2. Prey

It had been a long time since I”d been intrigued enough by a human to bring them underhill.

After these long years, mortals were all so predictable. You could smell it on the wind, the predators sorting themselves from the prey in the bright song of adrenaline and the sour delight of terror. They liked to think of themselves as greater than the beasts, but when my horns scraped the sky they were no different from the hounds and the deer that fled before them.

Except for this woman. She”d chosen iron and defiance, burning my hounds and laughing as her blood stained the earth.

The novelty caught my interest, and I caught her body as she dropped. Power rippled out from me as I did, recognizing her as part of me the moment I touched her. The wounds torn into her body by my hounds closed, woad tattoos in the shapes of their jaws marking her limbs as my strength scrolled across her body.

I went stiff, my eyes widening as the hounds whined, circling around my steed. My horse shifted, restive beneath me from the tension in my legs.

I”d had my power stripped from me once, claimed at the source and ripped from my bones and blood. But she hadn”t taken anything from me. She was sharing my power with me, as if it was hers. As if she was mine.

Black night.

She was my soulmate.

A creature who could share eternity with me, find balance with me. The eternal Hunter, yoked to a human.

Snarling a curse, I hauled her up with one arm, throwing her across my saddle in front of me like a slain deer, even as her body slipped away from the cervine curse of the Hunt, returning to its human form as my power ran through her.

”Master?” one of the hounds ventured, licking his lips in a conciliatory gesture.

I raised my lip, my hand tightening on the reins. The woman”s body was warm against my thighs, her breathing stabilizing and color coming back into her skin as my deathless power healed her, and my whole soul yearned towards that warmth.

”Silence,” I snapped at the black hound. I didn”t allow them to indulge their intelligent natures when we ran the mortal world, not even one who’d once been a prince. Tonight was no different, and especially not with my fucking soulmate slung across my saddle.

A sound made them all whip their heads towards the open fields again, ears coming forward and ruffs lifting. I wheeled my horse, catching sight of a white shape in the moonlight, framed by the bone of the mask I wore. Antlers of the kind only the ancient Irish elk had once borne blotted out the stars, pale runes standing out against the brown of antler-bone.

Sarcaryn.

The howl tore from the throats of the hounds as I roared out my fury, spurring my black steed into a gallop. With an elk”s belling cry, the stag-god of sex and beauty reared, his pale hooves cutting across the sky before he wheeled and leapt into a bounding run. I held my spear in an easy grip, leaning forward as the hounds raced forward, outpacing my horse in a deadly black skein.

”Fuck you,” I snarled as he kept the pace, fleeing from the Hunt without a single ell of distance closing between us. I knew we couldn”t catch him, for Sarcaryn ran ever before Death himself, but rage drove me. I”d lived the eons without anyone beside me but my hounds and horse, King of nothing and no one. But Sarcaryn”s eternal war with the great Wolf Faerqen had spread among the rest of the Deathless, and now he”d brought it to me.

When the prey runs from the hunters, he leads the hunt. Foxhounds follow the scent of the fox and sighthounds follow the movement of the deer that flee from their white fangs, predators bound to the patterns of those they seek to master. Sarcaryn was no different, nor was I. His fleet hooves carried us from Ireland into Faery and back again, running us out.

The red tongues of my hounds lolled and lather turned the black coat of my horse white. The power of our ancient patterns ruled us, my focus as keenly on the shape of the great Stag as that of my hounds, every thud of my pulse dedicated to the desire to put the silver of my spear into the red heart of the beast fleeing before me. It didn”t matter that his death wouldn”t endure. He was mine to hunt, mine to kill, mine to gut for my hounds and to sling across my saddle—

Across my saddle, where weight and heat already rested.

The warmth of a woman, radiating against my thighs.

I reined up abruptly, the break in the pattern snapping my endless need to hunt, to hunt, to hunt. With a piercing whistle, I called my hounds back, the lash of my command enough to make them stumble. Even that scarce heartbeat of time was enough for Sarcaryn to vanish, crossing between worlds and leaving us standing on mortal soil.

”Walk,” I said, when the hounds started dropping to the ground. One whined at me; I struck her with the butt of my spear. ”Walk!” She snapped at the wood and silver, but staggered back to her feet and started walking. I goaded the rest to their feet with the same cruelty, refusing to leave them there to die on mortal soil with the rising of the sun.

Sarcaryn had run us past the endurance of mortal beasts, burning through the faery power that let the Wild Hunt roam the mortal world with the same ferocity we did the faery world. He might have cost me my hounds and horse, save that the fucking mortal woman he”d inflicted on me had… existed.

”Motherless whore,” I growled as I forced my exhausted horse to move forward, feeling for the seams in the Veil that would let us cross underhill. Sarcaryn and I weren”t exactly enemies; he was older and stranger than I, a god from the dawn of the world instead of one of the Tuath Dé, and I doubted he deigned to regard someone like me as a true enemy. But we certainly were in opposition, and I”d had the upper hand for millennia, ever since I”d slain his mortal son to claim the antlers I now bore.

Apparently he”d been planning his revenge quite thoroughly.

The woman draped across my lap wouldn”t stay unconscious forever, though I suspected she would sleep for hours still from the shock of near-death and the strangeness of the power coursing through her body. Lexi, I thought, the name sliding into my memory as if it had always lived there—as if I”d been born knowing it. Alexis Sharpe.

Soulmate bonds were strange things, the greatest gift and cruelest curse of Faery. When two people who could find an eternal balance made true contact with each other – a meeting of the eyes, a touch of skin to skin, a shared moment in the chaos of time – faery power bound them together with the same strength as a vow. But there was no guarantee, not for love nor for hate. A soulmate could be one”s most implacable enemy as easily as one”s cherished lover.

She could become anything to me. She could even become nothing to me… but only if I chose to leave her, here and now, and remain away for the allotted span of her life. If we were together… if I brought her with me to Faery… we would be drawn together inexorably. Even if I abandoned her, I couldn”t guarantee that our paths wouldn”t cross again.

It was even likely. Sarcaryn, damn him, would surely see to it.

I found a path and I led my hounds underhill with Lexi still slung across my saddle. I didn”t want the complication of a soulmate, but I”d hunted and caught her, and what hunter leaves his prey behind? She belonged to me by right of the hunt. And, too, I didn”t want to give Sarcaryn the satisfaction of knowing he”d struck home with the vulnerability he”d exploited. Let him think I”d won my heart”s desire from his paltry attempt at a curse. No predator shows weakness to his prey.

Such justifications felt natural, even though I knew the true reason I kept her. I wanted the woman who had laughed in the face of her death to look into my eyes and choose me.

The exhaustion eased as we crossed back into the deep wilds of Faery, the wild magic soaking into my bones and bolstering my beasts. One of the black hounds gave herself a shake, and a few tails started to wag as they picked up the pace again, heading for home at a springing trot.

I didn”t push them, but neither did I slow them. Wolfhounds knew their bodies, and only the act of running could override their natural disinclination towards discomfort. The lure of home drew them back to their beds, and I followed with a rather more pensive mood.

When we reached the Ruined Palace, I handed off my horse and hunting-mask to one of the servitors and carried Lexi into my home. She curled up against me as if she belonged there, her lips parted and body soft. Long, umber-brown hair fell in loose tangles, torn from her careful braid by the teeth of my dogs, but the color was already flaking away, dissolved by the force of my power in her. Beneath, the natural rose-gold of her hair asserted itself, the strands themselves healing from the chemical abuse heaped upon them.

I laid her on my bed, her freckled skin pale against the dark furs of faery beasts that had no names. Her long fingers belonged to an artist, the nails carefully trimmed and delicate calluses roughening the fingertips. She had scars on her face, small kisses of mortality that lent gravitas to her otherwise girlish features, her cheeks soft and lips full. That mouth was made for kissing, with a ruddiness that begged to be claimed. I could almost see it, the way she would look when playing with a man, her white teeth against those red lips as she bit them—

I had to stop, breathing hard with my hands on either side of her body, my stiffening cock pressing against the fabric of my pants. My pulse roared for attention, throbbing in my groin and beating in the veins of my neck.

Fuck.

How long had it been since a woman had lain in repose in my bed? Since one had looked me in the eyes and defied my commands, even unto death?

A lure I couldn”t resist, in the gently curving body of a woman with full breasts and soft sides, her hips made for sinking my fingertips into as I drove every inch of my cock into her heated embrace—

I forced my thoughts away again, my cock demanding attention, every pulsing throb of blood through my shaft so unbearable I wanted to take myself in hand right then and there, with the impatience of an adolescent. You”re a god, I snarled to myself, my fingers digging into the bed as I struggled with my desire. Stop acting like a stag in rut.

Sarcaryn was the god of sexual pleasure, and like all gods he could influence the patterns of the world. When he leaned his power into the patterns of Faery that tied people together as soulmates, the people who were drawn together were those who were sexually compatible. It didn”t matter that the Stag himself surely knew nothing about my sexual predilections. The power that ran through my veins was faery, and Faery knew me.

Soft. Pale. Beautiful. Everything I wasn”t, and everything I desired, prey for a thing like me and yet made inviolable by the bond that gave her everything I possessed, down to the depths of my wildness.

With care, I undressed her, taking off her torn and bloodied clothing and not allowing my fingers to trace along the smooth expanse of her skin. She had a tattoo running along her ribs, a stylized hare captured in a full run with the words ”But first they must catch you” written in its wake. There was another on her ankle, a bright yellow flower with a red-and-black spotted beetle on the spiky leaf, and a third on her thigh, a crude heart etched with dots of black that looked to have been made by an unsteady hand and a blunt needle.

They weren”t dissolving like the dye in her hair. She must have regarded them as part of herself.

At last, I couldn”t bear being in the same room as her, not with her skin bare and her expression soft. I didn”t fear losing control—but the ache in my groin demanded to be satisfied, and my life would be far easier if I tended to my base impulses before washing the blood off of the nearly-naked woman lying on my bed.

I didn”t go far, not wanting to leave Lexi alone in such a vulnerable state, no matter that any enemy would have to get through both my servitors and my hounds to reach her. But I went far enough, getting two doors between us before sinking onto an upholstered chair with a groan, freeing my cock with an edge of desperation.

Precome wet my underthings and dripped down the stiff length of my shaft, my cock twitching as I wrapped my left hand around myself and started stroking. Each rough stroke of my hand sent pleasure streaking into me, my whole body commanded by the beast between my legs. It had been so long since I”d felt like this—since physical pleasure had gripped me with unrelenting need, every beat of my heart a war-drum dedicated to lust.

It wasn”t enough, could never be enough, my cock throbbing with unbearable demand. I knew what I wanted, and my hand could never compare to the all-encompassing heat and pressure of the depths of a woman”s body.

My mouth could, though. My throat. My tongue. On occasion, I even preferred such things to the enticing slick of a woman”s cunt.

There are some few benefits to being beheaded. In addition to being a relatively swift way to die, if you happen to be truly deathless instead of merely immortal, having a detachable head opens a new realm of intriguing bodily positions. I”d suffered the indignity of being beheaded on the battlefield, spent millennia hunting for my stolen head as the Headless Horseman, and millennia more hunting my enemies as the Dullahan. I”d certainly earned the right to do with myself as I pleased.

Once, perhaps, I might have been able to heal myself, but I”d wandered the mortal world for too long, and the force of myth wound through me. I was the Dullahan, cruel and hard, holding my head up with my skeletal fingers fisted in my tangled hair as I brought terror to those I hunted. I was Herne the Hunter, antlers raking the sky and black hounds racing before me. I was the Devil himself, pursuing sinners to drag them down to Hell.

I was Nuada Silverhand; Hunter, Healer, King. And I was burning with desire.

With a groan, I ran the silver finger-bones of my right hand along the woad tattoo encircling my neck. The skin parted, tattoo dissolving into a wound that would never heal. Pale blue flame flickered up as I took my head off my shoulders, the death-light of a will-o-wisp marking the flow of power that linked my head and body.

Breathing hard, I brought my mouth to the head of my cock, my vision filling with the sight of my own needy body: stomach tensed, thick veins snaking along the length of my shaft, precome falling in a clear line from the ring in the red tip of my cock. My moan of desire cut off as I wrapped my mouth around myself, pleasure searing through me as my tongue massaged my sensitive cockhead.

I had no compunction about pleasing myself. With both hands gripping my head, I started fucking my face, forcing my jaw open wider to accommodate my thick length. My cock slipped past the hot ring of my throat, almost making me gag, but the raw satisfaction of having wet heat wrapped around my aching shaft drove me as relentlessly as a coachman”s whip drives a horse. I swallowed, desperate low sounds of pleasure escaping my throat as I fucked myself deeper.

Oh, fuck, it felt so good, a pleasure I hadn”t indulged in for centuries, and there was no hope of stopping. Sarcaryn”s curse had me by the throat, and I couldn”t bring myself to care, not with the raw sexual need flooding my veins. I ended up on my knees on the floor, bracing myself with my silver hand as I fucked my own throat like that of a whore, holding my head to my groin with the other. My balls throbbed, feeling heavy and full as they pulled up tight to my body.

Deeper and deeper, sucking in breaths only when I grew too light-headed to do otherwise, until I could feel my cock thrusting in my body, shoved through the magic that bound my self together to stretch my throat. I couldn”t get the sight of Lexi”s bare body out of my thoughts, possessed by a need to have her that I couldn”t begin to fight. I wanted her the way animals want their mates, with a screaming desire to take. Wanted those red lips around my cock as she sucked me—wanted those creamy thighs spread for me as I took, and took, and took—

My whole body tensed as the pleasure spiked, and I thrust hard into my throat, three sharp strokes that left my back arched in ecstasy. I came hard, hot seed shooting out of me like lightning from a black storm, my body possessed by pleasure. My cock throbbed, each clench of my orgasm cutting through me in a white-bright line of glory, leaving bliss like an afterimage seared into my soul.

My vision sparked from the lack of air, but with a hard jerk I shoved myself deeper into my throat, the raw satisfaction of being buried to the hilt such a lure that I almost passed out before I wrenched my head off of my cock. I sucked in heavy gasps of air, panting hard on all fours, crouched there on the floor like a rutting animal.

Shame rippled through me, such an uncomfortable feeling that I shuddered, closing my eyes so I didn”t have to look at my softening cock anymore. What in the wilds was I doing? She was just a woman—a mortal woman. How could I be so… so possessed? So overcome?

The worst of it was that I knew this was only the beginning. The beast that had awakened inside me at the touch of her skin and the sight of her flesh was only satiated, not satisfied. I would rouse for her, again and again, and crash against that same reckless demand.

I was going to have to learn to leash it, or find myself mastered by it—and by her.

Grimly, I returned my head to my body, sealing the wound with the scrolling lines of woad that marked any healing I did. I wiped my mouth on the back of my arm, the taste of my pleasure lingering. Even that thought made my cock stir, despite having come not minutes before.

Motherless whore, I thought again, directing my ire towards the White Stag instead of the woman he”d put in my path. It wasn”t her fault that she was everything I desired physically, nor that she”d been drawn into Sarcaryn”s war. If the Stag thought even the most beautiful of mortals or the wildest of passions would lure me to his side, though, he was sorely mistaken.

The fae could perish, for all I cared. I would hunt the mortals, change with them and allow their dreaming to change me. I would step back into the wilds of Faery to fill my lungs with untamed power, and carry it among them again. I wasn”t a god of the fae, like Sarcaryn and his ilk. I was a thing made from the fear and memories of the mortal world, and I had no interest in being anything else.