Page 55 of The Wind and the Wild (The Keepers of Faerie #1)

I n the dark, I do not know if it is a hound or a wildcat or something else entirely. No sound comes from its throat to signal if we may meet our death.

All I know is our wolves are not so large.

My hand tightens painfully around Aidyn’s, and he squeezes in return. I’m certain that with his sharp eyes, he knows exactly what stands only a few yards away, but he is not speaking, and I dare not. My skin is hot, heart pounding, urging me to run.

Can it hear my heartbeat? My quickening breath? I feel as if Aidyn is standing much stiller than I am, if only because I am trembling out of my skin.

Ever so slowly, Aidyn’s hand releases mine, weaving around my waist, locking me against his chest. His heartbeat hammers against my shoulder.

“ Close your eyes,” he says in such a soft breath I barely hear it over the rush behind my ears.

Everything inside me screams no , no , no , but I remember him doing such before, when we found the body of the wildcat, and he returned us to the library in a few steps.

A sharp yip, and a blur of movement.

I clap my hand over my eyes. The world falls out from beneath my feet, something loud and snapping has me flinching, and grass smacks into my cheeks as we’re deposited elsewhere in much less quiet and dignified a fashion than last time.

I can’t help the yelp that’s yanked from my throat even as Aidyn’s arm stays solid.

My other hand is grasping his, palm still clamped over my eyes.

His breath tickles my ear as he stays utterly still.

For a moment, I do not know if I should dare to move.

Then the tremble in those calm breaths of his makes itself known, as well as something warm and damp against my shoulder.

“ Aidyn? ” I choke, still unable to uncover my eyes.

“ It isn’t here,” he says, and his voice holds the same tremble as he begins to sit, unsteady and nearly tipping back atop me.

Rolling over, I attempt to sit him up under the realization he’s much too heavy for me. My hands are sticky. He says something in that breathy language with the tone of a swear, and I say the same in my own.

“ That one . . . was fast,” he tells me.

In the moonlight, I cannot see much of his expression or exactly where he is injured.

It moved toward us, before I closed my eyes.

I put my hands on his shoulder and back and along his chest until I feel the tear in the skin in the soft divot beneath his collarbone beside his shoulder.

He seems to be working on pulling off his coat, but I tear a strip off the clean underskirt of my dress and use it as a rough stuffing for the wound as best I can.

I can still hear the festivities—we are not in Faerie, and I am glad for it, because there are at least three people on this side of the border who will help.

It also means the beast must still be close by.

And that there are so many villagers dancing nearby.

“ Will it attack the others?” I whisper, glancing about for any sign of it, ignoring the tears burning the backs of my eyes.

“ Unlikely. They are so clustered together.”

“ Lots of people sneak off to make love during midsummer,” I tell him, but he does not appear to entirely be listening, instead staring off into the deep woods with that intense inhuman head-cocked stare he’s unsettled me with before. I glance into the dark but cannot see anything.

“ Is it here?”

Slowly, he shakes his head, murmuring, “ Does not make sense...”

“ What does not?”

“ They are not mindless. They are monsters, but not mindless.” Finally, he turns his chin, and I catch his bright eyes looking at me in confusion for answers I cannot give. “ What has angered them? Something in this little village?”

Shaking my head, I tell him, “ I don’t know. Can you stand? I have a friend—”

“ It smells strange here.”

Momentarily, I wonder if he’s lost grip on a little of his sanity, if any faerie has sanity to begin with. “ It... smells like grass? And food?”

It smells like him.

He shakes his head, back to staring into the woods.

Patting the grass, he comes up with his cane and pushes himself to his feet.

I stumble upright, wrapping my arms around his waist when he wobbles, keeping his unoccupied hand on the cloth I’ve used on the new scar that shall litter his poor body.

He barely seems to be affected by it, but I know he is much more disturbed by the presence of those wounds than he lets on; he cannot be accepting of another one.

“ Aidyn,” I say more firmly, because if his nose says there is something wrong in this section of the woods, I’ve no desire to walk toward it.

After giving my hand a squeeze, he wanders deeper into the trees.

Momentarily, I consider either swearing at him or not following, but then I scurry after, wrapping my arm through his, lending what little support I can.

“ Must we investigate your nose?” I hiss. “ What if it finds us?”

“ I smell it too,” he says. “ It’s still across the field, pacing. I wasn’t paying attention... before.”

My mind swirls around that monster anywhere near the festival.

What if Una and Niall wander off to kiss in the trees the same as well did? What if Cara goes to pick flowers inside the trees? What if—

I smell it.

Something different, at least. An oddly musky scent, incorrect and strange, unlike anything I’ve quite come across before.

When I stop, it forces Aidyn to pause as well.

“ What is that?” I ask.

“ I...” He does not finish the thought, continuing forward, arm slipping out of mine. I follow again, glancing at the lights of the lanterns and bonfires around the dancing.

Aidyn pushes aside a branch, and a soft light touches his face. Softly, he says, “ Oh.”

His tone has me pausing. Perhaps I do not wish to see.

Perhaps it is nothing to do with me or any other human.

Perhaps we can turn away and never know.

My feet carry me forward until I am pressed against the warmth of his arm, and I see what exactly he has found in the dark.

Someone has maneuvered a wagon into the space between the thickest of the trees, squashing bushes in the process.

Wildflowers are crushed beneath the heavy wheels.

A single small lantern hangs from the buggy seat, nearly dead.

Piles of animal skins are rolled into the corner of the wooden planks, which is not particularly unusual in and of itself.

Hunters, trappers, and traders wander up to the edges of Faerie when they are feeling bold, as animals tend to flourish here, and this side of the woods is not too dangerous. Not too unusual at all—

If it weren’t for the covered cage.

There is something else under the foul scent of whatever animals have been hunted and skinned, a more familiar otherworldly smell hanging over the space.

Aidyn’s breaths are quickening in his chest.

In a haunting whisper of a breath, he says, “ We must leave .”

“ Aidyn? ” I ask. “ Aidyn, what is in the cage—”

Three sharp yips, a tremor in the wooden planks of the wagon, and Aidyn has snatched me around the waist, covered my eyes, and whisked us somewhere else.

This time feels particularly wrong , my stomach twisting, as if his magic is failing him on this side of the trees or he is too wounded to be continuing.

A scent like wind over rotting leaves washes over us.

As if to confirm, he nearly topples us both over as his body slumps against mine.

More muttered oaths from him as well as a few ridiculous apologies, but we are in another border section of the woods, not very close to the library but close enough I see the house I want.

Wrapping my arms back around him, I point to the cottage.

“ Flower—”

“ It is midsummer, there are many fae.”

Warningly, he says, “ Flower —”

“ Aidyn, you cannot die in my arms , do you understand?”

“ I’m not dying —” he begins to mumble.

“ Are you saying that because it’s true or just because you’ve managed to convince yourself no matter the truth?”

This appears to considerably flummox him but makes it easier to help him in the direction I wish.

Barely anyone walks the paths of the village when there is so much dancing and wine to be had, and anyone in their homes is likely to have succumbed to too much liquor early.

Aidyn is trying his hardest not to make me help him, but he’s in no position.

I’m not sure he should’ve been here dancing to begin with, let alone this .

Don’t cry, Niamh. It’s not going to help.

I pound on the wooden door and momentarily consider what I will do if no one answers—

And then I am staring into Emma’s eyes.

She blinks slowly, once, looking at my stricken expression, then at Aidyn right above me.

Whatever magic that has the few people in the streets unable to truly see him either appears to have no effect on her or Aidyn is allowing it.

She can see him, if the barrage of emotions crashing over her expression is any indication.

“ Oh, Blessed help us,” she mumbles.

I’ve no time to consider the oddity of the phrase before she’s grabbing me by the arm and dragging us inside with a great deal of strength. Aidyn, less graceful than usual, nearly smacks his head on the doorframe.

“ Who are you?” Emma asks, taking Aidyn by the arms and seating him on her padded couch by the cold hearth. Her boldness unsettles me. “ Are you Gentry or—”

“ I am Gentry, yes,” Aidyn says, unsurprised by the sudden intensity. He is gazing up at Emma’s face with a passing of that curiosity I’ve seen from him so often, even as he leans back, weak. “ I shall not harm you, elder one. I am too gentle for my kind.”

This seems to pacify her, if slightly. Instead, Emma turns her sharp gaze in my direction. “ I figured you’d met some faerie. This is more than I was bargaining for, Ni—girl.”

Aidyn doesn’t so much as quirk an eyebrow at the first sound of my name.