“If we hadn’t just stopped the Hunter from reaching this realm, I’d say maybe. Shecouldsurvive in the Fae realm with allies, but with the Hunter as an enemy? No, I don’t think so.”
Wylder was quiet for a few minutes before he said, “You still haven’t told me what Alban meant about the Hunter.”
Honestly, Silva had been trying not to think about it. “The Hunter is the leader of the Wild Hunt. The only way for the Hunter to change is for someone to kill the current one. That hasn’t happened for a long time.”
“Until now, apparently.”
“Yes.” Silva rolled to his side, tucking a hand under his head to look at Wylder more easily.
“Couldn’t that be a good thing? I mean, what if this new Hunter has a different agenda?”
“It’s possible, but the old was the devil I knew.” Silva shook his head. “With how ramped up the Hunt’s groupies have been, Ihave a hard time thinking the new Hunter has less interest in this realm.”
“True.” Wylder leaned down, pressing a kiss against Silva’s lips. “Wishful thinking, I guess.”
Silva hummed and kissed him again. “Let’s get some sleep. We need to get back to Solston first thing in the morning. The others need to know we’re not fighting the same enemy as last time.”
Chapter
Seven
Kerak
Something had changed. There were things moving in the shadows unseen, and now, a nightmare he thought he’d rendered impossible was eating at his every waking moment—Reid had fallen ill.
“Kerak?” Calliope, leader of the Saint Coven in Solston, called from his study door.
He turned away from his darkened windows to face her. He’d called her to come check on Reid. Whatever was happening to him was certainly magical and malicious. When they’d mated over two hundred years ago, Kerak had sought out the most powerful witch alive and asked her to bind them with more than just fate. Reid’s life was bound to his, and Kerak was immortal.
Calliope walked farther into the room. She was a lovely woman, much as her mother had been, with dark hair, blue eyes, and a spine of steel. He could tell from the look on her face that the news wasn’t good.
“What did you discover?”
“The spell that binds the two of you together, it’s being…leeched away.”
“Leeched?”
“Yes, it’s—” She stopped and bit her lip for a moment. “There’s a thread that’s somehow been attached to it, and it’s draining the magic of the spell. I tried to follow it.”
“And?”
“I couldn’t get to the end. It leads to somewhere not in this realm, which I didn’t think was possible. It’s a type of magic I’ve never seen before.”
Kerak bit down on the burning rage threatening to spill out and decimate everything in the vicinity.
When Calliope spoke, it was quiet. “Kerak?—”
“How long does he have?”
“A couple of days. Maybe less.”
Kerak’s knees tried to buckle. He slammed his hands on his desktop, blunt fingers digging furrows into the wood as his rage, his fear, tried to cripple him. It took him two tries to speak. “Is there anything you can do to slow it down?”
“No.” Calliope’s hand appeared in his vision, resting over one of his. Spine of steel, indeed. “The spell is such…any spell I could try would kill him instantly.”
“Will you stay with him?”
“Of course. Where are you going?”