle invitation. Lorcan doesn't bother hiding his tastes anymore. He likes making the courtiers bleed, enjoying their fear. He's made it clear that I should join him again, that it's been too long since I indulged. But when I joined the hunt, I had to give up that part of myself. Whilst I serve as a Huntsman, I could not harm other fae or sidhe outside of a hunt, and they could not challenge me in return. But I do miss it. I do miss him.

There is a calling inside me that craves violence, and Lorcan is the same. I think that is why we became so close when we were young. We can sense the need to fight within each other, which has led to us creating many games. But it's not the kind of game meant to coax happiness. No, Lorcan deals in darker pleasures—the kind that leaves marks, the kind that spills blood. The air between us crackles with it, and the space feels too small, too charged.

"And if I were to indulge in this... form of entertainment," I murmur, glancing sideways at him, "would you like me to join in publicly instead of behind closed doors? Would that please your majesty ?"

Lorcan's lips curl into a knowing smile, one that doesn't reach his cold eyes. Before I became a Huntsman, he kept a lot of his darker inclinations to private quarters. That changed when she ran away from him. Now he feeds off the terror he incites. "You know me too well, Cianán. Some pleasures are best enjoyed openly. Let the court see. Let them tremble ."

The idea lingers, stoking something dormant inside me. It's been so long since I helped to stir fear in this lifeless place. The court, with its endless shallow games, has forgotten what I'm capable of. They think I've been chained by the hunt, by my vow. Perhaps it's time to remind them. The Huntsman is only temporary, the span of a century or two. It's a role I chose but not who I really am. It's simply a mask, one I can choose to pass to someone else.

I glance back at Lorcan, who watches me with those pale, calculating eyes, always a step ahead. So cold yet burning with an intensity that never fails to catch me off guard. He is the king, and yet, in moments like these, there was an unspoken pull between us, something more primal, more dangerous than any game we'd played at court. He knows what he's tempting me towards, and he's waiting—waiting to see if I'll bite.

His hand hovers near my arm, not touching but close enough that I could feel the heat of him, the electric charge of his power. My muscles tense, every instinct screaming to either close the gap or step away. To indulge or deny.

"I'll consider it," I say, my voice measured. "But perhaps after this year's hunt. One last trip to the villages to see if there's anything left worth chasing."

"Of course," Lorcan replies smoothly, as though he'd already expected my answer. "But when The Hunt fails to satisfy you, I'll be waiting with something much more... engaging." His smile widens, and I feel the crackling energy of his power fill the room once more.

I nod, already feeling the itch for something more gnawing at me. The hunt has grown dull, but after this year, perhaps I'll give Lorcan the spectacle he craves.

"It's been too long since the marble of the throne room has seen color you haven't created yourself," I say, my voice softer now, almost to myself.

Lorcan's grin sharpens. "Indeed. White is such a dull color, don't you think? I'd appreciate a more... vibrant display. Perhaps, crimson?"

I turn away from the window, feeling a new sense of purpose settle over me. The hunt will come and go, as it always does. But after? It might be time to wake the court from its stupor. Lorcan and I always do create the greatest entertainment. Humans think that the Roman Colosseum was once a spectacle for violence and terror, but they have never seen what the strongest of the fae court is capable of, especially amongst their own kind.

He sighs, his eyes turning sad. "I know you took on the mask of the Huntsman because I couldn't leave here so soon after taking the throne, and because of who we are to each other. But I meant what I said. It's been a hundred years, it's time to give up searching for someone who does not wish to be found," he says. "Don't be gone too long, Cianán. I'm looking forward to your return…. I miss you."

His words hang in the air, thick with unspoken longing, and for a moment, I'm caught between my duty and the dangerous allure of our bond and what we could be together. What we were . His hand brushes softly against mine, that lightning arcing between our fingers, before he turns and makes his way toward the door.

As the door shuts behind him, the silence lingers, but it's no longer the oppressive quiet that gnawed at me moments before. Instead, it hums with possibilities, a thrill I haven't felt in centuries. My fingers trace the wood of the branch absently, its rough texture grounding me even as my mind dances with darker thoughts.

Suddenly a strange sound reaches me, a faint melody on the wind, teasing at the edges of my awareness. I pause, my senses sharpening. It's familiar in a way that claws at something long forgotten within me. A voice from the past, perhaps? Or a memory resurfacing after being buried for so long?

Curiosity stirs, and I close my eyes, letting the melody pull me in. The song floats through the air like a ghost, weaving through the trees and into my quarters. Its haunting, bittersweet tune seems to call directly to me, tugging at something deep and primal. A part of me that I'd thought long dead awakens with a vengeance, an ancient hunger.

Smiling to myself, I cast my senses outward, seeking the source. Ennisvarra? It has been so long since anything worthwhile caught my interest there, yet this song... it holds a strange power.

Perhaps one of the villages will provide a new form of entertainment after all.

Eternity may be long, but it doesn't have to be boring.