Page 25 of The Wind and the Wild (The Keepers of Faerie #1)

A full five seconds pass before I can convince my screaming muscles to unlock. Unsteadily, I paddle through the water and into hot twilight, peeking above the surface and ready to dive to safety the moment a slithering shadow enters my vision.

Nothing.

The Faerie woods are much the same as they were, save a coating of leaves in places they were not.

And a massive fallen tree with a splinter of its trunk still rising into the sky.

No sign of the hound, just of Aidyn still perched on his rock, leaves caught against his wet hair and clothes and skin.

He dips once below the surface and washes most of them off, gesturing for me to hurry to him.

I swim through the layer of golden-red leaves, following him to the edge where our clothes were blown against a nearby boulder.

My voice finally returns to me, though rough and unsteady. “ Where—”

“ I am not certain it is dead,” he says, sounding similarly unraveled. “ Let us hurry. Do not forget your things. Put your shoes on.”

Yanking on my shoes and gathering my dress to my chest, I gaze into the woods as Aidyn takes his things, forgoing his own boots, and grasps me by the elbow.

I start, remembering the harsh dig of his fingers as he dragged me off him and shoved me aside.

No time to dwell, he is likewise dragging me up the path, albeit much gentler.

Neither of us is particularly steady, and even in the panic I see how he leans heavier against his cane than previously.

The wet soles of my shoes slip on the rocks, my underdress heavy with water, and my knee stings on a sharp edge.

With my arm holding my dress, the only reason I do not fall harder is Aidyn’s unmovable grip on my elbow.

At the top of the pool, past the brambles, deeper into the woods, I see precisely what felled the massive birch tree.

Twisted limbs lie in a pile of golden and green leaves and greener fur. Splintered logs and branches are strewn across the otherwise bizarrely calm and pristine woods.

He sent it flying through the trunk of the tree itself.

Aidyn pauses, his breath coming quicker than I believe it should. Inspecting his handiwork, he glances down at me, then back at the creature. I can’t read the interaction, not with my heart still threatening to pound its way out of my chest.

He killed it.

A leg twitches.

Aidyn says something my mind can’t grasp, but the tone is clear.

He doesn’t need to haul me off this time; we’re both sprinting back through the brambles to the small tree where we first climbed from the strange tunnel.

If anything, I’m faster than him with his hidden injuries, and I find myself grasping his hand as we run, his fingers twined tightly between mine.

As I drop into the root-bound space, a deeper chill settles across my soaking clothes.

Up and through the little blue door, we push our way into the library.

Shoving the rusted hinges into place, Aidyn leans against it, dust trickling from the rafters.

Quiet falls. His gaze is on the bottom of the door, and my eyes cannot leave his face.

All at once, I see the thread of crimson down his shoulder, where my desperate grasping tore his shirt.

All my anger at him shoving me aside turns into cold mortification at the reason.

I tore off a bandage. And reopened a wound in the process. It looks no larger than the tip of my finger, but a rivulet of blood finds its way down his skin, staining the pure white of his shirt.

My eyes burn, throat closing up. No wonder he shoved me aside—

His eyes slide up to mine, then down to his shoulder as if he’s only now remembering its existence.

“’Tis small,” he whispers, and then his eyes turn all cold, glancing at the door again.

Grabbing my hand once more, he hauls me down the dusty hallway, weaving through the impossible maze of ancient shelves without hesitation, releasing me beside the stairs. I scramble up after him.

“ Go back to Nevyan at once. Do not return until—” He stops and gazes at me strangely, as if wondering if I will ever return. “ Tomorrow.”

My heart leaps at going back out of the library at all. “ What—”

“ Go, ” he says, then disappears into his room.

My feet are frozen to the spot, and I’m working out just what to say when he steps out again.

His cane is gone; instead, he holds the scabbard of the sword I saw.

It is still sheathed, and I cannot glimpse the bright blade.

The presence of it hangs in the room. Aidyn pauses, staring at me.

Still drenched, his shirt moved back into place but stained crimson, feet bare, he doesn’t appear half the creature I first stumbled upon.

“ Go out the front. It... won’t follow you. ”

Again, I open my mouth, but he says, “ It is only one. Just go. Please. I don’t wish to worry over you if you are here.”

I find myself nodding, for I do not wish to be here any longer. No longer do I feel as if the walls of this old library will protect me. I should never have returned to begin with. I am aware only that I broke my own rule and nearly paid the same price.

Still, the only words that manage to come out are, “ Are you certain?”

Unlatching the back door where we first visited the honey hive, Aidyn pauses, hand on the handle, eyes avoiding mine. “ You do not...” His expression spasms as if the words are difficult. “ You do not have to return.”

His gaze flickers to mine before he gestures to the stairs and disappears out the back door.

For a moment, I consider staying.

I consider if I may help.

Even if he walks back from that creature and is hoping to see me, should I trust him again?

As I flee down the steps and out the front of the old building, I wonder if there are more lurking nearby, ready to tear me to pieces, and he shall wander around and find my body strewn along the leaves.

A harsh yelp of inhuman pain, precisely as I remember the hounds to sound, echoes across the utter silence of Faerie.

The scent of honeysuckle and hot grasses deposits me home.

Two familiar horses stand by my cottage.

There is also Niall, hands on his hips, sweaty from whatever he’s been working on, gesturing angrily at the owners of said horses.

My feet are rooted to the middle of the dusty path.

I managed, after I’d finished crouching in the human side of the woods and weeping, to put my dress back over my damp shift.

My shoes I’ve taken back off; my feet were uncomfortably wet inside and threatened to cause blisters if I walked in them much longer.

I hold them by the laces and feel the caked dirt between my toes.

My hair is tangled, for it came undone of its braid some time ago—likely in the wind—and still damp atop it all.

I look precisely as if I’ve been wandering the Faerie woods like the moonlight-born child I am.

As I wept, I told myself I would not go back, that my time in the Faerie library is over. Quite obviously, Aidyn has no need of me, and whatever amount I fooled myself into believing is not true. He needs no aid and probably not even the company—not from a little human.

Now, walking in the hot leftover rays of the human sun, I am less certain.

You do not . . . have to return.

My throat burns.

I do not believe I should have left .

But I cannot return in the dark.

I stare at the horses, at the men beside them, and at Niall’s defensive stature and very much consider bolting into the undergrowth along the side of the path. My hand aches, and I rub it against the rough material of my skirts, soaking up the damp from the shift beneath.

Blain sees me standing in the middle of the path, and I cannot run now.

I pick up my steps before it looks as if I was frozen.

There is nothing else in my hands save my shoes—I must have left my basket there, but new ones can always be made—and I force myself not to attempt to detangle my hair with my fingers.

It is no use. A memory of the hunt hound’s eyes sit just behind my vision, the slippery nature of its shape among the trees.

There is also the ghost of Aidyn’s fingers over mine when he ran with me to the library.

A gentle spring breeze whispers across the ground, and I half expect him to be hidden in one of the bushes alongside the path, offhandedly sending his magic across the ground.

I let my shoes swing by their laces from my fingers, as if my heart is not pounding its way out of my chest.

Niall finally hears me and glances back.

His expression is tight—I would imagine he is being polite, though his body language says the opposite.

Eyes narrowing, he takes in my appearance.

I had forgotten about my skinned knee until he looks at it, and I force myself not to follow his gaze.

His arm goes around my shoulders immediately, and I lean into the embrace.

Perhaps it is good that everyone thinks we should be engaged despite how he and Una and I have a good laugh at the idea.

It appears more than just a friend standing by my side at the moment, and I need that before these two people.

Besides, his safe touch grounds me. I’m nearly surprised that Aidyn’s grip on my arm felt more solid, more secure.

“ Mister Haskel,” I say. “ I thought you were going to call in a few weeks.”

Perhaps I should not be so terse, so blunt, but I have had quite enough of this and had a considerable scare as it is.

I decidedly don’t look at Blain, though I feel his gaze on me. From the blurry shape of him in the corner of my eye, I see he is petting his horse’s nose, nudging one of the plants in Mam’s garden with the toe of his boot.

I should fling my shoes at him.

Mister Haskel hooks his fingers into the rings of his vest pockets. They are more richly embroidered than the last time. “ Ah, I was planning on it. We came a bit early, so I figured I’d try again.”