Heir of the Dog Black Dog - Hailey Edwards Page 0,26

I looked him up and down. “You’re fully formed now.”

“It will require more finesse,” he agreed. “For one thing, there are two of us.”

I ground my teeth. “I’m not going to Faerie until I speak with the magistrates.”

“You’re trembling.” He shifted toward me. “Are you frightened?”

“My mother was kidnapped, and according to you, she’s being held hostage until I agree to be a temp for my father at court,” I spat. “Of course I’m afraid.”

“It’s more than that.” His intense gaze stripped me raw. “You’re scared of the other side. Afraid of finding out how Faerie looks, what it’s like there. Your mother poisoned you with her doubts. You fear cloaking yourself fully in the mantle of the Black Dog.” His voice softened. “You have no idea what you truly are.”

“Leave my mother out of this. She raised me. Macsen Sullivan was a sperm donor, not a parent.”

Raven brushed a stray hair from my cheek. “This is the best chance you have to save your mother.”

I snapped at his hand. “It just happens to also be the best chance you have of getting what you want.”

He exited the car.

Think, Thierry. Escape seemed unlikely. Rescue was my best hope, but my knight in shining pickup truck was nowhere in sight.

Raven opened my door and bent inside. He passed his hands over mine, setting me free, and I leaned forward and bit his ear as hard as I could. Blood filled my mouth, and his curses spilled from the car. I shoved him backward and scrambled outside, hissing my Word and yanking off my glove. I took a step toward the marshal’s office, but Raven tackled me.

Magic boiled in my fingertips when I clamped them around his wrist, but the power fizzled and dripped unspent to the ground. I pushed every ounce of energy I had into the hot runes where my bare palm touched his skin. Nada.

He clamped a hand over my mouth in anticipation of a scream I was too stunned to utter.

“We are both death portents,” he panted. “We are immune to one another’s magic.”

I recovered enough to bite his palm until more of his blood coated my tongue.

Raven hissed an incantation, and my lips smashed together as if an invisible hand had stitched my mouth shut.

“You, however, are not immune to spells.” He spun me toward him and gripped my upper arm. “I came prepared in the event you were uncooperative.” He dragged me back to the car and patted me down. He found the phone and tossed it onto the seat. “You won’t need that where we’re going.”

Another burst of magic hit the air as a second spell glued my feet to the ground.

“Don’t worry about the púca.” Raven circled the car, cracking the windows. “He has all he needs to survive until he’s found.” When Raven returned, his touch unstuck me. “I regret things had to be this way. I wanted to be your friend.”

Some of my mumbled threats must have gotten through, because he scowled.

Friend? Not likely. This nonconsensual road trip into Faerie had put him squarely into enemy territory.

His quiet sigh might have conveyed remorse, but his slender fingers seemed less sympathetic as they dug into my upper arm. I struggled against him. He didn’t bother noticing. He kept on walking.

Raven was escorting me to Faerie, even if I snarled and snapped at him every step of the way.

Chapter Sixteen

When Raven said he came prepared, he meant it. He conjured a pan flute and rested the top edge against his bottom lip. The flute was crafted from seven cuts of a hollow reed, dried and polished to a high shine, then lashed together with brown leather. Each segment was longer than the one before it. He held it by the shortest pipe and blew.

The glamour wrapping our surroundings rustled, tearing free and flapping on the magical breeze.

I leapt back and landed on my butt when chain link appeared to thrust from the ground not a foot from the toe of my shoe. My eyes bulged while the tattered glamour ripped from its frame and the prison exploded into full view.

The shreds of concealing magic drifted through the air in our direction. I worked my jaw to ask a question, realized I could open my mouth and figured the unbinding spell he played must be loosening the spells he had cast on me. I worked my stiff lips. “Wush happening?”

He didn’t answer, but he did help me stand.

His music continued to shred the conclave’s defenses