her parents are missing together.”
“You don’t have her?” Doubt dripped from my every word. “Then we have nothing further to discuss.”
“Are you saying,” Daibhidh crooned, “that you would exchange your life for your mother’s?”
“Are you admitting you took her?” I growled under my breath.
“No.” His lips twitched. “I have, however, heard things.”
I gritted my teeth and played along. “What kind of things?”
“Whispers.” His image rippled. “It will cost you to hear them.”
Raven gripped my arm. I shrugged him off me. It was his fault I was here in the first place.
“Name your price,” I said with more boldness than I felt.
“Gather your father’s mantle. Act in his stead. Run in the hunt.” Daibhidh’s reflection stilled. “Accept his title, become the Black Dog of the Faerie High Court in his absence. Then you can know all that I do. Do you accept?”
Run in the hunt. The blood rushed from my face and left me chilled to the bone. The hunt was a death sentence.
“There must be something else I can offer.” Panic raised my voice an octave.
“Are you haggling over your mother’s worth?” Daibhidh clicked his tongue.
“No,” I snapped, mind whirling. Haggling was exactly what I was about to try.
There must be another way. What else did I have? What else could I do? What else?
“Faerie is a dangerous place for a woman to find herself alone. Especially one with such close ties to Macsen Sullivan.” Daibhidh pursed his lips. “Not all fae admire his legacy as we do, you understand, and as Sullivan himself is untouchable... A mortal, well, they are so defenseless, aren’t they?”
“She isn’t defenseless.” Magic leapt into my palm and burned bright. “She has me.”
“Ah.” He tapped a finger against his bottom lip. “That might be true, but what good are you to her here when she is, well, you don’t know where she is, do you?”
I clenched my fist and extinguished my power before I used it and got myself killed ahead of schedule.
“The choice is yours,” Daibhidh said. “She might survive Faerie alone. No mortal ever has, but there must always be a first.”
Choice? No. This was blackmail, a promise that if I didn’t play nice then neither would they, and there was good reason why such tactics were popular among the criminally inclined.
They worked.
“Time grows short. Arrangements must be made soon, whether you are a consideration or not.” Liosliath raised his eyebrows. “Have you made your decision?”
A knowing smirk wreathed Daibhidh’s face.
My heart beat hard once.
Kill or be killed.
“Yes.” I tasted fear when I swallowed. “I’ll do it.”
Beside me, the Huntsman issued a low growl that rumbled with anticipation.
Tuning him out, I demanded of Daibhidh, “Tell me all you know.”
“Your mother is kept safe by an Unseelie loyal to the crown.” Daibhidh linked his fingers over his middle. “Once your duty has been done, she will be returned exactly where and how she was found by those who took her.” His ageless gaze captured mine. “Before these witnesses, I swear this to you.”
I breathed a sigh that left me limp with relief.
Mom was safe. She was going to be okay.
“Thierry.” Raven filled my name with anguish.
“Faerie owes you a debt of gratitude.” Liosliath visibly relaxed. “As a tradition your father himself established, your participation in the Coronation Hunt ensures it is a legacy in the making.”
Tradition.
Legacy.
The magnitude of what I had agreed to crashed over me and left me trembling.
The king was dead. The Huntsman stood at my elbow. And I had just volunteered to play tribute.
Crap, crap, crap.
“This is what the consuls wanted all along,” I said under my breath. “This is why you brought me here.”
Raven refused to look at me.
But I knew. This was why they sent him to fetch me.
Coronations were held once every one hundred years. According to lore, the purpose of the Wild Hunt was to ride through the mortal realm on All Hallows’ Eve, collecting the souls of fae who died on Earth and returning them to Faerie, to the Ever-After, the fae equivalent of Heaven.
On one such hunt, the Huntsman and his pack of sleek, black hounds crossed a battlefield. Their guts were distended with spirit flesh and their hunger temporarily sated when their noses led them to one last feast. Two souls, one Seelie and one Unseelie, stood with their hands clasped as if unaware the hunt was upon them.
The pack leader ran ahead of the others. Confused when the spirits stood their ground, he approached them, sniffed them and allowed each to stroke his