The Red Wolf (The Wolf Fey #2) (7 page)

“Breena!” Kian and I both ceased our fighting, frozen in fear. Kian's eyes were wide with concern – I hated to admit it, but he was almost as worried about Breena as I was.

We rushed back towards the yard, but it was too late. We caught only the echo of a glimpse – Breena's terrified face, her screams, a flash of light, Delano's bright, sharp, teeth – and then they were both gone.

There was a terrible silence.

Kian and I looked at each other in horror.

Delano had taken Breena.

Chapter 8

K
ian rounded on me. “You fool!” he roared, his face white with rage. “How could you have been so
stupid –
how could you have put her at risk like that?”

“Me?” I gaped at Kian, astonished at his audacity. “I'm not the one who kidnapped her – I'm here to save her.”

“And a fine lot of good you've been doing on those grounds.” Kian glowered at me. He ran over to where Breena had vanished. Only her footprints remained in the snow – a haunting reminder of where she had been just moments earlier. “Pixie footprints,” Kian knelt down to check. “Just as I suspected. Delano must have followed you here.
Idiot!
”

“How dare you...”I began, but my heart sank as I knew Kian had spoken the truth. I had been so anxious to reach Breena before Kian moved her that I hadn't bothered to check if anyone was following me. If Kian spoke the truth, then Delano had most probably used me to get to Breena. And I'd left her alone – how could I have been so stupid!

“I have to go after her,” Kian said sharply. “You stay here. Don't you
dare
move!”

“Not a chance,” I said, taking a step forward and getting as assertively as I could into Kian's face. “She's
my
best friend. And I came here to save her, and I'm not leaving without her. You do what you want, but I'm going after Delano.”

“Haven't you caused enough trouble already?” Kian snapped. “Go back to your little lair, Wolf, and leave fighting to us Fey.”

I couldn't resist a snarl. Of course, in addition to being arrogant and cruel, Kian just
had
to be a Fey purist as well. It figured.

“Unless you want
this
Wolf to give you a nice big juicy bite full of rabies,” I responded, my cheeks growing hot with anger, “I suggest you let me come along.”

“Not a chance!” said Kian. “I'm not letting
you
anywhere near my hostage. At least not if I want to get her out of Delano's castle.”

“His castle – you think that's where she is?”

“He would have brought the Princess to his palace, yes,” said Kian with a sneer.

“The Princess?” I looked up at Kian, my heart standing still. So it
was
true, then. Breena was the Princess of Summer, just as I had suspected.

“Yes, the Princess,” Kian looked at me condescendingly. “Who else would I be talking about? You did know who she was, didn't you?”

“Of course I did,” I snapped. “Now, let's quit wasting time. If Breena's in Delano's hands she's in danger – and we need to head to the castle as soon as possible!”

“Not so fast!” A cry came from behind us. We turned around to spy with horror fifty or so pixies marching in battle formation. At the head of the army was a particularly grim-looking pixie with yellow eyes and a jeering mouth. “The King Delano of the Pixies sends his regards. And he wishes us to inform you that he'd rather not be disturbed as he gets to know his new prisoner, thank you very much.”

“Rather not be disturbed!” Kian cried. “The blackguard! We'll cut that treacherous animal's heart out and stick it down his throat!”

“The King did warn us that you'd say that,” the pixie frowned. “But no matter. That's why he sent us here to kill you.”

At that, all fifty pixies drew their swords from their sheaths.

Kian and I looked at each other. As much as we disliked each other, we were going to have to work together if we wanted to get out of this alive. And as much as I hated seeing Breena in Kian's arms, thinking of her in Delano's clutches was far worse.

“You take the left,” I whispered to Kian. “And I'll take the right.”

The first wave of pixies ran towards us, their swords charged.

“Back to back,” Kian cried, placing his back against mine. We fought off the first set of pixies easily enough. Kian was a fine swordsman – it was more evident now than it had been when he was facing off against me – and one by one he managed to run his sword through each pixie that approached. I too was fighting furiously, feeling a curious if sickening sense of glee as I slaughtered each oncoming pixie.

These bastards took Breena
, I couldn't stop thinking.
They all deserve to die.

And yet I was sickened by the ease I displayed in killing. One by one, the pixies fell at my feet; my sword was stained with their blood. Yet I could allow myself to experience no emotions, no regret. This was my first big battle – my first slaughter. And I had to shut down that part of myself that looked down in horror at every head I severed, every hand run through with the point of my sword.

“There's too many of them,” Kian was gasping.

We fought for what seemed like hours. Every time we thought we'd managed to escape, outrunning what we thought were the last few remaining stragglers, another wave of pixies descended upon us. My wounds still ached from my battle with Jacob and Paris, and Kian too was growing tired.

“Where are they coming from?” Kian spluttered as we ran into what seemed like an empty grove, only to be surrounded once more by a ring of pixies.

“It's like they're appearing out of nowhere,” I looked around in horror.

None of the pixies was a particularly good fighter, but combined they made a terrifying force. They may not have been able to out-duel us, but in these numbers they could certainly wear us down. Was this Delano's plan, I thought with horror – sending what seemed like thousands of men on a suicide mission in order to exhaust us? I knew that the pixie ways in battle were far from chivalrous – I didn't put it past Delano to deliberately sacrifice his own men in this way. Certainly, it was clear that he valued Breena enough to risk thousands of his soldiers if it meant a chance at keeping her.

“We're not going to manage much longer,” Kian sighed. “I'm starting to get tired – I can't hold off too many more. I don't understand where they keep coming from.” We had just finished killing off the latest round of pixies, but we knew more would appear.

If Kian was tired, I was exhausted. My injuries were already serious, and it was clear to me that, as much as I hated to admit it, I wasn't half the swordsman that Kian was.

But then I sniffed the air. And it hit me. The scent of pixie was strong, overpoweringly so. No pixies were visible, but I could sense their palpable presence.

“Kian,” I whispered, hissing under my breath. “They're in the trees. They
are
the trees.”

He looked up in confusion. “What?”

“They've glamoured into trees. They're hiding – waiting to catch us off guard.”

He nodded curtly.

“Pretend like we don't know,” he whispered back. “On the count of three, run and stab as many of the trees as you can.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I rolled my eyes, aware of how ridiculous the plan sounded. But I could sniff them out more easily now. At least half of the trees in this part of the forest were pixies glamoured in hiding, waiting to spring upon us the moment we turned our backs.

“One...” Kian and I exchanged glances.

“Two...” He walked to one side of the “glade,” and I to the other.

“Three!” And with that, we set upon the trees, hacking furiously as fast as we could. As I expected, our swords collided not with unyielding wood but rather with soft pixie flesh. We heard a loud yelp rise up from the glade – the sound of many pixies caught by surprise in their own traps. A flurry of flesh – a flash of blood. Our swords staining the earth as we slashed and sliced, cutting and dicing so quickly that the few remaining pixies hardly had time to shift back into their normal forms before running away in terror.

At our feet were the bodies of a hundred pixies.

We had killed them before they even had time to transform back.

I looked down, feeling vaguely nauseous. It was us or them – I knew that well. Delano had sent these soldiers on a suicide mission; he had chosen to risk their lives. But still, the sight of so many corpses at my feet made my stomach churn. I had killed before, when necessary, but never like this.

My grandfather had once told me I would be a great warrior. But is this what being a great warrior meant – not only fighting off enemies, but dealing with the repercussions of the killing afterward?

To my surprise, Kian displayed no such regret. “Not bad work, Wolf,” he said to me shortly, although I could glimpse some grudging respect in his eyes. “You're not as hopeless as I thought.”

“Nor are you,” I conceded. Certainly, I would not have been able to kill quite so many pixies on my own.

But Kian seemed insensible to the sheer magnitude of the pixies he had killed. To him, a Winter warrior, I supposed, it was just another day of war. He was used to this kind of thing. He had stepped lightly over one of the bodies as if it were just a puddle of mud.

“Well, we must be getting on,” he said. “No time to waste. I know where the Pixie King's castle is. I can fly there. I suppose I'll have to fly you with me – you don't look like you're too fast a runner.”

I snorted.

“Well, are you coming, Wolf?”

I rolled my eyes, but there was no help for it. I needed Kian to find Breena. And, just as likely, he needed me.

“Coming, your Highness.”

And with that, he lifted me up into the air, and together we flew due north.

Chapter 9

T
he pixie castle was glimmering in the distance. I had seen castles of Feyland before – the Autumn Springs castle, the enormous palaces of Winter and Summer from a distance – but this was something else entirely. Fairy castles were beautiful, inviting places: they were often centers of hospitality for weary travelers, host to great fairy gatherings of kings and princes, dukes and counts. Artist and musicians were often invited to these great courts; there they dined and danced and sang with nobility. The fairy castles were meant to inspire awe and reverence in the citizens of Feyland; they were meant to evoke feelings of great national spirit. They were the most beautiful things in Feyland, often designed and built by master craftsmen. Even from a distance, they were like beacons of light, beckoning all of Feyland's creatures ever closer. Like a lighthouse guiding ships home.

But the pixie castle was nothing like that. It was dark and forbidding, its turrets constructed not of marble or of stone but of skull. Thousands of screaming faces, preserved in bone, now constituted the materials from which that terrible castle was built, rising up from the cliffs of the Pixie territories like a poisonous mushroom rising from the rock. Clouds of rain and storm seemed to gather around the parapets, as if attracted to this place by the palpable sense of evil that ranged all around it. The roofs were made of a cruel-looking jade that glinted eerily in the moonlight; the gates rose high and barbed wire threatened to slice open any who dared attempt an entrance – or an exit – unbidden. It was the most terrifying place I had ever seen.

And Breena was inside.

Breena!

My heart ached for her as it had never yet ached. If I could give anything to take her place inside those dread walls, inside the hideous dungeon where she no doubt awaited death or torture, I would. How I longed to enter those walls, to take gladly her fate upon myself, if it would only mean that she was free. Thinking of her as Kian's prisoner was bad enough – but to be a prisoner of the Pixie King Delano! No, that was far worse. I knew how Delano was reputed to keep his prisoners. Those he did not need he killed; those whom he chose to keep alive suffered a fate so dire that death would seem the preferable option. He would torture men for information, keeping them flayed upon the rack until they screamed for death, their cries echoing around the countryside for miles. He fed on the energy of suffering; his magic was powered by cruelty that could thrive only when drenched in blood. His desires for blood and women were insatiable; he kept a string of concubines who he had abducted from neighboring villages, playing out his historic hatred of the Fey people upon their bodies, impregnating them with beings: half-pixie, half-Fey, that would be accepted in neither world, seen as monstrous in both. For Delano, cruelty and kidnapping were but weapons of war: the suffering he caused he saw as his only chance to strike back against the fairy kingdom he so despised. The Fey had once oppressed his people; now, if he could not oppress them back, then at the very least he could make the most of his few opportunities to torture.

Was that what he had in mind for Breena? Would he make her suffer – simply because of the Fey blood she didn't even know she had?

“Are you thinking about her?” Kian's harsh voice shook me out of my reverie. We landed a few yards from the castle gate, hiding behind a tree.

“Yeah,” I admitted gruffly.

“I am thinking of her, too,” said Kian. “She is...listen, Wolf. I want harm to come to her as little as you do.”

His voice faltered, and I remembered the adoration I had seen in his eyes when he looked at Breena. Did he love her, too? I tried to ignore the jealousy gnawing away at my innards. Right now, I knew, Breena needed as many friends as she could get.

“Well, that's one thing we can agree on,” I conceded.

“Then listen – we'll need to get inside that castle. And there's no way we can do that without a bit of trickery. We're in no shape to fight off another pixie army, not after what we've been through today.” He motioned towards his wounds, streaks of silver on his marble-white body. “We'll have to come up with another plan.”