3. Good Dog

She ran.

You should never run.

We followed, because hounds cannot help but give chase when prey flees before us. The Master kept us at an easy lope, letting her hold the distance between us. We could have caught her sooner, but we all remembered our first Hunt, and our eagerness was bound up with those memories.

The power of it. The choice. We were hunters, predators; we”d chosen our teeth. She was a doe, food for the red-eyed beasts who followed, waiting for the chase to truly begin.

Moonlight washed the fields of Eire silver. It glinted off her dark hair. It glinted off the stream and the wet stones. It glinted off of iron, not so far away.

The Master”s hunting-horn cried out, his power resonating through my bones. She ran, and we followed. We ran her down, because a sighthound is the Hunt made flesh, the act of running our blood and breath.

Deer are swift. Hounds are swifter still. But still the prey reached her humanity before we reached her, and when my teeth sank into her flesh it was the searing pain of iron that drove me back as much as the red knowledge blooming on my tongue.

Hounds are not civilized creatures, and the hounds of the Wild Hunt even less so. We had all once been people, but we”d all surrendered ourselves to the Hunt. We ran on four legs. We ate our prey raw. Most of us had forgotten everything else, even our names. Those few of us who remembered our intelligent natures rarely indulged in the things we”d once cherished.

What hound needs hands, after all? Or words, or the conversation of peers? My life was running, and fucking, and taking food from the hand of my Master. But I”d once been fae, a prince of a Court whose name I”d long since forgotten. Faery remembered me, even if I didn”t remember her. My nature was not yet so changed that I was nothing but the Master”s hound.

And the woman whose blood was on my tongue, who stood with her life running out of her like a river from a cataract, was my soulmate.

The Master caught her as she fell. Took her, putting her across his saddle as if she truly was a deer, his power sealing her wounds. He was claiming her, taking her—

”Master?” I asked in a whine, my tail tucked between my legs and my head held low. I wasn”t supposed to talk, was only a hound, his hound, bad dog bad dog bad dog—

”Silence,” he said, his will lashing across me, shoving against my fae nature.

It should have forced my mind away—taken away all the things that made me a man as much as a hound, letting me go back to what the Hunt had made me. But she was there, on his saddle, her hair hanging down and her body bloodied, and I couldn”t forget her. Even the Master”s power couldn”t take her away from me.

I crept closer, still whining, lifting my nose to lick at the fingers of her dangling hand. Wake up, I wanted to say, but I knew better than to speak in the presence of the Master again, not while we were hunting. I didn”t think he would hurt her to punish me, but he might not let me be near her, not if she made me into something I wasn”t supposed to be. If I was good—

The snort of a deer caught the attention of my instincts, my focus shifting from my unconscious soulmate to the white beast who stood on the hill beyond us. My spine prickled as my ruff stood, the sight of the stag-god Sarcaryn claiming every scrap of my attention.

I was made for running. I was made for hunting. The Master”s voice and will joined ours in the howl of a pack who has at last caught sight of its prey, and before any of us could think, we leapt from the shadow of humanity into the relentless hunger of the Wild Hunt.

Time ceased to exist. Nothing but running mattered—nothing but the shape of the Stag”s hindquarters as he fled. We ran and ran, our souls tied to the Hunt, and Sarcaryn fled before us.

The endlessness of the chase broke as the Master”s will crashed against us, the force of his call so staggering that I tripped and fell, skidding across the ground. Reality asserted itself again, exhaustion slamming into me with the force of a spear. Every breath hurt, my tongue lolling out as my body went hot, paws throbbing and lungs aching.

”Walk,” I heard, but for the first time I could shrug off the Master”s command. It hurt too much to walk. I would lie here, resting, let everything wash away…

Sharp pain cracked against me, the Master”s spear goading me to my feet with a yelping cry.

”Walk!” he said again, menacing me.

Whining, head hanging, I staggered forward, my feet hurting and muscles burning. But I walked, some distant part of me knowing I would perish if I didn”t. Even that wasn”t enough, though, not without the warmth of obedience to the Master.

I fixed my blurred vision on the bloodied clothing of my soulmate—my Lexi. Her name soothed some of the agony, the knowledge of her soul a memory I”d forgotten before I”d been born. Lexi. Alexis, I told myself, repeating her name with each painful step, reminding myself of a reason to go on.

So few fae had soulmates in the ever-shifting lands of the faery wilds. The Western Continent had been tamed, time flowing in a steady path through the aqueduct of civilization and Courts growing to cover nearly every ell of land. Gods still walked in the West, but only those who had the worship of Courts to feed them. A tame land, full of cities and Courts that had known tens of thousands of years. An easy land, eternity lying only a heartbeat away from mortality.

People could find soulmates there—lived long enough to cross each others” paths. But in the wilds…

The Master led us across the Veil, power flooding me as we stepped into the deep wilds again. This was Faery, ever-shifting power moving through the world like auroras. Those who could master it became Monarchs and mages, and those who fell into its embrace became monsters.

Uncomfortable thoughts scratched at my mind, an unfamiliar way of existence reasserting itself as we trotted towards home, our exhaustion easing as we settled back into the wild magic. I should be thinking of home—shouldn”t even be thinking at all, the lure of home and food and soft places to sleep moving me with nothing but instinct and expectation. Yet I couldn”t stop, memories and patterns I hadn”t recalled for centuries flowing into me in a tangled mess, making me struggle to hold my shape and to keep my pace.

—kissing the hand of a visiting prince, my lashes lowered as I looked up into his elegant face with the promise of more—

”—Faster, Keilain! Are you a killer or a corpse? Strike me—!”

—lying sprawled on a bed with my shirt open, my fingers tangled in long hair as a green-skinned woman sucks my cock with the awkwardness of a virgin—

—leading the complicated figures of a dance, a hand on my shoulder and the blur of a face turned towards mine—

—my long, knife-tipped fingers splayed across a stone carved with rows and rows and rows of teeth—

I tried not to whine, panting from the stress as the Master dismounted, carrying Lexi away in his arms. I knew I was supposed to go to the kennels, could smell the food and hear the happy rumble of the other dogs, but he was taking Lexi away, I might never have the chance to meet her, to see her smile, to kiss her and mount her and hear her wail out her pleasure as my knot tied her—

I shook my head hard, my ears flopping as I drove the uncomfortable thoughts away, my sensitive cock half-hard and protruding from my sheath. As I did, I managed to identify the heady, dark scent on the air, something akin to the bright blood-hot scent of a bitch in heat. Lexi was in her fertile days—

”—You humans. Always so sure you”re thinking with your heads and not your cunts. Yet every month sees you yearning for my seed again, just like any other bitch—”

My tail tucked between my legs, unfamiliar shame making me cringe. Had that been me? Someone else? I didn”t remember.

The Master was a wild thing as much as I was, or more than I was. He was male like I was male, and he had Lexi on his bed, was taking her clothing off, smelled of the same animalistic desire that I did—

I”d kill him, I realized, the shock leaving me standing stock-still in the doorway, my ruff flattening as the snarl in my throat died unborn. If he hurt her, if he tried to take from that sleeping woman the things we both wanted from her, I would tear out the throat of my own Master to protect her.

But he left.

He left, and I crept into my Master”s bedroom, where the hounds were never allowed. But Lexi was there, bare and unprotected, dressed only in a tight black breastband and a pair of teal underthings darkened by blood. I hesitated for a moment at the edge of the bed, dropping my head onto the mattress as I looked at her, but after a moment I jumped up and started licking the blood off of her bare skin.

The taste of her fertility lured me, but I was more than an animal, and the fear in her sweat and pain in her blood more than outweighed any desire for sex. Protective instincts settled into me, along with an affection for her that I had no business feeling for a woman I hadn”t even met. I still was a hound, though, far more than the fae prince I”d once been, and I was her soulmate. That bond overrode even my obedience to the Master, and like any dog my affection and obedience went first to the most important person in my life, and only thereafter to others.

I was still washing the blood off of Lexi when the Master returned. My ears pinned back automatically, ruff lifting with dangerous warning as I growled deep in my chest.

”Get away from her,” the Master growled back, his command striking me with all the power of his possessive rage.

A wolfhound only ever looks to one master. His commands no longer mattered to me.

I lifted my head only enough to look at him, standing over Lexi with all the protectiveness of a mastiff. At my desire to speak, my throat changed enough that my growl gentled, my original shape asserting itself.

The Master looked at me with barely-leashed fury, the bones of his silver hand clenched into a fist. ”Move.”

My lip raised into a snarl. ”No.”

Shock painted itself across his face, his chin lifting and dark eyes widening. ””No”?” he asked, disbelief raw in the word.

I licked Lexi”s leg again, washing away the saliva-wet blood. ”No,” I said again, the word easier the second time. ”I won”t let you hurt my soulmate.”

His skin went ashen. ”Your—”

”Soulmate,” I snarled, holding my head low, waiting for the attack—for surely he would want to punish me. The hounds of the Hunt were irrevocably changed, their natures shifting towards the animalistic, and though in the Ruined Palace we were allowed to indulge in our memories, we rarely did. This was more than that, though. A soulmate changed you irrevocably, too, and he no longer had my obedience. He no longer had me.

The Master fumbled behind himself and dropped into a chair, an act so surprising that I lifted my head, ruff flattening as I tilted my head to the side.

”Master?” I asked, when he didn”t say anything.

”Nuada,” he said, sounding as if he”d seen the death of the world. ”I”m not your master. I… can”t be.” The Master grimaced, uttering a low ”fuck.” He dropped his face into his hands in a pose of frustration, fingertips digging into his auburn hair. ”She”s my soulmate, too.”

He all but growled the words, sounding like they physically pained him to say.

I just stood there, staring at him stupidly, almost unable to comprehend the words. Soulmates were rare enough in the untamed regions of Faery that someone having two or more was almost unheard-of. There simply weren”t enough people interacting in close proximity. For someone to find two soulmates in the same day – in the same moment – seemed impossible.

My confusion, so tied as it was to my sapience, melted my body towards a man”s, leaving me on my hands and knees above Lexi, fur on my limbs and my tail tickling her neck but my chest and face far more like a man”s than a dog”s. ”I don”t understand,” I said, sounding lost and afraid. ”I don”t— I don”t—”

”You”re a good boy, Keilain,” the Master said, lifting his face and offering me a small smile. ”It”s alright.”

The warmth of his voice flooded my veins with pleasure, making me shiver, my tail starting to wag.

He breathed out a laugh, shaking his head and leaning back against the wall. ”It was Sarcaryn,” he said, sounding resigned. ”Retaliation for the boon I claimed, or for these, I suppose,” he added, knocking his knuckles against the antlers he”d taken from one of Sarcaryn”s mortal sons, long before I”d run at his side. ”A soulmate for the solitary Hunter. One he must share,” the Master said, snarling the word. Then he laughed again, closing his eyes. ”I suppose I could kill you and keep her for my own,” he added, saying the words with casual ease, ”but I cannot bring myself to steal you from her the way Boenn was stolen from me.”

”I don”t know that story,” I said, crawling to the side of Lexi with an awkward gait, turning once before lying down next to her, my head on her hip. ”Or I don”t… remember.”

”You”re a good boy,” the Master said again, his voice soothing. He sighed, his ears tilting back, a motion I”d never noticed on him before. He”d simply been the Master, a voice and a will to be obeyed. Now he was… a man. The soulmate of my soulmate.

What did that make him to me?

”Boenn was my wife, eons and a world away,” he said in a quiet voice, the words and pain dulled by time. ”A mortal woman. I brought her to Faery to give her immortality, for I couldn”t bear to watch her age and die. I had far fewer names, then. I was merely a river-god, tied to my headwaters. A brook horse. Now all I have left is the tail.” The Master fell silent for a long while, the minutes sliding past in slow heartbeats.

He finally opened his eyes again, tracing the shape of Lexi”s body with his gaze. ”She met her soulmate. A fae King. A brute of a man.” He laughed, a bitter sound, and shook his head. ”And yet he feared what I might do to him if I found her with his babe in her belly. As if I could ever have harmed the one I loved by hurting the one she loved.” He looked away, his throat working. ”He told her to salt my headwaters to bind my power, and then to wash in them, claiming the river”s strength as hers and making me merely a man.”

All the fur down my spine stood up, my hound”s form reasserting itself as the horror of that statement sparked my defensive instincts. Water defends itself. Any creature living in the wilds knew to treat even the water of a well with respect.

The Master snorted, one corner of his mouth turning up in a smirk. ”Good dog.”

It worked, even though he wasn”t my master any longer. The words soothed, telling me the world was still right, and that I had a place in it. Slowly, I settled my head back on Lexi”s lap, licking my lips in conciliation.

”She died, of course,” he said, as if we were having a conversation. ”No mortal can become a river without being rent asunder. Yet my power was still torn from me, and for many years and many names I wandered. It wasn”t even I who killed the fae King that stole my love from me, for I spent many lifetimes all but powerless.” The Master fell silent for another long span of time, watching the heartbeat in our soulmate”s throat. ”She was my first love,” he said, his voice very quiet. ”I have never since trusted another with my heart.”

”How long?” I asked, my hand curling protectively over a smudge of blood on Lexi”s leg.

”I raised a Court and watched it fall,” he said instead of answering with any measure of years. ”I invaded the mortal world and lived upon it, and returned with a silver hand. I fell in battle and could not die. I haunted and hunted and slew.” The Master rose to his feet, turning his dark gaze to me, swishing his horse”s tail side-to-side. ”Guard her well, Keilain. You were a prince of the Court of Teeth once, before its stones were shattered and its walls fell. I think your heart still knows battle.”

—the cry of horns—

—sharp teeth in the too-wide maw of a beautiful woman—

—a warg between my legs and the feral joy of battle heating my blood as we race towards the roiling flesh of a monster—

My eyes darted across him, disliking the memories his words awoke in me. He didn”t look towards me, his spine stiff and shoulders tight.

”Guard her from what?” I asked, not lifting my head.

”From me,” he said, his voice harsh. ”From everything I represent. You”re hers. Her hound.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed. ”So make her feel safe.”