Page 64 of The Wind and the Wild (The Keepers of Faerie #1)

The bars on the cage glisten in the faint moonlight—iron, most likely.

It is a relatively difficult substance to come by, if I recall correctly, but it appears Blain and his father have amassed quite the wealth in their little scheme, enough to afford something so heavy that can trap even a faerie hound.

The inside bars, at least, are covered with planks of wood.

Only a shadow exists inside, but I see a bright eye gazing out at me for a moment.

“ Are you going to kill it?” I whisper again. Despite the rage currently burning behind my ribs, I am not much of a violent person, and the idea of slaughtering something not actively attacking fills my throat with bile.

Again, Tynan does not answer. I suspect he does not know and does not wish to admit such a thing.

“ What happens if we let it go?” I ask.

This earns me a glance from the corner of his eye, narrowed and unkind.

“ All I mean is that we are helpless,” I tell him. “ We cannot fight them if they have any more rage aimed our direction, and you are not always here. If you let it go, will they all return to Faerie?”

I know how it sounds— can you not deal with it in your own lands? But the longer these other hounds remain—dozens, according to Tynan—the more danger we all face.

When he does not answer, I ask, “ If you kill it, will the others stay?”

I know they have already killed more than one—I saw with my own eyes as he did it right before me—but I wonder if disposing of this caged beast will mean the difference, if it will be the end of us.

If he tells me no, I will have to believe.

He sucks in a long, deep breath and admits, “ I do not know.”

I nod, strangely relieved he is not as put together as he seems, that I am not the only one frightened and confused. But I also wish he knew how to fix this.

“ These have killed others of our kind.”

I think of the wildcat and her kittens asleep in the library and all the other fae in Aidyn’s position who weren’t lucky enough to come away from the hunt hounds’ claws with their lives.

My throat burns. Aidyn’s wounds come to mind.

“ I know. I am not asking you not to fight them. But can’t you send them all back to Faerie? ”

He releases another long breath, jerking his chin ever so slightly, and I know he understands my pleas.

“ Do not scream,” he warns me.

Maneuvering me aside, he dips the tip of his blade around the lock where it will break from the bars should he give it a harsh tug.

Despite my questions, my stomach flips, my breath catching.

He speaks something in a long string of breath, those strange words I hear Aidyn murmur so often that I have no prayer of remembering.

They make my eyes burn and my throat tight, and I wonder if my soul knows the warning behind them even if my ears do not understand.

He snaps the lock aside, and there is a splintering of wood.

The creature slinks out and away like a living shadow, something dark emerald and unseeable in the nightly woods.

It circles Tynan in the fingernail light of the moon dappling the grass through the branches, then turns its eye on me.

The faerie’s broad back is to me, his long sword held comfortably and willingly between us, so I do not believe the creature is likely to pounce.

They have more logic than I imagined in all the nightmares I’ve had through the years.

The growl that comes from its throat almost sounds to be their own version of the Gentry’s gentle language, and then it is a shape disappearing into the trees, a shadow of a branch rustling in the night air. What few raindrops hit the ground cover its steps.

I realize how much my breath has been picking up when Tynan glances at me, and the slight movement of his own chest is so calm. I swallow with difficulty.

“ Good,” he says, and only now do I remember he told me not to cry out.

Nodding numbly, I say, “ Can we go back to Aidyn?”

“ Yes,” he says without hesitation, though his eyes dart about with distrust. “ They have not left. Let us take you back, then.”

“ Will you have to chase them off?”

“ Most likely. They will still be angry. We must find that human, but not this night.”

All the stories of fae and their curses, of falling-out teeth and dancing until limbs fall off, come to mind. Despite it all, pity chokes up my throat. “ Will you enchant him into Faerie?”

Tynan quirks an eyebrow, taking my arm and leading me through the woods though I was already following. “ We only wish for beautiful things in Faerie. He will die.”

The chill in his tone settles across my skin, but I do not know what else I expected. No, I did not expect anything else, not truly. I expected something worse than a fast death.

Truly, I do not know what else Blain expected.

“ Foolish man,” I mutter, and Tynan glances at me curiously, though he does not ask. I am grateful, for I do not wish to tell him I was once kissing that man on the edge of the woods.

With another growl and a splinter of branches, I am knocked to the ground, my breath forced out of me.

Light as a feather, Tynan still huffs as he hits the earth beside me, hissing and sitting up, brushing aside the burning salt on his exposed wrist. He did not lose his grip on his sword but goes utterly still, gazing at the hound that bore down upon us.

It is a different one, I can tell by the slope of its shoulders, massive in comparison.

Its long teeth and green-black fur flash in the moonlight, snapping so close to my face I forget to let out any sort of scream.

A soft hum ripples off Tynan’s blade, the fingers of his left hand pinching together in a purposeful gesture, and the air around us cracks.

I blink, watching moonlight shimmer, a web of cracks forming around us at once, then shattering as glass, startling the creature back.

I flinch, but they do not touch me. Red blood trails the monster’s snout and legs.

I never expected its blood to be the same color.

There are much more frightening magics , Aidyn had implied.

I glance at Tynan, on his knees in the long grass but seeming to tower nonetheless, the sword hilt clasped in his hands, his eyes sharp and focused. Aidyn’s gentle summer breezes seem comforting in comparison.

The hound circles us, growl reverberating off the trees. The dancing is so close by, I’m sure someone must hear, but all I catch is laughter floating to us, the comforting upbeat tune of a fiddle. I wonder if all the little folk have begun to run and if we humans simply haven’t yet noticed.

More barking.

Tynan’s eyes flicker about, not quite afraid but growing in concern. Another shape appears from the trees and is immediately cut down, falling into ribbons in the grass beside my leg. This time I do give off the slightest whimper, scooting aside until I bump against Tynan’ s arm.

He opens his mouth, some sort of song beginning on his lips, but the wind picks up.

Momentarily, it is nothing but a gentle gust, until it slams hard and all at once into the trees and the nearest hound, knocking me over and setting Tynan off-balance but crashing the monster beside us into the trees.

Several more hounds run past, scattering.

Honeysuckle drifts along with it. Tynan makes a frustrated noise, shoving himself up out of the grasses, long unbound hair askew, stuck to the corner of his mouth.

From the corner of the burrow, Aidyn’s eyes glare sharp and harsh as his father’s, his breath coming labored and full of otherworldly rage as he climbs out and toward us.

My relief turns at once to concern—he cannot be out here, cannot be exerting his magic.

Still, I scramble to my feet, away from the hound and directly into his grasp, throwing my arms about his chest. He looks angrier than I’ve ever seen, if off-balance, leaning against the nearest tree, his arm coming up to lock around me with surprising strength.

I see the moment his eyes fall upon his father half kneeling in the wildflowers, still between us and the disheveled hound, and his expression crumples.

“ Da? ” he whispers.