Huntsman's Prey (6 page)

And immediately passed out.

The moment Danika stepped foot inside the Cave of Song memories overcame her. Memories of her and Jericho together for the first time, where’d they’d finally consummated their love. She smiled softly, but though her memories were as bright and bold as if they’d happened yesterday, nothing about the cave looked the same.

Thanks to June’s lies, the cave had been hidden within fairy magic for years. The spell was only just beginning to wear off. Vines and greenery was overtaking everything, driving out the magical illusion of a bottomless sea and a blanket of stars. The glowworms that’d inhabited the place for so long had moved on once the Ten had sealed it in.

She sighed, momentarily saddened by it all when the faint, echoing strain of song pricked her ears. Maybe in another few years this wonderful place would become what it’d once been again.

“Calanthe,” Jericho called her name, and the shivery timbre of his voice never failed to make her stomach bottom out.

“Jericho,” she cried, throwing wide her arms to welcome him home. His hair was longer that it’d been last month, hanging shaggy around his shoulders, but the length didn’t bother her. The man was so gorgeous that he could have shaved his head bald and she’d find him just as mesmerizing.

He had a long, aquiline nose. Wide, full lips that elicited wicked thoughts from her when he touched her with them. In short, the man was a walking sex god.

The curse they’d both been under for centuries had lifted last month. And it always astonished Danika that her beautiful and vibrantly muscular male could love her middle aged and paunchy self. When they’d fallen in love, Danika hadn’t been Danika but Calanthe, a lovely flower fairy whose beauty could have rivaled Helen of Troy’s.

But he swore her new form didn’t bother him and now with him gripping her tight and claiming her lips for his own, she believed him. Warm brown eyes held her spellbound.

“My love, I’ve missed you,” he traced his knuckle down her cheek and made her shiver.

“Och,” she murmured, brogue growing thick with emotion, “you’ve no idea how much I’ve needed you, love.” She sighed, because as much as she wanted to lose herself in his body and his arms, there were grave matters to discuss.

He nodded. “I know, I’ve been keeping an eye out on you.”

“How is Siria?” Danika snorted, the name spilled like venom from her tongue.

Chucking her chin fondly, he waved his fingers through the air, calling his magic of the moon and stars to him and weaved a golden couch for them to sit upon. Though he refused to let Dani out of his arms for even a moment, he sat and yanked her down onto his lap.

She kissed his smooth cheek and gave herself just a minute to enjoy being back together with him. This night would soon end and once again they’d be apart for another month.

His hand rubbed up and down her back very gently, making certain to caress the outer shell of her very sensitive dragonfly wings with each pass. Moon glow filtered through his pores, surrounding them in its silvery lavender webbing.

Jericho was The Man in the Moon. Meaning he commanded the night like no other creature could, his magic was always at its strongest when he came to visit her and he must have known how very much she disliked being in her crone form when he looked so youthful and masculine still.

His glow poured through her flesh and its warmth reshaped her, made her into what she once was. He never made her beautiful for his benefit, Jericho had sworn he loved her any way she came, but she was ashamed to admit her vanity wasn’t overly fond of looking more like his Nana than his vow bonded wife.

Their stones glowed in unison when she kissed him with all her pent up passion and longing.

“Mmm, my love,” his deep burr made her stomach quiver, “I could worship you for an eternity, but my time is much too short.” He tucked a curl of her now glossy umber hair behind her pointed elfin ear.

She smiled softly. “Aye, it is true. Please tell me you’ve discovered a way to mend this predicament with Chrysalis?”

All serious now, he nodded. “Yes. You were right when you considered true love as a factor. I believe that can penetrate through the curse, but…” He grimaced and stopped speaking.

It always made her unbelievably nervous when he gave her that look, for it never boded well. “Jericho, what? What is the matter?”

“Gods, Calanthe, I did not want to tell you this, as I wasn’t certain of it myself, but last month when I tried to tell you, I simply couldn’t because I had to dig deeper and now I know.”

“What, Jericho, what?” she nearly shrieked, causing the stone above them to vibrate like a tuning fork.

“Siria is the one responsible for placing the curse upon Chrysa. The night she took control of my moon, it was she who did it. And I can only believe it was petty jealousy on her part that caused her to.”

“That witch!” she hissed, wanting to use a much sharper word, but she’d promised Jericho that she’d try to work on her potty mouth. She’d become a bit of a rapscallion in his absence, a fact she thought he might secretly love.

He rubbed her arms. “But as I told you then, there is a way to undo this. But not only this, my sweet fae.”

His eyes were shining, and though it was dark, it wasn’t hard to mistake the bursts of starlight dancing through his irises. “I read the sacred lore—”

She snorted. “As have I, there’s nothing but useless lies and rubbish written within.”

“No.” He shook his head. “No.” His smile turned jubilant and it was positively infectious, because she felt her own lips responding in kind.

“What did you find?”

“That both our problems can be solved.”

Her heart stopped beating. Literally. It took such a giant pause, that she had to pound her chest again to get it to restart. Sucking in a deep breath, eyes going wide, she didn’t want to believe it. Because believing something would happen would develop expectation and there was nothing worse than unmet hope.

“Please don’t lie to me.”

“My love,” he grabbed her flailing wrists, and kissed each hand, “I would never. Siria broke not only fae law, but the law of Kingdom itself.”

She tried to jump off his lump, wings buzzing with excitement. “Then let us grab the fairy council now. They must know this, this could end tonight. We could be together again, forever, oh Jericho, oh goddess…I’m…” her voice warbled with threatening tears.

Pulling her back to his chest, he kissed her temple. “My love, would that it were so easy. I can assure you I would have gone to seek them out myself, but in order for them to cast Siria permanently from Kingdom and undo both curses, we’ll need incontrovertible proof.”

She closed her eyes, understanding dawning immediately. “And how do we get that?”

Shoving blunt fingers through his hair, worry scrawled harsh lines around the corners of his eyes. “This was the part I really do not want to share with you, and once I do, you must share it with the Hatter and his Alice.”

“Okay.”

“Most of my time has been spent this past month either trying to get Siria to tell me the truth of that night, which of course, was an exercise in futility. And scrawling through endless miles of history. Trying to find that one thing I might have missed the night I was locked away.”

“Yes?” she whispered on bated breath. “And?”

“And I did miss something.” He licked his lips and Danika could sense he did not want to tell her what he was about to tell her.

Cupping his cheeks in her hands, she forced him to look her in the eyes. “You can trust me with anything, Jericho, always. I vow it.”

“I know, love, I know.” He inhaled deeply. “Siria did not simply curse the girl with moon glow, she extracted a sliver of her own soul and placed it within Chrysalis herself.”

“Dear heavens,” Danika squeaked out, as suddenly every piece of the puzzle locked into place. “So the darkness inside of her, it is not—”

“Her at all,” he finished for her. “Precisely. It is Siria.”

“I did not know you guys could split your souls in that way.” She frowned. “That is a very dark art and not one easily learned.”

“Agreed.” His lower lip jutted out in an adorable fashion, and even though the world felt like it was currently falling to pieces around her, Danika couldn’t help but snuggle deeper into his arms.

When Jericho was with her, the scary monster didn’t seem quite so menacing.

“What worries me about all this, is who taught her that? There are few inside of Kingdom who knows such potent magic.”

His hawk-like gaze turned to her. “The Ten know it.”

Pulling her lower lip between her teeth, Danika didn’t even want to nod in agreement. Because he was absolutely right. The Ten did know that type of arcana and if one of them had passed that knowledge on to someone outside of their sphere, they would be tried and found as guilty as Siria herself would be.

“There is only one among the Ten who hates us enough to—”

She snapped her finger over his lips, giving him a stern look that said it all. They both knew who it was, Galeta the Blue and the Head Mistress of all fae. Danika had learned long ago that walls had ears and secrets were never safe in Kingdom.

Shaking her head, she said, “And now I understand why you do not wish to alert the council until we have proof and that is all that needs to be said about this, Jericho. For now. Promise me?”

His lips thinned and she sensed his anger, but not at her. They’d both suffered because of Siria’s spite and Galeta’s constant need for revenge against Danika. But neither one of them were in a position to take on the power of the sun or the Blue right now.

“I swear it,” he finally whispered against her lips and she gave him a quick peck on the lips.

“I love you, and thank you, for you’ve given me so much hope tonight.”

His eyes closed. “I am tired of our separation, Calanthe, I need you. Anything I can do to fix not only them, but us, I will do.”

She rested her head on his shoulder.

“There is one more thing,” he finally whispered into the stillness a moment later.

“Oh Gods, I’m not sure I can handle anything else.”

“No,” he shook his head, “this isn’t bad. Just something I learned of the girl that perhaps you did not already know.”

She leaned back to stare at him. “I lived with her for years.” Which of course he’d know since Jericho had kept a constant vigil on her throughout their years apart. So what exactly did he know that she did not?

Leaning in to whisper in her ear he said something that made her eyes widen in astonishment and then laughter bubbled from her lips.

“This just got very, very interesting, my dear.”

He nodded as his eyes twinkled back at her. “My thoughts indeed.”

Hands were on him. Soft, feminine hands. At first Aeric smiled, it’d been so long since he’d felt the touch of a woman.

Knowing he was dreaming because Claudia was no more. And because it was a dream, he traced his hand up the length of her bare forearm. “Claudia,” his voice was full of grit and sleep, his sexy morning growl she’d used to call it.

She shivered, and he wet his lips, cock going hard at the thought of filling, molding his hands to her ample breasts as her golden halo of hair cascaded down around the two of them. Palms itching to trace her creamy mounds, he grabbed hold of her plump bosom. Squeezing and kneading just the way she liked.

A sultry sigh and a breeze that smelled of fresh spring rain teased his nose.

He frowned, telling himself to open his eyes and put this dream behind him. He was somewhere important, doing something that required focus. Now was not the time for sleeping. But he was sluggish and exhausted, his mind muddied by half remembered visions.

“Wake up, man.” The voice was dulcet and shivered with threads of heady desire. Then a finger traced down the length of his nose, across his jaw. Claudia’s voice sounded different, more… refined. But no less enticing.

She was moving away from him.

The thought gripped him with panic, made him wrap his arms about her waist and drag her slight form atop his. She weighed almost nothing. But dreams never really were substantial to begin with.

“Mmm,” he rumbled, coming slowly awake. This dream was more real than any he’d had in years. “A kiss first, to wake your man up proper.”