14. Hunter

Walking the Prince of Teeth to the door of my bedroom, knowing my soulmate was inside, and then walking away, was perhaps the most difficult thing I had done in my eons of life. It went against every fiber of my being, and every hunger I represented. She was mine, a doe I”d run down and a woman who could meet and match me, and I had to walk away, knowing exactly what would happen when I did.

She slept next to him each night, my favorite hound and my soulmate side-by-side in my bed while I lay out under the stars, full of longing and agony. He walked next to her and gave her a life to enjoy. Of course she would see him – everything he was – and choose to answer his undying devotion with love.

I couldn”t tear my traitorous mind away from my sense of them as I sat in my throne, my fingers gripping the stone with such force that my bones ached. He had his head in her lap—she had her hands on his skin—they were—

I felt it happen, the shift in the world as my soulmate found her footing with another. Touching them with the land-sense of the palace as I was, the riptide of that rapture caught me in its undertow, and I had no hope of escape. I had my silver hand around my cock and my arm in my teeth before I could even think, an unwilling and desperately wanting voyeur, my connection to the Ruined Palace and to Lexi yoking me to her pleasure.

I came with her, and I came with Key, and I came with her again, all but screaming out my pleasure and my thwarted need, as reckless as a fucking stag in rut. I finally managed to wrench myself free of them while they lay together, balanced and in love—a hound and his mistress, a prince and his princess.

The torment of it all left my muscles tight to the point of trembling, my fingers digging into my scalp as I tried not to let my anguish turn to rage. It wasn”t her fault. It wasn”t her fault that I was what I was—that in order to keep her safe I had to starve my every passion.

You”re going to break, I thought, my teeth aching from the strength of my clenched jaws and my power wrapped around me like thorned vines. How much longer can you hope to do this?

The Hunter, not setting foot outside of his palace, refusing to begin the chase. The Dullahan, turning his face away from fear. The brook horse, letting everything he desired slip through his fingers.

But to do otherwise – to leave marks on her vivid soul to rival those on her skin – could not be borne. I would rather be destroyed—undone. Unmade.

I couldn”t even hate Sarcaryn for this. It was my own nature tearing me apart.

I didn”t sleep. I couldn”t. The risk of waking full of lust and hunger, as I so often did now, was too high, and the envy too raw. If I awoke like that, my cock hard and my soul ruled by the Hunt, I would never be able to stop myself from striding through my palace to my bedroom and my soulmate, and making her run.

So I didn”t sleep. I sat on my throne, everything hurting, and waited for the sun to rise. Even when the morning light shone on me, I didn”t move.

I didn”t realize Lexi had come until she snapped a twig to get my attention.

My head whipped towards her, nostrils flaring and vision narrowing. I locked my muscles in place, refusing to read an invitation in the smirk she wore, in her tousled rose-gold hair, in the casual disarray of my robe belted loosely around her waist—

Key stood beside her, a hound unlike any that ran with me. His fur gleamed in the sunlight, silken and black as night, his tail plumed and longer than that of any natural-born dog. Silver horns arced up from his skull over violet eyes, and his silver claws clicked on the stone floor as he moved.

She smelled like him. His sweat. His seed.

I had to fight back red desire, my focus sharpening as Lexi sauntered over. Her bare breasts shifted beneath my robe as she walked, the pale skin of her full thighs showing with each step.

Her hound didn”t stand guard. He licked his chops, staying near the door, watching me with heat in his eyes.

”You know,” Lexi said when she neared me, ”I was really starting to think you didn”t give a shit about me.”

”What… would make you… think that?” I said between heavy breaths, trying not to snarl the words. She fucking smelled like him. I needed her to smell like me.

This is where you break. You”re fucked, Nuada.

”You”re a hunter,” she said. ”The Hunter. And you haven”t so much as come to look in on me, let alone pursued me.”

I didn”t trust myself to speak. I didn”t know if I could keep myself from leaping on her like a slavering wolf.

She lowered her lashes, regarding me with the satisfaction of a well-fed cat eyeing a songbird. With the smallest of smirks on her lips, she walked up the stairs to my throne and put her hands on my knees.

I held myself very, very still, every muscle clenched. What the fuck was she doing? Didn”t she know she was taunting a starving predator?

My eyes darted to Key. He licked his chops again, with the same hunger as a hound waiting for the alpha to cede the kill to his pack. What the fuck had he done—or said? He ought to know better than to do this to one such as me.

”A girl likes to feel wanted, Nuada,” she said, sliding her hands up my taut thighs, pushing the furs of my clothing up as she did to bare my legs. ”Like she”s worth the chase. It was nice of you to give me a few days to get my bearings, but sitting here for weeks brooding instead of hunting… well.” Lexi raked her nails down along my inner thighs, stepping back with a supercilious expression on her pretty face. ”When has the prey ever walked into the jaws of her predator?”

My cock responded to her touch. All of me did, my predatory focus narrowing onto her mouth, her hands, the shadow between her breasts—but my stiffening cock I couldn”t hope to hide from her, and she licked her ruddy lips as she traced the shape of it beneath my clothing with her eyes.

”I”m too dangerous for such games,” I growled, gripping the arms of my throne so that I wouldn”t grab her by the hair and shove my aching cock into her pert mouth, fuck her face until tears stained her skin, take all the things I wanted from her—

With challenge in her eyes and a smirk on her lips, Lexi undid the knot of her belt, then shrugged my robe off one shoulder, baring her pale skin and the bruise of a bite. ”What makes you think I don”t like dangerous?” she asked.

When I didn”t answer, she lifted her chin, eyelashes lowering.

”This has been fun, and the palace is nice, but without you, it”s not really worth staying.” She dropped the belt to the ground, and then my robe atop it, standing naked in front of me, the nipples of her heavy breasts hard and the glint of wet at the apex of her thighs. ”So I”m leaving, Hunter, and I”m not taking anything of yours with me. And if you want me to come back?” Lexi licked her red lips. ”Fucking make me.”

I could have taken her then and there. It would have been easy. All I had to do was stand and grab her by the throat, then throw her to her knees and show her exactly how vicious ”make me” could be.

Yet I was the Master of the Wild Hunt. I had run out many does, and I always gave them a head start.

After all, it can hardly be called a hunt if the distance traveled is less than one step.

And so it wasn”t difficult to let her go—to watch her pivot and stalk off, her spine straight and the hairs on the nape of her neck lifted in knowledge of the predator to her back. Whether she understood what she was asking for or not, I had nothing left to hold me back. There”s only so much torture a man can endure.

The seconds ticked past like millennia, Lexi”s bare feet on the stone of my palace as she left my sight. I held myself there for longer than I thought possible, then stooped and picked up my still-warm robe from the floor.

I lifted the cloth to my face, inhaling deeply. Her scent assailed me, salt and desire and the perfection of her bare skin. My cock twitched, demanding attention, but with the Hunt before me, I could set aside base lust. The rumble of a growl started in my chest as I stood, reaching out with my power for my hounds.

Keilain stepped between me and the archway Lexi had left through.

My brows snapped together. I started walking towards him, one dangerous step after another. I dropped the robe to the ground, summoning my hounds and horse as I did. ”Out of my way, Keilain.”

He stretched, long and languorous, an elegant creature. ”I”m not here to stop you,” he said simply, lifting his head to regard me. ”She wants you, Nuada. She came here knowing what you would do after, and she”s eager for it. I”m here to run with you, so you cannot lose even a second of her time.”

My chest wrenched with sudden terror, eyes widening as I realized what I”d forgotten in the need of the Hunt—that the moment she left me and my palace and entered the faery wilds, time would no longer flow the same for us. But Key stood there, compassion in his violet eyes, his pointed ears lifted and plumed tail slowly wafting through the air.

Key, her balanced soulmate, who time would always remember for her.

”There could never have been another way, could there?” I asked, the tension in my shoulders easing. I was the Hunter; I would never have been able to pursue her without running her down, and the distance between us could have stolen her from me. But Key could love her in a different way, and I knew how to accept the assistance of a hound. He was mine, after all—as much mine as Lexi was.

And the hound always reaches the prey before the hunter.

He didn”t answer, his tail wagging.

A servitor passed me the reins of my horse. I set my foot in the stirrup of my saddle and swung up onto the stallion”s back, then smirked down at Keilain. ”Run with me, then, hound.”

He laughed, shaking himself and trotting over to take a position at my right hand, the other hounds falling in around us. ”As you like, Master.”

”Good boy,” I purred, and spurred my horse into a run.