“I’m going hunting.” Pulling away from his grip, I stared at him with calm determination. “There’s a Stag that hasn’t been seen in months, and he promised me he’d be here when the war reached Faery. War is here; he isn’t.”
“You’re drunk,” Ryder pointed out icily.
“And?”
“And we’re at war.”
“I’m tipsy, not plowed. I am very aware of the fact that we are at war. Remember, unlike you, I sense every death that occurs inside this realm. I also understand why my mother wasn’t completely sane. There’s no off-switch. I don’t think I could even get drunk enough to drown out the pain within me because of your fucking orders and the mages endlessly slaughtering the fae. So, I will find the Stag and ask for his advice with the upcoming war. Do you want to come with me?” I bat my eyelashes and feigned innocence, then laughed sarcastically. “Oh, that’s right, horde laws state that the queen and king must not leave the palace simultaneously during times of war and unrest. No wonder your father had thirty wives and over one hundred concubines in residence. He could leave whenever he liked, couldn’t he?”
“I chose to have one wife, Pet. You.”
I studied his liquid amber gaze intently. “I bet you regret that choice.”
“No, I don’t.”
I exhaled slowly, frowning before I moved to a bench to sit. Ryder followed me, ignoring the heavy stares of the others as he sat beside me. His fingers threaded through mine, and he pulled my hand to his mouth, kissing it.
“You’re my world,” he breathed. “But I am the King of the Horde, taken from my own fucking wedding by the witches. It made me look weak, and I am not. My people are testing me, and if you can’t understand that, I will do this alone.”
He dropped my hand, standing to his full height before walking away from me without a backward glance. I studied his stiff back, ignoring the worried looks from the men as he sifted mid-step, vanishing.
“Flower,” Ristan said, starting toward where I sat.
I vanished, disappearing before he could say a word or ask a question. I understood he wanted answers, but the thing was, Ristan had taken the guild’s files. He or someone else had destroyed the entire archive on demonology. My guess was that Ristan had already gone through them, and hadn’t found what he was looking for, but it also meant I couldn’t help him. We had no reports on angels that were useful to him, so he had taken Olivia’s file with Alden’s permission. The guild was starting over from ground zero, and anything it once held was gone. I needed to find information to help me manage the pain that worsened with every fae death, or I’d be useless in this war.
Chapter Seven
Days went by without sight or trace of the Stag, and yet every day, I hunted him. I passed villages that were nothing more than ashes, corpses scattered around in different stages of decay. Today, I was in the Deadly Forest, studying the troops we’d sent to track Zahruk’s brother, Fang. Following rumors of the White Stag, I ended up deep in the woods.
Off in the distance, I could see soldiers blending in with the foliage, and yet they didn’t approach the shifters who trekked deeper into the Deadly Forest of Faery. I observed as a blond-haired male turned, staring directly where our troops had stood. He lifted his nose, sniffing the air before whispering orders to the surrounding wolves. Slowly, I moved closer, remaining just behind my shield of invisibility, observing. The man’s sapphire-colored gaze slid back to the horde’s soldiers who watched them, secretly protecting him if the need arose.
I sifted, standing silently between the soldiers and wolves as the blond-haired male removed his shirt, intending to shift to his wolf form. He smelled of sandalwood and spices from faraway lands that danced through my senses. His body was covered in thick, black tattoos he’d found worthy enough to carry for eternity. He